4.13 — “Devil’s Due”
Plot: A distress call sends the Enterprise to Ventax II, where a Federation science team has been taken hostage. The indigenous population is preparing for the return of a mythological being called Ardra to the planet after 1,000 years, who granted them peace and prosperity in exchange for their future surrender. During an away team visit Ardra appears, dressed to the nines, wielding magical powers. Picard becomes obsessed with exposing her as a fraud.
Thoughts: This is in many ways a throwback to the style of an original series episode. It proves once again that TNG does not do this type of episode well.
Planetary civilizations who have mysteriously turned their backs on technology appear several TOS episodes: “Errand of Mercy,” “This Side of Paradise,” “Mirror, MIrror,” and probably others. Ardra herself is reminiscent of Sylvia in “Catspaw,” or perhaps the cat in “Assignment: Earth.” Online sources say that the episode script is based on a teleplay written for a Star Trek reboot series in 1978, which was scrapped in favor of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). So the idea did begin as a Kirk story, although the devil entity was originally not a woman and the whole teleplay was subsequently rewritten from the general premise.
I can’t say anything good about the result. We have the introduction of a powerful woman, and she is depicted as only wanting to either win over Picard or have sex with him. The trial scenes are risible. Ardra’s powers are by no means explainable by the use of technology, at least not a technology that isn’t so far advanced, in the famous phrase, to be indistinguishable from magic. It’s by no means clear why Picard cares, or whether he should care. This is the kind of episode that you can’t wrestle with intellectually for long without getting mud all over your pants.
I do like the prologue which quotes A Christmas Carol (1843). The question of how an android would approach method acting strikes me as a totally valid science fiction premise, and I would like to see a whole show about that. Patrick Stewart himself toured a one man show rendition of A Christmas Carol in the years both prior and subsequent to this episode.
Sexism, unfortunately, is still the show’s Achilles’ heel.
1 out of 5 dangly earrings. I might have given it two stars earlier in the series, but TNG has moved past the point where writing this bad should be tolerated.
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