7.18 — “Eye of the Beholder”

7.18 — “Eye of the Beholder”

Plot: Picard orders an investigation after an unusual suicide by a heretofore unknown crewmember occurs in the nacelle control room. Deanna Troi has psychic visions at the scene of the tragedy, which intimate that a hidden crime may have occurred, and the perpetrator may still be on board the Enterprise.

Thoughts: Eight episodes left, and… whew. Smells a bit ripe in here. Maybe we should just skip to the end.

For starters, this episode is a big cheat. Everything that happens after the first 10 minutes is a dream! I guess that includes any discontinuity of character or canon (Chrissie’s Transcripts points out: “I thought non-Klingon females were too fragile?? [for mating]”). The writers really want to get Troi and Worf together, and maybe would not have felt constrained to do so only through alternate timelines or dream devices, but for the need to reset situations and characters of the show in anticipation of the launch of TNG’s feature film franchise later in the year. The screenplay for Generations, by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, was already written by this point (having diverted the focus of the pair for the first half-to-two thirds of Season Seven, while the production focus of Michael Piller and Rick Berman was diverted by their duties to both Generations and DS9), and so it was ordained there would be no big changes at the end of the series that could create a barrier of entry to the film.

But, even if we overlook the dream device–really? Troi is ensnared by a piece of psionic residue? GEORDI: “Kind of like a psychic photograph” (because that’s a thing?). Just say “ghost” and have done. This is not a science fiction premise.

For the second week in a row, the writers put preposterous dialogue in the mouth of the Captain as he takes psychic mumbo jumbo seriously, and treats it as the first (and only?) reasonable line of investigation. PICARD: “Putting that on one side for the moment, let’s assume that by some unexplained phenomenon…” No, how about let’s not assume that the cause of these events is an unexplained phenomenon. This is not the X-Files, and if it were, the redhead in the room would tell Picard he was being ridiculous and should look for a scientific explanation. Occam’s Razor says that Troi is either delusional or drugged.

The scene between Worf and Riker in Ten Forward where Worf tries to summon the courage to ask for Riker’s blessing (permission?) to court Troi does not even make sense as a figment of Troi’s imagination, because Troi isn’t present in the scene. It’s also a terrible scene. If Troi is imagining it, she must not think much of Riker, who is presented as the worst kind of cad. Worf’s dithering uncertainty and lack of dignity or bravery doesn’t do him any favors, either.

If this was just an “all these things are bad because it’s a dream so deal with it” problem, that would be bad enough. But, of course, I can’t overlook that the dream we are having is again one of sexual victimization of women by a male crewmember, devised by the almost entirely male writing staff (Jeri Ryan being the exception, who acted as showrunner for Michael Piller, who was dividing his time between TNG and DS9). At this point I have to ask, was Season Seven such a good idea?

1.5 of 5 good night kisses.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Eye_of_the_Beholder