{"id":5685,"date":"2015-01-15T07:18:08","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T07:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/123-Skin-of-Evil"},"modified":"2015-01-15T07:18:08","modified_gmt":"2015-01-15T07:18:08","slug":"123-skin-of-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2015\/01\/15\/123-skin-of-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"1.23 — \u201cSkin of Evil\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

1.23 — \u201cSkin of Evil\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Plot:<\/strong> Troi is returning to the Enterprise<\/em> on a shuttlecraft when the pilot loses control and crash lands on a planet. A rescue team approaching the shuttle encounters a black pool of sentient goo with a serious attitude problem. Out of pique, the talking oil slick (whose name is Armus) kills Yar. Will she be resurrected by the end of the episode? (spoiler: no.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thoughts:<\/strong> IGN reviewer RL Shaffer (quoted on Wikipedia) is quite correct to point out that but for Yar\u2019s death, this episode would be completely forgettable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What is the crew\u2019s goal? They need to walk over to a shuttlecraft. What is their obstacle? Something doesn\u2019t want them to. Why? Because it\u2019s evil. Wait, that\u2019s it? Pretty much. How does it try to stop them? With its magic powers of stoppingness. What else does it do? Nothing. It waits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I found the oil slick effect used to create the creature to be simultaneously impressive and inadequate. Creating the effect must have consumed a lot of effort–but to what end? At least something on screen is representing the industry and creativity of somebody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Instead of an oil slick, the creature could have been anything. Perhaps an energy cloud, as in the 10,000 times better episode, TOS 2.9, \u201cMetamorphosis.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yet this episode is unforgettable, because it contains the death of Lt. Yar, and her very long but admirably earnest memorial scene. Why did Denise Crosby want to leave the show? \u00a0In this interview (http:\/\/www.startrek.com\/article\/catching-up-with-denise-crosby-part-1<\/a>), she says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI was miserable. I couldn\u2019t wait to get off that show. I was dying. This was not an overnight decision. I was grateful to have made that many episodes, but I didn\u2019t want to spend the next six years going \u201cAye, aye, captain,\u201d and standing there, in the same uniform, in the same position on the bridge. It just scared the hell out of me that this was what I was going to be doing for the next X-amount of years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Good for her! I think watching \u201cSkin of Evil\u201d may have also been the moment I gave up and quit the show back in April 1988. (In my memory, the death of Yar happened in the first 5 minutes, and I was fuming).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In part two of the same interview (http:\/\/www.startrek.com\/article\/catching-up-with-denise-crosby-part-2<\/a>), Crosby says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIn hindsight, it was a very male-driven set. I think that the women were not really included. For me, certainly, I felt it was very much a boys\u2019 club, the whole show. I didn’t really feel a part of it, in some way, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yep. Even this episode comes off as misogynist and weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nitpicks: Troi keeps forgetting completely about the pilot character, dead or dying on the other side of the shuttle, even as she tells Armus \u201cWe are members of a community. We all care for one another.\u201c\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I almost lost it when I heard the line \u201cNeurons are beginning to depolarize\u201d during the sickbay resuscitation scene. Is this intended as black comedy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When he sees that the shuttlecraft is in trouble, Picard orders the warp drives to be placed back online, and increases speed to Warp 8 so they can rush to the rescue. 8? Can you imagine the distance represented by travelling even for one minute at Warp 8? The mind boggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m forced to wonder how often Yar indulged in her hobby of recording death speeches for her shipmates. This is just unintelligible as a normal human behavior. Did the eight surviving cast members rush off to re-record their own maudlin farewell speeches so as to delete their own final messages for Yar? She seems quite certain that whatever it is that gets her, she\u2019ll be the only one that gets gotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Picard tells Yar in the end, \u201cAu revior.\u201d Is this a stealthy expression of religious belief? That seems very unlike the Gene Roddenberry who produced TOS. Perhaps Jean Luc was referring to their afterlife on the convention circuit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lt. Worf gets his field promotion to acting chief of security. Good for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For all the problems, the actors play the final scene straight, professing their characters\u2019 love for each other with such sincerity as to make me feel like a lout for wanting to assign a failing grade to the episode. With due respect for Denise Crosby, however, I must.<\/p>\n\n\n

http:\/\/en.memory-alpha.org\/wiki\/Skin_of_Evil<\/a>