{"id":6284,"date":"2015-11-19T06:15:11","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T06:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/419-The-Nth-Degree"},"modified":"2015-11-19T06:15:11","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T06:15:11","slug":"419-the-nth-degree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/19\/419-the-nth-degree\/","title":{"rendered":"4.19 &#8212; \u201cThe Nth Degree\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n        \n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>4.19 &#8212; \u201cThe Nth Degree\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Plot:<\/strong> Reginald Barclay is hit with a blast of radiation from an alien probe that exponentially increases his brain capacity. His crewmates are taken aback; even more so, when he takes over the ship by integrating his mind with the ship&#8217;s computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Thoughts:<\/strong> I was watching this episode and thinking, it\u2019s starting to occur to me that I\u2019ve watched an awful lot of TNG recently. And it\u2019s true! 93 episodes since October 2014. It\u2019s possible that I\u2019m starting to feel fatigued, and this Barclay episode is better than it seems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What I see is a weak logic chain stringing together scenes that mostly consist of a pastiche of other stories: <em>Cyrano de Bergerac<\/em> (obviously), <em>2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em> (at least two very direct references), and &#8220;Flowers for Algernon.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking of Cyrano, this quote from <em>The Star Trek The Next Generation Companion<\/em> by Larry Nemecek sheds light on the scene: \u201cThis segment demonstrates how Gates McFadden\u2019s pleas to round out Beverly\u2019s character with &#8216;comedy and hobbies&#8217; were finally being met. We see her interest in the theater here on top of past glimpses of dance, in \u201cData\u2019s Day\u201d (185), and biology in \u201cClues\u201d (188). Michael Piller credited Rick Berman with suggesting the <em>Cyrano de Bergerac<\/em> scene between Barclay and his teacher, the &#8216;drama doctor.'&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I do enjoy Dwight (\u201c\u2018Howlin\u2019 Mad\u2019 Murdoch\u201d) Schultz and his unconventional choices that punch up every scene in which he appears. I also appreciate them doing something different with Barclay this time, instead of just reprising the Walter Mitty story from \u201cHollow Pursuits.\u201d And the visuals of the episode are striking, from the enormous space telescope to Barclay\u2019s psychedelic computer interface on the Holodeck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It just didn\u2019t hold my interest though. It\u2019s no TOS 1.3, \u201cWhere No Man Has Gone Before,\u201d the last Star Trek episode in which a crewmember developed astonishing mental powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2 out of 5 amateur theater productions.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/memory-alpha.wikia.com\/wiki\/The_Nth_Degree\" class=\"embedly-card\" data-card-recommend=\"0\" data-card-width=\"100%\">http:\/\/memory-alpha.wikia.com\/wiki\/The_Nth_Degree<\/a><script async src=\"\/\/cdn.embedly.com\/widgets\/platform.js\" charset=\"UTF-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n      ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>        4.19 &#8212; \u201cThe Nth Degree\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-6284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek-relive-the-majesty-tng-episode-threads","tag-kevin-black"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}