{"id":6513,"date":"2016-07-18T06:44:04","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T06:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/613-Aquiel"},"modified":"2016-07-18T06:44:04","modified_gmt":"2016-07-18T06:44:04","slug":"613-aquiel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/18\/613-aquiel\/","title":{"rendered":"6.13 — \u201cAquiel\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

6.13 — \u201cAquiel\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Plot:<\/strong> A visit to a listening post near Klingon space produces a murder mystery with the discovery of unidentified human remains and a member of the crew, Lt. Aquiel Uhnari, missing. Geordi researches the missing officer’s personal logs, and is surprised when she turns up alive. But whose remains are on the deck plate, and how did they get there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thoughts:<\/strong> I think TNG should stop doing murder mystery episodes. They don\u2019t tend to go well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This one was written by writers\u2019 room “dream team” Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga, who besides their many individual episodes jointly scripted TNG 4.3 \u201cReunion\u201d (depicting the escalation of Klingon Civil War, introduction of Alexander, and death of K\u2019Ehleyr), the TNG series finale \u201cAll Good Things\u2026,\u201d and the films Generations<\/em> and First Contact<\/em>. They would go on to become showrunners on DS9 (Moore) and VOY and ENT (Braga). Moore later created the successful Battlestar Galactica reboot and its spinoffs, and has commented prolifically on Star Trek on his personal blog and in other venues. Braga spent part of his time as Voyager<\/em> showrunner dating cast member Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), who was peripherally involved in a series of events leading to Barack Obama’s 2004 election to the U.S. Senate, catapulting him to the presidency in 2008 (see Ryan’s Wikipedia page for details).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’m off on a tangent to postpone saying that “Aquiel” sucks. The best part is the name Lt. Aquiel Uhnari, and it’s downhill from there. When asked in 1997 what he would like to have done differently on TNG, Ronald D. Moore is quoted by IMDB as saying that he wishes he hadn’t written “Aquiel.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The mystery does not hold up. Moving past Dr. Crusher\u2019s strange inability to scrape a DNA sample off a steel deck plate (have you tried a Q-tip, doctor?), we have the lingering question of whose human remains (ineptly designed by the production department) are found on the deck plate. Apparently these remains, which can only be produced by a level-10 phaser blast, belong to the shape-shifter, which somehow filed professionally credible log entries, including a job evaluation of Lt. Uhnari, during its 5-day impersonation of Rocha. We know this because of the bad CG tongue that attacks Crusher out of the petri dish. The shape-shifter was not killed by a phaser blast, however, but escapes Uhnari and transforms into the dog, after releasing a large fart of plot facilitating<\/strike> mind-erasing gas causing Uhnari to forget the whole thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’d like a whiff of that gas. The only part of “Aquiel” I like is the callback to Chancellor Gowron during the scene where Picard intimidates the Klingon commander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Star Trek used to be good at murder mysteries, as seen in TOS episodes \u201cThe Conscience of the King,\u201d \u201cCourt Martial,\u201d and\u201cWolf in the Fold.\u201d Ronald D. Moore even says \u201cThe Conscience of the King\u201d is his favorite TOS episode. All TNG\u2019s murder mystery stories have been forgettable at best, like those horrible Dixon Hill episodes or “A Matter of Perspective,” where Riker gets framed by a bad ricochet off a transporter beam. Can anyone remember others?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why is this episode so careless? It\u2019s hard to produce 26 good episodes of television per season, true, but TOS did it with a smaller staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You can argue that Geordi and Uhnari’s crystal-facilitated fully-clothed sex scene is daring, but their relationship during the murder investigation is so inappropriate, the actors’ chemistry so absent, and the characters’ first kiss scene so gross that this didn\u2019t work for me either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1 out of 5 impertinent lab samples.<\/p>\n\n\n

http:\/\/memory-alpha.wikia.com\/wiki\/Aquiel<\/a>