LogFAQs > #969742705

Episode 20: The Arsenal of Freedom

Pretty great ensemble piece involving planet of the arms dealers.

Picard gets to join the away team for once. Caught him rubbing the back of his head out of stress. His demeanour completely changes when he's one on one with someone. The teasing of his and Crusher's relationship is probably the prime reason for this story, but from how he acts with other characters when alone in previous episodes, I'm wondering if he's more of an introvert than necessarily just socially awkward. He's sweetly deferential when tending to Crusher's wounds and "buying" the damn weapon is a fine solution.

Riker's relaxed energy when he first encounters Rice is delightful. Doesn't take him long to figure things out, but he has great fun in tormenting him with stupid answers. What can't have been fun is standing still for several scenes.

La Forge gets command for most of the episode and he is utterly amazing. There's a relaxed air about his leadership that echoes Kirk in some ways, but he's more than capable of putting his foot down. Burton is clearly relying on his background in working with children because there is such an encouraging vibe about him that never once manages to fall into patronising, despite the fact that he's doing this to adults. Even knowing that there's an invisible enemy smacking the ship, I'd still want to serve under him and I'm incredibly dubious of the military at the best of times.

Yar's is another fantastic showing. She gets to make several intelligent decisions throughout, even showing up Riker a bit at one point (though he gets some revenge towards the end). She has, unfortunately, been mostly ignored after the first few episodes, so having her sharing banter with the rest and generally acting like a main character is a treat. Her ability to act a certain, slightly exaggerated, anxiety over her whole body is another welcome return.

Worf is probably the most ignored, but we can't be too greedy after last episode. Still, Dorn gets to bark out a lot of anger and passion during the space battles and its great that Worf effortlessly follows along with La Forge's plans.

Crusher gets a bit of backstory and her more substantial role frees up McFadden to return to her sublime acting style from the first few episodes. Her eyes alone are able to convey a surprising number of layes of longing, understanding and restraint. According to production trivia, the initial drafts of her and Picard's conversations had an overblown declaration of love. Melodrama is as viable a storytelling tool as any other, but it would have been a poor fit for this, so, good shout on continuing to keep their relationship relatively understated.

Troi is given a fascinating use. While it's a damn sight better than giving flat exposition, the many funny looks that she offers people are just as obvious at demonstrating to the audience that there are hidden thoughts about. Since we're naturally going to be suspicious of new characters, we don't learn anything from her that we hadn't already suspected, but this typically doesn't bother me because any excuse to allow Sirtis to actually act is a good excuse. What's interesting here, is that these looks are directed at La Forge, who's already trusted. With his new command, the implication is that the pressure is getting to him and that he'll have to learn a lesson of sorts, even if it's just to believe in himself more. Obviously, this doesn't happen. Instead, (and there's some knowing cheek to how this is done) La Forge admits to his fear, but denies he's unable to handle it and actually gets a little angry at the idea that he couldn't. Troi agrees with him and further sings his praises, which instantly turns her ambiguous glances of "there's something here, so pay attention audience" from concern about a weakness, to utter awe about how deep his inner strength really goes. It's some of the best mutual character shilling I've ever seen and both actors are on fire. One minor complaint is about her insistence on supporting the bridge crew. Because I feel that he was already doing that and didn't really prompting.

Balancing a plot around 8 characters is bloody difficult, so, Data sadly joins Worf in being a bit out of focus. Still, Spiner can be relied upon to bring some amusement just through his facial expressions, so, I got a smirk out of his reaction to Riker's lies.

Wesley must be studying hard for his resit.

Logan is a smarmy shit. Had quite a haughty look on his face when it seemed like he might get command. We've been through a fair few chief engineers and I can't imagine he'll be retained long with that attitude. The two other crewmen are decent enough. More effort into the acting than the role probably merits. If it weren't for the fact that we've already got nine main characters, I reckon they could do worse that have them join the regular cast.

The hologram is a fun bit of slime. Combines the twin abhorrent excesses of arms dealership and runaway capitalism into a remarkably pathetic ball of a used car salesman.

The planet sets are mostly great, though the skies are still a little jarring in comparison to everything else. The drones have a design that reminds me, and I have no idea why, of old preschool television. There's something uncanny about their appearance that evokes these memories for some reason.

Speaking of inexplicable feelings, there are certain points in a show when you can feel a sense of confidence in the production. It's rarely down to any one (or even a set of) specific thing(s). Best I can explain it is as though the individual members of the team aren't just being excellent, they're completely on the same wavelength as each other. What follows in an episode that typically has an amazing pace, whilst simultaneously successfully juggling several different ideas. Even that description doesn't quite fully hit the mark for me, though. The most palpable sense of this feeling I've had is from the season 5 opening of The Walking Dead. At any rate, I got the same experience from this episode. A significant reason, though far from the only one, is that they were able to have three plotlines running at once and never feel bloated or confused. It's honestly great all around.

Even before the answer is revealed (though it wasn't exactly a hard guess), there's something darkly comedic about how the people of Minos' fate is treated. The a.i. is the most clear example, continuing to run adverts and shill for products, with no ability to comprehend that his employers/creators are all dead. La Forge even briefly gets in on the fun, as he muses that a dissatisfied customer might be responsible for the extinction. Plus, there's something deeply pathetic and hilarious that a sleazy product demonstration was responsible for a planet dying. Yet, its also the natural evolution of playing both sides in a war. All factions will want weapons and if you're interested in a greater profit you'll insist on continually developing new ones to sell. Inevitably, there'll be at least two factions, who utterly hate each other, possessing enough firepower to kill everyone everywhere. Having it be a product demonstration gone awry just hammers home the point that arms dealers will likely be the cause of their death. Just because your original conflict had a farcical ending, doesn't mean that your weapons can't easily lead to a tragedy for someone else. So, taking a bleak joke to its limit creates a very serious post apocalyptic hellscape for everyone else.

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Be in Symbiosis, shortly.