LogFAQs > #969756914

Episode 21: Symbiosis

A very special episode. Couldn't quite gleam the message, but felicium sure seems fun and safe.

Picard's frustrating attempts to save the crew are comedy gold. Like an average day in tech support. Get his first face palm (that I've noticed). Seriously, though, Stewart must have been having fun portraying someone talking to idiots. I fundamentally disagree with his interpretation of the prime directive, but I admire that they clearly show how straining it is for him and allow him to somewhat resolve the problem, whilst still being true to his beliefs.

Riker shares in everyone else's frustration. Frakes is playing statues again. Compared to his banter in the last episode, his and Yar's discussion felt very wooden.

La Forge gets to end the episode on a high note by embracing the adventurer's spirit.

Yar gets to deliver one of the two morals in this story and Crosby does well with the material. The problem is, its crap material. Still, while I don't think for a second its planned, her shakiness in times of stress can now be read as really craving whatever future drug she was hooked on. I actually missed Crosby's wave to the camera, but apparently this is her last filmed scene. Already knew that Yar wasn't around for long, so, I guess her departure is imminent. Don't yet know the details, but I've heard its not the most graceful exit. It's a shame because I truly think there was potential to this character.

I think Worf put in an appearance, but I'm not recalling much of value.

Firmly on Crusher's side in this debate. Absolutely loved her righteous anger, and how she stewed in it a bit before blowing up at Picard, once she figured out what the medicine really was. She's treated far more decently than I was dreading, but there's still something patronising about how the episode sides with Picard.

Troi shares some amusing reaction shots to the Sanction's crew's incompetence. Sort of states the obvious, otherwise.

Data has a bemused response to being kicked out of his and Wesley's conversation.

Wesley is back and worse than ever. I'd rather he be insufferably smug than this. Whereas Riker's first appearances had him be the good kind of audience surrogate, who gets introduced to the world (including concepts he should be intimately familiar with) alongside us, Wesley is the bad kind. Riker introduces us to the boundless potential of the show, whereas Wesley (and the, presumably child, audience) is a blank slate to be dictated at. His reactions to his panel getting fucked with are almost as cringey as the after school special.

I recognise some of the alien actors, but I felt nothing for their characters. Apparently, one of the actors was an addict himself. Even so, the desperation (and maybe my hatred of this sort of story is blinding me a bit) seemed very overplayed and the drug runners were just generic.

I actually liked this story for the first half. A part of me would rather they continue investigating the star, but I did enjoy the fiasco of trying to rescue the crew. There's a competent mystery here, but, and maybe I've just been spoiled by Doctor Who stories, I would have preferred almost any answer than what I got. The answer I was thinking of, based off the title, was that the felicium was suppressing a natural part of their life cycle. An ordinarily symbiotic creature was being forced into something else, under the pretense of it being healthy (which isnt too far from a Pertwee era story).

As soon as Crusher mentioned the word "narcotic" I was dreading where the rest was going and I was right to. I'll give some credit, they make a token effort at looking at the actual causes of drug addiction, such as poverty, and they are clear that addiction itself is the issue, but the "solution" is to simply not do drugs. Sure, it's potentially sound advice, but it's also incredibly simplistic and doesn't even pretend to address issues like poverty despite outright flagging it up. The effect is that they're thoughtlessly saying that one should be acutely aware of their suffering with no recourse to ease or solve it.

A lack of subtlety has never been a problem with me, but I'm against grinding things to a halt for the sake of teaching kids. Aside from the idea of insisting that every story have a moral being a bit weird, are kids really watching this in the first place? While I personally believe kids should be taught about sex and relationships from as early as they can comprehend it, that is a controversial point and I don't really think a mainstream American production is going to agree with me. Yet sex has been a topic in a couple of episodes now. So, its hard to imagine that kids are the target audience for this. Yet the episode turns Wesley into an attentive audience member for the antidrugs message. I've mentioned before that sex, especially around Wesley, is treated a bit weirdly, but it's really just the most obvious example of how the show seems confused about its own audience. The message isn't just clunky and cringey and incomplete, it's confused about who its being directed to. Suggesting that adults are meant to identify with Wesley, especially here, is even weirder.

The second moral concerns the prime directive and Picard gives his glowing defense of this philosophy. And it's complete rubbish. Most of the episodes in TOS that concerned the prime directive involved Kirk eventually breaking it for what he thought to be the greater good. I didn't always agree with his reasons (justice for Vaal), but the clear theme was that an absolutist reading was ridiculous and often led to greater moral harm than intruding would. Picard, meanwhile, actually agrees with Crusher's point, but insists on being bound by the law anyway. She offers a viable solution and it's dismissed. There's a vast gulf of difference between imposing yourself to the point that you extinguish a culture and engaging with them to find solutions to problems. This isn't even about cultural values. One of the peoples is straight up being lied to. It is, in fact, exploitation without any nuanced qualifiers. And if the episode were clearly a tragedy about how the prime directive is flawed, I'd tolerate it more. But Picard literally halts the lift and the plot at the end to smugly insist that it's a very correct viewpoint. So, what could have been a decent tragedy is instead a noble, but difficult, adherence to principles. Which only works if the principles aren't thoroughly repugnant. Besides, surely saving them from atmospheric breakup is interference in its own right.

A double whammy of cringey, self satisfied PSAs that say far less than they think they do.

I'll get a feel for Skin of Evil, next.