Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 5
I still remember reading those great Cinefantastique Magazine articles on each successive season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, wherein Mark A. Altman and company would wax enthusiastic on the past year’s adventures and talk extensively with the behind-the-scenes crew about how they were made. Much was made of Michael Piller and the writing staff strutting their stuff since season 3, and while I’ll admit that season 3 was my favorite, I felt season 5 wasn’t far behind - and with the addition of future Voyager co-creator Jeri Taylor, I also felt the writing was sharper.
Not that this stopped them from giving us big-time action either. Redemption II, the cliffhanger-resolving season opener, has what was considered at the time to be big Trek action - even though it consisted of only a couple of major on-screen battles and a lot of tactical displays on computer screens. Data’s first crack at command of a skeptical crew is interesting, and I always thought it was a spot-on choice that he would emulate Picard in that situation, and Spiner does it beautifully. The only hitches to Redemption II: Data’s first officer, while voicing valid concerns, is rather unfortunately played as an arrogant ass to make sure the audience comes down on Data’s side of the argument, and then there’s Sela. Even all these years later - God, ten or eleven years, can you believe that? - I think the jury’s still out on Sela. Intriguing idea for a character, and an intriguing performance from Denise Crosby, but Sela was the kind of time paradox complication that works better on the printed page. When the story comes to a full halt so Sela can explain her origins, it’s almost painful to watch - and so too is the token insertion of Guinan, who could’ve been utilized much better elsewhere in the season.
Darmok has the distinction of still being my favorite episode of the entire series from a conceptual standpoint, and it’s so nice to have a very clean copy of it, having relied for years and years on my very scratchy, interference-laden tape from the original broadcast. With one of Patrick Stewart’s finest hours as Picard and a meaty, intelligent premise, Darmok is one of the most underrated gems in the Next Gen crown. Sadly, it’s also marred by the introduction of a new “I’m gonna kick ass first and take names later” model of Riker, something which persisted throughout the season in what seems like it may have been a lame and ultimately unnecessary attempt to make Picard look more seasoned.
The hits just keep on coming. Disaster, Silicon Avatar, the perfectly-pitched return of Wesley in The Game - and let’s not forget the ratings-through-the-roof event that was the two-part return of Leonard Nimoy as Spock in Unification - season five had what must have been the best opening stretch of episodes ever in Next Gen’s history. Even season three couldn’t quite compare in its first nine weeks. My one axe to grind is with the Rick Berman-written A Matter Of Time, guest starring Max Headroom’s Matt Frewer - not only is it the beginning of the persistent “interference from future time travelers” thread which even now threatens to derail the new series, Enterprise, but the main characters display an unprecedented arrogance when they call their visitor’s bluff. Up until that moment, the episode shines.
Sadly, it comes to a grinding halt with the one-two punch of New Ground, featuring the return of Worf’s son, and Hero Worship, an episode about a traumatized child who idolizes Data. There was a handful of “little kid” stories this season, begging some less-than-favorable comparisons to Glen Larson-spawned SF series of the 70s like Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers. (This may have also had something to do with J. Michael Straczynski’s “no cute kids or robots” dictum issued when launching Babylon 5. The worst expononet of this brief fad was this season’s Imaginary Friend (puh-leeze - give me Shades Of Grey any day!). Alexander returns in Cost Of Living, a Lwaxana Troi vehicle populated by some of makeup guru Michael Westmore’s strangest creature creations, Majel Barrett, and a ship-eating “metal virus” almost identical - in both behavior and visual interpretation - to a similar virus that destroyed the Liberator in Blake’s 7 (staggering coincidence, that).
Even more well-intentioned episodes are DOA - the over-used mentally-possessed-crewmember ploy of Power Play, the wasted oppportunity to comment on gay rights that was The Outcast, and the meaningful-up-until-the-deus-ex-machina medical controversy of Ethics (call me a heretic, but it would have been a powerfully affecting classic had Worf actually died; for comparison’s sake, see the Life Support episode of Deep Space Nine).
But there are some gems here too - and, I’d wager, more gems than flubs. Cause And Effect is a literally explosive take on the Groundhog Day recurring time loop gag. Violations is a truly creepy “telepathic rape” plotline boasting some truly unnerving dream sequences courtesy of director Robert Wiemer (whatever happened to Bob anyway?). And who can forget The Inner Light or another creepy classic (whose payoff in the next season turned out a bit limp), Time’s Arrow? (I also have to cite a slightly guilty pleasure in the form of Conundrum, a goofy episode which I still like.)
The usual array of bonus features becomes a little more diversified in this volume, with the production diaries split between the writing/acting/directing end of things and visual effects. I can’t say how nice it is to once again hear about the days when a bunch of guys worked all weekend on some cheesy four-foot-model that looked absolutely huge on film. Rob Legato - now heading up Digital Domain, the Oscar-winning FX house responsible for Titanic - and Dan Curry both talk extensively about their work on the show, and to make up for lost time some of their earlier works of visual effects genius are covered as well. Mike Okuda shows up as well to talk about scenic artwork, and to lavish all due praise on Legato and Curry for their work. This is the most interesting bonus item I’ve seen on a Next Generation DVD in some time.
The Mission Archives and Memorable Missions segments offer up a cast of characters that’s almost as interesting - Ronald D. Moore and Michael Piller talk about an intense writing room argument that became the core of Wesley’s ethical dilemma in The First Duty, one of the series’ finest hours from a character drama standpoint. Jay Chattaway talks about - and plays - Picard’s flute theme from The Inner Light, while Marina Sirtis talks about damn near breaking her tailbone doing her own stuntwork in Power Play. Jonathan del Arco talks about playing Hugh in I, Borg, and everyone waxes rhapsodic about acting with - or writing for - Leonard Nimoy’s Spock in Unification. And finally, several of the cast and crew, Rick Berman included, talk about the sudden change in tone that swept over the set the day Gene Roddenberry died: October 10, 1991.
This brings us nicely to the final feature, a special piece compiling archival interviews with Gene Roddenberry, along with new and old interviews with the cast and crew. Majel Barrett figures prominently in these interviews, as does Marina Sirtis, who had all but been adopted by the Roddenberry family. (In an archival interview, Whoopi Goldberg perhaps says it best - no one before and no one since populated the regular cast of a television show as diversely as Gene Roddenberry did.) There’s also news footage of the dedication of the Roddenberry Building at the Paramount lot (with both Trek shows’ casts in attendance), as well as the space shuttle launch that carried his ashes into orbit, while Majel tells the story of how that came about. It’s very touching, and while it’s less of a biography of Roddenberry (for that, Paramount should’ve splurged and bought the release rights to that episode of A&E’s Biography series) than a tribute, you at least get a good, and moving, picture of just how well-loved the guy was.
That said, I’ve got one big gripe with the bonus features. Shot in 1991 and aired as part of the publicity build-up to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was an elaborate half-hour MTV Big Picture special in which Marina Sirtis - in character as Troi - looks up the careers of the original Enterprise crew after the crew’s “recent encounter with Ambassador Spock.” This special was well-written, amazingly well-edited, and felt like a short episode, and featured the funniest and most candid interviews I’ve ever seen with the original series’ cast. Now, maybe the jury’s out as to whether this belongs on this box set or perhaps in the inevitable 2-DVD edition of Trek VI, but Viacom owns MTV, and now Paramount and Paramount Home Video as well, so why not include it? I’m waiting for a good answer, ’cause I know it’s not copyright-related.
I was also taken aback by the lack of any focus on Ensign Ro. Though the Cardassians had been introduced the previous year in one episode, this episode features the entire basis of Deep Space Nine. Maybe they’ll come back and revisit it when the time comes to create the bonus material for that series. Speaking of spinoffs, a Star Trek: Nemesis preview mini-CD-ROM is included with each set, including movie trailers, wallpaper and the like, for those of you who are undecided on going to see the next Trek flick.
Other than that, though, a nice definitive document of Next Generation’s second best season on the air. Check out Darmok and The First Duty again and see if you don’t like it as much as I do - if not more.