Gambit Part II
“How did that feel?”
- Riker, after slugging Galen (Picard)

Considerably less action-packed than part one. The various plot twists and character revelations, however, manage to keep things interesting, demonstrating a level of story complexity rare for a typical Next Generation episode. It turns out the desired artifacts are piece of a powerful weapon called the Stone of Gol, which the mercenaries plan to deliver to a band of Vulcan extremists who advocate the isolation of Vulcan from the rest of the galaxy.

The revelations that Tallera (strongly played by Trek/Babylon 5 veteran Robin Curtis) is an undercover Vulcan operative and later an actual Vulcan extremist is a nice surprise. However, Picard-Galen’s defeating Baran by reversing the effects of the neural implant is hokey and too easy. There’s also the predictable butting-of-heads between Data and Worf, introduced in part one, to help energize the Enterprise B-plot as the crew tries to track down the mercenary ship’s changing location. Comedic gems include a cameo by NBA star James Worthy as an unshakable Klingon, Riker slugging his captain, and Data throwing Riker in the brig in the episode’s delightful coda.

Phantasms
“Ahh! Impotence on top of everything!…There might be a paper in this..”
- Holodeck Sigmund Freud of his android patient

Space leeches are feeding on the crew and only Data’s “nightmares” hold clues to their destruction in this ridiculously incomprehensible sequel to last season’s Birthright. In that episode, also written by spookmeister Brannon Braga, Data accidentally triggers an unused file in his brain, allowing him to dream and explore symbolic imagery. This time around, Data suddenly finds his dreams hold a more immediate and menacing purpose thanks to invisible leeches infesting the ship.

This episode is more a collection of cute moments – Worf sneezing on Spot, Picard trying to avoid an admiral’s banquet, etc. They’re funny scenes, but can’t salvage what is in effect a poorly realize story about Data exploring his own subconscious. The episode’s major failing is yet another alien menace that provides little in the way of jeopardy, only an excuse for Data to have all these spooky nightmares and hallucinations. Director Patrick Stewart drags out the Steadicam to help things look spooky, but why bother? The symbols are pointless, with Beverly sucking Riker’s brains through a straw and Troi as a cake…with mint frosting. The episode does have one of the funniest scenes all season with Data bbeing counseled by Sigmund Freud, who concludes that Data’s psychological problems are the result of his repressed need to possess his mother. Now that’s funny! Though we do get around to the Data’s mother bit down the road with Inheritance…

A group of settlers forges a trail in a brave new frontier. Sounds a lot like How The West Was Won. It also sounds a lot like Earth 2.

Humanity is living on space stations surrounding the Earth. An unspecified disease caused by a “lack of fresh air, fresh water, and real ground beneath their feet” is beginning to show up in children and is threatening future generations. Because the Earth is an ecological nightmare, our heroes hitch up the wagons, oops, sleepships to make the 20 year trip to a distant star in hopes that the environment of an orbiting planet will cure the disease.

On this planet, we have Indians, food shortages, new diseases, and even banished humans. Debrah Farentino as Devon Adair carries her role as the leader of the Eden Advance Team rather ably, although she does tend to defer to decisions made by the space station once the job is done. She has a vested interest in the success of the Earth 2 project because her eight-year-old son has the unspecified disease, which kills all its victims before they are nine years old.

In a surprise casting move, and a good one I should add, Tim “I play bad guys because they get all the good lines” Curry turned up in several episodes as a thorn in the sides of the colonists.

Earth 2 is a bit clumsy when dealing with some of the new things the explorers discover, such as rainwater (remember, most of them lived most of their lives on a space station). But I like the group dynamics. Some care was put into who would be doing what and what their personalities would be. The colonists are fairly well drawn, and seem to be growing to some degree with each episode.

There’s a large story being written on Earth 2, and two or three episode story arcs are common. While this may be the influence of Babylon 5 and its five-year storyline, Earth 2 is working toward a goal other than building a colony.

Its worst enemy is the “Sister Adair’s Traveling Salvation Show” premise. It’s getting rather tiring watching this caravan trek across the desert. I hope they get somewhere soon.

Also, there are at least two civilized groups of indigent creatures. Unless Earth 2 is inhabited entirely by nomads, they should have stumbled across some sort of community by now. As it is, the only time they have seen evidence of the indigent life is when the Terrians and the Grendlers have made contact.

Earth 2 is not on my “A” list (“Always”). It does, however, remain on my “C” list (“See regularly”).

The show squeezes past my definition of science fiction. It also passes my “family entertainment” qualifications – I can turn it on without being embarrassed for my children by graphic violence, graphic language or terrible writing (although it won’t win any writing awards).

If you have a distaste for the politically correct, you might want to avoid Earth 2. It does tend to take a revisionist’s attitude to the U.S. expansion into the American West. However, Earth 2 is a show to keep an eye on. It could be a sleeper hit.