TNG Spoiler: Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Descent, Part II"
tly...@juliet.caltech.edu
Review by Tim Lynch <tly...@juliet.caltech.edu>
===============================================
WARNING: This article contains large amounts of spoiler information for
TNG's seventh-season premiere, "Descent, Part II." Those not wishing to be
unduly exposed to those spoilers should back away, slowly. A short
spoiler-free comment is ahead, to be followed by 30 blank lines and a second
Ctrl-L.
Briefly: A good deal better than either of the last two season premieres,
but still far weaker than the setup. A few moments of glory, but also a lot
of signs that the technobabble level is increasing beyond the limits of all
decency.
That should be ample room. As a reminder to old readers and an education for
those new to the net: Hi there. :-) The pattern these reviews fall into is
one of a synopsis, followed by commentary on whatever parts of the episode
seem to catch my attention for good or ill. [In response to a host of
requests last year, there will be a line of ten dashes following the synopsis
that you can use as a flag if you would like to skip over the synop.]
So, on with the show:
Lore boasts to his captives about his new followers (the Borg) and about the
emotional awareness he's managed to give to Data in return for loyalty. He
says that after finding these Borg wrecked by their new individuality, "I
know now why I was created." He plans to make them completely artificial
life-forms, much as he and Data are, to complete the Borg's sense of purpose.
"The age of biological life-forms is coming to an end. You, Picard, and
those like you -- are obsolete."
Meanwhile, Dr. Crusher commands a skeleton crew on board the Enterprise.
Riker reports that the ground teams have lost track of Picard's group after
Picard reported the existence of the Borg "castle". A search from orbit
proves no more fruitful, and then Ensign Taitt, currently at tactical, spots
the arrival of the Borg ship. Crusher begins beaming up as many personnel as
possible, but both Riker and Worf insist on remaining below. At the last
second, the Enterprise raises shields and flees -- without pursuit, but also
with 47 of its crew still on the planet.
Back on the planet, Data leads Picard, Troi and Geordi to their cell.
Telling them that "my life aboard the Enterprise was a waste," and that the
actions Lore is taking will involve "sacrifices" for the greater good, he
takes their communicators and Geordi's VISOR. When asked if he's felt any
emotions beyond anger and hatred, he responds brutally, "There are no other
emotions..."
The Enterprise reaches the transwarp conduit established by the Borg, but
only sends a buoy through with emergency information, with Bev instead
deciding to return to the planet. Taitt is relieved by Lt. Barnaby at
Tactical, but remains at a science station to help. To gain enough time to
potentially beam up all remaining away team members, Barnaby suggests staying
in warp until the last possible second. Despite the dangers of such a move,
voiced strongly by Taitt, Bev orders it done.
Lore receives the VISOR from Data and suggests that Geordi might make an
excellent test subject for his experiments. Data demurs slightly, noting
that the tests have caused brain damage on most of the Borg tested, and that
it might well kill Geordi. Lore, however, comforts him by pointing out that
the test may prevent future Borg deaths. As Data agrees to this, Lore speaks
to a Borg who had severed his link to Crosis, Lore's aide-de-camp. Lore
tells this Borg that his doubts could be overwhelming him, and that he should
stay connected to Crosis and the others to let their strength ease the
burden.
In the cell, Geordi notes that before the VISOR was taken, he saw that Lore
was using a carrier wave to manipulate Data. The feeding of negative
emotions cannot easily be stopped, but it might be possible to reactivate
Data's ethical program and give him a line of defense. A "phased cadion
pulse" would do the trick -- now, the real trick is simply to find a way of
making one. Before they can do more than give it a moment's thought,
however, Data arrives to take Geordi away.
Riker and Worf, having tracked Picard's team, finally see the Borg castle,
but are quickly captured by a group of Borg on patrol. They are led to an
underground catacomb, where they find this group's leader -- Hugh. "Why are
you here, Commander Riker? Hasn't the crew of the Enterprise done enough
damage already?"
Hugh tells Riker and Worf angrily that it was his encounter with the
Enterprise that left the Borg vulnerable to Lore's manipulations. Wracked by
doubt and confusion after becoming individuals, they would listen to _anyone_
who came and promised change. At first, they followed Lore's promises of a
glorious future gladly -- but then, when Lore had no way of fulfilling his
promises, he talked of sacrifice instead. Hugh leads them to the result --
brain-damaged, pitiable Borg quivering on the floor of the shelter. Despite
his continued friendship with Geordi, Hugh nevertheless refuses to help them
rescue him -- but he does consent to show them a way into the compound.
Data begins his experiments, implanting fibers into Geordi's brain that
should mimic neural function -- if it works after the existing brain cells
are destroyed, then it should replace the brain. Geordi tries to reason with
Data, but cannot. Troi and Picard, meanwhile, trick a Borg guard into
entering their cell. They then incapacitate the Borg and prepare to flee,
only to be caught by Data as he brings back Geordi. Picard, however, managed
to keep a small piece of the Borg he disabled, which Geordi says can be
modified to make a cadion pulse. Picard begins working under Geordi's
guidance.
The Enterprise, meanwhile, drops out of warp virtually into orbit and gets
everyone back from the planet that they can find (not, unfortunately,
including Picard's or Riker's teams). However, the Borg get in one
successful hit before shields go back up, and warp drive is lost. They evade
on full impulse, and with nowhere else to turn, head for the sun and prepare
to implement a "metaphasic shield" technique that Geordi had been putting
together. Although it's untested on this ship and untried beyond the basic
theory, they try it -- and it works. The Enterprise hides in the sun's
corona, with the Borg lying in wait outside.
Picard finally gets the cadion pulse ready and activates it in the cell's
forcescreen. Data, preparing to destroy Geordi's brain, claims anomalous
readings and postpones the test. He lies to Lore about the encounter, and
then expresses some regret over what has happened, saying that he has
betrayed his crewmates. Lore maintains Data's loyalty for the time being by
threatening to cut off Data's supply of emotions, but worries publicly to
Crosis that Data may not want to join them on their great journey.
Back in the sun, the Enterprise's shields are failing. With only a few
minutes left, Taitt suggests inducing a solar prominence to engulf and
destroy the Borg ship. Despite the dangers of such a move, voiced strongly
by Barnaby, Bev orders it done. It works, and the Borg ship is destroyed.
The Enterprise heads back to the planet.
Data returns to the cell, but this time takes Picard with him rather than
Geordi. Picard attempts to argue with him about wrong actions leading to an
alleged "greater good", but Lore appears in the audience chamber before he
can get very far beyond convincing Data to access his ethical program. As
Riker and Worf prepare their attack, Lore tells Data to "close the door on
the past" and prove his loyalty by killing Picard. Data prepares to, then
refuses.
Lore says, sadly, that he didn't think Data would be able to do it, after so
many years among humans. He addresses the assembled Borg, including a
secretly-arrived Hugh. He tells them that although he has asked sacrifices
of them, he too will make a great sacrifice -- that of his own, "dear
brother." Hugh, however, shouts defiance and prevents Lore from firing. An
all-out battle commences between Lore's Borg, some of Hugh's Borg, and Riker
and Worf. Lore flees, with Data in pursuit.
Data finds Lore planning an escape. Lore offers to forgive and forget, and
take Data with him -- "just the two of us." He even offers Data the emotion
chip Soong made, but it quickly is revealed as a ruse, as Lore removes all
emotions from Data. Lore tries to pounce as Data reacts, but Data reacts
faster and shoots Lore down.
Dispassionately, Data proceeds. "Lore, I must deactivate you now."
"Without me, you will never feel emotion again."
"I know -- but you leave me no other choice." Data begins deactivating Lore,
who says only "I ... *love* you ... brother." Data responds with a simple
"Goodbye, Lore."
In the aftermath of the battle, Geordi and Troi are returned to the
Enterprise, and after Data reports on Lore's fate, Hugh wonders what will
become of them. "We can't go back to the Borg collective -- and we no longer
have a leader here." Picard, however, is not so sure, and wishes them well.
A long time later, the Enterprise is back in Federation space. Geordi, still
recovering, goes to see Data, who is examining the emotion chip.
"Does it work?"
"No. I am pleased to say it was damaged when I was forced to fire on Lore."
Geordi is surprised. "Pleased? Data, you've wanted emotions your whole
life."
"Yes -- but emotions are responsible for what I did to you. I would never
risk letting that happen again. My friendship with you is too important to
me."
Data prepares to fire on the chip, but Geordi stops him. "Data, I wouldn't
be very much of a friend if I let you give up on a lifelong dream, now would
I? Maybe ... someday, when you're ready..."
And as the remainder of the thought goes unspoken, the Enterprise heads for
home.
----------
There, so much for that. Whew -- it's been three months since I've had to do
any summarizing. Now, on with the commentary.
"Descent, Part II" displayed a lot of what there is to like about TNG's last
year or so, and a lot of what there is to _dislike_ about it as well. It
made for a pretty frustrating package.
One thing it wasn't was predictable, or at least predictable based on part 1.
I reread the predictions I'd made back in June on the subject shortly before
part 2 of "Descent" aired. While some of the very broad strokes of what I
expected did in fact come to pass (Data's "perversion" to Lore's side would
be blocked from outside and Hugh would be revealed as still a good guy, more
or less), the details were wholly different from what I expected. "Descent,
Part II", if nothing else, managed to surprise me several times -- and I'm
just jaded enough to think that that's a good thing in and of itself.
There were certainly other things to like about "Descent, Part II" as well.
One of the top draws can be summarized in two words, those being "Brent" and
"Spiner". Spiner had more of a challenge than usual this time, even for the
times he's played both Data and Lore. This time, since Data was corrupted,
he had to play Data as being much closer to Lore than usual, and _still_ keep
the two very distinguishable.
And he did. Boy, did he ever. Lore was a fully realized human for the first
time with Soong's added emotional package, and Data, although nasty and
vindictive, was somehow a great deal more formal and dutiful about it than
Lore was. Lore, no matter what he was doing, was _relaxed_ about it -- and
that's something we almost never see Data as being, no matter what the
circumstances. Seeing the contrast between these two has always been a treat
(particularly in "Brothers"), and this was no different. I think the
Data/Lore end of the show was easily the strongest part of the episode, and
represents a lot of what makes TNG a good show.
Another thing that's a bit rarer for TNG was a side effect of the "Bev in
command" subplot. While the subplot itself was fairly mixed, it did give us
a chance to see more of the regular crewfolk on the Enterprise. Both Taitt
and Barnaby were fairly well realized characters, though Taitt was better
done (by design, I suspect). With Taitt, in particular, we saw someone on
her first posting who was nervous, but still professional, and more than
capable of contributing her own significant talents to help in a crisis.
That was a welcome change of pace. I wonder if Taitt is supposed to be a
recurring character this year -- I certainly wouldn't mind.
I had somewhat mixed feelings about the re-use of metaphasic shielding, but
much of it was positive. Beyond giving "Suspicions" some vague reason for
existence (something which it did not have on its own merits), it also showed
the return of important technology. All too often, Trek debuts some advance
that should have significant implications and then ignores them for all
future shows to come. Given the constraints of the plot, I'm very glad they
decided to go with a previously noted and working technology rather than
invent something new.
On the other hand, the use of the metaphasic shields was one part of
something I spoke out against last year and didn't like at all here. In
short, the technobabble level appears to be increasing to still higher
levels, and it's being used as a substitute for any sort of drama.
To be blunt, I was utterly unaffected by the technological solutions we saw,
particularly on the planet. On the ship, it was somewhat reasonable -- when
you're overmatched, sometimes you need technical wizardry to get what you
need. On the planet, however, the drama came from the moral conflict between
Lore and Picard's group, with Data in the middle. Having a quick-fix "cure"
make everything all better suggests that Data learned nothing, and that that
everything is simply back where it started. That's a cheat.
It was also incredibly contrived on several occasions. I find it a little
implausible that they could trick the Borg guard so easily (though that's
more an objection about the Borg throughout this show than a plausibility
point). I find it somewhat implausible that Data and the guards wouldn't
make sure nobody had grabbed anything potentially useful -- but since Lore
wasn't there, that might be justifiable. However, there is *no*
justification whatsoever for setting things up so that the tiny little scrap
of Borg material Picard grabbed just happened to be the exact thing that
could be used to free Data from Lore's control. As a friend suggested later,
the odds are better that Picard could have used it to suddenly make a nearby
garage door close. What we were getting with this part wasn't drama, it was
MacGyver-esque sleight of hand -- and I for one wasn't buying into it in the
least.
However, lest I seem too annoyed at that, there were a lot of things in the
freeing-Data subplot that made up for it. Although the chip-as-miracle-cure
idea was pretty bad, the fact that it *wasn't* a complete cure helped a great
deal. Data didn't suddenly turn good -- what that chip managed to do was
bring the moral dilemma he faced into sharper focus. I wish that could have
been accomplished without the technical mumbo-jumbo, but the effect it did
have was just fine. The Data/Geordi scenes were the "good" counterpart to
the Data/Lore scenes, and were just as powerful. (Data imitating Picard as a
joke on Geordi was rather shocking, actually. Brrrrr.) The final scene of
the show, in particular, went a long way towards making up for the magic chip.
However, there were also two implausibilities in the shipboard plot, one of
them major. I had no objections in part 1 when Bev was left in command,
because I figured she'd have enough warning time to get people back if an
attack was looming. That was true. It is, however, incredibly stupid to
leave her in command during the attack. She should have flat-out *ordered*
Riker or Worf (either would do) to take charge once the Borg ship arrived,
and one of them should have agreed to go on the spot. Yes, I realize that
then we couldn't have had the dramatic evidence that "look, Bev really _can_
be a forceful and strong character when necessary", just as Troi had it in
"Face of the Enemy", but it didn't make any sense. Along similar lines, if
only 47 people were left behind I have some difficulty believing there were
no more qualified people on board. That, however, is a much lesser point, as
there was a fairly experienced tactical officer there being used.
The last angle of "Descent, Part II" that I suppose should be mentioned is
the way Hugh was handled, and in a broader context what this all meant for
the Borg. Well, I liked the surprising way in which we met Hugh, but not the
implications for the Borg as a whole.
The way we met Hugh was surprising, at least to me, because I was expecting
to see him as the leader of a rival faction, not of a broken underground. It
was established that there was only _one_ group of Borg that severed from the
collective, and that Hugh himself followed Lore for a short time. That came
as a big surprise, and not a wholly unwelcome one. In addition, Jonathan Del
Arco did a good job as Hugh again, so I certainly had no problems on that
score.
However, all this did was strengthen my feeling that, in terms of the effect
on the Borg, "Descent" was a significant mistake. As I said back in June,
everything that made the Borg menacing or frightening as an enemy is now
gone. Here, there was no real intelligence, no relentlessness, no
adaptation, no seeming invulnerability (except perhaps on the ship) --
they're just badasses with guns. There's more than enough of that, thanks
all the same. After every Borg show up to this one, I've been left feeling
there was more about the Borg I'd like to see, and was waiting for another
chance at a Borg show. I have to say that now, I'm not interested in them,
really. They've had their time, and they're done.
In addition, the whole ethical question of "was what Picard did right?" was
dropped flat in part 2 of "Descent". Given that that was an interesting
point and one I was very interested in seeing the "answer" to, I'm more than
a bit put off by that.
I think that pretty much does it. As a Data and Lore story, this was a very
good piece which could have been better without the tech. As a Borg story,
it wasn't nearly as strong. However, except for the really tech-heavy bits
it was quite entertaining, and everyone did a good job with the material,
especially Spiner. Not bad for a season opener, but not even a shadow of
its predecessor.
Now, some short takes:
-- First, a note about a truly mischievous casting coup. It was an
incredible conceit to cast James Horan as Barnaby, who implemented the
metaphasic shields on the Enterprise. Why? Because he *also* played
Jo'Bril, the Takaran trying to steal that same technology when it debuted in
"Suspicions" last year. It's a nasty little coup -- but I have to admit, the
irony works quite well. :-)
-- Credit-watching notes: There's been some promoting and reshuffling in the
writing and producing echelons. Jeri Taylor has moved up to full Executive
Producer status, Ron Moore has become a full producer, Brannon Braga has
moved up from story editor to co-producer, Rene Echevarria is now executive
story editor, Naren Shankar has become a story editor, and Andre Bormanis has
joined up as the new science consultant. Congratulations to all, and to
Andre -- let's avoid another "The Chase", okay? :-)
-- Lore calling Picard "obsolete" was a nice reminder of BOBW2 in some ways.
As you might recall, Picard-as-Locutus used the same word there, but in
reference to Data. What goes around comes around...
-- With all the Data/Lore mingling, a contraction goof would have been easy
to make. I looked, and there is one. When Data stops the escape attempt, he
tells Troi "I'll break [Geordi's] neck." Whoops -- but more than
understandable in a show like this.
-- Obligatory talking-back-to-the-screen quote: When Barnaby talked about
his plan to enter orbit on the far side from the Borg ship, I couldn't
resist: "The Death Star will be in range in thirty minutes..."
-- I don't know if I was the only one, but I detected a very blatant
political parallel when Hugh was talking. When Hugh said that they were
willing to follow anyone promising change, and that after problems started
the talk turned to sacrifice instead, I at least thought I was picking up a
not-so-subtle swipe at President Clinton. Now, I may be misinterpreting
that, but whether I am or not I think things could have been more subtly
done. (The general idea of what Lore had created, however, was far more like
a cult than anything else, which certainly does not fit the Clinton analogy.)
-- Nice FX with the space-based scene. We got a wonderful sense of scale
when the Enterprise fled -- man, but that Borg ship is *big*. Yow.
That should do it.
Normally here, I'd say "and now, the numbers", and try to give some sort of
breakdown. However, I've grown very disenchanted with the three-tier
approach, so I'll just give some comments and then a single rating.
Plot: It relied on too many contrivances and too much technology, but the
simple Data/Lore issues helped it a lot.
Plot Handling/Direction: Not bad. Alexander Singer made even the contrived
parts a pretty nice ride.
Characterization: This was quite strong, but aside from Data, Bev, and the
guests on the Enterprise there wasn't all that much to be done.
Overall, I think I'd call this a 6.5. Not what it could have been by any
means, but not bad.
NEXT WEEK:
Picard is trapped on a planet with a lovesick psychopath. It seems the
preview staff hasn't improved...
Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
BITNET: tlynch@citjulie
INTERNET: tly...@juliet.caltech.edu
UUCP: ...!ucbvax!tlynch%juliet.ca...@hamlet.caltech.edu
"There are no other emotions."
--
Copyright 1993, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...