Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Transfigurations"
tly...@heights.cit.cornell.edu
"Transfigurations", and as such contains spoilers. The author takes no respon-
sibility for any spoilage (unless, like my friend Matt, you just got married
today, in which case all bets are off...)
You sure? This is the penultimate episode, after all...
Well, that was VERY interesting.
Not the wedding, though that was fun too. I mean the show. Considering how
unimpressive the press release looked, and how downright dull the preview last
week looked, I was quite pleasantly surprised.
But that can wait. First, here's a synopsis from your friendly neighborhood
CRT:
The Enterprise is on a star-charting mission, exploring sectors previously
unknown to the Federation. They pick up a faint distress call from a nearby
planet, and find one humanoid, critically injured, under the wreckage of an
escape pod. They beam him up (after stabilizing him a bit down planetside),
and somehow, he recovers. Bev refuses to take credit for it, though--it's
"John Doe", as they call him, who's responsible--his cells are regenerating
themselves at an astounding rate, and some of them are mutating. He regains
consciousness a couple of weeks after having been taken aboard, but doesn't
know who he is.
From here on in, things get seriously weird. Somehow, the cell mutations in
John's body are linked to strange episodes of pain he's experiencing, and those
in turn are linked to strange energy pulses that come from him. The first
pulse, which hit Geordi moments after John was discovered, gave Geordi a strong
boost of confidence with women. Later, though he has no control over his spo-
radic energy bursts, and they in fact can prove harmful, he can also heal any
sort of injury, such as O'Brien's dislocated shoulder. The mystery deepens.
Eventually, (like another 2-3 weeks later) by analyzing some remnants taken
from John's wrecked pod, Geordi and Data manage to figure out where his home
planet is, and it's even along their course. By this time, though, John's re-
gained just enough of his memory to know that he cannot allow himself to go
home yet. He attempts to steal a shuttle, and accidentally kills Worf. He
then revives Worf, effortlessly. Meanwhile, another vessel, heading towards
the Enterprise at Warp 9.72, arrives. On it are people from the planet
Zalkon, clearly John's home. The captain, Sunad, denounces John as a criminal
and demands that he be turned over to them at once. When Picard, after some
deliberation, refuses, Sunad triggers a weapon which makes everyone on board
the Enterprise completely unable to breathe.
Everyone, that is, except John, whose memory is now completely restored. He
sends a bolt of energy through the entire ship, releasing everyone, and once on
the bridge, plucks Sunad off his bridge onto the Enterprise. It seems that
John is a transitional stage of Zalkonian evolution, and is about to progress
beyond his physical body. Although those in authority have tried to kill those
who are about to attain this ability as a threat to the "natural order", John's
powers have now progressed to the point where he cannot be affected anymore.
He sends the Zalkonian ship packing, and after bidding a tender farewell to Dr.
Crusher, departs.
Well, now. Sound interesting?
It was.
First of all, this was a Treknology freak's dream-show. There was a great deal
of attention paid to Bev's medical techniques (to be honest, I haven't the
slightest idea if any of it made sense, but hey; I'm an astronomer, not a
doctor :-) ), and a lot of emphasis on decoding the information on what the
team salvaged from the wreckage. That second part was really neat, too--after
discovering it was encoded biochemically, they found a star chart, but couldn't
make heads or tails of it. Then, they used the course corrections on the
screen to estimate the mass of the stars who deviated the course. They found
one was a pulsar with a particular period, and located that pulsar. Now THAT'S
what I call attention to details.
Another attention to details showed up in Geordi's renewed confidence. Re-
member Christie, the girl he went after at the beginning of "Booby Trap"? It
was the same girl he went after (and GOT, this time) here. Wonderful job,
folks. Now, about bringing back Sonia Gomez...
This show probably did more for Bev's character than the entire first season
did. As she found herself slowly becoming attracted to John, I actually found
myself caring about what happened to them both (and with Bev, that's kind of
rare). Of course, seeing her actually working in Sickbay (which I now have the
impression is more of a full wing than a single room, which makes loads of
sense if you're caring for a thousand people) helped, and there was a wonderful
scene between her and Wesley, where he jibes her a bit about her relationship
with John. This was one of those few times when I actually thought the two
were believable as mother and son. Nice work.
Another nice thing was the time involved in the course of the episode. For
once, we had a situation where everything didn't occur in the course of a day
or two. John was on board for nearly two months, I think, and we only saw the
important bits of his stay. I like it. (It also gave Wesley a chance to get
comfortable in his new job and uniform, and he seemed such by the time we saw
him, which was about a month into things.)
One quick question, to think about once you've seen it: Is what's happening to
the Zalkonians the same thing that happened to the Organians all those centu-
ries ago?
On the cinematography end, there were a lot of very nice shots of Sickbay, and
a couple of great views of the shuttle bay.
It wasn't perfect, of course; the ending seemed a bit rushed (more so than
usual), for one thing. (And, of course, continuing my crusade: though
O'Brien's scene was wonderful, it was too short--and GIVE HIM A FIRST NAME!!!
There...I feel better now.) However, it was very good, and made me forgive
them for "Menage a Troi".
Well, it was a long wedding (actually, it was a short wedding, but the recep-
tion went on for almost six hours), and I'm exhausted. But, before I go,
here's some ratings for you to chew on:
Plot: 7.5. Good, but not terribly original, and the ending was a little
forced.
Plot Handling: 10. On the other hand, the continuity in this program and the
way they handled John's growing power worked nicely.
Characterization: 10. Nice work to Bev and Geordi, and an excellent John.
Technical: 10. As I said, a Treknophile's dream.
TOTAL: 9.4. Pretty damned good, methinks.
NEXT WEEK: A rerun of "Deja Q", but THEN, we all know what's coming........
Tim Lynch (Cornell's first Astronomy B.A.)
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"We are talking the jape of the century lads. We are talking April, May, June,
July, AND August Fools."
Paul Blumstein
+WARNING: The following post contains a review of this week's TNG episode,
+"Transfigurations", and as such contains spoilers. The author takes no respon-
+sibility for any spoilage (unless, like my friend Matt, you just got married
+today, in which case all bets are off...)
+
+You sure? This is the penultimate episode, after all...
+
+Well, that was VERY interesting.
+
+Not the wedding, though that was fun too. I mean the show. ...
You mention the wedding twice but failed to mention who got married. Well?
+ (And, of course, continuing my crusade: though
+O'Brien's scene was wonderful, it was too short--and GIVE HIM A FIRST NAME!!!
+There...I feel better now.)
Okay, if you insist. His first name is O'Brien. That's right, his name is
O'Brien O'Brien. Satisfied? BTW, O'Brien O'Brien's brother's first name is
the same as Spock's first name. Since it is so hard to pronounce, they just
call him O'Brien. BTW2: O'Brien has two sisters. They are both named Daryll.
=============================================================================
Paul Blumstein | "Rather an honest slap than a false kiss"
Citicorp/TTI | -- Yiddish Proverb
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Michael Rawdon
USENET, as well as a question of my own:
--- Start Letter ---
From: Hema Sandhyarani Murty <mu...@ecf.toronto.edu>
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 1990 16:59:25 EDT
I cannot post to the net but was wondering where Troi was in The Most Toys.
If she was on the bridge where she was supposed to be she could have
said that Fajo was lying, perhaps. This question was never addressed
during the episode. In fact during that episode, she only shows up to
tell Worf that she knows how he feels. I am sure that the whole ship
knew how she felt.
Hema Murty, Institute for Aerospace Studies, University of Toronto
--- End Letter ---
For that matter, how on Earth did the Enterprise track down Data at the end
of the episode to beam him away? One would think that standard procedure
when losing ANY officer in the line of duty for ANY reason when the body
cannot be found would be to do a thorough scan of the surrounding area for
evidence of the officer, ESPECIALLY when the officer is one as valuable
as Data.
Seems like the crew was behaving rather stupidly, doesn't it? (Or maybe
it was just the writers being dim.)
--
Michael Rawdon | Everyone waiting in line,
Tulane University | everyone waiting for time.
New Orleans, Louisiana | From time, the great healer,
raw...@rex.cs.tulane.edu | the Machine Messiah is born. -YES
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The disclaimer disclaimed: These thoughts are my own opinions. If they anger
you, remember that they probably don't matter much to the Andromeda Galaxy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
William December Starr
In article <34...@rex.cs.tulane.edu>, Michael Rawdon said:
> For that matter, how on Earth did the Enterprise track down Data at
> the end of the episode to beam him away?
Not too tough... remember, Fajo was a merchant, a trader. As somebody
(Riker, I think) put it, he isn't going to be trying to hide from
potential customers. Fajo's whole strategy was based on the
Enterprise falling for his deception and not looking for him, not on
his ability to hide from the Big E. Once our heroes tumbled as to
what was going on, finding Fajo (and therefore Data) wasn't that much
of a problem. I just wish they'd found him five minutes later...
> One would think that standard procedure when losing ANY officer in
> the line of duty for ANY reason when the body cannot be found would
> be to do a thorough scan of the surrounding area for evidence of the
> officer, ESPECIALLY when the officer is one as valuable as Data.
Yup, but recall that they _did_ find Data's body, or at least they
thought they had. Fajo's people were very careful to place on the
sabotaged shuttle a pile of raw materials which exactly matched Data's
building blocks, so that when the Enterprise scanned the area after
the shuttle went blooie they'd find the proper trace elements in the
resulting gas cloud. It was all very well thought out by Fajo; the
two places where it all fell apart were (1) by immobilizing and
kidnapping Data before the shuttle launched, he made it impossible for
Data make his routine "Okay, I've just taken off" report to the
Enterprise (possibly this could have been faked by replaying a tape of
a previous Data message) and (2) the clumsiness of the contamination
of the water supply.
--
William December Starr <wds...@athena.mit.edu>
Michael Rawdon
>[Some good replies to my questions on "The Most Toys", but...]
You didn't answer the other question... where was Troi? She could have
easily determined if Fawzo (how DO you spell that?) was lying or not...
Matt Bartley
>This is a question being posted for someone without posting access to
>USENET, as well as a question of my own:
>--- Start Letter ---
>From: Hema Sandhyarani Murty <mu...@ecf.toronto.edu>
>Date: Mon, 4 Jun 1990 16:59:25 EDT
>
>I cannot post to the net but was wondering where Troi was in The Most Toys.
>If she was on the bridge where she was supposed to be she could have
>said that Fajo was lying, perhaps. This question was never addressed
>during the episode. In fact during that episode, she only shows up to
>tell Worf that she knows how he feels. I am sure that the whole ship
>knew how she felt.
As Picard has said to her a number of times, I'm not empathic but even
I can tell that! (no quotes since it's undoubtedly a butchered paraphrase).
Also, in that scene, Worf doesn't confront her questions very well.
I would have liked to have seen Worf say this:
Troi- "I know how you feel, [replacing 2 officers in a row after they
died]"
Worf- "Promotion due to an officer's death is commonplace on Klingon
ships."
Troi- "But this isn't a Klingon ship."
Worf- "I *honor* them by striving to do their jobs as well as they did."
Troi- "In true Klingon fashion."
[What Worf should have said at this point was:]
Worf- "*You have any better ideas?*" [then leave as the turbolift opens]
I'd like to see what Troi would have done there.
--
Internet: mdbo...@portia.stanford.edu Matt Bartley
Bitnet: mdbomber%por...@stanford.bitnet 73, N6YWI
Kirk: "Spock! Where the hell's that power you promised?"
Spock: "One damn minute, Admiral." -- Star Trek IV : The Voyage Home
Kevin D. Quitt
>of the episode to beam him away?
As I recall, they put the word out on Starfleet channels for
information regarding his whereabouts. After all, he "knew" the
Enterprise wouldn't be looking for him so there was no reason for him to
hide.
>One would think that standard procedure
>when losing ANY officer in the line of duty for ANY reason when the body
>cannot be found would be to do a thorough scan of the surrounding area for
>evidence of the officer, ESPECIALLY when the officer is one as valuable
>as Data.
>
Ok, you see sombody walk into a shack filled with TNT, and a few
seconds later there's an explosion and you find you're covered with
blood, meat, and bits of bone. Now, how thorough a search are you going
to make for that person? When the big E scanned the area of the shuttle,
they found pieces/parts of the right type in the right amount in the
right area. Why *should* they think to look farther? They also have a
serious medical emergency elsewhere, and can't take too much time.
--
_
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96.37% of the statistics used in arguments are made up.
* * * Hunter * * *
Once again, raw...@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Michael Rawdon) sputters...
>For that matter, how on Earth did the Enterprise track down Data at the end
>of the episode to beam him away? One would think that standard procedure
>when losing ANY officer in the line of duty for ANY reason when the body
>cannot be found would be to do a thorough scan of the surrounding area for
>evidence of the officer, ESPECIALLY when the officer is one as valuable
>as Data.
Doing a scan of the area (including Fajo's ship) would be equivalent to
to searching someone's home without permission, or reasonable evidence that
Data would be there. What this boils down to is the right to privacy
of an ailen traders' ship. The E could have scanned the ship, but did not
in respect for Fajo's privacy.
hunter!!!
--
#=========Admiral Michael "Hunter" Huang, USS Ticonderoga, NCC-1736===========#
mhu...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU // Amiga: The Vision of Tomorrow
mhu...@FubarSys.SLO.CA.US \X/ Project: "SimStar: The Next Simulation"
#======="This project is so secret, even I don't know what I'm doing."========#
Michael Rawdon
>Once again, raw...@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Michael Rawdon) sputters...
>>For that matter, how on Earth did the Enterprise track down Data at the end
>>of the episode to beam him away? One would think that standard procedure
>>when losing ANY officer in the line of duty for ANY reason when the body
>>cannot be found would be to do a thorough scan of the surrounding area for
>>evidence of the officer, ESPECIALLY when the officer is one as valuable
>>as Data.
>Doing a scan of the area (including Fajo's ship) would be equivalent to
>to searching someone's home without permission, or reasonable evidence that
>Data would be there. What this boils down to is the right to privacy
>of an ailen traders' ship. The E could have scanned the ship, but did not
>in respect for Fajo's privacy.
But they obviously didn't feel Data was an important enough crewmembers to
even consider ASKING Fajo...
Michael Rawdon
>In article <34...@rex.cs.tulane.edu> raw...@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Michael Rawdon) writes:
>>For that matter, how on Earth did the Enterprise track down Data at the end
>>of the episode to beam him away?
> As I recall, they put the word out on Starfleet channels for
>information regarding his whereabouts. After all, he "knew" the
>Enterprise wouldn't be looking for him so there was no reason for him to
>hide.
No, I mean how did they find him when they found the trader's ship and scanned
the area to beam him up, when they couldn't find him with the scanners
before? (I mean find DATA, not find the ship he was on.)
>>One would think that standard procedure
>>when losing ANY officer in the line of duty for ANY reason when the body
>>cannot be found would be to do a thorough scan of the surrounding area for
>>evidence of the officer, ESPECIALLY when the officer is one as valuable
>>as Data.
> Ok, you see sombody walk into a shack filled with TNT, and a few
>seconds later there's an explosion and you find you're covered with
>blood, meat, and bits of bone. Now, how thorough a search are you going
>to make for that person? When the big E scanned the area of the shuttle,
>they found pieces/parts of the right type in the right amount in the
>right area. Why *should* they think to look farther? They also have a
>serious medical emergency elsewhere, and can't take too much time.
One of the big flaws with shows like Star Trek is that, when characters
like Q are floating around the cosmos, clearly anything could happen at
any time, and you'd think that, JUST IN CASE, they'd do a thorough scan
of the immediate area (including the trader's ship) just in case
something outre had happened.
Kevin D. Quitt
>In article <2...@demott.COM> k...@demott.COM (Kevin D. Quitt) writes:
>>In article <34...@rex.cs.tulane.edu> raw...@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Michael Rawdon) writes:
>>>For that matter, how on Earth did the Enterprise track down Data at the end
>>>of the episode to beam him away?
>
>> As I recall, they put the word out on Starfleet channels for
>>information regarding his whereabouts. After all, he "knew" the
>>Enterprise wouldn't be looking for him so there was no reason for him to
>>hide.
>
>No, I mean how did they find him when they found the trader's ship and scanned
>the area to beam him up, when they couldn't find him with the scanners
>before? (I mean find DATA, not find the ship he was on.)
>
area they expected to find him, not Fajo's ship. When they came back,
they bloody well knew something was up, so they gave it special
scrutiny. Data ought to be pretty easy to pick out.
Michael Rawdon
>In article <35...@rex.cs.tulane.edu> raw...@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Michael Rawdon) writes:
>>In article <2...@demott.COM> k...@demott.COM (Kevin D. Quitt) writes:
>>>In article <34...@rex.cs.tulane.edu> raw...@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Michael Rawdon) writes:
>>>>For that matter, how on Earth did the Enterprise track down Data at the end
>>>>of the episode to beam him away?
>>> As I recall, they put the word out on Starfleet channels for
>>>information regarding his whereabouts. After all, he "knew" the
>>>Enterprise wouldn't be looking for him so there was no reason for him to
>>>hide.
>>No, I mean how did they find him when they found the trader's ship and scanned
>>the area to beam him up, when they couldn't find him with the scanners
>>before? (I mean find DATA, not find the ship he was on.)
> Ok, they just looked. When he first disappeared, they scanned the
>area they expected to find him, not Fajo's ship. When they came back,
>they bloody well knew something was up, so they gave it special
>scrutiny. Data ought to be pretty easy to pick out.
But doesn't it seem kind of stupid for them to have not scanned other
possible (if improbable) areas, including Fajo's ship? One person pointed
out that they were respecting Fajo's privacy, which is all well and good,
but it doesn't prevent them from ASKING Fajo if they can scan his ship.
If he has nothing to hide, well...
Especially in light of the bizarre things that CAN (and have) happened
in the Trek universe (e.g. Q, the Losira computer in "That Which Survives"
and so forth), it seems rather pitiful (read: clumsy plot device) that
Starfleet doesn't have a standard procedure for the loss of a crewman
or officer (especially one as valuable and unique as Data!).
Just another theatre geek...
>In article <35...@rex.cs.tulane.edu> raw...@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Michael Rawdon) writes:
>>No, I mean how did they find him when they found the trader's ship and scanned
>>the area to beam him up, when they couldn't find him with the scanners
>>before? (I mean find DATA, not find the ship he was on.)
> Ok, they just looked. When he first disappeared, they scanned the
>area they expected to find him, not Fajo's ship. When they came back,
>they bloody well knew something was up, so they gave it special
>scrutiny. Data ought to be pretty easy to pick out.
Uhmmmm.....I think the OBVIOUS answer is that if Fajo went all the
way in putting fake material in the shuttle to simulate Data, then he'd
take the extra step and put in a few sensor screen to mask Data's
presence from the Big-E's sensors. I don't think it's too much of a
rationalization to take that position.
Between the two scams, I don't think it's too surprising that
the Big-E was fooled.....
--
Roger Tang
Protoyuppie Scum---and PROUD of it!!!
gwan...@blake.acs.washington.edu