LogFAQs > #972543896

Episode 5: Schisms

It was aliens, man.

Picard seems halfway between genuinely pleased with Data's efforts and only plastering a smile on his face to be nice. Makes a lot of good suggestions during the briefing.

Riker has had a fair few shit night's sleep. Frakes is doing brilliantly playing a man whos nearly completely exhausted. Understandably irritable. Not in any fit state to navigate. He and the rest get increasingly unnerved as the holodeck scene unfolds. Like he's dying from a caffeine high when Crusher injects him.

La Forge is bemused by Data's attempts. A truly terrible liar, but at least he cares to protect Data's (lack of) feelings. Gets just as tired as Riker. Still arguing with the computer over his own vague instructions. Gets a little impatient with Shipley.

Worf would rather be anywhere else. Not any happier in the barber's. Gets a bit paranoid. His worry during the holodeck scene is the most palpable. Visibly disappointed that his suggestion is initially turned down.

Crusher is concerned by Riker. Cute that she recalls that recipe Picard gave her. Sweetly guides La Forge around.

Troi seems pleased for Data, but spends most of her time trying to keep Riker up. Sweet idea to have a group therapy session. Violates actual good practice, but the sentiment is there. Nice to see her help the rest make sense of their half memories.

Data might have caught some of Riker's sarcasm, but he's too innocent to register that Riker isn't paying attention. At least, he's a good cat owner. I not seeing much of a problem with his poetry. Maybe I'm a complete philistine when it comes to certain forms. Wants honest feedback, is astute to see through La Forge's bullshit (though Spot himself could probably figure it out) and takes his apparent failure quite well. Very concerned about La Forge's health and even more so about his lack of time keeping.

The pan of everyone's reactions to Data's poetry is amusing. We slowly black out to follow along with Riker falling asleep. A harsh transition after his head hits the pillow is a great way of showing that precisely no useful sleep has been had. The director is giving us quite a treat, which a couple of excellent shots like looking at La Forge from inside the machinery and giving us Riker's perspective as his hand uselessly glides over the navigation console. The holodeck scene is absolutely perfect. The tension and unease builds and builds until, when the clicking starts, it becomes an outright horror movie. Reminds me of my favourite scene from Identity Crisis. Once the cats out of the bag, a lot of shots are done to make the Enterprise seem like a hostile and surreal space. The way the camera navigates around the aliens' lab has the same effect. Not convinced by Riker lazily floating into the subspace portal, though the portal itself is cool. The clicking has a few moments of being really horrifying. The aliens themselves resemble a cross between insects and fish. I expected that nameless randomer who accompanies the group into the holodeck to have more of a role. Briefly thought she might be a villain.

All about alien abductions, this, and it hits on a few interesting points involving that branch of conspiracy theory. Apparently sleepless nights, lost time, intense emotional reactions to seemingly mundane objects and even a slight sudden weirdness in the body, with Riker's arm. The holodeck scene is especially brilliant for basically being a madlibs conspiracy theory session, much like how complete strangers with little in common have found each other due to apparent exposure to this bizarre sub mythology. The camera always feeds into this, by showing the aliens' lab as a sort of hazy dreamscape, despite Riker being quite lucid at that point. Apparently, there was to be a story arc involving these creatures, but it didn't take. To be honest, I think an ambiguous open ending is better. Part of how conspiracy theories work is that they're an endless parade of making connections between otherwise disparate things in an attempt to explain something seemingly inexplicable. As they are founded on a light bit of madness, almost by definition, no conspiracy theory can ever amount to a fully satisfactory explanation. There's always new stimuli with which to build new connections with and in the event some element is outright disproved, unrestrained imagination allows for the seeming contradiction to be just another part of the overall narrative. The Qanon phenomenon is perhaps the nadir of this: where the stupid, the unfettered, the imaginative and the hateful all congregate in the shells of total losers and build a chaotic story that makes the considerably more restrained theorists of yesteryear appear downright rational. Regardless of the specific levels of insanity, however, the point remains that everything, even, hypothetically speaking, outright confirmation from the powers that be, only ever becomes evidence in support of this belief, leading to the inevitability that not only is the truth out there, but it is always out there. The theory will never have an endpoint. Leaving many parts of this mystery unsolved, especially with the unfilled promise of discovering whatever that white probe actually is and might be doing, evokes similar thoughts in me and paradoxically turns a deliberately unsatisfying ending into an immensely gratifying one.

Wonderfully weird and, at times, delightfully horrific. Quite a good episode.

True Q sounds fun.