LogFAQs > #972752617

Episode 20: The Chase

Von Daniken eat you heart out.

Picard's reverence, both towards his old teacher and his new artefact, is absolutely lovely. His awe continues to build as he comes to understand precisely what and how complete the object is. He even calls Riker Will instead of number one to highlight how removed from work he is in this moment. I appreciate how honest he is with his indecision and that he firmly remains a captain. Pains him to endure Galen's rant. Some of the guilt tripping worked because he's hiding off to the side of the bridge before Troi makes the offer. Noticeable pause whilst he internally debates following Galen's planned route. Blows up at Riker and Troi because despite his protestations, he is wracked with guilt. Takes on quite a defiant edge against the Cardassian captain.

Riker is quite pleased with his surprise and maintains a polite, genuine interest in the archaeological nerdery going on. Makes the right call in questioning Picard's plan.

La Forge does his job.

Worf gets on decently with Nu'Daq.

Crusher is nothing but supportive and helpful to Picard. Shares his awe over this mystery.

Troi catches her captain's feelings and makes an effort to help him with them. Sadly, her efforts are ignored once again.

Got a kick out of Data being completely disinterested in Nu'Daq and just wanting to get on with his work. His expression basically reads "really?"

Galen's got an air of irreverent mischief in how he treats his former pupil, but his clear respect is obvious. Tries seductive mystery to entice his star pupil then blatant, angry guilt tripping. Gets to end on a mostly friendly note.

They really do need to dim the lights on the Enterprise more often. Some nice new (I think) shots of the nebula. There is something sort of grand and epic about a four billion year old conspiracy, especially when half the galaxy shows up at the same planet. For some reason, both the Cardassians and the Klingons having a concept of biscuits really amuses me. Interesting angle to see the transporter room from. Is there a connection (beyond the obvious shared humanoid traits that everyone has) between the precursors and Odo's species?

A single race of precursors somehow being responsible for all the important parts of a franchise's lore is something that I used to find fascinating, but have soured on quite a bit in recent years. Partly, this is because I'm less enthused by the concept of lore in general these days. Having a list of dates and events from before the start point of your series is great if you want to build a wiki page, but wears out it's welcome if it starts closing down more story ideas than it opens. The Time Lords of Doctor Who are at their best early on in the two runs and quickly become miserable the more they're used. Obviously, we don't have that problem here (yet) because we don't know enough about the precursors (yet) for any potential storylines to be closed down, but it is an idea that I've always been dubious about.

Another reason I'm dubious is because almost everything of import in Sci-fi and fantasy can be applicable to a real world concept and ancient precursors are usually a stand in for the idea of ancient aliens creating or at least influencing historical cultures a la Von Daniken. Frankly, this idea really bothers me because it implies that said cultures were incapable of imagination or hard work on their own merits. It's a way of smugly suggesting that our culture is inherently superior to others, not just in matters of morality or technological achievement, which most can't really argue with too much, but also in the basic idea of where this culture comes from, as though only we could be original and only we could accomplish anything remotely impressive.

Luckily, this episode avoids this problem, too, since the precursors, firstly, only created the building blocks for humanoid life, but not their many cultures and, secondly, speak a message of tolerance and cooperation. Keeping on the theme of applicability, the many aliens of most Sci-fi basically are just different human cultures in all the ways that matter, so, this effectively focuses on the many similarities people can have, even if they live in completely separate nations. A good message in its own right, but allowing the Romulans to be the ones who best understand it is a great way to keep up this sort of redemption they're undergoing after being moustache twirlers for too long.

A pretty great adventure that deftly avoids the two biggest issues I have with its main idea. Could find itself fairly high up.

I'm in the right Frame of Mind for another episode.