Too Short A Season

DVD, TNG S1 (Too Short A Season)

The strength of this episode is the brilliant performance added to the impressive makeup work of the guy who played Admiral Jameson. I had forgotten how it ended, so that was a surprise, and capped a strong story of revenge, false careers, guilt and age. The addition of Jameson's wife humanised the story, making you care more about the man and the events he precipitated. Karnas too, was a good role, although he wasn't on screen much. Perhaps his softening at the end was a little too pat to finish the story in the allotted time, but his seeing the pain his rival was going through somehow must have impacted on him. After all no one's getting any younger.

They even manage to fit in an explosive little phaser battle, even if they do insist on using the same 'tunnel' set over and over again this season! The main characters are only there as back up, as the story revolves around the Admiral, but Picard gets to influence the important moments and both Crusher and Troi are necessary. I did think Crusher's rueful half-smile seemed a little unsympathetic when she tells Mrs. Jameson of the danger her husband is in, but we cut away at that point so perhaps she and Troi comforted her afterwards. Tasha doesn't get much, apart from attending the away mission, and I don't think Wesley even made it on screen, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing to have a break from characters when they aren't integral to a plot or you're left feeling they were forced in for the sake of it.

Questions of youth, age and death, as well as shame, honour and war are all covered to varying degrees to make a fully rounded, intelligent sci-fi tale, not dissimilar to the kind of thing you might expect from an original series episode. Most of the elements are there: a guest on the Enterprise who has veto power; alien civil wars (and Kirk did something similar to Jameson, in fact!), even a spot of battling. I wonder if it was taken from a script for Phase II? Either that or it was just written intelligently with a good idea at the centre. (In fact it was co-written by DC Fontana of the original series writers!).

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