Violations

DVD, TNG S5 (Violations)

I agreed with the main Ullian, Tarmin (or the BBC's John Simpson, I'm not sure which!) - I, too, wanted to see some Klingon memories! It wasn't an oversight, as they were never going to show the memories of all of the main cast, it would have taken too long and if they all fell into comas there'd only be background characters to work out the mystery and that's not how TV works. It was different and pleasantly surprising to have the episode begin on Keiko, perhaps the only one of either this series or 'DS9' to do so, and for the first time she was treated as a character in her own right, with Miles nowhere to be seen. Apart from that the teaser didn't live up to the rest of the episode as it ends with an ever so slightly sinister Jev, of the Ullians, looking moodily camera-wards as if preparing some dark deed, which he was, and so there was no mystery to the story.

I think it would have worked better had his presence in the memories been vague and shadowy so we couldn't be sure of the identity, that way the creepiness and revulsion would have been stronger. Admittedly there was a degree of horror in seeing Jev taking control in each memory, whether it was physical, as with Troi, accusatory, as with Riker, or just plain frightening, as with Beverly. Dr. Crusher's memory was the most fascinating with the younger versions of her and Picard going to the mortuary to see the recently deceased Jack Crusher (the words 'blink and you'll miss it' no more apt than in Doug Wert's reprisal of Jack!), but whether Jack turning into Jev was the most terrifying thing, or seeing Picard with hair, is debatable…

Jev would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for his own pesky lasciviousness - all he had to do was keep quiet, but no, he had to go and say goodbye to Troi, which got him going, and then it was too late and he was revealed. Troi's fight back was most impressive, flapping about like a wounded bird in a cage. As a counsellor she doesn't get much call for hand to hand combat, so I felt she did well, even if she did need Worf to appear and whack her assailant down with one well-placed blow. Troi and Worf have been quite friendly lately with her advising him about Alexander in a recent episode, and now the Klingon saving her, so maybe these little seeds were what grew into the otherwise inexplicable 'romance' they shared towards the end of the season.

Riker is her main focus in this story, with the endearment Imzadi used in her memory. There's a nice scene when he tries to repeat in some way what she did for him in 'Shades of Grey' when he was in the coma and she was there for him, but otherwise the First Officer is out of it fairly early though his memory was the most action-packed - Beverly's line that begins "Riker is the second officer…" made me reply mentally "oh no he's not, he's the first officer," though she was really talking about his position as the second to become comatose! All three violations were shot in a very dramatic and surreal way, but like none of the other dramatic, surreal flashbacks/memories/experiences we've seen in other episodes. Even the picture was stretching and condensing like a hall of mirrors and it emphasised the horror of Riker's guilt or Crusher's foreboding suspense exceptionally well. I wish action scenes could be more like that on 'Star Trek' in general, with dramatic camera angles and wide lenses, though for 'real life' they'd have to lose the bendy picture.

Troi's memory was the most unpleasant of the three, bringing to mind a similar scene in 'Star Trek Nemesis' - knowing John Logan, writer of that film, loved the series, I wonder if he got the idea from this episode? The 'Voyager' episode 'Remember' may also have gained some inspiration from this episode. As well as John Simpson, we also got to see Barack Obama, going by the name of Dr. Martin, but I wasn't fooled by his disguise. Would the episode have been better with a mystery to solve? I think it would, because Jev wasn't filled out enough for the angle they chose - he should have become almost a tragic figure so that we feel sorrow at his actions, when he really is a simple Bad Guy. There was a nice moral at the end, from Picard, about violence, and being aware of it in ourselves, and though there were drops out of the episode that lost the momentum, such as Geordi technobabbling to himself, or Geordi and Data walking and talking (filler scenes), the fascination with the crew's memories sustained it as a whole, and it's no surprise the idea came from the same person as last season's 'Night Terrors' as they are similar in tone.

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