Descent, Part II

DVD, TNG S7 (Descent, Part II)

Season 7 begins as it means to go on: a lot of stuff about family, and a nagging feeling that the series is somehow below par. It's a bit early to be judging an entire season based on one episode, especially as the track record for second-parters is uneven, but I don't know whether it was because they knew they were back for the last time (before heading into film land), or whether the creative juices had begun to run dry after six long years. This episode feels basic, and I'm not just thinking of it from a 21st Century viewer's perspective, I never warmed to it. I've stated the problems I had with the use of the Borg in the previous episode's review, and while I wasn't so bothered on these viewings, this episode really could have been about any non-biological race, and has very little need for the Borg. "But if it wasn't the Borg we wouldn't have had Hugh come back," I hear you cry. I would suggest the episode could have easily done without Hugh too for all the importance he had for the story. There isn't even a scene with him and Geordi, it's like they didn't even realise the points they needed to hit to make this episode work.

I'm not suggesting this is a terrible episode, but it really is just basic. The surroundings of the Borg compound look as good as they do in Part I, but the story is so contained, it's restrictive. The only space stuff is the B-story of Crusher in command, and while I have nothing against the Doctor doing bridge duty it doesn't make a lot of sense to me: I buy that she was left in charge when all the other officers went on the planetary search, and that makes the nervous junior officer more believable too - all the best people were off hunting for the Captain. But once the majority of the crew beamed up all we get is James Horan's Vulcan-like tactical officer as relief for the bridge. You'd think with the Captain missing and Riker planet-side there'd be a priority for an experienced bridge crew to handle the shipboard side of things. It makes it seem like the Enterprise can't function without a few key personnel and that only green junior officers are available. Who usually does the night shift or takes over when the Captain and senior staff are dealing with other things?

The story isn't well thought out. Big things like having Hugh back are summarily popped in along the way, but mostly it's people in rooms, talking. And not saying things we haven't heard before. I always loved Lore, but this is not the swan song I would have wanted for the character. It's so… anticlimactic. There's not a lot of explanation about why he wants to destroy the Federation, or even evidence as to how he could affect such a large and august conglomeration of races. I think they should have gone more into detail about his hatred of biological beings as that at least gives him a motive. His amplifying of negative emotions so Data felt angry all the time didn't make sense when you consider the feelings were like a drug to Data. So feeling bad made him feel good? There wasn't even much of an ethical dilemma about him joining his brother and so when he just suddenly returns to being the old Data again at the end, there's no feeling of something being paid off.

There's nothing like the excellently done ending to 'First Contact' where we learn Data was playing along the whole time and ultimately was only tempted for less than a second. He's just altered by the emotions and then de-altered when needed to be restored for the sake of the story. There's even the evil genius escape moment for Lore: like in all kinds of films and stories, the villain has an escape plan only to be foiled at the very end. It's basic. Picard doesn't shine as he's mostly locked in a cell, resorting to the old 'pretend to be dead' routine to lure a drone in. These Borg are pretty easy to disable - you only need pull out one tube and they keel over. It can be argued that Picard had inside knowledge of what would be the most effective means of attack, but that isn't even referenced in dialogue.

Even the two fighters of the crew, Riker and Worf, pass up the opportunity to test their strength against the Borg, even though there's only three of them. Come to think of it, the scene with Hugh and his Borg pals was a bit confusing - are these Borg renegades from Lore? Are they meeting secretly and plotting against him? If they're accepted as part of the group why don't the other Borg detect their plans, unless of course they weren't connected, but… aha! Lore can tell if anyone isn't connected. So… what was the deal with those Borg? Another matter is the absence of the Borg Queen. She hadn't been invented yet, but a lot of what's said about how Hugh's return to the collective caused this rift doesn't make sense. It seems more likely that this small branch of the Borg were the only ones affected, but it's all rather hazy.

There was potential for a different kind of B-story when Crusher is dealing with junior officers who don't get along that well, but the two characters she almost exclusively talks to, although they are a bit out of line (well, Taitt is, since she borders on insubordination to the tactical guy, and he just shrugs it off), they never get too un-Starfleet so there's not much conviction in the moment they share the success of beating the Borg ship. That makes me wonder if Lore even knew the ship had been blown up since it never gets mentioned down on the planet. Didn't the Borg need that ship? Did they have others? And if they did, why didn't they take them up to do battle with the Enterprise? It feels like so much of the story wasn't thought through. Other cliches or story problems included the fact that Geordi just happened to have been working on a metaphasic shields program that hadn't been tested or anything, but fortunately works long enough for the ship to hide in the sun's corona. That's another thing; running and hiding in a sun has been overdone (crisp!), on Trek, and this one didn't even have the advantage of looking good. Major effects overhaul's sure to come on those scenes in the new version, I'm sure!

Apart from people being stuck in a room by the villain and trying to talk the sympathetic one out of the dastardly plans, another trope is having Geordi tied to a chair/bed/whatever, and tortured, often for no reason except he does being tortured well. It didn't really get to the torture stage, but he's always the go-to man for being taken and experimented on! Amid all the mediocre plot developments there were at least some fun little moments, some unintentional (I couldn't help wondering what would happen if Spot just reached out and ate the emotion chip there at the end!), to future references, such as Geordi talking about a time Data went swimming, sank like a stone and had to walk along the bottom to find a way out - a similar scene would occur in 'Star Trek: Insurrection'! Lastly, I'm surprised Beverly was happy turning her back on James Horan. Last time the actor was on the series (last season's 'Suspicions') he played an alien that tried to kill her. But I do like Horan's face and voice - I only wish we'd found out the identity of his character in 'Enterprise.' In all, an inauspicious beginning to one of the lesser seasons of the series.

**