Cure

DVD, Smallville S7 (Cure)

I love it when they bring a character back, love it! But this was far from a sequel to Season 1's 'Drone' despite the return of Sasha Woodman, one of the least likely meteor freaks I ever expected to see again. I don't think it was the same actress, as her name didn't come up, unless she was uncredited this time, but I was more excited than I had a right to be that they were going to do a return to a previous story, and more especially, one from the golden age of the series, even though 'Drone' was actually one of the weakest episodes of that season. It became about something completely different, the potential for a cure for meteoritus (or whatever), from Dr. Curtis Knox, who… well… turns out to be Jack The Ripper, and lots of other people throughout history (cue 'Star Trek' suing the writers for copying Flint, but it's probably a sci-fi trope so there's no copyright for such ideas!). Knox didn't ring true, he was just a means to an end in getting the story going: he comes from nowhere though he's lived for centuries, he causes some problems, then he goes to who-knows-where thanks to Phil Morris' character, though that guy refuses to tell Clark about his 'crime and punishment' secrets so he could be dodgy. Unless he nipped back to Mars to incarcerate the immortal Dr. when everyone knows all he needed to do was chop his head off - it worked for 'Highlander'!

I wish Morris' Martian/Kryptonian had a name because it's long-winded to refer to him, otherwise. He remains something of an enigma, with Kara now weighing in against him and causing her to part company with Clark for not trusting her. I'm with the Kryptonian, I think she's not to be trusted, and I can believe in the hating match between Jor-el and Zor-el. At the same time we don't know enough about Clark's apparent protector to fully trust him either, and he could just as easily have his own motives. How do we know he wasn't one of the criminals that popped out of the Phantom Zone last season, since that's when he appeared for the first time? Clark did his own zipping about in this episode, dashing to the store to get maple syrup for Lana's pancakes, but wait: he was gone only a second so he'd have had to take longer if he stopped to pay, unless… he didn't pay and grabbed it off the shelf!

That's not the only questionable moment with Clark this time, as he says to Lex how sick he feels that he had to take a life to save him, after Lex gets beaten by Knox. For his part, he buries a clip into the doc, but it just so happens, and this gets both of them off the hook, that Knox is immortal. But would Clark really have killed Knox if he didn't have the 'get out of jail free' card of Knox turning out to be immortal, because that's rather out of character and didn't fit the situation. He could just as easily have flung the guy in another direction so that he didn't end up electrocuted! A bit lazy in the writing, or lacking logic, it still makes Clark look bad. It's back to being a Season 1-type story, (even though the 'Drone' connection soon dries up), thanks to Clark saving Lex, who didn't expect it (and was knocked unconscious as he always used to be!), Lana swanning around the farm, and Chloe worried about being a freak. Oh, wait, that's a new development.

She's put in the same position Clark used to face on a regular basis: not being able to tell someone close about being different. I hated the way that went over and over the same ground in season after season with Chloe or Lana or Chloe and Lana, not being able to forgive Clark for not being honest or able to explain why he did something or said something. This time it's Jimmy on the receiving end of the lack of trust, and he don't like it. Meanwhile Kara's been buttering him up and it takes more steps into the super-soap category it so wants to be. But I liked the majority of the episode, and only the last scene, which dragged on far too long, taking things further than it needed to and saying everything on the nose, ended it with a dip.

One character that's becoming more intriguing is Lana. She's apparently keeping house for Clark, putting flowers on the table, pancakes on his plate, and generally gliding about the place - I imagine she's doing all the housework he might have shunned since Martha left, like cleaning the loo, or hoovering the stairs, but that wouldn't be very dramatic which is why we don't see those scenes. That's what you're supposed to think, at least if you're Clark, because in reality she's not the innocent girl with a quiet life - she's obsessively spying on Lex (possibly from Metropolis where she says she's going to meet Aunt Nell in a rare mention of that character, though it's not clear whether she was in the city or still in Smallville), somehow managing to have rigged cameras all round the Luthor Mansion and grounds, and even able to zoom in on his computer screen, all while under the guise of having a plan to help the meteor freaks that Lex has abused in 33.1. It looks like all that money had gone into surveillance, which smells fishy to me, because Lex is so good at that stuff, he probably already knows about it. He might even have set it up to feed misinformation. I don't know what's going on between them, but it's not going to be pretty.

The casting of Dean Cain as Dr. Knox was great fun, and continues the tradition of featuring actors from past Superman productions in the series - so far we've had the great Christopher Reeve, his Lois (Margot Kidder), and now we have another Supes, this time from 'The New Adventures of Superman,' the cartoonish, silly version of the Man of Steel from the 90s. Not to say Cain wasn't a good actor in the role, and I liked him in this one, too. I hope we haven't seen the last of him, because I'd like to know more about Knox and his past, and understand his history: is he Kryptonian or some other alien, or what? Someone that still hasn't made an appearance since the season opener is Lionel Luthor, whom I continue to await the inclusion of with interest. Will he be involved in the government connection with LuthorCorp? Lois also continues to be conveniently off on assignment for the new Editor of the Planet, but I don't mind as I think it's good to give different people moments in the spotlight at different times.

Jimmy's continued anti-mutant talk hasn't helped Chloe get over her feelings of inadequacy or loneliness at having a power, and now she's even worrying that it could kill her if she uses it again. I liked that her fears are at the heart of the story, but I could have done with some kind of message out of it, like 'fear is what causes problems,' and show her getting over it somehow. That would have given it some inspirational drive, and although the story isn't bad, it was missing something to make it special. But I'm probably thinking back too much to Season 1 and how good some of those episodes were. For a latter-day episode it was pretty good and not full of holes. It must have been the Season 1 reminders that made me first think Knox' wife lying comatose on the bed was Victoria Hardwicke! And I loved the 'Karate Kid' reference of Mr. Miyagi! With Clark and Lex working together in some ways, a villain with meteor freak interests, and a fight in a room of Kryptonite, this had enough nostalgia to bring it back to something of the good old days, even ending with a musical number fitting for the moods of the people, even if, as I mentioned, it goes on longer than necessary.

***

The Deadly Imposter

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S1 (The Deadly Imposter)

That time warp Huggy talks about, a parallel universe where things are not as they usually are, could well be the reality this episode inhabits: a place where criminals ask to be busted, Starsky shows romantic intentions to old ladies, and people aren't who they seem to be. The series usually has its quirky moments and wacky people, but there was something in this episode that was off-balance, more than usual. The only running theme is Starsky unable to catch a girl, culminating in the, admittedly funny, yet also daft, end cap, where Abigail Crabtree, friend of old Mrs. McMillan, is taken out by Hutch to the horror of Starsky when he realises she was a young friend, not a contemporary of the aged widow. The episode begins in that vein, too, with S&H showing kindness to the batty old woman, known for making up stories to the police, which does show their compassionate side. It becomes about the protection of vital witness Warren Karpel in a case against Nate Garvin, who just happened to hire a friend of S&H's to do his dirty work of getting rid of the witness.

They actually went through the academy with John Colby, but they didn't know him as well as they thought they did, because far from being a policeman or airforce officer, he's now a hired assassin (who looks a bit like floppy-haired Hugh Grant). He's a cold, calculating killer, but he's introduced to his old buddies again in a jolly scene where S&H surprise him in a locker room (look out for Hutch bumping his head on the phone in that sequence, which must have been unscripted from the way he grimaces and grabs his head!), and the story veers in odd directions with S&H using their weekend to help track down Colby's 'ex-wife,' now married to Karpel. Well, well. I had some difficulty deciding at first whether Colby was a lookalike pretending to be S&H's friend, then I realised he was the guy, but only pretending to be formerly married to Karen Karpel. The moment she finds out Colby isn't her former husband was a shocker, but the story never went far enough into the horror of S&H discovering who their buddy really is. There was no time for disappointment in him, only a 'Mission: Impossible 2' martial arts beach fight.

The ending was undeniably exciting, but never enough about the anger at Colby. It showed Hutch in a professional light when he could easily have shot the guy, instead making his own code of conduct clear - he doesn't kill if he doesn't have to. Colby's line about his prowess at killing and how a man's got to do what he's good at, sounded like a cowboy film, as did the unique angle where we see Hutch shoot from the perspective of the end of his arm, as if it was a computer game. I don't know why such a view was chosen, but the episode never had a consistent style to it. The music of the end sequence was more dramatic than usual, but there were moments that didn't immediately make sense to me. Who were the people involved in the shootout that Starsky defuses? Were they the police Hutch mentions in the journey over? That would make sense, but the way it was shot didn't help because there appeared to be one man lying on the floor being shot at for ages. They must have been running out of time when they got to that bit, or maybe it was second unit (if they even had second unit filming back then), and the effort went into Hutch versus Colby.

Huggy is hardly integral this time (was he at the party at Hutch's place?), but as always, we like seeing him and his place, though he should learn not to go out into the back alley to meet people he doesn't know! He got laid into like a rag doll and his slight, gangly frame made that attack look much more vicious. The last we see of him in the episode he's barely conscious on the ground, so maybe a tag scene to show him at full health again was warranted? I noticed Diane the barmaid in the background, and maybe one or two of the other staff have been in it before, but sadly they didn't bother expanding any of the roles they gave the impression they were going to do early on in the series. We have a mix of upper class rooms with roaring log fires, local shopping areas and beachfront locations, but there's time to visit more rundown places too, with Emile Parouch's apartment joining Huggy's back alley in that category, (so it was more towards the positive city aspect). It was the same old room they've used so often, so it might have been time to move the camera to a different spot to at least attempt to disguise it. Parouch, the numbers man, was quite fun, and another one of those faces I felt I'd seen in another episode, though I could be remembering this one.

Other notable odd people this time are Fifi, the girl at Hutch's party that can't stop screaming when Colby shows up bloodied - fun hearing Starsky threaten to bust her in the mouth if she didn't shut up, but hardly gentlemanly. But then S&H are more likely to be kind and friendly to those they find attractive. Call it a weakness of character. The clumsy bin man was good value, giving us the only Torino related joke when Starsky's upset after he slams his bin down against the car. There are few of these kinds of familiar gags this time, though one would be Dobey getting irritated at S&H, in particular when Starsky has his feet up on the Captain's desk! Also, Colby pretending to be drunk and calling them Husky and Starch, and while not a joke, Dobey asking whether he's talking to Starsky or Hutch. I only spotted a couple of references: Dumbo and The Three Musketeers. The fight in the alley had a big continuity glitch: Colby points to his left cheek for his associate to punch him there, and the guy hits him in the right. Yet Colby later shows up with a bruised left eye! And he should have seen the shadows of S&H hiding round the corner when they invaded the locker room, because we certainly could. Couldn't help noticing  Hutch littering on two occasions - he chucks his paper in the air behind him at the vacant house lot, and later throws his gum out the car window. Shocking.

Colby can be explained slightly if some of his backstory were true. If he really had spent five years in a POW camp, and then two in hospital he might have become a different man, but it's difficult to know how much he was telling his own story or Mrs. Karpel's. Plus S&H might never have truly known him. I believe that was a theme of theirs - often when they met up with old friends they turned out bad or were mixed up in shady business, like Starsky's brother, or the girl he knew from the 'Targets Without A Badge' trilogy. I suppose that was the only reason to bring in a character like that, to provide conflict and a bit of personal mayhem that got to the detectives more than if it were a stranger. Karpel could have done with fleshing out more (though he should have been careful what he said to his wife on the beach - he was clearly 'bugged'!), and not getting to know the characters enough, even Garvin, the big villain, hurt the story. It was also embarrassing to see Starsky leering at girls throughout, but there was plenty of energy that went into the acting from both S&H, and they both seemed especially sprightly and enjoying life.

**

The Dark Knight Rises

cinema, The Dark Knight Rises (2012) film

I came to this film knowing very little of what it was about, and without much in the way of expectations. I knew that Talia and Ra's Al Ghul would be in it, (once again played by Liam Neeson), I knew Bane was the villain, and Catwoman was to be included. I expected Alfred and Gordon to be there, though not Fox after he walked out at the end of 'Dark Knight,' and I knew there was a gap of several years. I also felt that Batman was likely to die, because if something that brave and unprecedented were to happen it would have been this film series. I actually wondered if the Batman TV series that's supposed to be in the works might fill in the gap between the second and third films and show him fighting other villains and doing the stories we never got to see, but from the way it begins, I realised that wouldn't be possible. That's because after the events of the second film we learn Wayne went into seclusion, has become a broken down recluse, and never stirs from the rebuilt Wayne Manor. I didn't understand why he was so damaged, since he hadn't been Batman for years and had had ample time to recover.

It never sits well with me when a film begins with no logo or credits, no musical theme to sound the march of the story, instead heading right into the action. It also seemed lazy not to have a strong, individual theme for this film, and as much as I like the main Batman theme, I was expecting a new variation. I wasn't drawn in by the way 'Dark Knight' began, while I could still appreciate the cleverness at work, but although the plane stunt was very big and visual, it didn't excite me and set me up for the rest of the film. A good summation of the two latter films in the trilogy are that they are clever and intelligent from a story standpoint, but they never wowed me or made me feel 'how cool!' as the first one tended to do. It's the style of Christopher Nolan and I reserve the right to dislike aspects of that style, even if the majority see no flaws. One thing that doesn't even annoy me any more because I'm resigned to it, is the shaky-cam style of fighting. After 'Dark Knight' they may have decided to scale back on the violence, because there was nothing in 'Rises' to make me flinch, such as the notorious pencil scene or the Joker's hideous method of scaring people with his proximity and tales of childhood. It was almost devoid of viciousness, which could be a good thing, but also loses some of the tension. I miss artful fighting scenes, and that's something this series has eschewed in favour of fast cuts and the sound of slabs hitting each other. There was also too much filming from behind characters making it difficult to see the moves.

Granted, Bane isn't a martial arts type, he has the physical strength to batter and doesn't need any art in that. Strangely, I never felt worried about Bane. He was a hulking brute, but not the stereotypical stupid lout, yet that impression of an intelligence behind the bulk, which should have been diabolical, never turned into the evil cunning I expected - he should have been like the Joker, but with more concrete plans and the muscle to personally back it up. I'm not an aficionado of Batman lore, but the little I know (mainly from 'Batman: The Animated Series' of the 90s), is that Bane would pump himself up with chemicals and become this fearsome creature. I also knew he broke Batman's back in the comics, and he was supposed to wear a wrestling mask. His backstory in this was: thrown in pit, patched up by doctor that didn't know what he was doing, needed mask to stop pain. Where were the drugs filling him in a horrific way? Stripping something like that away loses some of his power to shock.

Now I don't mind about the details too much as I'm not attached to the series like I am other things, and I know the mask is considered silly, but I think I would have preferred that. It was disappointing that Bane was a hulk all the time and never became anything more. There was no room to be horrified by his disgusting strength. Yes, he beats down Batman in their first meeting and could have killed him (making the usual villain's mistake of keeping the good guy alive), but I was never struck by his immense power or enjoyment of inflicting pain. He wasn't oppressive as I imagined he would be, the only moment of foreboding I felt being in the buildup to blowing up the stadium, and even then the boom wasn't designed to catch you off guard.

I was all for having Bane in this film (Clayface or he were the villains I wanted), and Tom Hardy did an admirable job acting through the face mask. He was incredibly pumped up if you compare him to his role as Shinzon in 'Star Trek Nemesis' ten years ago, and probably weighed twice as much! But he should have gone around shirtless more because he wouldn't have needed clothing, even in the cold. I think they were going out of their way to show that he wasn't a dumb, animal thug, a notion which might have been increased had he been bare-chested. I was surprised at how fun the character was, not enigmatic or scary at all, despite the voice. During the film I didn't find his voice funny, but removed from the experience I can see how easy it would be to make fun of the character, so he still hasn't quite recovered from the figure of fun that arguably lost him credibility in 'Batman and Robin.' Some people apparently had trouble understanding his lines, but for the most part I caught what was said. There were times when I missed a line or two, but it wasn't necessarily Bane, it could be anyone that whispered or mumbled, and because the speakers were so loud in the cinema I couldn't always make things out.

It wasn't a fair fight against Bane. I really would have liked to see a Batman in his prime, fully fighting fit and at his peak, to take on his most physically powerful foe, but instead it's a weakened, crippled man who's let his vitality drain away behind closed doors. I noticed his voice was dialled back to 'Batman Begins' rather than the super-hoarse, rumbling vocals of the sequel, another indication of losing his vitality and confidence? It shows they did listen to criticism. I felt Batman was not thinking straight, as well as being comparatively enfeebled. He no longer swoops from a dark sky or uses his brain, when he comes up against Bane and underestimates him. It's almost like he felt he had to defeat the giant with his strength to prove his worth to himself, instead of coming up with a strategy. In fairness, he's led into a trap, so was relatively unprepared, but he must have planned to go toe to toe with Bane, and slipped up on his research, relying on Alfred's hearsay! A good net might have given him a better chance, or a taser gun. I know he's a hero, and doesn't shoot people, but in this case maybe he should have made an exception and shot to wound, at least to level the playing field. Instead he goes in all fists pumping and to no avail, the fight itself just a whacking match with none of the subtlety or skill I wanted.

Other characters weren't at their best either, Commissioner Gordon knocked out of the film for a good portion of it (I wanted so much to see him with white hair as in the animation, given the time difference between films, but you can't have everything, and there's always the chance the series will continue with him in the cast), and Alfred, who gets all the best scenes early on, all but disappears for a huge chunk of the film. Michael Caine's contributions were the most affecting and gave the film its main reason to care for the characters because he makes the strong bond between Alfred and Bruce so real as this man who's dedicated his life to serving his young charge, caring more for Bruce than we can fathom. It's upsetting when it leads to a cold parting between them, but also leads to a joyful end in some ways, a bit like the conclusion to 'The Bourne Ultimatum.'

Regarding the ending, some seem to suggest it's ambiguous, but it was pretty straightforward to me: or do people think Alfred was daydreaming? On the subject of hallucination, was Ra's Al Ghul really brought back from the dead, or was it Bruce's imagination, just as he sees his Father again. What would have been a terrific idea would have been to actually bring back the actor that played Wayne Sr. in a dream sequence, and have him argue with Ra's for Bruce's 'soul,' a metaphor for him to gain confidence and the will to return to Gotham, and a reminder of the 'why do we fall?' theme from 'Batman Begins,' just as pertinent to that pit as the old well. Just to be clear, that prison Wayne was in was about as far from 'Hell on Earth' as could be. You had food and water, kindly old men with white beards, even TV on tap! Bane was supposed to have grown up there in darkness, one of the reasons Batman's tricks didn't work on him, never seeing the sun until he got out, but the whole time Wayne was in there it was bright and airy with a warm light blazing down from the pit mouth!

One character I could have lost and it would have made little to no difference to the story, was Selina Kyle. She's never referred to as Catwoman, she doesn't wear a suit and mask, but Kyle was her name so we know it was her. I'm not sure how I feel about well-known characters being in the story without an acknowledgment of who they are, but it fits the style that began in 'Dark Knight' with Two-Face only a nickname. There was little reason for Kyle to be part of the story, except to give Bruce a future. I liked the special glasses that flipped up when not in use to form cat ears, but that was the extent of her association with Catwoman. Perhaps the Halle Berry film had tarnished the character so much they decided to be specially careful. To give her her dues, she did have occasional fun moments (when she grabs the con's hands in prison in passing, twisting them right round as she turns head-over-heels), but I needed more of those acrobatics I associate with Catwoman, and to see the agility and obsessive thieving. Her character never got the fleshing out it required to be a worthy component of this story.

I feel like Batman wasn't in the film that much. The first film got the balance just right, using the darkness and atmosphere he could create, but there's been less of that in parts two and three. One item that did make an appearance was the Bat-Wing, or in this version, The Bat, named by Lucius Fox. Again, it fit the design of that world, the Tumbler and the… whatever the bike was called (which continued to be fantastically impossible in its double-axle wheels!), yet it also came across as unimportant and tacked on. That was my view initially, but of course it rises(!) to prominence towards the end as Batman has to make a fateful choice, although then it becomes a convenience. I find it hard to dislike, it just doesn't have the iconic look the Bat-Wing had tearing though the skies, and I felt it more than with the Tumbler/Batmobile. I probably held more of a negative opinion of the Tumbler on first viewing 'Batman Begins' so after repeated viewings The Bat may grow on me. It had its moment of glory, evading seeker missiles through Gotham's skyscraper-filled cityscape, but it was one of those scenes they had to put in to give Batman a reason for using it, to validate having it as a solution for the end. An interesting twist that Bane takes over the secret haul of Tumblers and Wayne Enterprises tech, and the reason we don't get the black Tumbler for Batman, which I didn't mind.

I'd wanted Wayne Manor back, and the Batcave, and I got both, although I couldn't make out from the exteriors whether it was the same location they used in 'Batman Begins,' and I really needed an establishing shot of the house to show beyond doubt it was the same one they'd filmed at before. Fun seeing the Batcave looking a little more as it did in the cartoon, with the big computer terminal, though I hope it didn't get dripped on, and didn't seem the best environment for electrical equipment! I would also have liked to see more structure, such as a runway for the vehicles to enter and exit a little more gracefully, though again, that's just a matter of taste. Perhaps something that could be built for the next film. Because I'm sure this world will continue, even though Christopher Nolan won't direct and Christian Bale won't play Batman, much like the fourth Bourne film due soon. The jury's out on whether a fourth film tied to a trilogy, yet separate, can work, instead of completely rebooting as the new Spider-Man did, but it will be worth waiting and seeing.

Clearly the writing took some turns to make ready for a change in the casting of Batman, and it's here I think it's only right and proper to talk a bit about Blake, the good cop that takes much of the weight while Gordon's on his back. He doesn't have a huge arc, but his character does come to realise that he'd be better off assuming a mask instead of being held back by the police force. Not that the police look bad in this film, but there's a sense that they've grown fat on Batman's success, some not willing to go the extra mile (like the guy Gordon tries to convince to help, but won't, which was an extraneous sub-plot at best), but in the reckoning they take on the challenge, charging at the criminal army in a gang versus gang street brawl, something like 'The Lord of The Rings' (but flatter, in ground as well as tone), and showing great bravery. Fortunately the thugs are almost as bad shots as the cops! But back to Blake: I liked the guy, and I wouldn't mind if he turned out to be the man to take up the mantle of the cape and cowl, but I also wondered if he might be Robin, unless that moment where the woman says he should use his given name, Robin, more often, was a little joke at the audience's expense for expecting the famous sidekick to show up in the film. If he were Robin it would work with the backstory of them both being orphans. On the other hand, he probably wouldn't be Robin if that was also his name, so it seems much more likely the series will continue sans the Boy Wonder!

Should Batman die? That was one of the biggest questions on my mind before the film, and I'm still not sure what would have been the most fulfilling. They had a rare opportunity to do something never dared before, and if a new man is stepping up anyway, why not close that particular book? At the same time I liked the ending, playing out as Alfred had always hoped, and a final gift to the linchpin of these films. Because Alfred has been the one keeping Bruce going. His strength of character and wise words are what inspired Wayne to do what he needed to do. I'm not sure what the theme of this film was, but there was certainly a lot of inspiration for the characters: Blake to fight crime in a better way; Gordon to keep fighting; Wayne to make the leap in the pit without the rope, because if he failed, death was his reward. I must admit to being surprised by the twist with the little boy turning out to be a little girl (even though I've seen it before, e.g: 'Pitch Black'), but knowing Talia Al Ghul was in the film, I kept expecting her to be revealed as Bane's sister, since they've shown they aren't bound by comics continuity, and it would have been a good twist if Bane had been Ra's son. To what end I didn't know, and it was a shock moment when she plunges the knife into Batman, even more so when you expect his suit to be able to take such blades! Maybe Bane had weakened the infrastructure?

I did forecast the self-sacrificial setup Batman would have to take to save the city, though I must congratulate the makers of the nuclear device - it's the sturdiest bomb ever! It survives bouncing around in the back of a truck, falling to a lower level and getting knocked about when The Bat winches it up! It would have been a silly way to die if Batman had gone out simply because Fox had never bothered to include an autopilot feature onboard, so when we get the full realisation, it's like another dig at the audience for expecting such a weak ending, the writers asking us if we really expected that. They even set it up a couple of times with people suggesting they might not have another chance to say what they want to say to Batman. It was a bit of a 'Star Trek II' trick, where Spock was 'killed' early because people were expecting it, except in reverse. Fair play to them.

Someone else's end wasn't so complimentary to the writing: Bane. After all the menace he'd exuded throughout the film, Talia reveals herself, and I never bought into their love story and consequently felt none of the sympathy we were supposed to feel for Bane when he's weakened by Batman, who in the end only has to knock a couple of pipes in his mask askew to make him tame as a baby, and anticlimactically he's finished by a blast to the chest from Selina, returning to show there was good in her somewhere after all. Han Solo anyone? Actually I'd have loved a scene like Liam Neeson has in this film in 'Star Wars Episode III' as it would have been so great to have Qui-Gon Jinn reappear in ghostly form to give words of wisdom to Obi-Wan. His small role in this tied it so much more tightly to the first, and best, film. I didn't entirely buy the actor who played young Ra's, but enjoyed that side of the story immensely, and you can't expect a perfect lookalike for a younger version anyway.

There were the occasional missing pieces or lack of explanation, which, I suppose, is the Director's right, but some things bugged me. The knife going through his suit was one, but I also wondered how he got back into Gotham once it was under siege. Did Bruce know a secret tunnel or was he using The Bat? Seeing the city in that big sweeping shot as the bridges are detonated also makes me wonder where Wayne Manor is located. Clearly not on the island, so the area of Gotham affected by Bane wasn't as big as we think, since it doesn't cover the whole city, right? Casting I enjoyed was Christopher Judge from 'Stargate SG-1' as one of Bane's men, although I didn't realise for sure it was him until his name came up in the credits - I forget people age, and I'm watching the series from ten years ago! It should have been cooler to have the League of Shadows back in the story, but because they weren't hidden in masks they never had the mystery about them, and so were just common thugs working for Bane, even if thugs that would give their lives at a whim (such as the guy in the plane at the beginning). I also noticed the deliberate inclusion of young boys in the plot again (the orphanage ad school bus sequences), as happened in the other films to appeal to that age group  on their level, perhaps.

This may sound strange when talking about such an expensive project, but as a whole the film was very episodic, so much so that I likened it to a TV miniseries. A grand, big-budget one, but a series that could have been cut into chunks and watched in sections. The running time of approaching three hours helped that feeling, as did the familiar music which never created its own individuality, like a spinoff. Saying that, and I don't mean to demean the huge scale, I will note that I was never bored. 'Mission: Impossible 4' occasionally bored me, but that might have been because I'm more concerned about that series than Batman, and also, I was involved with these characters. I didn't even hate Catwoman, though she was unnecessary. Multiple viewings may improve my understanding and vision for the piece, and I do find that the more I think about it, the more I'd like to see it again and discuss it, not something I can say about all films. I don't know what the theme was, but if I take anything from it, it's that 'Batman Begins' was a positive tale, 'Dark Knight' was negative, and I see 'Rises' as strangely neutral. Bane didn't have some great plan or maniacal desire to cause chaos, yet he still created anarchy and wanted Ra's Al Ghul's work to be fulfilled. Batman may or may not have lived out his life. The city had its own choices to make. And as for Batman learning to fear death, doesn't that fly in the face of 'Batman Begins' and it's striking message? Regardless, I'd like to see more of that world, and a film that leaves you with that feeling has succeeded.

***

Lower Decks

DVD, TNG S7 (Lower Decks)

When I first saw this I thought it was all a test, and in a way I was right. The episode itself was a test of the series' sophistication, how far it had come, if it had come far enough for the world it had created aboard the Enterprise to be real enough to carry the story instead of relying on the main characters. It's not like they abandoned the regulars in exchange for a cast of unknowns, but they struck a finely judged balance between the characters we're used to seeing and a mix of new ones and familiar faces. To begin with, I thought the episode would have been punchier had more, or all of the main roles of the story been filled with people like Ogawa whom we knew as a recurring background face. Two of those, Miles and Keiko O'Brien, would have been potentials, but they'd already moved to DS9. That was before the ending, which is surprising and unexpected, and showed that as well as reaching the point of maturity in its world, 'TNG' had also learned to take the uncomfortable way out sometimes. I don't know whether the 'DS9' series had rubbed off on its sister show, already so different and trying much that was new, but whoever gets the credit, this was 'TNG' at full power.

For a story that is mostly people talking in the bar, people talking round the poker table, and people talking… at every point on the ship, this succeeded in allowing us to see 'behind the scenes' of day to day life aboard, not just any starship, but The Starship, the flagship of the Federation. Many issues that may not even have been considered were you to take the episodes generally, are given an airing. The best explanation I can make is that it was a continuation of the Academy that we'd seen in 'The First Duty,' assisted by having Ensign Sito along, but without being a direct sequel, another chapter in her and other such cadet's lives. What makes it more special than simply being a look into the inner workings of the command structure, is her story playing out, that meant so much and comes down so heavy on the conclusion. Yet even then it's so well handled, the scene with Worf joining her friends at the table, that it plays on more than one level.

We're kept almost as much in the dark as the lower officers are, not allowed to know the plan, or even see who the mysterious visitor is that was beamed aboard the Enterprise, we're shown the door just as he's materialising. This makes the tough moments Ensign Sito goes through so much harder to take - chewed out by Picard; taught a physical lesson by Worf. But her troubles aren't played out in isolation, and her fellow officers, her friends, really make a believable group, each having their own hangups, whether it's Lavelle and his belief Commander Riker hates him, Ogawa's difficult period with her fiance, or Taurik's failure to see eye to eye with Geordi. Alexander Enberg preempts his most famous character of Vorik the Vulcan of 'Voyager,' by playing Taurik, and getting the mannerisms and perspective of the race down pat. Even down to subtle detail as when he straightens up as Worf sits down at his table, or his inability to understand that La Forge doesn't need his every suggestion to be acted on immediately!

Seeing the story from minor participant's viewpoints was a brilliant device because it gives us a new view of the main characters and how they come across to those that serve under them. I loved Ben and his ability to be completely casual with 'Will' and the other senior officers because he's a civilian bartender, even joining them for a game of poker! That was another brilliant scene, although the more I thought about it, the more strange it seemed that the chosen pastime on the Enterprise is a game of money and gambling for acquisition, but money doesn't exist in the 24th Century. So were they playing for points or replicator privileges? Whatever, it was smartly intercut for a great scene between the seniors and juniors playing separate games. It also becomes part of the build up to the finale of the series, and the most important moment of Picard realising they are his family, because we're seeing most of the senior staff playing, and we generally don't see them together like that unless it's at a briefing with the Captain.

If the ending shocks, I was further impressed that they even managed to snick in the discussion of racism with the Cardassian and Sito able to openly discuss the issue because they both have the same goals. At first I didn't buy that Joret Dal could be a member of the military, yet wanted peace, but with the varied number of his race we've seen on 'DS9' it shouldn't be a surprise. And he was right, peace was what his world needed. I wonder if the line about ambitious Guls taking over the military was a direct point out to Gul Dukat? He hadn't risen to quite the prominence he would enjoy in the mid to later seasons of 'DS9,' but he was probably the best example of the plague of Cardassia. And that was another level of enjoyment added to the episode: the linking to the 'DS9' world. Not overtly, it's only Bajor that's mentioned, but talk of Federation spies, or sympathisers, with secret missions, was all still pointing to the tensions that continued between the race and Starfleet, without standing on the toes of the writer's of that series or constraining them in any way.

A funny moment for me was in realising after I watched the episode (checking out Memory Alpha), that Riker was talking about one 'aye' was enough to Lavelle, not one 'eye' as I thought he'd meant - the guy swings round on his chair, that's where the misconception came from, not that I was expecting Lavelle to wink at his Commander! I appreciated the gik'tal coming to mean 'To The Death' in Klingon as it became an episode title for 'DS9' that featured Worf heavily. One thing we didn't see was Nurse Ogawa's promotion Beverly had promised her. It would have taken away from the Lavelle promotion, and that was really about the absent Sito for whom it might have been, so they made another good call there. What works so well is in the warmth given to Sito (even down to Picard risking the treaty by launching a probe to find out what happened to her), by people that had a right to resent her, and another example of the better future Roddenberry envisaged, where people are given another chance to make up for past indiscretion. And how often do we hear the Captain addressing all Starfleet officers aboard his ship! I respect this episode for trying a different format and for taking the risk in not having the main cast front and centre. However much 'TNG' learned from 'DS9,' this episode may have helped that other series to come to the point where recurring characters could have as much prominence as any in the main titles, and a great precedent it set, leading to some of the best Trek ever.

****

Fierce

DVD, Smallville S7 (Fierce)

Is this old-school 'Smallville'? First, there's a picture of small town life with the Harvest Festival, then there's Jonathan Kent in spirit, Clark telling his ward to keep her powers under control. There's Lana wanting, and naively expecting, everything to go back to how it was years ago; trouble with meteor freaks; beauty pageants like the Smallville High days - we even have Lex walking into the Kent kitchen, which isn't something natural since his turn into a maniac. Is this a sign of the writer's nostalgia or the natural 'circle of life' type thing that goes round and around in this series, sparked perhaps by Kara's similarity to the young Clark? I remember bemoaning the circles of love, anger, betrayal and joyful friendship that plagued Lana and Clark since, well, Season 3 maybe? And now we're into another cycle with Lana honestly expecting to pop back to Smallville and settle back into life there. What's she going to do, run the Talon again? It's an unnatural progression, but then that's nothing new on this TV series!

Meteor freaks-of-the-week used to have such good stories, but in these latter seasons they became organs of destruction only there as a foil for Clark. Maybe it was a desire to show Kara at work that prompted this gaze over the shoulder into the past of the series, but they really should have made sure the villainess' had personality and purpose, and a limp half-fight at the end was a definite no-no. Inevitably, powers would be eventually be rehashed, and this is an inferior remake of Season 1's 'Cool.' Except the story was nowhere near as good. Why did the girls even need Kara's assistance? It was also almost impossible to believe Kara would be elected the beauty queen - she has no relations, or legal documents and it was the height of stupidity for her to enter the competition anyway. It would be like Clark entering a strength test. It was also so cheap that they're only three episodes in and they've already got the new girl in a bikini. Ratings going down or something?

There were some bizarre twists in this story. Would Kara really single out Jimmy? Please don't let this season become more of a super-soap than it already is, with Chloe worried about his loyalty to her (especially with that line about cleaning up the town of freaks, which of course, Chloe feels she's one of now). Far from piquing my interest it signalled poor choices from the writers. If there wasn't already enough going on with the mysterious disappearance of Lionel; Lex intent on tracking down the 'angel' who saved him; Lana not dead; Clark having to teach his cousin the finer points of superpowers; the crystal from Kara's ship and what her real mission was… Now we have some other Kryptonian trinket to deal with, an SOS signal apparently, though what good it was going to do locked in a box, I don't know. Could it be a Kryptonian from the past, as it was in the town's time capsule? We've already had more than enough Kryptonians on Earth.

Even in an unimpressive story there were intriguing moments, and ones that worked very well. Lana's reappearance at the farm was a wonderful scene played really well, with the affecting piano music and such a sad, but joyful tone. If only it hadn't cut away to the girl's death and then returned to become a comedy moment. Lana's come back from the dead, and Kara appears and Lana jokes that Clark obviously has some issues to sort out, then skips merrily off. Um, he thought she was dead, but she's alive and he's happy for her to leave? Kara can wait! Maybe this was one of those times when a character had to go to the bathroom? The other scene that worked well was near the end when Kara questions Clark on his future, asserting that he can't truly expect to hide out on the farm and grow old with Lana. It's a sad, far-reaching thought about his eventual destiny to outlive those around him, but for us it's a glimmer of his true destiny of becoming Superman, and it works on both levels. I also liked the other part of the scene where Clark makes it clear Earth is his home and everything he cares about is there. The rest of the episode needed this kind of care and depth.

Some came through in the odd way Lex has been behaving. He went from super-criminal last season to just a regular guy with lots of money, another reset button the writer's are intent on pushing every other season or so. Just remember what happened with Lionel when he supposedly turned over a new leaf back in Season 4… Another mystery is how open he is with Agent Carter of Mars. Sorry, of the Department of Domestic Security. He even wants to work with the government. And does he know about Clark now? I forget. It's weird how Kara's story is mirroring Clark's own - it starts with her saving Lex, and him thinking it's some kind of destiny thing, then his complex about the Kents is reawakened and he wants to study her the way he investigated Clark, while she just wants to blend in with society, but also learn how to control her powers. Not that I really trust her - I reckon old Zor-el sent her to kill baby Kal-el. Then again I also wonder if Lana's a clone with implanted memories and the real Lana did die in the explosion. Now that we know how easy it is for Lex to duplicate someone, anyone could be a copy! In the middle of all this Lana sees it as a chance for her and Clark to start over (is she even divorced from Lex yet?). One thing's for sure: life on the farm is looking a lot more lively.

**

Extinction

DVD, Enterprise S3 (Extinction)

First thoughts were a terrific opening, but one I remembered wrongly as being right in there with Archer and his crewmates running away from MACOs having been infected before the story started. I quickly realised I was wrong, so it became about waiting to see how Archer and co. would be assimilated/genetically altered. That part worked well, with he and the others suddenly changing, T'Pol caught in the middle. Her inability to stay calm shames the Vulcan race, as I can imagine how Tuvok or Spock would have reacted under the same circumstances, and it wouldn't have been by looking scared or losing focus. It's one of those things that I hate about New Vulcans (or should that be Old Vulcans), but in this case I'll give them the benefit of the doubt - it could have been the fault of the mutagen that T'Pol's body had rejected. She was afforded the chance to show off some Vulcan strength later, when the Unnamed Aliens attack her and the others in the tunnel. I also allowed for her struggle with Hoshi, since Sato and the other two had been changed internally as well as externally, and likely had improved muscle power.

I'm not sure how ethical it was for T'Pol's DNA to be bandied about like a commodity, without her permission, even though I'm sure she'd have given it. Even so, that's the kind of thing that should have been raised as an issue - maybe she had second thoughts about allowing her DNA to be used in the serum and given to those aliens? The ending did achieve a modicum of poignancy, with Archer showing he hasn't lost all perspective since entering the Expanse, and made me think of 'The Inner Light' from 'TNG.' I wouldn't rate this one up near that story, but the same sentiment came out of it: that of preserving a long-dead culture, only this race's solution was very different. I liked Archer's show of grace towards the race that had taken over his body, not wanting to eradicate all chance of their people ever returning by keeping a vial of the mutagen. But even so, he wasn't going to allow it to be used, so it was really only a gesture. It also made me think of the remains of the Caretaker on 'Voyager' being put away for storage as if they might one day come back to it.

The story was a straight up sci-fi tale, all about a race procreating by altering the DNA of other species, bringing to mind 'Voyager' story 'Ashes To Ashes,' though in that version they reanimated the dead. It came to feel inconsequential due to it not having a strong connection to the ongoing Xindi arc, but it's good for them to have a break after those first two episodes, and deal with something important. The issue at hand wasn't really explored, in favour of a lot of chasing through the jungle, which was handled well by a confident return for Levar Burton in the Big Chair. I liked little things about it, such as Travis being in the other Big Chair, and having a little command experience, although as usual his input sadly didn't amount to much. I always enjoy seeing different people left in charge, but it would have been better if Trip had been absent, trying to track down the Captain and T'Pol, when the aliens attacked. There was no B-story, and it could have been an examination of how Travis dealt with the pressure of two ships.

I wanted to see another boarding raid, but that's happened a lot so far this season, so I can see why they found an alternative this time. The aliens were pretty cool with their Roman armour and sail-like ships, the CGI at its usual high standard in the space shots. Less so when it came to the bustling planet, shots looking like a model with little fake people wandering around, something that they often fell down on in Trek - matte paintings forever! I will say that the images of the contemporary city in its rundown state worked better, as did Archer and the others shown to be scampering away. T'Pol had plenty of action, and the story went along at a steady pace, though the sympathy for the race's plight never came to anything because they looked so ugly and annoying in their movements. Credit to the actors for undergoing the makeup and completely altering their body language and voices, as it must have been a challenge - it gives us an idea of what Bakula, Park and Keating might have been like had they played non-human characters permanently.

One mistake I thought I saw was to do with T'Pol's outfit. When she leaves the command centre to go to the bridge she's wearing one uniform pale blue in colour, but on the bridge she sports a white one - just the wrong colour for rolling around on a dirty planet! The neuropressure scene appeared superficial, but became the key to saving them thanks to the peaches Trip brought. That was okay, but came across as too obvious. Also, I didn't get the information they were talking about, and whether it was related to the preceding episode or was a ship they'd encountered in between episodes - it simply wasn't made clear enough. I couldn't help but enjoy it, but I also couldn't help feeling it was inconsequential, like one of those Season 2 episodes that has no bearing on anything. Thankfully it was more action-packed than that and gave some of the actors a workout, so slightly weaker than the opening two, but still pretty good, and an indication that the series aimed to be consistently exciting, and more dangerous, the flamethrowers being an example of a weapon not generally seen in Trek.

There was a dedication at the end of the episode 'In Memory of Jerry Fleck' who was on the production team on the directing side, and died, presumably, during this episode.

***

Sub Rosa

DVD, TNG S7 (Sub Rosa)

Sub is the operative word, but in some respects this doesn't quite plumb the depths as much as might be remembered. Or perhaps I'm being too kind, and the embarrassing accents and cringeworthy moments were brought up a little by other parts of the episode. It wasn't Jonathan Frakes' finest moment as Director, but by the same token, he wasn't responsible for the writing, which has to carry the can when it comes to the ignominious story of Dr. Crusher (or 'Bev' as Deanna has never, ever called her before, that I can remember), falling for an apparent ghost from 1600s Scotland who happens to have an English accent (actually much better than Ned's Scottish one, or the governor's partial one, which strayed all over the place, sounding more Irish than anything else sometimes). Duncan Regehr made a great Bajoran farmer on 'DS9,' and he had the stature and bearing for an old-fashioned ghost-man, but he's never for an instant a sympathetic character, and was always going to be bad for Bev, so there's no room for mystery, except in how long it will take her to realise his true nature or intentions.

Although Frakes couldn't make a poor story good, he did bring his magic to bear in turning it into a beauty, cinematographically speaking - the opening is pristine, from the dress uniforms to the old-fashioned Scottish churchyard and the house; the roiling green effects of the planet; even that shot of the camera moving in front of the transparent screen in Engineering as Data and Geordi talk behind it and the warp core's illumination glides smoothly across the surface. There are even a couple of eerie moments, with Picard suddenly struck down after his warning to Beverly, or when Ronin inhabits her dead Grandmother's body and she sits up, eyes aflame with green, or Ronin's full-body launch at Beverly, phasered away in midair by her (after doing a Palpatine and force-lightning La Forge). The rain and the foreboding of the house created the mood, but it was the artificiality of certain points, such as Ned Quint, that stuck out and lost it an authenticity it might have worked better to achieve. For example, the time Ned enters her house and argues with Beverly over the lamp - a stranger barging in and brusquely threatening her in vague ways should have been the setup for the feel of horror the episode was attempting, but Ned's lack of menace makes Beverly look as if she's overreacting to the intrusion.

If that were the extent of the problems, it could still be a good episode, as authenticity and a strong atmosphere aren't the be-all and end-all. Regrettably, things get worse thanks to the girly chats Crusher has with Troi, going all gooey over this mystery man she's 'met.' I suppose we can be grateful they weren't wearing gymnastic outfits and touching their toes at the time, but even so… I wouldn't have thought Ten Forward the best place for private conversations, (where some of them take place), especially with Guinan a member of a listening race, but she wasn't in the episode so Crusher wasn't going to have a problem with that. They could have gone down a more justifiable path for her with Picard, but the episode returns to the earlier seasons of us never knowing whether it was her attachment to duty or attachment to Picard that began her breaking off from Ronin's influence. It was disturbing to see her acting like an addict when she's away from Ronin, and clearly she wasn't behaving normally to hand in her notice and head off - don't they have to give some notice? Why didn't her friends stop her? I'm sure they would have if they'd known, but by then it might have been too late.

To see such an old terraformed colony added some history to the science, this having been achieved a hundred years before - why, Kirk could have visited the planet himself! I didn't buy the story of the colonists who founded the place taking stones from actual Scotland and rebuilding there as I don't think the Scottish people would have been happy for their ancient buildings to be taken away - they also wouldn't have been happy to be called Scotch, as the governor does, but as Picard notes, he's evidently not Scottish himself! Michael Keenan would go on to better roles in 'DS9' and 'Voyager.' An appropriate use of the Transporter was to beam Felisa Howard's coffin out of the ground, but less wise was it to rematerialise it directly on top - the soil would have caved in, surely? Hearing more about Beverly's past was one idea that worked and added the episode to the tally of Season 7's family theme, but poor Beverly deserved much better than this. Not quite a shameful effort that everyone involved with should bow their heads over, but neither is it a ringing endorsement in the argument that Season 8 should have gone ahead.

**

Homeward

DVD, TNG S7 (Homeward)

The theme of family continued to resonate through the final season with a story featuring Worf's adopted brother Nikolai Rozhenko. Why he was allowed to operate an observation post for Starfleet when he couldn't stay in the organisation is something to think about, and doesn't make all that much sense, except that once there he became engaged to one of the women there. He certainly kept that aspect of his work secret. He was a forceful personality, a big character, just as his parents were shown to be ("I hev all the skeematics!"), and getting to know him allows us a further peek into Worf's troubled childhood, another part of him that he rarely discusses, not that he discusses much of anything about himself, or in general, really! I like that chubby old Nikolai never thought about consequences, just the people and what they meant to him, even squaring up to a Klingon who could probably have beaten him soundly. I didn't buy that Worf was not a wild child compared to Nikolai, but maybe his brother was compensating for having a powerful alien in the family as they grew up?

Prime Directive stories usually tick the box of being a thought exercise, but this one goes off on other rich tangents too, becoming as much about Vorin and his reaction to the unveiling of the secrets of the universe, or many levels up from his primitive existence; and the anger Worf feels at the dishonour Nikolai brings on them. But first, a discussion: was it right for Nikolai to save the people? And on the other side of the quandary, was it right for Picard and crew to let them perish? It's the age old question, and it has been shown time and again that interfering in another species' culture brings rack and ruin. Yet there can't be any more ruin than the complete annihilation of a species. Nikolai, even though he does something that in the end seems right, was still playing God by selecting that village and those people, because he had a connection to them, a personal one at that, and couldn't save the other occupants of the planet. So he selectively saved whom he chose to, and if you think about it, that's as wrong as letting them all die. Or is it?

It's a real conundrum, and that's why Starfleet came up with the Prime Directive - not to stop starship Captains from having to think, but to reduce the likelihood of them making a situation worse by interfering. Nikolai had already interfered, so you could say part of the 'damage' had been done, though he hadn't broken his cover. What about the baby? Granted, the Boraalans had no technology to make judgements on the DNA of a child, but if the baby had enough humanity he might look different. It could be explained away (and Nikolai of all people had the gift of the gab), but what of the distant future when Boraalans made it to space flights and first contacts and the ability to spot alien DNA in their bodies? Then again, if he hadn't saved the village there would have been no future. I wonder if Picard was secretly relieved that the decision had been taken from him. It was a terrible moment for him and the crew to have to stand silently, duty-bound to allow the Boraalan race to die - the harsh reality of the Prime Directive. Once there was no alternative, he was going to do whatever he could to help those people.

The question remains, what was their alternative? It doesn't seem fair that a race should die out when it could be saved, but at the destruction of its culture, beliefs and way of life? Picard had plenty of experience with these situations, just look at 'Who Watches The Watchers?' and the later 'Star Trek: Insurrection,' but if there had been no forced relocation and the people had found themselves in the Holodeck grid, could their minds have taken the shock? We seem to see the answer in Vorin's solution to his agony of choice: he decides not to choose whether to go back to his people carrying the knowledge he accidentally discovered, or to stay and make a new life beyond his comprehension. He kills himself. This suggests the other Boraalans would have done the same, but not necessarily. Yes, the old man who offers his daughter to Worf looks like he might have followed such a course, or become mentally unstable (though he was hale and hardy by the way he was clambering over rocks, or slings his backpack up to Worf!), but the younger ones might have come to accept it - Vorin might have been able to if he had had the whole community around him, experiencing the loss and confusion together. But the burden was too heavy for him to bear alone, and although he had a love of the past, his reason for continuing the chronicle, he didn't have the imagination to look to the future.

I liked the performance of Vorin, completely selling the terror and confusion of discovering a world beyond what he knows, but I just could not work out who he was until I went back and checked the name: a very young-looking Brian Markinson, more famous for his roles of Durst (and the Vidiian that steals his face) in 'Voyager,' and the eccentric Dr. Elias Giger in 'DS9.' It was because we don't see his bald head in this role so his most distinguishing feature was absent. It was the same for Worf: Michael Dorn gets to act almost entirely without prosthetics for the first time on Trek, not repeated, I think, until late in 'DS9' for 'Far Beyond The Stars,' and I'll bet he loved leaving the pasty forehead behind! He looked much younger without that and the wrinkled nose, yet retains the Worf attitude, so it works, even if early in the episode it seemed a bit of a jump for Picard to say he wants Worf to be surgically altered. Are Captains allowed to just summarily alter their crewmen's appearance; is it part of the job description? The other notable casting was Penny Johnson in her first Trek role as Jobara, Nikolai's wife. She would go on to greater acclaim (and much better hairstyling), in 'DS9' as freighter Captain Kasidy Yates. Her role in this is small and unimportant, but fun when compared with her later character.

The ending clears the air between Worf and his brother, who's forced to stay close to him just at the moment he doesn't want to be anywhere near him, and though Nikolai was a one-episode wonder, his character was strong enough that you felt you knew him and would like to see him again. But, as is generally the case on the series, this story was wrapped neatly, without even the potentially dramatic allowance for Vorin to remain with the crew. It's a happy ending, all the same, but I was surprised Nikolai allowed Worf to take the chronicle! It's a relic of the people, one of the few things they have left of their past life - though early in the episode Vorin takes a superior attitude to Worf's talk of keeping records through story and song passed down, it shows what can happen if you only have one copy of your precious chronicle - it can get lost or stolen– sorry, 'given away!' There were other niggles or nits to pick, the main one being that although the Boraalans were asleep the first time they were beamed up, at the end, they're fully cognisant, and even hidden in tents they must have been able to experience the de/materialisation process we saw Barclay go through in 'Realm of Fear.' Maybe they were too afraid of the storm to think much about the strange sensation sweeping over them?

I always thought that people could move around in the Holodeck as much as they wanted because the floor would be moving with each individual, and the computer could theoretically alter the way each person's vision interacted with the environment. So a person could be standing only a metre away, but the computer could erect a perspective in front of them (or even right over someone's eyeball, theoretically, at least in my mind), so they appeared to be much further away. This theory seems to be quashed by the mention in this episode that the people all need to stay together, though that could be put down to the malfunctioning equipment not at peak performance. Which is the same excuse I'm using for them showing the single-level set of Stellar Cartography, which is clearly nothing like the 'stellar' job they did on that location for 'Generations' - I say the 'real' room was under repair so they had to make do with the smaller room. And finally, what a musically profound episode, it really took flight - I usually like Trek music, but this was something special.

***

The Pegasus

DVD, TNG S7 (The Pegasus)

Some might say this episode has become sullied by its infamous connection with the controversial finale of 'Star Trek: Enterprise' in which we see Riker watch old holo-recordings of Archer and his crew to help him come to the decision of speaking up against his former Captain. I say that episode was a great ending to the last Trek series and eighteen years of continuous Trek on TV, and this episode should be proud of its association and that it was chosen as the linchpin for The End. As I watched I was trying to decide when Riker actually made his retreats to the Holodeck, and although that part was fabricated by the later series, it was most likely just before he went on the Away Mission with Pressman. A shame there weren't any scenes with Riker and Troi as there are in the later episode, but it was necessary to keep him isolated so the weight of the decision had time to percolate - saying that, I appreciated the addition of Troi into the story in 'Enterprise.'

Troi's role in this episode is to be kept away from the Admiral, because she'd soon be reporting to the Captain that "he's hiding something," and "Will's not telling us everything." Sometimes they needed to keep her out of the picture to serve the story, something always suffered by characters with special powers. So she's reduced to appearing in the teaser which to me crossed over the line that little bit too much into parody. You get the crude 'Captain Picard Day' sign, the children's creative attempts at representations of Picard, and best of all, Commander Riker doing an actual impression of his Captain, TO his Captain's face, IN FRONT of Troi, HOLDING a Picard doll! Then Picard has to explain to a stone-faced Admiral on the monitor what it's all about. Add to a dig at his Season 1 appearance, with the Ensign 'baby-face' dig, and the straight-faced reminder of the warp limit imposed since 'Force of Nature,' and it takes some gravity to keep the story from floating off into the clouds. It is funny, but Will's bordering on the insubordinate - I can't imagine Kira, Chakotay, Spock or T'Pol getting away with something like that, but Riker's cheeky personality allows him to, along with Picard's affable nature (he wouldn't have dared it in the early seasons!), but in fairness, the way the episode was to go for him, he needed a moment to enjoy himself.

Erik Pressman is another of those uppity Admirals that come aboard to cause tension in the air, thinking they know what's best because they've loosed themselves from the shackles of day to day life in The Big Chair (so why do they want to be in command of a starship again?), but this time it's personal, he being the former Captain of Riker's first ship, the Pegasus of the title. Insight into Will's past is released slowly, like a balloon being pumped up, most effective in a private moment between Picard and Pressman, when Riker becomes the ball to toss between them over differing ideas of command. Pressman wants blind loyalty, seeing himself as infallible where it matters, and Picard recognises he's not perfect and wants and needs people he can trust to be able to tell him when he's wrong. Picard is possibly the most balanced Captain we've ever met, but his willingness to test himself in that way is what keeps him balanced and what makes the Riker/Picard partnership working so well and so long. The talk of losing starships he and Pressman have, is poignant because he'd lost the Stargazer, and in a year, would lose his beloved Enterprise too.

After so many offers of promotion, it may be that this incident was what dried up support for giving Riker a ship of his own. Aside from repeated refusals to take command (we eventually learn in 'Generations' that he wants the Enterprise), his association with Pressman and the negative elements in Starfleet may have lost him some trust, though not all, as he'd get a command in the end. But if people were complaining that it was 'DS9' that subverted Roddenberry's clean universe with moral ambiguity, character conflict and bending rules, they should check this episode out: we have crooked leaders high up in the organisation, intent on Federation supremacy against the Romulans at all costs; Picard coming into angry conflict with Riker over keeping his mouth shut; Picard and his crew defying Pressman; and revelations over what the Federation might have done or could do, if pushed, something that would become a stronger theme in 'DS9,' admittedly (see 'Homefront' and 'Paradise Lost' for examples), but its all here. Maybe it was the influence of 'DS9' (then in its second season), and its multi-level approach to its roots that meant the 'TNG' writers felt they could play with such themes?

Riker's difficult dilemma of divided loyalty keeps us caring, even though much of the episode is talk, the only action, if action it can be called, in the Romulan presence hovering nearby in the asteroid field, the Enterprise bravely entering one, and the amazing shots of her cloaking with the phasing cloak and travelling through the solid rock to escape! Picard risks instant war by decloaking right in front of the Romulans, gambling they won't want to get into one if the Federation is open and honest about what happened. It must have worked because by Season 3 of 'DS9' the Romulans were actively sponsoring a cloaking device aboard a Federation starship, though only because it was in their interest. I think this may be the first time we see a dark-skinned Romulan, which tended to be pale, with a green or yellowish tinge to their skin, and this was shortly before Tuvok, the first black Vulcan on screen in 'Voyager,' about a year later. Was this a natural exploration of, and deepening of alien races, or was it intentional to get us used to the idea of other ethnicities in aliens, just as in humans? Coming so close before Tuvok, who must have been at least in the process of creation at this time, it would be fascinating to know their intentions.

Riker's troubles with his former Captain reminded me of O'Brien's with his (not to mention Wesley Crusher's similar part in a cover up), but unfortunately Pressman and his mission were sanctioned by Starfleet so things couldn't be solved by having Riker break into song when they were alone on the Pegasus! Pressman felt he was always in the right, one of those whose conscience allowed him to break the rules for the greater good as he sees it. All this cloak and dagger secrecy brings to mind Section 31. This kind of technology, banned by the Treaty of Algeron (a lovely reference to existing canon), with the Romulans, would be right up their dark alley, and Pressman admits he got information from an 'operative' high up in the Romulan government, so the question will always be, was Pressman a part of 31, or was his mission influenced by that secretive organisation that would have shared his goals of protecting the Federation in that way. I like that Picard stands up to the Admiral at the end, standing for openness and justice, exposing the shame for all to see. I so hoped he was going to sit down at Will's level when he visits him in the brig (presumably Pressman, being an Admiral, was confined to quarters), and he did, connecting fully with him again in that almost older brotherly way.

It was telling of the engrossing nature of the story that I only found myself wondering about the technical side of things once (or twice if you count seeing the USS Crazy Horse was yet another Excelsior-class ship!), when we see this incredible piece of tech, that can do so much, so easily unhooked in a few seconds and standing no taller than a child. When we see the Engineering section of the Pegasus (I wanted them to totter upon beam in thanks to the slanted deck, but the Transporter must have compensated for the incline), the central console looks like it could be the whole device, but then Pressman takes it out and it's so inconsequential (talking of which was that an iPad Picard was reading in his quarters, or a Kindle?), and then Geordi doesn't take long to connect it up to the Enterprise, technology which is newer (although Pressman does note that the Pegasus was used as part of the model for the Enterprise's systems), and there should have been more drama in Geordi's attempt at making the device work. There's a reason we don't see Geordi hard at work, calling up to the Captain to say they aren't going to get it ready before, I don't know, an imminent collapse of the asteroid occurs - it's because the actor, Levar Burton was directing. It's a credit to his unfussy style that I completely forgot about it, and just experienced the episode without a thought for the Director.

This is primarily about Riker, and how much he's changed during his Starfleet career. We know him, we know he's grown, but its evident that it wasn't just the beard. He's come to be more independent after his early 'Harry Kim' days - hard to imagine the great Riker ever being worried about 'pushing the wrong button' or letting his Captain down, but his confidence and judgement are what drew Picard to choose him in the first place. It's so good to hear about a character's backstory, and even to meet people from his past, like an old Head teacher suddenly appearing in your workplace. I bet Jonathan Frakes couldn't have pulled off the shirtless scene in sickbay in his revisit of the episode for 'These Are The Voyages…' - was he holding his stomach in?

***

Kara

DVD, Smallville S7 (Kara)

This is one that stretches from the plausible to the Smallvillian implausible, but just stays on the side of watchability. Oddly enough, it is the Kryptonian side that drew me in and made sense, while the other plots showed themselves to be pretty daft. I was gratified to learn my hazy knowledge of Superman's backstory was borne out and Kara was indeed his cousin, though I'd never heard of her Father (as Clark hadn't), Zor-el. It was totally believable that she'd been sent to follow Kal-el to Earth (for who knows what mission), had her ship crash underwater and stayed in suspended animation for the eighteen years since the meteor shower, only waking up thanks to the dam's destruction. Her bewilderment at the knowledge of Krypton's destruction that Clark fills in for her was true to the situation, and the two of them look to have a good deal of teaching to do about each other's cultures (he's already started explaining the power of super-hearing), which could make the character worthwhile. At least Clark won't be living on his own on the big old farm now.

To the implausible: a new Editor arrives at the Daily Planet (so no more Carrie Fisher after her one-off appearance), and purely for the sake of getting a character on the track she's supposed to take in the mythology, gives her a job. It niggled me that I didn't know the who the actor was as I recognised him, but it niggled even more that he just shows up and gets her to write a story! He, like Kara, looked so young, yet acts much older, so it was difficult to guess the ages. Lois looks a right idiot once again when she buys Clark's story of slipping on a rock and bumping her head - she must have felt the force thump into her when Kara knocks her flying for getting too close to the ship. On Kara's side, she's also a bit slow on the uptake, not realising Clark isn't human until later in the episode, despite thumping into him too!

It was too convenient that her ship was utterly 'eviscerated' (as the mysterious besuited man, who may or may not be working for the absent Lionel, said), as it meant the Kryptonian relations were on their own. Kara again shows her stupidity when, after sucking up the nuclear blast activated by the self-destruct, she returns to Clark's side and notes that her ship's gone. Well, duh! Then again, that's not the only time in the episode when the writing shows itself up - the majority of the teaser in which Clark and Lois are walking along looking at the dam's wreckage, is them explaining what they're doing there to each other. As if they'd only just met, and hadn't planned to go there, or driven there and been in complete silence throughout the journey! I know it's one of the vagaries of TV that sometimes you need to set a scene, but there are ways of doing it better than that! It just so happens that although the ship gets destroyed, an indestructible crystal containing vital Kryptonian information survived. Yet it wasn't on the floor when Kara absorbed the nuclear explosion, and the humans that took the ship hadn't managed to open it (unauthorised attempt at access activated the self-destruct), so how did the crystal exit the ship? Did it fall out during Kara's initial crash?

There are some odd moments that almost slip by, adding to the implausibility tally: Chloe talks as if her Wall of Weird stuff had been bad for her career and her new Editor is saying how she's lost her drive since leaving High School. If she failed to excite readers with articles about boring events is it any wonder, and she spent most of her time running around after Clark (or Jimmy), to be doing a proper job, so in some ways it's little wonder her career hasn't progressed! That's another point: Jimmy's supposedly (according to the credits), now a main character, but he (and Lionel in this episode) still hasn't appeared, even briefly. Is this part of a plot or was the actor not available for 'full time' work at the beginning of the season? You'd think he'd at least have been given a short, funny scene (as he used to get when a recurring character), to remind us who he is.

One of the craziest moments comes when Lex tracks Lana down and we learn how she faked her own death. Somehow she had time (without anyone seeing her), to manhandle a clone of herself (yes, that's a right, a clone!), into her car, and escape before the explosion went off. So Lex just happened to have a spare clone hanging around, which Lana somehow found, which was conveniently dead so she's not a murderer, and she got it out and took it to her car, and… ugh, it makes sense in the way that things generally make sense on this series, and that is, they don't, they just throw something together and hope we don't think too hard. Then, because she's apparently 'brilliant,' having learnt from the Luthor family, she laid a trail of breadcrumbs so Lex would come looking and she could shoot him. But Lex wants her to kill him, and she can't. Part of that was a nice scene, showing some real remorse from Lex, but then you can never trust him, so was it a put-on job, he knowing she could never pull the trigger? Either way we've now got two dead characters in the series. But Chloe's back at her job at the Daily Planet as if nothing had happened, so unless they're paying her cash in hand she must be classified alive after all. There goes one potential story arc. 'At least' we have the crystal to chase down - great, another 'we must find this thing' arc.

I guess the 'no tights, no flights' rule only ever applied to Clark, but it's reinforced like a slap in the face here where Clark has to watch his cousin fly around while he can't, for no known reason. He just can't. It looks like Kara's going to be causing Clark more trouble than she's worth. I'm not even talking about Jor-el's warning - she clearly shows she's not going to follow Clark's rules, and doesn't mind anyone knowing what she can do or who she is. That should give Lex have no trouble finding her, which I'm sure will greatly relieve his latest hired help, since it was going to be a tough job to find a woman from Lex' illustration, as dramatic as it was. As long as he investigates Clark (I imagine he always investigates Clark as a matter of course), he'll be hooking up with his 'angel' in no time.

I liked the meeting of two other sci-fi series' with this one: James L. Conway directed many episodes of the various 'Star Trek' series' (and did a good job with this one), and the actor better known as slimy ex-NID agent Mayborn from 'Stargate SG-1' shows up as Lex Luthor's slimy lawyer. Does he only play slimy characters? I'm not going to slate this episode, because I'm still getting into the season, and I found enough to interest me with the Kryptonian backstory that it wasn't bad. Clunky, yes, but even ridiculous moments like Lex meeting up with Lana had their own charm, but I'm not expecting much from this 'Kara and her crystal' arc as I can already imagine what she's going to be like. Hope I'm proved wrong, but I've heard negative impressions of this season, so don't expect to be impressed.

***

Anomaly

DVD, Enterprise S3 (Anomaly)

Another confident entry into the new 'Enterprise' that succeeds in continuing the pressure placed upon the crew that began in the season opener. Maybe not quite as hard-nosed, action-packed thrilling as the first part, but it's up there, close behind! Not only do we get a Landing Party shuttling over to an alien spacecraft left drifting (shades of 'Fight or Flight' again), we also experience the crew almost becoming used to the anomalies as a way of life, tossing them around, whipping their food and drink up in the air like a magician's irritating trick, and even launching like a mini tidal wave through the NX-01, sending crewmen sprawling in some of the best CGI of the series so far! If that wasn't enough to contend with, add a pinch of raiders (remember 'Voyager' episode 'The Void'? Maybe they should start trying to ally with those they meet?); a dash of thieving throughout the ship, and Archer already taking things further than is comfortable, and you have a packed episode.

Once again the music is militaristic and dramatic, drum beats and a thrumming of tension, running hand in hand with the confident direction - there are so many great shots, and the camera rarely stands still. Not in an annoying shaky-cam way, but a vital, energised kinetic style that continues to demonstrate the difference between old 'Enterprise' and new 'Star Trek: Enterprise' in strong fashion. Space is properly seen as three-dimensional, with less of a 2D plane for ships to run along, and a dynamic roiling to space-borne scenes, such as the ship to ship battle at the end in which the Osaarians use the Sphere's cloaking field to come in all guns blazing at the NX-01. We see the shuttlepod gracefully arc in space to dock, and the camera floats slowly as Archer and his team enter an alien ship, using magnetic boots to prevent floating in zero gravity, something we don't see enough of on Trek due to the expense. Here we see bodies free of gravity plating, objects casually hanging in mid-air, but thanks to the anomalies this isn't something confined to zero-g, as Archer discovers when his coffee mug suddenly ejects itself from the table to hover smugly in front of the Captain.

Maybe it was this last straw that broke the Captain's back, and forced him to resort to tactics that are so unlike him. I talk, of course, about the torture he inflicts on his Osaarian captive. We know humans have a need to find out who attacked Earth in such a terrible way, and Archer and Trip are at the very forefront of this desire, but I felt it was early for the Captain to compromise his beliefs so much. I, like the captive, still don't believe he's quite ready to kill in cold blood, but he came very close to it. I needed a scene in which he shows some remorse, if even to himself, but no time was allotted, and even to the audience he remains the steadfast, now becoming almost unapproachable, leader. He redeems himself in a small way by letting his prisoner go, but what other choice did he have at that moment? He wasn't going to kill him, so the only alternative would have been to keep him in the brig for the rest of the journey - as the USS Voyager found, that was never a workable solution. Although Archer displays some of his personal abyss in this episode, he also shows he's still the Captain, and hasn't yet done anything that compromises his morals. I like that he retains his command presence among the MACOs even half-naked when dressing for the visit to the adrift ship -  a bit of a Kirk trait!

The MACOs prove their worth again, though I didn't understand the significance of the large backpacks they were doomed to lug round the corridors of Enterprise in the attack of the raiders. At first I was thinking 'where have the MACOs got to?' as the mystery aliens beamed away everything they could get their hands on. But Reed and his MACO friends were soon on the scene and fighting back, the backpacks perhaps to blame for them taking their time to get to the scene. The whole sequence was a fast frenzy of phaser battles and stunts (I loved Archer and the others sliding down the stair rail in Engineering!), but where was the Tactical Alert, I didn't hear a sound? On the subject of sound, I felt the pingpong-sized noises of the weapons in the fight didn't match the robust action on screen, but it's easily rationalised that weapons in the 22nd Century aren't as powerful as in later Treks.

The captured Osaarian didn't seem as tough as he looked in the initial raid, coming across as weary of his enforced life in the expanse. His anomaly-emblazoned face might have been better thought out, it looked fine in the short scenes we see of him as a marauder, but up close it wasn't textured enough, and his left eye showed no sign of damage. His real purpose, aside from provoking Archer into putting his morality on the line for the greater good, was to provide an ominous warning of the NX-01's situation: he says that once you're in the Expanse you can't get out. The Osaarians themselves are a sign of what the Enterprise crew could turn into if they truly were to lose all moral direction, something that really should have been played up in response to the Captain's actions with the airlock.

Another thing that hasn't had a lot of use so far is the Transporter, but we see it in action here to return some of the stolen goods. The big news of the episode is the first appearance of a Sphere, something that would become an integral part of the season, though here its use only goes as far as being a hideout for the pirates. The vastness dwarfs Enterprise (I wanted them to say "that's no moon"), and reminded me of the Dyson Sphere from 'TNG' episode 'Relics.' Was it too easy for them to get inside? Maybe, but it provided another place to creep around, though this time there was no one home, not even dead aliens. There were some stem bolts which led me to the obvious question (if you've seen 'DS9'): were they self-sealing? Zefram Cochrane gets a namecheck, and this is the first appearance of the brig, a necessary addition if they were going to be dealing with the likes of Osaarians and whatever those miners were in the first episode.

The episode doesn't work quite as neatly as 'The Xindi,' mainly because it doesn't have the character scenes that work so well - T'Pol comes into minor conflict with Archer, but only to a point, it's more a minor ripple of discontent. Travis gets to prise himself from the helm chair for a change, and it's good to see him used, but as usual he doesn't have anything worthwhile to do, he just tags along. I suppose they had to let him off the bridge occasionally… We see Trip at work in the engine room this time, and his insomnia comes up again with the doc (who's noticeably lost weight - must be the worry of this new mission, or the loss of half the food stores to the raiders!), but he claims he doesn't have time to spare an hour with T'Pol each night. If he's not sleeping it's surely better for him to do something constructive that's going to help him sleep than be laying awake, but in reality he was just covering for his discomfort at her neuropressure sessions, I think. Continuing a pretty strong beginning for Season 3, the story remains active rather than passive, and jolts along pleasingly.

***

Terror On The Docks

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S1 (Terror On The Docks)

Not a bad story, not one of the best, but it had elements about it, particularly regarding the partnership of S&H, who are at their jokey best, my favourite moment being the scene after the fight on the docks (one of the better fights so far in the series, though Starsky's stunt double was clearly visible in a shot or two), where Starsky braves the cold sea thinking Hutch might have gone down. It's a typical thing for one of them to do for the other, and it's also typical that one ends up looking silly - Hutch had already got out, and it's much to Starsky's displeasure that he ends up being the one with a cold, though it gives him reason to wear the thick, knitted jacket he wore in the pilot, and for Huggy to pop over to Hutch's place with broth - Hug hasn't been needed so much because episodes have been focusing less on the seedy side of the city, Huggy's speciality. This one features busy docks, offices and a church, with only the rundown sinister dwelling of the charlatan Ezra Beame to bring the tone down. I wonder if that was included, with all his pagan paraphernalia, to 'balance out' the positive church view we get? The opening is great fun, with the jolly, rosy-cheeked Father one of the only characters who could fall into the quirky list, along with his opposite number, Ezra, both chubby little round-faced figures!

Most of the action is with hardened criminals or if we do see others, they're either Nancy, an ordinary girl, or Mr. Banks, Father of Ted, who's murdered cold-bloodedly by Billy. The actor that played the Dad was clearly accomplished, seeing how much he wrings out of his only scene, making the episode more affecting, as it is when S&H get an earful from an angry Nancy after confronting Billy in his den. She's another of those people Starsky or Hutch knew years ago and only recently have come into contact with again in time to foil some nefarious plot by those around them, but I'd probably award this with being the first in that category. The episode also falls much more into a category of reality, with serious crooks out doing serious violence, though Billy is a tough one to pin down. He's happy to manipulate Nancy, yet doesn't seem all that intelligent. He's happy to 'burn' anyone he feels like, yet doesn't take obvious enjoyment from it. Maybe he feels the power over people, and with a stronger performance we might have had a worthier villain to go up against S&H, but he comes across as a daring sort that's been fairly fortunate so far - he even pulls off his mask whenever he jumps in a car!

If Billy was unconvincing in his position, he makes Nancy look rather stupid, she not realising he's been pumping her for information. She seems like a nice, ordinary girl, yet she's been so easily used. Perhaps it was having her Catholic Mother around so much, who was rather a force to be reckoned with? S&H should have realised Billy was bad news thanks to his slapdash ways - arriving late, littering with his gum wrappers. Other people who looked stupid in this episode: the police guy that was watching the gang at work - he's running around close to them speaking on his radio and doesn't expect anyone to spot him in broad daylight? Actually that's another point: there wasn't much terror on the docks, and maybe if it had been filmed at night there would have been, though night filming was probably expensive and difficult to make work on film. The other person left looking stupid was the masked guy that goes to grab a box which Billy then tells to leave. It looks from the weight of it that it's empty, so he wasn't going to get any Japanese cameras from that.

There are a few action moments that aren't done badly (not including the halfhearted attempt to run S&H over with Ted's van - why was he so eager to speak to them after he'd done that?). As well as the fight on the docks, we have Billy exiting down the outside of a building and shooting at Starsky, Hutch chasing him at the end, and a shootout in Beame's house (I was also expecting a bit of a punch up after Starsky overturned the poker table, but they were wise enough not to go for it). The house looked like a familiar location, so they may have returned to film there again. No wonder, as it seemed to have magical properties. Not the cult stuff - the inside appeared bigger and longer with its hall, than the outside, which appeared square.

Not a lot of the usual tropes of the series, no running jokes, but there were references: actors Vincent Price (I'd heard of), and Gene Autry (I hadn't heard of), though they never actually named a Western or the film about the elephants being shipped over. Nancy's Mum got in a mention of the Three Stooges, who were a comedy team that made films. And look out for a rare chance to see another Gran Torino - Billy's partner in crime drives a burgundy one which has the name clearly stamped on the side in one early shot. I would also mention Kenneth Tobey as Wilkins, the guy who's docks are full of terror - he was in a lot of films, including westerns (and an episode of 'DS9'), though sadly he wasn't in the scene where Starsky talks about the genre. Not quite there as a full episode, but one of the more promising entries in Season 1.

**

Parallels

DVD, TNG S7 (Parallels)

For a story by Brannon Braga this is remarkably restrained in the fright factor, the weirdness quotient rising almost imperceptibly until we see actual changes that can't be explained away by a knock on Worf's head in a Bat'leth tournament. It's a mystery, but doesn't have the power to shock of similar tales, such as 'Frame of Mind' from last season. This features a gradual progression, which came across as a little bit of treading water, and, dare I say it, maybe even wasting some good time. If the story were remade today I expect we'd have got to the screaming Riker from a universe overrun by the Borg in the first act, and much more exploration of the parallels of the title might have been allowed. But it's best to judge episodes against the time they were made, and though this isn't a rollicking ride, it has its moments - many little nods (or bigger ones: Wesley's back!), and some fun at Worf's expense - for him it's mostly a headache!

For trivia, this episode could be a contender for squeezing most references into one episode. Although the alternate realities we see are mostly only glances into possible futures, they show some major changes, whether that be Geordi's death, Crusher's absence (this would have been an ideal point to bring back Dr. Pulaski, although it was fun to see 'Dr.' Ogawa!), the Bajorans as aggressors, and most chillingly, the Borg having assimilated every part of their galaxy - it was almost a kindness to blow up that bearded Riker's Enterprise. One of the big things that's barely even glimpsed, and will no doubt stand out much more in the Blu-Ray release, was a Cardassian Starfleet officer at conn. We'd already been shown a Ferengi at that station in a previous alternate reality episode, so why not? Whatever next, Borg characters joining a 'Star Trek' series?(!)

Having Wil Wheaton back as Wesley Crusher was a nice touch, though I'm glad this wasn't his final contribution to the series as it would have been a bit of a limp exit, especially after previous, legitimate visits had given him much more to do. It came across a bit like Tasha Yar appearing in 'Yesterday's Enterprise,' but without the same impact. His rank of Lieutenant was something to question: time being no different in the quantum universes, how had he gone from Academy to serving as an officer of the flagship in so short a time? Not that anything in parallel universes needs to be explained away, it can be chalked up to a shorter Academy program or a need to advance promising cadets to higher ranks quickly - if Jim Kirk could make Captain in the space of one film, this is nothing to make a song and dance about! On the subject of 'Star Trek XI,' this also long predated that film's transparent vertical consoles, so maybe they're all the rage in alternate realities?

Other questions could be about Picard not appearing to know Worf's age at his birthday party - as Captain you'd expect him to have the service records, including Date of Birth, of all his senior officers firmly in his brain, but he may have been having a little tease. I also wondered if Geordi's compromising position on the biobed in sickbay may have been a joke. In one reality he's fully covered, then in the shift to another, he's barely covered. Did Michael Dorn pull the sheet off or was it a serious point to show this is now a different reality? And the biggest question? Was Brannon Braga a proponent of Worf and Deanna's 'romance' or was he just trying to mess with our heads in the way he always loved doing with weird stuff? I can't imagine he was that bothered about future repercussions, but he certainly set the two characters on a strange path. Admittedly, it had been played up a few times before, probably in the episode mentioned here, 'Ethics,' when Worf thought he was going to die. He found solace in the thought that Deanna would be there for Alexander if he wasn't, and the boy created a new bond between them. I can't remember now if it was a real reality when Worf asked her to be… for want of the Klingon word, Godmother/Step-Sister, but it probably wasn't in the true universe. Maybe that's why he invited her to dinner at the end…

The episode is more enjoyable for the many trivia points than for being a gripping and original slice of (I want to say Klingon Chocolate Pie!), sci-fi action, so here are some other things I noticed: a rare mention of Worf's brother (not by name), when in one version of reality Kurn attended the Bat'leth tournament instead of Worf; an even rarer wide angle view of a Cardassian bridge on the viewscreen (perhaps the first, though they may have shown some of one in the pilot of 'DS9'); an image of Deep Space 5 (looking like a 'Star Trek II' spacedock); the first, and possibly only, image of Utopia Shipyards; Worf in red again (as he was in Season 1, and would be again in 'DS9' Season 4); and the return of the turquoise dress Troi used to wear - maybe she didn't look professional enough so they banished it? I should also mention the excellent effects work, which we can watch now and not blink an eye at, but which must have been mind-blowing at the time, what with Enterprises as far as the eye could see into the horizon and multiple Worf's merging in the shuttle. Though the less said about Data's Impressionist period, the better.

***