Blogging Trek Lit: Death in Winter (TNG 1)

A quick introduction to this series of posts: I have two distinct "first" memories of the Star Trek literature universe from childhood. I can still see and smell the tobacco-stained TNG paperbacks my dad read and piled under the nightstand next to my parents' bed. I don't remember ever seeing him reading one of these breezy adventures, nor do I remember ever picking up one of them myself. But I can still picture the cover of TNG #29, Sins of Commission, with a Ferengi Marauder flanked by Riker and Worf's renderings. I always found these covers interesting, as if I could recreate a new story based on the familiar characters and mysterious elements on each cover.

My other memory of the literature came when I was in sixth grade. For one week in March, all sixth graders in Ohio were required to take the state proficiency tests--key word, "proficiency." With the underwhelming goal of merely demonstrating proficiency, I found myself with hours of extra time to kill on the first day of testing. That night, I told my mom I would need to bring in a book to read while the required time was allowed to expire, so she took me to the bookstore. I eventually chose The Way of the Warrior, a novelization of a DS9 episode. I'm guessing I was sold by the cover art of a Klingon attack cruiser (Vor'cha class, I presume) firing on the U.S.S. Defiant.

But at some point in the past decade or two, the Star Trek franchise committed the same mistake as that of my other childhood passion, sports cards. Originally, Star Trek literature, like sports trading cards, came in a few, tidy series, rarely crossing over or complicating. Just as TOS, TNG, and DS9 ran in distinct paths, Topps, Upper Deck, and Donruss made an annual series for each sport that could realistically be completed. Eventually the industry saw opportunities to target more distinct segments in each market, and as a result, there were dozens of series that left the casual hobbyist overwhelmed.

And yet, I still love the characters and universe of Star Trek more than any other fictionalization (and probably most of the real) world. I met Jean-Luc Picard in very formative years of my life, and to this day, I find more to admire in his professionalism and personal ethics than I probably should. I cannot think of a single show I would be more excited to find more episodes of than my beloved TNG.

Therefore, I have decided to leap into the franchise's literature series, attempting to place the dizzying collection of arcs since Nemesis into some logical order. I am starting with this very helpful flowchart as my guide, and I will read and review the TNG and DS9-related post-Nemesis or "Relaunch" fiction. This will of course include the Titan series, where Commander Riker finally gets his first command.

Lastly, my reviews of the stories will assume deep knowledge of the characters. The writers of these novels assume their audience is fans, so I am reacting to each novel as if it were an episode in a series. In addition to my thoughts on the story itself, I will also try to address its context in the increasingly complex Star Trek lit universe by placing it on a growing diagram of the stories. If anyone has hesitated to pick back up with these beloved characters because the novels seem so difficult to attack in any order, I hope these posts encourage you to boldly go.

---
TNG Post-Nemesis 1, Death in Winter
Or Romulan Ails, on the Rocks


If there's one thing Michael Jan Friedman wants you to know, it's that Jean-Luc Picard is bummed. Throughout Death in Winter, from its very title to its climax, we are reminded that the old crew is no longer together to cover each others' backs. Riker and Troi have finally moved out of Picard's basement and into the U.S.S. Titan. Data, as you may recall, gave his life to save his crewmates' at the end of Nemesis. And Beverly Crusher, that ginger tease, has left Picard's Enterprise to become the head of Starfleet Medical on Earth.

And yet, the book is consistently bogged down to references to TNG episodes, as if the actual plot of this novel were an amalgamation of the Enterprise-D's greatest hits. "The Best of Both Worlds," "Chain of Command," and "Yesterday's Enterprise"--easily three of the most popular episodes in the series--are all alluded to at some point. The writers almost beg you to remember all the good times we had back when even though this novel marks a turning point in the series.

In a plot that is executed to average success, Crusher and then Picard are both forced to improvise as their undercover humanitarian missions crumble. And yet, the entire outcome hinges on Crusher identifying one of her alien cooperators by his coat in a driving snowstorm. Forget all of the rehashed allusions; if there is one TNG relic that felt most familiar, it was intergalactic deus ex machina.


I give Death in Winter something of a pass for its choppy narration, given the immense task of setting up a new canvas for future encounters from one graffitied by years of canon. The novel is clearly a new starting point for the franchise, knowing full-well that it will never again take TV or movie form. But where I cannot forgive Friedman is his conception of Jean-Leverly. In just a few horrific final pages, Friedman rewrites his hard-earned themes of change and metamorphasis with Crusher entering Picard's ready room like some bad romance novel.

I always appreciated the TV show's restraint in pairing Troi and Riker or Picard and Crusher as couples in the show's present day. Clearly either could have plausibly (and now have) happened, but the idea of two senior crew members being openly together drains credibility, especially when one is the captain. The appearance of "the boss and his woman" suggests a less professional operation, but probably more importantly, it's just not the kind of thing for which we come to Star Trek.

In all of its incarnations, the franchise is about independence and the spirit of discovery. For its various missteps early on, TNG always righted itself when it was concerned with "what's out there." As much as I love the characters, none of them really engendered my desire to see them personally gratified. For all of them, I primarily cared how they dealt with that nasty bitch called "the universe," romance be damned.

This is the novel where the reboot starts, and its most critical contributions are maintaining the commitment that certain characters really are never coming back. But it would have been nice if a grown-up story could have been told at the same time.


2.5 bars of gold-pressed latinum out of 5

Blogging DS9: S1E13, "The Storyteller"

S1E13: "The Storyteller"
Or, The Not-So-Petite Sirah

"You don't lose by saying, 'no.'"
-Varis

At various points in DS9, the overwhelmingly uninspired debate of "How do you keep a station in a fixed point interesting?" comes up. Aside from the fact that this is a blindly superficial, one-off, knee-jerk critique, "The Storyteller" demonstrates how the Deep Space Nine crew can boldly go while still boldly going nowhere.

The episode weaves together two stories of diplomatic change and uncertainty. Bashir and O'Brien find themselves in a Bajoran village at the death of the local protector, called the Sirah. Meanwhile, back on the station Sisko finds himself hosting a contentious negotiation between two peoples disputing land rights after the shifting of a river.  Of greater focus, though, is Varis, the daughter and young leader tasked with the new responsibility of protecting her people's interests.

The Bajor story arc is artfully, if not Star Trek-predictably, done. Bashir and O'Brien, representing the intellectual and mechanical expertise of Starfleet, quickly realize their book-learnin' is ill-equipped to handle the supernatural Dal'Rok that threatens the village. Other series in the franchise, and this series later down the road, spend plenty of time juggling the core quandry of a technological era: What is the role of our anecdotal culture in the face of science's mounting power. After all, let's not forget Dr. Soong's famous androids are named Data and Lore.

While the execution of the arc takes a familiar pattern of Starfleet unintentionally overstepping its boundaries only to find a local deus ex machina, the statement is clear. O'Brien, the whiz of engineering, is never comfortable in his new position of idolation, and long-term implications aside, we never believe this is a permanent solution. The final reveal that the apprentice Sirah was always intended to overcome O'Brien's initial success makes a bold statement. Our newest gadgets and wonders may serve us well at first, but in times of crisis, we will find ourselves falling back on tradition.

In the B-arc, the message of accepting great responsibilities we might not have asked for is amplified. Much like Sisko's command of a far-flung outpost turned into a powerful throne, Varis ascent to lead her people came rapidly and without training wheels. While I never quite accepted that Jake and Nog could gain access so easily to a visiting dignitary, their mischeiviousness is paid off in this episode and we get our first whiffs of the duo's significance in main stories. I really liked that Varis gave Nog a kiss of thanks but not Jake. Was she supposed to kiss the commander's son in front of him? It would have been an easy way to wrap their relationship while sacrificing credibility. And once again, a tip of the hat to young Cirroc Lofton for some really strong work.

My other thoughts:

• Either the amount of DS9 I've seen after the first season or the amount of time since I've seen these episodes has dulled my memory of just how unlikable Bashir initially was. The final scene where Bashir changes his mind about O'Brien calling him by his first name showed that the writers wanted more than cringe-worthy scenes of Bashir's self-importance. These episodes are like when you introduce a friend who kind of rubs people the wrong way. "Look, he might be kind of abrasive at first, but something eventually happens where he mellows or maybe you just get used to it. But I swear, he's not always this bad."
• Bashir and O'Brien's runabout trip down to Bajor smacked of a bad car-trip movie, where eventually the cabin would have piles of spent Big Gulps and beef jerky packages all around. Given the date of the episode, David Spade and Chris Farley might have been initially cast.
• From a pure structure standpoint, this episode had a high degree of difficulty. In the first ten minutes, three different plot arcs are introduced. The A-arc on Bajor feels like it gets full billing, and the B- and C-stories of Varis and Jake and Nog are effectively woven together. This was much harder than they made it seem.

3.5 bars of gold-pressed latinum out of 5

Blogging DS9, S1E12: "Battle Lines"

S1E12: "Battle Lines"
Or Tu-Opaka Shakur

"In the eyes of the Prophets, we are all children."
-Kai Opaka

One of the richest parts of DS9 is its willingness to address religion, a subject only sparsely touched by its predecessors. "Battle Lines," while lacking in most other ways, at least advances the moral conflicts of the Bajorans as they keep their faith in a politically tumultuous time.

The episode itself is pretty weak in terms of plot (there is no B-arc), and even the big reveal that the moon's living dead were doomed to remain isn't all that surprising or gut-wrenching. But the redeeming moments come in the interactions between Kira and Opaka. Kira is as deep a character as the show offers, and nowhere is her baggage more obvious than in the presence of her religious idol.

Kira, the devout freedom fighter, comes to realize the peace that came with the end of the Cardassian Occupation is completely foreign to her. Opaka tells Kira to face her violent nature head-on and learn how to channel it. The writing is fairly grounded and worthy of praise, and the acting is adequate to not distract from the topics the writers isolated. Nana Visitor's dramatic change from a proud fighter to a sobbing child at the Kai's feet is a little over-the-top.

It's hard for me to effectively determine whether the Kai's gravity is effectively expressed given my extended knowledge of the series. In reviewing these posts, it seems to me that 12 episodes into the series, the Kai should have been developed a little more before she is essentially killed off. Odo and others make a point of telling us how important Opaka is to the Bajorans, but being shown rather than told would have been far more effective. Without giving away too much, the Kaiship is an extremely important position to the development of DS9 in its first few seasons, and focus on Opaka's succession almost retrospectively begs for a little more on the series' first Kai.

As for the Starfleeters? Ouch. O'Brien and Dax's turn as scientific one-uppers was a snoozer. As always, they threw around pseudo-science and came up with some frontier innovation to save the day. But you already knew that would happen. Sisko and Bashir clumsily plodded around in a war zone, though maybe there is some buried humor in both of their efforts ultimately failing. On this particular moon, they were hardly Picard and Dr. Crusher.

As for some other thoughts:

• The exit from the runabout made me chuckle. So somehow Opaka was knocked out cold, but the other three were almost unharmed. And even though Kira was wounded, she was still in good enough shape to lift the Kai out of the ship. 
• Many fictional problem-solvers use the innocuous-comment-as-inspiration crutch, including Gregory House and Sherlock Holmes. But Colm Meaney may have set a record, as he was barely halfway through "needle in a haystack" before he was into the physics of his solution to find the downed runabout. Look, I'm not asking for my shows to mirror everyday life. But could we only use this trick when it's clever or interesting and can the actor at least sell the moments of inspiration between thinking of the offhand comment and final genius?

2 bars of gold-pressed latinum out of 5

Blogging DS9, S1E11: "Vortex"

S1E11: "Vortex"
Or Shapeshift Happens

"Drop your suspicious nature for a minute, changeling."
-Croden

Odo's origin is a story that comes and goes throughout the course of DS9, and "Vortex" gives the first, albeit frustratingly hollow, look at this thread. In fact, knowing how fundamental Odo's background is to the later structure of the DS9 story, "Vortex" is comically teasing.

Early in the episode, we are introduced to Croden through the dead-beyond-recognition Star Trek introductory horse I call "Unknown in Distress." His vessel comes through the wormhole damaged, it looks like he has been through some kind of battle...stop me when this sounds familiar. If prospective command officers are not majoring at Starfleet Academy in how to handle these situations, the school should be disbanded. (For example, see http://tangentiallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/11/blogging-ds9-s1e5-captive-pursuit.html)

The rest of the episode plays out rather formulaically, as Croden is held captive, his guilt is discovered to be dubious, and Odo violates the spirit, if not the letter, of direct orders. The shapeshifting locket with which Croden lures Odo turns out to be a key to the stasis chamber that holds his daughter. Odo and Croden use runabout maneuvers nobody else has thought of and, voila!, Croden and his daughter find freedom and Odo stays alive.

Aside from the disappointingly predictable storytelling mechanisms, the reveal that Croden was bluffing Odo about how much he knew of the origin of shapeshifters was teasingly disappointing, even for a series churning out procedural episodes as DS9 did in its early days. While giving away a potentially major (and eventually major) background secret as early as the eleventh episode would have been slutty writing, the reveal here was cruelly prude.

Maybe "Vortex" just stoked our appetite for Odo's origin story more, but at the end of the hour, we are left with galaxy-class blue balls.

A few other thoughts:

• As a Terran blessed and cursed with a heavy beard, it was refreshing to see Croden rocking three Earth-day stubble. I know the makeup department in the Star Trek series has a lot on its hands, but is the rest of the galaxy really Scandinavian smooth?
• I was and am often hesitant in this series to accept Odo being affected by humanoid injuries like a blow to the head. I'll buy that he can react differently to a strike he sees coming versus one he does not, but it's not like he has a brain in a fixed location. If his human impression is flawed, as he admits about his ears and nose, I doubt his brain and nervous system are carbon copies.
• Odo's soliloquy to Croden's key at the episode was not as effective as the writers probably hoped. The constable is quick to avoid sentimentality, and while he does hold connection to his past incredibly dear (as we will continue to see), talking to a rock with an on-and-off position? That seemed outside of the character.

2 bars of gold-pressed latinum out of 5

Blogging DS9, S1E10: "The Nagus"

S1E10: "The Nagus"
Or The Guy's Got Brass Lobes

"I'm just not as greedy as I used to be."
-Nagus Zek

From a functional standpoint, "The Nagus" serves as an important introduction into previously under-explored Ferengi culture. And yet, in measures of soul, the episode is the rare Star Trek episode where the B-story dominates the overall impression.

"The Nagus" explores Ferengi traditions by introducing the swindler race's royalty along with several powerful hangers on. It is a hybrid snapshot of Game of Thrones crossed with Pawn Stars. Remember, the Ferengi were first introduced early in TNG as a laser-whipping primary adversary for the Picard-era Federation, displaying a level of military aggressiveness that always seemed at odds with their motivations. In events predating TNG, Picard's outgunned USS Stargazer outmaneuvered a Ferengi vessel with his oft-referenced Picard Maneuver which, if I knew the guy, I would be awfully sick of hearing about.

The arrival of the Grand Nagus and his court bridge this overly malevolent first impression and the more mischeavious behavior of Quark. Yes, the Ferengi are ruthless in business fora, but they surely prefer underhanded and less direct means of conflict than open combat. This nature is made clear by Zek's ruse to test his son's throne-worthiness.

Behind this fairly clever front-ring A-mystery, one of the series' best story lines further evolves, and as someone with knowledge of where the characters' development takes them, it is a relatively rewarding one. The episode's initial scenes show a growing distance between Commander Sisko and Jake, highlighting the loneliness each feels stationed on this distant outpost. But just as the elder Sisko's frustrations with his son's uncharacteristic insolence crescendos, we see the true nature of Jake Sisko. As it turns out, Jake has been staying out late and missing dates with his dad to tutor his Ferengi buddy Nog, whose father does not value education in his son's life.

The turn is a welcome one for a child role on a Star Trek series, and the look of pride Avery Brooks shows is probably the series' first lump-in-your-throat moment. See, TNG tried endlessly to explain questions of the crew's personal life that were never really addressed in TOS. Kirk, Spock, et al, were more archetype and less soul, and that nature served the time period the show aired in well, as America was figuring out how to deal with "others" (Soviets abroad, minorities at home). But those characters left viewers wanting something more substantial from the characters they grew to love.

One of the many questions about the Star Trek premise is how these crew members trek across the galaxy either without a family or never seeing it. Many TNG episodes tried to address this concern through a variety of avenues, some more successful than others. One that I always found among the least successful was Wesley Crusher.

Because this is not a TNG blog, I'll only touch on the writers' struggles with Wesley as a contrast for their success with Jake Sisko. Wesley was a brainy, weak stereotype used to bluntly address coming of age stories. Jake, on the other hand, demonstrates the ability to adapt you might expect of a Starfleet brat, separated from friends with every transfer his father made. The episodes up to "The Nagus" have several examples of the Federation and incumbent Deep Space Nine crew and residents being forced to work together for survival, but Jake's loyalty to Nog--and his devotion to keeping Nog's secret to his own detriment--is the first time we see true friendship between the groups.

And now for some more trivial thoughts:

• The threat of being "tossed out an airlock" comes up often on the station. But unlike the image of being "thrown overboard," the physical mechanics of actually doing it are hardly dramatic. We see an example of this as Rom tricks Quark into walking into the airlock before trapping him in there. Disappointingly, there is very little "tossing" or any other action going on.
• I will certainly have much more to say about the Ferengi in general as these reviews go on (including whether they are an anti-Semitic construct), but the writers clearly enjoy the "ears-as-testicles" biology of the race. At times, I find this very humorous, and at others, I find it way over the top and distractingly sophomoric.
• Yet another example of how far real world technology has come: The classroom, which we see with O'Brien substituting for his wife, is basically composed of a Smartboard and iPads, right? We made up the ground our 1993 imaginations thought would take about four centuries in less than two decades.
• Consider this a gift: After seeing more of the bright green and blue liquors in Quarks, I'm shocked there is not a line of Star Trek novelty liquors available in your local beverage store. Romulan ale, anyone?

4 bars of gold-pressed latinum out of 5

Blogging DS9, S1E9: "Move Along Home"

S1E9: "Move Along Home"
Or The Ferengi's Pawns

"Is it against Starfleet policy to press a few buttons?"
-Constable Odo

I have to start by stating that "Move Along Home" is the DS9 episode I remember more than any other. Perhaps it was the striking visuals or maybe the conceit of a role playing board game, but regardless, I remembered nearly every turn of the episode. And somehow, my memory did not do its quality justice.

"Move Along Home" manages to leverage the great freedoms of the Star Trek series while breaking away from its older sister's shadow. After all, this is the franchise that had Captain Kirk nailing bright green women and Picard commanding staff from multiple bright blue species. Both the Wadi themselves and the game the four Starfleeters are thrown into are colorful and eye-catching. The decision to build a set where the halls and rooms seem to have the same architecture yet accommodate wildly different twists was very clever, and the overhead shot of Sisko in the triangular room was really well conceived.

Furthermore, the opening scene where the Wadi are far more interested in getting to Quark's than first contact is a refreshing acknowledgment that yes, these overly grown-up Federation types are a bit stiff, and no, the universe is not a study in etiquette. To this point, we have already seen different new races come through the Wormhole, and the writers' choice to demonstrate that not all of them share the same value platform greatly widens their range of future offerings.

And yet, this episode could easily have slid into a TNG rescue-mission pattern. When Odo boarded the Wadi vessel looking for the game's source, it felt like a typical Star Trek resolution where a perfect technological solution saves the day. So you can imagine how surprising it was to see Odo enter that shining doorway, only to reappear in Quark's.

In fact, if I had to criticize this episode in anyway, I would accuse the writers of trying to get too much into their 46 minutes. Quark seemed to realize that the four pieces represented the four missing officers too quickly, and I would have loved to have seen Kira, Dax, and Sisko struggle over losing Bashir a little longer. By the time they sang the rhyme of the hopscotch girl and realized they were playing a game, the episode was half over.

My other quick thoughts:

• I remember my dad used to be disgusted by the Starfleet dress uniform of this era. I used to think the idea of having a dress uniform with some gold scrawl on the lower collar was very cool, but now I agree with my dad: It just looks like a man wearing a dress.
• There are a few tricks the Star Trek writers rely on with comical frequency across the series, such as the tendency of the unknown ensign to be killed on away missions (Family Guy nailed this with the Ensign Ricci aside). Another is how it seems every important conversation a senior officer has is interrupted by the bridge, and Sisko's birds-and-bees talk with Jake is no exception. I know the writers needed a mechanism for Jake to bring his dad's absence to Odo's attention, but I think the station commander's son and chief of security would probably figure out he was missing soon enough.
• Give a lot of credit to the four actors in the game for their work on the rhyme/hopscotch scene. First, Kira and Bashir have to do the always awkward force field shock reaction. But then each of them has to sing the rhyme and complete the sequence, and I think each did an admirable job. The best was Avery Brooks' take on it. The obvious way for an overtly intense Starfleet commander to sing in front of three of his officers would be wrought with embarrassment and discomfort, but Brooks owned it with an enthusiastic New Orleans spin that felt completely believable.

4.5 bars of gold-pressed latinum out of 5

Blogging DS9, S1E8: "The Passenger"

S1E8: "The Passenger"
Or The Tragedy of Dirty Fingernails

"It's hard to keep secrets in a place like this."
-Commander Sisko

Sisko's warning to newly arrived Lieutenant Primmin is a coy wink from "The Passenger"'s writers and a clever nod to how important events that happen on the station and in front of our own viewing eyes can be. In this episode, which uses the single-episode-mystery-arc formula often successful across the series, the DS9 writers show a level of nuance missing from many of the first season's heavy-handed introductions.

Although "The Passenger" yet again eschews any secondary plot arcs in developing the primary story, it smoothly transitions from a whodunit first half into a relatively climactic second half, punctuated by a classic Star Trek in-the-nick-of-time solution. The beginning stage is incredibly effective, as the writers show in the enough information before the credits to know all along what the episode's big reveal turns out to be.  It is a classic example of how a twist can be hidden in plain sight by deft writing.

If there is one flaw with the alien consciousness hiding within Bashir, it is that a) The Star Trek franchise uses mental invasion very frequently b) the rules of this mechanism have never been clear to me. I understand Rao Vantika hiding within the unused part of Bashir's brain like dormant malware, waiting to spring to action. But if this kind of cerebral attack is as common as DS9 and TNG make it seem, I imagine the Federation would have taken more preventative action against it. You can't have senior staff members who possess vital passcodes and secrets being neurologically hijacked this often. With that said, "The Passenger" is one of the franchise's more successful uses of this mechanism, and Siddig El Fadil deserves a solid B for depicting the shift in consciousness through menacingly plodding diction.

While this episode does not have a true secondary story, the introduction of Lieutenant Primmin as chief Starfleet Security officer is noteworthy at this point in the series. I admit, I barely remember Primmin from my first run viewing, and part of me was expecting the squeaky clean stranger to be caught up in the sinister plot. I can say with honesty that I do not remember exactly how long Primmin's role lasts on the show, though I can promise he does not stay long enough to leave a lasting impression on the show's development. In retrospect, I'm not quite sure what motivated the writers to introduce him. Yes, I guess on some practical level, Starfleet would want its own security presence on this new frontier, and the stodgy Primmin reads well as some kind of G-man trying to bring iron-fisted order to the Wild West. But like Dr. Pulaski before him, Primmin's insertion is both awkward to the lives of the characters, as well as the exposition itself. Only nine hours into the series, we still have not seen a Kira-centric episode, and only glimpses into the pasts of the Siskos, Quark, and Bashir. In this episode, Primmin comes across incredibly stiff (probably by choice, not poor acting) and not as a character I would want to see studied in depth. I say this with little memory of what lies ahead for the Lieutenant: He seems poised to be a piece of furniture that doesn't fit comfortably in any room.

My other quick thoughts:

• Dax finds a chip in the ship transporting Rao Vantika that contains a map, she declares with some suspense, of the humanoid brain! This is another "out there" piece of science that only 18 years later I have a hard time believing would still be a mystery in the 2300s.
• You noticed Bashir taking off the comm badge, right?
• This is hardly limited to Star Trek, but won't villains eventually figure out that giving the good guys time to make a decision is a recipe for disaster. Vantika gives Sisko and company "one minute to decide" whether to let him go or risk killing Bashir with him. The trend continues in "The Prisoner;" that one minute is enough time for Dax to recalibrate the tractor beam to attack Vantika's consciousness.
• On the other hand, I thought the trick at the end to use the transporter to remove the cells with Vantika's consciousness through a transporter was a slick idea. 

3 bars of gold-pressed latinum out of 5