From: rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu (Michael Rawdon)
Subject: TNG Grade Report: "The Quality Of Life"
Reply-To: rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu
Organization: University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Dept., Madison, WI
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 06:32:36 GMT

Spoilers for the TNG episode "The Quality Of Life"...

Hmm... now TNG's repeating itself.

"The Quality Of Life" had a title reminiscent of "The Cost Of Living", a guest
star reminiscent of Leah Brahms from "Booby Trap" and "Galaxy's  Child", and a
plot that seemed to have been drawn from "Evolution".

The guest star, Dr.  Farallon, seemed  to  be as  irritable  as Brahms was  in
"Galaxy's Child", though  her personality seemed  to flip-flop  all  over  the
place at times, from being pleasant to being annoyed.  Which might have worked
except that I was unimpressed with the actress  playing her.  She seemed to be
reading her lines from a prompter, and didn't really put much passion into the
character.  At  least, none that  I  could really  believe  in.  All  of which
really hurt the  episode because her character  was  so pivotal  to the events
being handled.

On the other  end, we've  seen all  this "tools evolving   into living beings"
stuff before, and it's not new here.  In fact, really, NONE of it is new here.
We pretty much saw ALL of the relevant "are  they or aren't they alive?" stuff
in "Home Soil" and "Evolution", so the plot really seemed to be rote.

Which left the Data aspect of the story as the only really new and interesting
piece of  the story.  And,  well,  frankly, it could have   been better.  This
struck me as one of Spiner's more lackluster performances, and his debate with
Riker seemed a little too pat (to say nothing of  the solution being  a little
too obvious).  Though  I  found it interesting  that they  decided even  after
saving the particle fountain not to use the exocomps as workers anymore.  What
if the  exocomps  *want* to  be used as workers?   After  all, that's how they
learn!  A little more thought was needed there.

Finally, the technobabble reached a plateau here  where I just could deal with
all  the pseudoscience being spewed during  the first  twenty minutes.  Mercy,
please!

I actually thought that the best bit in the episode was the opening card game,
where Dr.  Crusher  had one of  her  best  character bits in  some time.  (She
really is quite good at playing the imp, isn't she?)

Overall, this  episode really was  nothing new, and so it  leaves me without a
whole lot  to say.  We've  seen it all before,   really.   Even Data's concern
about the exocomps has been shown to some degree in "The Measure Of A Man" and
"The Offspring".  It's not really an awful story, but it doesn't  give me much
to jump up and down about.  Just  a straight science/ethics story.  This might
have been a more interesting episode back in the first or second season.  Here
in the sixth, it's just "ho-hum; not this *again*?"

Grade: C+

SEASON SIX AT A GLANCE:
Time's Arrow II: B-
Realm Of Fear: C
Man Of The People: C
Relics: B+
Schisms: B-
True Q: D-
Rascals: D+
A Fistful Of Datas: B
The Quality Of Life: C+
---
Total Points: 20
Season Average: 2.222 (C+)
(Rise of 0.014 from last episode)

-- 
Michael Rawdon				 rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu
University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Department, Madison, WI

"Dear Michael,
     There is a man who occasionally posts to the politics groups who
 currently believes the government is being run by alien life forms in
 disguise and that the CIA and FBI are Nazi groups in disguise.  This is
 also the same man who held up David Horowitz on the Los Angeles news one
 night in the mid-80s and ordered him to read a statement to this effect.
     Given the fact that you believe 'The Naked Now' to be better than any
 [TNG] episode so far this season, I am beginning to wonder if I should hook
 you two up.  You could have some fascinating conversations together I'm sure."
		- Steven K. Manfred (ph9991_manfr@rivers.acc.uwrf.edu)
		  making an impenetrable point to me on
		  rec.arts.startrek.current, 8 November 1992