From: ph9991_manfr@rivers.acc.uwrf.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Saturday Night Review - "Chain of Command Part II" SPOILERS!
Date: 26 Dec 92 20:03:51 -0600
Organization: University of Wisconsin - River Falls

And now, not at all live, from Ellsworth and River Falls, Wisconsin,
it's the Saturday Night Review!!!


SPOILERS ahead for "Chain of Command Part II"






SPOILERS!  -Do not cross the Cardassian border




Did this achieve anything?
Patrick Stewart may have achieved an Emmy nomination, but other than that,
did this episode actually achieve anything?  Not much that I can see.
I realize that an Emmy is no small hill of beans, but when I watch a show,
I primarily want to hear a story.  This one didn't seem to have much to tell.
I just can't get over the feeling that the whole thing was only set up as
an excuse to torture Picard.  (set-up by the Producers I mean)  
This would perhaps be fine if we were still pre-"Best of Both Worlds," but
we aren't.  We've seen this before, and we've seen this done much more
interestingly in that case, and more importantly, with a *science fiction*
spin on it.  This had virtually no science fiction in it at all!  That
little implant was about it as far as the torture went, and that was just
so that they could do nasty things to him without FCC-unfriendly blood and
gore.  The Cardassian invasion fleet stuff was also very poor s.f.  
Mines, ships hiding in the fog, etc.  All could just as easily have been in
an ocean on Earth somewhere.  
Is this "Star Trek: The Next Generation?"  Is this a science fiction series?
In the case of "Chain of Command," the answer is no, this wasn't science
fiction.  
I've got to say this again even though this is just repitition myself now:
This episode went absolutely nowhere!  Nowhere at all!  
Picard goes away, he gets captured and tortured, Picard comes back.  That
was it.  Sub-plot?  Jellicoe arrives, shakes everyone up, shakes too many
people up, realizes it, and makes up for it.  Cardassians make a sub-Romulan
incursion, they get discovered, they leave.  
That's about it folks.  There is no interesting story here, or at least no
story big enough to fill two episodes.  This certainly had no business being
a two-part story, and should have been one episode that we could be over with
in one week and forgotten about so we could get on with some exploring of
the galaxy and some science fiction again. 

Right.  General tirade over (something I am unaccustomed to doing with TNG),
let's get to specifics:

Acting:  Stewart was impeccable, of course, and he had indeed better get an
Emmy nomination for it.  David Warner did well again, as did everyone in
the cast, like Cox and Frakes.  No complaints here.  

Set Design:  We only saw the one set this time, the interrogation room,
and that I gave some plus marks on part one, so I won't say anything bad about
this either.

Special Effects: There really weren't any to speak of.

Direction(both Cinematography and acting coaching): Poor.  By my standards
	anyway, and those standards include virtually every episode of 	
	"The Prisoner," and several episodes of "Blake's 7" when it comes
	to any story that deals specifically with torture, whether it be
	psychological or physical or both.  Close-ups weren't tight enough,
	there was no hand-held camera work at all, lighting was static,
	nothing was off-center, in fact nothing at all to suggest the work
	of a master of psychological manipulation, nothing to suggest
	brainwashing tactics of any sort, or at least nothing that I could
	see.  In other words, if the director tried, I missed it.

Script(Dialog and Scenes alone): Average.  Good points were Gul Madred's
	showing-off of Picard to his daugher, bad points were the constant
	and very pointless use and reuse of the "four, five, SIX" lights
	time after time.  As I said before, none of the techniques we saw
	had any science fiction bend to them whatsoever, thus I consider
	them below average for a science fiction series.

Script(Story):  Far below average.  As an engineer would say, "GNDN"
	See the general rant for my full opinion.
	I'll spare a bit more time here though for the Jellicoe thread.
	This also had no real spark or imagination to it.  The fact that
	he relieves Riker was something I saw coming last week, the fact
	that his negotiations were going to fail was also obvious, etc.
	The "our friends" thing didn't materialize, and I didn't realize
	how sorry I would be to see it not happen.  At least that would have
	been an attempt to be devious with the plot.  Instead of making
	a left turn to an obvious city, the story goes straight ahead into
	an even more obvious stretch of Iowa plains.  

I think that pretty much covers it.  As an episode of TNG, or any science
fiction series come to that, this sucked wind, because it had no story of
its own to tell and no science fiction in what it did do.  
As a set-up for "Deep Space Nine" it perhaps succeeds better, for it did
give more background on the Cardassians, and focussed for me anyway how
they will most likely be portrayed, i.e. as a small species that tries to
be a big species and as nasty to the Federation as the Romulans are when in
reality they are quite small fish.  
However, I do not watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation" for it so be simply
a set-up for "Deep Space Nine."  I watch it to enjoy either a good yarn or
a philosophical argument brought about by the possibilities of scientific
advances in the future.  Preferably both at the same time.
This was neither a good yarn, nor abou a science advance.  This was a 
commercial.

Overall Grade for Part Two (scale of one to ten): 3
Amended Grade for Part One (scale of one to ten): 1 (there is now even less
							point to Part One
							since it set up a
							useless Part Two)


Steven.K.Manfred
(disappointed that he had to give his worst grades yet to this episode,
and who still likes the rest of the season so far except for "Time's Arrow")



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