From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Re: Chain Of Command Part II -- review
Date: 28 Dec 1992 08:49:53 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: gandalf.think.com

In article <1992Dec28.061303.11354@mercury.cair.du.edu> mwasserm@diana.cair.du.edu (MARC Y. WASSERMAN) writes:
>In article <Bzxt23.L31@world.std.com> tob@world.std.com (Tom O Breton) writes:
>>Spoilers ahead - Summary: A+

>>Picard's comments that torture wasn't a particularly reliable means of
>>extracting information...
>
>Do they explain what IS?  No.  Nordo they explain why it DID affect
>himn in the long run.

He never said that it doesn't affect the victim, just that it's not an
effective way to extract information.  The Cardassians learned much more
via the truth serum than they did from Madred's torture.  He was torturing
Picard just for the "fun" of it.

>>The four lights was a brilliant device. (No pun intended). In one simple
>>visual metaphor, it encapsulated the whole struggle going on.
>
>Straight from 1984 by George Orewll and a million WWII movies.

One of the better TOS episodes, "Balance of Terror", was straight from a
WWII submarine movie, but that doesn't diminish its quality; what made it
good was the mental interplay between the two captains.  And the TNG
episode "A Matter of Perspective" is a variant of one of the most common TV
themes, flashbacks to an event from several people's perspectives, and this
theme was borrowed by TV from a Kurosawa movie; it avoided the normal
cliche by applying future technology, the holodeck, to it.

>THIS IS MY BIGGEST PROBLEM!  When I see TNG I want sci-fi.  Not
>human stories.  Because they concentrated so hard on human story,
>they missed any plot device.  No attacks.  No burning ships.  No
>conflict!

What Star Trek have you been watching?  ST, both TOS and TNG, has always
been about people and society, not about science and space battles.  It
uses the futuristic settings and future-tech plot devices in order to frame
allegories about the human condition.

TOS often fell into the trap of resolving a conflict aggressively.  Kirk
was more macho than Picard, and resorted to violence easily.  Also, Shatner
wasn't as good an actor as Stewart; when he tried dramatic solutions, he
often sounded silly (consider his speeches in "A Taste of Armageddon" and
the episode with the Yangs and the Comms -- the powerful messages of these
episodes were lessened by Shatner's delivery of Kirk's soliloquies).

>>The implant device likewise simplified the explanatory stuff. Hope JLP has
>>since had it removed. Otherwise --- "Leiutenant Worf, open hailing
>>frequencies --- ARGHH! AAAAHHH! AOOOOOOO! Close them!!!!"
>
>Unless it was all psychological and there really wasn't a device?  :)

I was thinking the same thing.  In the scene where Picard smashes the
control unit, I was expecting him to try pushing buttons and discover that
nothing happened.

>>It did seem to me that Picard would have figured out that Gul Madred was
>>lying about Crusher being next. It was simply implausible, as if he couldn't
>>*possibly* torture them simultaneously. That was a bit weak.
>
>Oh, I don't know, that seemed OK to me.

Agreed.  He's already on the verge of believing Madred about the number of
lights, so I can't imagine him disbelieving him regarding something he
can't disprove.

>It was OK.  I give it a C.  I wasn't inspired.  I admire the acting,
>but it wasn't sci-fi.  I miss that.

Sci-fi != ray guyns.  There were aliens, spaceships, nebulas, and a
futuristic torture device; sounds like the classic requirements of SF to
me.  And if the part where Geordie figures out where the Cardassians are
hiding and what they plan on attacking wasn't SF, what was it?  Most good
SF is just fiction with some ordinary elements replaced with variants that
presuppose some other technology.  Roddenberry's original descriptions of
Star Trek were "Wagon Train to the Stars" and "Horatio Hornblower in
Space".

> 
>
>-- 
>"So you're choosing to run from your own people in a rackety old TARDIS?"
>		     D  O  C  T  O  R     W  H  O
>				30 Years
>           "Why not?  After all, that's how it all started!"


-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current