From: tlynch@cco.caltech.edu (Timothy W. Lynch)
Subject: Picard and "The Inner Light" (Re: Was TOS really that bad?)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 01:03:23 GMT

rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu (Michael Rawdon) writes:
>In <1992Sep8.202251.4107@bnlux1.bnl.gov> schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov (gary l. schroeder) writes:

[Michael calls Picard a "walking exposition device"]

>>"Walking exposition device".  Sounds to me like somebody's been in a
>>drama class, heard a cool phrase, and is looking for a place to use it.

>BZZT!  But thank you for playing.  I've never taken a drama class, and the
>phrase is all my own (and it means exactly what it says; "Walking morality
>machine" would function as well).

Yes, Michael, but it would appear Gary's point is that you aren't giving ANY
sort of detail about just what that phrase is supposed to mean, and as a result
all you're doing is looking pseudo-erudite to those who haven't read your 
pieces before.  *I* know what you mean (and utterly disagree), because I've
seen this speech before.  I'm not sure Gary does, and I'm willing to bet anyone
who joined up within the past six months most surely does not.

If you wanna keep these arguments up, that's the problem; you have to keep
explaining yourself every time.

>>		     "Inner Light" went a long way towards revealing more
>>of this side of him.

>Really?  Like how?  I saw his *character* as being a very pedantic,
>unimaginative one.  

The man prepared to start a mass panic to expose the truth, and who challenged
the Administrator with suggestions only he had the guts to say is pedantic and
unimaginative.  Right.  The man with the strength to actually turn away from
his old life to a "what might have been" of raising a family and growing old
is pedantic and unimaginative.  Check.  The character whose emotions you (or
I, at any rate) could almost literally feel coming at me at particular points
of the show (Eline's death, for one, and the final sequence planetside) is
pedantic and unimaginative.

Michael, are you actually watching what the show is...er...showing, or are you
watching something you're trying to fit into your own molds?  I wouldn't have
asked this question a year ago, but now I'm honestly not sure.

>In fact, I think that he essentially represented
>"everyman" in that episode.  Its power came from the feeling that "This
>could happen to me" (speculative fiction).

I will grant that *some* of the episode's power springs from how easily the
viewer can relate to the events we see; in fact, I said as much for nearly
a hundred lines back in June when I reviewed it.  However, I do not at all 
grant that this means characterization is slight or unimportant.  On the
contrary, in fact; if I can get that caught up into it, it's *because* I
find the characters so striking, not because of any cute plotting.

>A very well-plotted episode, but the characterization is nothing to hoo-hah
>about by any means.

Chuckle.  You weren't around when the list of two dozen alleged plot holes for
this show came up, were you?  :-)

>>			"The Drumhead" is another fine example of a fully
>>developed character.

>To echo your phrase:  Please.  This is a perfect example of Picard-the-
>walking-exposition-device.  He spends most of his time making speeches about
>morality and freedom and judgment.  "This is wrong because x" and "We don't
>do things that way", etc.

Which *can* be a walking morality machine, if you don't see reasons for his
character to hold those opinions so strongly.  I do, and so do a lot of other
people.  For me, this was completely in character, and it would have been *out*
of character for Picard to react in nearly any other way.  Perhaps it's not
a characterization you LIKE, friend, but that doesn't in any way mean it's
necessarily poor characterization.

>>			If you don't like any of these as examples, how
>>about "The Perfect Mate"?

>This episode was drek; one of the worst of the season.  How *about* "The
>Perfect Mate"?

Er...I'll pass on this for now.  Too much time.

>>			    To me, each of these episodes portrayed a
>>character of emotional complexity, each self-consistant with one
>>another.

>He still seems terribly simplistic to me.  

And he probably always will.  You have a knack for either ignoring evidence
of complexity or presenting it in a way that shows real simplicity.  It's a 
real talent, but it also leads to being eternally dissatisfied, IMO.

>I think that Picard would have
>been a much more complex and interesting character if, rather than putting
>him up on the moral high horse all the time, 

You mean like in "I, Borg", when he's advocating genocide?  That moral high
horse?  :-)  (Incidentally, said position is an awfully tricky one that causes
lots of problems in itself, such as in "The Masterpiece Society", which if I 
recall you liked a lot more than I did.  It sometimes takes a very complex
person to be able to even RECOGNIZE where the moral high ground is, much 
less find a way to get there.  You're dismissing him where credit might in 
fact be due.)

>Instead, we have this living 24th century incarnation of The Ten Commandments.

What?  Is Charlton Heston making a guest shot?  :-)

Tim Lynch