From: tlynch@cco.caltech.edu (Timothy W. Lynch)
Subject: Re: Another 3 in 1 Opinionated Review (OUTPOST...LONELY)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 22:42:18 GMT

kanamori@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Atsushi Kanamori) writes:

>Reviews below for:

>              THE LAST OUTPOST
>              WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE
>              LONELY AMONG US

Hey, slow down, fella!  :-)


>THE LAST OUTPOST
>----------------

>Quick summary:
> 
>   The first 30 minutes, great. 
>   The last 30 minutes... you have GOT to be kidding.

I'm not even sure I'd put the first thirty under "great".  Far superior to 
the second half, to be sure, but great?

>To reiterate, the first half of this episode was marvelous. The Enterprise
>is chasing a Ferengi ship and we know nothing about them except the rumor
>dropped in EaF about their tastes in associates. The crew work together
>as a crew to solve the problems that come up and there are lot of
>fun character bits (Geordi and Riker's exchange in the Engine room, Data's
>struggle with the Chinese finger puzzle to note two.) 

I don't remember the R/G exchange, but it's been quite a while.  Data's
finger-puzzles got old *real* fast, though.

>The initial view of the Ferengi commander is impressive -- 

For the first and last time.  :-)

>Then, they beam down to the planet, and it all turns into uh... 

I think leaving it at "uh..." is about right.

>Third, all of the exciting buildup in the first half turns out to be a big
>ado about nothing. Well not *nothing* exactly: more precisely, a big
>pyrotechnics show and yet *another* "escape from death by passing a 
>test-of-humanity". 

The "test-of-humanity" bit had a few *very* mild perks to it, though few
and far between.  The Ferengi were an absolute waste.

I still remember that the most interesting thing I got out of that was
wondering "hey, I wonder if those things the Ferengi are using are anything
like Asimov's neuronic whips..."

>Also, I am getting mighty tired of every alien race being an open
>allegory of some human flaw. 

Agreed; that's something I think they improved on mightily.  Lord knows that
both this and CoH drove home the point with a boulder.

>WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE
>----------------------------

>Ah, that's more like it. 

Absolutely.  I'll side with Matt Hucke; this was easily the best of the 
first ten or so shows (once we hit "The Big Goodbye" and "Datalore", it's
at least got some competition, though I don't know quite how they'd
stack up against each other).

No wonder that Mike Shappe and I both yelled out "we love you, Diane!"
at the listing of the writing credits.  ;-)

>This episode was definitely a director's show, and to its credit, 
>the directing, FX and camerawork are breathtaking. 

To say the least.  This also, of course, marked the start of Picard's 
problem with turbolifts.  Here, "We'll Always Have Paris", "Night Terrors",
"Disaster"...one wonders why he hasn't switched to site-to-site beaming
all the time.  :-)

>Unfortunately, these assets represent both the episode's biggest strength
>and biggest weakness. Note I said above that the story was "solid". 
>However, this was a case where a solid story wasn't very interesting.

Here I disagree, but with a caveat.

I think what this really reminded me of was a somewhat watered-down _The
Wounded Sky_.  Some of the problems you mention certainly make the show
significantly weaker than said novel, but it had so many *good* things to
it (the Wes/Traveler plot being the most prominent so far as "important"
character development was concerned) that it still blew away the competition.
I'd have preferred a version more like TWS, but I'm rather biased; TWS is
probably my favorite TOS novel in existence.

>Which isn't to say this episode was completely lacking in drama.
>The scene with Picard and his mother was poignant (due largely
>to poignant acting from Mr. Stewart) 

You bet.

>and I rather enjoyed the final
>scene where Picard made Wesley an acting ensign (not so much for what
>happened, but the *way* they did it. Fun dialogue here -- do I detect
>Diane Duane?) 

I'm sure you do.  I rather enjoyed what happened as well, but you're dead on
in that DD managed to put in a real "hey, can I play too?" sense in everybody's
lines there.  (I think, incidentally, that the end of "The Child" tried to 
do similar things, and for the most part managed to pull it off.)

>Not so successful were the Targ and pussycat scenes -- much 
>of this was due to the acting of the regulars (especially Crosby.) 

They were all right, though they don't stand out four years later the way
Picard and his mother (or the 'lift :-) ) do.

>There wasn't much characterization called for here, and that's just as
>well because the characterization was rather blah. I found Kosinsky's
>arrogance overblown and boring in the extreme. 

How many engineers do you know?  ;-)  (Okay, cheap shot; most of the engineers
I know aren't like that either.  But a few sure have been...)

>(Small continuity note: why does Wes think Riker doesn't know his name --
>Riker had him man a bridge station in CoH.)

As Matt said, I think Wes was trying to say "would you PLEASE stop calling
me boy?".  Picard even made that pretty clear with his very next line.

>In summary, although I found the episode rather lacking in depth, it was
>fun and diverting on its first viewing. 

I enjoyed it significantly more than that.  This show is really what kept
me *happily* watching through to the first rerun break.  (After that, 
things picked up, but for now you've got a few rough roads ahead.  :-) )

>LONELY AMONG US
>---------------

>I don't know WHAT to make of this one. Except that I rather like it.

I rather like bits of it, primarily because it sets up a lot of intriguing
Picard bits and a lot of great Stewart scenes.

>Then, suddenly it becomes gripping. Okay, Patrick is always interesting 
>to watch and his portrayal of the energy being is downright *creepy*;
>the way he moves, the way he walks, the way he *slouches*. 

Exzzzz-actly.  See, there *is* a certain benefit to things that show off an
actor's talents, even if that's all they do.  You're learnin'!  :-)

>The Lizard Diplomats subplot pressed my "Roddenberry Moralizing" button
>initially, but fortunately it turned out to be largely comic relief.

Um...yeah, but not particularly amusing comic relief, at least for me.  I'd
just as soon forget most of this (although the "sorry.  wrong species."
bit was fun).

>And my, but it was nice to see some INTERESTING alien voice and makeup 
>design for a change! 

The voices; yeah, I suppose.  The makeup:  ehhh.  I'll side with Colm Meaney
on this one;  "I mean, I was stuck guarding a bunch of DOG-people!"

>My one word summation of said atmosphere is "quirky." 

Definitely.  In some ways, this might be the beginning of TNG's "Twilight
Zone" riff that they've occasionally done right up to now.  I don't think
they pulled it off nearly as well here as they have in more recent material,
but it's a start.

>TNG had been largely
>rather conservative and... well let's come out and say it, STUFFY, up
>to this point. Not tonight. A lot of unexpected writing twists here: Data 
>behaving like Sherlock Holmes; 

Eh.  No big deal for me.

>Bev, Riker and Troi being paralyzed by regulations, 

This, on the other hand, worked nicely, I thought.

>and Picard's brushoff of the news that one of the ambassadors 
>had apparently just become someone's dinner. 

Ah.  The other good bit of comic relief related to that plot.  :-)

Tim Lynch (Cornell's first Astronomy B.A.; one of many Caltech grad students)
BITNET:  tlynch@citjuliet
INTERNET:  tlynch@juliet.caltech.edu
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R.I.P. Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992.  You will be missed.