100 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
100 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
WARNING: The following post may contain spoilers concerning this week's TNG
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episode, "The Hunted". Those not wishing advance plot details should remain
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well clear.
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I mean it. There be spoilers here.
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Anyway...
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I might not have been quite so disappointed with this, if I hadn't just been
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coming off the high of "The Defector". As it is, though, I found this story to
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be primarily much ado about nothing. However, that won't stop me from present-
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ing a synopsis, albeit a short-ish one:
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The Enterprise is in orbit around a planet, Akosha something-or-other, whose
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inhabitants have recently applied for Federation membership. They have been
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completely at peace since some wars which, it is implied, were a ways back, and
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seem to be suitable candidates for membership (if, in Riker's eyes,"a bit too
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stuffy for my tastes", though he was referring to the buildings).
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The problem: while the away team's down on the surface, a prisoner escapes from
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the penal colony on Lunar 5. The Enterprise, in answer to the Prime Minister's
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request, tries to catch the small transport ship the prisoner commandeered.
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Initially, they fail (the prisoner's an extremely crafty fellow), but eventual-
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ly, they beam him on board. Not that he's any easier to handle there; it takes
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a great deal of effort, time, and men to bring him down so that he can be put
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in detention.
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From there, we (and they) discover the details of Dehnar's (sp?) crime. It
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seems that he was a soldier in those same wars mentioned earlier. He was a
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volunteer, not knowing the treatment he was in for. He was psychologically
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conditioned and chemically altered to be the perfect soldier. However, when the
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wars were over and the soldiers brought home, they had no place in "civilized"
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society. In Troi's words, "He fought to preserve the Akoshan lifestyle, but
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he didn't realize that to do it, he had to give up that lifestyle--forever."
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Lunar 5 was where all the old soldiers were put to quietly while away their
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lives.
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Once that's discovered, unfortunately, there's not much more to the plot. Dehnar
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escapes while the Enterprise tries to transport him over to the Akoshan ship,
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uses every trick in the book (_any_ book) to remain free, and eventually manages
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to hijack the prison ship. He then attacks the penal colony and frees many of
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his fellow prisoners. The Prime Minister calls Picard in a panic, saying that
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the prisoners are heading for the capital city. Picard and an away team beam
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down, but beam up with the situation still unresolved. As they leave, it looks
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like a peaceful solution may be found (and maybe the effects of the treatment
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can be reversed).
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Well, that's as much of a synopsis as I'm prepared to give. The salient details
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of Dehnar's various tactics aren't really worth going into, so I shan't. I
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suppose it's time to move on to some comments, then:
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I had somewhat mixed feelings about the show. Sure, it was entertaining, but I
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tend to expect something a little more interesting. The storyline of the war-
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weary soldier coming home to an unwelcome country has been done to death, from
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lots of old war movies, to "First Blood" and its ilk, to "Born on the Fourth
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of July" (if obliquely, as it appears from the ads). And the medically created
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superior fighter isn't exactly new, either: just look at "Robocop", "Rocky IV",
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or any issue of "Captain America" in the past fifty years. :-) So, original
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this was not.
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Nor was it all that interesting. It had its moments, to be sure: part of
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Dehnar's new physiology repels electronic signals, so sensors can't pick him
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up. That made for several interesting scenes. And, yes, it was somewhat
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exciting to watch the different attempts to catch Dehnar, with its somewhat
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predictable results. However, it just didn't hold my interest for very long.
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There was really no new character insight to be gained, either. Troi's con-
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cerned about a prisoner--ho, hum. Data claims to have no feelings--again, ho,
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and a resounding HUM. Everything was just very lukewarm. There's not much
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in the way of specific problems I can give (though I do have one--see the next
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paragraph), but nothing was particularly well done, either.
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My one specific gripe is this: Why was Worf leading the search? "Well, he's
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Chief of Security.", I hear you say. That, to me, means he should have been the
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one coordinating the search: giving orders, keeping tabs on where Dehnar defin-
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itely wasn't, and so forth. Instead, we had Picard coordinating the search
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plans, and Worf stalking around with his team. Not necessarily a grave error,
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but definitely not what I would have done.
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Well, I've really nothing more to say, except hand down some numbers.
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Plot: 5. No major flaws, but woefully unoriginal.
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Plot Handling: 7. They did make the most of the suspenseful moments.
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Characterization: 5. Adequate, but no more.
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Technical: 7. Not bad, though not great.
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TOTAL: 6 even. Better luck next time, guys.
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Next Week:
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A rerun, of "Booby Trap", so all those tired asteroid field arguments can start
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up again. Joy. Rapture.
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Tim Lynch (Cornell's first Astronomy Major)
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BITNET: H52Y@CRNLVAX5
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INTERNET: H52Y@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
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UUCP: ...!rochester!cornell!vax5.cit.cornell.edu!h52y
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"The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door..."
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--Suzanne Vega
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