First-Time Watch - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episodes 22-24
We're continuing our first-time, release-order journey through Star Trek with three more episodes of The Next Generation: Imaginary Friend, I, Borg, and The Next Phase.
This week gives us three very different experiences. We start with a mysterious visitor whose presence creates problems aboard the Enterprise, move into an extraordinarily difficult moral dilemma involving the Borg, and finish with an episode that delivers almost everything we love about good science fiction.
Along the way, we find ourselves discussing childhood, empathy, morality, the multiverse, and why the laws of physics sometimes seem to work a little differently aboard the Enterprise.
This week, we get:
Something gets through the hull and wreaks havoc on the ship
Suicidal empathy
Almost everything we could want in a Star Trek episode
We covered:
Imaginary Friend (S5E22)
I, Borg (S5E23)
The Next Phase (S5E24)
Imaginary Friend
A young girl's imaginary friend becomes the center of a dangerous situation aboard the Enterprise when a mysterious alien presence takes on the appearance of her imaginary companion.
The episode gives us plenty to discuss about childhood, imagination, and the differences between how children and adults understand the world. Sometimes children do dumb things, and sometimes adults tell children they're being dumb. But there are also situations that children simply cannot - or should not - be expected to understand.
There's a subtle sense of discomfort running through the story, and some surprisingly effective worldbuilding. The episode creates a believable environment for its young characters without needing to explain every aspect of their lives aboard the Enterprise.
Unfortunately, this might be one of those episodes that works better during the initial viewing than it does upon reflection.
We also explore pattern recognition, randomness, bunny rabbits, and whether imaginary friends are as common today as they once seemed to be.
And, of course, there's a question we keep returning to: Why couldn't Troi sense what was actually going on?
Things we discussed:
Kids doing dumb things and adults telling them they're being dumb
The discomfort of watching the episode unfold
Pattern recognition, randomness, and bunny rabbits
Subtle and effective worldbuilding
Why the episode worked better initially than in retrospect
Troi's seemingly ineffective empathic abilities
Childhood adventure and imagination
Things children cannot or should not be expected to understand
Anecdotal evidence about imaginary friends today
Noise
I, Borg
Every so often, Star Trek gives us an episode that reminds us exactly why people have loved this franchise for decades.
I, Borg might be among the best examples we've encountered.
When the Enterprise discovers a severely injured Borg drone, Picard is presented with an opportunity to potentially destroy one of the Federation's most dangerous enemies. But the longer the crew interacts with their captive, the more difficult the decision becomes.
What starts as a seemingly straightforward question of survival and military necessity develops into something considerably more complicated.
We spend a great deal of time discussing the contagion of suicidal empathy. At what point does compassion for an individual become a danger to everyone else? Does recognizing the humanity - or individuality - of an enemy fundamentally change our obligations toward them?
Picard's changing perspective is particularly interesting given his personal history with the Borg. We examine his shift throughout the episode and question whether a decision with such enormous potential consequences should have been made without consulting higher authorities at Starfleet.
There's no easy answer here.
And that's what makes the episode so effective.
We also discuss how the Borg can be used to tell compelling stories without simply becoming another recurring enemy to defeat. I, Borg takes everything we've learned about the Collective and uses it to create a genuinely difficult moral dilemma.
Somewhere in the middle of all of this, we even find ourselves discussing the WWI Christmas détente.
This is why people love Star Trek.
Things we discussed:
Why I, Borg was such a difficult episode to digest
The contagion of suicidal empathy
Compassion versus the greater good
Why the absence of a clean answer strengthens the story
Whether Picard should have consulted Starfleet
Picard's changing perspective on the Borg
Using the Borg effectively in storytelling
Exploring moral dilemmas through science fiction
The Christmas détente in WWI
Why episodes like this demonstrate what Star Trek does best
The Next Phase
Sometimes we want Star Trek to challenge us with difficult philosophical questions.
Other times, we just want a great science-fiction adventure.
The Next Phase gives us just about everything we could want.
Following an apparent transporter accident, Geordi and Ro find themselves in a very unusual situation. The Enterprise believes they've been killed, but they're still aboard the ship - unable to interact with the people and objects around them in any conventional way.
It's a wonderfully entertaining premise that gives our characters a new perspective on the familiar world around them.
Naturally, we have questions.
If Geordi and Ro can pass through the Enterprise's walls, doors, and even its hull, why don't they fall through the floors? And given that we're traveling through space, what exactly constitutes "up" or "down" anyway?
That sends us into a discussion about physics, gravity, and the nature of reality itself.
We also explore Ronald D. Moore's storytelling, ideas from David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity, and the possibilities presented by the multiverse.
But perhaps the most interesting part of this discussion is our willingness to overlook the scientific inconsistencies.
Sometimes the science doesn't make sense.
Sometimes it doesn't need to.
When the story is sufficiently entertaining, we're perfectly happy to go along for the ride.
Things we discussed:
Why The Next Phase has almost everything we want from Star Trek
Geordi and Ro's unusual predicament
Passing through hulls, walls, and doors...but not floors
What "up" means in space
The scientific inconsistencies of the episode
Ronald D. Moore
David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity
The multiverse and alternate realities
Why we sometimes don't care whether the science makes sense
The value of a genuinely entertaining science-fiction adventure
Final Thoughts
This week's episodes showcase several of the things that make Star Trek such an interesting franchise to explore.
Imaginary Friend offers a mysterious and occasionally uncomfortable story that raises interesting questions about childhood and understanding the world around us, even if the execution doesn't entirely hold up under scrutiny.
I, Borg delivers one of the strongest moral dilemmas we've encountered so far. It challenges our assumptions, explores the consequences of empathy, and trusts the audience to wrestle with questions that don't necessarily have satisfying answers.
And The Next Phase provides a fantastic reminder that Star Trek can be enormously entertaining even when we're picking apart the underlying science.
Three very different episodes, and three very different approaches to storytelling.
Join us as we continue our first-time journey through Star Trek in release order!
Never give up. Never surrender.
Where we are on our Trek:
Last week we covered:
Next week we will continue with:
If you want to see my journey from the very beginning, start here:
Also, be sure to check out Nate's and my other podcast - The In Lap with Aaron and Nate - to listen to us discuss all things Formula 1 on race weekends, wherever you listen to your podcasts.