Oh good. Two Barclays.
This deep into my life as a Trekkie, it’s safe to say nothing will ever change my mind about Reg Barclay. I don’t like him, I don’t enjoy him as a character, and he represents a lot of wider issues with Star Trek and society in general.
But it’s boring to keep harping on about that, so here’s me trying to be fair:
If you like Barclay, this is a reasonably solid episode. Dwight Schulz gets to demonstrate his range, and while Barclay is inappropriate at points, he is called out on it. The reason for his backsliding into bad behaviour makes sense. He’s a coherent character.
The problem with this episode, and the reason I don’t think it goes beyond “reasonably solid”, is that Barclay steals the show at the expense of everyone else. The Doctor puts up a big fight, and along with Tom — of all people — he’s the only regular not holding the idiot ball this week. But is it fun to watch the main characters, the people who are hypothetically the reason we’re tuning in, look like gullible fools?
It is not!
It makes sense that Janeway and her crew would automatically trust the Barclay hologram. They have no reason to think he isn’t exactly what he seems.
But their incuriosity about his miracle homecoming method is unforgivable. It’s implausible that every single nerd on this ship, from Janeway down to Naomi Wildman, isn’t running every possible scan just for the sheer joy of learning about their route home. Barclay’s “trust me, the shields will compensate for the flaws in the inoculation and the inoculation will fix the shield problems” strategy only works if no one has a conversation about it.
Which, apparently, is what happens, even though — for example — you have Tom on the medical side and B’Elanna on the tech side, and they are literally married.
“Captain Janeway knows better than to take her ship into such a dangerous anomaly,” says Admiral Paris, which is funny because she’s taken her ship into much worse anomalies, but ALSO he is in the impression that Janeway is in a good episode. And she is not.
Where the regulars do get to interact, they get some truly egregious dialogue. “He does impressions!” B’Elanna says, after the audience has spent a good sixty seconds watching Barclay do impressions. This is some old-timey 1960s DC comics writing.
By contrast, the scenes back in the alpha quadrant — especially the ones with Deanna — almost sparkle. Maybe that’s just the magic of Marina Sirtis, who goes from calling out Barclay for his inappropriate decision to crash her vacation to successfully bluffing Leosa. Is it ethical to threaten someone with a forced psychiatric hold? Absolutely not. Has Deanna spent the last decade playing poker with Will Riker and Data? Absolutely yes.
All in all, this is an okay episode, but it really does feel like the effort was lopsided.
Of course, that might be because scriptwriter Robert Doherty also did last week’s “Critical Care”. Consecutive scripts by one person are generally a bad idea, and nearly always lead to at least one mediocre teleplay. I find Doherty hit and miss at the best of times, and the impression I get here is of a creative team spread too thin.
Other observations
- Leosa is a two-dimensional character, but I like that she’s human. Even in a post-scarcity utopia, some people just want to go out into the universe and be assholes.
- There are a bunch of recycled costumes in this ep, but Leosa’s strappy red dress is the standout. It was created for DS9, and also appeared briefly, from a distance, in Star Trek: Generations.
- When you start thinking about the mobile emitter as an assistive device, the general willingness to assume the Doctor is okay with sharing it starts to feel a bit off.
- Given that this episode involves Ferengi and Seven of Nine, it’s actually impressive we didn’t get as much sexual harassment as I expected.
In conclusion
“Not as much sexual harassment as I expected.” What damning praise! Two and a half strappy red dresses out of five.