Alan Wake

So finally got to making some progress on my backlog of video games and next on the list was the psychological horror Alan Wake. As it draws significantly on sources like Twin Peaks and Silent Hill, I figured it would be my kinda game. And as it turns out, it definitely was.

Gameplay:
While the game does nothing Earth shatteringly innovative with it's gameplay, it was quite enjoyable. It doesn't stray too far from the mould set by games like Silent Hill, it does so in small but effective ways. For a start your character actually responds well to controls instead of the slow moving and turning characters of old Silent Hill games. You can evade enemies fairly easily and fight back effectively without it getting too stressful. Many survival horror games rely on the clumsiness of the controls to evoke a sense of panic and loss of... well, control in the player. But, by not focusing overly much on the survival part of that equation, this game can avoid the trap of awkward controls. Not to say it's a cakewalk - there are times when your survival is very much in doubt as the ambushes the enemy set for you from time to time can be tough.

Alan burns the protective shadow from a Taken.

The other mechanic I quite enjoyed was the light / darkness mechanic. All enemies are protected in a shroud of Darkness that must be burned off them with light before they are vulnerable to your weapons. For the most part this is achieved with a flashlight, but flares and other environmental light sources come into play throughout the game also. Particularly intense light can destroy an enemy outright if his shroud of Darkness is already gone or sometimes even if it's not. So flashbang grenades, flare guns and large fixed spotlights are always handy to find as you explore the town of Bright Falls. This mechanic isn't anything special, but it does add a requirement for thinking through your tactics in a fight a little rather than just wade in firing. As ammo isn't always too plentiful, it can make sense to plan an attack where you remove several enemies protection first, group them up and take more than one out in the same attack. Nothing on the level of a proper tactical combat game but some thought is generally required.

Catching a Taken off guard with a bright torch light.

There's one or two other things I liked too. There's the little touches - such as the ability to stun an enemy for a second if you get a focused light beam in his eyes. Once they recover though they tend to shield their eyes with one arm so it can be hard to stun them a second time until they've been lured into dropping their guard.

And there's the stuff I wish more games got right - escorting NPCs. From time to time you'll have a partner with you. It's either Alan's literary agent Barry, or Bright Falls' Sheriff Breaker. Or both. And unlike most games where you have to babysit the escort character at great pains to yourself or lose the game, neither of these two is much trouble to you in a fight. Barry doesn't help too much, but stays out of harm mostly. Sheriff Breaker, however, is great in a fight. On the regular difficulty, it can be enough to hold back and provide light support for her and she'll clean the floor with a mob of Taken enemies.

Graphics / Audio:

Bright Falls can get pretty creepy at night.

Nothing to special to note here. The game sounds and looks as good as you'd expect any modern video game to. It easily keeps up with the competition but does little to stand apart either. That said, there are some notable things. I do like the effects used to indicate when a part of town is unsafe. Despite a bright moon the area dims, wind rushes in and shadows start to flow unnaturally across the ground. These shadows can leave enemies behind and while the game normally draws your attention to when this happens. it doesn't always so you have to keep on your toes.

Story:
And we come to what generally makes or breaks a horror game. The plot. I really liked it. For a start, it makes sense. Sure, it doesn't explain everything. But it also goes to some effort to make sure you know what's happening, what's at stake and roughly what you need to do next. A lot of horror relies on the unknown - and so do the early stages of Alan Wake - but many of those stories never get around to explaining anything. The unknown can be scary but at some point, I get frustrated with that. I prefer horror that takes the time to explain what the protagonist is up against to some extent. Also, this game stays consistent with the rules it establishes. I liked that a lot. A lot of horror clearly sets up rules for the confrontation with an ancient evil or whatever, and then in the final act breaks those rules for shock value. But no clear justification for the rules changing is given most of the time. Sure, it shocks the viewer but I also feel insulted - almost as if the story is mocking me for having believed the rules it laid down earlier.

The story gets a little meta at times, but I liked it. Given it's nature, it was almost inevitable. This is a horror story about a horror story. Alan Wake - a crime writer - comes to the lake in Bright Falls with his wife for a holiday. His arrival wakes a Dark Presence that has been trapped in the lake. It has, in the past, preyed on other artists and has the power to make their work come true in a twisted fashion that benefits itself - and often at the cost of the artist. Alan rushes to rescue his wife from a perilous night-time situation shortly after arrival, and wakes some time later in a new location with no memory of how he got there. He sets out to find out what's happened and to save his wife. In the process, he finds some pages from a manuscript for a novel. Written in his style, on his typewriter. These pages describe the events happening to him and events that will happen to him, which understandably freaks him out.

It can't help but get a little meta after that as you have a writer who's frightened that he's living inside a story he's written and has to make sense of that. This gives the story a chance to use some of the clichés of the horror story in a fresh way - it doesn't try to subvert them much, but it does have a decent justification to use them. Becoming the protagonist of his own story seems to be Alan's only hope to escape and rescue his wife. But the story must ring true to come true, and the protagonist cannot feel too safe to make a horror story work. In the end the story does a good job of conveying a sense of the author fighting against his own imagination, as well as the Dark Presence which would take advantage of that same imagination if he loses control of the story. I'm worried I've said too much already for those who might want to give the game a try so I'll leave it at that concerning the details.

The story is also broken up into six episodes which include a "Previously On Alan Wake..." section at the start to convey the sense of a TV show's episodic structure. It works well, but there's a slight feel of mixed methods there since the story is based so heavily on literary storytelling and this use of a TV methodology seems at odds with that sometimes. But it's a small detail, only present at the start of each episode. I'm left with the feeling that it's only in there as the writers are huge fans of episodic TV shows like Lost - which they have enthusiastically praised in interviews. There are two DLC episodes available as well - as a sort of epilogue - which are great fun too. They also take advantage of the nature of the supernatural force in the plot and it's interaction with the creative works of artists a lot more than the main game's plot can or does. A download code for the first is included for free with new copies of the game, but it's the second one that is the better of the two really.

Overall:
In the end, this is a pretty good game. For someone who isn't into things like Twin Peaks, Silent Hill or the works of Stephen King, I'd describe it as a fun game and worth a try to see if you like it, assuming you can borrow a copy to try before spending any of your own money on it. You might like it, but there's no guarantees that the story will hook you and draw you in and make the whole thing more than the sum of it's parts.

For those who are fans of Twin Peaks, Silent Hill and/or Mr. King? If you haven't already played this then the only question left is why aren't you playing it right now? :)

Star Trek TNG - 11001001

Originally aired: February 1st 1988


In case anyone wants some useless trivia about this one before we start, the title appears to be the decimal number 201, C9 in hex or the letter É when converted back to Unicode characters.

The Enterprise arrives at a Starbase

The opening of these is usually the slowest moving plot part so I'll spend less time on it this time around. The Enterprise arrives at a Starbase for maintenance and upgrades. Especially to the holodeck due to the problems they've had with it. If only you knew, Picard. If only. Geordi's still at the helm. That's weird. It doesn't feel right unless he's the head of Engineering. A maintenance crew come aboard by airlock. It makes sense you'd use them when docked, but I somehow still thought that people would beam on and off the ship. They do love that transporter. But I guess they have to be concious of energy wastage. Just cos you have a matter / antimatter reactor is no reason to piss all that energy away.

01 and 10. Or was it 10 and 01? Whatever.

The maintenance crew include two purple aliens called Bynars who - based on their expressions - seem to be sharing a private joke. The Commander in charge of the crew explains that they are neither male nor female, but a unified pair who are always together. He introduces them as 01 and 10. Really? That would leave room for 4 names in Bynar society. When you take into account that they're always in pairs, you could still only name a handful of Bynar pairs uniquely. I think the writers pushed the binary angle too hard here, or perhaps the Bynars simply dumbed down their real name conventions for the solitary human mind to deal with.


The Bynars seem to be happy to work on the Enterprise, having just upgraded another ship's computers. Pushing the paired entity thing further, they finish each other's sentences. What I do like though, its in order to help the sense of them being alien is the clever casting trick. They apparently cast women to play the Bynars and you can see that in their movements. But they pitch-altered their voices down to sound male, and their speech mannerisms are very male. Helps sell them as non-human despite them being humans in makeup. They get annoyed that they only have 48 hours to work on the ship but agree to the time limit a little too quickly.


Picard and Riker are planning to stay on board, but it seems that the rest of the crew may be headed to the the Starbase for R&R. After leaving the Bynars Picard expositions for the viewer that the Bynars have all become interdependent with the master computer on their homeworld, to the point that their language and thought patterns have become close to binary machine code. That's an interesting idea and one that has some small parallels with our society. 


The Bynars removed the barriers between themselves and their technology. We haven't but they still slowly erode away. Today, 23 years after this episode aired, we live in a world where nearly everyone carries a pocket computer and thinks of it as just a phone. Those same devices are quite often responsible for remembering things for us - appointments, birthdays, shopping lists, contact details etc. In a small way, we have placed part of our minds outside our bodies in these devices. There are still hard barriers between our brains and technology but our minds already exist outside our skulls.


As Riker and Picard arrive on the Bridge, Wesley is there watching four Bynars work. Apparently, just because they're docked at Starbase it's okay to leave an acting-officer with no actual commission to watch four aliens who are computer experts as they work on the ship's primary systems. This lapse in security can't possible go wrong somehow, can it? All the same, Riker does seem to pick up on shifty behaviour from them as Wes and he talk to them. Wes points out quite sensibly that a whole new species so different to humanity may just behave differently and have different behavioural mannerism, but Riker isn't convinced. He asks Wes to stay on the Bridge and watch the Bynars.


Riker does get annoyed when power turns off in his section, despite the perfectly rational explanation the compute gives him about shutting down sections of the computer itself for the upgrade. He's acting paranoid, which in TV means he's almost certainly right to be worried. In the meantime, he chats with the security officers as they head off to play some future sport, and then visits Geordi and Data as Data practices painting, trying to see if an android can be creative. Riker tells them to keep notes as some academic may be interested in future. After all, who wouldn't be interested in a blind man teaching an android to paint?

The holo-version of the Bourbon St. Bar is
 probably a lot cleaner than the real one.

Riker's tour takes him to Doctor Crusher. She's packing her medical notes to go meet some famous cybernetics medical researcher, hoping to impress him with her research. She geeks out a bit and leaves him. So he wanders back to the Bynars working at the holodeck. They tell him that they've patched the previous glitch and enhanced the system a little. And finally the plot can get moving. Riker decides to spend a little time testing the new holodeck. He chooses a Jazz club in New Orleans, 1958. The doors open and there's a damn convincing set on a sound stage looking just like a Jazz club from the time. The holodeck gives him a band and an audience, which he trims down to a single chick in a dress.


Where it seems obvious to me that the Bynars are messing with him, or that the Bynars have really enhanced the computer a shitload, is that he doesn't really order any of this out loud from the computer like they usually do. Instead of speaking clear, more or less unambiguous orders to the computer, he sort of thinks out loud and the holodeck gives him what he wants. That should have been a blatant clue to him that it was probably the Bynars who were interpreting for him and the holodeck wasn't really as good as advertised. As he walks in to the bar, the Bynars go back to tinkering with the system. Riker starts chatting up the virutal hotty and already she seems like she's been written to appeal specifically to him. That ought to have been warning sign number 2. Poor deluded Will, letting little Will do all his thinking.


On the Bridge, Wes asks some questions of the maintenance Commander and the Bynars. They explain that the noise they make is their language as they share information at high speed. They discuss that mixing their society with computers so thoroughly has plenty of advantages and a few disadvantages. Picard stops by and decides to join Riker on the holodeck.

Minuet, Riker's holo-floozy.

Back down there, Riker is playing Jazz for his audience of one. He's obviously really liking the new holodeck system. I don't know if Johnathan Frakes can actually play the trombone but he sells it really well. It did look like he was playing the music we hear. Riker's really impressed by the realism of the holodeck charactersm and I have to admit he's right. Most Trek holodeck situations have hyper-real main characters and cardboard cut-out background characters. Even the nameless Jazz musicians here behave like proper people. The Bynars know how to program a holodeck all right. Riker agrees to a dance with his holo-chick before he leaves. She explains that she's learning to dance with him on-the-fly by anticipating his lead. I always find it amusing when holodeck characters are aware of their nature. It usually makes for better stories that when they don't know and discover what they really are. But maybe I'm biased due to the atrocity that was Voyager's Fairhaven.


Riker gets so caught up in the simulation while dancing with Minuet. I always thought that the Starfleet crews we see must be the most driven and dedicated of their society as the average human of the future would pretty much live in their holodecks if they could. If that were true, then with Bynars programming holodecks, perhaps none of humanity would ever make out the door. As if to prove that, Picard arrives to get sucked into the program too. Straight away he's impressed by the simulation too. He apologises for intruding and starts to leave but Riker invites him to stay. Minuet hooks Picard straight away by greeting him in French and briefly discussing Paris with him. She drags both the boys back to the bar for a drink, and proceeds to trap him in the conversation as quickly as possible.


Picard can't help but indulge in some exposition though. He does so love to do that. He points out that the holodeck characters are never as intriguing as Minuet, especially since she's so adaptive to new people. She points out that she simply heard his name and looked up how to speak French. It seems simple to me - given her self awareness of her holographic nature, why wouldn't she be able to use the computer to adapt? Why wouldn't the entire knowledge base of the ship be at her command?


Outside the holodeck, Wesley notifies Geordi and Data of possible problems with antimatter containment in Engineering. They head there to sort it out, telling Wes not to notify the Captain or Riker until they check it out. I guess it might make sense not to bother them based on the worries of an acting Ensign, but on the other hand - an antimatter containment failure while docked at Starbase? Could kill millions. I'd have probably told him straight away myself. The boys get to Engineering to see that there's no one there and they are getting strange reading from containment systems as it appears to be failing. Data goes to Red Alert and Geordi tries to call the Captain. I guess policy in  these cases is an emergency undocking and moving off from the Starbase as fast as possible. They can't contact the Captain and can't save the containment field. The computer tells them they have a little over four minutes until failure - and it does so in a strange male voice I might add. I know they have a potential explosion to worry about, but has no-one thought that the computer is acting odd at all?


Data orders an automated undocking from the Starbase as well as ordering all hands to abandon ship. Upon hearing the order, people in the corridors do what humanity has always done during evacuations and head off in different directions - presumably to get their stuff before fleeing the danger. The crew and their familes all head for shuttles, transporters and airlocks to get off the ship. For the most part they're all pretty organised. On the Starbase the ship's officers watch the evacuation happen as Data and Geordi are on the Bridge plotting the automated departure course before evacuating. They query the location of Riker and Picard and the computer lies to them saying that all decks are empty. That's clearly a lie as Geordi and Data are aboard, but whatever. Data seems surprised that Picard wasn't last to leave but they have to go as they have 40 seconds. Can the ship even undock in 40 seconds? I bet it could get clear of the station in that time, but first it would have to undock and turn around. The guys take a turbolift to get to the transporters. Really? With only 40 seconds left? Why wouldn't they just request a beam out from the Starbase transporters? Data says that he hopes they're the last off - the computer just told you that you were. Don't you trust it Data? :)


Upon arrival on the Starbase, they discover that Picard and Riker aren't aboard and also receive notification that the Enterprise's antimatter containment is regenerating miraculously. But the Enterprise is already almost clear of it's dock. By the way? It's been 40 seconds already. Maybe that was the deadline until automated undocking and not until the explosion. The ship reverses out of the Starbase, wheels around and jumps to warp speed.


Back on the holodeck, Picard and Riker are still chatting to Minuet and apparently have heard nothing about the Red Alert. Picard can't help but marvel how intuitive Minuet is. He thinks it must be because she's programmed to take in far more of the data humans are constantly broadcasting in body language, tone of voice, etc, etc. Yes, Picard. That's a large part of what intuition and empathy is. Riker thinks that she's real enough to fall in love with and Picard, the old French romantic that he is, says that love always starts that way - with the illusion more real than the woman herself. I guess Jean Luc's got a bit of a cynical side. As Minuet and Riker get a little more physical with each other, Picard decide to leave but Minuet moves to stop him. Riker tries to get him to stay as well, but he says that this is Riker's R&R, not his. Mineut gets a little more desperate to stop him leaving and even these two can't help but realise she's up to something.


Picard calls for the exit and he and Riker leave to see the Red Alerts alarms blaring and can't get a response from the Bridge. They are told that the ship has been evacuated and why by the computer. They discover that they are at high warp speed headed for the Bynar homeworld. Wondering why the Bynars have stolen the ship, they turn to Minuet for answers who admits she's in on the plan. She says that they saw Riker's response to her and reprogrammed her to keep him there. Picard asks about him and she says that he was just luck.

PLOT HOLE ALERT!!!
But we'll come back to that.

She suddenly clams up, claiming she's not programmed to tell them any more. So they hit the road and head for the Bridge. Back on the Starbase, the senior crew plan how to catch up to the Enterprise, and only now realise that the Bynars didn't evacuate with them. These people are not ace detectives. Data correctly intuits that the Enterprise is headed for Bynus and requests sending a ship there to intercept the Enterprise.


On the Enterprise, Picard and Riker hit the armoury and gear up. Apparently, all he has to say to get in is "Picard, access". Any teenager with a PADD could fake that. Where's the security codes that they always use? It turns out that when gearing up to retake the ship, Riker and Picard only took a hand phaser each. Weak sauce. Why not phaser rifles? Some kind of stun grenades or something? Lame. Picard wants to go the Engineering and verify antimatter containment and start the self destruct timer. They exposition that they have to start the timer but it's fixed for 5 minutes. That gives them time to get to the bridge, regain control and turn off the timer, but it'll be tight. I'm sure that in future we get to see command staff specify the timer on the self-destruct. Maybe that feature was added because of the events of this episode. The timer gets going so Picard and Riker head off. They do take the time to note that apparently the ship's computer has received and stored a shitload of data.


They find themselves locked out of the bridge, and they decide to beam into the bridge to separate locations so at least one of them will probably get the drop on the Bynars. Back on the Starbase, Data feels guilty for taking R&R since he is capable of serving 24 / 7. As a sapient entity, I think even Data might crack under the strain of working non-stop. Anyway, the point of this scene is apparently that it'll still be 18 hours until one of the ships docked in the station will be ready to pursue the Enterprise.


Picard and Riker beam into the Bridge and find some barely concious Bynars behind Riker. If they had been awake and armed, Riker was toast. And given that they outnumbered Picard 4 to 1, he was probably dead as well. Picard manages to get them to tell him that they require help from Picard. The ship pulls into orbit around Bynus and Picard and Riker shut off the self destruct. Picard scans Bynus and finds that the computer and all related systems - including the population - are shutting down. Picard checks the ship's computer and finds that it's completely full of information - it looks like a core dump from the Bynus main computer. Wondering what they need to do, the guys go back to Minuet.


She tells them a star in the star system went Nova, and the Bynars miscalculated. Hah! What are the odd that the homeworld of the Bynars is a binary star system! We get it writer people! This is a binary race - everything comes in pairs for them. Including stars it seems. Well, up until now anyway. The EM pulse from the Nova was going to take out the main computer. So they dumped the data to the Enterprise and shut down until the pulse had gone. They need it rebooted and the data copied back. But the nova happened early and the plan wasn't in place so the computer is still off and they're dying. And the Enterprise was late arriving at the Starbase. So this race is all dying cos the Enterprise can't stick to schedule. :) Minuet tells them to reboot the master computer and copy the data back. She begs them to help quickly.


So they get back to the Bridge and call the Starbase for help. He asks Data to help them to work out how to get at the data. He suggests that the password would be something easy to guess if they wanted Picard to access it, and it would be in binary. So he tries to get the computer to try all 8 digit binary numbers and it finds the file. But they can't open it. Picard theorises that since Bynars work in pairs he needs to use the adjacent Science Station to access the file simultaneously. That works.


And there's our plot hole. If the Bynar plan required two people to access the data simultaneously, why was Minuet solely programmed to trap Riker? Why did she say that it was pure luck that they got Picard too? I guess that they thought maybe Riker could work both stations himself. It would be awkward but not impossible. Picard gets at the data and initiates the reboot and download. He's amazed at the complexity of their computer. Moments after the reboot the Bynars on the ship awake. They thank Picard for saving them and volunteer to return to Starbase 74 for punishment. Picard inquires why they simply didn't ask for help. They confer, and reply that Starfleet might have said no. Riker points out that they probably would have said yes, but the Bynars reason that the risk was too high to take the risk. 


They explain that they lured Riker to the holodeck to be the backup plan in case they were not concious upon arrival at Bynar.Why they bother going over this with Riker I don't know as Minuet already explained that.


Picard explains that they planet Bynus is safe, the ship is back in Starfleet control and no-one was hurt so he seems to think the situation was resolved satisfactorily. I bet the Bynars will be facing some kind of sanction from the Federation though. Picard takes the conn and lays in a course for the Starbase 74, and the ship sets off. They dock at the Starbase once more and take the crew and civilians back on board. Picard orders a ship-wide systems check and hands the Bynars over to Security so there can be a hearing.

WHY? Why would her face change?
It makes no sense. :(

Finally, Riker heads back to the holodeck to see Minuet. He's shocked when she turns her head and it's not her though. I get that they wanted to hammer home quickly to the viewer that without the Bynar programming, Minuet is just another holodeck character and not at all real. But why would her physical appearance change? That's just weird, even if it is effective visual shorthand for the message they want to convey. As if to further emphasise the point, "Minuet" stares at him blankly as he talks about her since what he's saying presumably falls outside the parameters of her apparently limited programming. If Riker loved her for her mind, he's in trouble because this version of her seems to be a totally unresponsive airhead.


Back on the Bridge, Riker sadly informs Picard that Minuet is gone and he couldn't get her back despite tinkering with the program. Picard concludes that she was part of the Bynar's program. He consoles Riker with the fact that not all relationships can be made to work. True that - I imagine it'd be a strain on the relationship that she can't leave the holodeck and Riker could have switched her on and off at will. :) Riker says she'll be difficult to forget and takes his station. With that, the Enterprise resumes her mission.


Overall, an okay episode. Some nice sci-fi ideas with the Bynars but they were only sort of put out there for consideration and not really explored meaningfully at all. Some bonding between Riker and Picard which was cool - it does help show how well they work together as a command team. Everyone else in the episode got sidelined for those two though, perhaps excepting Data and his brief moment of command and subsequent second guessing of his own command. Sign of things to come I feel - with a large-ish cast, Trek episodes quite often had to focus on a small few characters and sideline the rest. It does work better when the plot focus is not spread too thin though.


Next: Too Short a Season, a rather forgettable episode but not a bad one.

Star Trek TNG - Angel One

Wow. I hadn't realised it had been so long since I posted here. I really need to put more effort into this or not bother at all. So in an attempt to get back into this, I'll start with what I've been putting off for ages. The next episode of Star Trek: Next Generation. After all, if I don't push ahead through the terrible episodes, then how I will get to enjoy rewatching the episodes I loved as a teenager? So without further ado:

Originally aired: January 25th, 1988

We open with the Enterprise looking for survivors of a wrecked ship but only finding that some escape pods are missing. The trail leads them to a planet called Angel 1. As the planet hails them, Picard reminds them to be especially diplomatic with this planet as it's important to the Federation. Data takes the opportunity to exposition a bit (God, he loves doing that) and tells us this planet is ruled by an elected council of women. Picard nominates Troi to be the first point of contact, given that they'll be dealing with female leaders. Despite this gesture, the planet's leader doesn't really want them there and reluctant agrees to them visit briefly to look for the survivors. Just as well, or Riker would never get to play at being Kirk. Well, I assume he will. After all, Riker on a planet full of strong women? How else could this end?

On his way to the transporter Riker runs into Wesley who's headed for the holodeck. Apparently skiing on the Denubian Alps. Really, Star Trek? The Swiss Alps aren't good enough for you? I never liked when sci-fi shows got a little too heavy handed with using made up alien places and alien historical figures, and Trek was one of the worst for it. I suppose it's to show that humanity really has spread across the galaxy and is much bigger than any one planet. And to a native of the Federation it wouldn't sound weird. But it does sound off to me, damn it.

Anyway. The away team is beaming down lead by Riker. Given that Troi is going too, why not put her in charge? Picard reminds them that this planet is important and they want it to join the Federation some day. That's two warnings now - at this point a diplomatic incident is almost inevitable. Odds are Riker will be the one to cock it up. On the planet, there's a nice touch in the costuming. Given that females here are are dominant as males in Earth's history, it makes it a little more authentic that most of the men are all wearing revealing clothes. Not one of them has their chest covered up. I think they might be wearing jewellery as well. I guess they have to look nice for their wives when they get home from work. :)

The Council of Angel 1. Ready to dick the away team around.

Riker and Troi try to negotiate permission to look for survivors, but keep getting dicked around by the leaders. When flat out asked if the survivors are here, the elected leader Beata replies that she's not ready to answer yet. That would be a big fat yes then. As they are dismissed, Riker and Troi are puzzled by all this. I guess they haven't spent a lot of time in diplomatic contact with non Federation planets before and are confused by people who aren't all honest and nice all of the time.

After confirming that their quarters are not bugged, they discuss what just happened and prove they're not completely stupid when they all pretty much agree that the survivors must be here. Data asks what they will do if they are told that the people they are looking for aren't here and Riker tells him not to look for problems. Ever hear the phrase "Hope for the best but plan for the worst" Riker?

Back on the ship, Picard is preparing the ship to head for the Neutral Zone as the Romulans are acting up. Yay! First mention of the Romulans! I guess they've given up on the Ferengi as bad guys and are gearing up the Romulan threat. As he discusses this with Worf he is hit with a snowball from the holodeck, thrown by Wesley. Picard isn't too pleased by this. For fucks sake, Picard. It's two teenage kids playing on the holodeck. Lighten up.

There's a cute little conversation amongst the away team as Data asks the others about perfume and acts all naive about how perfume can help attract a mate. The others on the team all smirk at each other rather than answer him, before they are summoned to see Mistress Beata. Any minute now, Riker is going to try to kiss her or something. I can almost see him channelling William Shatner. Beata tells the away team that the council has decided to trust them, but not unanimously. She tells them four men made it to the planet from the ship seven years ago. But they these four men have gone into hiding since they stared causing trouble on Angel 1 and then went on the run. They are apparently dangerous.

On the ship, there seems to be some kind of virus going around as some of the kids are sick - Wesley included. I really don't know what this scene is doing here. Is it going to be relevant later on? Chekov's Flu perhaps?

Riker and Data discuss how they might use the ship's sensor to find the men and Data asks for access to the planet's library database to try to work out something that might be unique to the four survivors so they can find them. Beata seems amused by the idea of an android shaped like a man. The internet tells me there was a scene cut from the script where one of the council leaders tries to seduce Data. I guess Riker isn't the only one who seems to have some luck with all these alien women. Data tells the ship to scan for platinum. Apparently there is none of that on this planet.

Riker is off to meet with Beata and plans to wear the typical clothing for males on this planet while doing so. The girls are a little shocked that he would wear these clothes and parade around like the men of this planet. Riker sticks to his guns that it's standard diplomatic procedure to respectfully dress as the locals do and he's done it before. And besides, how else will he get his Kirk on if he doesn't show a little skin? :)

Back on the ship, Chekov's Flu is picking up speed as Picard gets sick. Dr. Crusher relieves him of duty to get some bedrest. Geordi is put in command of the ship while Picard is sick and the First and Second officers are planetside. Geordi acts like a total dork in his fist ten seconds of being in command. Still not sure what this plot is even here for. They find a platinum trace though and notify the away team.

Ramsey and his bad haircut have
been expecting the away team.

Planetside, Riker has finished dressing up for Beata and the girls make fun of him. Christ, he's even wearing earrings. There's some bickering between Riker and one of the council leaders who doesn't trust him. Beata gives permission to the away team to go look for the survivors. Beata tells him to send the girls to get the survivors while he stays there with Beata. I'd say he's reached a 7 or 8 on the Kirk scale by now. Any minute now, he's going to achieve the full Shatner. The away team has the ship beam them off to find the survivors. On arrival, they are greeted peacefully by Ramsey, one of the fugitive survivors, who says he was expecting them. I think the plot is finally going to get moving.

On the ship, the virus is spreading fast and the pressure to go deal with the Romulans. It seems like Geordi's all alone on the bridge now and getting a little overwhelmed with command. Is that the point of this plot?

Beata and her early 90s hair
prepare to seduce Riker.

The away team find that the survivors don't want to leave. They all have wives and kids and think of this as their home now. Riker tries to get more info about what's going on from Beata. But she seems more interested in just getting her leg over. I thought Riker was channelling Kirk, but in a twist fitting the themes of this episode it's the alien chick who's going full on Kirk. Riker gives in and lets himself be seduced. But they are interrupted by her man servant before they get anywhere who brings Riker's gift for Beata. It seems to be a cheap glowing crystal prop that looks crap despite Riker talking it up. And then Beata gets back to what she's really after and throws herself at Riker. I swaer, all this scene needs is for Riker to have green skin and be wearing a bikini and it'd be a full on Reverse Kirk scenario. :)



Ramsey tells the away team that they were happy on Angel 1 at first, but over time they grew unhappy with the way men were treated. They still want to stay on the planet though. Data backs up the survivor in his claim that they cannot remove him by force. Apparently his ship was a private ship and therefore not bound by the Prime Directive. I think that the rules around the Prime Directive change each episode as the plot demands.

On the ship, hundreds of people have gotten sick. Crusher is still working on a cure, but the virus mutates every minutes making it really hard. If the virus is that unstable, I'd imagine it would probably already have mutated into a lethal form by now, but there have been no fatalities. They are apparently perilously close to not having enough people to run the ship. I am still not clear on the purpose of this plot. Is it simply here so that Geordi, Crusher, Worf and Picard will get a few scenes in this episode?

Tasha is preparing to leave the survivors behind, but tries to find out why he was expecting them. Just like Mistress Beata he says he can't answer that yet. In a completely predictable turn of events his wife shows herself after the away team leave and it's Mistress Ariel - the council member who was so distrustful of the away team and didn't want to let them search for the men. This is just going to boil down to a simple plot about Beata wanting the trouble makers off her planet, isn't it? The away team return to interrupt Riker and Beata and fill them in on what happened. Beata says that if the away team don't take the men off the planet, she'll have them all sentenced to death.

On the ship, Crusher makes a house call to Picard and notices a scent that Picard spotted earlier when meeting Wesley. Crusher makes the connection that the sweet smell is the transmission mechanism of the virus. I still don't give a shit about this plot. Apparently, the Romulans are really crowding the Federation outpost and the single starship that turned up to help so far is outgunned.

Riker thinks that they should leave, saying that the fugitives have evaded capture so long that they'll be fine. As he says this Beata turns up with the fugitives in tow. Ramsey, the fugitive leader, blames Riker for betraying him but it seems that Beata simply followed Ariel to find Ramsey. Beata sentences the fugtives and their wives to death. Riker tries to negotiate a way to avoid killing the fugitives. He asks to talk to the men to try to find a way around this. He promises to take Ramsey, his men, their families and followers if they want to leave. But Ramsey refuses to leave this world. He doesn't want to die, but he refuses to abandon the stand he's taking. Riker says he'll take them all by force and face a court martial rather than let them die.

He calls the ship and Geordi's gotten sick now. Dr. Crusher appears to be in command. She refuses to beam anyone onto the ship, declaring that she's quarantining the ship. She shows admirable leadership really, making a hard call with little hesitation. I know they come back to that idea later on when Troi tries to qualify as a command officer and Crusher gives her advice from when she did that training. Looking at her here, I'd easily believe that she passed that training first time out. Riker decides to send Data back to the ship since he can't get sick. I'd imagine he might be to carry the virus in some fashion, so I hope they don't beam him back down later. It's his job to take the ship to the Neutral Zone to deal with the Romulans. If any crew member can handle that situation single handedly, it's him.

The next day, the away team is invited to the execution but refuse to go. Data suddenly hails the away team and they are surprised the ship hasn't left. Data rules-lawyers them citing that his orders were to reach the Neutral Zone "before it is too late". I'd hate to play a board game or RPG with Data. He'd always be citing obscure rules and ruining everyone's fun. He says he thinks he has 48 minutes before he has to leave. Apparently thinking there is still something he can do, Riker decides to attend the execution after all. They demonstrate their execution method by disintegrated a vase, claiming that the punishment will be quick and painless.

Riker points out that this is not a revolution of their society as Beata claims but evolution. He points out that the survivors didn't start this change, but they became a symbol for a previously existing sentiment. He points out that she is merely creating martyrs for the cause of gender equality on her planet and in doing so will create an undefeatable foe in Ramsey. Beata's reaction is pretty much summed up as "Meh" as she orders the execution to proceed. Of course, she makes her man-servant push the button. She doesn't even have the guts to do it herself. But at the last second she relents, and leaves to discuss Riker's plea with the council.

On the ship, Data is in command as Crusher calls him to let him know that she has found an inoculation for the virus. Data notifies Riker who asks that he prepare to beam the team and Ramsey's group up but not engage the transporter yet. I guess this is his backup plan if Beata still wants to get her murder on. Speaking of which, Beata and the others return. She decides that the execution has been cancelled. She still plans to exile the group to the remotest area of the planet where they will have to struggle to survive. She claims that even if she cannot stop evolution of the society she will at least hobble it. Riker takes what victory he can get and returns to the ship, where everyone is returning to health.

Picard orders the ship to the Neutral Zone but hasn't recovered fully and his voice has gone, so Riker orders the ship out and off they go.

All in all, that was not as bad an episode as I remembered. Not great either. Lack of originality is probably it's biggest flaw. Trying to say something about gender inequality by reversing the roles of the genders is a good way to do that, but what the show had to say about that was hardly original, inspiring or even all that thought-provoking. Perhaps the most notable thing it said was that the evolution to a more equal society is an inevitable step that cannot be denied. I'd like to think that's true but even now in the 21st Century we have a long way to go.

The virus plotline revealed its purpose a little late in the game to be interesting though. It seemed like it was only there to help put pressure on the away team. They already had the Romulan threat to act as a ticking clock, but I guess the virus introduced the complication of the quarantine which raised the stakes for the away team as they had no safety net of just beaming everyone out. I can;t help but feel they could have done more. They ever so slightly touched on a burden of command plotline with Geordi which they then backed off from almost immediately. I'd have liked to see more of that.

So a more or less average episode with a bit of wasted potential.

Next up: 11001001, which explores somewhat the idea of a species who operate in binary pairs and are completely co-dependent. With a holodeck malfunction thrown in for good measure.