1.16 Too Short a Season As Karnas and Jameson speak, Troi looks suspicious, which is our first indication that everyone’s lying. Luckily, Jameson is a skilled negotiator and makes up a bunch of stuff to keep everyone off his back that Troi doesn’t notice. Later, in his quarters, Jameson is hit by some unexplained chest pains that he writes off as a result of his “treatments”. HMM! Crusher is confused by the medical records Jameson gave her, so she volunteers to spy on Jameson to see what’s going on. Apparently, she’s noticed that every time the Enterprise has a high-profile visitor they’re hiding some kind of dark secret. It’s a bit like being in Scooby Doo, only the crooks come to you. When Picard offers Jameson the chance to pilot the Enterprise, Jameson shocks everyone by getting out of his future-wheelchair and walking, very slowly, to his seat. Unfortunately, the chest pains continue. It turns out instead of taking his magic drink twice a day after meals, he just drank the lot in one go. He’s rapidly de-aging, and everyone knows where that leads: death, or pre-pubescence, neither of which is a desirable state. Meanwhile, Jameson continues to chat with Karnas about the situation. It turns out there are no terrorists, and that Karnas took the hostages to lure Jameson back to the planet. It later turns out that Karnas still blames Jameson for the decades of civil war on Mordan IV, largely because instead of brokering a proper deal, Jameson just gave Karnas the weapons he wanted, took the hostages, then gave weapons to Karnas’ opponents so they could shoot it out themselves. Then he falsified the reports and hoped no-one would notice. On Mordan IV, an incredulous Karnas struggles to believe that the man he’s talking to is Jameson. Meanwhile, Jameson is near death. His body can’t take the strain, and they try to make it look like he’s getting shorter by giving him an extra-baggy uniform, even though he’s clearly still about six inches taller than Patrick Stewart. Karnas accepts their explanation after being shown a slideshow, then changes his mind, then has a chat with Jameson and accepts the explanation after seeing a scar on Jameson’s wrist, which is the one part of him which has magically not been rejuvenated (uh-oh, plot hole!). Picard tells Karnas that the war was probably mostly his fault, not Jameson’s, and Karnas disagrees. He grabs a phaser, intending to kill Jameson! Then changes his mind and says he’d have better revenge in watching him suffer. Jameson promptly drops dead anyway, after minimal suffering. Karnas releases the hostages, which he has no further use of. Back on the Enterprise, Picard makes some glib statements about the futility of the quest for youth and points out that age and wisdom have their advantages too. Riker replies by calling Picard old (“Maybe one must have age and wisdom to appreciate that, Sir.” but Picard doesn’t notice, and they set course for Isis III. Everyone’s grinning, despite the fact that they’re leaving behind them a planet ravaged by decades of Federation-sponsored civil war, a dead Admiral, and a dead Admiral’s traumatised wife. Ah well, can’t win ’em all. TNG WTF: So, Jameson confesses to causing a forty year civil war on Mordan IV by arming both sides, inadvertently causing millions of deaths, and at no point does anyone say “er, guys, hadn’t we better arrest him or something?” Do they not have war crimes in the future? In fact, not only does Picard fail to shop Jameson to his superiors immediately, he basically replies “Buck up old boy, it wasn’t your fault.” Er, on what planet? (Well, Mordan IV, self-evidently.) Oh, and at one point, Jameson decides they need to arrive at Mordan IV ahead of schedule, so he asks them to increase the ship to Warp eight, from Warp four. So apparently, a hostage negotiation isn’t the sort of crisis you get to in any particular haste. Warp four’s fine, we can get there whenever. Alright, Picard! Kick a woman while she’s down, why don’t you? Not only did Troi just have her arranged marriage go sour, she’s also been absent from two of the last three episodes. Now you’re making fun of the fact that a good thirty percent of her dialogue consists of those three words? Well, get used to it pal, you’re going to be hearing that a LOT more over the next six and a bit years! Oh, and given that it’s the future, it’s pretty funny to watch Admiral Jameson attempting to reach the control panels from his wheelchair and largely failing. Disabled access is not of particular interest in the future, apparently. What a romantic. Mistakes and Minutiae: There’s a golden rule in fiction: show, don’t tell. Considering that this episode relies on us caring about the fate of a bunch of Federation hostages, it might help if we, er, actually saw them at any point. I know that’s not what the episode’s about, but given how much of Karnas’ plan involved lying to everyone, why didn’t the writers just say he made up the hostages? As it is, we’re supposed to be worrying about the lives of some faceless nobodies who we literally never see. A very strange decision. Time Until Meeting: There’s a reasonably heavy use of the conference room in this episode, but again, no meetings. Shambles. Absolute shambles. It’s like they don’t even know what Star Trek TNG is. Captain’s Log: This is another episode that actually has a good idea at its core and manages to follow it up in the actual fabric of the episode. The focus is on Admiral Jameson – the mistake he made four decades ago, and the way his regret is destroying him. The manifestation of that regret is the clock rolling back and giving him a second chance, and although that turns out to be represented by some rather dubious make-up and over-acting, at least the idea is good. They did the best they could with the technology they had at the time. Still, despite that, it’s quite a good episode with a well-thought premise and a reasonably good execution. A shame they forgot to add any story for the main cast – not even a B-Plot where Data and Geordi rewire Wesley’s replicator so it only creates left-handed versions of popular utensils in an effort to teach Data about practical jokes – but Jameson’s story was just about enough to carry things. And hey, there’s a proper action scene in it, with phasers and everything, it’s been a while since we had one of those. Watch or Skip? Yeah, watch. It’s pretty funny (if unintentionally) and the mystery is at least compelling. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
