Originally posted at Recaps in Hindsight. Check out the season 1 Next Generation recaps here!
So dashing. Much macho. Very space pirate.
The short recap:
A douchebag alpha male shags every sentient woman on the Enterprise and brings about interstellar peace.
The long recap:
Oh god this is so difficult. The whole point of starting this blog was to highlight just how bad, awkward, tone-deaf, and outright offensive some TV shows are with the benefit of a few decades’ hindsight. But I don’t think I was adequately prepared for just how bad and clumsy, clunky, poorly-written and badly-paced Next Generation was going to be.
The Outrageous Okona combines a really poorly-put together Romeo & Juliet In Space plotline with a Very Special Episode of Data trying to become a comedian. And really if you’ve seen any early TNG you know exactly how this is going to go so you can probably stop reading there.
Okona is a captain saved from a broken-down ship (which is possibly a breach of the Prime Directive, who even knows at this point) who might as well be named Chad Studly or Dash Roguington because he is the absolute pinnacle of the Han Solo/Malcolm Reynolds/Lord Flashheart-in-Space evolutionary tree. He even tries to hit on the ship’s computer.
Something something beam YOU up, sugar.
They beam him aboard and he promptly sexually harasses the teleporter operator (played by a baby-faced uncredited Teri Hatcher) while the Enterprise’s own alpha male Riker looks on indulgently. Screw you, Riker. Of course as soon as they leave she apparently teleports herself straight to the guest quarters and into a terrible diaphanous bedrobe which makes the sexual harassment a-OK.
Two ships carrying leaders from warring planets promptly show up demanding the Enterprise hand over Buff Manlypants. Space President 1 has a son in tow and accuses Buff of stealing a priceless artifact. Space President 2 has a daughter in tow and accuses Buff of knocking her up. You see where this is going.
I’ve been in videoconference calls like this.
After far too long (and a Very Special Moment with Wesley and Spacestud talking about the importance of family) it all becomes clear: the two space presidents’ kids are in love and Spacestud has been facilitating their liaison. The space presidents are shocked, stunned, then take all of 30 seconds to start doing that hackneyed sitcom “let’s argue about where the children are going to live now that our decades-old enmity has been solved by young love” thing.
Take my script. Please.
In the B plot, Data seeks Guinan’s advice on laughter and humour because Space Commander Douchebag has made him feel insecure about human experience. She suggests seeking the aid of a higher power, i.e. the holodeck, and thus commences a serious of utterly awful lessons with a kinda-self-aware holocomedian. This is only redeemed by the fact Brent Spiner is clearly enjoying being allowed to emote.
Guinan is then a total killjoy and refuses to find Data’s memorised Rodney Dangerfield one-liners funny. Data summons a holodeck audience programmed to laugh at him but surprise surprise, doesn’t find this fulfilling. And at the end of it all he says something awkward , everyone laughs, and they all have a group hug. Ugh.
Points:
- Deanna: 1 for detecting that the universe’s biggest playboy captain is a playboy
- Data: 1 for pointless thesaurusing
- Wesley: 1 for awkwardly beaming at Captain Thrustpants for the entire episode
Additionally:
- I really want to know the punchline to “a monk, a clone and a Ferengi go bowling together”
- When dealing with the preggo space princess, Deanna refers to “archaic codes” about procreation. Because Will Riker was so forward-thinking and carefree when Deanna got knocked up by an alien lifeforce, and it’s not like Deanna’s own mother isn’t going to be trapped by a very modern set of ethics around procreation in a few years’ time. It’s “we no longer enslave animals for food” again.
- Despite Data’s attempt at comedy, the funniest moment of the episode has to be when the planetary leaders show up and lock their feeble lasers on the Enterprise. In a modern-day remake of this scene Worf would sneer “Do you even lift?” at the viewscreen.
- They keep forgetting to mute comm channels while Deanna tells Picard whether or not people are lying to him. Sometimes this fails, sometimes it doesn’t. Argh!
Mm-hmm?
MVP: Guinan
The calm voice of reason who demands people better themselves without spoon-feeding wisdom into them. Also, fabulous costuming.
