“When the Bough Breaks”
Written by Hannah Louise Shearer
Directed by Kim Manners
Season 1, Episode 17
Original air date: February 15, 1988
Star date: 41509.1
Mission summary
Enterprise follows a trail of energy readings to the Epsilon Mynos system, the legendary location of the hidden world Aldea, which turns out to be more than a myth. The planet drops its sophisticated cloaking shield and they are welcomed by a young woman, Rashella, who soon transports to the ship’s bridge with a much older man, Radue, First Appointee to Aldea. They have an intriguing, but ambiguous deal to offer the Federation crew.
The Aldeans transport Riker, Crusher, and Troi through their shield to the planet for negotiations. They confide that they are all sterile and propose trading some extra children from Enterprise in exchange for advanced information about areas of space that are still centuries out of the Federation’s reach. In fact, they’ve already picked out their favorite rugrats and taken the liberty of helping themselves, even though Riker and the others are vehemently opposed to this bizarre arrangement. On the upside, one of the kids the Aldeans takes is Wesley, which they will soon regret.
But of course, no child gets left behind on Picard’s watch. While the captain keeps the Aldeans talking about “compensation,” Data and Geordi search for ways to sneak through the Aldeans’ aging defensive systems, and Wesley discovers that the Aldeans are entirely dependent on a computer set up by their Progenitors called the Custodian—technology they don’t understand and are unable to maintain. Wesley must have seen Star Trek episodes like this before, because he immediately asks about the machine’s power source. There’s a good chance it’s behind that locked door that no one has ever bothered opening. Oh that? It’s just a maintenance closet.
Radue resorts to barely veiled threats and shows off his planet’s superior strength to get Picard to agree to the completely reasonable offer on the table. Dr. Crusher discovers that everyone on Aldea is suffering from radiation poisoning; the very machine they rely on is destroying their atmosphere, allowing their sun to slowly kill them. The Enterprise kids will suffer the same fate after prolonged exposure. Wesley forces Radue’s hand by arranging a little strike among the kidnapped children, and Data and Riker exploit fluctuations in the planetary shield to beam down and disable the Custodian.
Radue quickly changes his tune once he loses his leverage; he gratefully accepts their generous offer of help. Dr. Crusher patches the Aldeans up and the ship restores the planet’s ozone layer, but they can never use their shields again.
Analysis
I was mightily confused when this episode began, because I had somehow mixed it up with “Coming of Age,” but there was nary a Benzite to be seen. Once I realized this was a different Wesley-centric episode, I was surprised that the things I’d expected to be annoying weren’t that bad.
Specifically, Wesley ended up being far more mature and believably precocious than we’ve seen him. He assumes his protective role over the other, younger kids easily and shows them great kindness. He is curious and suspicious about the Custodian but doesn’t pull any whiz kid shenanigans to save the day. His solution, to stage passive resistance, is clever and just the right thing to do under the circumstances. And when his mother employs his help to scan one of the Aldeans, he is typically awkward and obtuse. “Oh!” he exclaims as she slips him the medical scanner. Then he gets the readings she needs so subtly that it’s a good thing the Aldean is old and probably blinded by radiation sickness. But that’s it. Incredibly, Wesley is one of the better aspects of this one, and you heard it here first.
This is the second episode in the series where the ship encounters a legendary planet from an advanced civilization, and it won’t be the last. Not by a long shot. It makes sense that this would happen in their explorations, but it’s quickly becoming a new trope of the franchise, while they simultaneously borrow some old ones from the original series: the Custodian and the idea of a race of Progenitors. Who are these guys and why do they think they’re helping people? Picard’s reasons for getting involved are different and necessary, but the end result is the same as if Kirk had visited Aldea: a planet “freed” of the computer that controls it and a change to a completely different way of life.
I liked that Picard and Riker were so excited over discovering Aldea. These are the attitudes I expect explorers to have. I also appreciated their multipronged approach to solving a seemingly impossible situation, and how their efforts dovetailed with Wesley’s on the planet below. But I wondered why Picard didn’t attempt to intimidate or threaten the Aldeans at all. Surely if Starfleet got wind that a planet had kidnapped Federation citizens, especially kids, war would be upon them. It wasn’t until we saw how powerful Aldea is—through a nifty special effect snapping Enterprise light years away, which gave me an odd feeling of déjà Q (the effect is reused in the following season in “Q Who”)—that we understand the Federation is significantly outgunned.
I also didn’t get why Radue was so insistent on forcing Picard to go along with their trade. They have a perverted moral code, where they must give something of “like value” in exchange for the children, but bullying someone into accepting your offer seems rather pointless.
The hardest thing to accept is that a supposedly civilized people would commit such a blatant act of what Picard calls “barbarity.” My favorite moment of the episode is when Radue claims they won’t harm the children and Picard points out they already have, by snatching them away from their families and home. The Aldeans are weirdly inconsistent, and their lack of awareness that they’re in the wrong is too unbelievable. At one point, Radue tells Picard, “You are a stubborn people.” Hello, pot. Meet kettle.
The other element that doesn’t work, really at all, is that these kids accepted their new families so readily. They don’t freak out much at all, and it isn’t until a few days later that they start getting a little mopey. It doesn’t speak well of the kids, or their parents. Wesley’s the only one who realizes how screwed up this all is and almost has to twist their arms to reject the new paradise they’ve been offered. Aldea is far from the Neverland of Peter Pan or Pleasure Island in Pinocchio, a break from their oh so terrible lives on Enterprise. Look, I hate calculus too, but I’m not going to be happy with a strange couple that forces me to make little statues for them either or play happy songs.
The Aldeans are painted as kind of sympathetic, but they’re horrible monsters. I could understand their actions if the radiation has affected their judgment, but they’re fully accountable if they’re driven to kidnap children out of desperation. It might even have been enough if they were a tad regretful instead of acting like their behavior was perfectly justified. Troi inexplicably says, “We know they’ll make good parents,” but nothing could be farther from the truth. Slap a quarantine on the planet and get the hell out of there!
There’s a fair bit of moralizing here too, again from Dr. Crusher: How ironic! The very technology the planet depends on is destroying its atmosphere, dooming them all. Hmm. She also makes an effort to throw out some helpful platitudes, like, “Don’t give in to fear!” Thanks, don’t quit your day job, Doc. At least I still find Picard’s discomfort around children amusing, and the last shot of the episode elicited a much-needed laugh to make it all better.
Ultimately, this episode is simultaneously needlessly complicated and oversimplified, not nearly as thoughtful or provocative as it thinks it is. It tries too hard to turn something that shouldn’t be much of a problem into a major, drawn-out conflict, and is just generally creepy and wrong. On the other hand, guest star Jerry Hardin is awesome in every role he plays…
Eugene’s Rating: Warp 2 (on a scale of 1-6)
Thread Alert: Star Trek continues its trend of dressing children in the most outlandish outfits. Wesley’s fashion sense is not even the worst of this ensemble. This should count as child abuse.
Best Line: PICARD: “Things are only impossible until they’re not.”
Trivia/Other Notes: This is Jerry Hardin’s first appearance on TNG. He will return in the 2-part episode “Time’s Arrow” as Samuel Clemens.
Wil Wheaton’s brother Jeremy (Mason) and sister Amy (Tara) are uncredited guest stars in this episode, along with Michael Westmore’s daughter Mackenzie (R0se).
The music that Katie “plays” might sound familiar: It was used as the Traveler’s theme in “Where No One Has Gone Before.” Both episodes were scored, composed, and conducted by Ron Jones.
Previous episode: Season 1, Episode 16 – “Too Short a Season.”
Next episode: Season 1, Episode 18 – “Home Soil.”
Clearly the Aldeans should’ve figured out how to create an alien-Aldean hybrid. That would solve all their problems.
…seriously though, I don’t really have much to say about this episode, other than that there’s just too much stuff going on. I like the hunger strike thing, but it winds up being completely irrelevant; it’s the ship crew that saves the day, and Wesley doesn’t even provide a distraction. And it’s really only the one effort on the part of the crew that does it — they wind up puttering around trying to find a way around the shields, and then just go with what Data suggested originally. It’s realistic — a bunch of overlapping efforts that wind up being pointless — but it’s not very good storytelling.
Also, as with Minuet, this is another instance where we basically have a fairy story in space. Of course the fairies are going to kidnap your babies, that’s what fairies do. Then they take them to fairy-land, where all is great, except that it isn’t. It’s a shame the show didn’t have the guts to take it all the way and acknowledge that the fairies are evil (or at the very least, cruel and self-centered and perhaps guided by their own logic, but fundamentally not like us people). I’d have loved to see Picard get the better of them by negotiation or trickery…
Really, the only good thing you can really say about this episode is that they finally get Wesley right. If this were the Wes we’d seen right from the beginning, the whole Wesley hate thing might not have taken off.
I hated the disappearing/legendary planet thing. It never really worked. This is a settled and civilized galaxy now, not the wild west of TOS. Almost all of these episodes are utterly forgettable. In fact the only one I remember at all clearly is the one on DS9, where they try to make us think that Dax is going to leave, and I only remember that because of the scene where she suggests to the guy from the disappearing planet that they go somewhere private and “count each other’s spots”.
Some major ST con really ought to put together an “I was a teenage Star Trek fashion victim” panel with Wil Wheaton, Cirroc Lofton, and Aron Eisenberg (at least). It could be hilarious, but Jake definitely wins (loses) since the others all got uniforms of some sort eventually.
Chalk up another episode in the Case Against Bringing Children Into A Known Hazardous Occupation. We haven’t seen a Galaxy-class just up and explode at this point in the series (and won’t until late next season), but there have been plenty of near-misses someone should have asked if this policy was such a good idea, after all.
It’s not like space exploration (as depicted in Star Trek) was ever shown to be particularly safe. Ships are lost. Short of that, people are lost. Which is fine, as long as those placing themselves in harm’s way have opted in to do so.
I’m sure Gene didn’t really mean for Starfleet to be an institution trading a depraved indifference to the safety of civilians just to keep up crew morale on long deployments. Like so many other things, someone didn’t think it all the way through before putting it on the air.
@3 S. Hutson Blount
Short of that, people are lost. Which is fine, as long as those placing themselves in harm’s way have opted in to do so.
I suppose Dr. Crusher’s other helpful comment was meant to address this somehow: “Now, we all knew what the risks were when we signed on, and that’s the choice we made.”
The kids can’t be expected to have a voice, of course, so their parents are the ones to blame. It occurs to me that this is another example of where the episode could have gone deeper into the guilt and doubt each of those parents might face about their place on that ship. But instead it’s, “The last time I saw him, I yelled at him,” and all’s well that ends well. They do try to offload families as often as they can if they are expecting a battle, but it does seem shortsighted.
I am surprised that in your links of thematically related episodes in your Featured Posts, you did not include “And The Children Shall Lead.”
This seems like a better run at the concept of children who are abducted and coopted for the arcane purposes of some alien douche, but the false reactions of the children (and their atrocious fashion sense) resonate.
I forgot to add that TOS had the bad guy fling the ship several light years away once or twice. I can’t quite remember which episode(s), but I distinctly remember Scotty being in charge and McCoy riding his ass. Can’t put my finger on it though.
@6 DemetriosX
I recall at least one, “That Which Survives”– Enterprise tossed 990 light years. There’re probably others I’ve forgotten.
I’m scratching my head to recall an episode where Scotty is in charge and McCoy is not with the landing party. The two were paired, with Scott in command, in “A Taste of Armageddon,” but no Enterprise tossing in that one. And I don’t recall McC boiling Scott’s haggis.
Those two were sort of united in riding Spock’s ass whenever he was in charge.
@7 Lemnoc
Maybe I’m conflating a couple of different incidents, but I thought I remembered somebody giving Scotty a lot of grief about his command decisions. Must have been thinking about Spock in ‘Gamesters’ or something.
‘Gamesters’ is one of those that seems like a ship flinging episode, the E a long distance from its kidnapped landing party with a big expanse to cross. There, McCoy and Scotty kvetch after Spock like a couple of old Yiddish women.
Kirk dishes out his gripes against Scott’s seat in the Big Chair in ‘The Apple.’ But generally Monty is depicted as a stalwart if uninventive commander.
Scotty was okay in the chair. His turn in “Friday’s Child” was average- he had the “fool me once” line, but he should’ve investigated after the first suspiciously timed distress call.
I don’t recall this episode, either. These rewatches are excellent at reliving the better episodes and warning me of ones that are best avoided. I am also reminded of the alien that possessed Picard without asking while offering exploration advantages- the possessor had no clue that the proffered deal might not be acceptable.
Something that strikes me about this episode was that Aldea’s arts are as sterile as they are if what we see the children using is an indication of their ‘state of the art.’ A device that creates a sculpture right from your thoughts is just a fancy replicator. My thought was that a child learning “art” with such a device could become successful as an artist by pumping out works that people respond to but I find it hard to see such a child growing into an innovative influential force in the art world. As one instructor put it, “It’s the happy accidents that provide the best incentive for your growth as an artist.” I see very little chance for happy accidents with a device that seems to be able to bypass the limitations and properties of the materials.
My take on the failure of this episode is that the writer (and re-writers, if any) tried to pull a complete story out of combining two hot-button issues – missing children, and industrial pollution/climate change but had not fleshed out the story around these potentially interesting story elements.
And I feel that the powers behind this one don’t, or didn’t, really understand children as storytelling characters. With the exception of Wesley – and later Alexander – children seemed to serve more as props and storytelling devices in TNG. And while Wesley and Alexander were characters, they were usually used poorly. To be fair, this is not a problem exclusive to Star Trek. Were there any successes with Children in science fiction TV? I’m sure others could cite other examples but in looking back, I’d say that Ulysses Adair and True Danziger in Earth 2 were two of the most believable child characters in a science fiction TV series for me. They were kids despite the other aspects of the characters. In comparison, Wesley was a genius in sore need of a more aggressively challenging learning program and Alexander was a little Warf – a little Klingon with an identity crisis.
@11 Ludon
I was really bothered by the Aldeans’ idea of making art. I don’t know how they could determine who has a natural talent for music or sculpture, but forcing kids to do something they otherwise have no interest in isn’t much better than telling them they need to learn calculus. I do like the idea of introducing them to hidden abilities and activities they didn’t know about, and helping them to develop their skills if they seem interested; it was also neat how they were matched with families that could encourage it, like a kind of apprenticeship. But there also seemed to be unreasonable expectations and pressures they placed on the kids to produce art–the sense that this was the life they were meant for. I’m also not sure if the Aldeans’ tools are really doing all the work for them, and if that means the creative output is somehow less legitimate.
We need tools to create art, but they still require a lot of work, practice, and mastery from the artist–the Aldeans’ tools seemed like an easy shortcut, emphasizing the final product and eliminating the process. The process frequently individualizes and informs an artist’s work, and the kids here are sort of creating something that I think could have been produced by anyone, without any of the personal investment and sense of accomplishment of learning a difficult skill.
@11 Ludon, re kids as props:
Last night I was thinking about the families on board thing we’ve been discussing and it occurred to me that throughout the entire run of TNG the writers would often conveniently forget that there were kids on board. Like almost every single time the ship was in danger. The only exceptions I can think of where kids were more than just props in TNG would be “Rascals” and the episode where the ship is half wrecked, leaving the various main cast are isolated and Picard gets stuck in a turbolift full of children. I’ve been trying to think of the successful use of children in SF TV, but I’m not having much luck. Jake and Nog made a pretty good team, but really only after they got to be 15/16. The less said about Molly O’Brien and Naomi Wildman the better. Outside of the Trek universe, my mind can’t seem to get past the horror that was Robbie Rist in the second season of the original Battlestar Galactica (or for that matter Boxey in the first season).
#13, @DemetriosX: There was a TNG episode, reasonably good from what I remember, in which a junior officer under Worf’s command was killed on an away mission and her son ends up haunted (basically) by an alien that takes the form of his dead mother. Probably it’s not as solid an episode as I remember but it was definitely one in which childhood (and being orphaned as a child) were central to the plot.
One fo the things in this episode, that sows up in a few other episode that really annoys is the ‘true myth.’
The moment someone mentions a mythical planet or people or power, you just know by the end of the story they are going to find out it was mostly true. You know most myuths are just stories and not real, but here’s its used as a cheap form of cheating establishment.
If I ever use this crutch you all have permissio to slap me.
“If I ever use this crutch you all have permissio to slap me.”
Isn’t there a prophecy about that?
“Outside of the Trek universe, my mind can’t seem to get past the horror that was Robbie Rist in the second season of the original Battlestar Galactica (or for that matter Boxey in the first season).”
I still maintain that, no matter how goofy the series was overall, Will and Penny Robinson were probably the most believable child characters in TV SF ( or really, Science Fantasy ). They may have been idealized children, but weren’t most main child characters on TV in the ’50s and ’60s? Both Will and Penny were supposed to be abnormally intelligent ( according to a voiceover in the unaired pilot, snipped out of the aired version ), but they still acted like kids.
Will was intelligent, curious and impetuous. Penny was also curious, intelligent and loved animals ( of course, don’t get me started about the sexism that mainly kept the womenfolk safe at the ship cooking, doing laundry, or having their hair styled by a machine… but that’s a different subject ). Both could throw a tantrum or get upset and pout about things normal kids would, and didn’t act “wise beyond their years” most of the time. Hell, as smart as they were, they were still dumb enough to get conned by Dr. Smith repeatedly.
Most of the time, I don’t care for kid characters in SFTV. It doesn’t seem that people who write in the genre can’t resist the urge to make “sooper- geeeniuses” of all of them, rather than real people.
@15 etomlins
You reminded me of another episode where a kid imprints on Data after some trauma and basically tries to become an android. But in all of these incidents, the plot specifically revolves around kids. But whenever the action doesn’t involve one, they just get forgotten. Borg cube shows up, Picard sounds battle stations and off they go. Nothing about getting non-combatants to protective shelters (and we often see Wesley wandering around, so it’s not some unspoken thing) or if there’s time an attempt to offload them somewhere. Nah, we’ll just fly off to Wolfe 359 with all the kids and scientists. Half the time, the writers act like there simply aren’t any families aboard. The whole concept was poorly thought out and poorly executed. In fact, I bet the only reason for the idea at all was just to get Wesley on board.
@17 dep1701
The Robinson kids are a good choice. You’re right that they really act like kids, even though Will is supposed to be a supergenius. There were a couple of kids’ SF shows that had reasonable children (Holly in Land of the Lost, for instance), but prime time stuff, they’re few and far between.
I agree that the kids and families aboard was forgotten except when it dealt with the plot and this was an example of the producers and the writers not being comfortable with the material.They want action and drama and danger, so they ignore that their main characters are dragging families and kids into combat zones.
I confess I am glad the creatives conveniently left the No Child Left Behind trope in the same rubbish filled memory hole as the Saucer Separation trope. Arguably, the cast would’ve spent the same amount of time they spend on technobabble also going through the motions of moving the kids to safety, firing up the Battle Bridge, a reused file clip separating to dramatic music, Geordie yelling evacuation orders while the blast doors come down, etc. All to the detriment of pace and storytelling.
Seems like the safest, responsible thing they could have done with the kids is represent them as holo projections with subspace links back to where they each actually and safely reside, a kind of 3D Skype.
( For the same reason BTW I’m grateful they did the scene-spinning Bat zoom on the old Batman TV series instead of following the Batmobile idling through traffic… shorthand works )
“( For the same reason BTW I’m grateful they did the scene-spinning Bat zoom on the old Batman TV series instead of following the Batmobile idling through traffic… shorthand works )”
Ah, but in virtually every other episode, they did show the Batmobile leaving through the Batcave, passing the “Gotham City, 14 Miles” sign, and pulling up in front of Police headquarters ( with the same people milling about every time ). No shorthand there!
@17 dep1701
I guess Will and Penny Robinson were fairly well rounded characters. Come to think of it, Will was reminded at least once “take your elbows off the table.” I don’t think about that series much these days because it’s just too silly for me to take in anything longer than 20 minute segments.
After thinking about my comment, I do have to say that TNG did have a few believable child characters but I still feel that within the storytelling context they were props and devices. Picard stuck in the elevator with the kids was, to me, a device used to keep him occupied so that the other characters could shine in their moments. I never really got to know those kids and I knew that after the episode was over I’d likely never see them again in the series. More importantly, I knew they couldn’t have been real danger because they were with Picard. TNG basically tried to be a feel-good show and you don’t go killing off kids left and right in feel-good shows. The much later BSG remake, on the other hand, made it clear from the beginning that no character would be safe.
I’d also say that Rene Picard (in Family) may have been the most realistic child character in the series. There was no false sense of danger surrounding him. He and his father disagreed on things but it was clear that the family ties were there. And, thankfully, they didn’t try to use him to explore Picard’s discomfort around children. We got to know Rene as he got to know his uncle. He became a character we’d liked to have seen again in the series – and don’t get me started on what they did in Generations.
@12 Eugene
We are saying the same things about art and how it was used here.
@23 Ludon
Fair point about the kids in the turbolift. But the point of that sub-plot was really less about the kids and more about Picard confronting and dealing with his dislike of children. It was important for Picard’s growth as a character and IIRC they managed to do it without resorting to too many stereotypes apart from Frightened Little Girl.
Remind me, was there ever a sense, even a hint, that children were aboard the Enterprise E in post-“Generations” TNG films? I sure don’t recall it, and there were some pretty grim moments when the Borg crawled around the ship in “First Contact.”
Then, leaving aside the DS9 station, and focused on ships, ever a sense when Voyager set out there were children aboard? I realize kids were born into the show later…
Maybe I’m mistaken in my recollections.
My point being that the “children on board” conceit seems to have been abandoned, rarely seen even in late season TNG.
( I would imagine the sad fate of the USS Yamato in “Contagion” would prompt Starfleet to reconsider the wisdom of the Children On Board policy… )
Don’t you want to just photoshop a Galaxy class cruiser with a ‘Baby On Board’ Sign hanging off it?
I’m a little surprised that TNG never tried to do another “And The Children Shall Lead” or Ray Bradbury’s “Zero Hour” type plot, with the kids on the Enterprise getting taken over or manipulated by some malevolent force (I mean, it’s not like the show shied away from possession stories at other times.)
@28 etomlins
Why involve wide-eyed, naif-like children when there is Cmdr. Data? We’ll always have Data.
Heh. I think TNG could have done a really good Village of the Damned type of story, seriously. The show dipped into horror on occasion–the show “Night Terrors” comes to mind–and I think they could have given us some genuinely creepy little children. There would have some nonsense at the end about how it was really a “metaphasic lifeform” or whatnot and some Treknobabble to make the monster go away, there’s that downside.
I think you’re right about children disappearing entirely from the TNG movies after “Generations” which doesn’t quite count anyway. The implications of “First Contact” for the children on board are horrifying but possibly there’s an out: since Enterprise was explicitly sent at the start of the film into a warzone (well, the Romulan DMZ), maybe everyone had been evacuated first even though the saucer section was still there.
I may have said this before but I think there was some confusion at the start as to what sort of ship Enterprise really was. At the start it bore some aspects of an “ark ship” that was meant to be away from home for long, long periods, hence the presence of families. By the time of the TNG movies at the latest, however, everything had given way to straightforward action plots, Enterprise was explicitly a warship, and the notion of the self-contained vessel on the fringe of known space had been completely forgotten.
“I think you’re right about children disappearing entirely from the TNG movies after “Generations” which doesn’t quite count anyway. The implications of “First Contact” for the children on board are horrifying but possibly there’s an out: since Enterprise was explicitly sent at the start of the film into a warzone (well, the Romulan DMZ), maybe everyone had been evacuated first even though the saucer section was still there.”
I also think that since Gene Roddenberry was long gone by the time “First Contact” came out, the producers decided to do away ( or conveniently forget ) the concept of the “family – friendly” starship when they came up with the Enterprise-E. I for one am glad. I never liked the idea of dragging families around on the ship in the universe of Trek. The original series made it clear that ( to paraphrase “Q” ) the universe isn’t safe. Maybe it wou be okay to bring famiies on interplanetary voyages within a couple of star systems, but on a ship of exploration, on the frontier? ( although 1701-D didn’t usually seem to be on the leading edge of exploration, did it ).
Although it may sound cruel to say it, it would have added a really creepy and unsettling edge to FC if there had been borgified children ( but I’ll bet you it would have gotten an “R” rating).
Sorry I’m late to the party, this month has been a whirlwind for me.
I can’t believe Eugene gave this a Warp 2. If I enjoyed anything about it, it was that Jerry Hardin made me think of his turn on The X-Files instead of what was happening on the screen.
I just can’t get past the conceit. A remarkably advanced society capable of great scientific and technological progress has not correctly diagnosed themselves as victims of radiation poisoning? I don’t buy it. I also don’t buy that sterility is the FIRST symptom they would notice. If you’re going to go with radiation, you have to go the whole nine yards. The writers could have chosen a much less loaded, complicated, and devastating reason for the Aldean sterility.
What really drove me crazy though was that once Dr. Crusher finds out what the problem is, the Aldeans aren’t actually interested in the factual answer or treatment of said condition. Seriously??? No. Way. If this were some technological backwater I might see them not understanding or being interested, but not the Atlantis of space.
Once you get past that, though, you’ve still got dreck. I object to the idea that art, science, and talent are merely the formulation of ideas in the mind. Anyone can have ideas. Ideas are not special. What’s special is being able to bring those ideas to life with skill. I would have liked the whole mind reading thing better if they hadn’t explicitly stated that these children were geniuses. What if these kids had simply been mediocre? Wouldn’t the promise of a shortcut–the direct mind-link whatever–been a lot more appealing? And why do none of the kids feel any urge to accomplish these things on their own? I know on my least bratty days, the little kid version of me generally wanted to do things my own way and take pride in those accomplishments myself.
Again, no one here has EVER met a child. A hunger strike? Aren’t there easier ways to convey unhappiness (which none of them seem to harbor until Wesley brings it up), like, say, crying? The smallest kids would’ve been bawling their eyes out long before, and the older kids would’ve probably been slamming their doors and writing in their journals and plotting petty vengeance. Wesley’s “plan” would have been difficult enough for an adult to pull off convincingly, but kids already have built in rebellion buttons. Let that little redhead cry for two hours and the dolphin boy to use his laser to write “I HATE YOU” on the wallpaper and trust me, the Aldeans would be BEGGING the Enterprise to take these kids back.
Warp 1
@ 2 DemetriosX
That was more of a brigadoon planet than a mythical Atlantis one, but I see your point.
@ all
As for kids in SF–you guys have pretty much covered this ground, but there isn’t a single example I like. Ever. It’s weird, because parenthood is obviously a reality of adulthood for many and should be capable of being addressed with maturity, and yet it’s always handled badly.
As for the Borg, I assume they just kill all children. What does a kid have that’s worth assimilating, and how would they do anything but hold back the adult Borg?
@32 Torie
As for the Borg, I assume they just kill all children. What does a kid have that’s worth assimilating, and how would they do anything but hold back the adult Borg?
Well, the Borg assimilated Annika Hansen (Seven of Nine) at the age of six, and I always thought Hugh was pretty young.
But, Torie, this is Star Trek, where radiation does just about anything you want it to do, and particles are multi-varied plot devices.
Radiation is just a poor SF writer’s magic. Though it has begun to fall out of favor and it more often replace with some sort of quantum gobbledygook.
I tend to blame Star Trek for a lot of the weird ideas I have to struggle against when trying to explain how actual radiation works.
@32 Torie: The Borg are interested in genetics, too. Also, Borg childrearing techniques look very compelling–put them in stasis for 20 years until they’re done.
One thing I love about Star Trek “radiation” is that no sense of scale to its dosage. It’s never conveyed that one can receive a sublethal dose that will sicken and kill some but not all persons exposed to it. Instead you get the idea that, so long as you get less than a threshold amount, you’ll be fine–asymptomatic even–while if you get above the threshold dosage you drop dead immediately I guess. There’s probably a bit of handwaving about radioprotectant drugs in some episode or other.
Still, at least it’s not as bad as Trek’s notions about genetics.
@etomlins #37
To be fair, most of the time on this show, x scientific concept was really just an excuse to have a Sufficiently Advanced Technology. They really wanted to write a just-so-story about magic, so, um, Quantum!
Or evolutionary biology! 8-D
@35 bobsandiego
Hey, I like quantum gobbledygook!
I might be remembering this incorrectly, but I think TNG writers finally figured out what radiation is and how it works by the time of their seventh season episode “Thine Own Self.” And didn’t they kind of get it right at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan?
Eh. Sort of. Better than the glowing green clouds on Voyager, anyway.