Worf and Troi are stunned by the Enterprise’s strange transformations.
For trivia hounds: “imzadi” is used—for the first time in a year (“Second Chances”/250) and the last time on the series—at Frakes’ request, rewritten by permission from the original Act II line written as simply “ship’s counselor”; his trombone playing is nothing new (“11001001”/116, “Future Imperfect”/182, “The Next Phase”/224, “Second Chances”/250).
Cut speeches specified that Troi passed the bridge test on her fourth try and, in the village, explained the roots of the name “Jayden”—Hatton’s original premise title—as a handsome nobleman in a Barkon folktale, transformed to an ugly frog by a demon’s spell. Also, the U.S.S. Lexington harks back to a Kirk-era starship in 1968’s “The Ultimate Computer,” while Data’s once-secret on-off switch (“The Measure of a Man”/135, et al.) was already known to all those present in the last scene (“Datalore”/114, “Brothers”/177, “The Game”/206). That moment in sickbay features Patrick Stewart’s only line of the whole show, a briefest-ever appearance arranged so he could perform his Olivier-winning A Christmas Carol in London during the segment’s early December filming. Michael G. Hagerty earlier played a Klingon (“Redemption 11”/201).
M ASKS
* * *
Production No.: 269 Aired: Week of February 21, 1994
Stardate: 47615.2 Code: mk
Directed by Robert Wiemer
Written by Joe Menosky
GUEST CAST
Eric Burton: Rickey D’Shon Collins
* * *
A comet discovered by the Enterprise is found to be the “archive” of an ancient society. Unexpectedly, a sensor scan activates an odd replication program that begins converting areas of the starship to the Mayan-like culture of the archive’s makers.
The program targets Data and deposits various iconic characters from the culture into him: baffling voices speaking of pain, death, and sacrifice. When areas of the ship actually begin to be transformed into foliage and jungles and Picard regretfully orders the archive’s destruction, his command is cut short by the transformation of Main Engineering.
Eventually, Picard and the others deduce that Masaka, the most feared character, and “her” pursuer, Korgano, share a nip-and-tuck chase dynamic not unlike that of the Terran sun and moon. With time running out and direct override impossible, La Forge finally locates the archive’s transformational program just in time for Picard to assume the “mask” of Korgano and “chase” Masaka off her temple throne.
Once Masaka is subdued, both the ship and Data return to normal—without the whole society of characters that were once within him.
Former staff writer Joe Menosky’s second offbeat and long-distance script of the year, from an old premise off Michael Filler’s suggested take on the “Lost Library at Alexandria,” featured a large amount of well-done opticals but proved confusing to many—including several who worked on it! “I think a lot of people have been utterly mystified by it,” admitted Jeri Taylor. “I loved the mythic aspect … how important that has been to so many cultures, and how we in contemporary days have strayed away from that.”
Data is possessed by members of an alien civilization.
“Joe has a magnificent imagination, he thinks in a deep way,” agreed Naren Shankar, charged with clarifying some of the vagaries in his uncredited polish, “But in this case it was too much…. We had to make it more understandable, make the clues clearer. And the end result is … it’s still kinda confusing!” Director Bob Wiemer, heading up his eighth TNG effort, was more to the point: “I didn’t get it,” he said, noting the extensive rewrite. “I always look and find a meaningful subtext of some kind in most every show I’ve done; more often than not they’re little morality plays, and I was unable to find that in ‘Masks’ … it ended up kind of an exotic adventure story, but it didn’t have any heart.” Recalling a core element of the second Star Trek movie, science adviser André Bormanis said the script’s original explanation of the archive was an “advanced Genesis device” that was to scout out a planet to re-create members of an old society kept “on file” and but mistook the Enterprise for such a world by a triggering malfunction.
Menosky’s original use of purely archetypal forms were hard to conceptualize, Shankar recalled, and so they were changed to actual characters suggested by the archive’s image files. That didn’t help actor Brent Spiner, who made no bones about his concern in bringing off the various character extremes, “He said ‘Dustin Hoffman took a year to figure out how to play a woman in Tootsie—how am I supposed to do it in two days?” recalled Taylor. “But I thought he did an extraordinary job…. He’s a fine actor and he needn’t be so worried.” Even so, Wiemer backed up Spiner’s request for revoicing and, when refused, to have subtle effects done in post-production with Wendy Neuss’s crews: raising the pitch of the child voice, lowering the man’s, and adding reverb to the lhat voice. The youngster Eric (“Liaisons”/254, “Firstborn”/273) returned as the lone guest actor.
Visually, the show was a clear triumph, with the props themselves featuring a hand-silversmithed mask for Picard and a sandstone-finished styrene version for Data, With Stage 16 taken up with the previous show’s village, “Masks” saw Richard James’ elaborate temple set built on DS9’s Stage 18. Drawing from many ancients’ design influences, it was later revamped on the sister show for the Albino’s fortress interior on Blood Oath. We learn that Crusher took her test “eight years ago,” before the Enterprise launched, and that perhaps antimatter pods can be ejected separately.
The visual effects crews had a field day, with supervisor Ron B. Moore praising the melting comet effect performed by Santa Barbara Studios, creators of the comet in DS9’s main title sequence, This opening shot was such a hit that he won a costlier longer slot for the effect in the show’s tightly budgeted running time—from six to nine seconds, The foot-high, primer red library model itself had been cobbled together from wood pieces by visual FX producer Dan Curry in the shop at Image G, where miniatures are filmed, and then digitized by Santa Barbara before the decision makers picked a texture to be applied.
Less splashy but more intricate were the onboard set transformations needed, a blue-screen dissolve overlaid with a visual ripple stemming from a water element much revamped from its initial use, the de-aging anomaly in “Rascals” (233), Both Curry and Stipes were amazed at another one of Patrick Stewards feats: complete body control that allowed a blue-screen shot of his mask’s final disappearance to be shot without a hokey “jump cut” when footage of it actually being removed is trimmed out. “You say ‘stand still’ and that guy’s a statue!” recalled Moore, who tugged loose the mask’s slip knot and let it fall while Stewart never budged nor blinked.
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
* * *
Production No.: 270 Aired: Week of February 28, 1994
Stardate: 47622.1 Code: eb
Directed by Cliff Bole
Teleplay by Rene Echevaria
Story by Brannon Braga
GUEST CAST
Lieutenant (j.g.) Walter Pierce: Mark Rolston
Lieutenant (j.g.) Nara: Nancy Harewood
Lieutenant Daniel “Dan” Kwan: Tim Lounibos
Ensign Mottle Galloway: Johanna McCloy
Woman (Ensign Marla E. Finn): Nora Leonhardt
Man (Lieutenant William Hodges): Dugan Savoye
* * *
A suicide by promising young Lt. Kwan in the plasma stream of the isolated nacelle’s warp coils is baffling to all those who knew him, but the first clue comes when Troi gets an overwhelming sense of panic and fear while visiting the site.
Guessing somehow she’s detected an empathie echo, the counselor checks again with Worf as an escort. This time she suddenly sees the room in its unfinished state as it was back at Utopia Planetia eight years earlier, along with images of a terrified woman, her lover and a mysteriously menacing man—and Worf mysteriously disappeared.
Susp
ecting the empathie echo dates back to the Enterprise’s construction phase, a records check finds that Kwan and the mystery man, Walter Pierce, both were still aboard after having worked at the shipyard. Meanwhile, Troi and Worf find themselves drawing closer and actually consumate their newfound love, but she just as suddenly succumbs to pangs of jealousy at the sight of Worf working with Kwan’s girlfriend, Lt. Calloway.
Pierce proves evasive but fans Troi’s jealously, tipping her off to catch Worf with Calloway in her cabin. Enraged, Troi shoots Worf and rushes to kill herself in the plasma stream—only to realize Worf, alive, is trying to stop her. The entire episode has been played out in her mind, a reaction to the echo left behind by the partly-empathic Pierce in his fatal love triangle at Utopia Planetia. But unlike Kwan, a partial empath, Troi had help in averting disaster.
Jeri Taylor recalled that this latest unreal chapter of the ongoing Worf-Troi “romance” was a brief year-old Brannon Braga “haunted room” idea, rushed directly from a memo to the story break as the late-season panic of dwindling premises set in again, Before he handed it off to Echevarria for the teleplay, Braga had already pegged the story to feature a rare suicide—albeit externally motivated—and a dramatic look inside the oft-discussed but never-seen nacelle tube, complete with warp coils and plasma stream.
Though happy with the mystery, the writers all worried the hallucination’s beginning point might be a bit vague—including the fact that Worf’s bumbling request to Riker for Deanna’s hand came in reality. “That was confusing, even for the actors,” Echevarria recalled. “They thought that was part of the hallucination; that’s why Jonathan played it so broadly…. They thought they would have to reshoot it.” The highboy door is already up for her second visit to the nacelle room; another clue, he said, is knowing that an external space shot such as the one following her first visit would be a Trek point-of-view violation never used during a dream or hallucination, Even so, he noted, a POV flaw occurs later when the camera cuts down to caller Beverly during Worf and Troi’s “morning after,”
The centerpiece is the nacelle set—a previously unconceived shipboard area that continuity tenders Rick Stembach and Mike Okuda had to locate on their plans before consulting with Richard James for his designs; for the record, the room is at the nacelles’ rear (in this case, the starboard) on Deck 25, accessible only via Jefferies Tube. Braga initially visualized a catwalk with plasma access the length of the nacelle, but Stembach felt it took away from the “hot” feel of the engine and pushed instead for the isolation door approach—though he noted the flaw in not only a “one-way” forcefield but one more powerful by definition than the plasma itself!
Designed to give the leapers somewhere to fall from, James’ cramped, two-level set created tension in more ways than one: director Bole, now on his 24th TNG outing, recalled the “endless” shooting day in the tiny room as the longest of his television career: The room cried out for a vista of the nacelle interior beyond, so with both time and budget in mind James huddled with the visual FX team to consider the varying angles of the view beyond, The two-step result: a distant Dan Curry background matte painting representing the inside rear of the forward Bussard ramscoop (“Samaritan Snare”/143, “Night Terrors”/191, “Cost of Living”/220, “Liaisons”/254), and a 30-inch-long model of seven warp coils optically doubled to 14, built by Anthony Frederickson of the DS9 art staff. With no money to spare, his “quick and dirty” model was built around vacuum-formed styrene coils from a wooden prototype and included foam coffee cups for dividers, blue-gelled plastic with black tape to set off the glowing nacelle “grills,” and optical touch-ups of added “runway lights” lengthwise and a ceiling piece.
Dr. Crusher examines Deanna, who is having strange visions.
The plasma stream itself was more Video Toaster animation (“Sub Rosa”/266) with some elements taken from a WaterPik stream, noted visual FX supervisor David Stipes. Stunt coordinator Dennis “Danger” Madalone himself provided Kwan’s suicide leap, but the shallow arc from his standing start was digitally stretched in post-production farther over into the bottom injector, which was reinserted after taking out the floor landing pads. The skeleton glimpsed behind the wall panel was none other than a “Visible Man” model FX coordinator Joe Bauer glued to a piece of glass, while the skeletal fragments in Sickbay are human remains obtained from India, complete with a hard skull that prop master Alan Sims had to bash when Bole wanted smaller pieces.
For true trivia buffs, a flurry of faces and names on briefly glimpsed bio file Okudagrams includes that of longtime Marina Sirtis standin Nora Leonhardt, who got a speaking credit as Ensign Maria Finn, the murdered woman; her lover, unidentified in the script, was labeled “Man” for the onscreen credits, dubbed “Indie” on production call sheets—for “N.D.” or non-descript, the term used for unnamed extras—and given the name “Lt. William Hodges” on his file, Guy Vardaman, whose longtime extra finally gained the name “Wallace” last season (“Descent”/252), is another, here with the first name “Darien”, Dan Kwan was an old family friend of Braga’s, while the mentioned “Lt. Amanda” Ziff and “Ens, Bruno” Salvatore, with surnames given only via bio screens, were named for Echevarria’s friends Bitsy Ziff, a member of the all-girt band “Betty,” and a bandmate’s boyfriend Tony Salvatore.
Elsewhere, the story has the first permission granted to break the Warp 5 speed limit (“Force of Nature”/261) and recalls Worf’s fire vision (“Birthright, Part I”/242, “Rightful Heir”/249), psilosynine (“Dark Page”/259), tea from the Yridians (“Birthright, Part I”, “Suspicions”/248, “Gambit, Part I”/256, “Preemptive Strike”/276), and the Utopia Planitia yards (“Booby Trap”/154, “Parallels”/263, et. al.). We also learn that Data’s post-activation months were tough, Napeans are another partially empathie race, Lwaxana Troi’s father looked down upon verbal communication, and Troi’s security override at the time is “Troi delta 2-9.”
Finally, although Kwan’s suicide was not self-motivated, one wonders whether the late “Great Bird” Roddenberry would have sanctioned outright murder among his “flawless” Starfleet personnel, such as Pierce, Ironically, that old GR dictum—usually applied to only humans, amounting to a backlash Echevarrua labeled as a form of meta-racism—did survive in the guise of the alien junior lieutenant Nara, Kwan’s superior. A human until she was described as perhaps jealous of Kwan’s ambition, Echevarria noted, the character species was changed after Michael Piller memoed: “Make her an alien-that’s not a Roddenberry thing to do.” But humanity was uppermost when cast and crew took one morning to film a two-scene sketch written by Merri Howard assistant Dave Rossi for Comic Relief, the annual HBO benefit for the homeless co-hosted by recurring castmate Whoopi “Guiñan” Goldberg—an irony that formed just one of the scene’s many subtle funnies.
GENESIS
* * *
Production No.: 271 Aired; Week of March 21, 1994
Stardate: 47653.2 Code: ge
Directed by Gates McFadden
Written by Brannon Braga
GUEST CAST
Lieutenant (j.g.) Reginald “Reg” Barclay III; Dwight Schultz
Lieutenant (j.g) Alyssa Ogawa: Patti Yasutake
Ensign Dem: Carlo Ferro
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
* * *
During a shipboard lull, Picard takes Data along to retrieve a wayward demonstration torpedo. In their absence, with Data’s cat Spot and newlywed Nurse Ogawa both recently found to be pregnant, Dr. Crusher routinely prepares a synthetic T-cell to help Barclay fight a flu bug he has no immunity for.
Lieutenant Barclay, part man, part spider.
Soon the crew begin to exhibit odd symptoms: Barclay gets hyper, Troi becomes cold, Riker can’t concentrate, and Worf becomes animalistic and withdrawn. Eventually he attacks Dr. Crusher with an odd venom sac, a new neck appendage, but by now Riker and the others are too far gone to send for help.
Upon their return, Picard and Data are shocked t
o find the ship slowly looping unpowered through space. Taking stock, Data soon discovers that a synthetic cell—which turns out to be Barclay’s—has activated crewmates’ dormant introns and changed them to various lower lifeforms.
Oddly, though, the kittens of Spot are born normal, though their mother is now an iguana. That clue puts Data on the research trail for a cure as Picard—nervously feeling chills himself now—takes on the chore of distracting the “deevolved” and rutting Worf. Picard uses a power cable to stun the Worf-beast when he’s cornered inside a Jefferies tube, but Data’s cure allows a rapid return to normal for all—with Barclay as the disease’s proud namesake.
This story, another creepy Brannon Braga reality-bender, will always be remembered as not only Gates McFadden’s long-sought turn as director and Michael Westmore’s most ambitious makeup show ever but also—by the crew, at least—the show that was struck by the Quake of ’94, The Trek series and Paramount itself were very lucky, noted line producer Merri Howard, with only two days lost on TNG and minimal structural damage: just a sprinkler system wetting down a Jefferies tube set and a little broken shelf decor in the officers’ quarters.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition Page 52