Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 18 (When the Bough Breaks)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Throughout the original series, it was only ships that cloaked. During the first season of The Next Generation, we were shown a race that can make an entire planet invisible. The Enterprise is led to a location in space that seems empty until a planet appears. It turns out to be Aldea, a myth not unlike Atlantis. It’s the stuff of legends; it’s supposedly out there somewhere.

The Aldeans have a proposition for the Enterprise. They want the ship’s children and they’re willing to give up a considerable amount of information for it. They’ve become sterile over the millennia and they need the children to carry on their heritage. Picard won’t hear of it. He tells the Aldeans that the children are too valuable to their respective parents. Seeing that negotiation won’t work, the Aldeans simply take about a half dozen children and restate their offer.

When that doesn’t work, they push the Enterprise so far away that it takes them three days to get back. On the way back, the crew tries to find a way to get through the planet’s defenses. Once back, Captain Picard stalls long enough to allow Commander Riker and Lieutenant Commander Data to beam down and mess with the planet’s computers. Eventually, when the leader of the Aldeans realizes the game is up, he submits to Picard. By then, Dr. Crusher has had a chance to figure out what’s wrong with the Aldeans and has an idea for a cure. The children get to go home and the Aldeans have a cure, but can’t use the cloaking device or their shields any more.

The plot was seemed very weak. I don’t know if this was due to poor writing or simply time constraints. I think it has to due more with poor writing. The first thing I want to know is how the Aldeans can hurl a shop away, but never thought to look for a cure for sterility. Granted, they depended on a computer and its possible that whoever created the computer never foresaw the need for medical information. If this is so, why didn’t the Aldeans ask for the Enterprise’s help? It was obvious that Picard didn’t like the idea of giving up any children. (Picard could have insisted on helping to find a cure for the sterility.)

Also, why did the Aldeans kidnap so few children? You’d think that they’d want a bigger genetic base. It’s possible that there weren’t enough Aldeans left to care for a large population. (It was never stated how many were actually left, but there didn’t seem to be that many.) It’s also possible that the Enterprise didn’t have that many children onboard, but I doubt it. It’s been stated that there are about 1,000 people on the Enterprise. This isn’t all crew. There have to be more than six or seven children on the ship. The only thing that I can think of is that there were other groups of Aldeans and that other children were taken and sent to these groups and simply not talked about.

Speaking of which, why just the children? Why not just abduct everyone? The only thing I can think of is that it gives Wesley Crusher his first real ‘command’ situation. He is said to be something special and has great potential. However, I would still think that the writers could have done better.

The episode isn’t worth more than two stars. The acting is great and the set-up for Wesley’s development is there, but the plot seems too artificial and basic. It just doesn’t seem right. 

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Hail, Caesar! (2016)

It seems like there’s always some major celebrity event going on.  There are divorces, arrests, tyrades, feuds and all manner of other things to fill the magazines and tabloids.  This isn’t to say that all of it is true, but there is the ever present celebrity gossip/news.   Growing up, I asked my mother why it seemed like stars from her childhood didn’t seem to have any scandals.  Did celebrities not have affairs when she was my age?  Did they simply not make it into the history books?  The truth was that studios had people like Eddie Mannix.

Eddie Mannix is head of physical production for Capitol Studios.  He deals primarily with damage control.  The movie is set in 1951 and Capitol is making a movie called Hail, Caesar of all things.  Hail, Caesar stars Baird Whitlock, played by George Clooney.  Whitlock isn’t that bright.  He can act alright, but he manages to get himself kidnapped very easily by a group of Communists calling themselves The Future.

When Whitlock wakes up, he starts to hang out with The Future not realizing that they’re asking for $100,000 in ransom.  Mannix not only has to deal with the ransom demand, but he has to contend with competing gossip columnists Thora and Thessaly Thacker.  (It doesn’t help that they’re twins.)  Add to this a pregnant actress who doesn’t seem to be in any rush to marry the father.  His solution is to have her put the child into foster care so that she can adopt the child without public finding out she‘s the mother.  Oh, and there’s the Western star, Hobie Doyle, who’s forced by the studio to star in a period piece.   Doyle has no business being in a period piece and everyone knows it, but it’s what the studio wants.  This makes an offer from Lockheed very appealing, as he’d be done with all of the stress.

I was able to watch the movie on a flight back to Miami a few weeks ago.  I kind of wish that my parents had watched it, as well, because I suspect that a lot of the context is lost on me.  Apparently, there was an actual Eddie Mannix who worked for MGM.  It appears that the similarities are tenuous, but most of the characters do seem to have real-life counterparts.  The real Mannix did try to cover up a pregnancy of an actual star.  Many of the problems that he had to deal with actually did happen to someone, at least on a superficial level.

A good deal of the context was lost on me, as I grew up in the 1980s.  This isn’t to say the movie can’t be enjoyed by younger audiences.  It’s just that I don’t think Westerns have ever been really big in my lifetime, at least in the sense that they were big for my parents when they were growing up.  There are many one-off scenes that mirror actual scenes in movies or pay tribute to a particular style of film.  I don’t think there are any similar styles in production today.

I wish I had someone to discuss this with, particularly someone who knows more about that era.  I don’t know how much was lost on me, exactly, or how it would have affected watching the movie had I known more.  The movie was still entertaining to me.  It was fun watching Josh Brolin and George Clooney play their respective roles.  I also caught a few cameos from actors like Jonah Hill and Robert Picardo.  (I know.  I can’t help but point out Trek actors in non-Trek roles.)    The fact that it was set in 1951 didn’t bother me at all.  I do wonder, though, what the present day will look like in movies sixty years from now.

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