TNG: “The Child” and “Where Silence Has Lease”

Date: March 10, 2020

Season 2, Episodes 1 and 2

Setting the Stage: I watched both episodes, via Netflix, with my Dad and Bidgi – both of whom fell asleep pretty quickly. The State of North Carolina just declared a State of Emergency amid the corona virus and I have no idea what that will mean for work. I hope you’re all washing your hands and using the Vulcan greeting instead of shaking hands and we’ll all be just fine. As this is the start of a new season, I watch the intro and see that not much has changed but there’s a new Chief Medical Officer and now Whoopi Goldberg is a special guest, interesting. Tonight’s writing music is listening to my Dad and Stepmom retelling each other the same stories from the last two days.

Favorite Quote from “The Child”:

Picard: His remaining will create difficulties for us all.

Riker: Yes, indeed. With his mother gone, who will see to his studies?

Picard: Exactly. Of course, that duty will fall to Commander Data.

Riker: And who will tuck him in at night?

Wesley: Come on, Commander.

Worf: I will accept that responsibility.

Troi: Well, we know he’ll get his sleep.

Worf is *so damn adorable* I can’t stand it.

The Second Season begins with “The Child” and some changes to the roster. Worf is in yellow, Riker has a beard, Wesley is still on board with a not-quite-Science-blue uniform, and La Forge is also in yellow and the new Chief Engineer. We find out that Dr. Crusher became the head of Starfleet medical, which is why we’re getting a new Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Polaski.

There’s a strange beam of light floating around the ship and goes right up Troi’s skirt, ummmm not cool bro. Picard goes to “Ten-forward”, which is apparently the bar, in order to yell at Dr. Polaski, but he finds her with Troi. Troi was raped by the beam of light and the men in the room are having a discussion about it, I just can’t. I almost turned the episode off at this point, but I didn’t. Riker is being a total prick, Worf talks about abortion because it’s a security issue, and Data wants to study it. Thankfully Troi says in no uncertain terms she will have the baby and Picard ends the discussion, not sure why they even had that in the first place. The pregnancy, as Polaski explains, is super accelerated and Troi will give birth in the next day or two.

The Enterprise is ready to pick up some specimens to bring to a science station that will hopefully help the fever that’s spreading elsewhere in the galaxy. La Forge has built some sturdy containers in order to transport these dangerous items. Polaski explains how deadly even the most innocuous of specimens are before they start the loading process. Troi is about to give birth and Data stands in to be the father. In the fastest and least painful birth in history, there are still a lot of men just standing around. She gives birth to a boy and names him after her father. For some reason the graphics look so much better this season, or maybe it’s just my Dad’s nifty television. Picard goes to visit and the child, who is now almost 4 years old, and we’ve got a real Jack problem on our hands.

OMG THERE ARE PUPPIES ON THE SHIP! Ian is not ready to share why he is on the ship, but now he’s closer to an 8 year old. Wesley and Guinan have a good chat while all hell breaks loose because there’s something wrong with the containment module due to a specific kind of radiation. We find out that it’s Ian who then dies almost as quickly as he lived, transforming into the same ball of light we saw at the top of the episode. The containment field sorts itself out now that Ian is gone and Troi explains who he was and why he was there. Wesley wants to stay on the Enterprise and Worf adorably agrees to tuck him in at night. The rest of the bridge also agrees to be the village to help raise Wesley, and away we go.

This episode did not start out great but wound up in a good place at the end. It was nice to have a good ending, even if Troi was in tears because her brief stint at motherhood was at an end. Who counsels Troi when she is the one in need of counseling? I’m glad La Forge is in Engineering, but I will miss his interactions with Data on the bridge. I hope we get to see more of Guinan, I’ve always loved Goldberg as an actress. I absolutely do not like Polaski, she reminds me too much of McCoy and not for good reasons. There was too much up and down for me to rate this episode anything but a 5, on an unweighted scale.

Favorite Quote from “Where Silence Has Lease”:

Riker: Exit Holodeck. You do this every day?

Worf: No, Commander. Usually my calisthenics are more intense, but those sessions are too personal to be shared.

Riker: I’ll bet they are.

Worf always knows just what to say, and what not to say.

“Where Silence Has Lease” begins with a very worried Picard. He is worried about Worf and Riker, so naturally we pan to them dirty and wandering around a jungle. Worf picks up a gauntlet but then they are attacked by some strange looking creatures that look like they came straight out of Masters of the Universe. Worf almost forgets where he is as Riker ends the simulation and we see they were in the holodeck practicing.

On the way to a new area of space the Enterprise encounters a void without matter or energy. They launch a probe at it that disappears and Worf recommends going to yellow alert, Wesley moves them closer, and all of a sudden they are enveloped. Polaski keeps putting her foot in her mouth when talking to Data and I’m getting flashbacks to McCoy, and not fond ones. Get her off my bridge! Picard decides a science team can look at this later and they try to back out but are not seeing stars. They leave a beacon as a breadcrumb but find out they are instead going in circles. There is a cloaked device ahead, totally a Romulan ship, and it fires upon the Enterprise and then instantly disappears after the Enterprise shoots back. The crew kind of celebrates over the destruction of the Romulan ship and it leaves me kind of confused. What is going on?

The Yamato appears, the Enterprise’s sister ship, but does not reply so Riker and Worf beam over to find out what’s up but they are separated on the beam over. There are strange things afoot on this not-quite-the-Yamato. There’s a hole in the void but Worf and Riker are still on the other ship and weird things are happening. They beam back over Worf and Riker and try to find another opening, but they think it’s an experiment and they are the rats. As they decide to not give “it” the satisfaction, a face appears in the void. The entity is intrigued and then kills a red shirt, a legitimate red shirt. Picard decides to destroy the ship and set the interval to 20 minutes. The entity impersonates both Troi and Data and, with only one minute left, Picard leaves it to the last 10 seconds to make sure they are away and actually at warp 6 before aborting the self destruct.

 I’m already over Polaski, when is she leaving? I can’t stand ignorance especially from medical personnel, but I’m also a little mad at the rest of the bridge for not correcting her when she calls Data “it”. I’m also concerned as to why the bridge celebrated in the way they did when the Romulan vessel was destroyed, usually violence is done because everything else was exhausted. I get why Worf celebrated, he’s a Klingon warrior, but everyone else acted incorrectly – in my opinion. In comparison to the previous, I wasn’t as excited about this episode, so it gets a 4 star meal at a 3 star hotel in a 2 star town.

TA Out!