“Cost of Living”
Written by Peter Allan Fields
Directed by Winrich Kolbe
Season 5, Episode 20
Production episode 40275-220
Original air date: April 20, 1992
Stardate: 45733.6
Captain’s Log: The Enterprise shatters an asteroid that’s about to collide with Tessen III. However, some sparkly stuff sprinkles onto the saucer section…
Worf and Alexander have a session with Troi. Both of them are having trouble, with Alexander not performing his chores, and Worf being extra belligerent. Troi suggests they draw up a contract that spells out what both Worf and Alexander are responsible for, and how it must be done.
Before they leave, Troi tells Alexander that some day he’ll be grateful that his father cares this much about him, and that children often don’t appreciate their parents until they’re much older. The irony fairy then plunks Troi on the head, as her mother comes on board, and announces that she’s getting married, and wishes to have the ceremony on the Enterprise.
Troi wants to know who her prospective stepfather is—his name is Campio, and he’s the third minister to the Conference of Judges on Kostolain—and is rather surprised to realize that they haven’t actually met yet. Lwaxana brushes off the concern (surprisingly making no mention of the fact that Troi was all set to marry someone she’d never met back in “Haven,” nor generally that that seems to be a Betazoid tradition), and then is interrupted by Worf and Alexander, who are having difficulty drawing up the contract. That difficulty is magnified a thousandfold by Lwaxana, who sabotages all of Troi’s work by declaring the contract to be ghastly. She does, however, get Alexander to smile.
Picard is cranky on the subject of Lwaxana treating the Enterprise like her personal yacht, though he relents when Riker informs him that she wishes Picard to give away the bride, a notion he finds irresistible.
And again we fade to commercial with an image of the sparkly stuff from the teaser moving about the deckplates.
Lwaxana arrives at Troi’s office to find Alexander there. He’s early for his session with Troi because it got him out of his quarters before his father got back. Lwaxana decides to break a few rules, and takes Alexander to a holodeck simulation of the Parallax colony, a place filled with free spirits and fun and very few rules. There’s a wind-dancer, a fire-sculptor, a juggler, a pair of friends who constantly argue with each other (“Who else are you going to fight with if not your friends?”), and a pompous windbag. Alexander quotes the windbag’s droning as a way to get the two arguing friends to stop arguing. Then they all get into a mudbath, and a woman then dances for them—but it’s interrupted by Worf and Troi, who are both seriously pissed off.
In Lwaxana’s quarters, Troi berates her mother, saying that she’s trying to teach Alexander responsibility, and Lwaxana’s not helping by sending him mixed messages. (Lwaxana’s response: “I exposed you to all kinds of mixed messages when you were that age, and you still turned out deadly dull. What are you so worried about?”) Troi is also stunned that Lwaxana has time to go to the holodeck with Alexander when her wedding’s in three days. But she’s got Mr. Homn handling the piddly details, like altering Campio’s mother’s wedding dress.
That gets Troi’s jaw to drop—she’s not going to have a traditional Betazoid wedding (wherein the participants are all naked)? Lwaxana brushes off her concern—and then is confused by the replicator putting large sausages in her tea.
That turns out to be a shipwide problem, as there are two hundred reports of food replicator malfunctions. Data and La Forge look into it, and find an energy fluctuation. La Forge says they’d better fix it before the captain orders dinner. They crawl into the Jefferies tubes, and find some negative ion charging—and a bunch of brown liquid goo.
Alexander visits Lwaxana as Mr. Homn is working on her wedding dress (she’s also wearing a hideous white wig) and apologizes for getting her in trouble. They talk a bit about her wedding in particular and marriage in general, and Lwaxana admits that she’s compromising because she’s getting older, and she’s afraid to be alone.
Data and La Forge report on the replicator problem, and in the middle of that, several other systems start malfunctioning, losing attitude control and inertial dampeners. Something is changing transfer conduits into the brown goo.
Campio arrives, and he and Lwaxana greet each other. However, when Lwaxana attempts to kiss him, his protocol master, Erko, puts a hand between their faces. They can’t be too familiar before the wedding takes place, apparently.
Lwaxana is surprised at the presence of a protocol master, but Campio would find it unpardonable to abandon oneself to the moment. Lwaxana agrees, to Picard and Troi’s surprise.
La Forge and Data continue their analysis. Whatever’s affecting the ship, it’s consuming and metabolizing the nitrium in the systems, and leaving the goo behind as waste. So yes, the goo is excrement…
Alexander skips out on dinner because he promised Lwaxana that they’d go to the holodeck together. When he gets there, it turns out that this was also when Campio, Erko, and Lwaxana were to discuss wedding plans, and Lwaxana’s trying to duck out on that, as well. Campio and Erko try to get Lwaxana to stay, then Troi and Worf come for Alexander, and it turns into a farce: Lwaxana wants to go with Alexander, Troi and Worf want Alexander to go with Worf, Campio wants Lwaxana to stay and is willing to let Alexander stay, but both Erko and Worf object to Alexander staying, Erko additionally objects to Mr. Homn’s presence, and everyone’s going back and forth leaving Lwaxana and Alexander with the perfect opportunity to sneak out.
While trying to trace the malfunctions, La Forge and Data see the sparkly stuff move out of an access conduit, leaving the goo behind.
On the holodeck, Alexander notices that Lwaxana seems sad for someone about to get married. He also opines that Campio probably wouldn’t take a mudbath, and Lwaxana has to admit that he’s right about that.
Meanwhile, the sparkly stuff is spreading throughout the ship. La Forge and Data have identified it as a metal parasite that was probably feeding on the nitrium in the asteroid they destroyed at Tessen III. Picard orders the Enterprise back to the asteroid field that it came from, hopefully providing it with a better meal than the ship.
Unfortunately, the ship’s falling apart at the seams, with life support giving out at random intervals. By the time they reach the field, the bridge crew has collapsed from carbon dioxide poisoning. Data, though, is unaffected, and he uses the Bussard collectors to emit a particle beam with tons of nitrium in it. The sparkly things follow the beam out, and the ship pulls itself together.
Ten-Forward is redecorated for the wedding. Everyone and everything is ready—except for Lwaxana, who’s late.
And then finally she comes in—naked, as per Betazoid tradition. Erko practically has a heart attack, and insists that they must leave immediately.
Lwaxana retires to the mudbaths, along with Alexander—whom she thanks for teaching her the lesson that she had intended to impart to him—and Troi and Worf. Troi seems to also be enjoying the mudbath—though not so much that she doesn’t remind both Alexander and Lwaxana that you have to sometimes live in the real world—but Worf doesn’t get it at all. (“You’re just supposed to sit here?”)
Can’t We Just Reverse the Polarity?: The asteroid that the Enterprise destroyed had a metal parasite inside it, one that’s undetectable by sensors. Since the ship took away its food source, it moved onto the ship in search of nitrium to munch on. Said munching messes with many of the ship’s systems, including life support.
Thank You, Counselor Obvious: Troi attempts to help Worf and Alexander deal with their difficulties by suggesting a contract between the two of them. Lwaxana points out that contracts are for people who don’t trust each other—which is patently false, and it would’ve been nice if someone pointed out that marriage is also a contract. As is typical for a Lwaxana episode, Troi is reduced to being her mother’s “straight man.”
There is No Honor in Being Pummeled: Worf’s tenure as the worst parent ever continues unabated as he seems incapable of communicating with Alexander except by yelling. Alexander throws that in his face during the session with Troi by accusing him of yelling all the time, to which Worf loudly says, “I do not—” before catching himself, and then more quietly saying, “I do not yell.” Troi’s sarcastic response is lovely.
Worf also gets the single funniest moment in an episode that has quite a few of them. The wind dancer—a floating head in a bubble—makes funny faces at people as they enter the Parallax colony, and while Lwaxana and Alexander are charmed by it, Worf is singularly unimpressed, and after it continuously blocks Worf’s forward progress into the holodeck, he finally bats at it, bursting the bubble. Troi is unable to contain her amusement.
If I Only Had a Brain…: In the comments for “Cause and Effect,” regular rewatch commenter “JackofMidworld” said, “Without Data, the crew would have died a lot. Like, a lot-a lot.” This episode is a classic example, as he’s the only one who makes it to the asteroid field awake to implement the plan to get the sparkly things off the ship.
What Happens on the Holodeck Stays on the Holodeck: Lwaxana re-creates the Parallax colony on the holodeck, which seems a good place to relax—it’s half carnival, half spa.
I Believe I Said That: “Nothing would please me more than to give away Mrs. Troi.”
Picard’s rather emphatic acceptance of the honor of giving away the bride.
Welcome Aboard: Lots and lots of guest stars in this one, starting with recurring characters Majel Barrett as Lwaxana, Carel Struycken in his final appearance as Mr. Homn, and Brian Bonsall as Alexander. There’s also Abie Selznick as the very Vorta-looking juggler (he’ll be back twice on Voyager in “Macrocosm” and “The Voyager Conspiracy,” and will also provide choreography for the Ventu movements in “Natural Law”), the delightful Larry Hankin as the clown-like wind dancer, Patrick Cronin as Erko, Christopher Halsted as the windbag (he’ll return as a Jem’Hadar in the Deep Space Nine finale “What You Leave Behind”), and veteran character actor Tony Jay being sufficiently pompous as Campio.
Trivial Matters: This episode won two Emmy Awards, for Costume Design and Makeup—both well-earned, as costume and makeup work for the Parallax colony was excellent.
Lwaxana’s lament that she was alone carried greater weight, as Majel Barrett had recently lost her husband, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who died only a few months before this episode filmed.
During filming, the set was visited twice, once by two kids from the Make-a-Wish Foundation, once by Good Morning America, which did a live feed from the set.
Though this is Mr. Homn’s final appearance on screen, he will continue to be mentioned. In your humble rewatcher’s “The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned” in Tales of the Dominion War, the valet is killed during the Dominion’s conquering of Betazed, sacrificing his life to save Lwaxana’s son (who will be born some time after the Deep Space Nine episode “The Muse”).
This is the second of three times that Lwaxana finds herself becoming attached to someone from a repressive society of some sort—first it was Timicin in “Half a Life,” and the next will be Jeyel in “The Muse.”
Make it So: “The higher, the fewer.” I never liked this episode much, and haven’t watched it again in years. So I had forgotten about its excellent pedigree—Peter Allan Fields will go on to write some of the best episodes of Deep Space Nine, and Winrich Kolbe is one of the best television directors in the history of the medium—and feared that this would be another “Up the Long Ladder,” where an excellent writer and director (in this case, the same director) would be wasted on a dopey story.
And—well, it is a dopey story, but it’s actually better than I remember it. For one thing, it’s genuinely funny, particularly in the first half. Majel Barrett and Marina Sirtis have their banter down pretty well at this point, and there are a variety of great lines (some quoted above at various points), plus the Parallax colony is genuinely delightful, from the wind-dancer’s wonderful facial expressions to Abie Selznick’s excellent juggling. The scene where Lwaxana and Alexander try to escape their mutual obligations to Campio and Worf while Campio, Troi, Worf, and Erko all bitch and moan is entertaining as all heck, too.
It’s also nice to see that TNG has evolved to the point where an episode can focus on two recurring characters. The intersection of Alexander and Lwaxana works rather nicely, actually, especially since it gets Alexander away from Worf and the tiresome yelling between the two of them. Worf really is the worst parent ever, and he not only hasn’t gotten any better at it, he shows no signs of the possibility of getting better at it. This makes every scene between father and son repetitive and shouty and tiresome.
Besides that, though, two other things really kill this episode. One is that, it’s yet another silly sci-fi B-plot that has nothing to do with the rest of the episode. In fact, it’s so completely removed from the A-plot that we never even see how the ship shaking and falling apart and life-support fluctuating for several hours affects Campio or Lwaxana. You would think that Erko would at least complain about it (since he complained about everything else). The B-plot is so lazily tacked on that it doesn’t feel like it’s part of the same episode, a problem that has only gotten worse as the show’s progressed (see also “In Theory” and “The Outcast“), and mostly makes one long for more episodes like “Family,” where the producers trusted the characters enough to let them carry the episode without tiresome technobabble.
The other is that for all that it’s cool to focus on recurring characters like Lwaxana and Alexander, the fact of the matter is that it’s focusing on Lwaxana and Alexander. Lwaxana has only had one good episode up until now, and this story does not add to that total, while Alexander isn’t proving to be much better.
Ultimately, it’s appropriate that the B-plot is about an entity that leaves the Enterprise full of crap…
Warp factor rating: 4
Keith R.A. DeCandido has written a surprising amount of Alexander and Lwaxana in his Star Trek fiction, given how little he likes either character. He’s not sure what that means.
I have noticed that, with the exception of the episode where the Ferengi kidnap them all, I have a soft spot for the Lwaxana episodes (even though I am pretty sure she would irritate the heck out of me in real life). So even though the episode was rather campy, I found it very amusing.
Also, it had TONY EFFING JAY! Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of my favorite Disney movies (and yes, I have read and enjoyed the book) so I kept hearing everything in a Judge Frollo voice, which just made it better.
Totally agreed on the B plot. I really would have rather seen more character interaction. I agree with you on Worf’s overly rigid parenting, but I can’t help but sympathize and I am also kind of stodgy and rule loving. And I thought Lwaxana and Alexander’s interactions were rather sweet. Besides, that’s not how microorganisms work. They are not ALL going to leave. Even if just a few stay behind…you’re still screwed.
I’ve never liked the whole idea that the writers need to shove in a sci-fi plot in an overwise character-based episode because “the show is sci-fi, damnit!” In my opinion, that was actually one of the few ways the later series improved upon TNG: relaizing that the show actually can be about characters, at least sometimes, and we don’t always need to see some kind of phased inverse mutiplexing technobableon beam coming from the main deflector.
“Quasarmodo” said, “Without Data, the crew would have died a lot. Like, a lot-a lot.”
Have you been keeping count of the times Data saves everyone vs. the times Data nearly kills everyone because of bad decisions or because his positronic brain is compromised? I’d be curious to see what the totals are.
Good review of an episode I never really liked.
I actually loved Alexander and Lwaxana instantly bonding. It’s not too hard to see they were doing a shout-out to Auntie Mame, here. And there are far worse things a long-running SF franchise could do an homage to.
I agree completely on Tony Jay’s awesomeness, even when playing a bit of a milquetoast. (I first knew him as the charmingly evil Paracelsus over on Beauty and the Beast.)
The rest of the episode is fairly mediocre and predictable, but it’s watchable.
I’ve always quite liked the character-focused parts of this episode. It’s one of my favorite Lwaxana episodes and perhaps the only Alexander episode I care for. It’s a lot of fun.
But I agree completely with the assessment of the ship-in-danger B plot. Of all the forced, tacked-on tech/danger subplots in otherwise character-driven TNG episodes, this is the most forced and the most tacked-on, and with the most laughably over-the-top danger. That need for a quota of action and peril really damaged what was otherwise a really enjoyable character comedy.
Not long after this episode, Peter David did a novel in which Lwaxana Troi met Q. He put in this approximate dialogue:
Lwaxana: Life is a banquet, and most poor bastards are starving to death!
Deanna: I think I’ve heard that somewhere before.
Lwaxana: Yes, dear, I’ve said it many times.
So yes, more than one person noticed the Auntie Mame connection….
I liked this one too. Maybe it’s just me, but I think lots of viewers out there can probably identify with having a father who’s a bit gruff/emotionally unavailable, a mother who’s OD’ed on the new-agey parenting techniques (chore charts! parent/child “contracts”! gold stars! positive reinforcement!), and grandparents that amusingly frustrate both by spoiling the crap out of you. I had immense fun watching the dynamics between Troi, Lwaxana, Worf, and Alexander play out. Extremely relatable and well acted by cast members who now had a few years of experience under their belts to make the relationships effectively realistic. The B plot was horbs. No argument there.
I can’t take credit for the “Without Data, the crew would have died a lot. Like, a lot-a lot” comment. I was quoting another commenter from the responses of Cause & Effect, and responding to say Data was the reason they were in the loop to begin with. But I still enjoyed seeing my name in the recap! :)
Whoops! Thanks for that, Quasarmodo. I’ve adjusted it to JackofMidworld, who actually said that. *sheepish grin* Apologies to all and sundry….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, who’d be totally hosed without the “edit” function
I will say one thing for the B plot: I do believe that the opening teaser had some of the best “Enterprise in action” special effects on TNG up to that time. Most of the time when we see the Enterprise doing anything combat-related, it always seems to just be sitting stationary in space or plodding along slowly. Kudos as well to the special effects for the weapons and deflector dish, meteor explosion, and even the parasites descending on the Enterprise, they have withstood the test of time, imo. The overall action in the opening teaser was much more reminiscent of something we would see later on DS9.
Speaking of the B plot, did it ever occur to anyone that it in addition to the fact that the crew was fortunate to have Data aboard to save the ship, that Data himself was remarkably fortunate not to have any of his systems partially composed of nitrium. I think that if it had been revealed that Data was infected with the parasites in addition to the ship, it would have given the B plot much more gravitas as far as creating a sense that the ship was ever in any danger.
Also, always good to see something with the late Tony Jay in it. I will always remember him as Megabyte from Reboot. And will not forgive Mainframe for ending the series on a cliffhanger prior to his death. Although they could recreate his voice digitally…
I was also kind of blown away by the teaser, and thinking they had blown the entire episode’s effects budget on just that one part. Unfortunately, it was a part of a plot that didn’t go anywhere…except to have Data execute the plan just in the nick of time while everyone was literally dying, and then have everyone pop back right away.
The only part I had remembered from this episode was the mudbath, and something about Lwaxana having a hippie-ish influence on Alexander.
It didn’t strike me that the juggler looked like a Vorta…I will have to go look at a picture again.
Ok, just looked at a picture, and completely disagree about the Vorta look-alike thing.
The only thing I like about this episode is that by having an Alexander/Lwaxana story, we were saved from having an Alexander episode and a Lwaxana episode.
I agree that the b-plot has to be one of the dumbest ones ever. ” The ship is being eaten! Oh no, everyone continue your holodeck programs and weddings!”. Apparently the ship eater only effects areas where the senior staff is.
Btw, once again the writers forget that the ship is repaired by more people than Data and Laforge. A simple throw away line or two about how Ensign Jones and Crewman Smith are one section over, or saw something suspicious or whatever reminds the viewer that Laforge is in charge of probably a hundred crewman who presumably are also crawling through Jeffries tubes.
But I do like the interplay between the trous and the Worfs (moghs?). Ultimately in a long series you can’t have 100% heavy sci go episodes and the parent child theme is universal. I think Deanna should occasionally “win one” over her mother, but regardless Majel Barrett delivers as Lwaxana continues from a pure comedic character to a more mentor like role, similar to how we saw her in the first season of DS9 with Odo.
No this episode is terrible. This is an attrocious episode with a couple funny throw away moments.
That being said, if they had thrown out the B-plot, and added another character piece, or more attention on the main plot, it could have really been a fine funny hour.
Call me a sucker, but I loved this episode (even though I’d forgotten about the B-plot entirely). That could be because any episode with Lwaxana is, to me, a good episode. As Krad said, Majel and Marina have the banter down pat, and I thought the bonk on Troi’s head by the “irony fairy” to be the perfect Lwaxana/Troi moment! I’m really sorry there wasn’t at least one more Lwaxana/Alexander episode, because I think these two could’ve got up to some real good calculated mischief together. Worf up to his neck in the mud bath? Classic Klingon comedy. Plus I wish there really was a Parallax colony. How awesome would that be? Like I said, I’m a sucker. Oh, well. There are worse things to be.
@6: Actually Peter David’s Q-in-Law came out about seven months before this episode aired, and is set sometime between “Deja Q” and “Menage a Troi.” This episode was hardly the first time Lwaxana had been likened to Auntie Mame. I remember an interview in which Majel Barrett called Lwaxana “the Auntie Mame of the galaxy” in connection with her debut appearance in “Haven.” (It’s from the second issue of Starlog‘s TNG magazine, and that quote actually appears on the cover.)
@11: No, even now there’s no way to convincingly recreate a real person’s voice digitally. The best you can do is edit recordings of their voice, or hire a living actor who can do a good impersonation of them. They are working on a prototype, specifically on behalf of Roger Ebert (who lost the power of speech due to cancer), that can let him communicate with a speech synthesizer that has the timbre of his real voice, but it still has the unnatural cadence and “accent” of a computer-synthesized voice and couldn’t pass for the real thing.
I agree with 16.
I just want to know what was in those edible cups.
@18: Good point. In fact, ReBoot was plagued by (among other things) having to recast voice actors frequently, due to child VA’s voices outgrowing the parts, losing adult VA’s to payment disputes or other outside goings-on, and having to write characters out due to budgetary concerns. In at least one instance, a character was relegated to only being mentioned due to the death of a VA during an interval of years between the third and fourth season. But ReBoot was also one of the rare shows that could sometimes make that work to their advantage, often having the (notably different) voices for the same characters fit into the plot of the story. It was also the show that pretty much pioneered the idea that a regular CGI series could be a success, as up to that time CGI was mostly seen as a gimmick. So most likely a recast would be in order, but it would be interesting to see whether synthesizing Jay’s voice using the current level of could be utilized on the show in some way, as that was an incredibly clever series when it came to technology and storytelling, for a cartoon. Of course, that assumes that the show ever comes back which looks unlikely at this point.
Trying to recreate Tony Jay’s voice with a speech synthesizer and get a “performance” out of it would be blasphemy. As rich as the timbre of his voice was, it was his performance and talent that made it truly impressive. So the way to “recreate” what he did is to find an actor of comparable talent with a comparably rich voice to take over the role. I bet Corey Burton (whose many animation roles include Count Dooku on The Clone Wars and Megatron on Transformers Animated) could do a pretty good Jay impression. Or you could just try to find another deep-voiced English actor without worrying about an impression. John Rhys-Davies? Benedict Cumberbatch?
@@@@@ CLB: Go to YouTube and search “Hatsune Miku”. “She” is a Japanese pop idol whose songs are created through a consumer-level voice-synth program called Vocaloid. It’s no good for on-the-fly voice generation since if you just type text in and have her read it back, it sounds as artificial as any other voice-synthesizer, but Vocaloid allows users to adjust every single sounds. The best Vocaloid songs don’t sound 100% natural, but they do sound like a real person who’s been run through Autotune.
(no harm, no foul, Krad, but thanx for catching the mix-up, Quasarmodo :)
Sidebar on the recent comments – who ever would have thought that you’d have to consder, I dunno, ‘copyrighting’ your voice so it doesn’t get used without your permission…
@23: First off, Autotune is evil. Anything that sounds like an Autotuned voice is not something I can tolerate listening to.
Second, even if technology could credibly fake the sound of a human voice, that doesn’t mean it ought to be used as a substitute for the talent and creativity of a live individual. Thinking in those terms is completely missing the point of what made Tony Jay an impressive actor, and it doesn’t pay tribute to him to want to duplicate him with machinery. The way to pay tribute to his craft and his skill is to cast another real live human being and make the most of his craft and skill.
For all the flaws that do exist in this episode, it does have one of my favourite double-take lines ever: when Lwaxana first meets Alexander and starts waxing nostalgic about a “tall handsome warrior” she once knew also named Alexander, “oh he utterly adored me, and we went everywhere, simply everywhere! Have you ever been anywhere ye – Contract? What contract!?” nearly a full minute after the contract was first mentioned. Hilarious comic timing, pulled off with perfection by Ms Barrett Roddenberry.
I also get a kick out of her talking ‘to herself’ when she’s interacting with the holodeck computer.
I had not put 2+2 together, before reading this recap, that this was so soon after she had in fact become alone after the death of GR. Extra poignant.
This episode was very entertaining. It was very well directed and acted, with the b plot unconvincingly added on, but overall very well crafted and written episode. Mrs Troi looked like Amadeus Mozart in her wedding gown and wig. Mr Woof had a number of hilarious scenes. I would have loved to have seen Guinan in this episode.
I must politely disagree with your assessment of this episode. I remember it very fondly as a delightful episode where two recurring but minor characters learn a great deal about each other and themselves. While it is true that neither Troi nor Worf are shown in the best light in this episode, I think the bond between Lwaxana and Alexander more than makes up for that.
One thing I always wondered, though. Did Majel actually get naked for that scene, or did they use a body double? My GF at the time was convinced that it had to be a double, but I’m not so sure. Do you happen to know?
What I loved about this episode is that it shows that Lwaxana can actually be a great parent. When she interacts with Diana Troi, she comes across as lacking sensitivity and empathy (totally ironic for a Betazoid) and also pushy and intrusive. With Alexander she showed that she has this other side to her parenting – fun-loving, easy-going, let-a-kid-be-a-kid, and surprisingly sensitive and empathetic. So that was nice.
Eben: Pretty sure it was a body double.
uvuv: Agreed on Lwaxana’s skills in parenting a child. It’s parenting an adult that she has trouble with. :)
—KRAD
Just so we have a complete list of guest stars in this episode, the guy whose head is in the floating bubble is ‘Saved by The Bell’ star Dustin Diamond, AKA ‘Screech’. (The poor guy has probably never in his adult life seen his own name written down without ‘AKA Screech’ written after it.)
Where did you get that from, Alden? Any proof?
How small the world is!
The late Tony Jay was a star on South African radio for a quarter century before he ever went to Hollywood.
I remember him in a radio series called Taxi, in which his character was called Red Kowalski. That was back in the early 70s (old time radio survived much longer in South Africa than elsewhere, due to the very late introduction of a TV service).
How amazing that he was able to fit in an entire career after that.
Anyway, I watched the episode tonight – don’t think I ever saw it before. I think Keith nailed it with his rating. It was all over the place, and the parasite crisis just wasn’t very credible. One or two of the funny moments scored, but not enough to lift the whole show.
@32/lordmagnusen – No proof, as @31/Alden has picked up an urban legend. It’s actually Larry Hankin, better known as Voyager’s Gaunt Gary and from various other shows.
@33/dolphintornsea: Wow, I had no idea Tony Jay had been in South African radio.
Christopher Bennett: it is referred to in his Wikipedia entry. He was such a favorite on that show – as Red Kowalski he played a New York cabbie and had to fake the accent, even then. His tagline was “If I don’t see you through the week, I’ll see you through the window!”
I almost fell on my back (well, rolled off the couch) when he showed up in The Golden Girls.
@36: Well, I’m not surprised Tony Jay had a career in voice work, at least. He was one of the great animation voices for over two decades. Shere Khan on Disney’s TaleSpin, Virgil on Mighty Max, Megabyte on ReBoot, Galactus on Fantastic Four, Chairface Chippendale on The Tick, Baron Mordo on Spider-Man, multiple others. He was even the voice of the Supreme Being in Time Bandits. He even did a voice in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, which is amusing, since his breakout role on American TV was probably the villain Paracelsus in the Linda Hamilton/Ron Perlman Beauty and the Beast series.
An astonishing resumé, indeed. Imagine what he might have achieved if he’d moved to California in 1955, instead of only in 1980.
@37 – in Beauty and the Beast, he was the asylum owner, so still villainous.
Also, you can’t forget his (amazing, amazing, amazing) performance as Frollo in the Disney version of Hunchback of Notre Dame!
Deanna looks as if she’s done something embarrassing in her panties in that picture of her in Ten-Forward. I think Lwaxana’s whispering in her ear “you can’t do that at the wedding!”
I don’t get the piling on Worf for being worst parent ever. Yes, he has trouble relating to his son. He’s not physically or even verbally abuse to him at any time in this episode, and personally I think he shows remarkable restraint in his efforts to get his son to sit down and eat dinner with him.
Not a fan of any of the lwaxana episodes, but this one comes as close to being watchable as any of them. There’s a sense of wistful fatalism underlying the character here that makes me root for her, for the first and only time ever.
As for the much maligned subplot…. meh. I should probably try to dial back on my rewatch schedule. I like to read the rewatch review and comments as I view the episodes, and I confess the hypertechnical dissections of the impossibility or implausibility of the scientific crisis du jour grow tiresome after awhile, and I see with more clarity why so many think of us trekkies as nerds.
@41/JohnC: People like to call out nerds for their in-depth discussion of technicalities, but is it any different from how deeply other people get into in-depth technical discussions of sports statistics or cars or politics or business? Most people, not just sci-fi nerds, have their own areas of interest that they can discuss in sufficient depth to become tiresome to people who don’t share their interests. It’s just that society has a double standard and treats going on endlessly about sports or finances or cars as a more legitimate activity than going on endlessly about science or imaginative literature.
I’m not sure if he meant the nerd comment in a derogatory way or not, but your response is on point :)
http://www.theonion.com/article/walking-sports-database-scorns-walking-sci-fi-data-1442
I am a nerd, and proud. :)
Quoth JohnC: “I confess the hypertechnical dissections of the impossibility or implausibility of the scientific crisis du jour grow tiresome after awhile”
Well, I found that the repeated impossibility and/or implausibility of the scientific crisis du jour also grew tiresome after a while. :)
Also: what Christopher said.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I have to agree with JohnC. Worf is an absolutely believable parent. A very relatable one. I feel like anyone who doesn’t see that simply hasn’t spent enough time taking care of children.
Worf is every parent who just had a rough day. Maybe a demanding job. Maybe they’re sick. But they are grumpy and despite their best efforts, they take it out on the kid by being gruff and sarcastic. There’s a thing called the Facebook effect, where all that people choose to share about their families on social media are the best moments, and as a result, people begin to see those brief shining bits as normal. I think what little we see of Worf with his son represents the opposite of that.
I really like how Alexander is portrayed as a completely believable 8-9 year old here. But now I’m really confused, since according to the Wiki, he’s supposed to be 2 in this episode! I guess Kingons mature quickly or something?
I like the cold open of this episode; it’s like we’re arriving at the end of a typical action/danger episode that had the Enterprise zip around space to save that planet from asteroids. Seems like coming off the end of a spell of excitement is just the place to start a lower-key episode about character interaction…but unfortunately it’s just the way of setting off the notably bland B-plot.
Is this most egregious example of an obtrusive, irrelevant B-plot in this series? At least in “In Theory”, Data was a part of both plots, and in “The Outcast” the B-plot was how Riker met the guest start of that episode. Here? Just nothing at all.
Way late to the party here, but I always wished they did more with the Lawaxana/Alexander pairing. I get that it wouldn’t have been easy or practical to always schedule the Alexander-centric subplots to intersect with the Lawaxana-centric ones and get Majel Barrett and Brian Bonsall there at the same time, but there was a fair amount of nice chemistry with the elder Troi playing the free spirited cool aunt to help poor repressed Alexander deal with his stick-in-the-mud space-Dad. Plus it would’ve built in some additional ammunition to help prop up the late-series attempt to push Troi and Worf together by having their two primary satellite characters already share something of a relationship and chemistry.
Also if technical nitpicks and minor inconveniences can cost a show a point on the grading scale, I see no reason that the universal awesomeness of Tony Jay couldn’t give it a bonus point. He’s part of that small cadre of supporting/character actors that automatically elevate the awesomeness of anything they’re in by simple presence alone. A fraternity he has been succeeded in by the likes of Bruce Campbell, Mark Sheppard, or Adam Baldwin.
Also I’m glad people have mentioned ReBoot. That was Tony Jay at his Tony Jay-iest. He was born to be Megabyte, the hulking, imposing, feral-looking monster of a main villain whose appearance belied the fact that he had the personality of Hannibal Lector if he were a Bond villain. And yes, I’m also PO’d that they ended the show on a cliffhanger, too. At least it gave the inimitable Mr Jay the series’ final line.
The ship dropped from Warp 9 to Warp 6.5. Isn’t the warp scale logarithmic, which means that the ship was then going less than one hundredth the original speed? Which means the 5 hours would have turned into at least 500 hours, or 3 weeks. Come on writers, that is an OBVIOUS mistake.
@49/Tom Green: The warp scale is not logarithmic. In the 24th century, it nominally went by the warp factor to the power of 10/3, so W9 to W6.5 would’ve been a drop from 1516c to 512c, about 3 times slower. However, in practice, the onscreen warp velocities were always far faster than the nominal behind-the-scenes warp scales would suggest; the handwave was that the actual warp factor varied due to local space and subspace conditions.
Christopher, thanks for the correction. Going 3x slower would certainly be dangerous, but possibly survivable.
I just rewatched this episode and liked it a lot. Much better than the previous one, which felt like a contemporary Air Force story adorned with some Star Trek characters, and a rather predictable one at that.
This episode, on the other hand, was great fun. I laughed out loud twice – when Lwaxana and Alexander got away from Campio, Erko, Deanna and Worf to spend some more time on the holodeck and at the sight of Worf in the mudbath. There’s just enough sadness in Lwaxana’s confession that she compromises to give it some depth, too. The B plot was stupid, but it’s nice to know that the Enterprise still saves planets from asteroids every now and then. And at least it gave us the scene where Lwaxana pulls all those sausages out of her tea and then drinks the tea.
I’ve always found this episode delightful. I desperately want to visit that colony, and I squealed when Paracelsus came on screen.
I totally thought his chaperone was TV’s Frank. He was not, pity.
Just here to point out how delightfully Alice in Wonderland the holodeck is. Mysterious whimsical characters, a floating Cheshire-esque head, and a Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum – who look more like the version in the 1970s Alice in Wonderland musical than any other version I know – and an unanswerable riddle.
This is addressed to varying degrees elsewhere, but “the higher the fewer” apparently refers to an old kind of speed maintaining governor on a steam engine. I thought someone was pulling our collective leg, but on more googling, it checked out. A mouse is a weight, and the higher it rises, as the engine spins, the slower the engine goes (fewer RPMs).
Nonetheless, apparently in The Shining it’s proposed as an answer to “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” which is from Alice in Wonderland, so there you go.
To suggest a correction for krad, which I’m surprised nobody else nerdily mentioned: Yes the disintegrating components do affect the A plot. First, the replicator fails, and makes hilarious sausage tea. Then, the holodeck starts to break down; Lwxanna sees the grid and they book it out of there. Could have been better, no doubt, but it definitely helped.
Beyond all that, this is one of the most sweetly quotable episodes.
“Deanna, I love you but you do make everything sound like an epitaph.”
“I exposed you to all sorts of mixed messages when you were that age, and you still turned out deadly dull.”
And more and more. I really liked it.
My only disappointment with this rather charming comic episode is that a STAR TREK episode had the Great Tony Jay and completely failed to make use of him! (Honestly, they couldn’t have made him a Villain or better yet a ‘Not actually the villain, but he’s being played by Tony Jay so you’ll be kept guessing anyway’ sort of character?).
On a more cheerful note, one would dearly like to imagine that Ambassador Troi and Alexander, son of Worf remained thick as thieves ever after – there have to be at least a few people in the Galaxy for whom Lwaxana Troi’s arrival produces a smile rather than a shiver of resignation, after all! – and one would also like to note that, since there’s at least one timeline in which Counsellor Troi married Mr Worf, in at least one universe Lwaxana Troi is ‘Mr Woof’s’ mother in law.
I’m not saying they couldn’t get used to each other with time, but that wedding must have been an absolute RIOT … (if nothing else, one has to wonder how poor Worf would cope with a Betazoid ceremony; I wonder if the Troi-House of Mogh wedding would in fact be two ceremonies, one Klingon and one Betazoid, or if they’d just call on Captain Picard for a simple, Starfleet service*).
*Actually, NO, I don’t wonder; we all know Worf, son of Mogh isn’t going to settle for anything less than the biggest possible wedding, bless him.
Not much to say about the episoded itself, I pretty much agree with the review. So instead I’m going to go on a nerdy tangent about great voices.
Tony Jay is one of the most memorable parts of my childhood as Reboot was a favorite show of mine. Even my dad liked it and we were both impressed by Megabyte and his fantastic villainous bass. Ever since then Tony Jay has been one of my two favorite voice actors, the other being Simon Templeman who also had a bit role on TNG, as a holodeck character in Data’s performance of Henry V at the opening of the episode “The Defector.” They both have such rich, sonorous English voices. In fact they both featured together in the Legacy of Kain video game series, Templeman playing the titular vampire Kain and Jay perfectly cast as the voice of the eldritch and Lovecraftian Elder God. Those are great games. Also featuring in a major role, interestingly, the voice of Michael Bell, another prolific voice performer, who also had a part on TNG in the pilot episode as Groppler Zorn. The three of them voiced probably the three biggest characters in the series spanning several years from the mid 90s to early 2000s, so all three became staples of the entertainment landscape of my youth.
This is probably only interesting to me but I love tracking the entangled careers of my favorite actors.
I hate clowns and carnivals. I think Alexander is a little shit and Worf does the best that he can. Also typically I don’t dislike Lwaxana Troi episodes as much as some others, I find her behavior in this one to be borderline reprehensible. She has no permission to take that child anywhere, and not only did she do so she does so with the express goal of undermining a parental strategy suggested and approved by their counselor. After watching this episode, I’m kind of glad she hasn’t found a mate. No one should be saddled with that.
Oh and BTW. Weird that there is apparently not a single oxygen mask on the entire Enterprise. The quartermaster should be shot into space.
This episode is the main reason why I think that Alexander should have just blown-off the warrior stuff and grown-up to become a gay artist on Risa.
I’d also forgotten about the (presumably unintentional) implication that Lwaxana had known Alexander the Great. I assume that Peter David must have been thinking of that when he created Morgan Primus in the New Frontier novels.
I know this fandom doesn’t typically allow loving Lwaxana Troi, but this episode made me a fan. Seriously krad, if this doesn’t get a begrudging 6 from even a Lwaxana hater for featuring a wholesome adult-child relationship in space and some fantastically genuine joie de vivre in that free spirit colony, you gotta wonder if it’s time to stop eating humbug for dinner. Qapla’, sir, and good day.
Interesting to go back through the comments here and see the theoretical discussion back in 2012 about whether computers could accurately reproduce a human voice and whether it was a good idea to use them to recreate a dead actor’s voice. Now, just ten years later, it’s become a reality, with Lucasfilm using digital means to recreate Mark Hamill’s and James Earl Jones’s younger voices. And just as I predicted, I don’t feel the technology successfully captures the performance and skill of the original actors. (At least not in Hamill’s case. I didn’t realize Vader’s voice was done that way in Obi-Wan Kenobi, so I didn’t pay attention.)
I love the face in the bubble.
A perennial conundrum: I have no problem with the computer being able to locate Alexander, Lwaxana, or anyone else — in theory. For security purposes it makes sense for a unique bio-signature to be logged when someone boards the ship despite the potential civil-liberty and privacy concerns. That conflicts with officers apparently being locatable exclusively through their combadges, however, as on several occasions various characters wearing them — usually Special Guest Adversaries or regulars who’ve been taken over by mysterious entities — ditch them as decoys and thus stymie the crew.
While it was of course terribly poignant to see and hear Majel Barrett as Lwaxana wax melancholic about being alone late in life so soon after Gene Roddenberry’s passing, I found the extreme close-ups on her and then Alexander very awkward. Pairing the characters as kid and kooky grandma who relate to each other in ways that the necessarily practical adults don’t, though, is believably charming and poignant itself even as it’s totally maddening to the practical adult in me.
I loved this episode. Yes, the B-plot is silly and unnecessary, but the A-plot is both fun and affecting.But then, I’m a Lwaxana fan. Particularly in this episode/”Half a Life”/”The Forsaken”, where she gets to show the vulnerability that lies beneath the carefree surface.
Also, bonus point for series continuity, in that we get an onscreen acknowledgement that Alexander is still grieving his mother. Yes, he’s a brat, but that’s hardly surprising, given he lost his mother and their homelife, and THEN lost a second home with his grandparents too. It was about time someone gave him a hug.
It’s bugged me for years, but I recently rediscovered the reference. This is from Eric Frank Russell’s 1955 short story “Diabologic.”