LEGACY


This was a frustrating episode.

On the one hand, it had some solid concepts behind it, to wit, the culture
on the planet, the situation involving the rescue of trapped Federation
citizens (a tried-and-true plot device, but one that still hasn't worn
out its welcome in a good story with me), Tasha's sister, and the nature of
trust and friendships (and, of course, the ghosts of old friendships).

But then they took the whole mess and reduced it to some sort of lowest
common denominator, and tossed in a stilted script, jerky plot developing
and an impressively poor actress in the role of Tasha's sister (whose
name I've already forgotten).

It also introduced me to a plotting strategy I've never encountered before:
pulling the wool over the viewer's eyes by distracting him with the bad
execution of the episode!  I swear, I was spending so much time squirming
at every line Yar uttered in the episode that I didn't suspect she might
be setting the Enterprise up!

The culture of the planet was swiftly reduced to a simple "Kaleds vs. Thals"
scenario (for those of you who watch Dr. Who), with two major "factions"
with absolutely no color to them.  The whole thing was so sterile in
concept.  I'd have preferred a state of utter anarchy down there instead.

The situation surrounding the Federation hostages was equally shallow.
It simply became a political situation of the sort we saw (about as well
handled) in "Too Short A Season".  We don't even hear much in the way of
demands from the captors.  Yawn.

Tasha's sister, as I said, was being pretty poorly acted, and was not at
all helped by the lousy script.  I was utterly incredulous when she said
that she already trusted Data.  What a horrible piece of dialogue!  Her
personality is nothing we haven't seen before (Princess Leia's darker
side?  Remember Jabba The Hutt... :-).  Data may have been gullible
enough to fall for her ploy, being an android and all, but I have a hard time
seeing Picard or Riker doing so.

There was also the basic problem that a lot of the episode was *explained*
to us instead of shown, especially Yar's feelings toward her late sister.
It simply didn't prompt me to believe in her feelings.  And the long, rambling
dialogues she had with Data!  Yawn!

The episode ended up entirely too preachy, with everything being explained to
us in nice, neat packets about human nature and trust and all.  Brent
Spiner had some nice moments of near-emotion, but that's about it.  Oh,
yeah, and the final cap to the episode's non-credibility was Picard
returning Yar to her planet.  One would think the Federation would have a
thing or two to say about that...

Good points:  Well, some of the action was entertaining, and the SFX tended
to be quite good, especially of the phaser burrowing into the planet.  Also,
actually seeing some TNG character *run* for a change at the start of the
episode was quite a switch.  (It's better than "Hollow Pursuits" where
Geordi and Barclay are *walking* to test their theories with the ship only
minutes away from destruction!)

I also noticed the conspicuous absence of Wesley Crusher from the
navigational position on the bridge.  Guess he's recovering from last week.
Troi looked a little more like a real person and less like a "space bimbo"
too, not that this helped her characterization.  She just didn't look
quite so glazed-over this time around.  Different make-up, I imagine.

So, overall, it turned out to be a mediocre action episode with pretensions
of some serious character exploration, and the really sad part is that it
could have actually succeeded in its pretensions if they'd tried a bit
harder and hadn't been quite so didactic.

It doesn't say much for this episode that I enjoyed the opening poker
sequence far more than anything else in the show.  The real legacy in
"Legacy" is a lesson on how NOT to write "human nature" stories.

Grade: D+  (The plus is for the SFX :-)

SEASON FOUR TO DATE:
The Best Of Both Worlds Part Two: C-
Family: A-
Brothers: B
Suddenly Human: C
Remember Me: A+
Legacy: D+
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Average: 2.667/4.000 = B-