FACE OF THE ENEMY


Hmm... another very good episode!

The interesting thing about "Face Of The Enemy" (aside from its being another
in a long line of episodes which lack a necessary article at the front of its
title) is that, while Marina Sirtis turned in perhaps her best performance on
TNG, she did it while playing a character who, essentially, was not Deanna
Troi.  Sure, she LOOKED like Troi, and had the same accent.  But at her core,
this character bore no resemblance to the woman who's appeared on TNG for the
past 5+ years.

The main reason for this is that Troi has always been a bare-bones character.
She's an empath, and she's a counselor, and THAT'S BEEN IT as far as her
character has been concerned.  Not exactly a good base on which to build,
since the character of a counselor doesn't offer many dramatic opportunities
in the framework of Star Trek, so she has to be awkwardly shoehorned into
stories like "The Child" and "The Price". And building on her empathic nature
has mainly given us awful episodes like "The Loss".  It would have made a lot
more sense to have given her a role such as (say) a xenosociologist or someone
else who specialized in contacts with aliens.  (Her empathic abilities would
have fit in much better to that role.)

"Face Of The Enemy" throws out what little of Troi we'd seen before (except
for her empathic abilities which serve well as a plot device at one point) and
rebuild from the ground up.  They can do this because Troi has been bodily
lifted out of her normal environment and put in the hostile realm of a Romulan
war cruiser.  She then proceeds to show backbone which "The Loss" had led us
to believe she couldn't possibly possess.  (This does of course imply
inconsistent characterization, which is annoying, though not surprising given
the nearly nonexistence characterization TNG usually displays.)

One can easily go from here to argue that this character is not Troi because
she doesn't NEED to be Troi.  She barely has any interaction with the rest of
the Enterprise at all; she could easily be any number of Starfleet officers
from what we see in this episode.

Which is not to say that I didn't like what I saw.  I liked Troi's strength of
will and ability to think on her feet (which was most impressive at the dinner
table!), and hope that they continue it.  It will be difficult given her usual
counselor's role (which, as already noted, is basically a dead end,
character-wise).  We'll see.

Aside from this recarving of Troi, "Face Of The Enemy" was primarily a
plot-driven show, with a subplot involving a glimpse at the Romulan psyche.
Both worked well.  It was interesting to see the factions within the Romulan
Empire (the military and the Tal Shiar, plus, of course, Spock's movement).
And the drive to get the defectors to Federation space was well-handled.  The
introduction of violence into the story raised the stakes to an exciting
level; the episode wouldn't have worked without it.

There were some development problems, though.  In particular, the resolution
seemed to me like they were "pulling a fast one".  The hiding of the
transporter beam inside the disruptor was too sudden and too unexpected, and I
wondered where they got the time to concoct such a plan.  I was also
disappointed that Troi's escape was, at the end, rather easy.  (The Romulans
cloak and the Enterprise just beams her off.)

Finally, the show lacked a sense of closure in that we don't find out the
ultimate fate of Ensign DeSeve, who presumably will still be court-martialed,
but will his efforts to aid Spock be taken into consideration?.  That's an
unanswered question that rankles, and it shows a weakness of TNG's format not
to want to tackle such issues in the last minutes of the show.  (Few TNG
episodes seem to have a proper denouement, which is very annoying at times.
DS9 actually evidences the same problem.)

"Face Of The Enemy" was a very good episode, and one which was in many ways a
departure from previous TNG episodes.  It had its problems, and I do wonder
whether any of the interesting facets of Troi's character seen here will ever
be seen again.  But still, on its own, quite enjoyable.


Grade: A-

TNG SEASON SIX AT A GLANCE:
Time's Arrow II: B-
Realm Of Fear: C
Man Of The People: C
Relics: B+
Schisms: B-
True Q: D-
Rascals: D+
A Fistful Of Datas: B
The Quality Of Life: C+
Chain Of Command: B+
Chain Of Command Part II: B
Ship In A Bottle: A
Aquiel: B+
Face Of The Enemy: A-
---
Total Points: 37 1/3
Season Average: 2.667 (B-)
(Rise of 0.078 from previous episode)

Next week:

Q returns to the Enterprise to bother Picard some more. Meanwhile, Q also
drops in on Deep Space Nine.  How does he DO that, anyway? :-)