FUTURE IMPERFECT


I'm sorry, but I've seen it all before.

WHY someone felt compelled to combine elements of the TOS episodes "The Cage"
and "Charlie X" and wrap them up in a decidedly dull episode I have no idea,
but that's basically what they did.

So what have we got?  Well, we've got the teaser, with a remarkably bland 
fade-out to the main theme.  Maybe I was just a little jaded by the fact that
I knew about the "leap to the future" ahead of time, but I think a much
stronger surprise was due here than just a shot of Riker's somewhat
older face.

The good aspects of this episode can be summed up into one word: Riker.
The writer obviously knew how to write Riker and how to write for
Jonathan Frakes.  I especially liked Riker's mental "tip of the hat"
to Picard when the latter wished the former a happy birthday.  I think
someone is finally becoming comfortable with the character of Riker and
realizing that there's potential there.  (He is damn good at barking
commands; I loved seeing him tell Picard to shut up! :-)  A fine performance 
from Frakes in the future setting, although once they'd departed from that 
setting, the material he had to work with plummeted in quality, and he was 
unable to do anything with it.

The rest of the episode was basically wretched.

The whole future sequence was incredibly understated, and with very few
moments of real tension.  It plodded along at a snail's pace.  Had there
been something more interesting going on in the future fantasy (like, say,
a war) then it might have been more interesting.  Yes, of course, the
fantasy was trying to project an ideal future for Riker, but one of the
first rules of writing is that if you're going to show something that's
essentially dull, you have to portray it in a way that's interesting to
the viewers.  It can certainly be done, as anyone who's read Zelazny's
_Nine_Princes_In_Amber_ knows.

The plot here was solid, but it was oh-so-boring, and oh-so-thin in the
first place.  The other cast members were little more than bit players.
Only Ethan turned in an interesting performance.

The revelation that the future sequence was only a hologram (of sorts)
came all together too quickly.  The episode grabbed the viewer by the
ears and dragged him along for the ride, not really giving any clues
as to what was going on.  The Romulan sham was similar.  Very poor
set-up on the part of the writers.

And, of course, the basic idea behind the set-up was nothing new.  The
motivations of Ethan were somewhat interesting, but not nearly enough,
and the episode ended WAY too abruptly to be the least bit satisfying,
and what do you think the odds are that the kid will show up again?
Wouldn't one expect Starfleet scientists to be crawling all over that
cave within two weeks to figure out what was going on?

I do have a feeling that the "enemy" that Ethan's mother was trying to
hide him from is somehow connected to the vanishing bases along the
Neutral Zone in the first season closer, but we're not given enough
information to make any conjectures, really, so there aren't even any
interesting ongoing plot threads to pick up on here.

All in all, this episode was a yawn.  It's hard to decide if it was more
of a yawn than "Legacy", but overall I'd have to say yes, if only
because "Legacy" had aspirations of being something more than it was.  This 
one was a mistake from the very beginning, and the only feature that redeemed 
it from being an utter failure was Jonathan Frakes.  Another example of
how good characterization can't save a wretched plot.

(BTW, I'm less irritated by the fact that it's an essentially recycled story
than by the fact that it was SO BORING.  Just so I don't get accused of
judging it harshly because it's "not TOS"...)

Grade:  D-


SEASON FOUR TO DATE:
The Best Of Both Worlds Part Two: C-
Family: A-
Brothers: B
Suddenly Human: C
Remember Me: A+
Legacy: D+
Reunion: A-
Future Imperfect: D-
---
Total:  20.333
Average: 2.512 = B-
(Drop of 0.268 from last week)