“As captain of the starship Enterprise, I ask you not to make that sound.”
The fever of five-Enterprise episodes of Next Gen breaks with “Suddenly Human,” which feels altogether like a holdover from the first season – and not in a good way. Teen heartthrob Chad Allen, with his perfect shampoo hair, plays a human boy named Jono who was raised by the villainous Talarians, who gets rescued by the Enterprise after a training accident, and opts to spend a little quality time with Captain Picard.
Except, this episode represents a total misread of where Picard is at this point in the show, in terms of his comfort level with children. There’s even a hilarious scene where he tries to convince Deanna that he’s not good with kids, as though reiterating the conversation he had with Will on the latter’s first day on board. It just doesn’t play any more. Picard’s been mentoring Wesley Crusher (or as my notes for this episode put it, Sexley Crusher) for four years. He’s met his nephew. He’s met Troi’s alien baby. He had that adorable little meet-cute with Alexandra at the end of “When the Bough Breaks.” I’m not saying that Picard is now in full-on Daddy mode, but “Suddenly Human” requires him to vastly overplay a stodgy discomfort around Jono. And then it makes Picard freak out at Jono for listening to rock music.
As a guest star, Chad Allen gets a truly thankless role, given that the Talarians raised him to be a racist, misogynist asshole – and it shows. The Talarians are introduced as a former adversary of the Federation for expedience’s sake, but having never met them before, we don’t really care; imagine how much better the episode would have been if Jono had been raised by, say, the Romulans. (Or the Ferengi! All the racist misogynist assholishness you like, but with oo-mox.) Eventually Jono goes shit-crazy from hanging out with the captain and tries to murder him, but not before spilling ice cream on Sexley Crusher. The episode plays out in a series of misjudgements.
There’s a question to be asked about children being raised in oppressive cultures with non-progressive values, but the episode never asks it. There’s also a thematic undercurrent around domestic abuse that never rises to the surface, which is pretty inexcusable given the seriousness of said undercurrent. And the episode’s ultimate decision to put Jono back with the Talarians and send him on his way feels decidedly creepy as a result, especially given that the only “proof” that Jono wasn’t abused by his adoptive father is the word of said father. Uh, what? Someone in the writers’ room didn’t think all the way through what they were doing with this one.
Blogging The Next Generation runs every Tuesday as I work my way through every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on blu-ray. Season Four is in stores now.