Star Trek TNG - Season 4 - Episode 06
Originally Aired: 1990-10-29
Synopsis:
The crew meets Tasha Yar's sister, Ishara. [DVD]
Problems
- Right after the phaser drilling and the away team beamed into the core of the alliance, Riker fired at an enemy and the phaser blast sent him flying halfway across the corridor! I imagine stun settings are pretty stunning, but that was an unrealistic blow. Despite this inconsistency, I rather enjoyed watching that. It's so funny to see that guy fly across the hallway like that!
Factoids
- In this episode it takes Beverly a few hours of testing to determine if Ishara is Tasha's sister. Just ten years later in Voyager, this kind of testing can be done in minutes.
Remarkable Scenes
- The poker scene at the beginning.
- Data's poker face.
- Riker: "Data have you got a flush or a full house?" Data: "It will cost you twenty to make that determination, sir."
- Data literally "throwing away" the cards he was asked to throw away.
- Data explaining Riker's trick to Worf and Troi, then taking the winnings.
- Data, describing Yar's death: "Lt. Yar was killed on Vegra 2 by a malevolent entity." Ishara: "In battle." Data: "No. She was killed as a demonstration of the creature's power without provocation."
- I like the scene where they're talking about using the phasers to drill a hole for the transporter and removing Ishara's implant. The dialog was all technically correct and appropriate.
- Ishara begging Data to leave.
My Review
I found Ishara and Data's interactions with each other a bit trite. There have been better episodes exploring Data's emotions and ability to form friendships. Though Ishara's latent disgust with her sister was realistic and interesting. To that end, I enjoyed the cameo. Though I don't think it was a surprise to anyone that Ishara was going to betray everyone, so her "friendships" with everyone seemed obnoxious. A decent, though a bit flawed episode.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
- After the first away team visits the colony, the leader of the Coalition tells a subordinate to find out everything "there is to know about the starship Enterprise." Evidently his search turned up the fact that Tasha Yar left the colony many years ago, joined Starfleet, and eventually served on the Enterprise, because, a short time later, he produces Ishara Yar and offers her services to Picard. Yet, earlier, Picard says that the colony severed relationships with the Federation fifteen years ago, and Data indicates the last contact came six years ago, when the Potemkin orbited Turkana IV. Also, Riker claims that the colony hasn't maintained reliable communications since the government fell apart fifteen years ago. Here is a colony, isolated from the Federation for at least six years, and the leader of the Coalition manages to extract a personnel list for a ship that wasn't even in service during the last contact? To explain this, the writers have Dr. Crusher say, "All [the leader] had to do was to search through their data base on Starfleet to find Tasha's name." Is it Starfleet's policy to continue to supply detailed information on crew rosters to colonies that no longer have relations with the Federation? Since the Federation has enemies, isn't it doubtful that Starfleet would leave this type of information floating around?
- Ishara feigns an interest in joining Starfleet. Wesley's efforts to get into Starfleet seemed to indicate that only the best and brightest could get into Starfleet. Ishara has grown up in a colony in turmoil. Is it likely her education has prepared her for Starfleet Academy? And what about Tasha? Wouldn't she have had the same problems?
- On the planet, the members of the Coalition, both male and female, wear the same type of loose-fitting, functional outfit. Yet once Ishara gets to the Enterprise, the crew makes all haste to get her changed into this really tight body suit. No one else in Star Trek - aside from Troi and Seven of Nine from Voyager - has to wear this type of outfit. Why does Ishara? Seems a bit sexist, doesn't it? At least the crew made sure that Ishara's little belt and holster for her phaser were color-coordinated with her outfit ;)
- At one point in the episode, Geordi talks about the location of the hostages. A blinking dot indicates where the hostages are held. Geordi then suggests that they use the phaser to bore a hole in the granite and transport an away team into a storage area. When Geordi points to the storage area on the display, he indicates a spot on the other side of the city, nowhere near the hostages!
- Of course, the larger question here is: Why send an away team down at all? Why didn't the Enterprise just bore a hole down to the hostages and beam them up?
In response to DSOmo:
- It would be consistent with Star Trek philosophy for Star Fleet to be looking for the most exceptional individuals, not the necessarily the best educated. After all, they want to have officers from a wide variety of cultures and races, not just Vulcan Science Academy graduates. I imagine Tasha would have needed a period of intense eductional training to get her up to speed, but that episode with the children learning calculus suggests they have advanced educational techniques. Still, to have learned so much, gone through Starfleet Academy, and risen to be security chief on the Federation flagship, she must have been pretty hot stuff!
- Presumably they couldn't bore down to free the hostages because that would require them to bore through the complex, which they would not be willing to do. They could only bore down to a point on the exterior of the base, beam in, then work inwards.
The positive side of this episode was that I found Ishara's story interesting and was wondering throughout the episode exactly how she would betray them and to what extent. But there wasn't much substance to the episode, and it I got tired of all the scenes with her and the crew after a while. And the way that the crew acted totally blindsided by her betrayal didn't make much sense. The episode would have had the same plot, but been more logical, had they known she would betray them, had no choice but to work with her, hoped that she would "turn to the light side", and been disappointed that she didn't.
Regarding DSOmo's comment on Ishara's change in dress, it is interesting to me that TNG is no different from other Star Trek series in exploiting the physical attributes of extremely attractive women. Beth Toussaint who played Ishara Yar was certainly one of these. The use of a tight, form-fitting "onesie" as I have heard it referred to is definitely a feature of both TNG (with Troi) and Voyager (with Seven). Ishara's well-coordinated onesie is simply along the same vein. Certainly, the camera spends lots of time on Ishara's attractive body during this episode. I believe DSOmo is entirely accurate that the creators of the episode are pandering here. (Not that that made it any less enjoyable.)
Regarding the all-revealing guest-of-the-week jump-suit being sexist, I have one word to debunk: Transfigurations.
That doesn't debunk it, that reaffirms it! The guest in transfigurations also wore a onesie and was very attractive!
Yes, DSOmo, it's sexist. Or at least, it's a symptom of overall societal (and Hollywood) sexism. Excessive and inappropriate pandering to horny straight dudes. It's the same with Troi, Seven, and T'Pol. (DS9 seems mercifully spared from this trope in the main cast.) I'm permanently salty about all of these women's objectifying outfits and how it undermines the seriousness of their characters. As DSOmo also points out in his comment on "Chain of Command", finally seeing Troi in a real uniform is an incredible relief, and it makes me grieve for how long she was overtly objectified up to then with her outfits (as if her character wasn't already constantly poorly handled). It'd be different if we routinely saw people of different body shapes, ages, and genders wearing similar catsuits, but they're almost all young, very fit and thin, and usually female (John Doe from Transfigurations being a worthy exception with gender). Even as someone *very* attracted to the female form in all its wonderful variations, I get quite put off by outfits like Ishara's here. In these cases my feminist brain outweighs my lesbian brain, lol.
(I'll grant the in-universe possibility that Ishara welcomed a change of clothes, and chose a form-fitting outfit because she wanted to. Hell, if I had her body, I'd wear that shit too! That's valid and realistic, of course. But at the end of the day, outfits are real-world production choices made by TBTB, most of whom are men.)
This episode drags a bit, but I feel it redeems itself somewhat by the end. Even though, having seen all of TNG before, I knew that Ishara was going to betray the crew, I still found it emotionally engaging. I like the point of how everyone is still so grieved about Tasha and _wants_ Ishara to be like her sister, that they are totally blindsided by her not being like her sister at all. Even Data is caught unawares. It's sad, and quite realistic.