I'm rewatching TNG for the umpeenth time
, and this occurred to me. I know it's the topic do jour to call everything underrated these days, but was he underrated?
Overal, yep. Maurice Hurley's ideas and contributions to the show (but not the actors!) are indeed underrated.
Especially season 2 where there's a generally consistent feel and tone and reminder that
outer space is a dangerous place.
(Disclaimer: A novel will soon be following, though I promise I won't check the word count (with or without spaces)...)
Personally I'm a Pulaski fan. I can see what he was trying to do by bringing in Diana Muldaur. However I appreciate I'll always be in the minority on this, and just like "Pulaski was mean to Data" "Maury was mean to Gates" will likely always land him a bad reputation.
Add one to the count here. Season 1 Crusher wasn't bad and, while I disliked the reasons she had left (season 1 Beverly wasn't bad...), the crew DID need some interpersonal tension at times and Pulaski was perfect. Here, the arc of Pulaski warming up to a robot was introduced and it's generally well-handled, with "Pen Pals" being the turning point given she's an eyewitness to how Data gives a ship about a bunch of people. (Now it may be down to heuristic programming (or Hulreyistic
), but Data was just recalling one of Starfleet's tenets. After all, he saved the 20th century fossils from "The Neutral Zone" as well and one of them saved Picard's bacon, eggs, toast, glass of orange juice, bowl of sugar cereal, pancakes, bottle of horseradish syrup, etc, too by doubling for Troi (Troi aside, it's a great scene with multiple facets).
But let's not re-litigate that point. Let's focus on the other aspects.
I think in some ways he suffered from the period of Trek he was in. Gene got all the credit for creating the show, and was involved in early episodes and introduced us to characters like Q. Michael Piller joined in season three and is widely regarded as the person who put Trek on the map and his work is beloved across TNG, DS9 and VOY.
Great points, all. I'd add Ira Steven Behr to the list as he's behind some of the best TNG before going to DS9 (where his contributions were also well above average) and likely helping keeping 90s Trek going.
That places Maury in this weird limbo position between them both, and in a period where a lot of people say just skip those seasons. And of course the backdrop of a writer's strike too, that didn't help.
The strike clobbered season 2, resulting in a chunk of dropped story slots, having to dig up dusty material sitting in a corner to repurpose ("The Child"), and - gasp and gadzooks - a clip show because there simply was no time. And, you know what? Remove the clips and the predictable ending and there is a very palpable sense of threat to the jungle planet, which was beautifully constructed. TNG, as with a lot of sci-fi in general, never showed such environments (much less succeed with killer vines that felt plausible.) Yep, "Shades of Gray" is not TNG's worst, not by any measure of a production.
But I think that misses a lot of his contribution.
TNG was being written by Gene's lawyer for crying out loud, and Maury maneuvered it so he took over he took over.
Gene Roddenberry lost control of Star Trek some years before his passing, and this is how one producer made it happen.
www.giantfreakinrobot.com
A fascinating story for sure!
And I think from his first episode as showrunner "Heart of Glory" you saw a real elevation in the quality and dialogue.
^^this!!!!!!!!!!
Quality did rise as well as stories feeling like they had just a bit more substance and agency. Now a disclaimer, I do like
some of the earliest episodes, but a lot of them do feel "by the numbers" and "going through the motions" at times. Hurley at the reins honestly was the first who saved the show. (Gene obviously having some clever input by creating Q, which added needed depth to "Farpoint", but sexing up "Justice" was... um... cringeworthy. Yep, we don't need massage oil and rubbing to make for good sci-fi and there was more than enough of that in TOS with the semi-misperception of Kirk running around, but that's another
story show.)
He is responsible for bringing back to the Romulans. Foreshadowing the Borg then creating hem up in "Q Who?"
1. great foreshadowing
2. the Romulan scene ending with "We are back" feels almost fourth wall to the audience in promising the show will do better* next season so don't change the channel, but it holds its own while leaving enough room to explore the Romulans properly later on.
3.the scooped out planets was a cool mystery, and I'm glad - ironically - for season 2's writer strike as I don't think insect fritters would have been as cool as the Borg. (I don't recall, were the insect beings responsible for pitting the planets also behind the "Conspiracy" crawdads? Also note, "Conspiracy" and "Coming of Age" preceding it was a mini arc with the latter foreshadowing the latter too.)
* it did fulfil that promise, and more
He brought in Melinda Snodgrass and gave us the beloved "The Measure of a Man?" and she set up things like the poker game.
The poker, in hindsight, is cool. Just remember, Geordi's glorified beer googles allow him to count the cards... TMofaM is a tad overrated, but that's another story.
He put some noses out of joint in the old guard, but people like Snodgrass speak highly of him and his writing advice.
I think that latter half of season one and then season two was really transformational, and paved the way to what would come after even if you don't like it all.
Even cast members, if I recall correctly, said the show pretty much found itself in season 2. Most of it definitely gelled in 2, with 3 just polishing up what was already working, to help ensure we didn't get anymore episodes in the style of "The Cringeworthy Okona", I forgot its name...
He probably deserves more credit than he gets in terms of the Trek pantheon.
Lots.
Not just for "outer space is a dangerous place" but for ramping up some creative science fiction:
"Q Who" is a double feature, with not just the Borg but laying groundwork between Q and Guinan, which would not be fleshed out in TNG's run. Plus, the story successfully gets around the end of "Hide & Q"'s edict by Picard mentioning how Q would not bother the ship again (H&Q said "species", though I wish someone at the time would have said "ship", but Q was too good a character to ditch like that and Hurley's bringing him back didn't alter Q as a character. Unlike the Borg, but that's another sequel...)
"Contagion" introduces the Ikonians along with being cautionary on perceiving history for which no written material exists - never mind how written material can be misinterpreted. The Ikonians were labeled "aggressors" due to their teleportation technology, but I agree with Picard's reasoning and not because he's the captain. It's all deftly handled. This episode is also one of the few times that bringing up "warp core breach" genuinely felt worrisome**, rather than a rubberstamped bit of treknobabble.
** thus making one breach their undies as a result, assuming any are being worn, but if not, now they know why wearing them can be useful, but I digress within this digression
I'd already adumbrated "Pen Pals", which is largely great (though the ending with the conch, meant to show Data has a soul, falls apart because that's just compounding the risk of Sarjenka's memory wipe failing - UGH!!) Ditto for "Shades of Gray", though if you're not aware of the production issues, it's easy why people would be taken aback - especially if they were engrossed in this alien planet plot setup and now it's watching Riker get off with (and infected/ing) every lady in the galaxy. I'd have to count the episodes as to how many confirm Kirk was "teaching love" versus Riker "teaching love" but I'm sure Riker had the higher score, no pun intended, long before episode 79...
"Where Silence Has Lease" is more about the thick atmosphere and suspense as it's more fantasy driven, but the build-up is highly successful and the idea of the ship's complement as lab rats definitely is scary. Just ignore the scene where Data goes out of his way to hammer home that the void they're seeing is nothing like what they'd scene before (thus deftly getting around any fans wanting to chime in with "Oi, what about 'The Immunity Syndrome'?")
"Time Squared" is a great take on a time loop and doing something clever with it, by making Picard second guess himself after seeing himself. "Cause and Effect" is also clever, but does start to get boring despite the attempts of all involved. The season 2 story definitely does much for Picard, and Troi.
"Loud as a Whisper" is a novel idea, fairly well executed, and I love Riva and his chorus. Heck, people say how "Herman's Head" influenced media made after it, but surely HH was influenced by this story's chorus? To be fair, HH lost its way after season 1, but that's another
story series...
"Unnatural Selection" was TNG's attempt to do the old aging trope in a way other than "comet whizzes by, now we all die". IMHO, it's done better, and it provides more insight into Pulaski's character and motivations and with some deftness. Research takes time, but even in the best of cases research involves some risk and meanwhile the clock is ticking. What would you do, if there was a problem requiring urgency given the scope of the situation? That is what this episode loosely asks as well. And I love it. Even more than Frank Drebin loving swimming in raw sewage, but that's another movie and in another genre too...
"Emissary" also explores Klingons, even if they're using a trope used in "Gilligan's Island" where someone out of touch still thinks their war is going on decades' later. There's some character drama, but it doesn't descend into soap opera level (wait for season 5 for that, not to mention all those lovely predictably Alexander stories because, as Cousin Oliver proved time and again, adding kids into a show to liven it up always works as well as marrying characters. But that's another
show bunch of shows and their unsurprisingly last seasons I'm not going to tangent toward right now.
"The Dauphin" is a terrific coming of age story for Wesley who, as in "Pen Pals", is treated like a human and not a glorified popsicle stick that can save the universe at every turn. You may have heard of "
Flanderization"***, but Wesley is the reverse of that TV trope as he starts out as a caricature but is slowly crafted into someone more substantial. Oh, the bit about the ship component Wesley was casually hauling that could rip all the iron out of his blood was a neat little sciencey thing, which also reminds how outer space is a dangerous place. Plus, Anya vs Worf were great scenes, and a rematch might have been brill.
*** My apologies in advance; you'll read one page but then open up new tabs from links that site presents and two minutes later you'll have fifty web browser tabs open...
"Peak Performance" fudges in a need for war games pitting an advanced ship against a much earlier model because they're paralleling the Borg and otherwise never-dee-ever do training exercises to remain sharp, but the setup and payoff with the battle are simply much fun and engaging.
"Manhunt" is another terrific Lwaxana episode, if you like Lwaxana.
"Up The Long Ladder" is a misfire, but the Pulaski scene with Worf and partaking in ceremony after injecting herself with an antidote to a liquid that is lethal to humans (but merely toxic to Klingons) is highly astute, even if the labeling of the ceremony is a bit slim (and this was before Worf spewed out Klingon aspects every other minute so he didn't correct her on "the Klingon tea ceremony" but it's an umbrella term, so it doesn't not work.) Not all species can eat or ingest the same things, something most Trek episodes forget about, and it drives me up the wall at warp speed.
"A Matter of Honor" does the "exchange student" shtick very cleverly, allowing 24th Klingons to be explored more. It's a classic, loaded with memorable lines and things to think about. Also, when Riker got back to the Enterprise, he started developing blisters but thankfully Dr Pulaski is aware of Klingon ailments and those that can cross species and got him treated so he could go back out the following season.
"The Royale" is an oddball, but also shows - as payoff - the ultimate in miscommunication and it's a tragedy. Underrated story, though the 20th century surroundings probably took people by surprise abject recoil until the big reveal that the away team were living in a recreation of a book, made by aliens who'd saved a human astronaut and thought that's how humans lived so they thought they were doing him a favor. Whoops... (it's really quite the morbid story, proving yet again that space is a dangerous place. So is a restaurant that lets cockroaches crawl over all the buffet items, but that's another story...) I'm ever so glad the astronaut didn't have the novelization of all 98 episodes of "Gilligan's Island"...
"The Child" is the hand-me-down from "Phase II", granting us a modicum of insight into how the (yep, late-1970s) show might have handled things.
"Samaritan Snare" involves the Pakleds, who just come across as a second-rate Borg and just after the Borg's episode as well (um, too soon!!!). But they're handled much better in "Lower Decks", and there is a palpable sense of threat against Geordi because, you guessed it, outer space is a dangerous place. Add in some lame technobabble and ham acting with capillaries and it goes south, but even this episode isn't without a good scene or two - which is better than season 1's clunkers where no part of it is good (e.g. "Justice").
"The Icarus Factor" features Riker's dad and how dad and Pulaski were an item too. Yay for small universe syndrome! But all that aside, the Wesley/Worf scenes are... yep, the best and by far. You probably weren't expecting to read that, were you? Or this as well: The family fluff made me think of "The Golden Girls" and how they revolve around
teh fam, and as outer space is a dangerous place to be explored, the soap opera just falls firmly flat.
"The Outrageous Okona" is the biggest stinker, and the biggest name in comedy wouldn't have elevated the Comic. Especially as the on-screen chemistry between Goldberg and Spiner stole the show. If I remember correctly, one dude in 10-Forward is looking way too smiley as well. It tries too hard with elements of "Romeo & Juliet" combined with a misunderstanding trope taken from "Three's Company" but played seriously, in order to allow Data's "understanding humor" subplot to be given focus. If they want a comedy circus episode, good luck, but I wouldn't ditch the Data subplot because of the chemistry, and comedy requires a strong point of reference for it to land and we know nothing of these other two species that Okana is transporting items between and this story isn't worthy of having 3 episodes devoted to each species in order to build up the comedy subplot to make that work... besides, "fish out of water" was done more effectively in TNG already and Okana being the latest minnow out of the pond just isn't one-upping the trope. Looks like a discount Han Solo, with discount Ham Sandwich being eaten along with the scenery...
Oh wow. Thanks for the correction! I recall how sitcoms had done it ("The Golden Girls" being a repeat offender, even in the same season) but not as much for dramas, though I hadn't watched many at the time.
Very, very true. (Thanks much for the edification!)
