Every fledgling show is going to try to experiment with boundaries. It's like being in a big room, all the lights are off, there's nothing in the room except a lounge chair and your 16 pet cats, but you need to find your way to a wall and turn on the light switch. One might trip over a chair, step onto a hairball you then want to desperately shake off forevermore, or bump into the wall like how Maxwell Smart always does, but eventually that light switch is found, the light turns on, and all is amazing.
But until the lights come on, the experiment to find the switch can be of much interest. Like that old parlor game where you put your hands inside a small, sealed box and have to guess the object by solely its feel - no looking or smelling or hearing is allowed. Which is great until you're told what it is.
"Haven" is just that, an early season one TNG episode that's trying to expand within its new format.
Does it always succeed?
No.
Does it fail?
Not quite.
For one thing, the incidental music is clearly taking the time to be more experimental despite already finding its mark early on. While I'm not entirely fond of the high pitched cliche 80s bell dings, the low pitched flutes and other instruments do shine through, but all in all it's interesting to listen to, as season one helped cement what did work, what did not, what to hone, and what to discard.
Note: Other reasons that keep this episode from failing I'll get to later on and there are some redeeming moments of interest.
and does the episode show a new area of the ship, such as a dining room and guest quarters that are situated at a somewhere on one of the rear corner decks? You bet and it's fun to sit there and tyring to figure out where the rooms are based on window shape.
Does it also try to show off new hairdos?
Yes...
The story melds two plotlines. Plot "A" is involving Deanna and her arranged marriage and all of those weird Betazed customs and nuances that seem a little cheesy but at least Data finds it intriguing when everyone goes all "All in the Family" and bickers about them.
Plot "B" is a lot more serious, involving a species that - rare for sci-fi addresses multiple continents - more or less wiped out its enemy neighbors with a biological weapon... that also destroyed them in the process because the biological weapon couldn't discern the differences between anyone. Refugees were stuck on a spaceship finding a new home, and the home is a mythical planet that can heal all sorts of things... definitely a source of inspiration for the ill-fated 1998 movie "Insurrection"... The tragic part is, with this ailment, word spread around and this species has been unceremoniously hunted down and exterminated and this one ship is all that's left.
I noted one line from Doctor Crusher:
The writers mean well and in a way this is an early attempt to give Dr Crusher a background in empathy and moralizing, but at the same time I can't think of anything more brazenly -- for lack of better descriptor -- "Generation X cliche" than that, and Gen-X cliches didn't pop up in the media until the early-1990s! Worse, the line would have been entertaining had Lore said it in "Datalore". Or even if Crusher said it while under the influence in "The Naked Now", an episode where feelings and emotions simmering subconsciously are brought to the surface and that would have far more dramatic weight to the fledgling doctor than during that scene in "Haven".
Now, for a while I started counting foreshadowing that characters start to put out. Each time there's foreshadowing, I took a swig of Drambuie. I unfortunately had to stop eight shots later, though to be fair one instance was so brazen that I had to count it twice.
(I forgot, those goblets with the pastel purple look like cheap plastic. Oh well, at least they match the briefing room's pastel purple chairs. If they used more saturated hues the ship would go from looking like a hotel into something out of "Nightmare on Elm Street", though to be fair at least some of those 80s hairdos would fit right in... only if the house was large enough.)
And if my original idea was going to go through, I'd have drank one pint of long island iced tea every time Deanna said "Bill". And she called him that twice.
Now, I understand that the Tarellians had a strong sense of Wyatt. And for several years or decades, noting all of the accomplished drawings of him spotted around their ship. Isn't that a bit overkill? If nothing else, at least that pesky "Never show a navel on television" ban was lifted.
(The presented artwork, sans fingerprint smudge on the left, is so good you wouldn't want to put food on those collector plates. Time for me to check eBay but that sounds a little strange... if for no other reason that the plastic disc will have yellowed over time due to reaction to UV light exposure, if it's made out of certain types of plastic...)
Remembering what Wyatt said earlier in the episode:
It's almost haunting how the sketch on the right is looking down at him in perfect perspective. The perspective on the image on the left is almost pinpoint accurate as well. I wonder if that was deliberate, as the facial expressions appear to look like either stern determination or anger on the right and what is either awe or being high or something on the left, I'm not entirely sure... I'll say "stern determination" and "awe" since the plot foreshadowed his leaving Deanna the moment he stated he's a doctor (for what it's worth!) Being a doctor and wanting to cure the Tarellians' plight - this, if this observation is even remotely accurate (hint: it likely isn't, and may I have another sip of Jaegerbull?), it makes for an astonishing visual cue. The angle of Wyatt and the two plates, not looking at me gulping down some rum... If you made it this far to get to this of all observations, thank you kindly and much.
Like Fido on the farm, I tend to wander at times... and there's still some great stuff I've not yet mentioned...
Also, if it helps, I adore Duran Duran, I'm very much an avid fan of anything new wave and a fair amount of synthpop. Ask me one day what "The Reflex" is about... it's actually as unique as it might be both straightforward, and tacky - and it's nothing they'd admit to, but definitely is definitely entertaining 80s synthpop...
...Okay, back to the TNG episode and I'll not stray any longer (drat), as the plot focuses on the Tarellians, I could feel for their plight. And for Wyatt, who - assuming the biological agent is cross-species compatible and some are - either gave himself a death sentence or a crippling future if he is unable to crack the code and find a cure for these hapless people, all eight that remain. The episode is almost poetic, and definitely tries to match tragedy with hope. There is much to like...
...even with Lwaxana's silliness, Majel Barrett renders it all a joy to watch, even if half her dialogue is pure cringe. Yes, a lot of males are turned on by females. Many biological critters are that way and not by choice. Yet they're all keeping it in their pants regardless of whatever thoughts she's insinuating they're having.
But when she's not hyping up sex talk, Lwaxana personifies the idea that everybody tells the truth is the best way to do things. In some ways perhaps it is, but human emotions still get in the way to complicate things and everyone has those. I wish the episode went into more detail on this idea. and on ideas better than who's going to drop trou for the wedding...
I should also point out some atypical camera direction - cutaways to Data have him looking almost enthused over the squabbling over who should or should not get nekkid for the marriage ceremony or whose culture gets celebrated. Then they switch to wide or distance shots and Data stands there as stoic as can be. But this is season one, Data was still somewhere between being an emotionless automaton or a creation not unlike Pinnochio. Indeed, it's almost entertaining to see Data so interested in human behavior and likes to learn for the mere sake of learning. could TNG handle seven seasons of that? No. As a one-off in an early episode where the show is stumbling to find itself? Why not? Brent Spiner could do a play where he looks at the yellow pages and does improv on any number of randomly chosen ads and the theater would be packed.
And one more segue - speaking of camera direction, remember that one time from season three...
Yeah, it's the one time in season three when the new depth-of-field focus camerawork featured Picard coming in from the bottom of the screen. Never to be done again...
In the end, would I watch this TNG episode even semi-regularly? No, there's just not enough going on to keep it lively. But is it really bad, to the level season one is saddled with? No. It has a few great moments, and stumbling with character building, but despite those stumbles the character traits are consistently true to the characters.
But until the lights come on, the experiment to find the switch can be of much interest. Like that old parlor game where you put your hands inside a small, sealed box and have to guess the object by solely its feel - no looking or smelling or hearing is allowed. Which is great until you're told what it is.
Thankfully it's usually just play-dough, a loud toad that takes a leak whenever you touch it, or a rotting banana but what's in there could be anything. It would have been cool to be a fly on the wall during the development of the first year's scripts and to see firsthand how they came up with what they had, and if actors made improvisations (I'd read John DeLancie had his hand in making Q more interesting than what was originally scripted for several episodes, even for "Q-Pid"...)
"Haven" is just that, an early season one TNG episode that's trying to expand within its new format.
Does it always succeed?
No.
Does it fail?
Not quite.
For one thing, the incidental music is clearly taking the time to be more experimental despite already finding its mark early on. While I'm not entirely fond of the high pitched cliche 80s bell dings, the low pitched flutes and other instruments do shine through, but all in all it's interesting to listen to, as season one helped cement what did work, what did not, what to hone, and what to discard.
Note: Other reasons that keep this episode from failing I'll get to later on and there are some redeeming moments of interest.
and does the episode show a new area of the ship, such as a dining room and guest quarters that are situated at a somewhere on one of the rear corner decks? You bet and it's fun to sit there and tyring to figure out where the rooms are based on window shape.
Does it also try to show off new hairdos?
Yes...
The story melds two plotlines. Plot "A" is involving Deanna and her arranged marriage and all of those weird Betazed customs and nuances that seem a little cheesy but at least Data finds it intriguing when everyone goes all "All in the Family" and bickers about them.
Plot "B" is a lot more serious, involving a species that - rare for sci-fi addresses multiple continents - more or less wiped out its enemy neighbors with a biological weapon... that also destroyed them in the process because the biological weapon couldn't discern the differences between anyone. Refugees were stuck on a spaceship finding a new home, and the home is a mythical planet that can heal all sorts of things... definitely a source of inspiration for the ill-fated 1998 movie "Insurrection"... The tragic part is, with this ailment, word spread around and this species has been unceremoniously hunted down and exterminated and this one ship is all that's left.
I noted one line from Doctor Crusher:
The writers mean well and in a way this is an early attempt to give Dr Crusher a background in empathy and moralizing, but at the same time I can't think of anything more brazenly -- for lack of better descriptor -- "Generation X cliche" than that, and Gen-X cliches didn't pop up in the media until the early-1990s! Worse, the line would have been entertaining had Lore said it in "Datalore". Or even if Crusher said it while under the influence in "The Naked Now", an episode where feelings and emotions simmering subconsciously are brought to the surface and that would have far more dramatic weight to the fledgling doctor than during that scene in "Haven".
Now, for a while I started counting foreshadowing that characters start to put out. Each time there's foreshadowing, I took a swig of Drambuie. I unfortunately had to stop eight shots later, though to be fair one instance was so brazen that I had to count it twice.
(I forgot, those goblets with the pastel purple look like cheap plastic. Oh well, at least they match the briefing room's pastel purple chairs. If they used more saturated hues the ship would go from looking like a hotel into something out of "Nightmare on Elm Street", though to be fair at least some of those 80s hairdos would fit right in... only if the house was large enough.)
And if my original idea was going to go through, I'd have drank one pint of long island iced tea every time Deanna said "Bill". And she called him that twice.
Now, I understand that the Tarellians had a strong sense of Wyatt. And for several years or decades, noting all of the accomplished drawings of him spotted around their ship. Isn't that a bit overkill? If nothing else, at least that pesky "Never show a navel on television" ban was lifted.
(The presented artwork, sans fingerprint smudge on the left, is so good you wouldn't want to put food on those collector plates. Time for me to check eBay but that sounds a little strange... if for no other reason that the plastic disc will have yellowed over time due to reaction to UV light exposure, if it's made out of certain types of plastic...)
Remembering what Wyatt said earlier in the episode:
It's almost haunting how the sketch on the right is looking down at him in perfect perspective. The perspective on the image on the left is almost pinpoint accurate as well. I wonder if that was deliberate, as the facial expressions appear to look like either stern determination or anger on the right and what is either awe or being high or something on the left, I'm not entirely sure... I'll say "stern determination" and "awe" since the plot foreshadowed his leaving Deanna the moment he stated he's a doctor (for what it's worth!) Being a doctor and wanting to cure the Tarellians' plight - this, if this observation is even remotely accurate (hint: it likely isn't, and may I have another sip of Jaegerbull?), it makes for an astonishing visual cue. The angle of Wyatt and the two plates, not looking at me gulping down some rum... If you made it this far to get to this of all observations, thank you kindly and much.
Like Fido on the farm, I tend to wander at times... and there's still some great stuff I've not yet mentioned...Also, if it helps, I adore Duran Duran, I'm very much an avid fan of anything new wave and a fair amount of synthpop. Ask me one day what "The Reflex" is about... it's actually as unique as it might be both straightforward, and tacky - and it's nothing they'd admit to, but definitely is definitely entertaining 80s synthpop...
...Okay, back to the TNG episode and I'll not stray any longer (drat), as the plot focuses on the Tarellians, I could feel for their plight. And for Wyatt, who - assuming the biological agent is cross-species compatible and some are - either gave himself a death sentence or a crippling future if he is unable to crack the code and find a cure for these hapless people, all eight that remain. The episode is almost poetic, and definitely tries to match tragedy with hope. There is much to like...
...even with Lwaxana's silliness, Majel Barrett renders it all a joy to watch, even if half her dialogue is pure cringe. Yes, a lot of males are turned on by females. Many biological critters are that way and not by choice. Yet they're all keeping it in their pants regardless of whatever thoughts she's insinuating they're having.
But when she's not hyping up sex talk, Lwaxana personifies the idea that everybody tells the truth is the best way to do things. In some ways perhaps it is, but human emotions still get in the way to complicate things and everyone has those. I wish the episode went into more detail on this idea. and on ideas better than who's going to drop trou for the wedding...
I should also point out some atypical camera direction - cutaways to Data have him looking almost enthused over the squabbling over who should or should not get nekkid for the marriage ceremony or whose culture gets celebrated. Then they switch to wide or distance shots and Data stands there as stoic as can be. But this is season one, Data was still somewhere between being an emotionless automaton or a creation not unlike Pinnochio. Indeed, it's almost entertaining to see Data so interested in human behavior and likes to learn for the mere sake of learning. could TNG handle seven seasons of that? No. As a one-off in an early episode where the show is stumbling to find itself? Why not? Brent Spiner could do a play where he looks at the yellow pages and does improv on any number of randomly chosen ads and the theater would be packed.
And one more segue - speaking of camera direction, remember that one time from season three...
Yeah, it's the one time in season three when the new depth-of-field focus camerawork featured Picard coming in from the bottom of the screen. Never to be done again...
In the end, would I watch this TNG episode even semi-regularly? No, there's just not enough going on to keep it lively. But is it really bad, to the level season one is saddled with? No. It has a few great moments, and stumbling with character building, but despite those stumbles the character traits are consistently true to the characters.
It may and most likely will take many, many years to happen but I have a feeling that maybe the time comes to visit the early episodes again. It would be almost like watching them for the first time.
