Masks: Love it or hate it?

[Gary7]

Masaka sounds too much like moussaka, which is an eggplant dish found in Middle Eastern and Greek cultures. That made the name sound even more ridiculous to me, and kind of set the tone for the whole sticky mess of the episode. It had some entertaining moments, but I found the basic premise hard to swallow. Especially the ending where everything is "magically" restored to how it was before. WTF? The archive wouldn't have any interest in performing such an enormous undertaking. The acting was superb, though. Brent Spiner did an outstanding job. I gave it a "meh" (OK) rating... but I think with a little help it could've been a terrific episode.

 

[RAMA]

Masaka sounds too much like moussaka, which is an eggplant dish found in Middle Eastern and Greek cultures. That made the name sound even more ridiculous to me, and kind of set the tone for the whole sticky mess of the episode. It had some entertaining moments, but overall the premise was quite ridiculous. I gave it a "meh" (OK), but if I could score it half way to "sucky", I would.

The premise was the high point. What a great episode.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Strangely enough, at the Spiner/McFadden panel I just attended at Dragoncon, "Masks" and "Genesis" were the two episodes that were discussed the most. Spiner seemed to think "Masks" was pretty ridiculous, and the audience applauded McFadden for directing "Genesis". Which, I suppose, the direction was good on, regardless of the premise.

 

[Seven of Five]

Yeah it was well directed. The first time I saw it I jumped out of my skin when spider-Barclay dropped into sight.

Genesis was ridiculous, but still had an element of fun around it, whereas Masks was just ridiculous.

 

[Gary7]

There's also this matter of computer interfacing. I simply don't buy that some very ancient culture with such primitive beliefs so deeply rooted in their culture would have artifacts capable of interfacing with a completely alien technology like a Federation starship and gradually manipulate the computer system to such a degree as to transform parts of the ship (it's not like there is replicator circuitry present all through the ship--it exists sparsely in very specific parts of the ship). It's one thing when you have an advanced species like the Cytherians who can scan and then manipulate the DNA of a human being to become a super human, but entirely different with an extremely ancient artifact city that has been inert for millions of years, capable of taking over a completely alien computer system. It's just not believable to me.

 

[Nightdiamond]

I thought it was too boring.

It just wasn't the type of episode that would make the viewers go "wow".

The problem is, the viewers are probably not going to care much about a new, totally fictional, alien culture's mythology.

Add the storytelling bit, and Data mind being replaced for the gazillion time.

Now, Genesis, I liked it. It was bogus science, I know, but it was so campy and weird, it's one of those episodes that has at least one scene you remember

 

[DonIago]

I will say I love the shot in Genesis where Picard and Data are returning to the Enterprise and find it adrift. That was delightfully eerie.

 

[Keith1701]

It was... OK.

Sucky

 

[mitchconner]

I'm not saying it was the greatest episode ever, or even of that season, but I don't think it was as bad as many people say it is. It was something different and it explored an alien culture that was much more... alien... than the norm in TNG. One of my biggest complaints with Star Trek in general was how so many alien species were very human in both appearance and culture. We should expect that other species would represent their culture in ways that are potentially incomprehensible to us. Although Masks is by no means brilliant or even very plausible, it at least makes an effort to present a truly alien culture.

I know with convergent evolution we can expect that nature would drive adaptations along similar paths in similar environments. For example, the Fossa is an animal in Madagascar related to the mongoose, but it looks very much like a medium-sized cat. It evolved to fit a specific biological niche and picked up many of the same characteristics of cats, despite only being very distantly related. It's conceivable that intelligent life on class M planets would then take on a humanoid form, but the odds of these species looking almost identical to humans is highly improbable (even with the insights provided by the episode The Chase). In other words, it would be much more realistic if two thirds of the alien species encountered didn't look like slightly modified humans with slightly different cultures. Of course makeup is both expensive and time consuming...

All I'm saying with this long-winded post is that Masks should get credit for making an attempt at showing a much more alien culture than the usual. They at least get a B- for effort.

 

[sevenstars]

Hate it. Hate it hate it hate it.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Really bad, almost unwatchable.
Spiner's acting was cringeworthy as hell.