I recently watched "Face of the Enemy". Mostly because it was queued in my streaming service automatically after I'd just finished the previous episode the night before, was too lazy to find the remote that the evil cat had dragged and hid somewhere, and thought it would help me devour dinner faster, but much to my surprise...
First off, the background wallpaper fart music was thankfully minimal. While the music still underwhelmed during the "action" sequence at the end, the lack of it ensured the lead-up to the climax didn't get watered down by a continual, droning gush of "uuuuuuuurp" and "pffffffffffffff" noises that the latter-half of TNG is renowned for.
The story starts out slow, but the payoff at the end is more than worth it, plus the delving into Romulan culture is nicely handled and rendered believable...
It continues the scenario from "Unification" but keeping it quite level,. if not low-key, without inflating or adding any pomposity. This makes it that much stronger.
Of all Trekkian culture analogues/species allegories in the show, the Romulans have been the most prominent in having female command figures, which dates back to 1968 - so there's a nice bit continuation of lore and continuity.
Even better, who they got to play Torath not only makes the character her own, she has great chemistry with Marina Sirtis. Hell, Carolyn Seymour could have been in every single TNG episode and she'd give a performance as unique as it is compelling. One of the more underrated actors of the 20th/21st centuries, given her other Trek appearances, Quantum Leap, and so on, she's a gem in my book.
Never mind that, Toreth - is given so much juicy dialogue, relaying experience and intelligence, as well as other relevant factors - which Seymour clearly relishes (and who can blame her!!) - that it adds more dimension to the Romulans and that they've got a bit more depth and are more than a gaggle of shoulder pad-clad chess players, and I must say the quilting looked rather fetching in high def too... on the flip side, you could also put a dinner platter atop each one and it'd be perfectly balanced, which reminds me...
This story reminds me of "Data's Day", albeit in a near-180 in that this time it's the Federation doing the infiltration - albeit not by Troi's choice. It's also in part via the fact every Romulan was soiling their slacks over the Tal Shiar that she survived the first encounter, but Troi had enough information to bounce off of.
A couple plot nitpicks exist, but they're minor when all is said and done. Plus, for the obvious one (involving a possible need for plan B), it's nice that they didn't try to subvert by making things go to plan - because they eventually do subvert, in having Troi badger N'vek (to the point I was thinking he might turn on Troi to Toreth! Now there'd be a plot twist, but since it's a main character whose name isn't "Yar",
that would not happen. And it almost was, had Troi not been beamed out just as shields had been dropped/cloak engaged (another nice bit of continuity they remembered and used to good effect), we may have ended up with a variation of "Chain of Command" except it's Toreth tirelessly torturing Troi. )
Definitely a must-see episode, which is one of season 6's finest.
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On edit: Wow. The previous episode was "Aquiel" and I already forgot I'd seen it. Not sure if that's embarrassing or award-winning or what...
Corrected now, thank you!
