TNG Episode "Hear Me Outs:" Masks

[DonIago]

That would actually be kind of an interesting concept for a SNW episode or such...Our Heroes think they've discovered valuable archaeological ruins, but it turns out they're actually finding what the alien civilization that used to be there (or perhaps still is) wants them to find.

For instance, with "The Inner Light", Picard experiences life on Kataan...or does he experience what the Kataan natives wanted him to think life on Kataan was like?

There's a long-running joke in anthropological studies that suggests that if human civilization went extinct today, then if aliens ever found Earth they might think Barbie was worshiped as some sort of god...but what if humanity wanted aliens who came here to think that?

 

[Adventerprise]

Propa-kataan-da or Kataan-fic.

 

[BigJake]

If I may be so bold, to pose a silly question: Which episode of the following is worse to you?

1. "Masks" (TNG, Season 7)
2. "The Rules of Luton" (Space: 1999, Year 2)
3. "The Great Vegetable Rebellion" (Lost in Space, Season 3)

I have no issue with "Masks" having detractors, but bruh. I've got to call a foul on saying it belongs in any sense whatever in the same company as "The Great Vegetable Rebellion."

(I can't speak to "The Rules of Luton" as I actually saw very little of that show, but if it's the retread of "Arena" that many reviewers seem to indict it with being, surely it's being similarly maligned. )

 

[BigJake]

I’m perhaps in a minority but I don’t think Spiner is that versatile TBH.

I wouldn't call him Dustin Hoffman or Tom Hanks levels of "versatile." But he's "decent comedic actor" levels of versatile, which is harder than some laypeople think and better than a good chunk of acting talent.

 

[FredH]

They're definitely interesting examples of their respective shows, and the "Lost in Space" cast do an audio commentary too. I don't want to say anything that would spoil them...

Well, that’s the one with a guy in a giant carrot suit with his face sticking out of a hole in it, right?

 

[FredH]

I wouldn't call him Dustin Hoffman or Tom Hanks levels of "versatile." But he's "decent comedic actor" levels of versatile, which is harder than some laypeople think and better than a good chunk of acting talent.

I’ve generally felt that Spiner is “wide but not deep”, while Stewart is “deep but not wide”. Spiner can play lots of different types quite decently, but you couldn’t really see him doing a heartbreaking performance (except with something like Data, where he’s inhabited the character for decades). Whereas Stewart can absolutely do a heartbreaking performance, and he always commands the screen/stage when he’s on it, but you can’t really buy him playing any character who doesn’t Speak In That Manner.

 

[Richard S. Claus]

I wouldn't call him Dustin Hoffman or Tom Hanks levels of "versatile." But he's "decent comedic actor" levels of versatile, which is harder than some laypeople think and better than a good chunk of acting talent.

Like I said, just my thoughts, with all the attendant biases you'd expect.

Much as with Dominic Keating, there's just something I don't like about him, but I really struggle to put my finger on what it is exactly.

Strangely, that dislike disappears when he's playing Data. Somehow I can separate the two in a way that I can't when he does anything else.

 

[Mojochi]

Like I said, just my thoughts, with all the attendant biases you'd expect.

Much as with Dominic Keating, there's just something I don't like about him, but I really struggle to put my finger on what it is exactly.

Strangely, that dislike disappears when he's playing Data. Somehow I can separate the two in a way that I can't when he does anything else.

When Spiner plays Data as Data, he ordinarily doesn't pull from his... what I'll call "Groundlings" tool bag, that is to say, those improv or sketch talents that require comedians do accents, impressions, caricatures, bits, schtick, etc... that you'd see on SNL, SCTV, MadTV, etc... when doing nearly everything else, he's employing those mechanics, & he then just reminds me of another Mike Myers or Dana Carvey, or ironically enough, Joe Piscopo. There's no dramatic depth there.

But as Data, when he shelves all that artifice, we get to see a nuance, that leans upon no such crutch. He surprisingly strikes a much more natural and unaffected chord, and the character, & writing can breathe, as well as the ensemble around him. An episode like A Fistful of Datas is written to feature the schtick. Masks is not. You need someone like Jeffery Combs to pull off that level of genuine character work, & have it land believably imho. That guy has managed to fuse the two techniques into one talent. He bridges the caricature with genuine believability.

 

[DonIago]

I'm also not really a fan of Spiner's accents and such overall. The old man in "Masks" and some of the others aren't exactly bad...Dr. Okun is okay, and he's eccentric anyway...but when Spiner goes nasal it's particularly teeth-clenching for me.

 

[Mojochi]

I'm also not really a fan of Spiner's accents and such overall. The old man in "Masks" and some of the others aren't exactly bad...Dr. Okun is okay, and he's eccentric anyway...but when Spiner goes nasal it's particularly teeth-clenching for me.

He's honestly better, the more he reins it in, which is why TNG Data is his best work IMHO (all the way reined in) His bits in Independence Day, are comedically goofy, but work well, because he's not overly adding an affect. I actually thought he was good in his small part in John Travolta's Phenomenon, because it's just "a guy".

The way he played Noonien Soong was ok at times, but he seemed to be playing up being "fatherly" all the time, & not just as the elderly version, but also in Birthright & Inheritance . Lore was always over the top, but I guess interpreting him that way is fair play, in that he's messed up behaviorally

I haven't seen what he got up to on Enterprise or Picard. How's that hold up?

 

[Richard S. Claus]

I haven't seen what he got up to on Enterprise or Picard. How's that hold up?

Same ham.

I think you sum up why I like him as Data up above very well, BTW. It’s nice when someone can actually translate whatever goes off in my brain into erudite sentences.

 

[DonIago]

I guess I'd say that Spiner's good at being hammy when the occasion calls for it, but is bad at being hammy when the role is otherwise intended to be serious.

 

[Q'OrnamentalDeqor]

I have no issue with "Masks" having detractors, but bruh. I've got to call a foul on saying it belongs in any sense whatever in the same company as "The Great Vegetable Rebellion."

It honestly isn't, especially by comparison. I love "Masks" and loathe "The Great Vegetable Rebellion" for ideas handled badly. Both deal with novelty, "out there" topics, but "Masks" holds its own in being more interesting and handled with far more sincerity.

(I can't speak to "The Rules of Luton" as I actually saw very little of that show, but if it's the retread of "Arena" that many reviewers seem to indict it with being, surely it's being similarly maligned. )

On, it's worse than that (spoilers aplenty follow:

It takes "Arena" (which came from a 1944 short story that Star Trek and other sci-fi since borrowed from and innovated upon*)

as well as "The Great Vegetable Rebellion" and attempted to make a serious combination of both. The problem is, "Luton" quickly forgets what it's writing about so it's not just a matter of fathoming how the animal prisoners are fed and with what, Koenig is using a dead tree as a canoe of all things (which is desecrating the dead of Luton, in case the Luton judges weren't noticing and they weren't or didn't care that these nasty animal things were using the tree as such!! Sheesh, where were the pigeons making droppings all over the trees anyhow, but before I digress...)... if the story bothered to think about its setting for even two seconds. For an example of "Vegetable" done with comparative integrity, ignore the costumes and relish "Terror of the Vervoids" from "Doctor Who" that did the best job with the idea of killer vegetable matter taken seriously.

* The "Blake's 7" episode "Duel", so far from everything I know that made use of "Arena", does the best job of innovating upon the trope that the 1944 original used.​

In short, "Masks" should be deemed award-winning, original, intelligent science fiction compared to those other two stories.

Well, that’s the one with a guy in a giant carrot suit with his face sticking out of a hole in it, right?

https://lostinspace.fandom.com/wiki/The_Great_Vegetable_Rebellion

The story's author even admits he was out of ideas for the show (the last he'd penned for it), regarding that episode, and he was one of the more prolific writers for the series...

 

[Mojochi]

I guess I'd say that Spiner's good at being hammy when the occasion calls for it, but is bad at being hammy when the role is otherwise intended to be serious.

I got thinking about this as I watched Starship Mine, playing on Pluto last night, when Data is imitating Hutch. Spiner is utterly a hamfest in that scene, mugging & mocking & pantomiming, in the cheesiest ways he ever has, and every last bit of it is hilarious.

They wrote lots of moments in, over the years, that are like that, & its there that they land flawlessly. God, that whole scene is just great. Bev & Will looking exasperated. Picard throwing Troi & Geordi to the wolves, so he can find a window, to make an excuse, to get out of there, & Troi so totally over it when he does. Meanwhile, Geordi is just like "Mmmm buffet!"

 

[Just a Bill]

There was a decent concept here that could have worked with better execution. About nine years after "Masks," Stargate explored a similar premise in "Lifeboat": Daniel Jackson was forced to contain the consciousnesses of people whose suspended animation/life archival whatzits had malfunctioned. (Also similar in that Michael Shanks, like Brent Spiner, was no doubt being tossed a bone.) It was better implemented, you could relate to the alien characters as real people so there was some actual emotional resonance, and Shanks' take on multiple personalities, while also not Emmy-caliber, was good enough to engage my suspension of disbelief. Oh, and there were actual stakes for the exofolks because they were still alive.

I guess nothing really salvages "Masks" for me because the D'Arsay avatars are so one-dimensional, and their portrayals are just too cringey to let me take the story seriously. In my estimation, Shanks delivered characters while Spiner delivered caricatures. Not his fault, probably, because that's what the script fed him. But still annoying as hell.

 

[Q'OrnamentalDeqor]

There was a decent concept here that could have worked with better execution. About nine years after "Masks," Stargate explored a similar premise in "Lifeboat": Daniel Jackson was forced to contain the consciousnesses of people whose suspended animation/life archival whatzits had malfunctioned. (Also similar in that Michael Shanks was no doubt being tossed a bone like Spiner was.) It was better implemented, you could relate to the alien characters as real people so there was some actual emotional resonance, and Shanks' take on multiple personalities, while also not perfect, was good enough to engage my suspension of disbelief. Oh, and there were actual stakes for the exofolks because they were still alive.

I guess nothing really salvages "Masks" for me because the D'Arsay avatars are so one-dimensional, and their portrayals are just too cringey to let me take the story seriously. In my estimation, Shanks delivered characters while Spiner delivered caricatures. Not his fault, probably, because that's what the script fed him. But still annoying as hell.

Might "Masks' have been a springboard for "Lifeboat" by the writers, where they might have taken the idea (or some of it) and refined and/or improved upon it? TNG's implementation is basic, certainly*. If nothing else, even a bad story could lead someone to create a better one from it elsewhere because that show had a better fit (another reason why every series should not be "the same" too.)

* but after so many "people focus" that went deep into soap opera territory (except it's not in a hospital or bar but in outer space) and ditching everything else except for lame "get out of plot free" cards, almost anything truly delving back into sci-fi or fantasy mystery was a refreshing change. (At the end of the day, both styles are needed to keep things fresh, another reason why all shows in a series can't be the same...)

 

[Just a Bill]

Might "Masks' have been a springboard for "Lifeboat" by the writers, where they might have taken the idea (or some of it) and refined and/or improved upon it?

Yeah, maybe.

Now if only the "Code of Honor" debacle hadn't been repeated in SG1's "Emancipation." It was the same writer, leaving us to wonder why she didn't warn the latter production team about the former team's casting debacle. I suppose she just didn't want to bring up her ten-year-old association with the Trek franchise's still-reigning (at least as of 1997) worst episode.

 

[DonIago]

Yeah, maybe.

Now if only the "Code of Honor" debacle hadn't been repeated in SG1's "Emancipation." It was the same writer, leaving us to wonder why she didn't warn the latter production team about the former team's casting debacle. I suppose she just didn't want to bring up her ten-year-old association with the Trek franchise's still-reigning (at least as of 1997) worst episode.

It's such a weird coincidence that it's unfortunately hard to believe it's a coincidence at all.

 

[BigJake]

In my estimation, Shanks delivered characters while Spiner delivered caricatures. Not his fault, probably, because that's what the script fed him. But still annoying as hell.

The concept in Masks seemed to me to be about the artifact conveying mythic archetypes. Which is an explanation, if not necessarily an excuse, for its shortcomings in the conception of the alien dramatis personae*.

Of course archetypes can be much richer and more interesting than very few brushstrokes Spiner had to work with. Although I did enjoy Ihat. He had something of the trickster about him, and seemed to have been thought through in that he was a trickster who turned out not to be so clever as he thought he was (a very common trickster-archetype trope).

* Which brings to mind another of my favorite "crew getting possessed by alien personalities" episodes, DS9's "Dramatis Personae." But that's matter for a different forum.

 

[Frostscape One]

The concept in Masks seemed to me to be about the artifact conveying mythic archetypes. Which is an explanation, if not necessarily an excuse, for its shortcomings in the conception of the alien dramatis personae*.

Of course archetypes can be much richer and more interesting than very few brushstrokes Spiner had to work with. Although I did enjoy Ihat. He had something of the trickster about him, and seemed to have been thought through in that he was a trickster who turned out not to be so clever as he thought he was (a very common trickster-archetype trope).

* Which brings to mind another of my favorite "crew getting possessed by alien personalities" episodes, DS9's "Dramatis Personae." But that's matter for a different forum.

I love "DRAMATIS PERSONAE", as well. Would it surprise you to know both that and "Masks" were written by Joe Menosky?