3-08. Surrender

Data faces oblivion at the hands of his evil "brother," Lore.

Original Air Date: Apr. 6, 2023. Written by: Matt Okumura. Directed by: Deborah Kampmeier.


THE PLOT:

The Titan is now under the control of Capt. Vadic and the changelings. She immediately uses that control to cut off the Starfleet crew members' access to sensors and communications - which, as she observes, deprives them of both their eyes and their ears. She has a single demand: That Jack Crusher turn himself over to her. If he does not, then she will execute one member of the bridge crew every ten minutes, a threat she is positively giddy about enforcing.

There is only one way to wrest control back: Data, who remains locked in a battle for control against his brother, Lore. Only the partition between personalities is keeping Lore at bay. With no other options, Geordi reluctantly agrees to remove the partition. The hope is that Data will find the strength to prevail.

It quickly becomes apparent that the plan is failing. Lore begins taking Data's memories away, one by one. "I'm overpowering you, brother, as I always could. One lifeform replacing another. Evolution." And faced with his own extinction, Data doesn't even seem to be fighting back...


CHARACTERS:

Picard: Jack's instinct is to turn himself in, hoping that Vadic will spare the crew if she gets what she wants. Picard's conversation with her has left him knowing the exact opposite: That Vadic's hatred of solids is so all-consuming that once she has Jack, she is certain to kill everybody. He has a father's instinct to protect his newfound son; but as a commander, he understands that Jack can buy time for Data, and that ends up winning out.

Riker: Reunited with Deanna, Riker reveals one of the major reasons that he left: Deanna used her telepathic abilities to dampen his grief over his son. "Our son died, Deanna, and I needed to feel the grief! ...It was my last connection to him, and you tried to erase it." I like the way this is played. By this point, Riker has had the chance to deal with his own emotions. There's less overt anger in his voice and more a sense of lingering disappointment. He also listens to her point of view and reconciles with her fairly quickly.

Deanna: Her actions were in part motivated by self-defense. Riker was numbed by his own grief. Deanna was stuck feeling her grief, his grief, and their daughter's, all at the same time. Readers of my TNG reviews know that I wasn't the biggest fan of Deanna Troi - but Marina Sirtis is extremely good here. It helps that the script gives Deanna a sense of humor that was too often missing from TNG, particularly when she laments their house on Nepenthe: "We went there for Thad, but it's not really my cup of tea... That house, it's like it was designed by a cabal of retro prairie hipsters."

Seven of Nine: Everything about who she is makes it impossible for her to just stand by while Vadic prepares to execute crew members, but everything about the situation makes it impossible for her to actually do anything. She tries to direct Vadic's attention toward her instead of the crew - an effort doomed to failure, since it allows Vadic to be cruel to her as well as the bridge officers, all while demonstrating her own total control. Once the balance of power changes, Seven responds with a very Janeway-like ferocity.

Data/Lore: The episode's best moments belong to Brent Spiner in his familiar dual role. After Geordi lifts the partition, Lore is free to directly attack Data's very existence. He describes Data's memories as "meaningless memorabilia," while expressing resentment that he was abandoned while Data was showered with friendship, recognition, and respect. In the face of Lore's viciousness, Data seems to surrender and accept the inevitable - though I don't think it's a spoiler to say that there's more to it than that. The scenes between the two brothers are smartly written, with not only cleverness but some real emotional weight, and it's all wonderfully played by Spiner.

Jack Crusher: As he confessed last episode, he feels responsible for Riker's capture, and he does not want to be responsible for crew deaths. He attempts to use his newfound abilities to break Vadic's control by taking control of a bridge crew member to enter Picard's access code. The attempt fails, of course, or else this episode would be only about twenty minutes long, but it still shows Jack's resourcefulness. He wants to know what's happening to him and what that red door in his visions means. However, he admits to Troi that he's also terrified by what he might find.

Capt. Shaw: He and Seven are paired throughout the episode - again - and he comes across as the latest (and easily most cynical) of her series of mentors. This episode sees him continuing his season-long role of saying true things that the other characters don't want to hear. He's absolutely right when he tells Seven that she should have blown the turbolift when he and Vadic were inside it. When she protests that she's not willing to trade lives, he scoffs: "You are a Starfleet officer. You don't have the luxury to only make choices that feel hunky-dory."

Capt. Vadic: With Vadic in full control, actress Amanda Plummer gets to properly chew some scenery. Vadic is practically a child at play as she takes the bridge. She waves her hands in a ghastly mimic of an orchestra conductor as she pipes in the sounds of the crew screaming. She treats her execution threat as a game, demanding names and then personal details from her potential victims before finding a way to inflict as much cruelty as she can to as many people as possible in a single action. Bizarrely, though, when she's face-to-face with Jack, she seems genuine in saying that she wants to help him... though I'm quite certain that her definition of "help" is something no sane person would want. Oh, and her final line is particularly memorable.


THOUGHTS:

The previous episode was mostly setup, maneuvering the characters into position. Well, Surrender pays it off with a tense and well-paced hour of television.

This is structured around a time-honored TV format: The hostage episode. Vadic has control of the ship, holding the bridge crew literally at gunpoint. A nice variation on the usual setup, though, is that there's no negotiation. Vadic despises solids and has no interest in talking to them. She announces to the ship that she wants Jack, and she announces that she'll kill crew members every ten minutes until she gets him - all one-way communication. The only response that can be given is for Jack to appear in the turbolift.

Amanda Plummer is terrific here. Vadic has fully embraced her mania, reveling in her own sadism, but she's still calculating. She attacks Jack's conscience by making the hostages reveal personal details, pushing Jack into turning himself in. Then, once Jack comes to her, she's suddenly sincere, and it doesn't come across as an act. A weak performance would make all of this feel fractured, but Plummer keeps it unified. Vadic is as smart as she is damaged, a one-time victim who has become a monster.

As good as Plummer is, Brent Spiner is even better. At his worst, Spiner has sometimes leaned into ham. That doesn't happen here. Lore may sneer archly, but - much like Vadic - script and performer show us the emotional pain at his core. TNG viewers understand that Lore was deactivated because he became dangerous. To Lore, however, he was rejected in favor of an inferior clone, one who was more obviously robotic than him. Meanwhile, Data just accepts Lore's anger, something that seems meek until the final pieces fall into place. Spiner gives us, to all intents, three different performances within the episode, keeping all three variations distinct and at the same time related to each other. It's impressive work that I would rank among his best in the franchise.

Matt Okumura's script is very good at tying both threads together. There are the obvious plot links: Vadic's control of the ship prompts Picard and Geordi to risk lowering the partition between Data and Lore. There is also the thematic link, that Vadic and Lore are both motivated by resentment against those they believe wronged them. There's even an echo of this in the Riker/Deanna scenes, with Riker having been legitimately wronged by his wife. Unlike Lore and Vadic, however, Riker listens to Deanna's explanation and forgives, making their interactions a healthier counterpoint to the villains.

As was true of No-Win Situation, this episode offers viewers a proper ending. The situation set up last episode, that dominates this episode, is resolved. The ending teases what's coming in the final two installments - but this scenario is closed out in a way that is (again) entirely satisfying. The willingness of Season Three to resolve its threads is one of the biggest ways in which I think this season has improved on Season Two.


OVERALL:

Surrender juggles multiple threads while still finding something for every member of the cast to do. It's tense, it moves along nicely, and it even offers some strong emotional scenes in the exchanges between Data and Lore. Overall, this stands as a strong episode in a very strong season.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Previous Episode: Dominion
Next Episode: Võx

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3-07. Dominion.

Capt. Vadic is lured onto the Titan.

Original Air Date: Mar. 30, 2023. Written by: Jane Maggs. Directed by: Deborah Kampmeier.


THE PLOT:

The Titan crew are now aware that the target of the Daystrom theft was Picard's original dead body. Given that Picard was meant to be a part of the upcoming Frontier Day celebration, they determine that the event must be at the center of the changelings' plan - giving the team only 36 hours to stop them.

With little time and few options, Picard decides to set a trap. He allows Capt. Vadic to find the Titan, which is made to appear dead in space. When Vadic and a boarding party come aboard, they use force fields to separate their enemies, with Picard and Dr. Crusher taking the opportunity to stage an interrogation.

The plan works perfectly, save for an unexpected wild card: Data. Retrieving the "new" Data from Daystrom allowed Picard to figure out the changelings' plan. But Data's consciousness is sharing space with his evil brother, Lore. Data and Lore are vying for control of the android body - and at the moment, Lore is winning!


CHARACTERS:

Picard: When Jack goes to him to tell him about hearing other people's thoughts, he struggles with conveying the information. Picard waits patiently until the young man has a chance to coherently explain. He does not dismiss the concerns as a hallucination, even though the medical diagnosis of the previous episode would allow for that doubt. Instead, the information leads him to concocting a plan to more or less do what he kept pushing Riker to do in Seventeen Seconds: Lure Vadic into a trap so that they can take the fight to her.

Seven of Nine: In an attempt to find allies, she reaches out to an old friend: Tuvok. This results in an excellent scene as the two warily probe each other. Seven can't be certain if this truly is Tuvok or a changeling imposter. Meanwhile, Tuvok is either a changeling trying to trap her or a loyal Starfleet officer who has been told that her ship is a rogue vessel. The result is that each seems genuinely happy to see the other, and yet at the same time each is unable to fully trust the other.

Data/Lore: The first episode of TNG to feature Lore was titled, Datalore - which would be a reasonably accurate description of the current android. Before he died, Dr. Alton Soong was attempting to integrate both personalities into a single being, work that his death left unfinished. As a result, "Data" and "Lore" are conscious within the android body, warring for control. An early scene features Data attempting to provide assistance to Picard, while Lore repeatedly interrupts to sneer archly. At one point, Data cries out to Picard for help. Brent Spiner is excellent, swapping seamlessly from one personality to another within the same take.

Geordi: He is hesitant to try to "save" Data by erasing Lore, pointing out the complexities of this new android brain. "This is more art than engineering."  A nudge from Picard is enough for him to agree to plug Data into the ship's systems for analysis - and is it even a spoiler to reveal that Lore takes advantage of this at the worst possible moment? As predictable as this plot turn is, it does allow LeVar Burton to do some fine acting as he pleads with Data to fight back against Lore, reminding him of their long friendship.

Jack Crusher: Gains a new ability: telepathy. This manifests when he's awkwardly fliting with Sidney LaForge in the turbolift. She responds hesitantly, and he picks up thoughts that show that she's interested but wishes that he would do something more subtle, like brushing her hand... which he proceeds to do, creeping her out immediately. He has the sense to go straight to Picard, and in his stammering attempt to explain himself, he also reveals that he feels responsible for Riker's capture.

Capt. Vadic: The centerpiece of the episode is an extended conversation between her, Picard, and Dr. Crusher. She is all too happy to share exactly what happened to her during the Dominion War and why she bears such malice toward Starfleet and toward solids in general. She's no less a villain at the end of the scene. As Picard observes, knowing her background actually confirms that there's no chance of finding a peaceful solution. But we now understand what drives her, and Amanda Plummer is excellent as she conveys the depths of Vadic's pain and hatred.


THOUGHTS:

"How remarkable it is that an enlightened species can ignore each other's pain... The Federation took my family. Now I will take yours."
-Vadic reveals the depth of her hatred for solids in conversation with Picard.

Vadic insists that Starfleet/Section 31 devising a bio-weapon was unconscionable, and I'd be willing to acknowledge that it was morally wrong. But she then declares that the Dominion was merely engaged in standard warfare... which any Deep Space 9 viewer knows is not the truth. From swearing genocide against the Cardassians, to debating the destruction of Earth as a demonstration of power, to unleashing a virus against a civilian population, that series showed numerous examples of the changelings engaged in what would easily qualify as war crimes.

This isn't a criticism of the scene, which is superb. Vadic tells herself what she wishes to believe: That her side was good and that her enemies were the real monsters. But I think it's more a demonstration of the cycle of violence. The Dominion attacks, unleashing devastation; Section 31 infects the changelings with a genocidal virus; and now the survivors of that virus seek their own revenge. Per the iconic Gandhi quote: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

Outside of that scene, the rest of the episode is... fine. I was not as gripped by the Data/Lore struggle as the episode wanted me to be, or indeed as gripped as I think I should have been. Perhaps it's just that TNG covered this kind of ground with Lore and Data multiple times during its run, or perhaps it's that other threads had more of my interest than this one did. I wasn't bored or irritated by the Data scenes - but I found myself wanting to return to Picard and Vadic.

I'm withholding judgment on the Jack developments. A part of me wonders if it's a good idea to give your hitherto relatable new character superpowers, particularly in a show starring Patrick Stewart. But at least this episode manages to deliver a pretty good action scene. Also, the characters are thus far responding as they should: by being freaked out. In the end, how I feel about this thread will depend very much on where it ends up going and how it's ultimately dealt with.


OVERALL:

In a season that has mostly avoided pure "connector" episodes, Dominion seems to mainly serve this function. There are good scenes, but the episode doesn't have much of a story of its own. Instead, it serves to move the characters into position for the next installment. As is likely apparent by now, I find these to be the hardest types of episodes to review, both because they lack much identity in their own right and because their ultimate success is dependent on what comes next.

Dominion does benefit from the excellent scene between Picard, Vadic, and Dr. Crusher. Their conversation uses the Dominion War backstory to strong effect while convincingly presenting all three characters. By the end, Picard is able to recognize two critical things: Vadic is a victim of the war in her own right; and her hatred is such that there is zero chance of reasoning with her.

That scene elevates my ranking of this episode by a full point. But I hope with only three installments left, none of the remaining ones will exist just to set up the next bit.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: The Bounty
Next Episode: Surrender

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