[6.6/10] I tend to gravitate toward naturalism in television and movies. That doesn’t mean I want every story to take the form of kitchen sink dramas with a handful of main characters dealing with everyday problems. I still like grandiose stories that capture the big and and imaginative and fantastical. But I want the emotions, the reactions, the conversations in those stories to feel real.
But there’s nothing inherently better about naturalism. Big emotions can be appealing. Florid prose has its place. Leaning into the artifice or theatricality of something can have its charms too. It takes a special film or episode of T.V. to really appeal to me on those terms, but that has much more to do with my personal taste than anything intrinsically better or worse about those approaches.
That’s a roundabout way of saying that I had a hard time with “Pen Pals” because its approach is anything but natural. The episode centers on two relatable, if outsized stories. Wesley is taking on his first big command assignment on the Enterprise, and Data has made a titular pen pal (in violation of the Prime Directive) in the form of a little girl on a dying world. Those are not situations that any of us can relate to directly, but most folks can remember a time when they had to take on a big project or when a personal connection prompted them to bend the rules.
The catch is that “Pen Pals” delivers both of these stories in a very baroque, hand-holding sort of way. There’s a lot of grand discussions in this episode, and they play more as academic or stage-y than as real people engaging with tough questions. When the senior staff debates whether Wesley is ready to be in charge of a project, their responses seem like blurbs from dueling essayists. When they go back and forth over the morals of letting the Prime Directive prevent them from saving Data’s little friend and her people, it scans more as a series of speeches than a group of colleagues legitimately discussing these weighty issues.
It’s telling that the writer of “Pen Pals”, Melinda M. Snodgrass, also wrote the all-time great “Measure of a Man” from earlier this season. The showpiece scenes in that episode take place in a makeshift courtroom, an arena where grand oratories and a certain degree of showmanship and flourish in the presentation come with the territory and thus feel more natural to the setting. The scenes we see in this episode seem more intimate -- one of them even takes places in Picard’s quarters -- but the level of volume and gravitas remains high.
Even in one-on-one scenes, where people are having personal conversations, there’s a similar sense of artifice, like these conversations are happening for the audience’s benefit rather than the characters. Of course, that’s true of all dialogue, but one of the great magic tricks of movies and T.V. is making the viewer feel like they just happen to be catching a glimpse of something real instead of watching a performance specifically for their entertainment and appreciation.
When Wesley comes to Commander Riker about a tough management decision in his mineral-examining mission, the conversation plays like something from a PBS kids show, there more to educate the young viewer and provide a model of behavior than to represent actual interactions. The same feels true when Picard warmly and paternally speaks to Data about the issue of whether to help save little Sarjenka and her world. There’s a didactic bent to the way the dialogue is crafted in “Pen Pals” that makes these discussions play as more didactic than outright affecting.
The funny thing is, I like the ideas and, more than that, the messages of both stories. While the vibe is a little too After School Special, I like Wesley struggling with how to manage officers who are older than him, and professionals, but also folks who second guess him. Riker’s words about having to follow Picard’s example are instructive but encouraging. Take in input from everyone then firmly make the best decision you can, knowing that sometimes you’re going to make mistakes but trusting your fellow officers to carry your orders out with alacrity and commitment.
The approach pays off for Wesley, when a scan his subordinates were reluctant to run turns out to be the key to saving Sarjenka’s world. It’s a little too neat and tidy that Wesley immediately gets rewarded by the universe when following Riker’s advice. But simple story or otherwise, it’s a good lesson, and it’s nice to see the show paying more than lip service to the crew, and Riker in particular, being responsible for Wesley’s education and upbringing in Dr. Crusher’s absence.
In the same way, even if the dialogue feels a little too abstracted to me, I like Data forging an unexpected personal connection with someone the Federation is only supposed to observe from afar, and it raising thorny issues about what the Prime Directive entails. TNG hit similar notes in “Symbiosis”, but it’s meaty subject matter to interrogate how to balance the high-minded need not to be so full of hubris that we think we can play god or interfere with other cultures willy nilly, versus understanding how indifference to suffering or ignoring pleas for help can be its own form of moral failing.
As usual on Star Trek, our heroes find a way to bend the rules a little to achieve their ends without going overboard. As with Wesley, the success comes a little too easily, as Ensign Crusher’s discovery helps the Enterprise fix the planet without being detected, while Data bringing his pen pal (a baby Nikki Cox!) aboard the ship is fixed via some convenient (and morally questionably) memory-wiping.
However conveniently that resolution might arrive, there is warmth in Picard commiserating with Data over having to say goodbye to his young friend, while noting this as an important step along his journey toward humanity. Likewise, “Pen Pals” plays like a rare moment of understanding from the android-skeptical Dr. Pulaski, who argues for the humane side of the Prime Directive debate, and vindicates Data’s human connection to this young girl. I don’t know if it will go anywhere, but it’s a nice character beat toward her appreciating that Data is, in fact, more than just a machine.
“Pen Pals” includes plenty of heartening or instructive moments like that. It just wraps them in the kind of tone and atmosphere that leaves realism by the wayside. The crew speechifies to one another about Wesley’s upbringing or the merits of non-interference. Wesley asks advice from his mentor with a gee-whiz, wide-eyed wonder. Captain Picard even waxes rhapsodic about the humble “Earth horse.”
That approach isn’t my cup of hot earl grey tea. If anything, it makes it harder to connect with an episode like this one, even where I appreciate the core of what it’s trying to do. Because the characters don’t feel genuine enough to move me. But not everything has to be for me, or those who share my tastes. There’s room for more embellished or exaggerated approaches, in Star Trek and T.V. storytelling writ large, that go bigger and broader, but do so in service of amplifying ideas and morals that matter.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-02-18T01:57:17Z
[6.6/10] I tend to gravitate toward naturalism in television and movies. That doesn’t mean I want every story to take the form of kitchen sink dramas with a handful of main characters dealing with everyday problems. I still like grandiose stories that capture the big and and imaginative and fantastical. But I want the emotions, the reactions, the conversations in those stories to feel real.
But there’s nothing inherently better about naturalism. Big emotions can be appealing. Florid prose has its place. Leaning into the artifice or theatricality of something can have its charms too. It takes a special film or episode of T.V. to really appeal to me on those terms, but that has much more to do with my personal taste than anything intrinsically better or worse about those approaches.
That’s a roundabout way of saying that I had a hard time with “Pen Pals” because its approach is anything but natural. The episode centers on two relatable, if outsized stories. Wesley is taking on his first big command assignment on the Enterprise, and Data has made a titular pen pal (in violation of the Prime Directive) in the form of a little girl on a dying world. Those are not situations that any of us can relate to directly, but most folks can remember a time when they had to take on a big project or when a personal connection prompted them to bend the rules.
The catch is that “Pen Pals” delivers both of these stories in a very baroque, hand-holding sort of way. There’s a lot of grand discussions in this episode, and they play more as academic or stage-y than as real people engaging with tough questions. When the senior staff debates whether Wesley is ready to be in charge of a project, their responses seem like blurbs from dueling essayists. When they go back and forth over the morals of letting the Prime Directive prevent them from saving Data’s little friend and her people, it scans more as a series of speeches than a group of colleagues legitimately discussing these weighty issues.
It’s telling that the writer of “Pen Pals”, Melinda M. Snodgrass, also wrote the all-time great “Measure of a Man” from earlier this season. The showpiece scenes in that episode take place in a makeshift courtroom, an arena where grand oratories and a certain degree of showmanship and flourish in the presentation come with the territory and thus feel more natural to the setting. The scenes we see in this episode seem more intimate -- one of them even takes places in Picard’s quarters -- but the level of volume and gravitas remains high.
Even in one-on-one scenes, where people are having personal conversations, there’s a similar sense of artifice, like these conversations are happening for the audience’s benefit rather than the characters. Of course, that’s true of all dialogue, but one of the great magic tricks of movies and T.V. is making the viewer feel like they just happen to be catching a glimpse of something real instead of watching a performance specifically for their entertainment and appreciation.
When Wesley comes to Commander Riker about a tough management decision in his mineral-examining mission, the conversation plays like something from a PBS kids show, there more to educate the young viewer and provide a model of behavior than to represent actual interactions. The same feels true when Picard warmly and paternally speaks to Data about the issue of whether to help save little Sarjenka and her world. There’s a didactic bent to the way the dialogue is crafted in “Pen Pals” that makes these discussions play as more didactic than outright affecting.
The funny thing is, I like the ideas and, more than that, the messages of both stories. While the vibe is a little too After School Special, I like Wesley struggling with how to manage officers who are older than him, and professionals, but also folks who second guess him. Riker’s words about having to follow Picard’s example are instructive but encouraging. Take in input from everyone then firmly make the best decision you can, knowing that sometimes you’re going to make mistakes but trusting your fellow officers to carry your orders out with alacrity and commitment.
The approach pays off for Wesley, when a scan his subordinates were reluctant to run turns out to be the key to saving Sarjenka’s world. It’s a little too neat and tidy that Wesley immediately gets rewarded by the universe when following Riker’s advice. But simple story or otherwise, it’s a good lesson, and it’s nice to see the show paying more than lip service to the crew, and Riker in particular, being responsible for Wesley’s education and upbringing in Dr. Crusher’s absence.
In the same way, even if the dialogue feels a little too abstracted to me, I like Data forging an unexpected personal connection with someone the Federation is only supposed to observe from afar, and it raising thorny issues about what the Prime Directive entails. TNG hit similar notes in “Symbiosis”, but it’s meaty subject matter to interrogate how to balance the high-minded need not to be so full of hubris that we think we can play god or interfere with other cultures willy nilly, versus understanding how indifference to suffering or ignoring pleas for help can be its own form of moral failing.
As usual on Star Trek, our heroes find a way to bend the rules a little to achieve their ends without going overboard. As with Wesley, the success comes a little too easily, as Ensign Crusher’s discovery helps the Enterprise fix the planet without being detected, while Data bringing his pen pal (a baby Nikki Cox!) aboard the ship is fixed via some convenient (and morally questionably) memory-wiping.
However conveniently that resolution might arrive, there is warmth in Picard commiserating with Data over having to say goodbye to his young friend, while noting this as an important step along his journey toward humanity. Likewise, “Pen Pals” plays like a rare moment of understanding from the android-skeptical Dr. Pulaski, who argues for the humane side of the Prime Directive debate, and vindicates Data’s human connection to this young girl. I don’t know if it will go anywhere, but it’s a nice character beat toward her appreciating that Data is, in fact, more than just a machine.
“Pen Pals” includes plenty of heartening or instructive moments like that. It just wraps them in the kind of tone and atmosphere that leaves realism by the wayside. The crew speechifies to one another about Wesley’s upbringing or the merits of non-interference. Wesley asks advice from his mentor with a gee-whiz, wide-eyed wonder. Captain Picard even waxes rhapsodic about the humble “Earth horse.”
That approach isn’t my cup of hot earl grey tea. If anything, it makes it harder to connect with an episode like this one, even where I appreciate the core of what it’s trying to do. Because the characters don’t feel genuine enough to move me. But not everything has to be for me, or those who share my tastes. There’s room for more embellished or exaggerated approaches, in Star Trek and T.V. storytelling writ large, that go bigger and broader, but do so in service of amplifying ideas and morals that matter.