4x22 Half a Life

[8.5/10] Scores of great Star Trek feature our heroes taking a stand. Woven into the ethos of the series is the sense of a crossroads where those steeped in the ways of the Federation must choose whether to follow protocol and do what’s expected, or to make the tough call and do what they truly believe in, what’s right. Those choices often intersect with complicated notions of tolerance and what right we have to interfere, but just as often they result in the crew of the Enterprise rising to the occasion and choosing a bold solution.

And yet, my favorite episodes are sometimes the ones where the characters come tantalizingly close to that sort of choice, only to relent in the end. There’s a certain type of tragedy in it, a sense of being a little more true-to-life where sometimes even our ideals and our connections aren’t enough to push us to upset the apple cart. The Sopranos would make a cottage industry out of the idea -- showing its characters wandering out to the edge of a major change, only to repeatedly back down at the precipice.

I think it’s why an episode like “Half a Life” feels so affecting. We meet Timicin, a scientist from a nearby planet, Kaelon II, on the verge of astronomical collapse. Despite being isolationists, the Kaelon have sought the Federation’s help to avert the potentially disastrous effects of a nearby decaying star, and Timicin is their top scientist. Along the way, he strikes up an unexpected romance with none other than Lwaxana Troi. But both his work, and his new love, are threatened by a cultural ritual, where every Kaelon who reaches the age of sixty commits suicide to make way for the next generation.

The episode is an interrogation of that idea, taking seriously the notions of euthanasia, of care for the elderly, of the rights of seniors to choose how to live their lives. But it’s also about the balance between rituals and traditions on the one hand, and self-determination and change on the other. And, like all great Star Trek episodes, it’s also about the impact of these lofty ideas on the flesh and blood human beings forced to confront them.

Unusually for The Next Generation, that comes down almost entirely to the episode’s guest stars, who both give fantastic performances. The first is the inimitable David Ogden Stiers, whom you probably know as Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast or Major Winchester from MASH. He is completely outstanding as Timicin here, a soft-spoken man of science, devoted to his world and his people, forced to confront the fault lines between his loyalty to them and his personal willingness to embrace new ideas and new experiences.

Stiers carries himself with a quiet woundedness, as someone who knows and accepts that his time is coming to an end, and yet inwardly laments that his life’s work hangs in the balance. His inner conflict between someone who doesn’t want to form new connections given his numbered days, and who cannot resist this enchanting new presence in his life, is sweet and sad. And the force and conviction within him, that emerges when he’s pulled at from opposite sides, show the sleeping giant within, made all the more impactful by the contrast with his normal reserved demeanor. In this hour, Stiers marks himself as one of TNG’s absolute finest guest performers.

But the second is Majel Barrett as Lwaxana Troi. I’ve written before about how, despite her negative reputation in the fandom, I grew up enjoying Lwaxana episodes. She brings a different tone and perspective to the series than the sturdy Starfleet officers, and that usually pays off, even if her man-crazy goofiness rarely does. Still, somehow it works here! Barrett and Stiers have outstanding chemistry together. There’s something about her as the boisterous charmer, and him as the quiet but charmed one, that really clicks. Make no mistake, the Lwaxana/Timicin connection smacks of the same insta-love nonsense that other shows devolve into, but the duo have such an instant rapport and lived-in dynamic that it’s easy to buy their nigh-instantaneous attachment to one another.

That’s a good thing, because the episode is founded on it. We need to buy that Lwaxana would be so attached to Timicin that she would be distraught to the point of anger and tears that he’s going to die. And we need to buy that Timicin would be attached enough to Lwaxana to potentially take a stand against his own people and their time-honored cultural practices at her behest. That is a tall order for any TV show to pull off in forty-four minutes, but by god, between impromptu engineering picnics, solace offered in Ten Forward, and bedside arguments on tradition vs. freedom, you buy it.

To be frank, it’s refreshing to see the romantic lives of older people depicted at all, let alone with such sensitivity and charm. “Half a Life” centers the experience of those later in life, facing down the prospect of aging, slowing down, relying on their children, and mortality. But it also focuses on their vibrancy, their ability to still live rich meaningful lives, have new experiences, and forge new connections. It’s not a perspective we see much of in mainstream television today, and it’s nice to see it vindicated here.

Much of the heavy-lifting on that front comes from Barrett as Troi. As entertaining as I find Lwaxana in her “Auntie Mame” mode, as fans of The Original Series she’s also capable of being a talented dramatic actress when the script calls for it. Her argument with Timicin over the rights and responsibilities of seniors, her intimate confession to her daughter about her emotions around aging, the simple looks she exchanges with her new but important paramour, sell the gravity and humanity of the big ideas at play. After multiple episodes where Lwaxana is an outsized comic relief character, it’s a welcome development to see TNG showing her as a more three-dimensional person like this.

It’s also bold of “Half a Life” to spend a full act with her and Timicin debating the merits of self-imposed euthanasia and the pros and cons of following tradition and how new experiences and new people can change your perspective. (Lwaxana’s parable about Betazoid wigs is an all-timer.) It would be easy for the show to say, “Mandatory death for anyone who reaches sixty is absurd,” and have the characters draw a moral line in the sand over an archaic practice. (And to be fair, many good Star Trek episodes have followed that approach.) But this episode doesn’t make the practice feel like a straw man. Instead, it justifies Timicin’s acceptance of it for cultural, practical, and personal reasons, even if it’s hard for the audience to swallow. And it also justifies why he’s willing to break from that tradition after his time on the Enterprise.

For one thing, he’s figured out the answer, or at least a possible answer, to his life’s work, but he needs more time to complete. He’s still vigorous and sharp and believes that his imperiled planet would be in worse straits if somebody else has to pick up where he left off. And most of all, he’s met someone who’s renewed his zest for life, given him a reason to mourn the potentially happy years ahead that would be lost rather than just consider the “Resolution” fulfilling his duty to his children. It’s enough to make him ask Captain Picard for asylum.

But then “Half a Life” starts stacking considerations on the other side. He’d be shunned and excommunicated by the people and home he loves so much if he chooses to buck tradition. They’ll reject his research even if it would save their lives. His stand would sow greater distrust for outsiders in the Kaelon. Most of all, it would make his daughter (played by the future Ensign Ro!) ashamed of him, potentially staining his family legacy and estranging him from his child in a way that causes him great pain.

The dilemma does so many of those great Star Trek things. It raises potent philosophical questions about how to ethically balance intergenerational needs. It zeroes in on political issues on how to manage a society. It grapples with diplomatic issues on how one culture should deal with the practices of another. It delves into the personal, making space for both Lwaxana’s and Timicin’s emotions throughout all of this. And there’s nuance to the exploration of each.

In the end, however, Timicin decides that he cannot maintain his one-man revolution, spurred by Lwaxana’s passion though he may be. He decides to go through with his culturally-mandated suicide, for the good of his people, to not disrupt a society that he believes needs stability as it faces down this challenge. Lwaxana is understandably devastated, but accepts his decision, even going down to the planet to witness it as a loved one, hand-in-hand with her doomed partner, a beautiful display of cultural acceptance and tragic but genuine affection.

At the risk of projecting too much from outside the text, it’s worth remembering that Barrett was months away from losing her real life husband, Gene Roddenberry, when this episode aired. There’s a truth to Lwaxana’s reactions and responses here, of having to see loved ones pass, of a fear of “dying before you die”, of being forced to reconcile someone you love having to go, that are piercing. I don’t know if the “First Lady of Star Trek” was channeling real life events when imbuing Mrs. Troi with such force and pathos here, but there’s a resonance to them nonetheless.

The beauty of “Half a Life” is that her love persists, even when it’s painfully limited in time and space, even when the object of her affection does something she deeply disagrees with. Timicin tells her that he cannot disrupt his people’s society just to be happy, that he loves her deeply, and that’s so close to make him want to overturn the tables in the temple, but not quite enough, by that much. We understand him. We understand why. And it just makes the whole thing feel more devastating yet moving.

It is not easy to age. It is not easy to choose centuries of cultural programming and expectations over newfound personal epiphanies. It is not easy to turn down the unexpected but invigorating chance for love in favor of the ultimate sacrifice. But the greatest of stories come from the hardest of choices, even and especially when the decision made denies the characters, and the audience, what they want. There is no grand speech or vital gesture that can save the day in “Half a Life” -- only the acceptance that there are some things so big that no one can change them, and that despite them, we go on loving to the end.