4x08 Future Imperfect

[7.8/10] I am perpetually a sucker for alternate universe episodes. The tricks are old and shopworn at this point, but I still get that jolt from seeing the familiar in a new and different guise, suggestions of what changes might be in store down the line. Even if the savvy T.V. viewer knows the changes aren’t likely to stick, that the status quo will surely be restored, there’s a new spark of discovery to seeing a glimpse of “What If?”

That’s true even if you know the illusion will inevitably be punctured. Which is to say that I remembered the twist (well, both twists) in “Future Imperfect”, but it didn’t dampen my enthusiasm for the episode. Some of that comes from the sheer coolness of seeing this imagined future for our heroes, but some of it comes from the fact the whole episode is rooted in Will Riker’s experiences, his beliefs that it’s all real, and his slow realization that it can’t be.

The episode sees Will and an away team beaming down to investigate the weird spatial phenomenon of the week, only to find himself trapped in a cave and suffocated by methane gas. When he wakes up, he’s the captain of the Enterprise with sixteen years’ worth of amnesia thanks to a retrovirus he contracted on the planet. Suddenly, he has to make sense of a life that’s effectively proceeded on without him, adjusting to the beaucoup changes that have taken place on his ship and in his personal life over the past decade and a half.

Look, from the jump you could be pretty sure that the show wasn’t going to stick with this kind of status quo-rocking change. But like “Remember Me” a few episodes prior, “Future Imperfect” works well as a Twilight Zone-esque thought experiment. It would be disorienting, to say the least, to wake up as though so many years have passed and have to reckon with the way your own life changed drastically in what seems like the blink of an eye. Even if we can bet it’s destined to be undone, we feel what Riker feels -- the shock, the confusion, the uncertainty -- about having to suddenly take in so much difference so quickly.

Plus, by god, it’s just fun to see this peak at what our main characters’ future could look like. Riker is captain! Geordi doesn’t need his visor! Picard’s an admiral aboard a Romulan ship with Troi at his side from Starfleet Command! Data’s become first officer! The combadge design has changed! There’s other Klingon and Ferengi crewmen aboard! Plus there’s that telltale sign of crazy alternate universe undertakings -- everybody’s hair is different!

Why is this stuff so exciting! I wish I could say for sure. But I think it comes down to the notion that for television, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a certain enforced stasis, where everything needs to stay more or less the same. So even if we like business as usual, a chance to break out of that and see what things would be like amid dramatic changes, carries a certain thrill even if it’s necessarily delivered in shorthand and superficial differences.

But apart from those cool details is Riker’s experience. We see him bristling at the notion of the Romulans becoming allies rather than enemies. We watch him have to adjust to names and ranks that are different than when he left. And he has to acclimate to the reveal that he has a son, young Jean-Luc, and a domestic life he has no memory of.

That’s where the heart of the story comes in. As unnerving as it is to have Riker sense something is wrong when none other than Tomalak comes aboard as an Ambassador, it’s emotionally potent to watch him try to be a good father to a young boy he has no recollection of. The attempts to be what this child needs in the absence of his mother has obvious echoes for Riker’s own upbringing, which are acknowledged in dialogue. His relationship with his erstwhile son adds something wholesome and touching to this mind-screw of an episode.

Of course, it’s not meant to last. Eventually, Riker realizes he’s being had, and I like how he does it. There’s one great “gotcha” moment -- the reveal that his dead “wife” is actually Minuet, the holographic bombshell from “11001001". But smaller inconsistencies build up from there. Until we have the shock and, frankly, discomfort, of having him directly challenge Geordi’s workmanship, question Data’s calculation abilities, and tell Admiral Picard to “shut up.” Riker finding the seams of this simulation is a treat, coupled with the disquieting realization that a false life has been constructed for you.

(As an aside for Rick and Morty fans, when Riker was testing Data’s computational abilities, I couldn’t help but think of the line, “That’s just shoddy craftsmanship.)

While it’s a little rushed, I appreciate the double fake-out that follows. The episode sets up that the Romulans are behind all of this, with hints at a secret Romulan outpost at the beginning of the episode. There’s obvious motivations for them, with suggestions that the holographic simulation was designed to make Rker give up key strategic info from Starfleet. And Tomalak’s very presence raises the stakes in terms of the threat for duplicity.

So we buy it when Tomalak all but snaps his fingers and ostensibly reveals the ruse, complete with a technical explanation for why the “Enterprise”’s computers were operating so slowly. It’s a plausible answer to the why and how of all of this.

But it’s not the right answer. Instead, Riker is paired with the same young boy, now named Ethan, who’s supposedly been captured for purposes of grounding the simulation. A rushed escape attempt puts the two of them together once more, until Riker once again sees the holes in the story that’s been constructed and demands to know what’s going on.

This is another PIller-era episode that feels like there’s more story and detail than can fit in a forty-four minute block. Ideally, we’d have more time with Riker and “Ethan” before reveal #2 hits. It’s a good place to take the story, though. There’s something ironically human in the cause of Riker’s deception being not the plot of a Romulan foe, but a lonely little boy seeking comfort and companionship. There’s something a touch too mechanical about the explanations and exposition at the end, but it roots the episode in emotion and recognizable human needs rather than just the endless chess moves between the Romulans and the Federation that Riker alludes to.

It’s the same sort of magic trick that makes the false glimpse of tomorrow in “Future Imperfect”work even when you know it’s a ruse. Whatever the science fiction-y conceit, we experience it through Riker’s perspective, and can empathize with his struggles to adjust to what he believes is the new normal. Likewise, however unethical Barash’s actions are here, however shifty the double fake-out is, we can understand through the lens of a lost child seeking friendship and something true.

Star Trek has never had a shortage on surface-level thrills or cool science fiction concepts, but what always elevated the franchise was how it brought those elements home, via building those things around real people and their responses to those thrills and wonders. Little of what we see in “Future Imperfect” is real, but it’s real to the people going through it, and that makes it real enough for us too.