6x03 Man of the People

[3.5/10] Oh boy! Another episode where Counselor Troi gets possessed or assaulted or both! I don’t know why this is the hobby horse the Next Generation writers come back to again and again when it comes to Troi. But it was tiresome in the show’s early seasons, and it’s a terrible crutch in the show’s late seasons.

The premise here is another empathetic negotiator arriving on the Enterprise, preparing to help resolve a dispute between the latest crop of warring peoples. Once again, this negotiator, named Alkar, takes a certain shine to Troi. They seem to have common ground, and Troi provides him some comfort after his combative elderly mother passes away on the ship. Only after performing a mourning ceremony with Alkar, Troi begins acting strangely protective and sexual, not to mention rapidly aging.

It’s a very familiar Star Trek tale, even if some of the details are different. If I had a nickel for every time Troi felt drawn to a visitor who harbors a dark secret, or became possessed by some alien force, I could...buy a bag of chips at a vending machine. BUt it’s still weird that it happens so often, and it speaks to a certain laziness in writing for one of the show’s most underserved characters.

Normally, there’s something redeeming, or at least salvageable, in even the dullest of Troi episodes. But “Man of the People” has next to nothing. I feel bad continuing to slate poor Marina Sirtis, but this script calls on her to do a lot of capital-A “Acting!” here, and she is just not up to it. Likewise, TNG expects guest performer Charles Lucia to carry a lot of the load here as an intriguing villain, and his energy is duller than dishwater. The two performers are front and center throughout the hour, and their collective torpor just kills scenes dead.

If that weren’t enough, god help the costuming and makeup team. Normally, they do yeoman’s work outfitting all of the folks on the show and adorning the latest aliens of the week. Here, they put Troi in outfits so slinky it would make William Ware Theiss himself blush. Maybe there was a studio edict that the show needed more sex appeal. But it just reeks of unnecessarily oversexualizing a character who’s already the only member of the crew wearing a skintight catsuit.

Worse yet, Star Trek returns once again to terrible, unconvincing old age makeup for both Troi and Alkar. And look, convincingly aging someone on screen is hard! Especially on a T.V. budget! But then why oh why are the producers still greenlighting scripts that depend on it, especially after the nadir of Dr. Pulaski’s transformation in “Unnatural Selection”?

Then again, this entire episode suggests someone was asleep at the switch in the front office. This is another TNG mystery where the gist of the answer is obvious, even if the details aren’t precisely clear. When Troi starts acting like Alkar’s “mother” shortly after his little funeral ceremony where he casts some blue energy on the counselor, it’s not hard to put together what’s happening to her. But answers don’t come until the final act, so most of “Man of the People’ is spent with the show spinning its wheels on Troi’s escalating behavior.

The reveal turns out to be that Alkar is dumping his dark thoughts on “receptacles” like his “mother”, Troi, and another member of his species who comes along later. His purpose is to keep his mind settled and clear for his negotiations, with little regard for the people who must suffer for his cognitive peace.

About the only good thing you can say for this episode is that there’s an intriguing idea there. Star Trek is awash in episodes that balance Kantian morality vs. utilitarian ethics. How do you balance one being like Troi suffering and even dying, when Alkar at his best could settle a conflict that would save millions of lives? That too is a familiar posture for TNG, but there’s something there, and a better episode could have made hay with it.

The problem is that Alkar is such a heel that there’s no weight to the conflict. He never asks for Troi’s consent (a la Riker volunteering to be a host for the Trill negotiator, a better version of the same idea). He’s utterly callous about the whole thing. And most damningly, he’s just not an interesting character. Instead, he’s a one-note baddie who’s turned Troi into an over-the-top cartoon character, and it’s difficult, if not impossible, to build anything intellectually stimulating on the back of that.

At best, you can read into the subtext of Alkar always choosing women as his “receptacles” and take it as a commentary on how society expects women to be disposable vessels in support of Great Men:tm:. But given what a feminine caricature this episode turns the possessed Troi into, it’s hard to give the show too much credit for such ideas lurking around. At best, there’s a vaguely Hitchcockian sense of Oedipal and psychosexual issues at play, but even those feel more accidental than deliberate.

The only other thing to recommend this one is that, yet again, Riker and Troi’s mature, adult relationship bears out. Riker doesn’t seem jealous when he finds Troi post-coital with another man. He doesn’t take advantage of her and, instead, seems genuinely concerned for her safety and well-being when she’s possessed with Alkar’s darkness. And he’s comforting and assuaging with her once the experience is over. There’s a bit of a goofus and gallant routine here, with Alkar treating Troi like an expendable means to an end, and Riker treating her like a vitally important fellow human being.

Sadly, that isn’t enough to save “Man of the People”, its unavailing mystery, or its poor treatment of the episode’s central character. Who knows what lack of imagination strikes the otherwise creative writer’s room when it comes to time to put the counselor in the spotlight. For some reason, all they come up with, or approve, are romances gone wrong, possessions, and chances to put her in sexual situations. I can’t pretend that Troi’s my favorite character, or that Sitris is the show’s best performer. But good shows put their characters and their actors in a position to succeed. TNG rarely does that for Troi, and the old chestnuts it falls back on for her are downright embarrassing.