[3.4/10] In one of my acting classes, we were taught the “dark room technique” of performance. The idea is that, when you’re trying to discover the right meaning and emotion to give to a line, you first deliver it in as big and ungrounded a way as you can. Then, on your second read, you dial it back. The idea is that amplifying the emotions at first helps anchor you to them when you bring things back down to a more natural performance.
It gave me a renewed appreciation for the job Brent Spiner does as Data. It’s not easy to play a character who, at least officially, has no feelings. But Spiner’s able to communicate reactions in subtle ways, from confusion to aspiration to attachment, that allow us to appreciate the budding expressiveness within the android. That is a tricky thing to pull off once, let alone for seven years, but Spiner does an extraordinary job communicating the humanity in a being who ostensibly lacks it.
As hard as that must be, maybe it’s for the best. Spiner’s played a diverse array of roles outside of Star Trek. Within the franchise, though, the moments where he leaves Data’s staid nature behind tend to veer into the cheesy or over-the-top. A mischievous demigod, a scared victim, and a dying old deity all play more cartoony than real, and much of that owes to Spiner’s approach.
I understand the actor’s excitement at getting to play a character with multiple personalities. It must feel limiting to portray such a reserved figure all the time, and this sort of frolic isn’t unprecedented. LeVar Burton famously lobbied to have Geordi’s iconic visor removed because he felt it limited his expressiveness. (And he steals the show in the otherwise lousy Star Trek: Insurrection with his eye-based acting, so maybe he was right!) The Original Series found various excuses to let Leonard Nimoy go wild despite Spock’s usual stoicism. There’s a thrill to seeing sides of characters and performers you don’t usually get.
“Masks”, and Spiner, just can’t provide those thrills. The personas Data takes on when infected by an alien virus are laughable rather than engaging. And the episode itself is a bizarre, languid hour of Star Trek that will leave you sighing and checking your watch.
I’ve said before that what counts as “silly” in the world of Star Trek is completely arbitrary. Why is an ancient vessel that nigh-magically turns the Enterprise into an ancient temple any more ridiculous than a literal block of cyborgs who take over people’s bodies and minds? I couldn’t tell you. But the latter remains frightening and cool, and the former just seems goofy.
The gist of “Masks” is pretty simple. Our heroes run into an antiquated ship. The vessel interfaces with the Enterprise’s systems and tries to recreate the environment and gods of the civilization which created it. Picard and company must find a way to stop it before their ship is transformed into a jungle sanctuary.
The grave tone of it is hard to take seriously. The concept of a vaguely Mesoamerican computer program reforming matter to forge plant life and ceremonial artifacts all around the Enterprise feels off-brand for The Next Generation. Despite the patina of a scientific explanation, the story plays more like fantasy, and all these characters feel out of place in the story.
Except for Picard, that is. If there’s one thing to say in “Masks”’ favor, it’s that Picard’s archeological skills come in handy for once. Sure, I’ll take him bringing his skills to bear in “The Chase” over this nonsense every day of the week, but it’s nice to see the captain harnessing his other area of expertise to help the Enterprise, instead of just nerding out or, god forbid, running into Vash again.
Still, it doesn’t make for the most exciting episode. Most of the proceedings are about as riveting as hearing Jean-Luc give an expert on archeology. (No judgment if that’s your thing.) The whole thing is dull and plodding, with more arcane discussions of conveniently-legible symbology than action or problem-solving.
Regardless, director Robert Wiemer makes the most of the setup. There’s some cool shots and compositions here. A visit to Masaka’s temple may involve a swooping shot that loops over our heroes only to stage them at different depths within the frame. Wiemer and his team may also shoot a possessed Data from below, with one of those vaunted symbols behind him, to convey a sense of power, or shoot him straight on in low light when he’s in a different guise to help depict him as a weak and reluctant. The story here isn’t worth a damn, but the direction almost makes it into something worthwhile.
The catch is that “Masks” vacillates between being silly and boring. There’s no real trick to defeating the ancient ship for ninety percent of the runtime. Picard just figures out the meaning of the different symbols through a priori reasoning, and Geordi figures out how to interface with an eighty-five million-year-old ship just as effortlessly. There’s something to be said for Jean-Luc’s decision to play out this civilization’s founding myths as a way to stop the process, but it’s not especially interesting to see he or Data play those roles, and the clay masks they wear look downright ridiculous in the process.
It’s hard to make the ridiculous feel authentic. Patrick Stewart is the king of making the fantastical and semi-absurd sound as serious as a heart attack. Brent Spiner has proven time and time again that he can convey character with subtlety and nuance. But when Stewart’s forced to treat magical fauna and random glyphs as serious threats and clues, and when Spiner’s called on to play multiple overdone characters in succession, neither is up to the task. Who would be?
The truth is that “Masks” is a sign that, by season 7, The Next Generation was running out of ideas. The episode overextends its performers, offers a story that feels out of step with what the series had paved the way for, and gives us a listless hour of television. If this one were a fossil, it’d be best if it stayed buried.
Stupidest TNG episode ever. Period.
Brent Spiner gets another opportunity to display his great acting skills. And despite the fact that this isn't among my favorites it's far removed from being amongst the worst.
There is a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo going on that seems rather far fetched even for a sci-fi show. But I like the mythology of those characters. It's another one of those episodes where I would like to have known more about the species. A culture more than 80 million years old that was highly technologically advanced yet still preserved an ancient heritage. Sounds intriguing.
This whole episode, I kept thinking: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra." "Shakra, when the walls fell."
Get-to-know-an-alien-culture thru possession… again! TNG has pulled on this trope so many times the writers probably made this one up as a joke and the script accidentally slipped into the production pile.
Shout by zigmenthotepBlockedParent2016-08-24T11:09:20Z
In which Captain Picard must save the Enterprise by LARPing as the moon.