7x03 Interface

[5.8/10] The need for “closure” is a more complicated psychological concept than you normally see on television. It’s not as simple as “Well, I have found some sort of ending or sense of completeness to this thing, so now I feel better.” But closure is important to stories. Finding a satisfying ending, one that ties up the loose ends in a way that gives people a sense of catharsis and completion is so vital, that any ambiguity or attempt at more complex artistry tends to leave people upset. (Hello casual Sopranos fans!)

The psychological version of the concept is at play in “interface”. Geordi’s mother, a starship captain, and her vessel are missing and presumed lost. But there’s no wreckage, no bodies, and no firm confirmation, so Geordi’s unwilling to admit that his mother is gone. He’s that much more certain in his convictions when, in investigating another “lost” ship using a fancy new probe only he can pilot, he sees what he thinks is his mother, pleading for help.

“Is it real or is the protagonist hallucinating” stories are a dime a dozen. The Next Generation alone had already done a few by this point. But there’s the germ of a good idea in this one. Troi raises the idea that Geordi may simply be seeing a vision of his mom because he wants to see that, he wants her to be alive, and so creating an issue that he can solve, no matter how improbable, gives him comfort. Throw in a new device interfacing directly with his brain, and it’s not hard to imagine emotional projection turning into a more literal projection of Geordi’s heartworn desires.

On the other hand, weird sci-fi stuff happens on TNG all the time. If I had a slip of latinum for every time the Enterprise encountered some wildly improbable event and saved the day using an even more improbable solution, I could open my own Quark’s franchise. So when the vision of Captain LaForge tells her son that her crew are trapped in some kind of peculiar subspace phenomenon and she’s appearing as a sort of distress signal, it’s just as plausible, especially with the fig leaf of her ship using an experimental engine which her chief engineer has been supercharging. As a puzzle for the audience to solve -- Is Geordi hallucinating in his grief or is this a genuine phenomenon -- the central mystery of “Interface” is a good one.

But there’s three major problems that hold the episode back. The first is that it’s tremendously languid and boring for such a theoretically intriguing premise. The pacing here is interminable, with extended, slow-spun scenes where very little happens and even less happens quickly. There’s an overriding sense of sedateness to “Interface”, in the vibe, in the performances, and in the cadence at which reveals and emotional beats are doled out. It’s an easy episode to zone out to, which is never a good sign.

The second is the titular interface, a device which never makes much sense. As I’ve said before, I think it’s churlish to complain about the technology in Star Trek. The show’s long since used a “tech is magic” approach, with limits only coming into play when an episode really needs them. So I don’t want to be too harsh about the implausibility of this lifelike LaForge robot that Geordi can control from afar.

That said, it doesn’t really pass the smell test. Generously, you can see some enterprising Daystrom Institute whiz believing that the combination of Geordi’s implants, his attendant experience with different types of perception, and his engineering expertise would make him a great candidate for this prototype. But in practice, it strains credulity that Starfleet can build a Geordi robot that could easily pass for human, shoot phasers out of its hands, and be impervious to fire, given how much they’ve struggled to replicate anything involving Data. (And hey, hello Surrogates fans! All twelve of you!)

More to the point, the weird “If you die in The Matrix, you die in real life!” shtick with Geordi using the interface strains credulity just as much. How and why real Geordi’s hands end up burned when Probe Geordi touches fire is extremely questionable. Even if you can set aside the plausibility issues, which should be the default for TNG, the limits and capabilities of the suit are never fully clear. We get that if Geordie pushes things too far, it could kill him, but how and what makes that happen, where he can push things and where he should ease up, are vague and opaque, which saps a lot of the tension in otherwise big moments.

The third, and maybe the most damaging, is that the answer to the big mystery is tremendously unsatisfying. It turns out there’s some subspace beings trapped on the other ship, who killed its crew by accident and took on Captain LaForge’s form after scanning Geordi’s brain to trick him into helping them.

It’s...completely out of nowhere. It has no basis in Geordi’s emotional journey. There’s nothing about the situation as we see it before the answer’s presented that sets this up. It’s just a deus machina resolution to a solid “either/or” the episode set up early. Candidly, I assume it was going to be some mix between the “Is he hallucinating or is it real?” dilemma, with the funky new interface creating images of what Geordi’s thinking about given its connection to his brain. I think stalwart TNG is trying to go for an answer like that, one which avoids that straightforward “one or the other” on the real vs. fake question, but the solution he presents ends up feeling random.

The only good thing about it is that it lands on a thesis for the episode -- that closure is good no matter how you arrive at it. Geordi couldn’t save his real mother, but by rescuing the beings who took on her form, by having a chance to talk to “her” and say goodbye, he gains that sense of completeness. There’s a poignant irony to the fact that Geordi’s unable to save his mother like he’d hoped when he concocted his theory about her communicating through subspace, but that the attempt to do so gives him the opportunity to accept her death and process it with a sense of finality.

You just need to build a better episode to connect the worthy initial thought with the worthy closing sentiment. “Interface” is dull, confused, and has a bumpy landing. Even as it provides Geordi with some much needed closure, the type it attempts to offer the audience isn’t nearly as satisfying.