7x09 Force of Nature

[6.3/10] Not all scientists are great communicators. That’s not a sin. Everyone has different skill sets and talents. Being able to uncover the big new development and being able to express it in terms lay people can understand are two different things. Communicators need scientists and scientists need communicators, and we’re all the more indebted to those talented individuals who can do both.

It’s a particular concern when it comes to large problems that require collective action, like climate change. In the Trek-inspired Futurama, none other than Al Gore jokes about the chance to save the world with “deadly lasers” rather than “deadly slide shows.” Making intricate, even ominous scientific data accessible, let alone entertaining, to the masses is a tricky business.

“Force of Nature” tries to do just that, through the power of allegory. There’s an eerie resonance to the major scenes in the episode, where a doctor points to the environmental degradation that can be expected to worsen over the course of decades if we do nothing. The natural resistance to changing our ways from folks who’ve grown up with those advancements, seen their benefits, and for whom the consequences seem far off and abstract is familiar. And activists who see the problem all too clearly, but have trouble getting those in charge to take action is a sadly recognizable issue in the same vein.

Of course, The Next Generation is talking about damage to subspace rather than damage to the environment, but the import is the same. The writers may not have been directly speaking about the threat of climate change, but are clearly playing toward themes of environmentalism. The idea of warp drive creating deleterious consequences for space as we know it can stand in for climate shifts (which the episode name-drops specifically), the ozone layer (which was of concern at the time), and any number of other diffuse but cumulative ills that modern life creates. The show’s head and heart are in the right place here, promoting a message of awareness and sacrifice in the face of invisible but impending catastrophe.

Unfortunately, it’s also almost unbearably dry. I don’t want to harp on science advisor-turned-story editor Naren Shankar too much. I’ve already touched on the challenges of making that leap, and TNG scripts go through so many uncredited rewrites and polishes and changes through the production process anyway that it’s unfair to pin such ills on one person. But it is a recurring issue in these episodes, where compelling ideas with a strong scientific backing don’t always reach their full potential as a story given a certain flatness to the presentation.

There’s also a lack of focus. Damn near half the episode passes until we get to the meat of the thing. Instead of diving into the key issue of warp-based pollution, we have interludes about Data trying to train spot, Geordi trying to outdo a fellow engineer on engine efficiency, and bargaining with a Ferengi daemon for info on a missing ship.

These scenes aren't bad exactly. I’m a cat lover, so I enjoyed the low key comedy of Data’s struggles with feline obedience. If you squint, you can see some thematic resonance in Geordi being so enamored with his machinery that he misses the harm it’s causing. And Picard trading repairs for information with his Ferengi counterpart is at least plot-relevant, even if it seems like a perfunctory hurdle before we get to the thrust of the episode. The problem is that all these interludes lack energy or real relevance to the story being told here. There’s too much fluff and filler, which leaves the actual point of the episode feeling underfed.

But once we get to the genuine issue at the center of “Force of Nature”, business picks up. A couple of local aliens who’ve laid mines around an interstellar passage to force greater powers to hear their pleas is a compelling setup. It presages the Dakota Access pipeline protests of the late 2010s, and raises worthwhile questions over what drastic steps are justified or go too far in the face of potentially catastrophic consequences and superpowers who don’t believe them.

Picard’s middle ground, effectively saying “We’ll take your concerns seriously but won’t permit or reward you for holding us over a barrel” is a reasonable one. The alien scientist choosing to induce a warp breach on her ship to prove her theory rather than wait for further Federation research is a striking move from the character and the episode. And Geordi wrestling with whether he was too blinded by his appreciation for what warp technology can do to contemplate what harms it might cause is a good metaphor for all of us who question whether our creature comforts inure us to the negative externalities they can cause.

But there’s two big problems from there. First, after all the hand-wringing, “Force of Nature” turns into a bog standard “We’re trapped in a big space thing and have to science our way out!” plot. The Enterprise surfing on a spatial wave through a subspace rift is perfectly acceptable Treknobabble, but there’s nothing especially clever or unique about the problem or the solution.

Second, the emotional impact of the story doesn’t land because everyone’s oddly detached about all of this, and the problem is practically drenched in technical verbiage rather than efforts to bring the issue home. God help Shenkar and company; they try. Geordi has a heart-to-heart with the brother of the dead alien scientist. He chats with Data about fears over his own hubris in the matter. Picard waxes rhapsodic about concerns that the miracle of faster-than-light travel is hurting the galaxy he loves so much. The effort is there. But the writing and performances are so subdued, so slack, so unmoving, that the whole thing feels hollow.

It’s sobering to watch a nearly thirty-year-old episode of television predict disaster in the coming decades if contemporary trends continue, with the reassurance of trusted authority figures telling one another, and by extension the audience, that the good news is there’s still time to fix it. We haven’t. And rather than adhering to the real life equivalent of warp speed limits in the name of limiting harm to our world, the great powers in the real world have done far too little in the years since “Force of Nature” aired to combat the problems the episode is analogizing.

But maybe part of the problem is that it’s hard to change hearts and minds if you can only present people with facts and figures rather than reaching them emotionally. This episode lays out a sturdy, compelling allegory for addressing underappreciated environmental harms. Yet, it does so in a way that feels so dry, so slack, so logy, that it’s no wonder the message stumbles along rather than hits home. Being right and having the data (or Data) to back you up isn’t enough. You have to reach people. Sadly, the folks behind “Force of Nature”, and the folks trying to address similar issues in the real world, haven’t been as effective at communicating those worthy ideas as these serious problems require.