"Much as we might be inclined to offer our protection," Lindsay had informed the agitated youth, "here upon the ground we are constrained by our Charter, which directs us never to interfere with legal customs of any locality down at which we may happen to have touched."
* * * * * * * * * *
I'm about two episodes away from finishing all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation so I know the Prime Directive when I see it. Although the Enterprise in The Next Generation doesn't really visit that many new worlds and new civilizations, no matter how many they imply they're going to visit in the opening monologue. They mostly remain in Federation Space dealing with diplomatic problems or doing scientific research on local space phenomena or telling the Cardassians to get back over their invisible space border (which works how? Are these territories in bubbles? Do the boundaries extend in both directions along one plane to infinity while maybe extending like a normal border along the other plane, weaving and wandering as if following some imaginary space river? There's a lot to be confused about in Star Trek but the one that always gets me are the space borders).
If the Inconvenience is basically the Enterprise of 1893 and the Chums of Chance are Starfleet Officers working for some Earth equivalent of a Galactic Federation, does that mean Lindsay might actually be a Vulcan?! Remember, there's something odd with that kid in that he's violent in his recriminations against proper speech, he's logical to a fault, and the dog can't detect his odor. He also hasn't used any contractions yet (he will in a few lines but that's only because he's repeating one used by Chick and offering a more formal one) which is absolutely a sign of an alien!
In many ways, Star Trek: The Next Generation is laughable, a veritable cocktail of mockable clichés and national stereotypes, one dimensional characters and Wesley Crusher's sweaters. But what makes it really work, even sometimes when the plot is actively working against it, is its earnestness. Nobody in the cast ever seems to be rolling their eyes about what they're doing; every script takes every moment as seriously as it can (unless it's a Barkley episode and then the audience is to understand that this one will be silly). Everybody is all in on portraying a future world of compassion, kindness, and a lack of need. And they're not even saying that the way the Federation does things is the correct way because every civilization will have faults. But at least one person on the crew will always be willing to stand against atrocity. I can mock it constantly as I watch it and yet I still love everything about it.
No, wait. I wouldn't mind disposing of the Data as Sherlock Holmes episodes and the Captain Picard as Dixon Hill. And don't get me started on the suicide/cloning machine that they call a "transporter." Like fuck that thing transports. I was convinced early on that it simply kills the person stepping into it and creates a clone on the other side. And while that was only my horrific theory, the show accidentally proved me right with the episode where a Riker clone turns up due to a transportation error. See? You don't get two Rikers if your machine isn't just cloning the person and disposing of the evidence by disintegrating the original! Everybody on that damned ship is the nth version of their original selves! Which makes it especially tragic when they finally talk both Barkley and Doctor Pulaski into stepping into one! Oh how I wept!
