TNG – The High Ground

Plot – It says everything you need to know about TNG for a planet to be in the grip of terror attacks and to have Picard announce that so stoney-voiced whilst the camera pans over to Dr Crusher and Worf enjoying drinks in a café. The intention to be serious is there and to tackle real themes but these are characters who are simply unused to this kind of muckiness and they will throw caution to the wind because terror attacks are the sort of thing that happens to other people.

Huge kudos to writer Melinda M. Snodgrass for giving both sides of this conflict an equal amount of screen time to state their case. It means that the argument on either side of the bomb attacks are balanced and calls into question whether you find them the violent acts of cowards or the brave acts of heroes. It’s an easy line to fall either side of.

Interestingly the terror attack on the Enterprise is portrayed as exactly that. Bad people committing violence against good ones. When Riker and crew attack the terrorists it is portrayed as the opposite. Good guys committing acts of violence to rescue good guys. For an episode that is vaguely attempting to give the perpetuators of terrorism a voice, the nuts and bolts of the episode are handing out a verdict on precisely who is good and who is bad here. There’s no ambiguity here.

Next week the terror attacks on Rutia won’t even be on the Enterprise’s radar. Nobody will reference these events again and nobody has learnt anything that stays with them throughout the rest of this shows run. Is this an issue of the time or a problem inherent in the show? TNG can hold your attention for an hour but you know, two-parters aside, that very often the issues it is grappling in that hour will be sewn up and put away. The episodes themselves might be absolute classics, but the series damages itself by refusing to show consequences. That’s something Enterprise tried very hard to remedy.

Character – What The High Ground does so well is to shove Dr Bev’s face in the mud and to show her things aren’t so squeaky clean out in the universe and sometimes you have to get your hands filthy in order to survive. A shame she walks away with the same Federation idealism at the end of this episode as she did at the beginning because this could have been a vital education to her. How she rushes into action when the bomb goes off and refuses to leave shows the sort of arrogance and immunity that only as main character living the life of luxury could. I don’t think it is simply that she is a professional and wants to help people, there is nothing in McFadden’s performance that shows she is even slightly scared of stepping into such a dangerous environment.

Look at Picard’s face when he refuses the request for some of their military equipment to track down the terrorists. He could have simply said no but he does so in the most arrogant, ‘I’m looking down my nose at you’ way he possibly can. Some people suggest Picard is a diplomat and he certainly has skills in that department but there are times when the most important feature of diplomacy (tact) is lacking.

Unbelievably, at the moment when Dr Bev is about to say something that might have some relevance on the series itself (it’s her ‘in case we don’t get out of this’ scene), the lights go out and the Enterprise crew attacked. The script literally pulls us away from consequences with a sharp jolt.

Performance – Richard Cox is the given the impossible task of being the nice side of terrorism in an episode that is determined to prove that it is unjust. To his credit he does a good job because I warmed to him instantly. He had that Marc Alaimo/Andrew Robinson knack of being a very charismatic man so no matter what they show you of him being capable of performing monstrous acts, you still have a little sympathy for him.

Production – A massive round of applause for the woman who runs away from the terror attack on the Enterprise. She flaps her wrists and everything. We haven’t seen a true damsel in distress like this since the heyday of TOS.

Best moment – When the terror attacks shift to the Enterprise, that is when everybody wakes up and takes this threat really seriously. It leads to some suspenseful moments when it looks as though the ship might be a goner as the terrorist’s beam in and murder without breaking a sweat. For a second the action transfers to the Bridge and it feels terribly invasive in what is usually a safe space but the weapons used are so space age and ineffectual it threatens to gut the scene of its power.

Dr Bev starts to question the Enterprise’s role in these kinds of affairs and to empathise with the terrorists. That’s huge progress. What a shame then that she should be merrily complicit in every mission after this that is involving itself in the same way. You cannot raise objections and then collaborate in the very thing you are protesting to. That makes you a complete hypocrite.

Worst moment – ‘In a world where children blow up children, everyone is a threat’ is a little too on the nose, even for TNG. You can’t make generalisations like that; it smears everybody with the same brush.

‘I live in an ideal culture. There’s no need for your kind of violence’ says Crusher. Oh boy, it’s a good thing she isn’t still around when DS9 gets up and running. She must be weeping into her cushion every night during the Dominion War.

I wish they hadn’t done that – When she is threatened by a man who has already killed people, Dr Bev has the look of a manipulator trying to win over a good man by mentioning her son. McFadden should be terrified. She’s our identification character here. Instead I can see the wheels turning in her head as she tries to escape the situation. She finally tears up when it appears that her son is going to go boom boom. About damn time.

It would have been braver to have the kid shoot down everybody at the climax, and more realistic too. Instead a line from Dr Bev disarms him and they can head on their merry way.

The music swelling at the climax as everybody heads off to their next adventure and leaving these violent savages to fight amongst themselves made me growl out loud. Man, this show was naïve at times.

A reason to watch this episode again – It has some punch and some point and The High Ground marks new territory for TNG in that it is tackling some topical and doesn’t bash you over the head with it. What stops it from being an classic is that TNG is still presenting it’s alien civilisations and its action in a comic book way (the crazy over the top music does not help) and so this comes across as a show that wants to grip hold of terrorism and shake it until something thoughtful comes out but it can only do so when making the execution of the episode softer than it could be. The other hindrance is Gates McFadden, hardly the most gifted of performers and finally being given some challenging material and failing to take the intensity of her reaction to kidnapping, terror attacks and death all around her to the appropriate level. If it had been Patrick Stewart we might have been talking. There are quite a few episodes of TNG where they involve themselves in a seditious situation and warp away at the end having solved nothing. Life its solved in the wave of a hand or a speech from Picard and I appreciate them saying that but, in this case, where they were in a prime situation to do some good, I find myself asking what was the point? Still, points for injecting some blood into the veins of this show. All the creators of TNG thought this episode was worthless. I don’t think it’s as bad as all that but it does wind up having very little to say bar the obvious.

*** out of *****

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