Tag: Family

“Star Trek: TNG” – Season 6, Episodes 16 & 17 (“Birthright, Parts I & II”)

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Part I

[Dr. Bashir has commented on Data’s more “human” attributes.]
Data: Most people are interested in my extraordinary abilities – how fast I can compute, my memory capacity, how long I will live. No one has ever asked me if my hair will grow, or noticed that I can breathe.
Bashir: Well, your creator went to a lot of trouble to make you seem human. I find that fascinating.

This TNG ep (written by Brannon Braga and edited by Rene Echevarria) originally aired between “Q-less” and “Dax” in S1 of DS9. While the Enterprise helps repair damages to DS9, a mysterious alien (James Cromwell) approaches Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn), claiming his father wasn’t killed in the battle of Khitomer 25 yrs ago, but is still alive and held in a Romulan prison camp. At first, Worf rebuffs this, for the dishonor it would bring his family. He changes his mind after talking to Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) and Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner). Lt. La Forge (LeVar Burton) helps Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) conduct an experiment w/ alien technology (found in the Gamma Quadrant). The equipment surges w/ power and a plasma shock knocks out Data. He experiences a vision of his “father” (creator), Dr. Noonien Soong.

Dr. Soong: I wasn’t sure you’d ever develop the cognitive abilities to make it this far, but if you’re here, if you can see me… you’ve crossed over the threshold from being a collection of circuits and subprocessors and have started a wonderful journey.

I enjoyed the youthful enthusiasm Bashir brought to this ep; he and Data (who is one of my favorites on TNG) get some nice moments. The doctor wants to know more re: the android’s “humanity.” We find out Data can grow hair, has a pulse, and can breathe if he wants to. Data and Worf have a fine scene in 10 Forward. I really liked the scene where Picard explains to Data that “he is a culture or one, and no less valid” than any other culture. Data’s paintings connected to his “dream” are pretty good. Spiner gets to stretch himself by also playing Dr. Soong.

Part II

Tokath: We’ve put aside the old hatreds. Here, Romulans and Klingons live in peace. I won’t allow you to destroy what we have.

Lt. Worf: Do not deceive yourself. These people are not happy here. I see the sadness in their eyes.

Tokath: That’s not what I see when I look in my wife’s eyes. I married a Klingon. So you see, when I warn you not to disrupt our lives here, I’m not speaking just as a jailor; but as a man protecting his family.

This ep was written by Echevarria and edited by Braga. These two writers, as well as Ron Moore, were esp. interested in the Klingons. In TOS, the Klingons are one-note bad guys; they are developed more in TNG and also play crucial role in DS9. Many fans complained that here was no further exploration of Data’s visions. We never uncover the mystery of the device Bashir had (and he doesn’t appear even in the ep).

Toq: Today I learned the ritual hunt, but that is not all I learned. I discovered that warriors’ blood runs through my veins. I do not know how, or why, but we have forgotten ourselves. Our stories are not told, our songs are not sung!

After discovering survivors from the Romulan attack on Khitomer (which established peace between the Klingons and the Federation), Worf resists becoming one of them. The elders explain that it’s not a prison, as they’ve chosen to remain, since returning would dishonor their families. Worf begins to teach the younger Klingons about their ancestry and tradition. A young woman becomes interested in Worf. Dorn gets to carry this ep, which he is very capable of doing. Though I’ve heard some women fans say that Worf is “a symbol of toxic masculinity,” he slowly evolves into well-rounded character over his time on TNG, the movies, and (later) on DS9.

[1] Overall a very mixed episode; some good moments but also some uncomfortable themes.

[2] This is the first time we get to hear actual Klingon music...

And in true Worf fashion, he never backs down. …Worf’s obsession with Klingon Duty, Honour and Principles could be at times, tiresome.

-Excerpts from IMDB reviews

“Star Trek: DS9” – Season 1, Episode 4 (“Babel”)

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Those of you fed up w/ quarantine life, coronavirus updates, and related topics may want to skip this one- LOL! This is the first time that Ira Stephen Behr wrote a teleplay for the series. Naren Shankar (who has a science background and started out as an intern on TNG) contributed to the story. The title is based on the biblical story of the The Tower of Babel in Genesis. Man wanted to be closer to God, so built this high tower. God was angered, destroyed the tower, and punished the men by making them speak many different languages (babbling), thus beginning the various nations and cultures.

The ep starts off comedic, then gets serious, building tension from scene to scene. Chief O’Brien is very busy as systems (built by the Cardassians) all over DS9 are failing. He has to free people stuck in an airlock and Dax wants him to repair a malfunction in the science lab. O’Brien must also repair the navigational computer for Kira, but Sisko can’t get good coffee, so wants the Ops replicator fixed ASAP. All of a sudden, he becomes aphasic- the words coming out of his mouth don’t make sense. Bashir has no clue what happened, as nothing is physically wrong w/ O’Brien. The crew works to find a cure before the entire station is effected. Eventually, Dax also turns aphasic during a meeting in Ops. People all over the station start displaying the symptoms- it’s an epidemic!

[1] Pretty unnerving though how relevant this still is in 2020.

[2] The O’Brien scenes at the start are great. I love his sarcastic comments, and Colm Meaney is such a great actor (with an awesome accent)…

[3] Some unusual partnerships are forged. Never question the strength of the Ferengi immune system.

-Excerpts from IMDB reviews

The frenemy relationship between Odo and Quark is explored further; we get moments of humor. When Odo discovers Quark accessing crew quarters illegally to make use of a replicator, Quark says: “Never ask when you can take.” This is the first example of a collection of Ferengi sayings which will later be called The Rules of Acquisition. Quark takes on responsibility when the command officers have been affected by the virus. To add to the excitement, a ship tries to break quarantine which threatens to cause an explosion (since it’s clamped to the station when the engines power up).

Odo: I need to get to Docking Port V now. That ship’s gonna explode in five minutes!

Quark: I’ll beam you over.

Odo: You?

Quark: Relax. I served on a Ferengi freighter for eight years.

Odo: All right.

[He rushes onto the transporter pad.]

Quark: I must have witnessed the procedure hundreds of times!

Odo: Witnessed? You mean to say you never handled the controls yourself?

Quark: Energizing!

[Waves Odo goodbye as he beams him away.]

“Star Trek: DS9” – Season 1, Episode 3 (“A Man Alone”)

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Jake (Cirroc Lofton) makes friends w/ a teenage Ferengi, Nog (Aron Eisenberg), Quark’s nephew and prone to act mischievous. Chief O’Brien (Colm Meaney) argues w/ his wife Keiko (Rosalind Chao- who co-starred in The Joy Luck Club also in 1993), who hasn’t adjusted to life on DS9. On the Enterprise (TNG), Keiko was a botanist, but now she has no work. Odo (Rene Auberjonois) doesn’t see what’s so great about being a couple, as he comments to Quark (Armin Shimerman). This is a fun scene w/ actors who can do both comedy and drama. You also see their chemistry w/ each other as frenemies. Lt. Dax (Terry Farrell) explains to Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) that her species don’t go seeking romantic relationships. I like the charm and confidence Farrell shows, even in early eps. Siddig also brings the charm, yet his character has much more naivete.

Sisko: [to Odo] If you can’t work within the rules I’ll find someone who can.

The A-story focuses on Odo, the shape-shifting constable w/ a strong sense of justice who is caught up in a mystery. Odo sees a familiar face on the Promenade, the Bajoran smuggler Ibudan, and gives him a day (26 hours in this world) to get off the station. Sisko (Avery Brooks) says that the man hasn’t done anything wrong, so Odo can’t just kick him out. Odo tells of how Ibudan once let a child die b/c the parents couldn’t afford medicine. Ibudan also killed a Cardassian w/o provocation during the Occupation, so Odo turned him in. When Ibudan is murdered on one of the holodecks, Odo becomes the prime suspect. However, things are not as they seem!

Quark: [about Odo] He’s an ill-tempered, overbearing, cross-patch. But he was no Cardassian collaborator, and he’s no killer.

Zayra: I can’t believe you’re defending him, Quark. You’re his worst enemy.

Quark: Guess that’s the closest thing he has in this world to a friend.

There are a lines and scenes which wouldn’t be out of place on a cop show. Kira (Nana Visitor) says that Odo is “the most honorable man on the station.” The actress really seemed comfortable w/ her character from the start of the series. Dax and Bashir sift through evidence gathered at the murder scene and on the ship which Ibudan came on, trying to solve the crime. Some Bajorans on the station, incl. Zayra (Edward Laurence Albert- son of actor Eddie Albert) grow very suspicious of Odo. He is unlike anyone else in this community and worked under the Cardassians for some years. After Odo is relieved of duty by Sisko (for his own safety), he goes to his office. We see that it has been trashed; along one wall, the word “SHIFTER” can be seen. A mob gathers outside and Sisko calls in security to prevent damage and violence.

Keiko’s plan to start a school for the few kids on the station was a practical idea. Sisko liked the idea very much and Jake had grown bored of studying alone w/ a computer (which is what many kids are doing in quarantine). I liked the scene where Keiko convinced Nog’s father, Rom (Max Grodenchik), to allow him to attend. Rom is portrayed as confident and decisive, which changes drastically later in the show. There is an ep focused on Keiko’s teaching at the end of the season which fans esp. comment about.

[1] I enjoy how DS9 gets to work on establishing it’s characters right away– the payoff doesn’t come for quite a while but damn is it delicious when it does.

[2] …the conflict between Odo’s sense of justice and Starfleet rules will be done much better in later episodes…

[3] Odo – who really is a man alone – must learn to trust others to help him figure this one out and clear him of suspicion.

-Excerpts from IMDB reviews

Hitchcock on Family Life: “Shadow of a Doubt” (1943) starring Teresa Wright & Joseph Cotten

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[1] Joseph Cotten is the perfect charming monster.

[2] As for Teresa Wright, she finds some good notes as well in playing off of Cotten… …those kids are just the right icing to the cake the film cooks up.

[3] One of my favorite elements in the movie is the ongoing dialogue between Henry Travers and Hume Cronyn, avid mystery readers who are constantly discussing the best ways to murder each other. Apart from being a bit of comic relief… it also demonstrates how lightly people think of murder and murderers… until they encounter them face-to-face.

-Excerpts from IMDB reviews

Young Charlie: We eat and sleep and that’s about all. We don’t even have any real conversations. We just talk.

Charlotte “Charlie” Newton (Teresa Wright) is bored w/ her uneventful life, living in Santa Rosa, CA, w/ her family. She knows exactly what they need- a visit from her well-traveled/sophisticated Uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten), her mother’s younger brother. Out of the blue, they receive a telegram from Uncle Charlie announcing that he is coming to visit. Uncle Charlie creates a stir as the new man in the small town, dressing stylish and charming locals. Young Charlie begins to notice some odd behavior on his part. Two strangers, Graham (Macdonald Carey) and Saunders (Wallace Ford), come to interview the Newton family, saying they were chosen for a national survey. It turns out that they are (undercover) detectives!

Uncle Charlie: The whole world’s a joke to me.

Uncle Charlie: I guess heaven takes care of fools and scoundrels.

One reason Sir Alfred Hitchcock considered this to be his favorite movie was that he loved the idea of bringing menace to a small town. Hitchcock believed that the expensive and sturdy, but weathered and worn, look to the house would give the suggestion that the Newton family could be anyone, an average American family in any American town. Edna May Wonacott (book-loving/chatty Ann) and Estelle Jewell (Young Charlie’s friend Catherine) were locals of Santa Rosa, where the movie was filmed. Many of the extras were also locals of the town. The story is lightened up by the patriarch, Joseph (Henry Travers), and his eccentric neighbor, Herbie (Hume Cronyn- in his first movie).

Young Charlie: We’re not just an uncle and a niece. It’s something else. I know you. I know you don’t tell people a lot of things. I don’t either. I have a feeling that inside you there’s something nobody knows about… something secret and wonderful. I’ll find it out.

In his interview with François Truffaut in 1967, Sir Alfred Hitchcock said the dense, black smoke coming from the train that brings Charles to town was a deliberate symbol of imminent evil. Some viewers may have missed his cameo; he is playing cards on the train w/ his back to the audience. The waltz tune is Franz Lehár’s “the Merry Widow;” the nickname of the killer is the Merry Widow killer. Charlie’s sister, Emma (Patricia Collinge), mentions that he’d had an accident on a bike as a boy; his personality changed after the accident (getting into mischief). I learned that Collinge wrote the romantic scene in the garage between Young Charlie and Graham.

You can watch the movie (for free) on YouTube!

“Clash by Night” (1952) starring Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, & Marilyn Monroe

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The title derives from Matthew Arnold’s poem Dover Beach (1867):

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Mae: What do you want, Joe, my life’s history? Here it is in four words: big ideas, small results.

Directed by Lee Strasberg, Clifford Odets’ play, Clash by Night, had a short Broadway run from late 1941 to early 1942. The cast included Robert Ryan as Joe Doyle (the character who is Marilyn Monroe’s boyfriend in the film), Joseph Schildkraut as Earl Pfeiffer, Lee J. Cobb as Jerry Wilenski, and Tallulah Bankhead as Mae Doyle. Wow, how cool would it have been to see Cobb (one of Hollywood’s best character actors) perform live!? The production revolved around a Polish family on Staten Island, NY, before the US gets into WWII. In the original play, Jerry (the cuckolded husband) kills Earl (his wife’s lover) in their climactic fight; Hollywood (of course) had a different idea.

Earl: Jerry’s the salt of the earth, but he’s not the right seasoning for you.

Mae: What kind of seasoning do I need?

Earl: You’re like me. A dash of Tabasco or the meat tastes flat.

This was one of Monroe’s early roles, she was under an acting coach (who worked for 20th Century Fox where Monroe, then only 25, was on contract) and wanted her on the set. The coach would stand behind director Fritz Lang and tell her when a scene was good enough. When Lang (known for his difficult personality) realized this, he demanded the coach leave the set. After Monroe complained and wouldn’t act w/o her, Lang allowed the coach to return, on the condition that she not direct Monroe. The actress was loaned out to RKO Pictures for this film; she shows a lot of potential here (brightening up the mood of the story).

Jerry: I like you – you know that.

Mae: You don’t know anything about me. What kind of an animal am I? Do I have fangs? Do I purr? What jungle am I from? You don’t know a thing about me.

The film noir drama is set Monterey, CA, a town where almost everyone is connected to the commercial fishing industry. After 10 yrs, Mae Doyle (Barbara Stanwyck) returns home, feeling tired, bitter, and depressed. Her macho/judgmental younger brother, Joe (Keith Andes), wonders what she has been doing w/ her life. Mae fell for a married politician who died; she has nowhere left to go. Joe’s spunky/beautiful 20 y.o. girlfriend, Peggy (Monroe in an early supporting role), takes a liking to Mae. After a short time dating, Mae decides to marry a fisherman, Jerry D’Amato (Paul Douglas), a naive/optimistic bear-like man who feels “safe.” Of course, she isn’t in love w/ Jerry (and he knows that). After a year of domestic life and having a baby girl, Mae feels stifled. She has an affair w/ Jerry’s friend, Earl Pfeiffer (Robert Ryan), a film projectionist who is recently divorced. Jerry finds out about their betrayal- he could explode w/ jealousy and anger!

Earl: Mae – what do you really think of me?

Mae: [coolly] You impress me as a man who needs a new suit of clothes or a new love affair – but he doesn’t know which.

Earl: [stung] You can’t make me any smaller. I happen to be pre-shrunk.

There is some great scenery- the ocean waves breaking on the beach, seagulls flocking, seals playing on rocks. We see the rough-and-tumble lives of blue-collar people; Peggy works in a fish cannery while Joe works on Jerry’s boat. People in this community fight loudly and drink heavily (drowning the disappointments of their unfulfilled lives). Jerry’s Sicilian immigrant father drinks b/c he can’t get any work at his advanced age. His bachelor uncle, Vince, also drinks and avoids responsibility.

[1] The power of “Clash by Night” lies… in the no-nonsense acting of Stanwyck and Ryan, tough as nails, but raw at the core. They have an animal eroticism together between them that sparkles like fireworks, but they are also, alas, quite self-pitying.

[2] Stanwyck has never better than she is here, and she dominates the film, vanquishing such heavyweight co-stars… she is magnificent in this movie, which seems almost to flow from her. As her simple, trusting husband Paul Douglas is almost as good; and Robert Ryan nearly steals the show as a sadistic loser who is somehow magnetic, pathetic and yet highly observant, all at the same time. 

-Excerpts from IMDB reviews

I heard about this movie from a film noir group on Facebook; you can rent it for $2.99 on Amazon. It has some fine/memorable dialogue, which is why many people watch classics. Stanwyck (who was going through a divorce from actor Robert Taylor) inhabits her conflicted character; she is rarely at ease (note her body language, esp. in the early scenes). This is the type of role usually given to an anti-hero man in Hollywood. Instead, Mae is a conflicted woman who must choose between Jerry- the nice guy (security/respectability)- and Earl- the bad boy (danger/uncertainty). Though these are middle-aged people, they are not quite settled in their minds. Mae and Earl expected much more from life; they are drawn to each other like magnets. Jerry is content to be the breadwinner, husband, and father. The younger couple project a different energy in their scenes, but soon we realize that Joe would be a controlling husband (and perhaps) diminish Peggy’s spirited personality.

Odets was born/raised in Philly and came from Jewish heritage (Russian and Romanian). He dropped out of HS to work as an actor. He was understudy on Broadway in 1929 to the young Spencer Tracy in Conflict by Warren F. Lawrence. Odets became one of the founding members of The Group Theatre, which became one of the most influential companies in the history of the American stage. They based their acting technique (new to the US) created by Russian actor/director Constantin Stanislavski. It was further developed by Group Theatre director Lee Strasberg and became known as The Method (or Method Acting). From working in the theater, Odets developed a great love of language, and was inspired to write his own plays. His socially relevant dramas, popular during the time of the Great Depression, inspired several generations of playwrights: Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayefsky, Neil Simon, and David Mamet.