Masks

What do Masaka, Ihat, an old man, and a frightened child have in common? Many things. They are all a part of some ancient, unknown pantheon. They are all taking over Data’s brain. And each is caught in an eternal dance that could lead to destruction for the Enterprise. Where is Korgano when you need him? And can Picard’s Korgano imitation fool the imitation Masaka? Find out when Mission Log tries on Masks. Yikes. What a mess of an episode. The acting by Spiner could have been good, but was sooo silly. The superhuman robot who can completely take over the ship has gone mad with some sort of alien multiple-personality disorder?!?! Eh, let’s just confine him to quarters. Sigh! Picard talks Musaka into thinking its bed time, and it’s Ctrl+Z and all of damage or modifications to the Enterprise are suddenly undone. Why does an alien smart relic want to program some unsuspecting alien into a mythical sun god to begin with? This story is so stupid it causes pain behind my eye sockets. And the prologue was so long and dull, I was expecting the end credits instead of the opening theme. I haven’t listened to the final 20 minutes of the podcast yet, but I just hate this episode. Nothing good here. I always think of teatime treat, Moussaka (The mexican dish) when watching this! Soong-, yeah well by any normal standards Data would have been kicked out or destroyed. Starfleet would develop “You are possessed” scanning technology… Seriously, well done guys. I don’t envy you having to do the last few s7 episodes. Most of them are utter rubbish. I guess there’s a few half decent stories left but for the main they mostly pretty bad. ugh…I disliked “Emergence” as well….imo we know the reason “Descent” was S7 season premiere was to let us know which way the show was going…arrggh, so many misfires! Really, the correct ELO song to work into this would’ve been Mr. Blue Sky, since it has its own symbolic cycle of sun chasing moon: “Mr. Blue, you did it right But soon comes Mr. Night Creepin’ over Now his hand is on your shoulder Never mind I’ll remember you this I’ll remember you this way…” I know this episode has pacing problems, there’s a lot left unexplained (such as what kind of strange magic would cause the Enterprise’s fixtures and fittings to turn to stone) and it’s a talky bottle show done on the cheap to make up for earlier, costlier episodes that went over budget, but there’s just something compelling about the mythology that’s introduced. There may not be a lot of substance, but I really dig the atmosphere that the episode creates. And yes, hold on tight, I know there are no secret messages here. I also see some strong connections to Menosky’s earlier episode, Darmok. Masks deals with metaphors too, but they’re metaphors to explain natural forces, rather than literary metaphors. Menosky really had something stuck in his head…metaphorically speaking, of course. Good thing Alexander wasn’t trying to sculpt a bird, though. The trained eye would take one look and realize…that bluebird is dead. And now… Masaka needs a nap. It’d be crazy if they named a later Star Trek series after a whole ELO album, wouldn’t it? I’m happy to help anytime. Also strongly recommend Parthenon Huxley’s cover version from the all-ELO cover album “My Homemade Spaceship”. Awful episode. Of TNG, not Mission Log, to be clear. You guys did a good job. The concept of split personality Data is fascinating and Spiner tries hard but it just does not work. “Why does an alien smart relic want to program some unsuspecting alien into a mythical sun god to begin with?” And the resolution of this mess is that Picard just puts Data to sleep with some speech about whatever? This is really a high school play based on some Aztec relics from science class. Only “Sub Rosa” is worse. All other crappy S1 episodes have growing pains as an excuse…sigh…oh well the end is near… Well, Sub Rosa had a certain something that this episode lacked, and groundskeeper Willy. This