axlrhodes

I've complained about the lack of satisfying arcs in Season 7 of TNG, but Michelle Forbes saves her best for last in this penultimate episode, Preemptive Strike, an outing that offers an uncomfortable but fitting end for her character.

Forbes is a quality actress. She's got depth and natural screen chops that Sirtis, McFadden, Burton and Wheaton don't possess. That's not a dig at those actors because I like them all, but when guests as good as Forbes, Goldberg and Dwight Schultz appear, we can see the extra level of ability, of making us believe in these people. Patrick Stewart has great chemistry with Forbes too, such as the scene with Picard and Ro in the cantina near the end. It's the softest of verbal dances, underscored by the painful knowledge that one of them is about to break the heart of the other - and we feel that they both know it on some level.

That weighty final shot of a silently sullen Captain Picard makes for a powerful ending.

I think the tone is setting in now. I thought Lucy was too comfortable handling a severed human head. It's like trauma and shock doesn't exist in these comic-booky realms of imagination, there she is casually having a conversation with decomposing head, sitting in a barren wilderness in the most vulnerable state. I get that she's plucky and niaeve but I think they show us in moments like this that the show intends to embrace goofiness as it unfolds.

I think the Thaddeus character also embodies this goofiness. He's essentially a lackey to Maximus and the tone of his character is very much on the side of parody.

I'm making it sound like I dislike the show. The contrary, so far it has entertained me with its mutant monsters, its world-building and cartoon violence. I'm also liking how things are shaping up in the vault. That could get very close to the bone.

The women are great. All four of them. Comic timing is right on point, like a tight, well-rehearsed band that can riff off each other in a way that seems like magic to anyone who doesn't understand the craft.

This episode merged into soap opera with its central narrative, but they keep the undercurrent of comedy with Blanche and the failed audition. I think you have to ration watching sit-coms. I've been watching The Golden Girls each night with my evening meal. I think it works best as a one or two-a-week show but there is no doubt that it's one hell of comfort food package to take you back to a different age of TV. I like that I occasionally have to look up the references.