Episode 5 Season 1: Where No One Has Gone Before.
So by now, if you have been following the blog, you know about the plot points i am trying to cover and i am going to go through them rather quickly.
1.Exploration and Necessity: A crackshot engineer has found a way to boost speeds. He will test the engines on the Enterprise approved by Starfleet command.
2.Alien Meetup: A strange alien accompanies the engineer.
3.Crew Endangerment: Passing warp 10 they end up 300 years traveling time away from their own galaxy.
4.Rules and Regulations: They must work with this engineer in order to get home but they are unsure if he can get them home. They must try though.
5.Crisis Navigation: They end up in even a stranger part of the galaxy. Thoughts begin to become reality.
6.Reasoning: They find out with the help of Wesly and Riker that it was not the engineer but the alien who caused the boost in propulsion. They talk to "The Traveler".
7.Necessary Problem: Traveler is dieing. If he dies then they will not get back.
8. Trickery:
9.Peaceful and Beneficial Resolution: Wesley Crusher becomes an Ensign due to the Traveler telling Picard that they boy is special and needs to be encouraged.
Trickery is empty because there is no real problem that could be solved by outwitting any opponent. You could say that the Traveler telling Picard about Wesley being the "Mozart" of space time and propulsion butt that wouldn't seem too accurate for what the functions represent.
There are some interesting things about this episode though.
It becomes Quixotic for one. Once the thoughts of the crew can become reality, they start having episodes that come only from their minds. The concept of thought turning into reality is rather interesting because it infers that reality is as mailable as fiction. The Traveler talks about how the world around them isn't ready for concept that thoughts, space and time are not as separate as we think.
This is an interesting point that is made by the episode. A phenomenological world isn't as implausible as some think. Fiction has indeed been responisble for some idea's and concepts that exist today. Here is a brief and, not to lie, dull article on some of the concepts of science fiction becoming science fact.
This concept that the show tackles shows us how meta fictional Star Trek can be. In essence it is refering to itself as becoming a model for plausible future technologies. Very cool. Also the world of thought becoming the world of fact in Star Trek blurs boundaries that are enforced on a text that relies wholly on realism. Science Fiction is a genre that always transgresses this border, however, as seen in this episode, TNG transgresses it farther than many others. The introduction of a part of the universe where thought becomes fact, the holodeck, and Q are all examples of how this series struggles with fiction and reality (all of Q's alternate realities are real but they are concepts created from his mind. Q is the ultimately powerful author with the ability to create worlds on a whim).
We will see in later episodes issues of fiction and reality being explored and expanded upon. I will label all of these with "Dilemma". Certainly any fiction that deals with the problems of fiction and philosophy is experiencing a dilemma at its core.
It can be strange that a prime time science fiction show would deal with some of these issues. Yet TNG does, though in small doses. Certainly we will have to stay on our toes and tease out some of the concepts being delt with and expressed. It should be challenging.
I will most likely post summaries of larger concepts i explore at the end of each season. That way, once everything is all collected and noted, we can have a discussion of major themes throughout the season and talk about how many ideas expressed and formed become part of the larger scheme.
Thank you for reading.
