Jammer's Review
Star Trek: The Next Generation
"Starship Mine"
Air date: 3/29/1993
Written by Morgan Gendel
Directed by Cliff Bole
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
High Concept 101: Die Hard on the Enterprise!
Actually, that's a pretty good one, and the setup is appealing: The Enterprise is vacated by the entire crew in order to make way for a baryon sweep, during which some bad guys posing as technicians try to steal trilithium resin from the warp core. Picard ends up as the only person on board (because he went back for his saddle, of all things) and becomes the starship's last line of defense. He must sneak around the ship and stop them from getting away with the resin, which in the wrong hands could be made into a weapon, exclamation mark!
I really like the idea of the baryon sweep as this slowly moving, deadly, implacable force that gives the story its ticking clock while also decreasing the real estate available for the cat-and-mouse games. So you have an action premise that seems like it would be reasonably adaptable to the decks of the Enterprise, you have Picard taking up arms (look, a crossbow, with poisonous — but not deadly poisonous — arrow tips!), and you have an amusing (if disposable) subplot aboard the planet where Data takes up the activity of small talk and ends up in a small-talk duel with chatty Commander Hutchinson (David Spielberg). What's not to like?
Well, some of the execution, unfortunately. The plot holds together fine, but "Starship Mine" is a pale imitation of Die Hard (and, honestly, how couldn't it be?) and suffers from some hacky moments and a weak villain in the bland Kelsey (Marie Marshall). There's a scene where Picard and Kelsey trade barbs over their communicators, and it's here where the riffs on Die Hard become (1) glaringly obvious and (2) a liability — because "Starship Mine" suffers when it makes us think of similar, better scenes in Die Hard. There's also the problem that an action premise like this feels watered-down when Picard has to be in a constant state of tempered restraint in his response; Star Trek has an inherently non-violent philosophy, which is kind of counterproductive to thwarting bad guys in this sort of plot. And the fairly laughable final fistfight in Ten-Forward suffers in no small part because of an especially atonal Jay Chattaway score (albeit one typical for this period of the TNG era). If ever a sequence needed to be carried by music (and isn't), it's this one — because the stunts sure aren't much to speak of.
On the other hand, as a wind-up action toy with these built-in restraints, "Starship Mine" works about as well as it probably could've. Motormouth Hutchinson always makes me grin (and killing him in the planet-side action was clearly a wink to the audience, even if I don't think Hutch deserved it). Picard posing as barber Mr. Mott is fun. An abandoned Enterprise turns out to have a fair amount of atmosphere for playing hide-and-seek. And the final scene where Picard is reunited with his saddle shows that this story knows that "light" is the right tone here. This is a guilty pleasure that maybe could've been more fun had it been guiltier.
Footnote: Tim Russ has a small part as one of the bad guys.
Previous episode: Birthright, Part II
Next episode: Lessons
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25 comments on this review
Anyway, I think this episode showed it in spades. My first reaction to remembering this episode after your review was that they should have put someone other than Picard as the one defending the ship. But then the question is who would be better for an action oriented episode? Unfortunately the answer is: No one.
Or think of it this way, keep the same plot, but put it on DS9 and have Sisko replace Picard. The action would have been much more fluid and entertaining because either Brooks as an actor or Sisko as a character simply does action better than Steward/Picard. Come to think of it, most of the DS9 actors/crew could probably have made for a more fluid episode.
I don't intend this as a critique of the actors, but more as a critique of the writers/producers for creating stories that were hard for the characters/actors to pull off.
It's right up there with the Quark-centric DS9 epis that Jammer hates so much!
The group of mercenaries are actually stealing trilithium *resin* in this episode.
Pure trilithium (whatever that is) is a major plot point in Star Trek: Generations--which also features Tim Russ in another non-Tuvok role!
(The more you know...!)
I'll have to check it out when I can.
RIKER
What about Hutchinson?
BEVERLY
(grim)
There was nothing I could do for him.
Oh, please! Knowing DS9, this episode would've ended with Sisko resolving the issue by talking to those stupid wormholes aliens.
You see, for all of Ira's hot air about how 'different' & 'believable' DS9 was, it was no less susceptible to cliches as the other Trek series.
xkcd.com/285/
I agree that DS9 had its own cliches. That wasn't my point. My only point was that TNG never did action very well, and this episode has it on display. The only point of bringing up DS9 was by way of contrast, DS9 did action much better than TNG did. Hell, even Voyager and Enterprise did action better than TNG. Note, this does not make them better shows.
Actually, this would have been a good episode for Worf, no?
Action or no, this is just a waste of time. Many of the commentators refer to the high-concept tone of this episode as "refreshing" or "a nice change of pace". Change of pace from what exactly? Interesting dialogue? Compelling ideas? Moving character interaction? Why do we need a "break" from those things? I'll tell you what I want, is a break from the white-milk monotony that Season 6 has become--"Chain of Command" and "Tapestry" were refreshing breaks because they were about something interesting for a change. This was silly made more silly by the completely contrived idea that Picard is an action hero. Any of the other captains would have been more suited to this kind of show, but in the end, the show simply did not have to exist. Seasons 6 and 7 should have been combined into one more unified and energetic season leaving out the clunkers like this one.
I will say to the episode's credit that the Data/Hutch scenes are always enjoyable. It's rather macabre to have poor stupid Hutch killed off amongst this fluffiness.
2 stars.
"Oh, please! Knowing DS9, this episode would've ended with Sisko resolving the issue by talking to those stupid wormholes aliens."
=( That doesn't seem fair at all. After the pilot they didn't appear again until Season 3, once in Season 4, once in Season 5, bit more in 6 and 7. I don't think they count as a DS9 cliche.
I'm picturing Tasha Yar in a Season 1 episode. A single Yar-centric show would've rehabilitated her whiny character. Might even have been meaty enough to convince Crosby to stick with the show a little longer. However, human villains would've been totally forbidden in Season 1.
Maybe they wouldn't have if they didn't become more prominent over that show's run and, thus, making its final season a disappointment.
That all being said, it could have been better. heck, just the better soundtrack would have brought this up to a 2 for me, as is 1 star. .5 for the enterprise, and .5 for the sort-of humour on the planet.
BTW, I actually think, music aside, season 6 has been pretty good. Definitely better than I remember it. Way better than season 5.
However, at that point in my life I was frankly looking for a little more carnage and action. I could usually depend on DS9 for that (we never saw any kind of "automatic" weapon in Trek until we were introduced to the Jem'Hadar rifle). It was a big reason I loved it so much at the time. And this episode promised much, but did not deliver what I had hoped.
I mean, it WAS interesting to see Action Picard every now and then. As we saw, he was more prone to that when he was young. But his character always seemed better suited to brief bursts of violence. Perhaps like a samurai. His charging right at the terrorist in The High Ground is more of what I'm thinking.
What was always kind of hard to reconcile with this episode was the seriousness of what was happening on the ship with the almost sitcom-like set up on the planet (it was a similar problem with First Contact). Picard running from the reception is one of the funniest bits we've ever seen with the captain.
And his last line in the episode is worthy of any 80s action film one liner.
Now that I'm closer to Picard's age, his action scenes don't seem as ridiculous, but watching the episodes one right after the other instead of weekly also makes it more obvious -- "Sheesh, another one all about Picard?" Had it been more of an ensemble show, Riker could've been the one playing commando. It's easy to imagine most of the DS9 characters taking center stage in an episode like that, but TNG just wasn't that kind of show.
Well let's see, they show up at DS9's first damn episode, they figure in boring episodes like "Destiny" and even that one episode where the Nagus 'regresses' to a more generous person, they infamously gave that deux ex machina ending to the arc which began the sixth season, & (for reasons we could care less about because Ira did) they send Sisko away at the series's end.
Those stupid aliens were as much a cliche for DS9 as the reset button was for Voyager
The reset button wasn't a cliche for Voyager - it was a recurring plot device that ensured that nothing that ever happened had any lasting consequences.
As for this episode, I agree that the Die Hard comparisons fall down mainly in the villain. Kelsey is not Hans Gruber, sadly, but I could see a more compelling villain (and more interesting characters on the planet) making it just about perfect.
I do think that "action" Picard worked pretty well, especially because it was more about his ingenuity and knowledge that let him succeed. In some ways this is more in keeping with John McClane in the original movie.
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