Kirkaturk Reviews TNG: The Nth Degree (4x19)

The bridge crew of the Enterprise seems be a great group. They have a sort of working relationship that blossomed into genuine friendship - the kind of friendship that can withstand requests for rides to the airport and, apparently, showing up for really fucking awful plays. It's also very exclusionary and hostile towards science major league nerds, as we'll see later.

Dr. Beverly Crusher moonlights as an acting coach and has spent the past six weeks working with Lieutenant Reginald Barclay to present the play Cyrano de Bergerac. I'm sure that in the intervening years between the late 19th and late 24th centuries there have been plenty of really great, original plays, but we never see or hear from them. The same goes for music - everyone just listens to jazz or plays trombone in the future. I guess that it's somewhat realistic - people today only ever listen to Gregorian chants and 17th century waltzes.

The play is terrible because Barclay is visibly autistic and Crusher is a terrible acting coach. These two elements combine to form a perfect storm of awkwardness and poor delivery on both of their parts. Barclay, however, is so comically inept that he actually loses his hat and his hair falls into his face while he makes a huffing and puffing motion. He's like an impossible caricature of a real person - but this is intentional: Barclay is the entirely socially inept nerd that the writers trot out for special episodes where Geordi and/or Data wouldn't be believable when they can't figure out how not to shit all over a girl when asking her for a drink. Barclay is the secret weapon that makes that sort of writing work.

Anyway, the play is such utter shit that Data makes his "Beep Boop, This Is Too Stupid To Comprehend" face, and Riker has to tell him to shut up. Everyone congratulates Barclay and Crusher, with Geordi delivering a wicked passive aggressive burn, and Deanna Troi sticks around to coddle Barclay a little bit.

Barclay has been undergoing therapy for his holodeck addiction and Troi attempts to illustrate how far he's come. I'm not going to go into the ridiculousness of a guy who has trouble talking to girls getting therapy from the resident "Relaxation Girl" on the ship, or the fact that Troi wore the lowest cut dress this side of a Betazoid wedding... but I could. I could also delve into the fact that it's perfectly okay for Geordi and Data to dress in create sentient villains and for Data to hook his nerdlinger brain to the computer to create holodeck entities that try to shoot children, but if Barclay wants to run a few simulations of to try and up his nightclub game there's a big shitfit... but I won't.

So everyone gets back to work fucking finally and they arrive at the Argus Array, a big ol' installation floating around in space that takes pictures of things from far away. Think the Hubble telescope, but really big and stupid as hell. A little alien probe that looks like a duffelbag is spotted and Riker is like "HEY THAT THING, THATS WHAT BROKE THE ARRAY, SIR, LOOK, IT BROKE IT, ITS A PROBE.". Nevermind that it's of an entirely unknown origin and is unresponsive to any and all scans, Riker just fucking knows, okay?

When you encounter an alien probe of unknown design, intent and purpose, you typically want to send your chief engineer over in a poorly armored shuttle so that, when it invariably shoots at and vaporizes the craft along with everyone inside, you're left without a senior engineer. This is the tried and true Starfleet way.

So that's what they do!

Geordi and Barclay head over on Shuttle 5 (also referred to by the shuttle hangar staff as The Party Shuttle, Hotbox 5, and 69 Forward) and start throwing some beeps at the probe. Geordi is extraordinarily creepy in this scene, he derives an almost sexual thrill from bathing this little pill shaped probe in scans and whatnot. Or maybe I'm misreading it - maybe the sexual thrill comes from ordering Barclay around. Nerds do enjoy power.

Shit goes down and the probe flashes the shuttle, knocking Barclay out. Geordi is protected because of his Ray-Bans. "Geordi to Entperise! The snipe hunt is over, mission accomplished. We got him. We... We got him good.".

A short while later Barclay is all fixed up and ready to roll, but he exhibits some strange behavior. For example, he knows more about the computers in the medical bay than the medical staff! A feat rivaled only by modern day hospital IT workers. Honestly, I'd be surprised if Crusher can go two weeks without delivering a nearly fatal dose of radiation to her patients after she infects half the medical equipment with a virus she picked up from a FWD: FWD: RE: fwd: RE: CUTE CARDASSIAN PUPPY FALLS INTO WELL ;) email.

Anyway, the Enterprise is still hanging around with the probe, and then the lil' duffelbag or pill lookin' thing FREAKS OUT and starts starts moving towards the ship. They attempt to flee the probe because they're giant pussies, and it matches their speed and course. As the chase goes on, Picard grows increasingly uncomfortable and simply repeats whatever suggestions presented to him by his staff. This is actually pretty shocking - the captain of the Federation flagship is fucking clean out of ideas when it comes to a strange probe followingthem around. He literally asks people what to do, because he has no clue. He just gets a stern look on his face and adjusts his tunic - aka The Picard Maneuver.

Maybe he has diarrhea, maybe he poked Crusher on Facebook and she hasn't poked back, or maybe he just didn't have his shit together that day.The bottom line is that Picard displayed some shockingly poor behavior there.

Of course, this is all just an opportunity for Barclay to leap into action, perform some techno-wizardry and blow the shit out of the probe. Hooray Barclay! Everyone is impressed but puzzled by this sudden exhibition of professionalism by Barclay. This is just the start of his new and strange behavior. Barclay claims he can fix the Argus Array in two days rather than the projected 2-3 weeks. He does it in a really assholeish sort of way and makes every member of the bridge staff want to insert their fist into his jugular, but they accept his claim and they get crackin'. Deanna Troi is especially concerned about his capable and confident maner, because she knows quite well how ineffectual her psychoanalysis is and cannot comprehend Barclay actually benefitting from it. It must be... something else.

For some baffling reason, Crusher is still holding rehearsals for her awful plays. Barclay brings the house down, which is to be expected when a mousey, balding, wisp of a man raises his voice, pauses a lot, and gestures towards the ceiling. Troi is fucking drenched by his performance, and follows him to Ten Forward. Barclay overplays his hand with Troi and ends up overplaying it some more later that night. Tough break, Reg. It would have never worked out anyway, she's a Betazoid and would have quickly discovered your various sexual inclinations regarding cats.

The next morning, Geordi discovers Barclay hanging around the holodeck playing peek and poke with the holographic representation of Einstein. Geordi huffs and puffs and whines that Barclay is smarter than him now, which is just impossible god dammit. There's only room for ONE mentally broken manchild on THIS ship, you mealy mouthed motherfucker! Geordi drags Barclay to sick bay and it's discovered that his brain is now highly advanced, with both hemispheres working as one!

So during the testing, Crusher is able to detect that his imagination is enhanced. Just from some scans. How the fuck do you measure that shit? Density of Where The Wild Things Are-esque fantasies within the frontal cortex? Some manner of Lego-bin simulator? Who knows. The scene ends with Barclay nodding along like a boss when Crusher claims he may be the smartest man alive. Yeah, I knew that already bitch. No bigs.

The bridge staff meets to discuss the Barclay problem. While they admit that his vastly superior brainpower could be an issue for them in the future, they decide that it's okay to exploit him until they feel personally threatened. A very straightforward Federation-style meeting. There's also some really evident jealousy on the part of Riker when Troi brings up the fact that she almost hopped on Barclay's pop. Those writers really know how to cast some awful character depth. Or, alternatively, the writers are really good at writing for the characters they've devised and Riker is just a childish man-ape. I actually think that's more likely.

Emergency! The Automatic Plot Advancer, aka the Argus Array, is about to explode! The engineering staff can't contain that shit because their computers are all ghetto and shit, so Barclay is like "Enough o' THIS!" and rushes off to the holodeck to build his own computer using his ridiculous brain power. This results in him actually taking over control of the ship from the Enterprise computer, by means of a few laser tag guns aimed directly at his head combined with a few electrostatic balls.

Picard is clearly pissed, in his own listless way, and demands that Barclay remove himself from the computer. Barclay claims that he can't because his mind is basically within the computer now, so fuck off you bald asshole.

The bridge staff immediately begins to move against Barclay, crawling around the ship in some really hilarious looking overalls trying to cut off Barclay from the ship. Barclay engages Geordi in some banter, and despite his massively increased intelligence, Reg betrays the fact that he still has basically no social skills or comprehension. For example, he earnestly asks Geordi if people perceive him differently now that he's a fucking cyborg with half of his brain merged into a ship computer. Barclay, you are the worst.

Barclay tries to create a tear in subspace that will let the Enterprise travel distances that far exceed anything they could have conceived of before. All attempts to foil him fail, mainly because out of the entire engineering staff, they only assigned Geordi with the task of bypassing his control over the ship. Picard sends Worf down to the holodeck to motherfuckin' kill Barclay, which demonstrates just how pissed he is. This, of course, fails due to a force field and the fact that the holodeck set is being shaken by some teamsters backstage, knocking everyone over.

Barclay takes the ship into the subspace tear, and shit gets wild. Everything is in slow motion and every shot is blurred, like some awful throwback to The Motion Picture. During all of this, Worf stumbles up to the bridge in order to inform everyone that Barclay is protected by a force field. Thanks, Worf. See that little badge on your chest? Yeah? Ever try thumping that with your fist? Maybe some voices appeared from nowhere? Fuck you.

So the ship goes through the tear, and they arrive at the center of the galaxy. Turns out some super powerful race of floating heads re-programmed Barclay to bring the Enterprise to their planet so they could swap information. Their plan worked, and Barclay has been returned to normal. The Enterprise gets to spend 10 days with these ridiculously advanced beings, exchanging information and learning all about the galaxy.

Since all this knowledge had no effect on the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant, I assume that it was all locked away in the 24th century version of a giant warehouse full of wooden crates. This sort of shit happens, like, every other week to these guys.

Barclay is back to normal again and both Geordi and Troi are tickled pink that they're back to alpha status and can continue to mock and order him about. It's like the Chess Club had briefly overtaken the Football team in popularity - some terrible imbalance that they were glad to see corrected.

Also, Deanna decides to keep up her vague promise of letting Barclay take her out on a date and offhandedly delivers a sick burn when Barclay tells her she doesn't really have to follow through with it: "I know.". Fucking ouch.

There's also some hinting that Barclay has kept a small portion of his increased intelligence when he gives someone some bad chess advice. Could this be a set up for a sequel episode? Perhaps one where the Cytherians are not, in fact, the benevolent scholars that they present themselves to be? Maybe the data the Cytherians delivered to the Federation was actually sinister in nature, dark whisperings and madness inducing blasphemy leaking under, over, and between the very carefully structured phrasings in all of their texts. To read the Cytherian texts would be to unknowingly expose your fertile, impressionable, human mind to these hidden and unspeakable seeds of insanity. Once it takes hold, man would be driven to turn upon man in the most brutal and violent of fashions. Those that could not physically reached would have the dark message broadcast at them in every possible fashion, unceasing and omnipresent. Their minds would be wracked with a different sort of madness - the madness of a man trapped in a closet with an enemy forever clawing at the door, whispering quiet and terrible lies. Once the dark message had been spread to every possible corner of the galaxy it could reach, the billions of twisted and warped acolytes for the Cytherians would begin to alter their worlds for the arrival of their horrible and incomprehensible masters.

That would have been a good season 5 episode.

Anyway, I give this episode a 7.65/10.

Final Verdict: This Episode Rules Because I'm An Introverted Nerd And Identify With Barclay And Can See These Events Happening To Me.