| The Next Generation | |
| 87 | |
| Devil's Due | |
| 44474.5 | |
A lounge-room. Who is that pasty-faced gent in the floppy hat? It is Data, and he's playing Ebenezer Scrooge. He's trying to learn to perform so that he can understand what it is to be human. Small things amuse small positronic brains I guess.
Picard doesn't have time for his normal fawning pleasantries as he is called to the bridge as there is an emergency broadcast from a Federation science station. The station is now under attack from the formally peaceful residents and there is mass hysteria - dogs and cats living together!
The only member of the science team that they can get a successful transporter lock on is the leader, so they beam him up. He tells the sorry but true story of the Ventax people, who were once technologically advanced, but gave it all up a thousand years ago to return to an agrarian lifestyle. Basically a planet full of luddites. However the day was prophesied, when Ardra who had cured the worlds problems would return for their souls. Yeah right.
Picard, in an unusually bold move, beams down to the planet to talk to the leaders and beg for calm - and the return of the Federation hostages. He meets Jared, the leader of the Ventaxian people who knows that Ardra is about to return, and who has already called for his brown trousers. During their meaningless diatribe somebody beams in. A woman who says "Time's up".
It seems that this is the mythical Ardra, come back to claim her prize. Probably just another all powerful alien, but almost certainly not the Devil as Jared wants Picard to believe. Mind you, she does have quite an impressive shape changing ability, and her impression of the Klingon nasty is well... nasty. Worf doesn't believe it for a minute. She is, so she claims, many things to many peoples.
Picard, in a moment of testiness says "I refuse to abandon this planet to that woman". It seems to me that there are several possibilities here. Either (a) she is what she claims, in which case Picard is being really flippant to a superpowered alien; (b) she isn't what she claims, but this is part of their culture so the Federation shouldn't intervene - that's why they have the Prime Directive; or (c) she's a fraud. Picard immediately grasps option (c) and refuses to consider anything else. So that's what it takes to be a starship captain, an inability to see over your ego. Now we know why Riker's doing it...
Nevertheless, Picard is convinced that she is a fraud, and claims that he could duplicate all of her "tricks" with the technology that the Enterprise currently has. If so, why doesn't he produce his own "Ardra" and claim the planet for himself? Probably because the planet could never go where no-one has gone before!
Picard wanders back onto the bridge, feeling really smug, and is somewhat surprised to find Ardra draped over his bridge chair. What I want to know is why the Enterprise computer didn't immediately report an intruder alert. Probably because it is necessary to hold the plot of this episode together. He orders her beamed back to the planet, and the shields raised. However the ensign on duty turns out to be... Ardra. Quite impressive. We haven't seen anyone messing with Picard's mind like this since the last Q episode. In one of the best ambit claims of late, she claims the Enterprise as hers too, as it was orbiting the planet when the contract was concluded. I'm not sure that Starfleet is going to like this.
The Captain is now certain that she is a con artist, and is using fear to motivate the planet below. Much the same way the Paramount regularly uses boredom to motive us. Later that night, Ardra goes for the more direct approach, and tries to use lust to motivate Picard. She comes to him in his quarters and manages to get some privacy for them by disabling all communications. He nearly wavers as she appears as Troi, and I think that if she'd done a Dr Bev impersonation he would have been all over her like a rash. Picard obviously doesn't find her as intruiging as she wants, but we can put this down to the fact that he is still pining after the boy blunder. He remains as ice cold as ever, and Ardra beams him down to the planet in his pyjamas. How fitting.
Worf seems somewhat surprised that Picard is now on the planet, and again I am forced to wonder what use the ships internal sensors really are. Oh well, Data goes down in a shuttle to pick him up as the transporters are suffering some sort of interference. They get just about back to the Enterprise and are preparing for docking when... it disappears. Yep, the whole ship is missing. Picard is really unamused now, and they return to the planet below. At least now he has a uniform. In the science lab planetside, Geordi can't find the Enterprise anywhere withing one light-year of them. I can't wait to see the report, "I just put the Enterprise down for a moment, and when I went to pick it up it wasn't there!"
Data points out a legal loophole by which Picard can demand an arbitration, and of course, he does. Ardra doesn't seem impressed until he offers her anything if she wins. She picks him. I can't understand why. Data is chosen as the arbitrator as he will be thorough and honest. Great, Data the perfect plastic politician. The trial commences, and it is mostly a show of bravado from Picard and powers from Ardra. This isn't looking good for the captain as his potential new title "Sextoy" doesn't really suit him.
Meanwhile Geordi has been working on locating the source of mysterious Z-particle emissions that seem to occur when Ardra uses her powers. He finally correlates it to an apparently empty piece of space, orbiting the planet. I would have thrown a couple of photon torpedoes at it just to be sure. A bit of tuning shows it to be a cloaked ship based on some Romulan design. I'm somewhat amazed the Enterprise couldn't find it itself, since they could do something similar in ST:VI. Shhh, your spoiling the plot.
Picard, now completely pumped up, calmly claims that he can steal Ardra's powers, and then goes on to duplicate all of her feats, including turning himself into the Klingon nasty. He then blows the whole show by explaining how it was done to the Ventaxians, who promptly arrest Ardra - for fraud and attempted planetary theft. Doesn't he know that a good magician never reveals his tricks? Apparently not.
