Title: The Icarus Factor
Airdate: 4/24/1989
Plot Summary
Riker gets offered a captaincy of his own ship. His father, a high ranking civilian advisor who turns out to be his estranged father, Kyle. He has to weigh his career options with also dealing with his resentment for his father.
Elsewhere Worf is unusually grumpy and Wesley takes it upon himself to figure out what’s bothering him, and the ship undergoes an inspection that really rubs the engineering crew wrong.
Make It So
Picard gives Riker genuinely good perspective on what his choices are. First officer on the flagship, one named Enterprise and all the history that goes with that, is a position of prestige, with its own rewards. But it’s not the same as the center seat, even on a more obscure ship in a distant part of the quadrant.
Number 1
Riker is being a big ol titty baby in this one. I swear he’s throwing tantrums just to throw them. At one point Kyle gets him alone to talk, Riker complains why he hasn’t heard from him. Well he’s here now but Will just stomps off. I have no idea based on what I’m hearing from the past if he’s justified or not, but it doesn’t seem like Kyle beat him or anything, it was just the basic inability to connect with each other in grief.
Riker also has to make this big decision on taking this assignment.
Fully Functional
Data figures out what is actually wrong with the monitor as opposed to a problem with the ship. He supports Geordi that it’s insulting that the starbase went over it with a fine tooth comb, and helps Wesley with figuring out the Ascension ceremony.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Worf gets his anniversary of his Age Of Ascension, filled with pals and pain sticks. He gets a great line when he tells Data “With all due respect– BEGONE!! … Sir.” Still he’s grateful to the senior staff for giving him this day. I think he really started to understand that being Klingon doesn’t always mean you have to be with Klingons.
Phase Inducers
Geordi pushes Wes to figure out Worf’s problem on his own. He also spends most of the episode being grumpy about the inspection.
Counselor Cleavage
Deanna is really heartbroken at the thought of Riker leaving. First he pouts when he thought she was leaving, and now she’s all weepy if he leaves, yet neither of them will just kiss and bang already.
Doctor Not Bones
Pulaski is not happy about Kyle and Riker taking out their frustrations on each other in the ring. Oh give it a rest. This is what dudes do. She also attends the ascension ceremony, where Deanna would not.
Shut Up, Wesley
Wesley figures out what’s wrong with Worf and works with Data and Geordi to set up the ascension ceremony. I’ll give him credit as he’s just curious and wants to help. If Worf yelled at me like that, I’d hole up in my quarters for a few days trying to clean up my shorts.
Enlisted Man
I will have this for O’Brien as he’s more and more having moments in this show. Here he has a nice discussion with Riker, scoffs at Geordi being all butthurt about the inspection, and attends Worf’s ceremony.
Canon Maker
This is the second time Riker will be offered the captain’s chair. It won’t be the last.
We find out a little of Riker’s upbringing in Alaska, that his father is well known and liked in Starfleet, and a little about Riker’s mother, namely that she passed when he was a child, though that was mentioned in the last episode.
Flaherty, who is unseen, speaks 40 different languages. Among the races we know like Klingon and Romulan, we get a couple of new ones: Giamon and Stroyerian.
12 years ago, the Federation was still in conflict with the Tholians, telling me they are still around. Sometime between The Tholian Web and now, the Tholians and the Federation were in some sort of war, or at least low level conflict.
Canon Breaker
Pulaski says that it never came up that Kyle and her had known each other. Except the very last episode when they were having bad eggs. When Riker mentioned that he learned to cook from his father, she says “Your father?” in a tone that clearly implies she knows nothing about him.
AmboJitsu looks like the stupidest sport imaginable. Riker says Kyle cheated, I have no idea how.
Riker giving Klag so much criticism for not talking to his father really seems hypocritical now.
A Little Bloody Nose
No deaths.
Technobabble
So apparently the check engine light can come on even on a starship and mean jack shit, just like today.
Please Repeat Your Communication
Riker (after seeing his father kiss Pulaski): They know each other?
O’Brien: No kidding. I know her too, but we don’t do that.
— Riker incredulous that Pulaski and his father had a romantic relationship and O’Brien sarcastically noting Riker is stating the obvious.
Library Computer
Anbo-jitsu (or anbo-jyutsu), the fictitious sport shown in this episode, involves fighting with staffs while blindfolded. In Japanese, “An” means dark (i.e. blindfolded), “Bo” means staff, and “Jyutsu” means technique or skill. While it is written in the script as “Anbo-jyutsu”, Kyle and William Riker pronounce it as “Anbo-jitsu”. Dumb americans always messing up the language.
I Know That Guy:
Mitchell Ryan plays Kyle Riker. He was on many things, including Greg’s father on Dharma and Greg. I remember him most as the total evil bastard in the first Lethal Weapon movie, but he’s been in a ton of stuff.
In an uncredited cameo, the king of bland himself, John Tesh plays one of the Klingons.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
This episode with Riker getting over his crap with his mother dying and chaffing against his father would work a lot better if Riker was still in his early 20s or late teens. But an accomplished man in mid 30s, first officer on a starship, who has probably seen and dealt with all kinds of personal issues with other crewmembers, else he could not have risen to the rank of leadership he has.
So instead of feeling sympathy for Riker, he just comes across as bitter jerk. Of course his father wasn’t any better. It’s difficult to tell how old Riker was when his mother died. He seems to have remembered her, so I would guess around 5, given Kyle says he raised him for 13 years. But Kyle says he was just a baby when she died. That might be just keeping with the whole Fathers/Sons theme Pulaski and Troi were talking about.
The Anbojitsu fight is ridiculous, especially since they are clearly wearing motocross gear.
Riker decides to stay because he’s in the opening credits. If this were reality (such as it could be), no way anyone would turn down their own command. But Riker keeps doing it. At least later on they attempt to address his unwillingness a bit more.
Then there’s Worf’s ceremony. I guess it’s nice the crew did that for him, but it’s not really compelling. It’s like everyone forgot his birthday so he’s mopey. While Worf was always big on celebrating Klingon tradition, never thought he would mope around to this extent if he couldn’t for some reason.
It’s just meh after meh in this episode. So it gets a lower-meh rating.
