Title: Up The Long Ladder
Airdate: 5/22/1989
Plot Summary
The Enterprise answers a distress call that is centuries old, though it just started recently. The Enterprise is ordered to investigate and discover the Bringloidy, an ancient earth colony that ended up on this planet, only for solar flares to make the planet unlivable. They also find another colony that were also on that ship that crashed with only 5 surviving. They turned to cloning to survive. But cloning is just as much of problem to their civilization as that solar flare is to the Bringloidy. Hmm, I wonder what the solution might be?
Make It So
At first Picard is miffed at all this nonsense, what with the farm animals and the screaming daughter and what not. But at one point he just starts laughing, realizing that sometimes you just have to bow to the absurd.
Number 1
Riker wastes no time getting him a little redhead booty.
Fully Functional
Data has a hilarious moment where he identifies the name of the ship, Mariposa, as the spanish word for “butterfly.” He thought it might be relevant to which Picard says it isn’t. So many times on TOS and the subsequent series the name of the ship provides a clue to the theme of the episode. Here it doesn’t, almost as if the writer’s are acknowledging that sometimes a name is just a name.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Worf gets the Klingon Measles which causes him to faint dead away on the bridge. Pulaski covers for him. He in turn performs the Klingon tea ceremony, which is apparently deadly to humans.
He also finds the first person to ever intimidate him,
Phase Inducers
Geordi can see lies with his visor. I bet there’s going to be a lot episodes in the future where I’m going to call him out for not using this ability.
Counselor Cleavage
Deanna is not much help, only finds that the clone prime minister is hiding something but she doesn’t know what.
Doctor Not Bones
Pulaski knows the Klingon Tea ceremony. One wonders how she knows so much about Klingon rituals, but although she had no desire to eat any of the food, she did recognize Riker’s meal way back in A Matter Of Honor. I bet there’s some interesting backstory with her and the Klingons.
Shut Up, Wesley
Wesley sits this one out.
Guinan?!
Nope.
Enlisted Man
O’Brien might be Irish but he is just as alienated by the Bringloidy as the rest of the crew.
Canon Maker
The European Hegemony is supposedly the first stirrings of world government in the early 22nd century. This would be just before Enterprise’s time so that tracks. It was mid to later 22nd century that the Federation was created.
Canon Breaker
Riker destroys both he and Pulaski’s clones. Why isn’t he in prison? In fact in the first season of DS9, Odo captures a guy and states the “murdering your own clone is still murder.” I suppose you could call it an abortion but it still seems like he shouldn’t have.
Why did the hay come up with everything else when they beamed up the first group of Bringloidy? We never see that happen in other transports. Maybe they asked them to bring it up as well.
A Little Bloody Nose
Two clones die.
Technobabble
The Enterprise has fire dissipation force fields. We will never see these actually work when they need it to.
Please Repeat Your Communication
Lieutenant Worf: Madam, have you ever considered a career in Security?
Brenna Odell: If it’s anything like babysitting, I’m an authority!
—- Worf being unable to intimidate Brenna in the slightest.
Library Computer
The title is part of the traditional Irish expression “Up the long ladder and down the short rope”, i.e. being executed by hanging.
Originally this was to be titled “Send In The Clones.” It was dropped but Danilo says it at the end of the episode.
I Know That Guy:
Barrie Ingham plays the very Irish Danilo Odell. He’s been in a fair amount, but I surprised to find he was the voice of Basil of Baker Street, the lead role in The Great Mouse Detective.
Jon De Vries plays the various clones of Wilson and Victor Granger. He’s been in a fair amount of stuff, but nothing that stands out to me.
Rosalyn Landor is the formidable Brenna Odell. She’s a firecracker in the role but also pretty damn gorgeous when she isn’t screaming at people. She hasn’t done a ton, but does narrate a lot of audiobooks.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
If there was ever an episode in TNG that I would peg as an obvious TOS episode, this would be it. I could totally see Kirk bringing up a bunch of Irish stereotypes, murdering clones, and of course banging the prettiest Irish lady. Even the music has that Irish tinge to it, which sounds a lot like some of the lighter moments in a few TOS episodes.
And the plot isn’t completely out of left field. Two groups of colonists, one a utopian anti-technologists, and one full of scientists share a ship to new places, something happens and they lose contact with Earth and each other. The cloners did what they must to survive and the utopians build an old fashioned society. Finally circumstances bring them together to solve their mutual problems.
I honestly can’t decide if it’s a bad episode or not, but it’s definitely weird. But I do have some fundamental problems with it, first and foremost Riker killing what looked like nearly fully formed clones. Forget for a moment that most likely the clones would start out babies just like we do, just murdering them is damn cold. I understand Riker’s objections but what’s done is done. If that’s the case, why not murder everyone else? They’re just clones too.
I don’t know if the writer’s had the abortion debate in mind, but if they were thinking that Pulaski and Riker were raped (which you could make a case for), I still don’t think that compares. If they never found out, that would’ve been the end of it. An actual rape victim would have to carry a baby to term, adding another 9 months to the trauma. My own vehement objections to abortion notwithstanding, it is the one case that I’m sympathetic to. Comparing that to this situation, even metaphorically, feels really tone deaf.
However what I do know is this is supposed to be some sort of pro-immigration story. Melissa Snodgrass said so, with the whole “we can all live together with our differences” mantra. I think our fellow writers here from the UK can tell you, not everyone can.
To be honest, this is a few paragraphs of me trying to make lemonade from lemons, as there’s really not that much to talk about regarding the episode itself. It’s weird but it’s also forgettable.
