Title: When The Bough Breaks
Airdate: 2/15/1988
Plot Summary
The Enterprise has found some interesting signals in the Epsilon Mynos system that may be the place of the mythical Aldea, a legend almost as enticing as the lost city of Atlantis. As they arrive, an entire planet decloaks, revealing that the legend is true. Aldea.
The Aldeans have technology far ahead of the Federation but they don’t seem to know how it works, just how to use it through their main computer, the Custodian. They are also sterile and need new healthy people to continue as a race. They take 7 of the children on the Enterprise and then begin negotiations on recompense. Of course the crew will not accept anything less than getting their children back so the Aldeans push the Enterprise 3 days away to think about it.
The children, led by Wesley, decide to begin passive resistance while Crusher examines the data she was able to get from a tricorder scan. She finds out that the Aldeans are dying and their technology is the reason. Can Picard talk sense into their leader or will they take the children away forever?
Make It So
Picard clearly will not give up the kids to Aldeans but he clearly understands that just beating his chest will get them nowhere. The Aldeans can just turn back on their shield and cloak and disappear and there would be nothing he can do about it. He instead plays the game with the Aldeans to stall long enough to finally come to the solution.
Number 1
Riker is really excited about finding Aldea. Riker goes to the planet with Data to mess up the custodian. Considering the episode started with him getting slammed into by a 10 year old to the point he was limping, and then went on and on about Aldea, he really didn’t do much.
Fully Functional
Data is able to work with Geordi to find the holes in the shield to beam through. He also scrambles the input to the custodian rendering the Aldeans powerless.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Worf does very little.
Phase Inducers
Geordi is the one who finds the holes in the shield.
Counselor Cleavage
Troi senses that the Aldeans want something very badly from them. Didn’t know it would be the kids.
Dancing Doctor
Crusher is quite a bit more level headed in this situation than she was in Justice. Granted, this wasn’t Wesley’s impending death so it wasn’t quite as urgent but still. She also is able to get Wesley a tricorder scanner to scan the Aldean surreptitiously and then use the data to figure out what’s wrong with them.
She also is the de facto leader of the parents when they discuss what to do with Picard and does a great job supporting him.
Security Chief Dead Meat
Yar has no idea what Aldea is so Riker has to excitedly tell her all about the legends.
Shut Up, Wesley
Wesley is actually quite good in this episode. He “cooperates” by getting information on the custodian and helping calm the kids. Later he organizes a passive resistance where they just sit at a table and refuse to eat or talk with the Aldeans.
Canon Maker
Aldea is discovered and we see that this planet has tech way above the Federation. This is really the first time we’ve seen that with the exception of Q.
Canon Breaker
The viewscreen of the Enterprise is not just a giant flatscreen monitor, it has a weird 3d quality to it. If you look at it from the side to see the viewer looking at it as well as the person on the screen, to you it will look like your looking at the side of their face while person look directly at the screen will be looking directly into the person’s face. We’ll see that a few times in the show. However here, it’s just two dimensional.
A Little Bloody Nose
No deaths!
Technobabble
A cloak works by bending light around an object. On a ship, it bends around the ship but those on the inside are shielded from its effects by being in an enclosed space with their own illumination. On a planetary scale, not sure how that would work as light comes from the sun. No one would be able to see anything, at least outside. Since we only see them indoors, that may be why never see anyone outdoors, as well as why the Aldeans have a sensitivity to light. The only light that would work would be generated from housing and buildings. Given how they use a transporter to go from building to building, I actually think this works, rather than being a canon breaker.
Library Computer
Will Wheaton’s younger brother and sister played some of the non-speaking kids as well as make-up supervisor Michael Westbrook’s daughter.
I Know That Guy:
Jerry Hardin plays Radue. He’s had a long career as a character actor. He’ll be back as Mark Twain in the season 5 finale and season 6 premier Time’s Arrow.
In a before they were famous moment, Brenda Strong plays Rachella. She’s radiant in the part. She’ll go on to a pretty successful career, mostly known for the narrator in Desperate Housewives.
Paul Lambert plays Melian. He’ll be back in season 4’s The Devil’s Due.
Jandi Swanson plays Katie. She’ll play a few more kid roles in the 90s, most notably in Ladybugs, but be out of acting in the early 2000’s.
Ivy Bethune plays Duana. She only passed away in 2019 at the ripe old age of 101. She was a working actor, but the only role you might know her in was Ma Peabody in Back To The Future. That makes 2 Trek actors in that movie.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
This is actually a good idea for an episode and really feels like a TOS script. A couple of ideas strike me in this. One is just in this story and one that I think lays the groundwork of an interesting theme I’ve noticed throughout all the series.
The first one is a society that has stagnated due to technology, and not just because of the shield screwing with their genetics. They basically a bunch of hippie artists that have completely forgotten how to solve problems. They know how to work the equipment they have but they don’t know how the equipment itself world. Wesley rightly points out that they are in big trouble if it ever breaks.
I hesitate to call this a communist society, rather I think this is a combination of issues that could plague us. We already have people who have no idea where friggin food comes from, they honestly believe it’s the store. Our genius of tech is removing obstacles to overcome. This in turn stagnates us and will lead to our destruction. Hell even our birthrate is bad, even though for very different reasons than the Aldean problem.
Secondly, and this is just something I see in the show, rather than something the writers planned out. When the Next Generation starts, it’s a point in history where the Federation doesn’t have a ton of problems. The Klingons aren’t a threat anymore, the Romulans have retreated into the Empire and the Federation has become a little arrogant. The proof is putting kids on a starship that could end up in some terrifying situations.
As we’ll see throughout the show, kids get put in some pretty bad danger just from being on the ship. Picard really isn’t happy about a ship load of children but mostly because he’s just uncomfortable with kids, not because he disagrees with the policy.
Yet here we are meeting a civilization that has technology far above what the Federation does and the first thing they do is kidnap the kids. Now granted, they had good intentions, in so far they didn’t take the kids for a blood sacrifice or anything, but as the various shows progress, we’ll see some pretty horrific things that anyone with an ounce of common sense will realize that kids should be on earth.
I liken it to how people in the west countries think they can go to whatever third world shit hole on this planet and nothing will happen to them. Possibly true, but a damn stupid risk to take.
Again, this is something I think just kind of happened organically over the course of the various shows but it’s interesting to think about.
As far as this episode, it’s really more interesting talking about all these generalities than the actual episode itself. It’s nothing to write home about. It’s not terrible, it’s not great, it’s just there.
Though I do have to give a tip of the hat to the last scene where they look at the power source. The model and integration of the characters into the scene is fantastic looking, even now.
