Darmok
Season Five proper gets underway with this episode, in which a unique and
very bizarre linguistic stunt attempts to underpin the drama in
a disappointingly formulaic Trek action plot.
As I am a very keen student of the basic grammar of a wide variety
of real Earth languages (in other words, Klingon excluded), you might guess
that this story would be just my thing. But no.
I consider this episode decent, but I don't much care for it half as much
as most other fans seem to. The bottom line for me is that I really
don't find the premise of it to be very believable, especially
in the way it artificially triggers an old, overused, BORING straightjacket
of plot-movements (or lack there-of) for the characters.
The race we meet here, known as "The Children of Tama", could never
properly function in precisely the way they are presented here.
Perhaps to begin to look at them properly, I think we need to look at
what does work about them. Buried in the middle of the show is a really
good bit of detail that gives us our best handle on something that might work.
It is said that their psychological make-up features an underdeveloped ego,
and that they thrive on citing example as both a means of not only
communicating, but also thinking. That's absolutely fabulous, and I'd
go with that concept 100%. Now, where would that lead them? I'd say
that's justification enough for them to develop a language where everything
is expressed in the third person. In other words, they never say "I"
or "me" or "you" or "us" or "our". They can only conjugate verbs
for "he, she, it" and "they". I can swallow the premise enough
to go that far with it.
But to limit their communication to the point where they can only manage
a litany of proper names as they attempt first contact with another culture....
No, I'm sorry, this renders them far too BACKWARDS to be able to build
spacecraft and fly around the galaxy. Such a form of communication
would indicate a society in great regress, their ideas recycled back upon
each other and suffering Beaudrillard's decay of meaning with each iteration.
They could not possibly grow within such a strict limitation.
We should also notice here how they don't really stick to that strict limitation
throughout the whole episode. Their stories are embellished with a lot of
phrases with proper third person grammar. And in fact, how could you ever
revel in or express any of these high-level ideas of communication such as
mythological tales and examples without first developing the lower level
stages of communication like words, verbs, nouns, and the grammar that puts
them together?
One of the great missing pieces of the puzzle for this episode's credibility
is the concept of education in the society of the "Children of Tama".
How do they teach their children all these mythological stories, and pass on
the meaning of so many different proper names, to the point where they
can enjoy a spacefaring technology? We can, of course, come up with a number
of answers to that question, but then logically, those answers also need to
show up in the episode, as things that Captain Dathon might attempt with
Picard and crew. Would they not show them videos, or put on plays,
or at least attempt an exchange of literature or something? A Rosetta stone
for their language? Could they not have tried beaming over a copy
of Dathon's Captain's log, instead of having Picard steal a glimpse of it
by accident on the planet? If they are so obsessed with imagery, why
are they even attempting to be verbal talking heads across their visual
communications channel? Shouldn't it be more of a montage of images instead?
[Haha, think of the challenge that would inject into Star Trek's budget!]
Indeed, it is the sequence of methods that the "Children of Tama" use to
attempt communication which doesn't quite ring true. Remember, they start
off on a brilliant note, sending a signal containing a simple mathematical
progression. This demonstrates that, not only do they understand mathematics,
but also that they are capable of thinking about what they might have in
common with other species, and that they recognize the importance of starting
with the simple basics (grammar falls into this category) before building
up to the higher levels of advanced communication (mythological metaphor
depending on proper names falls into this category).
So now, can we really believe that a society would be space-faring and intelligent,
begin contact with mathematics, proceed with a litany of proper names upon
meeting face-to-face,
and.... here comes the real kicker:
ignore all kinds of other sensible approaches, to instead
resort to one of the most boring and overused
Star Trek action plots instead.?!
Ye Olde Stuck Plot Re-run
Holy cow! This is perhaps my biggest beef with the episode. I really don't
like episodes that trap one (or several) of the regular characters on a planet against
their wishes, predictably for the middle 80% of its screentime. It puts my
emotions on automatic disengage, and I want to fast-forward to the end of the show,
when you know they'll finally be allowed to come back unscathed. TV Trek has
been overusing that formula since it began in the 1960's. Today's example
of forced bonding through a shared hardship is filled with a lot of other
overused dramatic clichés as well, most icky of all being the reverence
surrounding the pointless noble sacrifice of Captain Dathon's life by the writers.
Not very original, and to my tastes, not satisfying at all.
A friend of mine remarked what a shocking moment it was when Picard was
caught in the transporter beam, and frustratingly couldn't help his new found
friend and ally. I was a bit less than impressed, having seen another example
that engaged my emotions to a far greater degree in
Part 8 of "The Trial of a Time Lord"
(and really, do watch the earlier 7 parts first or the moment won't have
the proper impact).
Some have suggested that, yes, since Tamarian society must be regressive to have
developed a metaphor language but lost the basic grammer, perhaps this is
a splinter group from some other culture. I like that idea, but it
highlights other problems. It suggests that the Tamarians' galactic social circle
is shrinking, which means something more should already be known about them or
their galactic cousins, when in fact it is shown that they are really
only just trying to start their galactic social circle for the first time.
I think we should also expect to find a race limited by these linguistic concepts
should be experiencing a decline in technical capabilities as well.
And one of my biggest frustrations with the dull planetary captivity plot trap
into which this episode eagerly jumps is that, not only do Picard and Dathon
not end up in their shared-hardship scenario in some organic fashion,
but the Tamarians contrive the silly idea,
and despite their backwardness have the technical capability to overpower the
considerable abilities of the Enterprise long enough to carry it out.
A further frustration is that our Federation characters, who have enough friends
in the galaxy to not really NEED contact with the Tamarians, make all the effort
to learn the Tamarian way of talking with its decay of meaning, but the Tamarians
are seen to make very little effort to grasp the basic grammar of the more flexible
languages of other races, when they really have no other friends out here yet,
AND need a basic grammar to get back onto a path of growth. Really, the kidnapping
they perform instead of anything else not only seems ridiculous on their part,
but it saddles us with watching a boring stretched-out plot, and their captain does not survive
the stupid move. Our Federation characters learn something during this tale,
but will they really WANT further contact with the Tamarians
and their kidnapping ways? Meanwhile, none of the surviving Tamarians
have really learned anything, and it is doubtful they have made friends here.
I think a Star Trek episode needs to do MUCH better than this
if we are to elevate it to any grand status.
Also quite prominently making its debut in this story is a new piece of
wardrobe for Picard: An outer jacket in his traditional red colour code for
command, which hangs loose enough to reveal the very dull bluish-grey
basic tunic underneath. Although the jacket idea is okay, I was never
too enamoured with the outfit, particularly the dullness of the undergarment,
which left Picard sporting the wrong colour in many jacket-less scenes later
in the season. It seems a bit bizarre for him to be wearing such an "outdoorsy"
outfit at the beginning of this story, as though he knows in advance that
he's going to be captured and suddenly end up on location. Plus, as with
many of the other old Trek clichés getting another tired outing
in this episode, he follows one of Kirk's great traditions in getting
his new shirt ripped and thoroughly ruined while having his exciting
action adventure, and then it is miraculously replaced for the
rest of the season. Time to sigh, do a faceplant, and empathize with Kif
from "Futurama".
No, this story just didn't do it for me. It's not bad in some ways,
gives you something interesting to think about, and has a number of
worthy scenes that work. But I think to really explore the central
idea properly and do it justice, the society of "The Children of Tama"
needs to be fleshed out much better, and the episode needs a completely
different plot that arises organically out of that society's communication challenges.
This early season five gimmick didn't produce all that great an episode
in the end.
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