Disaster - Peak TNG

[ananta]

The problem with “Disaster” for me is that it totally lacks tension, urgency and any real sense of threat. Perhaps that’s to do with the way it’s directed and scored? It’s a nice piece of fluff, it’s reasonably entertaining and fun, but it meanders and utterly lacks conviction and any real sense of drama (something common to a lot of season five).

 

[DonIago]

I suppose in this day and age if they made the episode they could more easily do FX work and such to amp up the peril perception, but for back then...I don't really know what else they were supposed to do, especially since it's a given that no major characters are going to die and the ship isn't going to blow up.

 

[ananta]

I suppose in this day and age if they made the episode they could more easily do FX work and such to amp up the peril perception, but for back then...I don't really know what else they were supposed to do, especially since it's a given that no major characters are going to die and the ship isn't going to blow up.

I think for me it was down to the rather limp directing and score. I found DS9’s attempt, “Civil Defence” a better episode (although it had Dukat and Garak, so it was always destined to be). Still, I do like “Disaster”; it’s just the pacing and tension is a little lacking.

 

[cgervasi]

Given the other choices of O'Brien (non-enlisted) or Ensign Ro (an ensign, obviously), who would you have put in command instead? Troi taking command wasn't supposed to be a situation that would tend to happen, it was just how the chips fell in this particular situation.

I think there's a specific protocol in the service for this. I think a chief, like O'Brien, outranks an Ensign. I think a Lieutenant outranks a chief, but the chief often has more experience, so the Lieutenant has to be careful to listen to a chief's advice and give them respect but not let the chief start acting like the boss. I think staff officers like doctors and lawyers are outside of this command structure and can only give orders in their narrow field of expertise.

This is just what I've gleaned from Star Trek and a little from what my dad told me about serving in the US Navy.

 

[fireproof78]

I think there's a specific protocol in the service for this. I think a chief, like O'Brien, outranks an Ensign. I think a Lieutenant outranks a chief, but the chief often has more experience, so the Lieutenant has to be careful to listen to a chief's advice and give them respect but not let the chief start acting like the boss. I think staff officers like doctors and lawyers are outside of this command structure and can only give orders in their narrow field of expertise.

This is just what I've gleaned from Star Trek and a little from what my dad told me about serving in the US Navy.

@Shamrock Holmes can correct me were I err, but when I last read the regulations on naval officers there were 3 types: line, unrestricted line, and staff. Line officers were specifically trained for command of a combat vessel and operated in a different chain of command, and could only be relieved within that chain. Unrestricted could move freely up and down that chain based upon operational authority.

Staff do not have combat authority to command line vessels or line officers.

An officer will generally always outrank an enlisted rate, even an Ensign. But, a smart Ensign will do well to listen to the senior chiefs as they usually have the experience to provide appropriate advice.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

@Shamrock Holmes can correct me were I err, but when I last read the regulations on naval officers there were 3 types: line, unrestricted line, and staff.

I'm by no means an expert, but that's sounds about right. Though it should be noted that navies are particularly strict on this, most other armed forces tend to grade all commissioned officers save medical/health services (and presumably most science officers).

Line officers were specifically trained for command of a combat vessel and operated in a different chain of command, and could only be relieved within that chain.

Unrestricted line officers are specifically trained for combat and can certainly only be relieved of command within that chain, though I'm less certain that they can't be relieved period within that chain. JAG and medical officers are both staff corps but probably have some general authority to do so.

Unrestricted could move freely up and down that chain based upon operational authority.

Up/across certainly. Down is probably fairly rare save for return to their primary post/assignment after "acting up".

Staff do not have combat authority to command line vessels or line officers.

Combat authority, no.

As noted above, they may have some administrative authority over line officers within their own competencies.

Certain Restricted Line and Chief Warrant Officers may also be appointed to command positions (mostly ashore) within their own communties, though some CWOs can also be appointed to command boats or minor non-combat ships.

An officer will generally always outrank an enlisted rate, even an Ensign. But, a smart Ensign will do well to listen to the senior chiefs as they usually have the experience to provide appropriate advice.

Absolutely true up to junior NCOs, senior NCOs are a bit more complicated as they can be viewed as having a certain amount of "delegated authority" from the commissioned officer that they are advisor/aide to.

 

[Qonundrum]

The problem with “Disaster” for me is that it totally lacks tension, urgency and any real sense of threat. Perhaps that’s to do with the way it’s directed and scored? It’s a nice piece of fluff, it’s reasonably entertaining and fun, but it meanders and utterly lacks conviction and any real sense of drama (something common to a lot of season five).

I vaguely recall, but DS9's "Starship Down" took aspects of "Disaster" and retooled them - and for the better. I remember not quite liking it first time around because I was hung up on "Oh now they're copying TNG plots like how TNG copies TOS plots", but a later rewatch had me appreciating the heck out of it. Definitely is worth a rewatch...

 

[DonIago]

I'd say SD is kind of a hybrid of "Disaster" and "Balance of Terror". "Disaster" for the crew being paired off in unconventional ways, BoT for the enemy threat that Our Heroes need to come up with clever ways to defeat.

 

[kkt]

Given the other choices of O'Brien (non-enlisted) or Ensign Ro (an ensign, obviously), who would you have put in command instead? Troi taking command wasn't supposed to be a situation that would tend to happen, it was just how the chips fell in this particular situation.

This question would be easier to answer if we figured out what the heck O'Brien's rank actually was.

 

[JesterFace]

I recently watched 'Disaster'.
Because Deanna is a bridge officer, or at least is on the bridge quite often, in this episode she was pretty clueless what to do and kept asking others what's going on.
She might need few lessons before taking a position like that.
Well, she eventually had some training in season 7 but.... surprisinly clueless.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

This question would be easier to answer if we figured out what the heck O'Brien's rank actually was.

YMMV, but IMO 10 (+1 via retcon) years of implicit and explicit references to him being a Chief (Petty Officer/Specialist) in dialogue, including specific references to his transfer from the E-D being a promotion trump a long running but inconsistent wardrobe element.

But then I'm probably biased as I actually want enlisted and NCO personnel (or an analogous equivalent) in Starfleet, unlike most who argue that the wardrobe element and a single unscripted ambiguous bit of dialogue should trump the vast amount of contrary datapoints.

 

[JesterFace]

Which is more reliable, the pips on a collar or how somebody is mentioned in a sentence?
Pips can be put on wrong accidentally, how others mention the rank might be more reliable?

 

[Farscape One]

For a comparable situation, look at roughly half of VOYAGER season 1, when Tuvok wore Lt. Cmdr. pips, but was always referred to as 'Lieutenant'. Lt. Commanders are typically called either 'Lt. Cmdr.' or 'Commander', not 'Lieutenant'.

And as we saw, Tuvok was promoted to Lt. Cmdr. in season 4's "REVULSION".

Clearly, his season 1 pips were an error. (In fact, everyone in season 1 had an error with their pips, except Janeway and Kim.)

 

[kkt]

Which is more reliable, the pips on a collar or how somebody is mentioned in a sentence?
Pips can be put on wrong accidentally, how others mention the rank might be more reliable?

I can just see a costumer getting O'Brien's costume ready and reading the script, "Chief? We don't have any insignia for a chief. There's no time to run it all the way up to the producer. I'll just stick a pip on his collar and call it good."

 

[Doug Otte]

By luck of the fact that P+ has never been available here in sunny Vietnam, we have never lost Star Trek from Netflix. None of the movies are available, but TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VGR, ENT and now PRO are all available in their entirety.

Now, a little background. I last watched TNG in a marathon somewhere between 2006-2007 and I have not revisited the vast majority in the intervening years. I have at times rewatched some of the 'event' episodes like Yesterday's Enterprise, Relics, The Best of Both Worlds, I Borg, Tapestry and so on, but in almost 20 years (wow) there are vast amounts of TNG episodes that I've only seen once... episodes that honestly I barely remember at all.

So, as of late I've been on a bit of a TNG kick, but I've been deliberately avoiding the above mentioned type of episode. That means no Q, no Borg, no Lore, no Sela... no sequels or 'big' episodes like Reunification. I suppose what you would call the 'nuts and bolts' TNG. The ones that just tell a story already.

Now this has had mixed results, but just tonight I watched the Season 5 episode, Disaster and... I don't know what you guys think of it, but I think it's a TNG masterpiece. It has an A plot (Troi in Command and butting heads with Ro), a B plot (Picard in the turbo lift with the kids), a C plot (Geordi and Crusher putting out a plasma fire), a D plot (Riker and Data) and an E plot (Worf delivering Keiko's baby) and somehow resolves everyone one of them.

Troi grows and so does Ro. Picard is richer and better for his experience and so are the kids and Worf smiles (and gosh he's beautiful when he does). Crusher and Geordi almost get flushed out of an airlock.

The whole thing just rolls along and never feels slow. There’s always something happening and tension rises in each plot as it goes.

I also loved that it avoided the obvious TNG pairings. Worf with Keiko, Riker with Data, Geordi with Crusher, Troi with Ro and Picard with kids. Very good. It brought different things out of each character.

It only struck me towards the end that this was a 'cheap' episode. A bottle episode. No new sets. Very few new guest actors. No other ships. No new shots of the Enterprise... but gosh, I just loved it. My wife likes Star Trek somewhat and can quite easily be coaxed into watching an episode and I wanna watch this again with her when she's back in a few days.

Anyway, I loved it enough to make a thread, which is more than I can say for the last few I watched. A TNG masterpiece IMO. What do you guys think of it?

I finally got around to rewatching it last night, and enjoyed it more than I remembered. I agree that it used all of the regular and recurring cast well. There were some touching moments.

A few nitpicky notes:
1) Having just finished Sweet Tooth with my wife, seeing Rosalind Chao from 35 years ago reminded me how beautiful she was.
2) I first watched TNG on-air in its first run, and recorded most episodes on tape. Then, I bought the DVD sets. Now I have the blu-ray sets. With each upgrade, the quality moves ahead by leaps and bounds. However, now that I've gotten spoiled w/ 4k/HDR/Dolby Vision content, when I watch blu-rays again, I can see HD's limitations. Blacks are crushed, and there's occasional smearing or macroblocking. Later seasons of TNG, which featured very dark cinematography, in particular have crushed blacks, like this episode.
3) In HD, details are visible that could never be seen on-air. I particularly noticed the interior of the turbolift, where we can see nails, wood texture, and paint bubbles.
4) For a bottle episode, they still added a lot of new details, such as the turbolift shaft, ladders, containers, and new angles in 10 Forward.
5) Gabrielle Beaumont did an excellent job directing this one.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Having just finished Sweet Tooth with my wife, seeing Rosalind Chao from 35 years ago reminded me how beautiful she was.

I recently caught her in Sweet Tooth too. The Three Body Problem as well.

Time may be cruel, but all of us get old some time or another. I’m happy she’s still working.

 

[Qonundrum]

I finally got around to rewatching it last night, and enjoyed it more than I remembered. I agree that it used all of the regular and recurring cast well. There were some touching moments.

A few nitpicky notes:
1) Having just finished Sweet Tooth with my wife, seeing Rosalind Chao from 35 years ago reminded me how beautiful she was.

+1

2) I first watched TNG on-air in its first run, and recorded most episodes on tape. Then, I bought the DVD sets. Now I have the blu-ray sets. With each upgrade, the quality moves ahead by leaps and bounds. However, now that I've gotten spoiled w/ 4k/HDR/Dolby Vision content, when I watch blu-rays again, I can see HD's limitations. Blacks are crushed, and there's occasional smearing or macroblocking. Later seasons of TNG, which featured very dark cinematography, in particular have crushed blacks, like this episode.

Might some of that be due to compression during encoding? (5 episodes per blu-ray disc is the absolute maximum; 4 is more commonly the standard.) Not to mention streaming, where this stuff will be compressed even more to reduce bitrate, which is needed to keep chances of bandwidth saturation lower... TOS had not dissimilar problems when it came to crush on blu, and I don't think the local TV node needs calibrating (Though it's technically another possibility. That said, the remastering was rather first rate and any nitpicks on this level are incredibly minimal...)

3) In HD, details are visible that could never be seen on-air. I particularly noticed the interior of the turbolift, where we can see nails, wood texture, and paint bubbles.

That's 100% source material goodness captured in the original filming. Now imagine if they did 4K restoration for TNG like what was done for Friends and a handful of music videos?

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I knew of the cardboard (esp. seasons 1 and 2) and, of course, Data feeding Spot catfood with a side order of fly, and a few other bits and pieces of booboo, but these cats point out so much more that it's impossible to not be impressed...

4) For a bottle episode, they still added a lot of new details, such as the turbolift shaft, ladders, containers, and new angles in 10 Forward.

I still miss the exterior-looking-in shot of 10-Forward like in season 2, but the rest... and season 5 replaced the styrofoam ships with that generic office room for whatever reason. Looks good, true, but the original room clearly had more going on as even the 90s flicks returned to a style similar to it.

5) Gabrielle Beaumont did an excellent job directing this one.

+1. My issues are solely with the script. The acting is on par and the direction is robust.