Schisms

As TNG begins to run out of good titles, the writing team reach for the thesaurus

Riker is tossing and turning on his shiny space pillow while the Enterprise mills around a globular cluster. Then, he can barely keep awake during Data's delivery of “Ode to Spot”. That’s the riveting teaser: Riker nodding off. Thrilling stuff. After the credits, everyone’s acting weirdly - Worf nearly decks Mr Mot the Bolian Barber for trying to cut his hair, and it seems as if someone’s arm was taken off and reattached like they were an unloved action figure. Eventually, we discover that it’s a bunch of clicky alien abductors who’ve been anally probing the Enterprise crew just for larks. This, folks, is our story this week.

Words

To be honest, I’d completely forgotten this episode existed - with the singular exception of Data’s poetry reading in the teaser - and even this reappears in “A Fistful of Datas”, so I could in fact have completely forgotten this episode.

The poetry reading was apparently an idea that had been kicking around for quite a while looking for a home. It ended up here, the second of four pitches by Jean Louise Matthias and Ron Wilkerson, polished up by Brannon Braga, who got the teleplay credit and by all accounts wasn’t very into this one:

Getting kidnapped by aliens is not very fresh. I was more interested in those first four acts, the mystery and the weirdness and seeing our people losing their minds, which is not something you get to see very often.

I cannot find anyone who was happy with this episode. Neither Braga, Michael Piller, nor the director, Robert Weimer, were happy with the look of the aliens. Braga was additionally annoyed that the trailer for the episode gave away everything that happens with in it. (This is a common problem with trailers for me - I try to avoid them.)

A brief note about the title. A ‘schism’ is a split within a group or faction. No such situation exists in this episode. The closest we have to anything like that are the splits in subspace that the aliens use to abduct crew members. But a cleft or rift is not a schism, since schisms describe political or religious divisions. I’ve mentioned before the way that TNG has struggled with titles, having used so many of them up... here, it looks a lot like Braga reached for the thesaurus in the hope of finding something useful. I suppose it's possible that the original draft had more reason to use this title, but I doubt it.

This screenplay has the third and final mention of Captain Picard’s Aunt Adele, with Dr Crusher singing the praises of her warm milk toddy. Adele was named after the one of TNG’s assistant directors, Adele Simmons, and as for the warm milk toddy - I often make these when I cannot sleep. Indeed, I had one earlier this week. Don’t let anyone tell you that TNG doesn't help you deal with life's problems!

Acting Roles

On the one hand, there’s something for everyone to do here... on the other, none of it is very interesting.

However, Brent Spiner was impressed with “Ode to Spot”:

I couldn’t believe it because not only did it rhyme but it’s technobabble and it also had something to say. It had a really sweet point of view towards the cat.

There’s some lower decks fun this week - including a civilian, named in the screenplay as Kaminer (who was named after author Wendy Kaminer).

She’s played by Angelina Fiordellisi, whose career has been primarily on Broadway. If you saw her in anything, it was probably in her recurring role as Rita on the sitcom Thunder Alley, although I’ll wager it’s more likely that you didn't even notice her in this episode.

Welcome Scott T. Trost as Lieutenant Shipley!

This is his second appearance in TNG, as he appeared as an Ensign back in “Unnatural Selection”. It’s up to you if you want to pretend this is the same character, but most fans like to connect the dots. They get him back as a Bajoran in DS9. He had a weird career, full of short films, and it’s highly likely you didn’t notice him in this episode any more than in his previous appearance.

Speaking of people appearing for the last time, this is the final appearance of Lanei Chapman’s Ensign Rager, who even gets a first name in this screenplay - Sariel.

She gets to stand and watch Riker freak out on the bridge, which is hardly a star turn but it’s more than they usually let her do, I guess.

More enjoyable is Ken Thorley returning as Mot the barber, who manages to freak out Michael Dorn's Worf with his scissors.

In fact, Thorley was also in “Time's Arrow” as a seaman - the only time we see him without make-up! Take a look.

It must have been a great relief to appear without all the hours in the make-up chair!

Models, Make-up, and Mattes

This one is clearly a bottle show to save money, and there's not much by way of SFX. There's a new set for the clicky aliens, though. Set designer Richard James compared the episode to Close Encounters of the Third Kind although this set design doesn’t obviously connect any dots with that movie in my mind.

The most expensive effect is watching Riker get sucked through a wormhole (which I’m sure Frakes had some dirty jokes about!).

The make-up for the aliens is hidden under their monk-like cowls, but isn’t very memorable. Braga was especially disappointed: “I felt they looked like monks – fish monks – and monks aren't terrifying.”

The clicking noises that the aliens make was the work of co-producer Wendy Neus, and two of the sound editors - Jim Wolvington and Bill Wistrom. Neus found the experience bizarre, having been told by Rick Berman and Peter Lauritson what the goal was:

We had decided what kind of clicks we wanted with Rick and Peter at the spotting session. Then the three of us actually sat there one night and wrote a script in English and then transposed it to ‘clicks’. We wanted it to be organic, not synthesized, and we had a cadence to it; we decided where the clicks should be and what kind of feeling they should have. Then we brought in the people to do it – so in addition to the individual clickers we had group clicking: you see five people clicking, really intently, like the professionals that they are. And I just had to leave the stage – that’s when you think, “I can't believe I'm doing this!”

Just like the kidnapped members of the crew, I have no memory of watching this episode, and now that I have rewatched it, I expect I will once again forget about it. As for the ending implying we might see the fishmonks again: we never do. All in all, that’s probably for the best.