Episode #147: Frame of Mind
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Episode #147: Frame of Mind
FRAME OF MIND (6th season; episode #147)
Directed by James Conway; writer:Brannon Braga
An unusual episode which plays around with questions of what is and isn't real, coming across like some bad dream or worse, a nightmare. There have been other episodes which played around with reality, messing with the minds of the characters and the audience (The Inner Light, Ship in a Bottle, above and Future Imperfect), but this is one of the better ones. It succeeds at being a mystery and creates an unsettling atmosphere on top of that. It revolves around Riker, who is rehearsing for a play developed by Dr. Crusher; The play is named Frame of Mind; in this play, Riker plays a character who is stuck in a mental institution. Or, is Riker actually an inmate at this asylum who had deluded himself into thinking he serves aboard a starship, as in some fantasy?
Jonathan Frakes as Riker gets to do a lot of yelling in this episode, but those are actually the weaker parts of the story. He yells "No-o-o-o-o!" a couple of times and it's too dramatic, almost a parody of someone going nuts, though it does lend itself to the overall strange tone of the episode. There's a very strange early scene, for example, of Worf briefing Riker on a covert mission that Riker is supposed to go on; Riker jokes about something and Worf admonishes him to take things seriously, treating Riker like some mentally deficient schoolboy; Worf then displays a special knife and accidentally cuts Riker on the right side of Riker's face. There's something 'off' in the entire scene, something slightly disturbing and, of course, we eventually learn this was done purposely, not the result of bad directing.
The episode has a pretty dark tone throughout and, even with some weaknesses to Frakes' acting as mentioned above, it's one of the few episodes that registered as genuinely frightening to me when I watched it the first couple of times. Riker begins to dread the next time reality will shift for him - the next time he finds himself back in a cell, as a crazy man, away from the comfort of the Enterprise - and this dread translates well to the audience.
Speaking of an audience, however - the notion that Starfleet officers are able to indulge themselves as actors in plays on their ship comes close to breaking the 4th wall; who is the better actor, Frakes or Riker? If it's Riker, it doesn't speak well of Frakes. Also, Starfleet officers in the 24th century have much more leisure time than their 23rd century counterparts; can you picture Kirk and his crew getting all artistic like this? (OK, Spock did jam in The Way to Eden, but that sure was a poor episode, wasn't it?).
All that said, the twists and turns in this episode were very well done and kept you guessing. At about the halfway point, you may start to wonder if Riker is really just some delusional sap who has dreamed up a fantasy of a starship. BoG's Score: 8 out of 10
TNG Trivia: the concepts here recall some classic TV episodes on shows such as The Twilight Zone, notably the episode "A World of Difference," in which an executive (Howard Duff) finds himself on a movie set, playing an executive.
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