Episode #140: Face of the Enemy
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Episode #140: Face of the Enemy
FACE OF THE ENEMY (6th season; episode #140)
Directed by Gabrielle Beaumont; writer:Rene Echevarria
This returns us to political intrigue & machinations in the 24th century (other examples are The Pegasus and The Wounded), but this adds in outright espionage as thriller elements, almost like a futuristic Cold War thriller (on TOS, this was represented by The Enterprise Incident).
In the plot, Troi wakes up on a Romulan ship with the stunning realization that she's been surgically transformed into a Romulan. Specifically, she is a major in the Tal Shiar, the Romulan version of the Nazi Gestapo - a secret police. The sub-commander N'Vek (Scott McDonald) on the ship is a member of a resistance (this follows up on the plot threads of the 2-part Unification, where-in Spock was on Romulus stirring up a resistance movement). N'Vek is responsible for Troi's kidnapping (from a seminar she was attending); he needs her to play the part of a ruthless Romulan agent and facilitate the secret transport of a high-ranking Romulan official into Federation space.
A lot is expected of Troi in this plot; she is thrust into the situation with no warning and must quickly develop an arrogant approach to plausibly intimidate the commander of the ship, Toreth (Carolyn Seymour). We find out that there's no love lost between the regular Romulan military and the Tal Shiar agents; Toreth's father, for example, had been arrested & disposed of by the Tal Shiar many years ago. Troi begins her masquerade tremulously but swiftly adapts to her new role, hefting threats and giving off attitude left-&-right. You could cut the tension on this ship with a knife; it becomes a battle of wills between two high-ranking females - itself a rare situation in TV drama. Marina Sirtis as Troi rises to the occasion while Seymour is excellent as the older, caustic commander.
Besides the exciting, suspenseful thriller aspects of the plot, this episode may very well be the best one featuring the Romulans. We are thrown into the middle of their world here - usually, Romulans and their ships are viewed from the perspective of Starfleet vessels and their crews; we would see the Romulans briefly on a viewscreen, for example. But here, we're on-board the Romulan ship itself for much of the episode, inside the workings of their military structure (also rare).
There are clear distinctions made here: again, when we usually see alien races depicted on TV, each alien seems to behave in much the same way as the next one - the members of a race are usually depicted as indistinguishable from each other. But here, we have the sinister, sneaky Tal Shiar members, the honorable yet ruthless commander and idealistic dissidents such as N'Vek, who wish a different way for Romulans. It's a pretty broad spectrum of the Romulan race - and all just in one episode.
Even more unusual, we have a character here who is a former Starfleet officer who had 'gone over' to the Romulan side 20 years ago; he has returned in this episode after getting disillusioned. This is a very unique episode, offering some startling new viewpoints. Finally, I was quite impressed with Troi, for once. I'm not sure if it was the uniform, the make-up disguise, her attitude or all three, but she was on fire for much of this episode and cut a strangely attractive figure with her new-found 'power' (Sirtis also had a chance to be a heavy in the episode Power Play). BoG's Score: 8 out of 10
TNG Trivia: The Tal Shiar were named as an homage to the ancient Vulcan killing technique Tal-Shaya, first mentioned in the TOS episode Journey to Babel. In an early draft, Dr. Crusher was the one in disguise; the writers realized, rightly, that Troi's empathetic powers suited the undercover role better. Seymour (playing the Romulan commander here) is well known for a much earlier role in a British sci-fi series, Survivors, in 1975.
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