Conundrum (⭑⭑⭑)

I enjoy this episode, and I remembered it fondly enough that I imagined possibly giving it four stars, but after re-watching, I can’t justify that. Its plot doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, and I feel like there’s a lot more story potential inherent in the amnesia premise than what we get. Thematically, the episode does have something to say, and that earns it some points…but if I’m being honest, its feel-good message strikes me as being a bit on the “safe” side. It accomplishes what it sets out to do, and it does “feel good,” and it’s not overly heavy-handed or anything like that. It’s just, perhaps, not particularly challenging or profound. Still…like I said: I enjoy this episode.

I’ll tackle the plot issues first. As I see it, there are basically three difficulties here: First, it’s tough to swallow the premise that a civilization (especially one that’s been at war with another for decades!) could have the advanced memory-erasing and computer-manipulating technology seen here (which is well beyond anything the Federation can do, and which works flawlessly both on members of diverse races and on unknown “alien” technology), while at the same time being way behind the Federation in military technology. Second, even if we accept that premise, one has to question why the Sartarrans would use this weapon to bring the Enterprise into their war, rather than simply using it directly against their actual enemies. And third…why on earth did their agent, “Commander MacDuff,” insert himself onto the Enterprise as merely the second in command? Why not put himself in charge? It’s possible, of course, that some or all of these plot holes could have been plugged more or less satisfactorily if the episode had made some effort to do so, but it doesn’t. Also, even though they’re pretty significant, I would only care moderately about them if the story that they set up were particularly fantastic. Instead, though, these contrivances set in motion merely a somewhat enjoyable story, which makes them a bit harder to indulgently overlook. (As a fourth plotish complaint, the episode also skips awfully abruptly from its climatic scene, featuring Picard refusing to destroy the “enemy” base and the regulars overcoming “MacDuff,” to “everything is totally sorted out and back to normal.”)

But anyway, the point of “Conundrum” is to give all the regular characters amnesia and watch how they deal with it, and the episode does have some fun with this. Worf leaps to the self-aggrandizing conclusion that he’s in charge; Riker and Ro, unburdened of their negative biases toward each other, immediately jump into bed together; Troi feels “at home” with Riker on some deep level, even when deprived of her actual memories of him. These are reasonably plausible and interesting character insights (Worf’s especially, perhaps). But the more fundamental question that the amnesia premise poses is: To what extent are our identities a product of our own memories of ourselves? Deprived of our memories, are we still “us”? And of course, the episode’s answer is that, for these characters at least, they are still fundamentally themselves, even without their memories. Captain Picard, even without knowing himself, is not a person who can easily be manipulated into serving a nefarious agenda; he is someone who “need[s] some moral context to justify [his] action[s].” Worf, notwithstanding his easy presumption of leadership, is not someone who will lightly defy an actual authority figure. These are easy things to believe about both characters, and their choices here serve to reaffirm what we love about them. And—don’t get me wrong—I enjoy having my fondness for these beloved characters reaffirmed in this way. But at the same time, I can’t avoid wondering if it isn’t just a bit too comforting. Speaking for myself, at least, I’m not at all certain that I would remain faithful to all my fundamental values if I were stripped of my memory of having them, and of my self-image as a person who holds to them. Authenticity is extremely important to me, and I would very much like to believe this about myself, but it feels a little too much like a convenient lie. I suspect, rather, that to a considerable extent, I am my memories and my self-image, and I might very well become someone else (in some respects, at least) if I were stripped of those things. And wouldn’t it have been interesting for TNG to explore that idea here, at least in some way? I suppose Riker and Ro having sex is as close as the episode comes to going down such a path, but that isn’t much at all; I mean, it’s really not that surprising to learn that they have a latent attraction to each other, and anyway, the whole thing is basically just played for laughs. But what if events in this episode had yielded a really surprising (or even disturbing?) character realization for somebody? If they had, “Conundrum” might have been a truly great episode.

Also, even on a much more superficial level, there is something kind of disappointing about how little any of the characters really seem to be changed by forgetting their entire identities. This is partly hand-waved away by the contrivance (iffy in itself) of them retaining “skills” despite losing all knowledge of who they are, but…for instance, well before they manage to access the ship’s manifest and figure out who is who, Geordi slips effortlessly into his usual role as engineer, and many of the characters seem just as conversant in technical details concerning the Enterprise‘s capabilities as ever, etc. This despite, for instance, not even knowing what the Federation is. Everybody assimilates “huh, I guess I’m an officer on a starship” with ease, and the “skills” that they retain seem to include not just how to work control consoles, but also (especially for Picard) an intimate familiarity with the routines and procedures involved in commanding a ship and carrying out a mission. Hell, no one even needs to be told more than once what anyone else’s name is! I just feel like it would have been a lot more fun to see our characters struggling with all of this: feeling their way uncertainly through things that are normally routine for them, having a sense of being fish out of water, and only gradually rediscovering their talents and identifies—and having more feelings about all of this along the way, and maybe, in some cases, even questioning how they ended up in these lives, and whether they are happy in them. More of this kind of thing would have made the episode a lot more fun, and its relative absence feels like a missed opportunity (occasioned, I think, largely by the episode being too focused on plot concerns). I mean, it still is a fun little episode—one that (as I said) I remember fondly, and that I enjoyed on this re-watch. It just seems like it should be even more fun, is all.

Final minor criticisms: The opening scene of this episode, featuring a chess game between Troi and Data, is ludicrous. We’re supposed to believe that Troi (Troi!?) has offhandedly “devised a completely unanticipated response to a classic attack”!? Huh. I was not aware that the counselor was a chess genius. Hell, I wasn’t even aware that she ever played. The idea that she “intuitively” spotted a move that Data, of all people, never considered, is pure nonsense. (Also, regarding the sickbay scene that follows this one: It occurs to me to ask why the holodeck’s safety protocols don’t prevent injury from cliff-diving? Supposedly, per other episodes, holodeck programs are supposed to prevent their users from being harmed. This is by no means the only episode that violates this premise, but I happened to think about it while watching this scene.)