I have been able to crank these two out pretty quickly, and I’m proud of myself for that! This time I’ve reviewed Masks and Eye of the Beholder.
Masks involves the Enterprise following a runaway comet that hides a very ancient alien archive, which soon begins to terraform the ship into some kind of city. Data gets included in this process, being possessed by multiple intelligences who talk about an evil goddess, who needs to be put to sleep by a good one. Will they stop her/it in time? It’s a very moody and atmospheric episode that ends up being ridiculous by the end.
There’s a lot you probably don’t know about this one. Brent Spiner, for example, just had an episode to himself and didn’t get the script for Masks until the night before, when he realized he was playing five characters! As a result he never had time to prepare for his role and he gave what he considers “the very worst acting” he’s ever done! Check out this and some of the funniest stories of any episode in my full review.
Eye of the Beholder is a step down from Masks. No matter how many times I see it I still have to relearn what happened because it’s such a forgettable episode. An Enterprise officer commits suicide so Troi and Worf investigate. After an ’empathic echo’, Troi realizes she is witnessing a murder that occurred back when the Enterprise was built. Meanwhile she and Worf hit it off romantically, except they also don’t. Eventually we learn what happened, but it’s almost an afterthought.
There’s not a lot of behind-the-scenes here. The screenwriter says one of the worst things he’s ever written in his life was in this episode: “It’s not like Dan to take his own life.” What does that mean, it’s not like him because he hasn’t done it before? Check out my full review so you can at least remember what his episode is about if nothing else!
Next up are the episodes Genesis and Journey’s End.