star trek next generation manhunt

Manhunt (episode)

• View history
• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 1.6 Act Five
• 1.7 Log entries
• 2 Memorable Quotes
• 3.1 Production history
• 3.2 Story and script
• 3.3 Production
• 3.4 Cast and characters
• 3.5 Reception
• 3.6 Video and DVD releases
• 4.1 Starring
• 4.2 Also starring
• 4.3 Special appearance by
• 4.4 Guest stars
• 4.5 Special guest appearance by
• 4.6 Co-star
• 4.7 Uncredited co-stars
• 4.8 Stand-ins
• 4.9 References
• 4.10 External links

Summary [ ]

" What a handsome race. "

On a mission to deliver Antedian dignitaries from Antede III (who are brought aboard in a catatonic state) to a conference on Pacifica , the USS Enterprise -D is unexpectedly ordered by Starfleet to pick up Lwaxana Troi and to extend full diplomatic courtesies to her. Before they even get the order, Lwaxana has caught up with the Enterprise in a Federation transport. She is also going to the conference, representing Betazed . Lwaxana draws the ire of her daughter, Deanna , and then insinuates that Picard is having 'naughty' thoughts about her once again .

Act One [ ]

Lwaxana arrives on the Enterprise with her manservant, Mr. Homn . In her characteristic forward manner, she compliments Captain Picard on his legs and insists that he carry her belongings, but Picard has no intention of doing so . Commander Riker then offers, but can hardly lift the luggage, as Picard had before. He still manages to do so and brings it through a corridor as the group escorts Lwaxana to her quarters . When most of everyone else has left, Lwaxana invites Picard to a dinner, saying it will be a diplomatic event. Picard happily accepts and leaves. Deanna then chides Lwaxana's description of Human men.

" She knows what's on your mind and she lets you know what's on hers. "

On the bridge , Picard catches Riker talking to Data and Wesley Crusher talking about Lwaxana's behavior in the transporter room . Picard reminds them that Lwaxana is an ambassador , despite her eccentricities, and should be treated with all due respect that the title deserves. After a quick status report from Katherine Pulaski on the Antedians, he also reminds the bridge crew to wear dress uniforms for the dinner before quickly leaving, which confuses them since they don't know about it. Later, Picard goes to Lwaxana's quarters and slowly realizes from Homn that he is the only one joining.

Act Two [ ]

At the dinner, Lwaxana tells Picard that Human males are extraordinary and they toast to it. Lwaxana's irises are darker and larger than usual and seems to hunger for more than the food that she's cooked. Picard realizes that the dinner means something far more to her than to him, so begins to talk shop, inquiring about the Betazoid chime Homn hits at dinner. Picard asks Lwaxana what she knows about other culture's ceremonies at dinner. She has no idea about much of them, so Picard says Data is a great talker and informative, so taps his combadge and calls him to the dinner. Thanks to Data, Lwaxana is so bored by his constant talking that she cannot seduce Picard.

In the corridor, Counselor Troi informs Dr. Pulaski that Lwaxana is going through the Betazoid equivalent of menopause called The Phase , which, for Betazoid women, leads to exceptional increases in their sex drive . Troi believes that she should warn Picard when she finds out he is at dinner with her mother alone, but Pulaski says that it would be important for the captain to stay quick on his feet.

A moving target

Later in Picard's ready room , Deanna informs Captain Picard and Riker about her mother's condition and says that the only option for her mother is to focus all her energy into one male with the goal of making him her husband. For him to spurn her would be considered a deep insult. Picard, sensibly, puts Riker in command of the bridge , and runs to go hide on the holodeck as Dixon Hill .

Act Three [ ]

After settling in to the holodeck program, Picard checks in with Dixon Hill's assistant Madeline and takes a breather at Hill's desk. He hasn't tried a Hill program since the previous year . The story continues, but the various scenarios the computer comes up are too violent for his current mood. For instance, a gangster named Slade Bender comes into Hill's office and reminds him of a recent murder and plans to kill Dixon Hill when he pulls out a gun . Picard calls out to the computer to freeze the program and adjust it so there is less excitement, since all Picard wants to do is relax. The program changes and Picard is immediately threatened by a character named Scarface , who grabs him by his collar. Scarface wants Hill to do a job for him. Picard does not like this scenario much either, so has the computer eliminate the character and reconfigure the program again. However, Slade barges into Hill's office armed with a Thompson submachine gun and is ready to shoot. Picard has the program frozen again and the computer reminds him that the parameters of the program are limited to the stories told in the Dixon Hill series.

Deanna informs Lwaxana that Picard is "busy" which prompts her to consider other options for herself, to Deanna's continued concern. William Riker? Already taken by her daughter. Lieutenant Worf ? Wrong species. Ensign Wesley Crusher? Much too young for her tastes.

Picard decides to leave the office, but not before inviting Hill's secretary Madeline to Rex's Bar for a drink. She hands him a gun because he'll need it there. The Hill series obviously has mostly violent stories.

Act Four [ ]

At Rex's bar, Picard is having fun remembering the previous cases and jargon of the Hill stories. It turns out there's a bad character that may come to the bar to confront Hill and the bartender , Rex . They continue talking.

" You're overwhelmed with excitement. Believe me, I understand. "

In the meantime, the Antedians have been brought out of their catatonic state by Dr. Pulaski. She calls to the bridge to inform Riker, where Lwaxana has just entered looking for the captain, but not finding him. When he leaves to inform Picard of the Antedians, Lwaxana announces to the bridge crew that Riker and she will be married , much to his surprise, Deanna's horror, and the surprise of rest of the bridge.

Act Five [ ]

Without sticking around, Lwaxana leaves to prepare for her wedding. Riker decides to let the captain deal with the situation and flees with Data to the holodeck to tell Picard about this development (and the revival of the Antedians). Picard is unpleasantly surprised to hear this, but Rex thinks Riker has all the luck in the world.

" There is something you ought to know about Rex… "

Lwaxana, using the Enterprise computer, finds Picard and Riker on the holodeck. Initially outraged, she is quickly taken with Rex, since she cannot read his mind and thus finds him the most fascinating man she has ever met. She decides to now marry Rex, but as they reach Pacifica, Picard tells Lwaxana that Rex doesn't exist.

As Lwaxana leaves, husbandless, and her mind much clearer than it ever was during the whole duration of her stay, she saves the conference by revealing the Antedians are, in fact, assassins (she states that the Antedians' minds are so simple that she can read their minds in her sleep). She reveals they plan to set off a bomb made with ultritium located in their robes at the conference. Lwaxana bids her daughter farewell, with Picard, Riker, Data and O'Brien in the transporter room . While dematerializing in the transporter beam, Lwaxana chides Picard on his naughty thoughts in front of everyone.

Log entries [ ]

• Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), 2365

Memorable Quotes [ ]

(Staring at the Antedians) " What a handsome race. "

("Dixon Hill" is brought up to speed about a girl he was hired to locate – and did – for her boyfriend, whom Hill subsequently sniffed out as her killer…and who has dispatched an associate, Slade Bender, to Hill's office.) " …So he sent you here to – ask for a refund? " " No. (pulls a gun) He sent me here to rub you. " " Computer, freeze program…! This isn't what I wanted at all. It's much too violent. I'm here to relax, not to dodge bullets. Reconfigure. (Bender disappears) More ambiance, less substance. " (Bender rushes back in, this time with a tommy-gun!) " You're through ducking me, Hill! " " COMPUTER! FREEZE PROGRAM…!! Perhaps I'm not clearly defining my intent. "

" Last time I saw something like that it was served on a plate. "

" I still say they look better in sauce. "

" Betazoid women are full of surprises. "

" Data, you will never know how much I owe you for that."

" But you better take this. " " Why? " " Because if we're goin' to Rex's Bar, you're gonna need it. "

" Then she actually complimented Captain Picard on his legs? " " Hmm. I would have thought a telepath would be more discreet, sir. "

" Yes, it's something Troi warned me about when we first started to see each other. A Betazoid woman when she goes through this phase… quadruples her sex drive. " " Or more. " " Or more? You never told me that. " " I didn't want to frighten you. " (Riker beams at Troi)

Background information [ ]

Production history [ ].

• Script revisions: 14 March 1989
• Script revisions: 16 March 1989
• Script revisions: 27 March 1989
• Second revised final draft script: 29 March 1989 [1]
• Filmed: 31 March 1989 – 11 April 1989 (8 days)
• Premiere airdate: 19 June 1989
• First UK airdate: 4 September 1991

Story and script [ ]

• This episode is a sequel to two episodes Tracy Tormé had previously worked on: " Haven " and " The Big Goodbye ". The producers had looked for some time for a way for Lwaxana Troi ( Majel Barrett ) to return. Tormé thought it would be fun to reprise the well-received Dixon Hill setting in the same episode. ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 181)
• Tormé's draft was heavily inspired by Raymond Chandler and film noir , including cynical voiceovers for Picard in his role as Hill. The holodeck plot was based on Chandler's novels Farewell, My Lovely and The Little Sister . ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 181) These elements were removed in later revisions. The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  (2nd ed., p. 90) suggests that the voiceovers were dropped so as to avoid confusion with the captain's log .
• As with " The Royale ", Tormé was greatly disappointed with the revisions to his script by Maurice Hurley and used a pseudonym in protest. ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 181; Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  (2nd ed., p. 90)). "Manhunt" was the last episode written by Tormé as he left following the end of the season.
• According to director Rob Bowman , " They changed it a great deal to accommodate Majel and sacrificed what Tracy and I thought were some of the noir nuances to the show. The emphasis was shifted from the noir to Majel. This is the boss 's wife and she only does it once a year, so it should be accommodating for her and that's what you did. " ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 182)

Production [ ]

• When Captain Picard as Dixon Hill takes a look out of his office window, footage from an old movie is used to simulate the streetscape. When he did the same in " The Big Goodbye ", new footage on the Paramount lot was shot and inserted.

Cast and characters [ ]

Fleetwood with makeup artist Allan A. Apone

• Rock star Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac appears in a cameo role under heavy makeup as an Antedian dignitary . Makeup artist Allan A. Apone recalled that Fleetwood was a huge fan of Star Trek and wasn't bothered by the fact that he would be unidentifiable. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation 365 , p. 111) The make-up process took approximately two and a half hours to apply. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  (2nd ed., p. 90))
• " I always loved Star Trek . " Fleetwood recalled. " I played an Antedean – half-man, half-fish. Not that it was a huge part but I loved that I could be part of it in some shape or form. I shaved my beard to put all the prosthetics on. I said, 'I’ll shave my beard off if you promise me that I get to beam down or beam up – at least one of those things. Either up or down, you’ve got to promise me that it’s in the script.' And they do – they beam me down into the ship. So I shaved my beard off and I had a lot of fun." [2]
• LeVar Burton ( Geordi La Forge ) does not appear in this episode. He is only alluded to by Mr. Homn when Lwaxana tries to find a mate.
• This episode marks Robert O'Reilly 's first Star Trek appearance.
• When Lwaxana Troi talks to the computer, Majel Barrett is essentially talking to herself, as she plays both Lwaxana and the computer.

Reception [ ]

• Bowman recalls, " This one was to be Majel Barrett's episode and she's a fascinating woman. I was asked to make sure that she did her best, so every day that's what we worked on. There's really no story tie between her wants and Picard going to Dixon Hill. It was just a way for us to get to the past. We had a great time doing the '40s stuff. I had looked forward to that since 'The Big Goodbye'. I thought the episode came out just fine, although we did have some funky problems. The funny things is that you have characters that are several hundred years in the future from where we are now, who go back into that 'time warp' to the '40s, and it's not like Bogie back then. You have a man, Picard, who is so far advanced intellectually, dealing with what are, essentially, cave people. I found it to be rather fun and challenging, being a different point-of-view in that style, but no problem. " ("Rob Bowman – Director of a Dozen", The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 10 , p. 20)
• A mission report for this episode by John Sayers was published in The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 9 , pp. 47-50.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• Original UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 23 , catalog number VHR 2506, 7 October 1991
• UK re-release (three-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment ): Volume 2.7, catalog number VHR 4743, 5 July 1999
• As part of the TNG Season 2 DVD collection
• As part of the TNG Season 2 Blu-ray collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Patrick Stewart as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard
• Jonathan Frakes as Cmdr. William Riker

Also starring [ ]

• Michael Dorn as Lt. Worf
• Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi
• Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data
• Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher

Special appearance by [ ]

• Diana Muldaur as Doctor Pulaski

Guest stars [ ]

• Majel Barrett as Lwaxana Troi
• Robert Costanzo as Slade Bender
• Carel Struycken as Homn
• Rod Arrants as Rex
• Colm Meaney as Miles O'Brien
• Robert O'Reilly as Scarface
• Rhonda Aldrich as Madeline

Special guest appearance by [ ]

• Mick Fleetwood as Antedian dignitary

Co-star [ ]

• Wren T. Brown as Transport Pilot

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• Peter Andrefsky as Antedian aide
• Rachen Assapiomonwait as Nelson
• Majel Barrett as USS Enterprise -D computer voice
• James G. Becker as Youngblood
• Dexter Clay as an operations division officer
• Female command division officer
• Female science division officer
• Five bar patrons
• Security officer
• Street passerbys

Stand-ins [ ]

• James G. Becker – stand-in for Jonathan Frakes
• Dexter Clay – stand-in for Michael Dorn
• Jeffrey Deacon – stand-in for Patrick Stewart
• Nora Leonhardt – stand-in for Marina Sirtis
• Tim McCormack – stand-in for Brent Spiner
• Guy Vardaman – stand-in for Wil Wheaton

References [ ]

20th century ; 1927 ; 1941 ; 1945 ; 24th century ; ability ; AD ; agility ; airplane ; " a little "; " all in a day's work "; " all right "; " alright "; Altairian brandy ; Alva ; Alva's boyfriend ; ambassador ; America ; amount ; amusement ; anecdote ; animal ; Antedians ; Antede III ; appetite ; arraignment ; arrival ; assassin ; associate ; " at first "; Atifs IV ; " at this point "; bar bill ; barstool ; Bermuda ; Betazed ; Betazed government ; Betazoid ; Betazoid chime ; Betazoid wedding ; beverage ; boat ; " bosom buddy "; Boston ; boyfriend ; brig ; brown dwarf ; buck ; bullet ; California ; case ; catatonia ; choice ; client ; collision ; device ; Carlos ; chemical composition ; Chicago ; chowder ; collar ; " come in "; commodity ; com panel light ; companionship ; competition ; computer ; conference ; consciousness ; container ; conversation ; co-orbital satellite ; corridor ; coward ; Crab Nebula ; culture ; custom ; Cuzzo, Jimmy ; daughter ; day ; deal ; death ; delegate ; desk ; departure ; dessert ; dignity ; dinner ; discussion ; distance ; Dixon Hill series ; door ; dress ; dress uniform ; " duty calls "; Earth ; Earthman ; egotistical ; England ; erotic ; europium ; excitement ; " excuse me "; fact ; Federation ; fedora ; feeling ; feet ; fiancé ; Fifth House of Betazed ; fission ; food ; " for example "; " for instance "; fork ; Four Deities ; fraction ; French ; friend ; full ambassador ("full ambassadorial status"); gadolinium ; Galaxy -class decks ; geedus ; Genovese's Flowers ; Germany ; " getting on my nerves "; girlfriend ; " go ahead "; " good God "; guest ; gun ; heir ; " hello "; hero worship ; hibernation ; Hill, Dixon ; Hill's landlord ; Hitler ; Holodeck 3 ; holographic program ; Holy Rings of Betazed ; hour ; " How High the Moon "; Human ; husband ; " I don't know "; " I see "; idea ; " if you ask me "; " I'll see you later "; " in a manner of speaking "; " in fact "; " in the flesh "; indictment ; " inside track "; irrational ; isolation ; jake ; job ; joint ; journey ; jukebox ; kayak ; Klingon ; landlord ; Lapinski, Haircut ; last name ; leg ; legend ; " Let's Get Away from It All "; lie ; logic ; Madeline's mother ; Madeline's mother's cousin ; main viewer ; Marejaretus VI ; mate ; matrimony ; " matter of fact "; meal ; melodramatic ; menopause ; message ; Milky Way Galaxy ; mind ; minute ; mission ; missus ; mister ; money ; month ; mood ; moolah ; moon ; Moonlight Serenade ; mug ; murder ; mystery ; O'Farron, Marty ; Nails ; name ; " no problem "; novel (" Dixon Hill novels "); number one ; Nyack ; " of course "; " oh my God "; oligarchy ; Omicron system ; " on account of "; " on my way "; " on the cuff "; " on the house "; " on time "; Oolans ; opportunity ; orbit ; order ; " out of the way "; outrage ; Pacifica ; parameter ; " Parrot's Claw, The "; passenger ; person ; pharmacy ; " the phase "; physical appearance ; physical condition ; physiology ; pi ; pilot ; plan ; plate ; prejudice ; private investigator (aka private dick ); problem ; pulse ; quantity ; quarters ; questioning ; Quincy ; race ; range ; rare earth element ; reflex ; refund ; rent ; reputation ; respect ; respiration ; Rex's Bar ; " right now ": river ; robe ; robot ; rocketry ; room ; Roosevelt, Franklin D. ; rye and ginger ; Sacred Chalice of Rixx ; samarium ; Saint Paul ; San Antonio ; San Francisco ; sauce ; scar ; scotch ; secretary ; security ; senior bridge officer ; setting ; sex drive ; sexual energy ; shock ; shore ; sleep ; sleeve ; society ; South America ; spaceflight ; space travel ; square root ; Stalin ; star ; Starfleet ; stasis ; stone ; subject ; surprise ; table ; " take a powder "; telepath ; testimony ; theme ; thing ; third power ; Thompson submachine gun ; thought ; toast ; trailer ; transport ; transporter ; trauma ; trenchcoat ; trip ; Troi, Ian Andrew ; turbo tube ; " under control "; " under the circumstances "; United States of America ; ultritium ; valet ; violence ; week ; " well in hand "; Western Sea ; " why not "; world power ; world war ; World War II ; " would you care to join me "; vermicula ; VIP ; year

External links [ ]

• "Manhunt" at StarTrek.com
• " Manhunt " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Manhunt " at Wikipedia
• " "Manhunt" " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• 1 Rachel Garrett
• 3 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G)

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Star Trek: The Next Generation

“Manhunt”

Air date: 6/19/1989 Written by Terry Devereaux Directed by Robert Bowman

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

Lwaxana Troi comes aboard the ship in the midst of a Betazoid phase that's equivalent to a human woman's menopause, with the Betazoid side effect being the quadrupling (or more) of her sex drive. Lwaxana begins romantically pursuing Picard, which forces him to go into hiding in the holodeck novel world of Dixon Hill in order to avoid her, while avoiding offending her.

"Manhunt" has got to be one of the most padded-out, pointless filler episodes in the entire series' run (with the obvious exception of "Shades of Gray," which we'll get to shortly). It wants to be a comedy with no hard plot — which is fine in concept — but the comedy scenes aren't funny enough and are padded to embarrassing length with meandering material that simply goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing.

It's starts out reasonably, with Lwaxana being her usual attention-starved self — and not even in an off-putting way; she's kind of a likable motormouth. Picard becomes her unwitting one-on-one dinner guest in a situation he didn't expect. His solution is to invite Data to fill the awkward pauses. Not a bad comic concept. But the longer the episode goes on, the more tiresome and pointless it grows, until by the end we're positively baffled: What is the point of all this? The answer is: There isn't one. This is an episode about behavior (I'm at a loss to qualify "behavior" with a useful adjective) put to no purpose.

There are scenes in the holodeck that exist simply to fill time and accomplish nothing the least bit important to anything. They aren't nearly interesting or fun enough to distract from the fact they're pointless. This whole episode is utterly inexplicable.

Previous episode: Up the Long Ladder Next episode: The Emissary

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Comment Section

66 comments on this post.

Manhunt 2 more inexplicable things about this ep. 1 Data laughs 2 Mick Fleetwood is in it as an alien whose face you can't see. What is the point?

Mike Caracappa

There is one plus, a brief appearance by Robert O'Reilly (who goes on after this to play Gowron). You know it's him just when you see his eyes :)

Deanna "I sense he is hiding something" Troi and of course her mother, should have neven been on TNG. Quite boring episode. Data's laugh was "artificial", and it's not the first time he did it. I really love it whenever he does it. And the scene with Q and his "gift" to Data is one of the best Star Trek moments in my opinion.

Bizarre episode. Lwaxana Troi's humor is a little better in this script, but she feels out of place in the new style season 2 puts in for the show... later episodes treat Lwaxana more blandly, which doesn't help matters either. Mick Fleetwood is the second rock star (Michelle Phillips being the first, in "We'll Always Have Paris") to appear in TNG. What's nice is that you're waiting all 40 minutes and then realize he plays a fish that not only Worf finds handsome, but proves Russell T Davies was not the first sci-fi writer to come up with inter-species lust. Worf's reaction was pretty solid, and kept sufficiently brief. A whole episode devoted to such soap opera would fall flat, and it would be heavyhanded as well. This story has Worf appreciating the form and letting the audience viewer decide if he's hornball or not. Which makes that scene more mature than any number of later TNG episodes that would play this card and heavyhandedly so... Data's laugh was an attempt to use rote to repeat a process other people were using. Until season 3, it wasn't really said that Data being an android meant he was not programmed to imitate. (Ditto for "Measure of a Man" where, in a scene cut from the final presentation, Data exclaims "I am pleased!" to Picard in his ready room over the legal battle to follow...) And, in this episode and "Deja Q" (where Q lets him laugh like a real person), both scenes are well-thought out in context, and well-realized by Brent Spiner. The plot, where Lwaxana is chasing Picard is played up both comedically and seriously. I'm not sure what to think of it. In the right mood, it's a funny story, but in many ways it's just bizarre and feels out of place. Especially as half the jokes from Lwaxana's original story are repeated here. Only without Yar's friz hair stealing the show in the process. But this time around, it's Data and his technobabble that steal the show, as does Majel Barrett for her top-notch performance. How come Lwaxana cannot figure out that Picard has zero interest in her, despite her reading his mind without his permission?! Perhaps she is saving face by lying to everyone, but the acting suggests otherwise (even after dinner when she tells Troi how he was thinking of dirty things). Interesting, both of the early-era Lwaxana stories were written by Tracy Torme but were so heavily rewritten that he demanded a pseudonym be used instead. It's nowhere near as bad as "The Okona" story, though... Of course, Picard goes and hides in the holodeck, so she goes after Riker (who, oddly, doesn't accept the advances, despite his hitching with everyone this side of Riza... and the other side, and every side in between...) You're definitely right; once Picard gets to the holodeck things really fall apart. Nothing happens, except Lwaxana drooling over everybody.

Probably the best joke in the episode is, as other posters have noted, putting Mick Fleetwood in the episode as a fish-creature who spends most of the episode in stasis, then turns out to be identified as an assassin at the last minute because Lwaxana happens to be in the same room as him. Very little in this episode strikes me as *bad* per se. It's not funny, but it's not *un*funny, exactly. I feel like if most of the scenes of this episode were placed within other episodes as some sort of tension relief, they wouldn't play so badly. The problem is that the whole episode is relief from tension that never exists. I do tend to wonder what Tracy Torme's original script was like. I guess Jammer's 1 star rating is probably appropriate. This is a case though where star ratings really fail to capture the episode. One star so usually means "bad" that it feels unfair to assign it to this episode in which almost nothing goes so very wrong. It just never really develops into anything interesting. Probably 1.5 from me, though I am not really sure about that.

I forgot to mention, but there is one thing that I think is *genuinely* bad here, which is the notion that the recipient of *aggressive* sexual advances has a responsibility to avoid hurting the aggressor's feelings so much that they have to hide from them. I get that Deanna wants to protect her mother's feelings, but surely no means no and no one has to be so worried about the feelings of someone making them that uncomfortable. This is made even worse by the fact that Lwaxana Troi is a high-ranking diplomat from a matriarchal society, which means that she has tremendous power -- which seems to me to indicate that if she's to wield that power fairly, she should be able to handle someone's rejection. Hopefully Betazoid men have some kind of coping strategy so that they are allowed to not marry whom they choose not to marry.

Ugh, I hate episodes about Lwaxana Troi. It's like the Ferengi effect: Characters could get a bit better or at least tolerable after a few times, but their stories are always so bad. @ Paul C: I don't remember Data's laugh :( But I remember the conversation with Lwaxana, that scene and Worf's "What a handsome race" were the only really fun bits of the episode. @ Xaaos: By definition, everything in Data is artificial, hah. Nah, but I get what you mean. @ William B. : Because it was played as a comedy I don't see a problem with this, just your typical situation with characters acting dumb or otherwise they wouldn't be able to fill the hour with this.

So a Batazoid woman entering Betazoid midlife gets extra honry and seeks out a man who eventually becomes her husband...but...what if she's already married? Not all Betazoid women are widows like Troi is.

There's a lot of memorable comedy in this episode. Yes, it's pretty much a pointless romp, but I think 1 star is too low. 2 in my book. Anyone else catch the bit about Geordi being Lwaxana's next target? LWAXANA : Well, who's next, Mr Homm? [Mr Homm covers his eyes with his hand] LWAXANA : Ahh... [they leave]

I agree with Elliott. This episode is actually quite enjoyable in a silly sort of way. Better than expected.

I like Worf's comment: "What a handsome race." It always makes me laugh for some reason. It is a very silly episode, but I'd up it to two stars just for that comment plus some of the expressions on Picard's face during the dinner...oh yeah And for Mr. Ho's chug a lug!

Duke of Earl Grey

I actually have a soft spot for this one, and while I wouldn't call it "good", I find it harmlessly pleasant, and I'd give it a solid 2 stars. I always get a good laugh from the scenes in Dixon Hill's office, where the computer seems almost to stubbornly ignore Picard's requests. He just wants a nice, relaxing hour in the holodeck, yet the computer insists on throwing in increasingly scarier thugs and bigger guns. And that's how I feel about this episode. Sometimes it's nice to have a quiet episode, with barely a hint of jeopardy or even plot, "more ambiance; less substance."

Wesley telling Worf that he's a handsome Klingon and Worf's reaction was just gold.

Picard shouting "Computer, freeze programme!" as a goon nearly blows him away with a Tommy Gun is priceless. Stewart's face is hilarious as he throws himself back against the wall.

The plot was extremely thin and somewhat dumb but Stewart was very enjoyable and Barrett also pretty funny.

The best part(s) of this episode were when Troi Told Riker her sex drive would quadruple (loved the look on his face). Shortly after that when Troi told Picard Lwaxana chose him, Riker says "congratulations sir!"...Makes me laugh every time.

The scene where Picard got Data to bore Lwaxana was quite funny. Other than that, though...how to express my opinion of the rest of the episode in Darmok speak? Sherlock, shooting a happy face in the wall!

Diamond Dave

Lwaxana episode and holodeck episode all rolled up into one? Hallelujah! I suppose this was planned as an out and out comedy extravaganza, and to be fair there are some laughs in here (Worf's admiration of the "handsome" Antedeans in particular). But overall it's completely inconsequential, the holodeck sequences are utterly irrelevant (and worse that that, boring), and the conclusion comes completely out of left field. 3 stinkers in a row then. 1 star.

I remain absolutely baffled why the character Luxuwanna Troi even exists. Is an again woman with an insatiable sex drive suppose to be funny or intriguing or what? I don't get it. I'm just embarrassed for Majel Barrett. This used to be Nurse Chapel in the original Star Trek and she's come to this. Her zaniness and zest for life seem forced, unconvincing and hollow. And I just roll my eyes everyone she tells us she's a Daughter of the Fifth House of blah, blah, blah because it's such an obvious contrivance. We know practially nothing about Betazed government or society so what is this suppose to mean to us? Why does she, an ambassador, keep showing up a ship that's suppose to be on an exploration of deep space anyway? Manhunt was absolutely pointless. Just as pointless as the character it focuses on.

I like how Lwaxana comments casually to Deanna that humans should bring back slavery. What a lovely lady.

Raphael Bloch

Silly episode, but I agree with @Chris: the Dixon Hill office scenes were hilarious.

On this one, I request second opinions. I found the character of Lwaxana distasteful because it seemed to me that she was being ridiculed largely because of her demographic: look! she's a female of a certain age who wants sex and pursues men! Obviously Picard's not interested in her when he rates women like Vash! How pathetic and mockable, that she would pursue a man of her own age and looks and status. (She is the age of Picard. And she has the lusty forthrightness of Riker.) Maybe I've got it wrong. Maybe the comedy is supposed to come, not from the juxtaposition of her age and gender with her sexual desire, but strictly from her goofy "Me and my sacred chalice!" character that drives everyone nuts. But I can't shake the feeling that she's meant to be a kind of stereotypical bogeyman for males, in the same category as "the repressed spinster librarian", "the puritanical old church lady" and (more favorably, because she's attractive), "the Mrs. Robinson." I throw open the floor for a discussion...

Tara, you seem like an intelligent person I just don't know why you're cherry picking Trek episodes to try to find things wrong in regards to how women are treated. Like that seems like that's ALL you do around here. Don't you enjoy the shows at all? Sometimes everything's not meant to be a great battle of the sexes debate, you know?

Del, I do tend to focus on what I don't like more than what I do - and what I don't like (especially in the early seasons) is mostly the corny stuff and the sexist stuff. I started commenting on, I think, "Captain's Holiday" - because I rewatched the episode, then came to this site and saw that my viewpoint was not represented in any previous comments. Even the people who liked it, didn't like it for the reasons I like it. In this season, season two, I think you'll see that the episodes I felt moved to comment on were the following: "Time Squared" (which I praised, though I was disappointed in the ways it ended up falling short of the character stuff it could have had), "Up the long ladder" (which I criticized for the Dumb Irish stuff but admitted was kind of a guilty pleasure), and "The Emissary" which I flat-out loved. (And yes, ,I loved it for K'Eylar as well as the Worf/K'ehlar dynamic). This site manages to have many people discussing the technical implausibility of some devices ("Mirror-world episodes and time-travel episodes just couldn't happen because....") Those aren't things that bug me - or interest me - so I just skip over the comments with a shrug. You might try it. There are dozens of comments on each episode; if mine don't interest you, that's okay.

What always bugged me about Lwaxana is just the wasted opportunity. She's this powerful telepath, the only one in the series, and all the writers can think to do with her is play her as some pathetic man-eating buffoon. It would be equivalent to having Data, the show''s only android, working as the ship"s bartender a la Conundrum, showing up only as a punch line for comedy episodes. What a waste. By the way, I always wonder with her: how can she keep pursuing Picard despite the disgust that so obviously permeates every encounter. Or is the joke on us? Is Picard secretly lusting after her non stop as she claims?

@ Tara, I think Lwaxana is a character that will be hard to inspect seriously, primarily because I think she was intended as little more than a joke. It was an excuse to include Barrett in the series and let her have some fun, and maybe Lwaxana's excessive behavior is in some way a nod to the fact that Barrett 'owns the place' as it were, having been married to the father of Trek. If we're going to treat Lwaxana seriously, though, I think the place to start isn't with her gender but rather with her telepathic powers, which the show mentions but treats as a joke rather than as a sci-fi premise. When observing how seriously Babylon 5 took the idea of telepathy, we can look back on episodes like this one and note that someone who could actually read minds (and did so with impunity at all times) and still 'not get' the hint isn't about being a woman, or a matriarch, or someone of a particular age; it's more like a piece of anti-humor meant to take the piss out of Trek. The Federation is egalitarian? Well she is an aristocrat! Trek abhors inequality? She endorses slavery! People in the future respect each other's privacy? She will read your mind and blurt out loud what you're thinking, ha! ha! She's sort of a proto-DS9 Ferengi type character whose purpose seems to be to highlight Federation values by flouting them. In this case, as in the case of the Ferengi, I feel like they missed the mark and ended up making it look like she was just an annoying lady. Maybe that was the trouble - they were probably also going for the 'annoying close relation' trope, and baked that into a satire of a Federation VIP. The result ends up looking like a mishmash played for humor that neither says anything pointed nor is particularly funny. That being said I don't exactly hate her as a character, but I do view her as a failure when compared to Nurse Chapel, who I thought contributed very positively to some TOS episodes. Maybe I should be more charitable and assume she was meant as a pastiche of how annoying patriarchal attitudes can be to the women in a modern society? Could this be a way of highlighting how objectionable it could be for a man in 1980's society to feel entitled to chase women in the workplace? I really don't know. Maybe this is what they intended and our annoyance with her is a successful piece of irony. I just never felt that it came across as much of anything.

I can get something out of looking at Trek from a lot of different angles. It's part of my continuing interest in Trek, that there *are* so many angles to look at, and so many different people looking. If tara sees an angle that hasn't been represented, I want to hear it. Lwaxana may have been conceived as little more than comedic relief, but eventually we get "Dark Page," which doesn't entirely work but certainly isn't a joke, and "Half a Life," which I count as pretty classically Trekkian, and finally her scenes with Odo. She's about relationships, loneliness, aging, losing versus letting go.

Thanks for the responses... and, I will say, especially Peter G. "Majel Barrett having a good time on the set" makes sense. Maybe it's a character largely designed by her and intended to showcase the actor's own personality and sense of humor and acting strengths. In the meta-universe, if I pull myself out of TNG's own world and just watch like a woman on the sofa looking for entertainment, I can be fine with that. If the actor had fun being Lwaxana, and the other actors had fun playing off her, then okay. Good for them. The role of taking the piss out of the Federation and their smug perfection was a really important one - beautifully played by Q, and also by the outsiders Ro and Barclay and the "Lower Decks" set and the occasional alien race ("The High Ground", maybe?) through whose eyes we see the regulars as a bit more questionable and tarnished than the Official Narrative presents them. You make me want to watch the next Lwaxana episode with a more open mind to see if she's part of the same lineage. As to her telepathic abilities and their misuse... I've never thought about that. She was so goofy that it was never completely clear to me whether her mind-readings were accurate or invented, and whether she reported them accurately or otherwise. I kind of settled on the idea that she could vaguely sense strong thoughts but that her own big personality trumped accuracy in reporting. Thus, she sensed Picard responding to her sexually in sort of a normal-man way - "Mmm, nice curves in that dress" - and could also read his follow-up thought of "Oh God, but this bloody woman is as annoying as ever!" And then she always chose to somewhat vengefully embarrass him by announcing to everyone present the first thought, but not the second. So basically: broad comedy, and actors having fun, and I'd do best to check my brain at the opening credits and go with the flow... That helps, actually. And, all the yesses to the shout-out to Babylon Five! Where telepaths were a serious matter and a force to be reckoned with. (Until season five, when that Byron guy showed up and combed his mane and made annoying speeches.)

And Peremensoe: the Odo scene in the elevator on Ds9 was great. Actually, it was the moment that made me wish Lwaxana had been more of a person and less of a caricature from the beginning. Even zany aunts and dancing clowns take off their wigs sometimes - and more importantly, even when they're wearing their wigs and cavorting around, they've got reasons for it. They have to still be people underneath the wacky makeup.

I always thought it was hilarious when they used Data as a chaperone. Poor guy can't have been as oblivious to it as he acted but he finally got someone to sit through him reading Wikipedia articles to them so he probably didn't mind.

This is so remarkably funny. We know Betazoids are federation members but they seem like a potential security threat-why isn't that explored? Not to mention terrifying in a personal sense-if your Joe Ensign and you think the Betazoid rep is good lookin she'll know it, if a betazoid thinks so about you-it would be very uncomfortable-no telling what sort of gentle prodding or manipulation they could use to get their way.

Lwaxana Troi comes onto Wesley then outs two fish as suicide bombers. Best. Episode. Ever.

Just some random responses. Having fun reading through this board: @ tara -- I sadly concur, but sometimes you have to suspend all intelligence to enjoy a forum, movie, TV show, whatever. That is by no means meant critically (of you or of STNG) -- I find this unavoidably true with a lot of Hollywood today. I am a (real) scientist, so I tend to dissect the science of anything purporting to BE scientific. There are STNG eps that I DETEST because of the bogus science within. The only way to bypass that is simply to disengage and take what entertainment comes my way, even as comedy if I must. @N - LOVED your May 3 entry. Seriously, can't read that one-liner without audibly cracking up!

Some scenes were truly kind of funny - Lwaxana is an comedic character, no doubt and her making Picard uncomfortable was funny at first but then got tiring quickly. Data remains the one character with the most comedic potential in TNG. The fish creatures were silly - the time in the holodeck was supposed to be humorous but I wasn't amused. This is one of the weakest TNG episodes - just no plot, slow paced - overall boring. Majel Barrett is a great actress - really enjoyed her roles in TOS "Amok Time" and "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Her role as a comic figure in TNG I suppose is one way to include her in the series - she plays the role well, although it doesn't make for great episodes overall to say the least. When I noticed Mick Fleetwood's name at the start I then started wondering what his role was - didn't see it stated in the credits after the episode. And so he's one of those fish assassins?? What a waste. This one only gets 0.5 star -- 60 mins. of my life I'll never get back.

I agree with Jammer entirely. I guess Mick Fleetwood must be a big trek fan -I only hope he enjoyed his Trek outing because I imagine he is in a minority. Lwaxana Troi is a pretty pointless character in any situation-there is a very half- hearted attempt to demonstrate some purpose for her in exposing the two fishy assassins but it is best forgotten . All of the supporting characters came off poorly. Stewart cannot get into the role of a Philip Marlowe style american private eye to save his life so I just cannot see how we are ever supposed to believe Picard is an afficionado of such things. I did however like the inability of the computer to avoid trying to kill the Captain.

A completely pointless episode which is a giant waste of time. I thought we already had an episode where Lwaxana makes Picard uncomfortable. Even the Dixon Hill subplot fell flat. Season 2 was really hitting it's stride until this one and it's predecessor. The only mystery from this one is what exactly was Picard thinking about Lwaxana?

There were a few fun/funny things here and there, but overall not a good episode. In addition to things others mentioned above, I found the absolute casualness of the stymied terrorist plot at the end strange as hell. Oh, you might want to know that these fish things are going to blow up the conference. Security please take the fish away for questioning. Well, bye everybody. Okay bye Mrs. Troi. I'd watch Okona over this one any day.

Another baffling element about the episode is Lwaxana casual racism. She's a full ambassador, but doesn't miss an opportunity to openly insult the Antedans, calling them hideous and saying they'd look better served in sauce. Also, the way she just revealed the Antedans were assassins made no sense. They were right there in the room, wearing the explosives they were going to use. Confronting suicidal terrorists with bomb vests tends to, erm, blow up in your face. Luckily, this is second season TNG where everything is solved within the hour.

Peter Swinkels

Lwaxana has to be one of the most annoying characters are conceived in Star Trek, she would make a fine security officer though. :-)

The "Manhunt" lasts all of thirty seconds in the final scene where Lwaxana, er, "fingers" the Antedean terrorists planning to blow up the diplomatic conference. Unfortunately, the term is also a double entendre also applying to her raging, rampaging lust quest that she curiously attaches to getting married, which can only limit its chances for success. If Betazoid women actually experience a quadrupling of their sex drives in middle age, why isn't Mrs. Troi humping every male on the ship? That would have been far more humorous than her roaringly presumptuous matrimony impositions. To say nothing of far more arousing to her male prey than being shotgunned to an alter without so much as their consent being sought. It came across to me as relentlessly annoying.

It started pretty funny with the walking running gag, Luwaxana Troi. At some point it went downhill and rock bottom came pretty quickly from there. Why did Picard greet the fishy dudes if he knew they traveled in stasis and would not hear him? I also find it hard to believe that Luwaxana didn't know what a holodek was.

Wow this was boring and lame as hell. 2nd worst Trek I can remember seeing, the worst was that stupid romp on Riza in DS9.

August Denys

This episode was purposeless, but I feel two interesting things came out of it. The first being Riker and Troi's disclosure about their relationship. The second, which got a laugh out of me, is when Troi tells Picard about this Midlife change of her mother, Riker saying that it makes their race 4x times as sexually active, with Troi interjecting to say or more, and then Riker's reaction and smile that follows.

Considering the Federation has been exploring space and is supposedly more advanced, (remember their arrogance with the Paklids?) they are remarkably prejudiced with new species. And what's with the little boys Wesley and Riker sniggering at Lwaxana? this one was written by juveniles -1/10

Other Chris

"I am not amused." - Captain Picard Of course he chooses Gangster World as a place to relax. This show is a real test of patience.

Watching and commenting: --Right off the bat, lots of references to exterior appearances and individual preferences. --An easy read on the title this time, "Manhunt," starring Lwaxana Troi as Norma "I'm ready for my close up" Desmond. --Picard uses Data's questionable conversationalist services to keep Lwaxana at bay. Data wants to tell more anecdotes, even after they've left Lwaxana, but Picard says:  "Lay-tah, Day-tah."  I may have to start using this phrase instead of my usual "later 'gators." --Lwaxana is gunning for him, so Picard escapes to the offices of Dixon Hill, PI. --Majel looks great. --Dixon very boring.  Very slow moving ep overall. --Jimmy Cuzzo and The Parrot's Claw. Sounds interesting. Is not. --Trouble staying awake. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Season long, every episode, discussion of what is meant by being alive and human is touched on by Rex and Lwaxana. --Lwaxana saves the day. Those aliens: They're full of surprises. This includes Lwaxana. More about exterior vs interior lives, not judging a book solely by its cover, which we've also seen a lot of this season. Some good performances and funny moments, but lackluster overall. Lay-tah, Day-tahs

I love silly Trek shows just as much as any true trek fan but this episode simply has too many annoying plot holes to really be enjoyable. Like the mom reading Picards mind during dinner but she doesn't read Rexs mind at the holo bar?

Nothing really happens in this episode ....it elicits a few light chuckles ...moments of whimsy perhaps in an otherwise tedious outing. As others have stated, it was less atrocious than I had expected. In fact, Iactually liked the succession of murderous creations on the holodeck cancelled by Picard, who desires a less intense experience. It reminded me of the old cartoon where Bullwinkle the moose tries to pull a rabbit out of his hat, but gets a lion. " I better get another hat."

Zuriel Seven

The best part of this is most definitely the shuttle pilot. Absolutely the shuttle pilot. To watch him carry on behind Lwaxana (even if she is all you can keep your eyes on for the first few watch-through's because she's tremendously flamboyant) is unappreciated gold. In fact, given that they're "just coming into range" when she's first on the viewscreen and the fact that Deanna barely senses her connection with her mother at that range, I would lay odds that it's not Picard that's thinking "what naughty thoughts". Check the shuttle pilot's eyes - 20 bars of gold-pressed latinum says he's afraid he's been found out.

Very weird episode. You can tell they ran out of money from Q Who. Reusing sets constantly and storylines that require absolutely no special effects other than one washed up rock star in a costume they probably had since TOS but always thought it was too stupid looking to use

Jillyenator

I don't know. I forgot this one existed. And after all this time I'm actually thrilled to just hang out with the crew and watch them shoot the shit. I didn't love Manhunt back in the day, but this time I was utterly charmed. I had to back it up every few minutes to catch everyone's expressions. Clearly the cast had a ball. Sometimes I don't want a plot: it's nice to watch my friends having fun. And Lwaxana did save the conference. It was nice to see her being competent. ;-) I also got a kick out of seeing Worf be obsessed with the Antidians. Early Worf cracks me up. And I could see he and Pulaski had a fine familiarity -- good continuity from their tea ceremony. It's a cheery little episode.

You know I keep coming back to these Season 2 episodes and keep enjoying myself with every one, even the fluffballs like this one. I agree 100% with Tara's earlier comment that Troi's age is being played for laughs here in a hypocritical manner. But then again, here we have competent, charismatic Pulaski doing her thing and showing us what a mistake it was to bring back Crusher. Just having Pulaski in the show should adds a star to every episode even if she is just standing there and lending gravitas to the character. I also liked so many little moments in this episode, from Worf's intriguing fascination with the Fishmen (and calling out Wesley on his bigotry) to Data's hilarious comic moments in Lwaxana's quarters. This is more of a 2 star outing for me, but a fun 2 stars.

I used to hate Horny Mom Troi. Now I'm older. I had a brief fling with a 60 some year old woman who was several decades my senior. There was something undeniably attractive about how she knew what she wanted and went after it. I'm not a particularly handsome man and I might have felt downright assaulted the first time we met in person after chatting. I'm not sure if she grabbed between my legs or said 'hello' first. So, now I love Senior Cougar Troi episodes. She makes me want to cruise retirement communities. That being said does anyone else find her eyes to be almost apallingly black? The fish people stand out as my least favorite alien species. Their costumes are so awful it would have looked bad in TOS. I genuinely hate Betazoids. They're walking Deus ex Machina characters and I despise how they are used in most episodes.

All Betazoids have black irises. Any actor who has portrayed a Betazoid has to wear colored contacts.

Bob (a different one)

^ I knew that, but I'm ashamed to admit that someone had to point it out to me even after watching the show for decades. in a similar vein, I only noticed Data's blue eyes in "Parallels" for the first time just a few weeks ago!

@David in MN Thanks - that's good to know. It was weirding me out.

You people... Mick Fleetwood deserved an Emmy for his performance here! Lol, apparently he had trouble with his one word line. But give him some props. This was season two, quite unlike season seven where every celeb wanted to be on TNG.

I was dreading another Lwaxana Troi episode - such a disservice to Majel Barrett. However, there are moments of both intentional and unintentional comedy that almost lift it to 2 star status. Worf describing the fish-faced Antigians as “such a handsome race “… Pulaski having a great conversation with Deanna about sexual drives! … Data being used by Picard to bore Lwaxana to death! … Dixon Hill’s secretary saying “Dix - it was your testimony got him arranged” , when she meant “arraigned”! … Hom is always great value… There’s one interesting moment where Picard - in the holodeck Rex’s Bar - almost tells Lwaxana that the bartender Rex is a holographic illusion.. in front of him! Which made me wonder, how would such a character react to being told the truth of their unreality? Presumably the computer has subroutines to cope with this, though I’m reminded of the character at the end of the earlier Dixon Hill episode who wonders if he will continue to exist when the program ends, which was a very thought-provoking trope. Mick Fleetwood was one of the ‘fish’? Wow, never knew that! What a waste. They should have cast him as Hom - he’s tall enough!! I suppose 1.5 stars just for giving me some laughs.

@borusa “Stewart cannot get into the role of a Philip Marlowe style american private eye to save his life so I just cannot see how we are ever supposed to believe Picard is an afficionado of such things.“ I think that’s the point! Picard IS an aficionado of Dixon Hill-type novels, but when you put him in an actual situation he doesn’t really know how to act. Look at the number of times the characters have zto “put him in the picture”, he’s so incompetent! That’s the comedy (if you find that sort of thing funny). @P’kard On the subject of running out of money after Q Who, surely it would have been quite expensive staging the holodeck scenes?

Jeffrey Jakucyk

It's well-established in the series that in-universe, Picard is not a good actor. Patrick Stewart is a great actor yes, but Picard is not. He stumbles over his lines, can't think of what to say, over-enunciates, and makes stilted gestures. Think "my love is a fever" or "I'm Mott the barber" or "the doll's my cousin". It takes skill for a good actor to act badly.

Oh, this is hardly a one-star episode. It's not great, but it's an entirely average two-star outing. There are MUCH worse episodes, even in this season.

I watched this one last night, and in my eyes it's a good contender for worst episode ever. I genuinely hope that whoever wrote this one no longer has a career in TV, it's that bad. The only thing that kept me watching was (1) a self-imposed determination to stagger through to the bitter end so that at least I could tick the box, and (2) the random thought that this whole thing might be a lot more enjoyable with a cheesy 80s laugh track. "Star Trek is filmed in front of a live studio audience" kind of thing. Zero stars.

This is the first TNG episode I've skipped. I'm all for a low-key, comedic episode, but watching a character endure undesired sexual advances that they can't escape is just uncomfortable, and there's not even a reason to have it in the plot (or lack thereof in this episode). I almost held on to find out what would happen to the fish people, but when I got to Troi's explanation of Betazoid menopause I knew this one would not be worth watching for me.

I strenuously and vigorously disagree with Jammer's take! This episode provided a lot of light relief. Parts of it were very funny (I guess there's no accounting for taste), it was snappy, not too much talky-talky... I could've done without the holodeck nonsense, which I fast-forwarded through, but that's okay. A 2-1/2, maybe 3, starrer.

Bad episode. The only actually funny line was Worf "What a handsome race" in reference to the fish people. I also chuckled when Riker congratulated Picard for being the object of Lawaxana's affection. As with many other, Lawaxana is one of my least favorite characters in the Trek universe.

Anyone notice that Wesley just goes up and opens the fish food barrel without asking?

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Recap / Star Trek: The Next Generation S2E19 "Manhunt"

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Original air date: June 19, 1989

Picard is again playing host to some dignitaries who want their planet to join the Federation. These particular dignitaries are Antedeans, who are essentially fish people, and conveniently enough they like to hibernate when they travel so all Picard has to do is clear out a space for them and have the medical crew check on them from time to time until they reach their conference. The ship’s on track to have an uneventful mission for once, when suddenly Counselor Troi senses something ominous approaching, something that spells big trouble for the Enterprise – that’s right, her mom’s back. Lwaxana Troi has been selected to represent Betazed at the conference, and the Enterprise is to transport her there. Let the hijinks commence!

It all starts off with Lwaxana informing Picard of a diplomatic dinner that he is to attend, a dinner which in reality is more of a date. He falls for it, and Lwaxana comes on strong until he manages to weasel out of it by contacting Data to deliver a long, boring lecture for them. It turns out that Lwaxana has just reached the age when Betazoid women are at their sexual peak, and it’s making her a little man-crazy. Deanna confronts her about it, asking how she’s going to keep it under control, but Lwaxana, as you’d expect, says she’s just going to enjoy it. But she’s also going to focus her desires on one man whom she will eventually marry. She goes on to insist that Picard is totally up for it (side note: he is not).

Picard reacts by dashing away to the holodeck and entering his Dixon Hill program. He tries to relax and enjoy the ambiance, but he has a hard time of it because the computer keeps having the NPCs try to kill him. Meanwhile, Lwaxana tours the ship in search of someone else to throw herself all over. After considering a few options, she finally settles on Riker, to Deanna’s dismay. Riker and Data join Picard in the holodeck to figure out what they should do, only for Lwaxana to follow them there. She doesn’t understand what’s going on, thinking that the dingy bar in the simulation is an actual part of the ship, and that the NPCs are real people. In fact, she becomes quite interested in Rex the bartender, intrigued that she can’t read his thoughts. Picard and Riker decide that they’ll have to tell her, but that they should let her have her moment first.

Tropes in this episode:

• Abhorrent Admirer : Lwaxana's advances are not welcomed by any of her targets. Her "condition" seems to make her believe that every man around her is secretly lusting after her, even her valet.
• Actually Pretty Funny : Riker is clearly having a ball when he learns Lwaxana is after Picard. Riker: Congratulations, sir!
• All Men Are Perverts : Riker had known for years about how the condition amplified a Betazoid woman's sex drive, but he's surprised when Deanna admits it could actually be by more than she originally said. After getting over the initial shock, he stares at Deanna and begins grinning.
• "Ass" in Ambassador : Lwaxana Troi. Lwaxana: Delegates? Last time I saw something like that, it was being served on a plate.
• The Antedeans when they come out of stasis.
• Mr. Homn is apparently a big drinker. He gulps down the entire bottle of whatever Picard brought to the dinner. Later, he can be seen polishing off glass after glass of whatever beverage is around. Perhaps Lwaxana's sex drive has driven him to drink.
• Bizarre Alien Biology : Betazoid women who enter their version of menopause have their sex drive multiplied by a factor of four. Deanna: Or more. Riker: Or more? You never told me that. Deanna: I didn't want to frighten you.
• Breather Episode : Even more of an example than the previous episode . This one is dedicated to a comedy of manners as the crew handle an overly sexed middle-aged woman and two weird fish people.
• Picard returns to his Dixon Hill story setting from the first season. Data also returns to his "Carlos from South America" personality.
• Lwaxana again offers Picard the honor of carrying her luggage, but Picard remembers all too clearly how onerous a task that is. This time, it's Riker who's stuck lugging that thing around.
• Chandler's Law : The law is enforced in Dixon Hill stories. Picard attempts to simply relax in Hill's office while he hides out from Lwaxana, but the computer keeps throwing plots at him, including a thug bursting through the door with a Tommy gun. The program is "limited to the parameters of the novels", which in turn are partly inspired by Raymond Chandler.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance : Worf admires the Antedeans as "a handsome race."
• Dirty Old Woman : Lwaxana Troi, of course! Lwaxana: And you, Jean-Luc, I wasn't aware you had such handsome legs.
• Fish People : The two Antedean dignitaries. Lwaxana keeps comparing them to seafood.
• Funny Background Event : When Lwaxana shoves her face into the viewscreen to talk to Picard and Deanna, her pilot looks very annoyed at her for leaning on him.
• Happily Married : Discussed. For all of Lwaxana's abrasiveness and quirks, Deanna recalls how Ian (her father) practically worshiped her.
• Picard uses their presence to make Wesley aware of this question. Picard: I thought you might find this interesting, Mister Crusher. Few humans have ever seen an Antedean in the flesh.
• Wesley makes a candid remark in the next scene which obviously allow him a little lecture from Data and Picard. Riker: So what did you think of the Antedeans, Wesley? Wesley: They are rather strange-looking, Commander. Data: Judging a being by its physical appearance is the last major human prejudice, Wesley. Picard: Your point is well taken, Mister Data. I'm sure that to the Antedeans, we are equally unattractive .
• The lesson continues later with Worf. Worf: I see. Is this how you felt when you first saw me? Wesley: Well, maybe at first, a little. But now that I've seen more Klingons, I've come to think you're handsome for a Klingon. That didn't quite come out the way I meant, sir.
• Worf, as himself an alien, has another perception about the Antedeans. Worf: What a handsome race. [later] Even in this state, they possess a certain dignity, a graceful countenance.
• Finally, the other alien, Lwaxana, makes quite racist remarks towards them, only seeing them as two pieces of unprepared sushi.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall : Madeline (Dix's secretary) says Picard talks to her like he hasn't seen her in a year .
• Moment Killer : Picard deliberately (and desperately) enforces this trope by contacting Data and inviting him to his and Lwaxana's dinner, where he proceeds to bore her to death with his rambling.
• My Biological Clock Is Ticking : Lwaxana Troi's clock has run out, in that she's reached Betazoid menopause, but oddly, that just means her sex drive is that much higher.
• Riker gets a priceless look on his face when Lwaxana announces that they’re getting married.
• Only One Name : When Picard (as Dixon Hill) asks Rex the bartender his last name, he replies that he doesn't think he has one (presumably because he was never given one in the novels). "Just Rex, that's all."
• Race Fetish : It becomes quite apparent that Lwaxana has a thing for human men. Though she also flirts with Worf, she rejects him because she's "become used to human companionship."
• Rule of Three : When Picard hides out in the holodeck playing Dixon Hill, he encounters a man who pulls a gun on "Dix" for not finding his sister. Picard asks the computer to reconfigure for "more ambiance, less substance". The next guy he encounters snarls a veiled threat and grabs "Dix" by the lapels. Picard again freezes the program and tells the computer to reconfigure. The third guy instantly busts down the door, brandishes a tommy gun and starts screaming bloody murder. Picard: Freeze program! Computer, perhaps I'm not making my intentions clear...
• Save Scumming : When Picard asks the computer to reconfigure the program, it resets back to the point when Madeline says someone is at the office to see him. In this case, doing so makes it less relaxing for him each time.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here : With Deanna saying her mother would take the rejection very personally, Picard decides to go hide in the holodeck.
• Special Guest : An amusing subversion, as one of the Antedeans is played by Mick Fleetwood ...who has no lines and wears a full face mask. At least his famous height makes him a bit intimidating.
• Story-Breaker Power : Lwaxana handily demonstrates how easily a full-blooded, experienced Betazoid crew member could solve most storylines centered around someone trying to pull a fast one on the Enterprise crew or hiding their intentions in any way: while the best Troi can manage is vague premonitions that usually border on Captain Obvious statements, Lwaxana's instantly able to figure out that the two Antedeans are actually assassins and their robes are lined with a hard-to-detect explosive compound just before they were going to be beamed down and the only reason she didn't point it out earlier is because they were in hibernation all the previous times she met them.
• Super-Strength : After Riker fails to lift Lwaxana's luggage, he glances at Mr. Homn incredulously, clearly wondering how he manages to lift the thing so effortlessly.
• The Voiceless : Mr. Homn never speaks and continues to refrain from it in all of his subsequent appearances.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S2E18 "Up the Long Ladder"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S2E20 "The Emissary"

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Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Manhunt”

Season 2, Episode 19 Original air date: June 19, 1989 Star date: 42859.2

Mission summary

In the transporter room, Captain Picard greets a couple of fishy Antedean dignitaries destined for a conference on Pacifica—but they’re in a self-induced catatonic state, so he probably could have skipped the dress uniform. Yet his sacrifice is not for naught, because Enterprise has another distinguished, albeit unexpected guest: Lwaxana Troi, daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed. And she is very appreciative of Picard’s legs. She happens to be going to Pacifica too, so she hitches a ride, to everyone’s inexpressible delight.

This time, the Captain defers the honor of carrying her luggage to Commander Riker, who also draws Lwaxana’s wandering, lustful attention. She’s incorrigible! But she mostly has eyes for Picard, whom she invites to a “Betazoid dinner of greeting”—purely business, she assures him. He diplomatically accepts. While the elder Troi doles out demeaning relationship advice to her daughter, Counselor Troi, Riker, Wesley, and Data yuk it up on the Bridge at Lwaxana and Picard’s expense, prompting a chastising remark from the captain.

There’s no change with the Antedeans, who won’t be woken until they reach Pacificain a few days, so Picard gets back into his dress uniform for the ambassadorial dinner, which no one else seems to be attending. Once he arrives, he quickly realizes that Lwaxana has tricked him into a romantic dinner for two. (Her ever-present valet Mr. Homn doesn’t count.) Normally an accomplished fencer and conversationalist, Picard is unprepared for her directed verbal assault.

LWAXANA: A toast to Earthmen, who, despite their faults, have that unique ability to charm women of all races, in all corners of the galaxy. PICARD: Speaking on behalf of men of Earth, which is indeed an awesome responsibility, I thank you. LWAXANA: I know what you’re thinking, Captain. PICARD: You do? LWAXANA: You’re wondering whether I’m seeing any other man. On a serious basis. PICARD: Well, actually, I wasn’t. LWAXANA: I wouldn’t worry about it, Jean-Luc. Competition seems to bring out the best in the human male. PICARD: The fact is, I wasn’t expecting this setting. I had assumed that my senior Bridge officers would be attending. LWAXANA: You never assume anything where Lwaxana Troi is concerned. Betazoid women are full of surprises. Strange, I’m not really very hungry tonight. I wonder what’s made me lose my appetite? Any ideas?

Trapped on an awkward date but unwilling to offend his guest, Picard asks Lwaxana a tough trivia question then contacts Data to answer it, in great detail—the equivalent of pulling up Wikipedia on a smart phone. Feigning ignorance of Lwaxana’s amorous intent, he invites the android to join them for dessert, which proves to be the perfect diversion. Counselor Troi arrives to rescue him, but rescues her mother instead—and Picard seizes the opportunity to escape Lwaxana’s advances.

It turns out that Lwaxana is undergoing the Betazoid “phase,” a mid-life period of heightened sexual urges.

RIKER: Yes, it’s something Troi warned me about when we first started to see each other. A Betazoid woman, when she goes through this phase, quadruples her sex drive. TROI: Or more. RIKER: Or more? You never told me that. TROI: I didn’t want to frighten you. She has opted for the only dignified option open to her. RIKER: Isolation? TROI: She has decided to focus all of her sexual energy on one male, who will, of course, eventually become her husband. It seems, Captain, that you are the early favorite.

To avoid deeply offending Lwaxana, Picard opts for the only dignified option open to him: isolation. He dresses up again, this time in overcoat and fedora, and flees to the warm embrace of the holodeck. But the available Dixon Hill programs are not as relaxing as he’d hoped for, because thugs keep trying to kill him.

With Picard tied up with “official ship business,” Lwaxana assesses the other male specimens at hand—even, briefly, Wesley and Worf. She finally settles on Riker, announces their engagement, and follows him to the holodeck, where she meets Rex, a holographic bartender in the Dixon Hill program who she falls for. Riker’s off the hook!

The Antedean dignitaries wake up, consume a barrelful of food, and assemble in the transporter room to beam down to Pacifica. Lwaxana arrives as well, miffed that she has lavished her attentions on a virtual man.

LWAXANA: Why are they still here? RIKER: We thought that since you’re going to the same conference, you might like to beam down with the other delegates. LWAXANA: They’re not delegates. Those two are assassins. ANTEDEAN: That is an outrage! Lies! We demand you transport at once! LWAXANA: Don’t bother to deny it. Your minds are so unsophisticated I can read your thoughts in my sleep. Their robes are lined with ultritium, highly explosive, virtually undetectable by your transporter. DATA: She is correct, sir. I am detecting large amounts of ultritium. LWAXANA: Well of course you are. They were planning on blowing up the entire conference. PICARD: Mister Worf, take them to level five. Disarm them. Hold them for questioning. WORF: Aye, sir. LWAXANA: Ah well, I didn’t find a mate, but I did save the conference, as well as your reputations. All in a day’s work, I suppose. PICARD: Goodbye Mrs. Troi, and thank you. Energize, Chief O’Brien. LWAXANA: Jean-Luc. Shame on you for thinking such a thing.

Depending on your opinion of Lwaxana Troi, you either love or hate this episode. I happen to like Lwaxana more often than not, so I’ve always found this one enjoyable, but I also didn’t have any memory of what “Manhunt” is about—especially with that somewhat misleading title, which promises more action than anyone gets—until I started re-watching it. “Oh yeah, the fish people!” I exclaimed when I saw the teaser, though I was surprised that it was a Lwaxana episode. The reason I drew a blank on this one is because there is almost nothing of substance to it—it really is all about Lwaxana visiting the ship and being horny and pushy, as usual. A flimsy premise if ever I saw one.

As such, I found it entertaining with many laugh-out-loud moments, but it also had its fair share of wince-inducing elements. There were some weak and heavy-handed attempts at inserting some meaning into the script, most notably Wesley’s apparent prejudice against non-human races, with his criticism of the Antedean delegates and even Worf, who he insists is “handsome, for a Klingon.” “Judging a being by its physical appearance is the last major human prejudice, Wesley,” Data chides. Ugh. Lwaxana is similarly disgusted by their appearance. And although it fits her character, I was put off by this casual exchange as she sizes up Riker:

LWAXANA: He has nice legs too, Little One. Is he still yours? TROI: Humans no longer own each other that way, Mother. LWAXANA: Really? That’s a custom we may have to introduce again.

No no no no no… Then there’s the little paradox of a woman in power like Lwaxana, who could be admired for her willingness to speak her mind and be open about what she wants, placing such a premium on getting a man and—again—the importance of appearances.

LWAXANA: He’s a fine man. Solid, reliable. He’s a little on the stuffy side, but, all in all, he’s not that bad. TROI: I can’t believe you, Mother. You sound like you’re sizing up a commodity. LWAXANA: But that’s exactly what men are, darling. Especially human men. Was your father ever unhappy with me? TROI: No. He worshipped you. But I don’t think I’ll ever learn to see men the way you do. LWAXANA: You will as you mature, darling. And the men in your life are going to bless you for it. You’re so beautiful.

Gee, thanks, mom.

But with all these possible themes to explore, particularly the significance of outward appearances—the episode either dismisses them entirely or merely pays lip service. It’s fine to have a fun, diverting episode now and again, but even comedic Star Trek episodes like “The Trouble with Tribbles” had more plot going on, and many were about something. Similar to “Tribbles,” there’s a hidden terrorist that is only revealed by one of the guests; this kind of an awesome way to end the episode, but it’s also frustrating because it’s conflict that is resolved the instant we know about it. It also highlights all sorts of things that we probably weren’t meant to think about: Enterprise doesn’t routinely scan for weapons or anomalies like ultritium? Even if the transporter doesn’t pick them up, Data manages to confirm Lwaxana’s claim instantly. It might have been good to know that not all the Antedeans supported entry into the Federation. Why have fish aliens on board if they’re just going to be on ice for the whole episode? And if they’re so easy to read, why didn’t Counselor Troi pick up anything from them?

Lwaxana’s telepathic abilities have supposedly been out of whack because of her condition the whole episode, but I figure she probably hasn’t been able to read the Antedeans before now because they were unconscious, and she had other things on her mind. But I can’t help wondering if her abilities were compromised at all. Her manipulation of Picard into joining her for dinner was clearly premeditated, and all her jokes about Picard’s lustful thoughts about her have to be made up—presumably because it amuses her to shake his proper demeanor. (Admittedly, Patrick Stewart is terrific at playing uncomfortable.) But I have to imagine that she knows exactly what he and everyone else thinks of her, and that’s just kind of sad. And the only reason she gets away with any of this is because she’s a diplomat and no one wants to offend her.

The holodeck is even more superfluous than usual, but at least it seemed to function the way it should this time around, almost obtuse in its inability to deliver the experience Picard wanted, simply because he wasn’t phrasing his command correctly. Perhaps after that little incident with Moriarty, they dumbed the holodeck AI down a little. It was also funny, on a meta level, that the computer has Majel Barrett’s voice, both when Picard is trying to hide from her other character, and when Lwaxana is essentially talking to herself.

All in all, this episode is fluff, a throwaway installment that at least does no harm, as opposed to some of the episodes preceding it. It pretty much only works on one level, and not consistently at that. But for the meager laughs it provides, I’ll give it a Warp 2.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Eugene’s Rating: Warp 2 (on a scale of 1-6)

Best Line: WORF: “What a handsome race.”

Trivia/Other Notes: When Dixon Hill’s secretary, Madeline (played by Rhonda Aldritch), sees Picard, she says, “You’re too much, Dix. You make it sound like you ain’t seen me in a year.” Cute, since it has been about a year since he saw her in “The Big Goodbye.”

Terry Devereaux is a pseudonym for Tracy Tormé, who used it in protest over revisions to the script—particularly the Dixon Hill segments. This was his last episode before leaving the series at the end of the season.

One of the Antedean dignitaries was played by drummer Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac.

Scarface was played by Robert O’Reilly, who is best known for his recurring role of Gowron, Chancellor of the Klingon High Council later in TNG and DS9.

Previous episode: Season 2, Episode 18 – “ Up the Long Ladder .”

Next episode: Season 2, Episode 20 – “ The Emissary .”

About Eugene Myers

25 comments.

Blech. I tend to dislike Lwaxana episodes anyway, and this one is worse than most. It’s trying way too hard to be funny and failing miserably. About the only bit that works for me is Riker’s reaction when Deanna says she was underselling the increase in sexual drive. I suppose part of the problem for me is that I don’t react well to watching other people in uncomfortable situations ( fremdschämen as they say in German), especially when it’s being done for humor.

Would you believe that they actually hyped Mick Fleetwood in the week before this aired for the first time. It was a BIG DEAL. And yet there’s absolutely no way of knowing which of the aliens he is (I assume the non-speaking one) or even if he really is there under the mask. He really wanted to be on the show, even going so far as to shave off his rather iconic beard. And he got a silent role that could have been played by any fairly tall bum pulled in off the street. In a B plot that consisted of the teaser and one scene right at the end.

It’s slightly better than Warp 1, but Warp 2 feels rather generous.

hmm forgot to watch last night as I was too traumatized from watching Mockingbirld Lane (the Munsters reboto) with my wife because we’re Eddie Izzard fans. (Short answer — TNG would have been more entertaining.) From what I rmember of this episode, I’m glad I didnlt watch it again. It’s a long tough slog to decent next gen episodes and that might be a prime reason why I never became a big next gen fan…

The person who comes off the worst in this episode is Deanna, who’s shown up by her mother doing her job for her.

@3 S. Hutson Blount

No kidding!

Feeling bludgeoned by the sheer awfulness of these episodes.

I’m with DemetriosX in being a fan neither of Troi’s mother or the pulling down Picard’s trousers to point and laugh at his red-faced discomfort.

Not what I signed aboard with the crew of an interstellar spaceship to do. I think that’s what the writers of these episodes fundamentally do not understand. It is why the series to date has been more or less a failure.

Unlike Demetrios and Lemnoc, I’m generally a fan of Lwaxana Troi. I even had a fond recollection of this episode! WHAT WAS I THINKING.

Eugene tackles the ridiculous “humans are still racist!” crap, so I won’t repeat that, but what really bothered me this time around is the way they make female sexuality–particularly a middle-aged woman’s sexuality–a big joke for everyone to get a laugh in on. Why is this so amusing or silly? What the hell’s wrong with a widowed, foxy older lady wanting a vibrant sex life? But they won’t even go that far, because of course Lwaxana wants more than just some wild nights–she wants a husband . Because there’s no way that a horny middle-ager with a distinguished, independent life and career could possibly just want sex. The horror! Let’s be honest–there’s got to be SOMEONE on the Enterprise who would tap that. There’d probably be a queue . She’s still got it, and she’s rich and powerful! So why’s everyone so disgusted by her?

But everyone on the crew goes out of their way to humiliate and demean her. Picard in particular is a righteous asshole, countering an admittedly manipulated date with flat-out dickery. I guess it’s supposed to be funny that he calls in his wingman to bore the hell out of her, but it’s just petty. If he doesn’t want it to be a date, how about acting like an adult and saying “I’m just not that into you”? Why be such a jerk? Then he doesn’t want to face her so he goes to play video games. The whole Dixon Hill sequence is entirely pointless. (There was one little touch I liked: that when he complains to the other Majel about these violent stories, the computer basically asks what the hell he wants–Dixon Hill has violence and you want Dixon Hill so shut your trap or pick a new program. Damn straight!)

Let’s not forget that Deanna practically calls a MEETING to tell everyone about her mom’s libido, too. Talk about respecting personal boundaries. And do you like how Deanna cooks up this story about how rejecting her mom would be catastrophic, when by the end Lwaxana tells Riker she knew he didn’t care about her and that’s totally fine? Because rejecting her would be utterly humiliating, but allowing her to go on flirting with a holographic character, that’s just fine.

But then she hit on WESLEY. Everything about this episode is so awful and wrong.

As for the fish people–why are they even there? It’s a neat little ending that Lwaxana effortlessly shows up her repressed colleagues and proves her value and talent, but it’s too little and too late.

Warp 1, and only because I love Mr. Hohm getting wasted in every scene he’s in. Oh, and for her outfits, which are still awesome and I hope I can completely rock something that ugly when I’m her age.

Les mots justes.

Rawr, grumble, *shakes cane*.

Picard in particular is a righteous asshole, countering an admittedly manipulated date with flat-out dickery.

Well, Picard does seem to have some intimacy issues. We’ve seen and will see him struggling when relating to women on a sexual level. He will improve over time (unfortunately with Vash), but even after 6 seasons and a bunch of movies he never manages to pull the trigger with Beverly. He also may have some control issues (seen mostly in his difficulty relating to children) and Lwaxana is a force of nature even when her hormones aren’t running wild.

Because there’s no way that a horny middle-ager with a distinguished, independent life and career could possibly just want sex. The horror!

Wasn’t it established that she was looking for a husband as a way of channeling this whole thing? Without taking this approach it would be orgies on the holodeck 24/7 or something. Also, although it’s not really established here, over the years I got the impression that she’s rather lonely since Deanna’s father died and wants some actual companionship as well as a damn good rogering. She also seems to be fairly conservative by Betazed standards.

I can’t believe I’ve been defending this crapfest. At least the next two episodes are decent.

@ 8 DemetriosX He can have intimacy issues. He’s also a diplomat, and knows how to politely extricate himself from awkward situations. I guess it’s supposed to be funny in an Office -type way, but I hate that style of discomfort humor so maybe it’s just not meant for me. I think Beverly is a great counter-example. They’re both interested, they both have baggage, but they both operate just fine on a professional and personal (tea time!) level without being jerks or even really weird to each other.

Re: the husband bit, that’s precisely my point. Of course the show would have her try to “channel” it into marriage. That makes no sense to me. Deanna already told us it’s a biological “phase” of increased sex drive, uncontrollable and irrepressible. And she has all these obnoxious speeches about “owning” tons of men and that’s what women like har har–so why would she want to marry one guy? Because deep down we all want a ring on it? You know they would never do anything like that if it were a man.

Speaking of–it did occur to me that maybe they think they’re being really clever and recasting the cliche lecherous, skirt-chasing diplomat as a woman. If so, it didn’t work.

But yes, the next two are pretty good. And then… oh and then…. shades of awful.

@9 Torie I said in my first post that I really dislike comfort humor myself. (There were episodes of Seinfeld where I literally had to leave the room until a scene was over.) And that is a large part of what they were going for here. Still, while Picard is a diplomat, when he plays that role he is in a situation where the other sides accords him a certain amount of respect and latitude, he has some control. Lwaxana accords him none of that and simply overwhelms him. She’s his kryptonite and all he feels he can do is run away. Not that any of that makes this funny.

Tracy Tormé insisted they take his name off of this because of the rewrites and he was so frustrated by what had been done to his scripts over the last 2 years, he left the show. I wonder what the original story looked like. His scripts on other shows are usually pretty good.

I think the thing most bothersome about Lwaxana episodes is they are invariably set up like some kind of extended mother-in-law joke. Not my cup of Earl Grey.

OK, that should be DIScomfort humor there in the first sentence of my last post.

@11 Lemnoc Very true. And along with the mother-in-law joke they’ve thrown in Jewish mother jokes and a hefty dose of Nanny Ogg (I can’t really think of a joke classification for an oversexed older woman, but it’s really in conflict with both mother-in-law and Jewish mother jokes.)

So this episode might not have been my kettle of fish. So many cliches crammed in like sardines (I mean, Lwaxana is hooked on human males, trawling for a mate but tossing one after another back when they can’t measure up to the one who keeps getting away). I do think the “my psychic powers are out of whack” thing is pretty clearly a fish story, though, since she knows & accepts that Riker won’t take the bait (although let’s face it, getting him to bang her would be like shooting fish in a barrel), and she spots the delegates’ fishy plan right off the boat. Maybe she’s toying with Picard, and maybe she’s angling for him sincerely — he’s such a cold fish it wouldn’t be surprising if he really were just awkwardly repressing sincere desire for her, and maybe Lwaxana thinks that dangling herself in front of him is the best way to spawn a relationship. I think he’s just swimming against the current, floundering about trying to repress his very real sexual feelings when he doesn’t want a commitment to her. He’s not one of those slippery-eel types who’ll cast his line in every stream you know. (Well, excepting Vash, my god. Ick. Theology.) But it is shameful to see him be such a spineless jellyfish toward her.

The point is the crew buys what she says hook, line, and sinker, and that’s never a good plan with Lwaxana — nor does it make for interesting stories. But where this episode really goes belly-up by my scales is the plotting: there’s never any real tension, it’s just stuffed to the gills with barely related awkward encounters that never really amount to anything, and in the final analysis I can’t call it anything but superficial.

A few episodes back, some were commenting about the essential cruelty of Pulaski refusing to call Data by his correct name and gender, refusing to recognize him as an entity despite clear evidence that he is considered one. Cruel, because she knows better.

I see the same kind of cruelty in Troi’s mother being able to read secret, private thoughts and then blithely spouting out what’s she’s read: It’s either true or not true, but in any case it is cruel. Trashing and tarnishing Picard in front of his crew for her personal yuks is just something only an asshole would do.

These folks just can’t write mature women with dignity.

@13 DeepThought [squintingFry.jpg]

@13 If only the writing in this epsidoe were as clever as your post!

@ 10 DemetriosX I thought Tracy Torme asked for his name off this one because of the Dixon Hill scenes? Not the Lwaxana stuff. I didn’t even remember this episode had any Dixon Hill.

And yeah, I’m surprised she doesn’t give Picard a copy of Nanny Ogg’s cookbook.

@ 14 Lemnoc It seems obvious that none of it is true (I mean Mr. Hohm has a two-drink minimum for every scene, and Picard?!), but you’re right, it’s ridiculous that it keeps coming up as a gag. It may have been funny to do it once, teasingly. But again and again? Just stop.

The highlight package for this episode would consist of the scenes with Mr. Hohm.

The A plot seems influenced by the bad sit-coms (Seinfeld included) and the B plot seems to exist only to give the A plot its starting and ending points. I see Lwaxana as someone playing a comic act in a desperate measure to not be the lounge singer singing “Is That All There Is?” but coming off as a sad clown. There is more to her but it takes a while to see that. We will see what is probably the true Lwaxana in scenes in Half A Life and Cost Of Living, but here we see the sad clown trying to provide laughs in a series that at this point was more in need of better stories than cheap laughs.

@CaitieCat You have me seeing Slappy Squirrel (Animaniacs) when I read your comments.

Now I guess I’d better back away and take cover.

Seriously, the comments are what make these terrible episodes worth rewatching.

I love Slappy Squirrel, and find this to be an apt and hilarious comparison.

I’m physically disabled, so I use a cane all the time – not an umbrella, but close! – and I’m completely grey-haired, as well as being a grandmother. and recently, an aunt for the first time – my younger sister gave birth to her first and only child (she’s 43, so no more are expected).

So I’m perfectly happy to be compared to the great and hilarious Slappy, thanks. :D

Also, DeepThought? Frakking HIGH-larious. Bravo, sir, bravo. :)

Actually, I should say, I’m completely grey-haired, except when my hair is dyed some fun colour, which is most of the time. Purple was very popular . Currently, I’m at teal, on my way down the rainbow from blue last spring. Green’s up next. :D

@13 DeepThought

You’re hired! Your first re-watch post will be “Shades of Gray.”

To echo a bunch of you, I also dislike discomfort humor, so I wonder why this episode (and Lwaxana in general) hasn’t bothered me more. I hadn’t considered some of the points Torie made about her being malicious before… I have to imagine that if she can truly read other people’s thoughts–or at least their feelings–about her, even passively, that she must lead a very sad life. Like many people, she uses humor as a defensive measure, and cultivates this persona to make herself less vulnerable. If they’re reacting to the act she’s putting on, they can’t hurt her as much as if she were being “herself” and they still didn’t like her. I was initially baffled by her gag at the beginning of the episode in which she’s facing the wrong direction on the transporter pad and kneeling. She must have set that up carefully to make a certain kind of impression.

And the thing is, no one ever really attempts to see the real her. They’re essentially playing along with the whole performance, and in some ways, her shallowness is revealing everyone else’s. Whatever her motivations, I think having someone shake up your routine, even if it exposes some of your own flaws (like Picard’s stuffiness), can serve a valuable purpose. And I wish we could see her in a full ambassadorial mode. I think perhaps she is very experienced at getting people to reveal their true selves, and of course manipulating people or forcing them to look at situations differently. It’s possible that Lwaxana even waits until the last moment to reveal the Antedeans’ plot to give the Enterprise crew a chance to discover it on their own, since it is rather embarrassing for them, and especially Deanna.

There’s an anime series I like a lot called The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Tylor is a buffoon who seemingly becomes captain quite by accident and saves the day over and over again despite his laziness and ambivalence. But at some point, his crew begins to wonder: is he really a lucky idiot, or is he simply playing the fool? I might be reading too much into her, at least this early in the series, but I think Lwaxana is probably both revealing and hiding her real personality behind the caricature she presents to everyone.

I would add the DS9 episode “The Forsaken” to your list,

@ 19 Toryx They’re the only reason we keep writing…

@ 20 Cait I love putting faces to names! Great hair. Hair-dyeing (anything but blonde or red, that is) is weirdly not mainstream in the US. I remember in Europe everyone dyed their hair wacky colors–it was multigenerational and no big thing at all.

@ 22 Eugene You’re being so generous… In any case, I think you’re ascribing a lot of character moments that happen in DS9 which just aren’t present here. They did a good job there of fleshing out her loneliness and the complexity of her public/private life.

@23 – thanks, Torie, I do actually love my grey hair, because it takes the dye like a sponge, and holds it forever. I started going grey at 20, was about a third there by 30, and by 35 was pretty much all the way grey.

I’m working on a full rainbow, of course; eventually, I’ll have a set of pictures which I can line up next to one another for a very, very long-term art project I’m working on. :D

@17 Torie As I understand it, Tormé wanted his name off the script for everything they did to it. Although Roddenberry was starting to step back from day-to-day involvement in the show, either he was continuing his knack for hamfisted rewrites or the people he put in charge were maintaining the tradition. He left the series at this point citing ongoing conflicts with the production team. (Of course, that’s also why he left Sliders , so the problem may be at least partly on his side.)

It occurs to me that at least for early Lwaxana, say up to the episode with David Ogden Stiers, and especially here she shouldn’t be played by Majel Roddenberry, but by Phyllis Diller. Wasn’t overbearing, oversexed, and over the hill pretty much her schtick?

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• The Original Series
• The Next Generation
• Deep Space Nine
• Strange New Worlds

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

The war without, the war within, light and shadows.

The Enterprise is sent to transport the governor of a distant planet, the exquisitely beautiful Anya. But when the Enterprise arrives, they are surprised to find that she has brought a special guest with her, the renowned Ambassador Troi.

Ambassador Troi is on a special mission, to find her missing mother, the infamous Lwaxana Troi. Lwaxana is a powerful diplomat, and has been working on a project on a remote planet. However, she has gone missing, and the only clue is a strange alien signal emanating from the planet.

The Enterprise sets a course for the mysterious planet, and when they arrive, they find that the planet is home to a race of aliens called the Anticans, a warlike race of hunters. Here, they become embroiled in a heated battle between the Anticans and the Selay, another alien race.

Meanwhile, Lwaxana’s signal is traced to a prison camp, where she is being held prisoner by a powerful alien called the Negus. The Negus is determined to keep Lwaxana captive, and as the Enterprise crew attempts to rescue her, they face a deadly battle between the Negus’ forces and the Anticans.

With the help of Anya, the Enterprise crew must battle their way through the alien prison camp and rescue Lwaxana, while staying one step ahead of the Negus’ forces. In the midst of the fight, Lwaxana reveals the truth about her mission and why she was taken prisoner. Now, it is up to the Enterprise crew to find a way to free Lwaxana and bring her back home.

The crew must use their cunning and bravery to outwit their enemies and rescue Lwaxana from her captors, while trying to uncover the truth of her mysterious mission. With time running out and tensions running high, the crew of the Enterprise attempts to prove they are the best of the best and come to the rescue of Lwaxana Troi in Manhunt.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation – Manhunt (Review)

This January and February, we’ll be finishing up our look at the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and moving on to the third year of the show, both recently and lovingly remastered for high definition. Check back daily for the latest review.

There’s a strange sense of fatigue as we come towards the end of the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation , as if the effort of producing Q Who? has really just drained the show of any ambition or drive. To be fair, there are probably more banal motivations at play. The 1988 Writers’ Strike had taken the entire industry by surprise and has been credited with dropping television ratings by ten percent . It damaged the tail end of the first season, causing an improvised conclusion to We’ll Always Have Paris and is probably responsible for the mess that was The Neutral Zone .

The damage also bled into the second season. Even closing with a clip show, Shades of Grey , the second season wasn’t able to meet the average quota of twenty-six episodes per season. The season premiere, The Child , had to be hastily repurposed from an aborted script for Star Trek: Phase II . Even with the shortened orders, the second season of The Next Generation frequently saw episodes coming in behind schedule and above budget. This is one of the reasons that Rob Bowman, despite being responsible for two of the season’s strongest episodes ( Elementary, Dear Data and Q Who? ), did not become a regular director.

“It’s a good time for nap time…”

Behind the scenes, the show seemed to be threatening to pull itself apart. Tracy Tormé and Maurice Hurley were frequently at loggerheads with one another over all manner of issues. Tormé was only allowed to register two pseudonyms with the Writers’ Guild of America, he used both on the second season of The Next Generation , protesting over modifications made to his script. It’s no wonder that the writers’ room pretty much exploded at the end of the season, with both Tormé and Hurley departing. When Michael Piller was put in charge on the third season, he had to pretty much start from scratch.

All of which explains why the tail end of the second season seems so lifeless and limp. The Emissary is really the only second season script with any life in it once the show gets past Q Who? Most of the rest of the season seems to trying to limp across the finish line. Still, even with all of that in mind, Manhunt feels a little mean-spirited. It’s an episode designed to mock at Lwaxana Troi, to reduce a middle-aged woman going through a process explicitly compared to menopause to the butt of some particularly harsh joke. It’s hard to find that all that amusing.

Starlit dinner…

There really aren’t that many roles for older women in television. And those that do exist typically conform to a set number of archetypes. There are mothers and grandparents, primarily. Even in the twenty-five years since Manhunt aired, it’s uncommon to come across a truly empowered older woman on television. Those who exist remain the exception rather than the rule, and for every Patty Hewes or Claudette Wyms, there are still countless nagging or doting mother figures intended as nothing but support for more important younger characters.

This particularly the case with science-fiction, where it is very hard to find dynamic roles for older women. And heaven forbid that those women should be sexually active. In recent years, Steven Moffat has generated no small amount of controversy through the character of River Song, as played by Alex Kingston on his version of Doctor Who . In the show, the character is brazen and flirty, but also involved in a passionate love affair with the show’s lead actor. When that lead actor was Matt Smith, there were nineteen years in difference between the pair.

Working under cover…

And it sparked all manner of protest from on-line fans. One fan site described it as “Mrs. Robinson-esque.” Of course, it doesn’t matter that the Doctor’s character is centuries older than his lover. It doesn’t matter that she is still relatively young in terms of the show. It doesn’t matter that they are both well past the age of consent. All that matters is that Alex Kingston dares to get flirty with a character played by an actor who is not in her age bracket. And this is the state of science-fiction in 2014.

So it feels unfair to get particularly upset with Manhunt and its gender issues. It is a product of 1989, which might as well have been a lifetime ago. In theory, the way the story treats Lwaxana should be an artifact of its time, much like some of the unfortunate moments from the classic Star Trek . Unfortunately, it’s not. While The Next Generation is undoubtedly a product of its time, it’s not too difficult to imagine all of this playing out on a modern television show. Certainly, we all remember the unfortunate gender issues that were present even in the final years of Star Trek: Enterprise .

Glory to you… and your private detective’s office…

So Manhunt is a decidedly unpleasant watch. It’s the second story to feature Lwaxana Troi, who is essentially the sit-com mom of the ship’s mostly useless counsellor, Deanna Troi. Indeed, Manhunt plays up this aspect of the relationship, with Deanna growing increasingly exasperated and embarrassed by her mother with each passing second. “Oh, my God,” Troi states in the opening scene, sensing her mother’s approach to the Enterprise. “What’s she doing here?”

Lwaxana is a difficult character to like at the best of times. She’s a shrill stereotype, Troi’s nagging mother and Riker’s aggressive would-be mother-in-law. She claims that she knows everything that’s going on, is decidedly stuffy, and insists on dominating the lives of those around her with little regard for anybody else’s wants or needs. And all of this is played as hilarious. It suffers because (a.) it is not, in fact, hilarious; and (b.) it is incredibly trite and cliché.

Over the Hill?

While I’d be hard-pressed to count any of her appearances as truly classic (though Half a Life comes closest), the best Lwaxana episodes at least allow the character some measure of dignity. They respect Lwaxana as a character with her own hang-ups and her own insecurities. That’s part of the reason her relationship with Odo worked so well when she appeared on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . The Forsaken and The Muse are pretty mediocre episodes, but at least they treat Lwaxana as more than a walking punchline.

Manhunt might be the cruellest Lwaxana story the show ever produced. It’s based around the idea that a middle-aged sexually active woman is absolutely frightening for anybody stuck in the room with her, and hilarious to anybody watching the episode on television. So Lwaxana proceeds to spend the episode lusting after Picard, shooting down Worf, remarking that Wesley might make a fine man one day, getting engaged to Riker and flirting with a holodeck character.

Dressed to impress…

That last one seems especially mean-spirited. Ignoring that it seems unlikely Lwaxana would be unfamiliar with the concept of a holodeck, the way the episode (and the other characters) allow her humiliation to proceed feels decidedly unfair. Lwaxana might be bossy and shrill, but she’s never portrayed as mean-spirited or malicious. Playing her humiliation as a joke feels like the episode is delivering some sort of comeuppance. Since all Lwaxana does is aggressively flirt with the men on the ship, which is driven by a biological imperative, Manhunt comes perilously close to punishing Lwaxana for having a sex drive.

We’re told repeatedly that “the phase” is something that happens to every Betazoid female, with time. One of the better reaction shots of the episode come from Jonathan Frakes, with Riker’s wonderfully seedy (and totally in character) grin after Deanna warns him that her sex drive might more than quadruple with age. Lwaxana really has no choice in the matter. She can’t suppress it. It’s as natural as baldness in Picard’s case.

“Don’t drink it all now! We’ve still got to get through Shades of Grey!”

The only real option that Lwaxana has would be to retire from diplomatic service and retreat back to Betazed. Which seems like a slightly worrying implication for the episode to make. For one thing, Lwaxana is described as a very competent diplomat – why should she have to give up her career and go home? For another, had Lwaxana not been on board, the Antedean delegates would have most likely been successful in sabotaging the conference. Since they were wearing explosive clothes, there would probably even have been massive casualties.

So, accepting that Lwaxana was right to go to the conference, it seems like the bulk of Manhunt is built around laughing at a middle-aged woman for daring to be sexually active and adventurous. In the very unlikely event that that this plot would ever be constructed using a male character, it’s worth noting that it would not really be a comedic subplot. If “the phase” were the same, and the character were acting the same way, it would be creepy rather than funny. Of course, Amok Time covered similar ground with Spock – and it treated his sexual imperatives with considerable respect and discretion.

There’s something fishy about these delegates…

Instead, Manhunt feels like it was constructed as a sex comedy with “isn’t it hilarious when older ladies want to have sex?” as the central punchline. It’s something that The Next Generation really should be much better at at this stage of its development. That we’re still getting these plots at this point in the show’s life cycle is disheartening. Star Trek really should be aspiring for more, even when it comes to dodgy comedy episodes.

It’s a shame that the central plot is so weak, as there are some nice moments and gags here. In particular, Picard’s attempt to get away from it all works surprisingly well – discovering that play-acting a forties private eye really isn’t all that relaxing. It’s nice to see the holodeck presented as an interactive stage play with only so many variable parametres – obviously not programmed to infinite detail. Asked for his surname, Rex the bartender hesitates a moment. “Don’t think I have one.”

Riker does the heavy lifting…

Also quite nice is Worf’s appreciation of the beauty of the Antedeans, and his awkward conversation with Wesley about inter-species aesthetics. Although it’s played for comedy, it’s a nice example of the show trying to do relativism – accepting that standards of beauty are not universal and vary from species to species. Just because Worf is not attractive to human eyes doesn’t mean that he’s not handsome as a Klingon.

Indeed, there’s something to be said for the casualness of Manhunt . It really just seems like the Enterprise crew lounging around while doing a boring ferrying mission. No strange anomalies, no alien attacks, no galactic crises. Just the Enterprise as an interstellar cruise liner. One thing the second season has been willing to do is to allow the cast room to breath in their roles – to give us a sense of the characters and the world they inhabit, as opposed to a universe driven entirely by the demands of a given plot.

Giving their relationship another Troi?

It’s something of a shift in television between the sixties and the eighties, but the classic Star Trek could never have done anything quite like this. Even when the Enterprise ferried ambassadors to and fro, interesting things seemed to happen around them – exciting and compelling plots. The big plot about the conference ( the Antedeans plan to blow it up! ) is only hinted at and resolved in the last two minutes of the episode, a casual off-hand plot twist. The rest of the episode is a lot more relaxing, with the Antedeans hibernating for most of the journey, and Picard able to sneak off to the holodeck.

Manhunt also drops some interesting hints about Riker and Deanna Troi, which remains one of the dangling one-ended mysteries of The Next Generation . Just what exactly is going on between them? She cried when he was possibly leaving the ship in The Icarus Factor , and the show routinely treats Troi as Riker’s girlfriend, but the two aren’t explicitly dating and certainly aren’t beyond flirtations with other characters. We know they were together in the past, but  The Next Generation seems to subtly hint that the two have been hooking up since they started serving together.

The life aquatic…

Manhunt is decidedly ambiguous and non-committal on the answer, even as it flirts with the possibility. Watching Riker lift her case, Lwaxana notes, “He has nice legs too, Little One. Is he still yours?” Deanna declines to answer the question, instead steering the conversation another direction. “Humans no longer own each other that way, Mother.” Later on, when Lwaxana tries to sink her claws into Riker, Deanna falls into the stereotypical role of the jilted girlfriend ready to fight for her man. Willing to joke with Pulaski about Picard, Lwaxana’s play for Riker is too much. “Somebody’s got to set her straight.”

Okay, that’s far from the proudest feminist moment that the show has ever had, but it’s in keeping with the uncomfortable subtext of Manhunt . It all feels like a mean joke on Lwaxana. And though she’s hardly the most beloved of characters, it’s still very unpleasant to watch.

Read our reviews of the second season of  Star Trek: The Next Generation :

• Supplemental: Phase II (1978) – The Child
• Where Silence Has Lease
• Supplemental: Embrace the Wolf
• The Outrageous Okona
• Loud as a Whisper
• The Schizoid Man
• Supplemental: Deep Space Nine (Marvel Comics) #3-4 – The Cancer Within
• A Matter of Honour
• Supplemental: Myriad Universes – Echoes and Refractions: Brave New World by Chris Roberson
• Supplemental: The Measure of a Man (Extended Cut)
• Supplemental: Masks by John Vornholt
• Time Squared
• Supplemental: The Lost Era – Deny Thy Father by Jeff Mariotte
• Supplemental: (DC Comics) Annual #2 – Thin Ice
• Supplemental: Strange New Worlds VI – The Beginning by Anne Reed
• Supplemental: Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who – Assimilation²
• Supplemental: The Newspaper Strips – Beware the Omnimind! (aka Restructuring is Futile)
• Samaritan Snare
• Up the Long Ladder
• The Emissary
• Peak Performance
• Shades of Grey

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: alex kingston , Child , Deanna , Deanna Troi , doctor , february , List of minor recurring characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation , Lwaxanna , Michael Piller , Neutral Zone , Next Generation , Q Who , Rob Bowman , star trek , Star Trek Next Generation , star trek: enterprise , star trek: the next generation , StarTrek , Tracy Tormé , William Riker , Worf |

5 Responses

I remember watching that episode way, way back, and I’m afraid I pretty much missed the “middle-aged woman trolling for a man”. The truth is, Lwaxana always was a pretty unlikeable character to me – self-centered, loud, not an ounce of tact towards non-telepaths in her, “my way or no way” in all questions. _That_ is an accomlished diplomat? Only if all people she has to deal with are cowed and so eager to get out of her presence that they’ll agree to anything.

The “she deserves compassion because she’s suffering from a change which affects her behavior” approach is not working for me. For one thing: her behavior, as far as I remember, was just the same unthinking, unreflected steam-rolling-over-everyone-else routine that it always was. Maybe more importantly: that approach only works with the assumption that a heightened sex-drive makes control of one’s behavior impossible; a bit of an evil twin of the “pregnant women all act weird” cliché which gave birth to a particularly brain-curdling Voyager episode. I don’t buy it, for neither gender. I don’t think even TNG would have used a story where being horny as hell works as an excuse for a man to indiscriminately hit on everything female, so no reason they should use it for a woman.

** just remembering the Outrageous Okona…***

Okay, I’m mostly certain TNG wouldn’t have done that.

Oh Cripes, I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t be viewed as viable excuse in a tv-show today!

Anyhoodles.

I actually liked Mahel Barrett a lot in Earth – Final Conflict, because there she still had that potential to be loud, opinionated and take no BS from anyone, but it was that: a potential, not her one and only state of being. It made for a much better character.

I actually think that the three DS9 episodes (well, the first two) made better use of Lwaxanna than most of her TNG appearances. I think Barrett worked very well with Odo, particuarly the way the first two episodes suggested that they were both outsiders dealing with the world in different ways. (By putting on different faces.)

I think the TNG got a lot better when it it allowed her her own agency and treated her with some measure of dignity instead of the punchline to a joke that isn’t funny. Half a Life may be the episode of TNG that offers the strongest sense of Lwaxanna as a person. While there are very serious problems with Dark Page – Lwaxanna really doesn’t need a tragic backstory to explain her behaviour – there is a sense that it at least approached her as a character rather than a caricature.

I’m just imagining the pitch for this these days “A menopausal woman chases men and uncovers a pair of suicide bombers”. Not sure this would end up as a “comedy” episode with that ending.

That ending is certainly jarring. “Oh yeah, suicide bombers. Whatevs.” And nobody else seems too bothered either. Never mind that it doesn’t actually add anything to the episode’s plot.

All it needs is one of them to actually go off, and everyone laughing with soot covered faces.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 2, Episode 19

Where to watch, star trek: the next generation — season 2, episode 19.

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Patrick Stewart

Capt. Jean-Luc Picard

Jonathan Frakes

Cmdr. William Riker

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Star Trek: The Next Generation : "Manhunt"/"The Emissary"/"Peak Performance"

"Manhunt"

We've talked before about how  TNG  has had to work to establish its own identity outside of  TOS . This is trickier than it looks. Obviously the new series doesn't want to completely cut ties with the old, because that's part of its market base—or, to put it a little less cynically, if the show's creators (excluding Rodenberry who, lets face it, was always a better salesmen than he was a creative force, and was likely looking to cash in on the success of the movies) weren't interested in telling stories in the  Trek -verse, they wouldn't have done a spin-off style show in the first place. Still, they can't spend all their time recreating the past.

"Manhunt" is the kind of episode that  TOS  never really tried. The original show had overtly comic storylines, but even those had an urgency to them. We never had a laid back hour of  TOS , never just watched the crew doing their business and having lives and so forth. There were a couple scenes of Uhura singing in the common room, but those were isolated moments in the middle of a bigger, more driving storyline.  TNG,  on the other hand, has already done a few "hang out" episodes, and "Manhunt" is another in the set. There is a premise here, in Lwaxana Troi's sudden overflow of libido, but the consequences are never all that important. The worst that could happen is that she gets upset, or Picard has to hem and haw his way out of an embarrassing misunderstanding. Galactic doings are afoot, but, while I didn't have a stop-watch on me, I feel comfortable saying that Antedean "dignataries" got maybe five minutes out of "Manhunt," and even the climactic revelation of their true purpose was treated as a tossed off gag.

I'm torn. (Thankfully, no nudity and floor-lying required.) I really like the conceptual foundation behind an episode like this one. I think it's a smart way to pace out a season, help strengthen the audience's bond with the crew, and give the  Enterprise  a lived-in feel that the original show never managed. I always get frustrated with people who criticize a series for taking its time, as if character and setting were merely the spoonfuls of sugar we ingest to keep swallowing the ongoing plot. Maybe it's just how I watch television, but I enjoy the occasional low-key entry. Too many, and a show can turn sluggish and meandering, but without any, it becomes far more difficult for a series' world to catch hold of my imagination. (A perfect example of how to do this well came in the last season of  Breaking Bad. Bad  is one of the tightest, best paced shows ever made for television, and two-thirds of the way through this year's crazy melange of agony and miscalculation, we got "Fly," which spent nearly the whole running time on the show's two leads and barely moved the main storyline at all. Some viewers complained this was a waste, but it's crucial to the season, because it stops the tidal wave just long enough to remind us the lives that will be lost in all that rushing water.)

So when I complain that "Manhunt" isn't really  about  anything, please don't take that as a criticism of this format in general. It's just, this is a mediocre at best episode, featuring one of the show's most irritating recurring characters, some draggy comic relief, and a bizarre holodeck interlude with Captain Picard's favorite fake private dick. Lwaxana is slightly toned down this time (which is odd, considering her motivation), but she's still problematic. We learn in "Man" that female Betazoids, once into their middle age, go into a kind of lust-filled frenzy and become obsessed with taking a new mate to expend all their energies upon. This puts me in the strange position of disliking the lady, while at the same time feeling she is being ill-used. We're supposed to find it hilarious that Lwaxana, at the mercy of her biological necessities, throws herself at every crew-member who is foolish enough to be a human male of breeding age. (Ah, poor Wesley. Someday, your puberty will come.) She has enough control of herself to be moderately discerning, but after bizarrely and inappropriately declaring she and Riker are to be wed, Lwaxana puts the moves on a holodeck bartender because not being able to read his mind is a huge turn-on.

It's silly, and it's not much fun to watch. Are we laughing at her? With her? It's one thing to have Lwaxana be forceful and obnoxious, but here she's being mocked for entering her species' Opposite Day version of menopause, and that's sad. The holodeck joke is a step too far, I think, as it's unbelievable that the woman would have no idea of what a holodeck is, Betazoid or no. It plays as a kind of just deserts for all her interfering on the ship, and I'm not entirely comfortable with that. We've seen Worf's rage issues treated with dignity and respect, so why should Lwaxana's onrush of lust, over which she has roughly the same control as Worf does his anger, be played for broad comedy? That she casually unmasks the Antedeans as spies at the end at least gives her some purpose, but this is all very poorly thought out.

About the only clever bit in the episode is during Picard's playtime as Dixon Hill on the holodeck. Picard lounges in his office, various thugs arrive to threaten him, and then he heads to a bar where he learns which novel he's currently participating in. There's no effort to connect this novel with the rest of the episode's storyline (apart from both being about manhunts), but that works. More than the last time we saw Picard play this game, this particular adventure feels like what you'd imagine a computer simulation of a fictional setting  should  feel, as though the edges of the stage lay just beyond the sightlines. Even better are Picard's attempts to force the program into giving him a more relaxed atmosphere. Each iteration the computer tries only makes the situation worse, because the kind of laid-back, just chillin' vibe the captain is searching for simply doesn't exist in Dixon Hill land.

It does exist on  TNG , but this is a poor example. It's not because Lwaxana is such a brat either. "Manhunt" is just too lazy to be effectively low-key. There are a few fun exchanges and a couple of bright spots, but by the end I found myself wishing I could've stolen a page from the Antedeans' playbook and stayed unconscious for the duration.

Stray Observation:

• It doesn't really start till next episode, but this turned out to be a good week for Worf. His comments on the Antedeans ("What a handsome race") are great.
• Picard just doesn't seem to "get" the holodeck, does he?

"The Emissary"

Most romantic comedies suck. All right, let's be honest, most  movies  suck, things being what they are, and the ratio of suck to good of romantic comedies isn't much worse than that of, say, costume dramas or action flicks. The difference is, the lessons action movies teach us about life tend to be about situations that aren't going to come up in the real world. It would be a bad thing if I shot the least likely murder suspect right off to save myself a third act, but I don't own a gun, and no credible police force in the world is going to accept an application written mostly in highlighters. (Everybody steals my pens at the office.) Rom-coms, though, can mess a person up. Their circumstances are heightened for dramatic purposes, but the basic emotions and problems are ones most people can relate to—generally speaking, we all want somebody to love. And if we start following the lessons we learn in  Sleepless In Seattle  while we're on the road to finding what we want, we can expect a lot of heartbreak, awkward conversations, and the occasional restraining order.

This is why Klingons are awesome. Seriously! We haven't had much of a chance to watch their mating rituals, but between Worf's explanation to Wesley in "The Dauphin," and the sparks between Worf and this week's special guest star, we have a picture of the standard rom-com devices taken to their utmost extremes. The woman is aggressively disinterested in the male, and the male continues expressing adoration while doing his best to avoid bodily harm. It's hilarious, but it's weirdly charming, too, because by making the woman the physical threat, and turning the aggressive pursuit that so many rom-coms demand of their male participants into a polite, noninvasive persistence, the unpleasantness of the scenario is undercut. Is Worf a little pushy here? Maybe. But the object of his affections is never threatened or forced into an arrangement, and she doesn't have to soften her personality too much before the end credits.

"The Emissary" is the kind of episode that makes me view junk like "Manhunt" a little more favorably. "Emissary" is decidedly not a hang out episode—we've got a strong plot, there are stakes, and Worf and K'Ehlyer's relationship is the character focus. Yet all the slower eps that preceded this one have ensured that we care what happens to Worf. He's gone from being a sight gag ("Holy crap, there's a Klingon on the bridge! What's with the face?") to a funny, nuanced personality, and that wouldn't have happened without scenes like the Klingon Tea Ceremony from "Up The Long Ladder." That doesn't redeem the weak spots, obviously. One would hope that it'd be possible to create strong character beats  and  not suck, but it's nice to know there's a little good mixed in with the bad. Even better, the solid quality and care that goes into "Emissary" raises my hopes for next season. This isn't a great episode, but it's damn good, and if it serves as the baseline of quality, we've got some exciting times ahead of us.

Even the hook is cool. A Klingon ship named the  T'Ong  was sent out over seventy years ago on a secret mission. This was well before the Klingon Empire and the Federation decided to play nice, and the crew of the  T'Ong  are in cryogenic sleep, running on deep cover and impossible to contact before they're deep into Federation space. The fear is that they'll blow some outposts up before they realize everybody's friendly now, and given the touchy nature of Klingon honor, explaining the intricacies of the current universal-political situation presents certain difficulties. To this end, Starfleet sends an emissary to explain the situation to the  Enterprise  and hopefully find some way of resolving the issue that results in the fewest deaths possible. That emissary is the aforementioned K'Ehlyer, a half-Klingon/half-human woman who has a history with Worf.

The suspense here isn't that the Klingons will kill some innocents. The  T'Ong  is 70 years old, so it doesn't pose much of a threat to the  Enterprise . The suspense here is whether or not K'Ehlyer and Worf can figure out a way to stop the newly awakened crew without having to destroy them and their ship. The stakes are moderate, and the real tension comes from watching the two characters bounce off each other in a situation they can't simply walk away from. (Worf tries to get himself excused from the assignment, but Picard nixes the idea.) It's more a question of psychology, and we're invested in the outcome because it has consequences, because the solution isn't readily evident, and because it comes as much from internal as external strife.

K'Ehlyer is interesting. The actress, Suzie Plakson, played a Vulcan in "The Schzoid Man," and her restrained smirk gets more of a work-out here. Her sarcasm grates after a while, but that makes sense. As a half-Klingon, half-human, she believes she got the worst of both species. She deals with this by displaying open contempt for Klingon ways, repeatedly advising Picard that the only way to deal with the  T'Ong  is to destroy them. It's not that she hates the Klingons so much as she hates the intense emotional side of her she associates with her Klingon heritage. She keeps those emotions in tight check, but can't banish them completely, which is why Worf gives her such fits. He's comfortable with his heritage in a way that K'Ehlyer can't quite manage, despite (well, more like because) the fact that K'Ehlyer must've spent more time with Klingons growing up. Plus, there are all those strange feelings his awesomeness inspires in her.

"Emissary" works because Worf and K'Ehlyer's interactions are never forced to the point of artificial drama. A lot of what we see here are familiar rom-com beats, with the initial tension, the banter, the break-through interaction, sex, a separation, and finally a reconciliation. However, most rom-coms don't have a scene where the two near-lovers bond while fighting computer generated monsters. Action movies without number have used adrenaline as a substitute for actual connection, but here the thrill of battle is an integral aspect of the characters. This is how they communicate. The resolution with the  T'Ong  pays off as well as Worf, despite K'Ehlyer's objections, comes up with a solution to the problem that allows everyone to walk away alive. It also lets Worf show off his leadership abilities, and the ladies love those.

So we have a familiar romantic arc here, but done quite well, and we have one of the show's best supporting characters getting a chance to shine. I can't imagine the  TNG  of season one managing this effective a mixture of psychology and plotting, and it's nice to see we've come this far.

Stray Observations:

• "Computer—Level Two." Is it weird that that's kind of hot?
• So the Klingons get married right after sex? That's intense.
• Another poker game to start the episode, and this one, with its focus on Worf, is actually relevant to the plot.

"Peak Performance"

I was the foreman on a jury last year. It was a fascinating experience; the case was interesting, and while there were boring spots, it was cool seeing the legal system up close. Being the foreman meant that I was supposed to lead the deliberations when it came time for us to render a verdict. I did a lousy job, I think. I spent most of the trial convinced the defendant was blatantly guilty, and sure that everyone else would agree with me, but they didn't. In fact, I was the only person who didn't want to acquit, and when I realized this, I choked. I thought I'd be able to lead people, and instead I got nervous and talked too loud. I gave up almost immediately on trying to change anyone's minds. We decided on an acquittal. I rationalize this by telling myself that I could've been wrong, and that it's better to err on the side of caution when it comes to guilty and not guilty. It still bothers me though. Not because the defendant got off, but because when I was invested with even a minor amount of responsibility and power, I choked.

Leadership is tricky business. It requires tact, self-confidence, brains, charisma, empathy, and… something else. Something you don't really know until you see it, and something you can't find in yourself until your ass is on the line. That last bit is the killer. You can have all the tools necessary for the job, all the training and the background and the good marks, and then you find yourself standing on the bridge of a starship when a Romulan cruiser de-cloaks of your bow, and you turn to the ensign at the helm and you just—choke. Riker is a good second in command. He and Picard get on well, compliment each other in the right ways, and Riker's amiability provides a crucial link to the crew. Picard believes in keeping his distance, and Riker, as we've seen, is on friendly terms (and sometimes more than friendly) with the just about everyone on board the  Enterprise.  Riker isn't going to be Number One forever, though. Someday he'll have a ship of his own, and when that day comes, will he be ready for it?

"Peak Performance" is another fun episode. Riker plays a key role, but this is more of an ensemble piece than "The Emissary" was, giving nearly every major character a moment to shine, and once and for all ridding me of my dislike for Dr. Pulaski. (Which is a shame, considering she'll be off the show so soon.) The  Enterprise  is preparing for a war game: Riker, with a skeleton crew of 40, will take charge of an older ship (dig the  TOS  sound effects!) and stage a mock battle to show his effectiveness as captain. An annoying, snobbish alien shows up to tell everyone what they're doing wrong, Wesley Crusher finds a clever way to cheat, and the Ferengi don't actually ruin everything. It's like Christmas in Heaven.

That alien, Sirna Kolrami, (Roy Brocksmith, the man with the fatal sweat in  Total Recall ), is really, really annoying. His race are supposedly brilliant tacticians, but as Worf points out early on, if they're so brilliant no one will challenge them, how do you know their worth? Mainly, Kolrami is around to get on everyone nerves, doubt Riker, and give Data a storyline. We'll get to the Data story in a sec, but Kolrami's criticisms of Riker are important because Riker's success wouldn't mean quite as much otherewise. There's no one on the  Enterprise  we've seen who wouldn't consider Riker more than qualified for command, not even some random one-off introduced just for the episode and then forgotten. It's not necessary to have Riker change anyone's mind, of course. The sudden arrival of the Ferengi means that a failure here would have severe consequences, and not just a Starfleet reprimand. It's just nice to have a stranger tell us someone we like is cool.

It's also nice watching Riker put together his "away team," and seeing how Geordi, Worf, Wesley, and the others deal with the restrictions of their new assignment. I wouldn't have minded a little more of this, because I have a soft spot for team storylines. People overcoming handicaps to achieve a seemingly impossible goal is a well-established genre staple, but when it's done well, as it is here, it's tremendously entertaining. Everybody gets to show-off: with Geordi's help, Wesley figures out how to give their new-old ship warp drive, and Worf comes up with a nifty plan to distract the  Enterprise  when it becomes time for battle. Riker provides encouragement, marshals his forces, and, when it's time to make the tough decisions, stands by his crew. Seriously, if this had been the whole episode, it would've been great. As it is, the confrontation between Riker and Picard lasts maybe three minutes before the Ferengi show up and change the stakes. It's not a bad twist, but given that every battle simulation in the history of genre fiction has always ended in a "surprise" real battle, I would've liked it if "Performance" had gone a different route.

As for Data's story, well, I said I don't have a problem with Pulaski anymore, and I stand by that. She cons Data into playing a game of Stratagema against Korlami because she wants to see the alien get his butt kicked. When Data loses, he experiences a crisis of faith in himself. Pulaski's manipulations are entertaining, and it's nice to see her loosening up more. Even better, she apologizes to Data after the first match goes poorly. As arcs go, it's minor. The actual gaming is silly (they must have very different concepts of strategy in the 24th century, as that looked mostly like a reflex test), and Data's insecurities are a little Afterschool Special-ish. Still, Data's solution to the problem—to defeat Korlami by playing to tie, not win, and thus wear him down till he gives up in frustration—is sharp. It might have made more dramatic sense to have Data simply realize that you can't win every battle, but at least the resolution here gave us a little credit.

Another solid entry, then. We learn that Riker really can lead (and this  is  handled rather subtly, as Riker himself doesn't do much after choosing his team; the point being that a large part of being a good leader is to know who you need for an assignment, and then getting the most out of them), Wesley is still clever as the dickens, and the Ferengi are still fairly dumb. No major revelations or shocking twists, but very credible work. While episodes like "Q Who?" make  Trek  fans, it's eps like this one that ensure those fans keep coming back. Nothing too flashy, but it gets you where you want to go.

• If you're a fan of  24 , you may have recognized the new ensign in this episode as Glenn Morshower, aka Secret Service Agent Aaron Pierce. Armin Shimerman, who would turn up as Quark on  Deep Space Nine , plays DaiMon Bractor of the Ferengi ship.
• The wisdom of Captain Picard: "Commander, it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life."
• Next week, we're going to have a slight change of pace. "Shades of Grey" marks the end of the second season, so I'll be covering that and then giving my overall thoughts on the second season. We'll get into the third season the following week.

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On her way to a conference, Troi's mother boards the Enterprise and flirts with Picard.

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Majel Barrett Roddenberry

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Cast appearances.

Patrick Stewart

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Episode discussion.

I find the Lwaxana Troi episodes tedious.

Star Trek The Next Generation: Manhunt

4 comments:

I love Lwaxana. Everything you say about her is true, but she has so much life to her, and she's always entertaining (which TNG isn't always, especially in the early years)

I love Lwaxanna, too, and this is a fun episode. But watching her cougaring all over the place is actually embarrassing. Back in the day, I wasn't much of a Worf fan. This time through, and it's been quite awhile since I watched Next Gen , I'm enjoying Michael Dorn's performance as Worf a lot. I absolutely loved the way he looked at those hideous fish aliens in their shower curtain costumes and said admiringly, "What a handsome race." My other favorite moment was Riker and Troi in Picard's office talking like a couple. Very cute. And a terrific review, J.D.

Thanks for the review JD and you are right this episode is fun despite itself. I also like Lwaxanna and mostly because she sends up all the stereotypes of older asexual women. She expects that all the men will want to sleep with her and she can actually tell whether they want to or not (they mostly do). She is oblivious to Deanna's embarrassment but that is because she is not human and isn't playing by human rules. On the other hand, I especially enjoy how she embarrasses Picard. She is her own woman with no apologies and really she is being very responsible trying to focus her considerable sexual energy on one man rather than taking them all on.

It is fun, isn't it? I did like how Lwaxanna knew they were assassins and let us know so flippantly, like how we'd say something about the weather or other rather trivial items. Like the commentors before me, I rather like her, despite the stereotypes she represents as I feel she has a lot of fun with them, and Majel Barret plays her so well.

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Screen Rant

Manhunt's matt walsh talks jump from comedy to drama, underexplored history & ghosts return.

Manhunt star Matt Walsh opens up about jumping from comedy to drama, getting to tell an underexplored part of history and his potential Ghosts return.

Warning: Some SPOILERS lie ahead for Manhunt!

• Manhunt explores the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination by Booth and the nationwide hunt to bring him to justice.
• Matt Walsh shines as Samuel Mudd in a dramatic role, balancing comedy with deep emotional research for the show.
• The show provides insight into historical figures like Edwin Stanton, showcasing the impact of a few good people in critical moments.

One man nearly brought down a country's steps toward peace, as explored in Manhunt . The Apple TV+ drama explores the story of Abraham Lincoln's assassination by theater actor John Wilkes Booth, including the country-wide search to bring the man to justice that was led by Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton . The show also explores the lead-up to Lincoln's death, namely his efforts to end the Civil War and institute Reconstruction, as well as the various tragedies that struck his family.

Tobias Menzies leads the ensemble Manhunt cast as Stanton alongside Hamish Linklater as Lincoln, Anthony Boyle as Booth, Lovie Simone, Will Harrison, Brandon Flynn, Patton Oswalt, and Damian O'Hare. Situated among the group is Matt Walsh, best known for more comedic fare with the likes of Veep , Role Models, and Ted , among many others. The two-time Emmy nominee stars in the show as Samuel Mudd, the Southerner doctor who treated Booth's broken leg and aided in various Confederate war efforts in secret.

John Wilkes Booth True Story & What Happened To Him After Lincoln's Assassination

Following the show's acclaimed premiere, Screen Rant interviewed Matt Walsh to discuss Manhunt , the emotional weight of jumping from comedy to dramas and how he tapped into his character with the help of deep research. Walsh also discussed his possible return for the recently renewed Ghosts season 4 and why a Veep revival is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Walsh Prefers Comedies But Wanted To Help " Serve The Story " Of Manhunt

Screen Rant: Manhunt is a fantastic show , I was so hooked from start to finish. As someone who's followed you primarily in comedy throughout the years, it was so interesting to see you take on a more dramatic role with this show. What was it like when you were approached to read for the show and become part of it?

Matt Walsh: I read the book first when the offer or the invitation to participate came, and the script, and it's such an interesting time in our history that I was more than anything excited to be a part of it. I thought it was such a great moment in history. And then, when I got down there with Monica, who wrote it, and Carl, the director of the first couple episodes, they were very collaborative, and I got excited about being able to research a historical character, and excavate documents that have been digitized, as opposed to creating a character from whole cloth. And then, as far as drama goes, I sort of prefer comedy, but this was such an interesting project and great historical moment that I really wanted to be a part of it and serve the story as best I could.

What were some of the big points you learned about Samuel Mudd that really helped you embody him?

Matt Walsh: One is he was an educated man, he was a doctor, and I believe he went to Georgetown Medical School. He was a country doctor, so he dealt with poor and rich. He was a businessman, he was working during the day, keeping his medical practice going, and traveling about, and then also running a farm. So, he was a very busy fellow. And then, I didn't have to do an accent. We talked about that early on, because he was educated, and they didn't want to get lost in the dialect world. I was happy about that, because I didn't want to have to dial in a specific accent. But also, he's from Maryland, and I think it's believable that he was in the neighboring Midwest sort of twang, which I have naturally. And then the stuff I found on the internet, the exam of Booth's foot, the things he wrote about it, the Federal soldiers' notes about their interviews with Mudd, in addition to the book that had other things. Whenever you go into history, there's always conflicting datasets about, "The bone was broken here." "No, the bone was broken here." Even down to medical details. So, it was just interesting to see the opposing views of Mudd. I talked about it before, but there was one magazine he subscribed to, it was a Christian magazine written by some monks or something. They had changed their position on slavery early in the Civil War, and they said that Jesus would have would frowned on slavery. So, they posted their official position, and so he was indignant as someone who benefited from slavery, who believed that the North was exploiting the South with this war, because the North made their money from steel and coal mining, and they weren't allowing the South to make their money from farming, which required, in Southerners' minds, having slaves and servants who would work for cheap or nothing. So, he felt it was hypocritical for the North to force their economy on the Southerners, and then the Christian magazine that had changed that position, he tried to cancel it multiple times. It was funny, because they kept sending it and he was petty in a way that was funny, like, "You better not be charging me for this, because I've cancelled this twice now." The fact that that exists was slightly funny. And then, ultimately, he wrote a tirade about their ridiculous assumption that Jesus would have frowned on slavery because, in fact, Jesus lived among slaves. He walked in the time of slavery, and not one of his parables or stories or quotes supposedly says anything against it. So, he felt religiously secure in his opinion of the superiority of white people, and also of the Southern way of life.

Playing Manhunt 's Samuel Mudd Stirred Up Many " Emotions " For Walsh

Monica mentioned she was looking for somebody who could be believable as the everyman neighbor type while also having the darkness that he hid. What was it like for you, from the performance side, trying to balance those two sides of Mudd throughout this production?

Matt Walsh: Well, you do the research, so you have a foundation to basically embody his point of view, and see the world from that point of view. And then, to actually play it and to step inside the role is a whole other thing, because that stirs up emotions. It's challenging to be inside those characters, but at the end of the day, you try to play him in a way that gives you actions to take. I think the moral superiority was what I could lean on in those moments where I had to be cruel or disrespectful or racist, basically.

I can only imagine the emotional challenge of having to separate yourself from that role. But I'm glad you were able to find that line for yourself.

Matt Walsh: I always say comedy is more fun, because drama, you're in it. And then you go home, and you don't feel great. And comedy, you drop it the minute they say cut. So, it's harder work, but it's also beautiful to tell this story. We all love Lincoln, he's like a god. God bless him and Stanton for keeping the Union intact. All that stuff's true. It's a wonderful treat to step inside a working farm where there's Confederate soldiers on horseback and hundreds of people. It's very easy to act in those moments, it's incredible. It was an incredible opportunity to step back in time and just live and behave amongst all that.

The costumes and production design are well done to the point that we believe we are in that time. How involved were you in helping craft Samuel's look? Was that mostly Monica and the respective teams, or did you have some input on his overall look?

Matt Walsh: Well, fortunately, because he was a Southern gentleman farmer, he got to wear like gingham and soft cotton, and everybody else in the production was wearing wool in heavy, sweaty Savannah. It was in the world of reason that, because he was a proper man, back then they would get dressed up for dinner and lunch, they would put on a tie for lunch, etc. That was the civility of these people, so he was always sort of in that clothing, if you will. Even when he was touring his farm or barking orders at people, he was sort of dressed in that gentlemanly attire. And so that was with Kathleen, the costume woman. And then, it was just simple palettes. They really didn't have a lot of outfits, so once you had your basic look, your vest or your coat, you were going to be in that for most of the scenes, which is true to the time. They didn't have tons of extra clothing, but they did have their good suits. And of course, he had working boots on at all times, because he was in the dirt and manure, doing stuff like that.

I'm in the South myself, so I know how bad that heat can get!

Matt Walsh: Yeah, those soldiers and all the people who played military folks were just completely caked in sweat. It was heavy, heavy clothing.

Walsh Was Astounded By Anthony Boyle's Booth Performance

I did want to touch on your work with Anthony Boyle in the show because it's a very impactful moment in both of their lives, and you two play your scenes together so well. What was it like developing a dynamic with him and shooting the scenes with him?

Matt Walsh: Anthony is such a wonderful actor, and I hadn't worked with him before, or Will, who plays his cohort, Davey. So the beauty is, you're acting with someone, and you have your take on your character, and then you just let it go, and whatever they're giving you, you sort of drop all preconceptions, and you go with it. So, I know everything that happens up to the moment where Booth comes to my farm, which is Mudd knew these guys. He had come to Mudd's house, Mudd had helped funnel money and guns seemingly down to the Capitol in Charleston. He was up to things the whole war, even though he was in a free state, and claiming to be sort of neutral in the battle. He was helping the bad guys, if you will, so he knew Booth and had met him at the hotels in Washington. To that extent, they had a plan to kidnap Lincoln that he knew about. It failed, because Lincoln didn't show up to the hospital. They were going to commandeer his wagon and ride them out of town, and then trade Lincoln for a bunch of their favorite generals in the South, a swap that failed. It was towards the end of the war, so they all bailed on it and said, "You know what? The war's over. No more kidnap, let's just ride this out, the war's almost over." These are the Southerners, and so when Booth shows up at Mudd's house, Mudd's playing it cool, because there's people around. Lovie, who plays Mary Simms, that he doesn't really want to talk about it. And then, when Booth announces, "I killed him," Mudd's reaction is like, "You went from kidnapping to killing him?" He's indignant that he did that. That is a violation. Even the Southern generals at the time were kind of disgusted that a man would kill a President, even though they hated Lincoln. It was that gentlemanly thing of like, "You don't do that. That's not how a war is fought. You get two sides with guns, and you battle that way." It was dirty. So Mudd was shocked that he had killed the President, and he also had to keep it under wraps, because he knew what was coming. He knew that they would be looking for him, he knew that he was incriminated the minute Booth showed up. So, there was all that subtext, but at the end of the day, once Anthony — who's completely committing to Booth and being a wild, egomaniac, basically like Booth was — I'm taking that in and just enjoying it and riding with it.

This show explores the actual trial of the conspirators. The atmosphere of those scenes is just so heavy, and everybody's emotions are fully charged. What was it like for you filming those days, especially since Mudd is practically just sitting there, having to quietly listen to everybody talk?

Matt Walsh: I think Mudd felt he was being railroaded, because he didn't perhaps know about this assassination attempt. He did lie to the Federal soldiers, though. He was, in fact, an associate of Booth's, and he did know completely who that was, and he should have reported it, etc. So, he was complicit in many ways. I think his indignant was like, "I'm not of the same cloth as these people you're associating with." And he also was playing for his life, because he knew he was gonna get hung, so he was pulling strings, intimidating. He was doing anything he could to spare his life. So, to that end, I think the stakes were really high. And I think Mudd had an opinion of his separateness from these other culprits. I had a lot to sort of play and watch. But you're right, everything felt torch lit, and, in fact, was at times. There was the first woman to be hanged, I think, by the federal government, Mary Surratt. It was the first trial where I believe slaves were allowed to testify, or one of the very few ones, so it was really unprecedented what was happening. And obviously, mixing in the soup of the war had just ended, Lincoln had just started his second term. There was so much going on.

It's truly amazing how many layers there are to that whole chapter of American history, and I love that the show tries to unpack some of them. What is one of the big takeaways that you're hoping audiences are getting from this show?

Matt Walsh: I guess, just as a piece of history, it's so helpful to understand how close and how lucky we got that if Booth had gotten further into the South after he took the President's life, who knows what [would've happened]. Even though the generals had surrendered, who knows if that would have re-energized the South and dragged the war on longer. Also, I think oftentimes the actions of a few good people can have an impact, so obviously, Stanton stepping in the wake before the next President is sworn in, and navigating the capture of Booth, and having a peaceful transition of power was a very integral part to the continuation of the democracy. So, I guess it's neat to see those heroes painted, and their stories brought to light. Basically, unknown people can do great things, because I don't think anybody knew about Stanton or some of these characters.

I know I personally didn't.

Matt Walsh: I think a lot of history evolves, too. Like, we have a better understanding of things as more documents come out, and as more experts prove out there are certain first takes of any historical event. But as time passes, I think we have a more nuanced and detailed understanding of any historical event.

Walsh Is Ready For His Ghosts Return (Especially After Missing Out On Season 3)

I love your comedy work, and Elias in Ghosts has been such a joy throughout the show. I love that it remains just as popular as ever, and that they're working on season 4. Have you heard any rumblings or have any thoughts about possibly coming back, even after what happened at the end of the last Halloween night?

Matt Walsh: Knock on wood. I love doing that show, they're so funny there, and the writers and cast are amazing. They tried to bring me back for season 3, but it couldn't work out schedule wise, because I was doing something. And they only had 10 episodes because of the strike, so they had a short season. So, God willing, I will fly my butt back up to Montreal to step into Elias, because it's a fun character. I love doing that character. So, yeah, I think I'll probably do some in season 4.

About a year ago, you had mentioned that you hadn't heard any updates about a possible Veep revival , but that you had heard that there was always talks of some kind of movie. Have there been any further rumblings or further ideations of a possible continuation?

Matt Walsh: Oh, my gosh, it's such a big undertaking to get all of us together. Obviously, if Julia is in, we're all in. But I have not heard any rumblings other than it's a huge undertaking to gather people and do a movie. There was talk of that right when the show ended, you know, like, "Maybe we'll do a movie." In the best way, because we loved each other, and we wanted to find a way to work together. But as time goes, I have no updates, and I also know that a simpler version, like a podcast, we can probably read old scripts or something. But there's no updates, that's the hot take.

About Manhunt

Based on the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning nonfiction book from author James L. Swanson, “Manhunt” is a conspiracy thriller about one of the best known but least understood crimes in history, the astonishing story of the hunt for John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.

Check out our previous Manhunt interviews with:

• Creator Monica Beletsky
• Hamish Linklater

New episodes of Manhunt air Fridays on Apple TV+.

Source: Screen Rant Plus

Manhunt (2024)

Mahunt is an AppleTV+ mini-series focusing on the hunt for John Wilkes Booth after he assassinates Abraham Lincoln. Anthony Boyle stars as John Wilkes Booth alongside Tobias Menzies, Lovie Simone, and Will Harrison in the series created by Monica Beletsky.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV Series)

Manhunt (1989), majel barrett: lwaxana troi, enterprise computer voice.

• Quotes (11)

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Quotes 

Lwaxana Troi : [telepathically, of Riker]  Is he still yours?

Counselor Troi : [telepathically]  Humans no longer own each other that way, Mother.

Lwaxana Troi : Really? That's a custom we may have to introduce again.

Lwaxana Troi : You never assume anything where Lwaxana Troi is concerned. Betazoid women are full of surprises.

[Lwaxana Troi is beamed aboard in a kneeling position] 

Lwaxana Troi : [looking down]  Legs! Where are the legs?

Counselor Troi : Where they belong, Mother - right under you.

[Lwaxana Troi has decided to marry Rex] 

Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Mrs. Troi, there is something you ought to know about Rex.

Lwaxana Troi : Oh?

Lwaxana Troi : Now, that's more like it. Your thoughts, they're primal, savage. I like that in a man.

Lieutenant Worf : I am not a man!

Lwaxana Troi : [of the Antedeans]  I still say they look better in sauce.

Lieutenant Worf : Captain, we are being hailed by a small transport vessel just coming into range.

Counselor Troi : [horrified]  Oh, my God.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard : What's the problem?

Counselor Troi : What's she doing here?

Wesley Crusher : On screen, Captain.

Transporter Pilot : Starship Enterprise, come in.

Commander William T. Riker : We have you on viewer, pilot.

Transporter Pilot : Enterprise, I have a passenger, a VIP passenger who I more...

Lwaxana Troi : [shoving the pilot aside]  Oh, let me talk to them. I'm sure I'm more articulate than that.

Counselor Troi : Mother.

Commander William T. Riker : I'm sorry they startled you, Mrs. Troi. They're Antedean delegates; they're being stored here temporarily.

Lwaxana Troi : Delegates? Last time I saw something like that it was being served on a plate.

Counselor Troi : You're scheming something, Mother. Don't try to fool me, I can tell.

Lwaxana Troi : You're always so melodramatic, little one. I'm not scheming. I'm deciding.

Lwaxana Troi : Oh, Jean-Luc! What naughty thoughts - but how wonderful you still think of me like that.

Counselor Troi : What stage is it in?

Lwaxana Troi : Oh, I have it completely under control.

Lwaxana Troi : Well, far enough along for me to enjoy it, little one.

Counselor Troi : Now I know why you wore that dress.

Lwaxana Troi : Wha...? Don't be ridiculous. This simple little dress? Nothing provocative about it.

Counselor Troi : What are we going to do?

Lwaxana Troi : Well, I'm going to do the only honorable thing there is to do - and I'd say your captain has the inside track.

Counselor Troi : Mother, don't even think it.

Lwaxana Troi : Why not? He was thinking about it all through dinner.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard : [Lwaxana walks off. Deanna sighs and follows. Cut to minutes later in Picard's ready room]  I was what? I tell you, Deanna, for a telepath, your mother's accuracy leaves much to be desired.

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