Star
Trek Episode Archives Star
Trek Episode Archives
Media Archives:
Synopsis: The U.S.S. Enterprise crew mediates a violent dispute between the Acamarians and members of a renegade clan known as the Gatherers. After finding traces of Acamarian blood at a looted Federation outpost, Picard leads the crew to Acamar III. There, he learns that the responsibility for the attack on the outpost lies with the Gatherers, a thieving band of renegade Acamarians who split off from their culture 100 years ago, following centuries of battles between rival clans. When Acamar's leader, Marouk, expresses her desire to reintegrate the Gatherers into her now peaceful society, Picard offers the services of the Enterprise to find the bandits. The search leads to a Gatherers camp in the Hroni Cluster, where the pack leader, Brull, agrees to meet with Marouk to discuss her proposal for amnesty. During the meeting, however, Marouk's young servant Yuta kills an elderly Gatherer from the Lornack clan named Volnoth, though she makes it appear as if he suffered a heart attack. Dr. Crusher soon discovers that Volnoth was murdered by a microvirus specifically engineered to prove fatal to his system. Despite Brull's interest in Marouk's proposals, he insists that they must meet with the Gatherer chief, Chorgan, before any final decisions can be made. En route to Chorgan's hideout, Riker is drawn to the enigmatic Yuta, who claims to desire freedom, but alludes to the fact that her path in life has already been determined. Adding to Yuta's mystery, Riker learns that she serves Marouk not by command, but by choice. Although Chorgan is at first violently opposed to talking with Marouk, Wesley is able to convince him that it would be in his best interests to do so. While Marouk attends a meeting on the Gatherer ship, Riker learns that Yuta was responsible for Volnoth's death and has killed others in the Lornack clan -- whose surviving members include Chorgan. Knowing that Yuta is attending Marouk's conference with Chorgan, Riker beams aboard the Gatherer vessel. Riker arrives just in time to prevent Yuta from killing the unsuspecting Chorgan. Yuta proclaims that she is only seeking vengeance for the massacre of her clan, the Tralestas, by Chorgan's clan. She explains that her grandfather, the only other survivor of the attack, altered her cells to make her touch fatal to the Lornacks, and that she used her position with Marouk to get close to the last remaining members of the Lornack clan. When Yuta makes another attempt to touch Chorgan, Riker is forced to destroy her with his phaser, thus ending her mission. The peace talks, however, are saved. Timothy Lynch's Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode Reviews Review Date: 11/18/89 WARNING: The following post contains spoiler information regarding this week's TNG episode, "The Vengeance Factor". Be warned. Really. Greetings, all. Well, this is another case of "nothing spectacularly wrong, but nothing spectacularly RIGHT either". It was sort of nondescript. Here comes a reasonably short synopsis: The Enterprise finds a Federation science outpost torn to shreds, and it appears that the Gatherers are responsible. The Gatherers are a group originally from Acamar III, who split off from the Acamarians roughly a century ago. The raids have been getting worse, and something has to be done. They travel to Acamar III to talk to the Marouk, Sovereign of Acamer 3. She wants nothing more than Federation help to hunt the Gatherers down, but Picard has other ideas. He claims they'll be a divided people until they take the Gatherers back into the fold, and weaker as a result. Eventually, he manages to talk her into it. Then, of course, the problem is finding and convincing the Gatherers. They find one Gatherer outpost, led by a man called Brul. He is initially skeptical, but after hearing the Sovereign out, decides this is an offer worthy of consideration. He says he'll take the message to Chorgan, the Gatherer leader, but whatshername says she'd rather do it herself. Okay . . . so they all end up on the Enterprise. One minor complication arises, however. The original reason for the Gatherers' departure, the Clan Wars, apparently are not quite as over as originally thought. The Lornac clan, a century or two ago, managed to kill off nearly all members of a rival clan, the Triesta. A few survived, however, and one of them has been genetically altered to carry a virus lethal only to Lornacs. She happens to be Uta, the Sovereign's servant, and is discreetly killing off the last few Lornacs wherever she goes. The final catch: Chordan, himself, is the final Lornac left alive. From here, things are pretty much as you'd predict. After analyzing the death of an elderly Gatherer on the outpost (whom we saw Uta kill), Dr. Crusher ends up realizing it's lethal only to Lornacs. Data eventually figures out who'd have motive, etc., and Riker ends up beaming over to the negotiations and stopping Uta. Unfortunately, he has to kill her to do it, and it's all the more painful because he was falling in love with her. Well, that's about all there is to that. Now, usual babble: As I said, there really wasn't much wrong with the episode. There just wasn't much right about it either. It was certainly watchable, but just . . . there. I was fairly impressed with the acting of whoever played Uta. She carried off the attitude of one who's been so obsessed with vengeance that it's all she's got left quite well. She also projected a good image of one used to service for so long that she can't remember any other way to behave. I liked the idea of the virus tailor-made to kill one clan only very much indeed, but had one major problem with the scene where this was discovered. When they discover the record of the other Gatherer dying, and see he's a Lornac, then notice that the old man was also Lornac, they immediately say, "Oh, so that's it!" Now, I realize that the Clan Wars were a big deal on Acamar III, and that this in all probability wouldn't have led them astray, but would it have been that big a deal to ask the computer to specify all factors common to the two people who died? For all they know, the virus specifically attacked only those who were males with no left testicle. The coarseness of the Gatherers seemed a little overdone to me, and slightly inconsistent as well. There's a scene between Brul and Wesley in 10-Forward, which smacked of a subplot waiting to happen (but never did), where Brul seems a little less brutal than usual, with no real reason given. While the brutality of the Gatherers did convey the idea that these people have had to live by their wits for 100 years, it still seemed a little too barbaric to me. One really minor "what-if": I sort of hoped that Uta's meal for Riker had been less delicious and more spicy. I half expected him to have real trouble with it. Well, I suppose this lends credence to the theory that Riker had his taste buds surgically removed before signing on to the Pagh last season. :-) I didn't like the acting of the woman playing the Sovereign very much. She was too whiney and dictatorial to be a proper leader. Other than that, there's not much to say. The regulars did a pretty good job (particularly Crusher), but there just wasn't much to this. I suppose, then, that it's rating time. Plot: 6 - Competent, but not particularly exciting. Plot Handling: 5 - Nothing wrong, but points off for the immediate jump to the clan being the common factor. Characterization: 7.5 - Not bad, and a little extra for Uta. Some off for the Sovereign and the Gatherers. Technical: 8 - I liked the virus, and the method the away team used to get out from under the ambush. TOTAL: 26.5/4 => 6.6. Watchable, certainly, but not really worth a second viewing. Tim Lynch (Cornell's first Astronomy B.A.; one of many Caltech grad students) "Brill? What was he doing here?"
-- Copyright 1989, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask... Copyright 1994, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask. This article is explicitly prohibited from being used in any off-net compilation without due attribution and *express written consent of the author*. Walnut Creek and other CD-ROM distributors, take note. Related Links: Cast:
Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard™ Guest Cast:
Nancy Parsons as Marouk Creative staff:
Director: Timothy Bond |
