this is the one that wins the award for 'best star trek episode ever' or at
least one of such. I couldn't swallow the implausibility of an intelligent
alien species that expected other isolated species to understand their
cultural metaphors. Also, it was my immediate assumption that the species
talked in metaphor so there was no thrill to that discovery. Data and Troi
struggling to come up with the 'brilliant' idea of cross referencing two
different words from what they were told by the aliens, was excruciating to
me in its obviousness. Actually the most obvious thing would have been to
ask the computer about the phrase in its entirety, which would have
encapsulated that whole 'brilliant deduction' that an entire scene in the
episode was devoted to.

The same grammar that species used to verbally communicate the metaphors
could just as easily be used to construct a narrative of some kind when
trying to communicate with other species.

I thought this was a tedious episode actually, one of my least favorites!
(I am really enjoying the series as a whole.)

My favorite so far (been going through all of them, I'm now up to Darmok)
was the one with the defecting Romulan general. But it didn't even merit an
honorable mention in any list of good episodes that I saw! I thought that
episode was riveting.

This reminds me of something John Lennon supposedly said about Ringo Starr:
a reported asked John if he felt Ringo was one of the greatest drummers in
the world. Lennon said "He isn't even the best drummer in the Beatles."
That's "Darmok." Best Trek ep ever? That wasn't even the best episode that
season (mind you, this ep. is just after the Redemption story and in the
same season as the Unification arc). There must be some serious recreational
substances floating around for "Darmok" to be conisdered.
<a> wrote in message news:V9Wdna-PF7__5zzanZ2dnUVZ_hWdnZ2d@comcast.com...
> this is the one that wins the award for 'best star trek episode ever' or
> at least one of such. I couldn't swallow the implausibility of an
> intelligent alien species that expected other isolated species to
> understand their cultural metaphors. Also, it was my immediate assumption
> that the species talked in metaphor so there was no thrill to that
> discovery. Data and Troi struggling to come up with the 'brilliant' idea
> of cross referencing two different words from what they were told by the
> aliens, was excruciating to me in its obviousness. Actually the most
> obvious thing would have been to ask the computer about the phrase in its
> entirety, which would have encapsulated that whole 'brilliant deduction'
> that an entire scene in the episode was devoted to.
>
> The same grammar that species used to verbally communicate the metaphors
> could just as easily be used to construct a narrative of some kind when
> trying to communicate with other species.
>
> I thought this was a tedious episode actually, one of my least favorites!
> (I am really enjoying the series as a whole.)
>
> My favorite so far (been going through all of them, I'm now up to Darmok)
> was the one with the defecting Romulan general. But it didn't even merit
> an honorable mention in any list of good episodes that I saw! I thought
> that episode was riveting.
>

I also tend to agree. Though I thoroughly enjoyed Darmok, I felt the
metaphor usage was obvious and it is rather silly that a species of that
intelligence wouldn't realize that their language would have no meaning to
others. THOUGH, I suppose it is possible that was seems obvious to us may
not be to them, since their whole language/culture may be so based on that
construct that it simply blinds them to it's problems and the idea that
other species may not communicate this way. It is possible that the only
some obscure academicians and philosophers in their culture have wondered
about such things..."what if their were aliens who did not communicate
through metaphor....". Having said that, you'd think as race with warp tech.
they'd have encountered many by now!

In any case, the episode is far from brilliant and far from the best, but i
did enjoy it simply on the strength of Stewart and the uh....capt. terrell's
performance(cant remember names at this sec.).

I also thought Picard ended up looking like a big wuss though. I always
wondered if the alien capt. actually saw Stewart getting beamed while he was
being slapped silly on the ground. He must have thought humans were
pathetic!

<a> wrote in message news:V9Wdna-PF7__5zzanZ2dnUVZ_hWdnZ2d@comcast.com...
> this is the one that wins the award for 'best star trek episode ever' or
> at least one of such. I couldn't swallow the implausibility of an
> intelligent alien species that expected other isolated species to
> understand their cultural metaphors. Also, it was my immediate assumption
> that the species talked in metaphor so there was no thrill to that
> discovery. Data and Troi struggling to come up with the 'brilliant' idea
> of cross referencing two different words from what they were told by the
> aliens, was excruciating to me in its obviousness. Actually the most
> obvious thing would have been to ask the computer about the phrase in its
> entirety, which would have encapsulated that whole 'brilliant deduction'
> that an entire scene in the episode was devoted to.
>
> The same grammar that species used to verbally communicate the metaphors
> could just as easily be used to construct a narrative of some kind when
> trying to communicate with other species.
>
> I thought this was a tedious episode actually, one of my least favorites!
> (I am really enjoying the series as a whole.)
>
> My favorite so far (been going through all of them, I'm now up to Darmok)
> was the one with the defecting Romulan general. But it didn't even merit
> an honorable mention in any list of good episodes that I saw! I thought
> that episode was riveting.
>

That was my favorite episode also.

RuPEDski wrote:
> I also tend to agree. Though I thoroughly enjoyed Darmok, I felt the
> metaphor usage was obvious and it is rather silly that a species of
> that intelligence wouldn't realize that their language would have no
> meaning to others. THOUGH, I suppose it is possible that was seems
> obvious to us may not be to them, since their whole language/culture
> may be so based on that construct that it simply blinds them to it's
> problems and the idea that other species may not communicate this
> way. It is possible that the only some obscure academicians and
> philosophers in their culture have wondered about such things..."what
> if their were aliens who did not communicate through metaphor....".
> Having said that, you'd think as race with warp tech. they'd have
> encountered many by now!

The problem is, the thought "what if there were aliens who did not
communicate through metaphor?" is one of the overwhelming majority of
meaningful sentences that cannot be constructed by metaphor. The things that
are actually communicated in the episode are incredibly simplistic- "we're
friends", "things aren't going very well right now" or "he's dead, Jim". Now
try being an engineer explaining that the commutator needs connecting to
terminals 3 and 4 in parallel with a 40 microfarad capacitor, or some such
thing. Can't be done. You can't create the metaphors without a
non-metaphorical language upon which to base them. You need nouns, verbs, a
word that means "a pointy thing". You need a word for "the ocean" for
instance. But in a metaphorical language you can't point at the ocean and
say "ocean", you have to say a metaphor for ocean, "Picard in his bathtub,
with his toy submarine", but then how did you name "bathtub", you'd have
needed a metaphor for that too ("Cherie Blair, her mouth open") ad
infinitum, so you can't ever name anything.

But that's beside the point. It was an interesting and unique(?) concept and
an excellent idea for a plot. I think the execution is a little flawed
though; it's one of those things where it's more obvious to the viewer than
the characters, so the characters look dim-witted. A bit like that one with
the nanonbots where they spend 50 minutes arseing about before Gordi and The
Boy Wonder think of rebooting the computer. Like, duh.


Ian

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