In the seventeenth episode of the first season of The Next Generation, the crew finds a mythical planet, and everything turns into a disaster pretty much immediately. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.
Trigger Warning: For kidnapping, manipulation.
I feel like this first season of this show is establishing a rubric for the kind of stories that’ll be told here. I would understand if “When The Bough Breaks†had been a much angrier and more violent kind of story because the Aldeans are EXTREMELY MESSED UP. SO MESSED UP. Wouldn’t most people react strongly to have their kids taken away from them? And yet, the crew of the Enterprise, while still being upset, devises a plan to rescue these kidnapped children that utilizes reason, cunning, and, ultimately, altruism. THAT FEELS LIKE A HUGE DEAL TO ME. The Enterprise still offers something undeniable good and helpful to a race of people who KIDNAPPED THEIR CHILDREN.
Lemme back up a bit, because I need to RAGE about the Aldeans. There’s an undercurrent to their characterization that I picked up on right around when Radue cut Picard off for being too emotional amidst the negotiations. The Aldeans are every bit the advanced society that the myths and legends purported them to be. We see just how advanced they are in the first ten minutes or so of this episode, too. From their transportation system, to their computers, to their sense of duty and hospitality, we’re clearly meant to revere the sort of life these people have made. Now, because this is a science fiction show, and because I don’t expect The Next Generation to give me a forty-five minute character study about what it’s like to live in a perfect world, I expected a twist. There was something awful about this utopia.
I enjoyed that “When The Bough Breaks†did not waste much time getting to that point. Any worldbuilding for Aldea was then accomplished through their heinous act. Which was to reveal to Riker, Dr. Crusher, and Deanna that they were all infertile WHILE KIDNAPPING CHILDREN FROM THE ENTERPRISE. SERIOUSLY. And the more I think about what these people did, the more severely fucked up it is. Not only did they take children from their families because they could not have any of their own, but they specifically sought out children they could manipulate into staying. Those children were “matched†with parents like they were ACCESSORIES. Of course some of them were going to feel drawn in by the Aldean’s freedom and their technology, and they knew that. They knew the easiest way to get around the children’s reluctance to BEING KIDNAPPED was to more or less trick them into staying.
On top of that, they then treat the crew of the Enterprise as if they’re a spoiled child, and it’s revolting to watch. Which brings me to the point I was trying to make: even “advanced†societies can do barbaric, evil things. That’s probably the most rewarding aspect of this episode. This culture values certain things like fairness and art, and yet they manifest in ugly ways that benefit only themselves. Radue constantly dismisses the humans as overemotional (AFTER THEIR CHILDREN WERE KIDNAPPED, GOOD GOD), despite that the very act he sanctioned is an overemotional reaction to his people’s own fertility. At one point, he calls humanity “stubborn,†and I wanted to reach through the screen and shake him because I cannot imagine something more stubborn than kidnapping children and then demanding the parents sit through negotiations for payment of said children. Pot, meet kettle. May the kettle DROWN YOU IN BOILING TEA.
But there’s so much more to this episode than just the Aldean Frustration. (That gets an official title because I said so.) I love that Wesley gets to be the leader for the group of kidnapped children and that he teaches them a bit of passive protesting. It’s adorable! It’s also fantastic that the show briefly addresses multiple kids’ perspective throughout this ordeal. Like, we check in on the kid who hates calculus, which just gave me flashbacks to my awful, bigoted calculus teacher in high school. (She was the literal worst, y’all. She once shamed me in class and laughed at me because I couldn’t afford a graphing calculator, or whatever those ridiculous ones are.) While none of these kids ever choose to remain on Aldea, that specific kid? He finds out that he loves sculpting and that he’s good at it. That’s invaluable, and he gets to take that realization back with him. (Though I suspect he’ll be disappointing that he can’t sculpt ~with his mind~ on the Enterprise. Shit, that was so cool!)
So let’s end this, then, by talking about what a great thing it is that Dr. Crusher does for the Aldeans. I feel like I have made the point that the Aldeans did a terrible thing and then reacted even more terribly to the response to it. In any universe, I think it would have been pretty appropriate to just get the children back, and then wave goodbye to the Aldeans, damning them to their fate because Y’ALL ARE ASSHOLES. The Enterprise crew probably could have done this with a clean conscience, too, invoking the Prime Directive to wipe their hands clean of this culture. Instead, Dr. Crusher and Picard know that if they can offer a solution that benefits everyone, there’s less of a chance of conflict. There’s less of a chance of this spiraling even further into disaster. So she not only figures out what’s causing infertility on Aldea, but she comes up with a cure, a way for these people to re-populate their planning without harming another person. That kind of gift is immeasurable; it’s beyond lifesaving. This is culture-saving, and it’s a beautiful gesture from a woman who had her own son taken by these people. Sure, it’s a pragmatic act as well; I’m certain Dr. Crusher knew this was the trade she was making. But she could have lied or done any other thing to trick them, just to get her son back.
But I feel like that’s not the Enterprise way. And I like that.
The video for “When The Bough Breaks†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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