6x12 Ship in a Bottle

[6.9/10] Am I crazy? Were there normal holodeck episodes in any version of Star Trek? The holodeck is already a crazy concept if you think too hard about it, while being just plausible enough to pass muster in the world of science fiction. But it seems like every significant holodeck-centered outing, at least on TNG, is an instant “Accept it’s just a show and you should really just relax”-type episode.

Case-in-point, “Ship in a Bottle” presages Inception, not to mention all the “matrix inside a matrix” fan theories that emerged from, well, The Matrix. To accept the premise of the episode, you have to accept not only that Professor Moriarty is still a formidable opponent capable of thwarting Captain Picard despite being trapped in the holodeck, but that he’s skilled enough at programming the holodeck to trick Picard, Data, and Lt. Barclay into believing they’re in the real world (when in fact, they’re trapped in a holoprogram Moriarty designed), and that Picard and company are capable of creating a holodeck program within a holodeck program to trick Moriarty into thinking he’s won the day.

Convoluted doesn’t begin to cover it. There’s some cleverness to the fact that Picard and his subordinates beat Morarity at his own game, but even knowing the twists like I did, “Ship in a Bottle” isn’t an easy episode to follow. Who’s swaying whom when, and how either Moriarty or Picard are making the ruse work requires a heaping helping of willing suspension of disbelief. The episode makes enough sense on an intuitive, scene-by-scene level to cick, but if you step back and think about it all for a second, it’s easy to get lost in the many layers of who’s convincing whom of what.

Still, the episode works for two main reasons. The first is the performers. Once again, Daniel Davis does a superb job as Prof. Moriarty himself. “Elementary, Dear Data” posed him as someone sharp enough to give our heroes a run for their money, despite ostensibly being from the 19th century, while understanding his precarious place in the world. Davis returns with the same sense of intellectual sharpness and non-malevolent threats to a world of advanced spacemen who are sanguine, to say the least, about the notion of Moriarty as a sentient lifeform.

At the same time, though, Stephanie Beacham is wonderful as Countess Bartholomew. She has that firebrand spirit which makes you understand why Moriarty might fancy her beyond the fact that they’re programmed for each other. And the repartee between she and Picard reflects better chemistry between Jean-Luc and anyone else in TNG this side of Dr. Crusher.

Likewise, “Ship in a Bottle” does a solid job of grappling with the philosophical and ethical issues that would continue in the shadow of not only an artificial life form (something Voyager) would dive into, but what the moral responsibilities of accidentally creating new life are.

To wit, one of the strongest parts of the episode comes in the debates between Moriarty and Picard over whether and how to vindicate Moriarty’s needs and find ways to let him off the holodeck. “Ship in a Bottle” puts the two grand men at opposing sides in unique ways. Picard, understandably, is a scientist and ethicist, and so wants to know more about how Morairty’s apparently corporealization happened before authorizing any more experiments, and warrants both caution and patience. Morairty, meanwhile, has spent four years in the ship’s memory banks having never been summoned since his appearance in “Elementary Dear Data”, and thus doesn’t trust a word out of Picard’s mouth. He wants his freedom now, and a malevolent, intelligent, free hologram is a dangerous threat to the Enterprise. But you can understand where both sides are coming from.

Unfortunately, it’s when these conflicts have been teased out that TNG devolves into trick after trick rather than genuinely grappling with what Morairty is going through. I’ll confess to appreciating the fact, at a high level, that Moriarty tricks Picard only for Picard to recognize the ruse and trick his colleague back. But the constant twists, the constant sense that *TNG*is holding some truth back from you because it’s narratively convenient, rather than because it reflects something the characters would actually do (or could get away with), weakens this one considerably.

Not for nothing, “Ship in a Bottle” also introduces Moriarty’s near-obsession with Countess Bartholomew. I do my best not to be a stickler for continuity, but it does seem odd that Moriarty is practically obsessed with his lady love, and yet had never mentioned her until this episode. (And the most he makes is a broad, oblique reference to Dr. Pulaski.)

It’s not all bad. I actually like Moriarty’s plan here. The prospect of using an elaborate simulation, to prompt Picard to use his command codes such that Moriarty can steal them, is legitimately clever. And the prospect of the birth of a new star creates both a metaphor for the episode (the creation of a new life) and one of those ticking clocks of doom that Star Trek loves so much.

Hell, I even like the cheekiness of Picard obliquely acknowledging that, just as a computer module allows Moriarty to experience “the Universe” without ever leaving a memory bank, Picard and company may too be merely a presence on a box on a table. Barclay’s “computer, end program” after everything has been shut down is a little too cute by half, but at least makes you think about what constitutes reality being “real” and how some sufficiently craft and intelligent man could trick you into believing that your experiences of the world are utterly false. (Hello, Descartes fan!)

It’s all just sort of dumb. Moriarity being able to exist outside the holodeck as a product of “mind over matter” is already a tip-off. Late in the game, Moriarty’s able to depart a shuttle bay without Riker and Worf being pulled into space, another hint that something here is amiss. If you didn’t pick it up at first (which, fair enough, has Inception levels of convolution), there’s clues along the way that things here are peculiar, beyond even Mr. Moriarty’s arrival.

But man, the creation of another self-aware hologram, the ability for Moriarty to get control of the ship again, the computing power necessary to recreate a simulation of the Enterprise-D, all of this mishegoss is just that -- lony, random stuff that takes away from this episode. The show hangs a fig leaf on some o f these ideas, particularly as it gives the Morariies a virtual vacation. But the Byzantine nature of it all, and the “holodecks shouldn't allow this sort of thing” notions both take over, and it leaves “Ship in the Bottle”, brilliant premise and all, working at a deficit, at least when it comes to Star Trek.