Force of Nature is TNG’s “environmentalism” episode. It’s main message is thinly veiled by a story about the effects of warp drive, but it works. The episode is successful because it rarely ever becomes preachy. Instead, it lets the circumstances and actions of the story speak for themselves. The problem, however, is that the episode’s overall story is poorly paced. And, too, the characters, especially the minor ones, leave a lot to be desired.

The episode begins with a relatively humorous scene involving Data’s cat, Spot. LaForge had borrowed Spot as an experiment to see if he wanted a pet of his own. The trial ownership has not gone well. In fact, Spot has thoroughly trashed LaForge’s quarters. It’s very much tongue in cheek, but it works.

After a number of conversations about Spot’s behavior, LaForge convinces Data to attempt to train his cat to “behave.” If you’re a cat owner, you realize the futility of the idea. And of course, Data is humorously unsuccessful in training his pet to behave. On the other hand, Spot clearly has Data trained — which LaForge is only too eager to point out.

What this secondary story line does, however, is establish a theme for the episode: that nature, even in the form of an orange furball, is a force to be reckoned with. As a subplot, the story of Spot is enjoyable and successful. But it’s abandoned less than halfway through the episode. There are more pressing matters at hand, of course, but it’s still a mistake never to revisit Spot — perhaps showing Data accepting Spot’s behavior.

At any rate, there are more serious issues to be dealt with. A Federation medical ship has been lost in a narrow corridor of traversable space. At first it would appear that the Ferengi were behind the disappearance. But we quickly learn that it was the work of two aliens (brother and sister) who want to get the Federation to listen to their pleas. They claim that the continuous traffic of warp ships through the corridor is fraying space and time — much like continuously walking over the same section of carpet will cause it to wear out. Even more alarmingly, this degradation of space is having serious detrimental effects on their home planet.

The crew of the Enterprise is skeptical, but they agree to take a closer look at the research. When that isn’t good enough for the sister, she causes her ship’s warp core to overload, thereby creating a rift in space and proving her theories.

At issue is her character. It’s clearly understandable that she wants action as soon as possible. However, she does a horrid job of conveying the urgency of the situation and, instead, puts everyone else on the defensive. The characters comment on this, so the effect was intended. But it doesn’t help the episode when the characters start annoying the audience, too.

The final sequences of the episode are typical TNG “rescue” fare. The science vessel is caught on the other side of the rift and the Enterprise has to figure out a way in and out of the rift without using warp drive. They succeed, of course.

In the end, Starfleet decides to limit ships to warp 5 — unless in an emergency. It’s notable that a TNG episode would provide restrictions for future episodes. But that goes to the heart of Force of Nature — that in order to protect the environment, whether it is the fabric of space or planet Earth, sacrifices must be made. But there are a couple of “speeches” from Picard and LaForge on the topic. They aren’t terrible, but they were also a bit preachy.

Force of Nature is a slightly above average episode. It gets credit for approaching a worthy topic and, for allowing the episode to (for the most part) let the actions speak louder than words. But the pacing was terribly slow. And the minor characters were not particularly engaging.

Filed under: TNG Reviews