Loud as a Whisper

Riva and the Chorus - Cockney-free!	The girl in the middle is John deLancie's wife.	Grunmpy alien #1.	Grunmpy alien #2.
(more images below)

Overview: The Enterprise hosts a deaf empathic ambassador who leads difficult peace talks.
Writer: Jacqueline Zambrano
Director: Larry Shaw

Anon²: Okay, this was possibly the first; possibly not the last story about disabilities. Excluding Geordi of course, who's blind. I was trying to figure out whether the actor himself was deaf. I think he was.

Pie: Yeah, I think he was. They never said he was dumb, although he never said anything.

Anon²: Then again, if someone's never heard anything, they would find it difficult to form speech.

Anon: Sometimes deaf people have that Elephant Man voice going on.

Anon²: Anyway, once he does come on board he just wants to fuck Troi. In fact, he cuts short a very well-planned Senior Staff Meeting so he can get into her pants. He doesn't manage to do so in the end, but hey - fuck it! Nice try!

Anon: Yeah, he was a deaf actor actually.

Pie: Ah, was he? Interesting.

Anon²: Oh, one card. Pie got Space! Possibly because no one was able to dispute it.

Pie: We got Riva too.

Anon²: Yeah, we got Riva. Well, you two got Riva.

Pie: We got his stats as well.

Anon²: Oh, you managed to work out his stats too. Anyway, score was 1 and zip for us regulars, plus 2 for Pie. Unless "Table and Two Torches" counts.

Pie: (laughs)

Anon: Yeah, good equipment for stacking in a VCM deck.

Pie: "I've got a table! Hooray!"

Anon²: I don't know - a decent episode? What is Pulaski all about though? She just comes on, has a fucking blob then fucks off again. In this episode, she was trying to cure Geordi's sight. She was showing him a bunch of options.

Anon: A bunch of options, none of which actually resolved the problem. She does sum up her general abilities and purpose in this season of Star Trek with the line in this episode, "I can't do anything."

Pie: (laughs)

Anon²: That's very true! I don't particularly like her as a character.

Anon: No one did. That's why they went back to Beverly in season 3.

Anon²: She's a craggy old cow, isn't she?

Pie: They seemed to be trying to introduce a character that was less likeable, somehow. Someone that had a few flaws from a character point of view.

Anon: I think they tried to make her a bit more like...

Anon²: McCoy?

Anon: Yeah, McCoy. They both share the transporter phobia. That was something else that made her completely useless in the card game, as well.

Pie: Yeah, that's true.

Anon: She could only beam once per turn, something like that.

Anon²: I don't think I ever played with her anyway.

Anon: I don't think anyone did. No point, was there?

Pie: Didn't she have Science, too?

Anon: Yeah, maybe she did. Next point then: I've talked before about the lack of believability when Picard didn't know the history of the Romulans and the Federation, or when Riker shat himself about Klingons going to Heaven. But how is Picard going to pick up the legendary Riva to negotiate this treaty when he doesn't even know that the guy is deaf? The guy had been born deaf and Worf already knows about him because he negotiated the Khitomer Accords or some other Klingon/Federation agreement. How are they not aware of this?

Anon²: Well, Worf's probably not met the guy. He's probably only heard of him by reputation.

Anon: But he hasn't heard him. He doesn't talk.

Pie: (laughs)

Anon: Okay, that was Joe Piscopo humour.

Pie: In a slightly related topic, what was that thing at the beginning of the episode between Worf and Riva? There was big dramatic music going on when Worf said, "Before Riva, the Klingons had no word for peacemaker."

Anon: ... or "butcher", "baker" or "candlestick-maker."

Pie: You'd think there was going to be something going on between Worf and Riva, but they just forget about it and Worf does fuck all for the rest of the episode.

Anon: He does do something. He pussies out!

Anon²: Oh yeah! On the planet, he moves to the back of the group of people that are potentially going to be shot at. That's not the first time he's done that.

Anon: Particularly as he's supposed to be protecting a deaf guy whose only 3 friends in the universe have just been disintegrated by a skeleton gun.

Anon²: What did we reckon to that skeleton gun effect?

Anon: Pretty good, actually.

Pie: For its time, yeah.

Anon²: Basically, it strips the flesh off them and then does the bone. I think that's the right way to be a carnivore.

Pie: If it had broken them down to a manageable size so they could fit onto the barbecue that would be even better.

Anon²: I don't know if they would be any good on the barbecue. The skeleton gun had already got rid of all the meat, so no one would be able to eat any.

Pie: It would've been a much better weapon if it had just broken down the steak into more manageable chunks.

Anon²: Yeah. Or if it had just got rid of the bones so you were left with the meat. You could've just chucked the meat on then.

Pie: Yeah, you could chuck the whole carcass on.

Anon²: Big carvery time. That would've been pretty good. Although, to be fair, those fucking alien things were pretty grim looking.

Anon: After Riva's Chorus all get turned into skeletons and disintegrated, Picard takes the classic approach to communicating with a deaf person: SHOUTING!

Pie: (laughs) I do that in foreign capitals, actually. "I CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!"

Anon²: "WHICH WAY TO THE PUB?" Or "CAN YOU TELL ME WHERE THE GARE D'NORD IS?"

Pie: I must admit that I found the central character in this episode somewhat implausible. First of all, he's supposed to be the greatest diplomat ever; but he was horny, irrational and angry for most of it, even before his Chorus died.

Anon: That's probably because he's ginger and had a beard.

Pie: Yeah, I'd be angry as well if I was ginger and had a beard.

Anon: You'd be Frankie Boyle, in fact. Thinking about it, the gingerness was what made him angry. The beard was what made him horny.

Pie: He also spent a lot of time with this hot woman that he couldn't shag.

Anon²: As soon as they got to the point where they wanted to fuck...

Pie: She had to do Riva's cum-voice for him!

Anon²: Oh, Riva also looked a bit like Obi-Wan Kenobi in the newest Star Wars films where he was played by Ewan McGregor. But only just. He didn't say "Padawan" or anything like that.

Anon: If they'd made the Chorus a bit more international, they could've had one of them be a Cockney.

Anon²: "'Ere, alright, guv'nor?"

Anon: I said a Cockney, not Chas & Dave! Anyway, when the aliens turned up to negotiate, the Cockney in the Chorus could've gone, "Sit down, you toilet!"

Pie: (laughs) They could've had a good knees-up around La Forge's table!

Anon²: (quoting Scum) "Put down ya fuckin' tool!" "Wot fuckin' tool?" "This fuckin' tool!" (laughs)

Anon: What they could've done to help negotiate, would've been to offer a sacrifice. They could've sacrificed Wesley, which would've given him something useful to do in this episode.

Anon²: That's genius!

Anon: Well, he did do something slightly useful by just not being in it.

Pie: I don't remember him, no.

Anon²: I thought he was in it, right at the beginning. He was in a new uniform or something. Right at the beginning, he was on one of the Conn's and then we didn't see him again. He was in his room sulking or something.

Anon: He might've been knocking one out. He'd just learnt how to get his fun for free and on-tap so was experimenting away.

Anon²: He was probably experimenting with furry animals.

Pie: Hold old is he, though?

Anon: 15 or so?

Pie: Surely he must've learnt how to crack one out before he was 15?

Anon: Yeah, but this is the future. His mum's a Doctor and she'd have told him that he'd get hairy palms!

Anon²: (laughs)

Anon: If we were going to contrast this against another episode, how do you think it compares against Too Short a Season? That's another episode where there's a diplomat negotiating between two warring factions.

Pie: Which one's that?

Anon: It's the one where the Admiral ages in reverse.

Pie: Oh yeah.

Anon²: ... so he could face his nemesis that he had a beef with in previous years. (pause) I think this episode was less about the war and more about coping with a disability.

Anon: Personally, I think this was a better episode. This wasn't bad for early season 2.

Pie: Is this the 6th episode of the season?

Anon: It's the 5th.

Pie: The 5th, ah okay. It's the 3rd episode of these 5 to be about warring factions on a planet then.

Anon²: So, you're referring to the last episode? The Okona one?

Pie: Yeah, the last episode, and the one with the drugs.

Anon: I'm afraid that Symbiosis was back in season 1.

Pie: Oh, that was in season 1?

Anon: Afraid so. I stand corrected.

Anon²: At the moment, I think that was a 6/10 job. But I haven't rated season 1 yet. I'll get around to doing that.

Pie: I think that was a bit of a reversal of the triple-fried-egg sandwich with chilli sauce and chutney. It had a lot of very good plot devices and elements to the story, but when it came together, it fell apart.

Anon²: Fair enough.

Anon: Okay. The next episode is The Schizoid Man.

Anon²: Really? Who said that? Me? Was that me? Who's talking? (pause) Ah, forget it. Schizoid Man? I thought you said Schizophrenic Man.

Anon: Well, I didn't. Till next time, dudes.

- Anon, Anon² & Pie, 05-Oct-2009