The title, Come Not Between Dragons, sounds like good advice.  Apt for an episode that delves into the most common type of advice we can imagine: that of being a parent.  

Of the 6 episodes I’ve seen so far, this seemed to be the most basic in terms of story.  An entity gets on board the Enterprise and it’s being hunted by another life form.  As the hunter uses echolocation to find the stowaway, the crew become affected by some overpowering and negative emotions.  Can the crew get it together in time to save the ship and figure out what to do with the alien stowaway before things get out of control?

I won’t deny that the child in me saw the poster for this episode and found myself more excited for this than any to date.  And so I will remind you all: never judge a book by its cover!  Don’t misunderstand me: this is a fine episode, but it’s probably among the two weakest of the bunch so far.  No matter how I word this, it sounds damning but when you’re in a class of excellence, even a low grade still comes in higher than many other shows.   

Where this one fails is the alien itself.  It looks like it’s made of Styrofoam, and that loses some of the awe that we should experience.  People may have taken issue with the Gorn back in 1966 but this is far more phony looking than our favorite bipedal reptile.  When it goes outside the ship, it loses that hand-made appearance and takes on more of a CGI look, but that fails on the other end of the spectrum.  Where none of it matters is that we’re watching “season 5” of classic Trek which puts us firmly in 1970-71 territory, and not the actual era this was made, meaning we can still see past a lot of the limitations.  (In fairness, how do you complain about a series made for free as a love letter by the fans to the fans?) 

To improve the story, we get a lot more action from the bit characters we’ve seen before.  Jones is especially impressive but even Chekov starts to get some screentime.  The real win for me personally was Eliza.  There was something about her that clicked but I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I’m usually good with identifying people even under makeup but that’s contingent upon seeing their eyes.  In the case of Eliza, her eyes are very natural but my first encounter with this actress had her wearing very different eyes as Chiana, the alien beauty of Farscape.  This was Gigi Edgley on a very different ship from Moya.  Her character is the heart of the episode, connecting with the alien child, Usdi.

As much as I’m enjoying these episodes, I would be totally unfair if I didn’t call things out as I see them.  After the crisis is averted, the Enterprise goes to a cloud nebula where they’ve tracked Usdi and his “father” so that Eliza can communicate with them.  Eliza is in her quarters with Jones and McKenna about to have a drink when Jim walks in.  Sure, he had a reason, but it did jump out at me that he didn’t ring the bell; he just walks into her room.  I feel Jim may have abused his power a bit…

Having said that, it’s really the only thing that needed work.  The rest of the episode holds up and concludes with a message parents need to remember because it’s easy to lose sight of this, especially if you have teenagers.  Every time a parent lashes out in anger, they become more the monster the child fears and less that person the child loves.  That is a monumental reminder for parents.  While this is a smaller episode in terms of scale, it probably has the biggest message because it applies to so many adults. 

It also has a moment for Jim to ponder something that addresses a long-standing joke I have about the show.  Jim is always able to talk his way out of things, including convincing robots to self destruct.  When he’s unable to communicate with the rock-like creature, he feels frustrated.  I think it was a nice touch to limit Kirk’s ability to get through to the creature.  For a change, the star of the show wasn’t Kirk, but the cast around him and that’s just a sign of the maturity that these fans brought to the series.  If only there were more than 10 of these!    ML