16: Darmok (5.02)

Synopsis: Gilgamesh retold where he has virtually no clue what Enkidu is saying.

Memory Alpha Summary: Troggles, their eyes opened

Review: What a brilliant hour of television.  What is essentially two races meeting who don’t speak the same language is transformed by Picard’s skill and grace into a powerful and satisfying resolution.  Hat tip to Joe Menosky for creating this species that speaks only in metaphor and for somehow writing a script that doesn’t lose the audience.  This would be higher, except it really feels like this needed to be a feature-length film.

6 thoughts on “16: Darmok (5.02)”

  1. Rhubarb_Runner, his fists closed.

    A great ep. After this one, we spoke in metaphors are work for quite a while. We also noticed that Paul Winfield dies in a whole lot of his movies: Damnation Alley, Mars Attacks, Wrath of Khan, and he played M.L. King in “King”

    1. That’s awesome. We could create some metaphors just for this site. For example, if you disagree with me, you can say:

      Rhubarb and Troggles, discussing justice.

  2. Oh, yes. I was wondering how high this would be. I was going to quibble with how low it was, then I noticed your last note and agreed immediately. Remove Insurrection (since that one felt like a feature-length episode, more than an actual motion picture, and was fairly bad, to boot) and make this episode feature length and the Star Trek movie line is drastically improved in quality.

    1. Yeah, Insurrection would probably be around 70 or 80 in this countdown at best.

      This was another episode I didn’t like as a kid, and it took me years to fully appreciate it.

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