Trek Thursdays: Trekking Towards Sixty #16 — “Frame Of Mind” And “Hard Time”

On September 8th, 1966, an intrepid crew of explorers boldly went where no one had ever gone before on television. At that moment, Star Trek was born. A series that launched a franchise that has kept a firm grip on audiences for decades.

As the sixtieth anniversary approaches, we here at Comicon are ready to celebrate one of the greatest science fiction franchises. While Star Trek has graced the silver screen, most of its life has been on our television screens. So, that’s where our focus shall remain.

Every week through September 8th, we’ll be spotlighting two Star Trek episodes, from any and every iteration, that we feel are some of the greatest. At this point there are over 950 episodes of Trek, so it goes without saying some favorites won’t make the cut for this list of 60.

The mind is a tricky thing.

Sometimes there’s a thin line between reality and fiction. Leaving a person uncertain what is real and what is being created by their mind. Clawing at the very fabric of reality itself as they question who or what they even are anymore.

Star Trek has tapped into a lot of areas of the human mind, body, and spirit over its almost sixty years of existence. Dealing with psychological issues and tolls are nothing new for the series. A good list could be delivered that just focuses on episodes from this particular well, whether it be science fiction technology or just the pure power of the brain spurring it all on.

This week, we tap into two of them that put some main cast characters through the wringer. Giving both actors plenty of space to really own the moment and play some very serious, almost tragic scenarios out for audiences.

-RED ALERT: SPOILERS FOLLOW-

“Frame Of Mind”
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 6, Episode 21 (05/03/1993)

Synopsis: Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) begins to worry that he’s losing his mind as he keeps shifting between an alien hospital and the Enterprise, where he’s rehearsing a play about a man losing his mind.

It’s 33 years later, but someone give Frakes his flowers right here.

As noted in some previous week entries, by the time TNG reached the sixth and seventh seasons it was a well-oiled machine. Eschewing the alien or threat-of-the-week focus more often than not to really give some character developing and defining episodes. This episode was one of those for Riker in many ways.

Never one to deny his emotions, Riker was also a very professional person who kept things buttoned up as needed. Giving his all for his ship and crew, standing as a staunch defender of everyone that graced the ship, even when there might be personality clashes. Passionate but very controlled are good ways to look at the man, because he knew when to turn it on and when to turn it off.

Seeing him losing grip on reality, fearing for himself and his mind, unable to tell truth from lies, was terrifying. Frakes gives it his absolute all in this episode from the moment the camera rolls on the fake play within the show to the tense moments in the hospital. We, the audience, are certain that the Enterprise and Riker’s position upon it are real, but the episode very neatly dances across the division line.

While we’re certain, the character isn’t as he begins to question everything that he thought he once knew. Every bit of Riker’s descent feels emotionally charged and raw in its delivery, as Frakes doesn’t hold back a single bit.

All of it turning out to be a ploy to get information from Riker doesn’t take away from the preceding harrowing events. Although, it might in some stories employing this concept. We still see at the end that the whole endeavor had an effect on Riker and will continue to do so. Even being assured of reality isn’t enough to wave off what just happened. And truly, it might be one of the more effective instances of people trying to gain information from a main cast member.

It’s almost up there with Captain Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) torture by the Cardassians. Keep an eye out for that episode soon enough. Right now, though, take another bow Frakes and Riker, because this one still resonates to this day. That’s some powerful work.

“Hard Time”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 4, Episode 19 (04/19/1996)

Synopsis: Convicted of espionage on an alien world, Chief Miles O’Brien (Colm Meany) is sentenced to receiving memories of twenty years of prison. Upon returning to Deep Space Nine, the Chief must wrestle with the enforced memories and the guilt born of the fate of a cellmate.

Thought the last one was rough? Oh yeah, strap in for this.

There’s a running joke about how Deep Space Nine has a wealth of “O’Brien must suffer” episodes. As the name suggests, these installments sees the show putting the former transporter chief turned chief engineer and miracle worker through the absolute wringer. These plots have stretched the Chief’s hold on reality, messed with time, harmed his family, and even killed him.

“Hard Time” is one of the hardest — words chosen with purpose — with how far it’s willing to go with the character.

Much like Riker in the previous entry, O’Brien is left trying to filter between what is reality and what is fiction. In this case, though, the two are intertwined thanks to alien technology that allowed O’Brien to truly live out those 20 prison years in his mind. To his brain, there is no difference between those memories and his usual place in the world. No quick medical fix is going to save the day this time.

Guilt is a major source of the trauma in this episode. While O’Brien tells others he was alone for those 20 years, we are able to see with him that he was not. The Argrathi, the alien race that sentenced O’Brien, concocted a cellmate for him named Ee’char (Craig Wasson).

They shared food and time together for almost the whole twenty years. As time and stress wore on O’Brien, he believed that Ee’char was hording food from him and killed his cellmate. Only to discover that the alien had been trying to retrieve food with which to share with his friend. Visions of Ee’char haunt O’Brien, while also encouraging him to seek help from his friends to relieve himself of this guilt.

Just as we saw with Frakes, Meaney gets to pull deep and really push himself in this episode. Presented with an acting challenge, he nailed it.

Driven to the brink by the guilt and the hard reality of readjustment, O’Brien almost lashes out on his daughter, Molly (Hana Hatae), and flees to the cargo bay. Putting a maximum setting phaser to his chin, the Chief prepares to end his life. This goes very far into depression, trauma, and guilt at a level not typical for even the harder episodes of Trek up to this point. A main character was willing to end their life rather than continue dealing with the pain and harm they might bring to their loved ones.

It’s very similar to an episode of TNG in which Riker must struggle with Worf’s (Michael Dorn) request to help end his life after being paralyzed. In that case, it was more of a struggle with culture and rituals and ethics of assisted suicide.

Here, it’s more a personal mental health situation. While this doesn’t haunt O’Brien beyond this episode per se, we do know that the man had to work to get back to some semblance of ‘normal’ in many respects. Even without seeing directly references to these sorts of episodes, the serial nature of DS9 meant we were seeing these characters evolving constantly.

Both the good, and the bad, that affected them.

Come back next week as we dive into two more of Star Trek’s greatest episodes.