Original Premiere: August 31, 2004
Once upon a time, in a land 1200 miles away, a meerkat and a
warthog conspired to bring you this episode.
I kid you not. Many, many years ago,
I was forcibly transported across the country to visit the alleged Happiest
Place on Earth. It was 95 degrees,
raining, utterly humid, and for some reason I was the only person in Orlando
that didn’t get a suntan. Still, it was
a decent trip—definitely not the happiest place on Earth… but I did come
away from Florida with this episode.
Nestled deep within the confines of Disney World was this corny little
movie about conservation and preservation and all that, starring Timon and
Puumba from The Lion King… You
know, Puumba was building his new mud hole in the African Savannah when
somebody comes and builds a hotel on the spot.
Or something like that… it’s been YEARS since I actually saw the movie,
but the general theme tended to stick with me.
Admittedly, I was not eager to develop the idea. While the notion itself was interesting on
some degree… it just seemed very hard to make an entire episode about
conservation interesting. I mean, Timon
and Puumba ran out of steam after ten minutes or so. Thus, the episode sat, collecting dust in the back of my mind for
the better part of a decade—it didn’t even make the list of “possible episodes”
I drew up before TFF began (and to show how low of a priority this episode was,
that “possible episode” list did include an episode about a magic
wishing well, which THANKFULLY got canned well before the series premiere).
Anyway, with the final episodes of TFF rapidly approaching, I
knew that there were still a few things I wanted to accomplish before the
end—and one of those things was to write a Neelar Drayge episode that didn’t
suck. After the disastrous “Affairs of
the State” in Season One, poor Neelar never really had a chance to shine,
because I never really used him. I tried
to gradually redeem him over the years, with episodes like “Accretion Disk”
and “Soul Searching,” but I always made certain that he was paired with someone
else, that way he wouldn’t have to carry the entire episode—and admittedly,
both of the aforementioned episodes were pretty good. So when “Spectrum” came around in Season Four, I was ready to
take the plunge. Neelar did
indeed carry the brunt of that episode, and it wasn’t wretched… But I wanted something more—something
better—and knowing that “Nature of the Beast” was going to be one of my last
chances to do that, I went for it.
The original concept for the episode—titled “The Innocents’
Lament”—was more along the lines of a standard border dispute between the
Darsaeans and another alien species; the Darsaeans were pretty much obliterating
these aliens, and nobody cared, so Neelar stepped in to save the day. Unfortunately, Neelar probably wouldn’t be
in charge of a situation like that—I mean, we were talking something that
bordered genocide, so the Federation would definitely get involved, effectively
shoving aside Neelar. Additionally, a
conflict between two space-faring civilizations would also necessitate epic
space battles—and considering the number of epic battles coming in the Final Chapter,
I didn’t want to do a big battle in this episode. And really, I didn’t want to do genocide
again, either.
Since “Spectrum” seemed to work for Neelar, I decided to do
something similar. Besides, TFF was long
overdue for another strong episode that really dealt with something relevant to
the real world—and I immediately thought of Timon and Puumba. Of course, these are always the most
difficult episodes to write, because everyone has an opinion about these
real-world issues, myself included… so when I’m writing, I have to be very
careful to make sure that I address both sides of the issue, while at the same
time, craft a tale that is entertaining and not overly preachy—I mean, people
don’t read TFF for my soapbox rants (though admittedly the Romulan War in
Season Four might have been slightly biased—but you could say that those
episodes were Star Trek at its best… after all, they made a VERY strong
statement about the war in Iraq).
Thankfully, it’s a little easier to write about the preservation of
animals and their natural habitats…
And while the conservation story was indeed satisfactory, the
characters somehow managed to take that satisfactory material and raise it to a
much more powerful level. I mean, this
episode was a tour-de-force for the Starlight’s crew; everyone had
something to do, and boy… did they do it WELL.
I hadn’t really been upset with the way the characters were progressing,
but… Seasons Four and Five really muted the charisma—I think, in part, because
there were more plot-driven episodes, the characters just didn’t have a chance
to really shine as frequently as they did in Seasons One and Two. Certainly, the error was rectified with
“Nature of the Beast,” a trend that will undoubtedly continue as TFF heads into
the final few episodes.
I also wanted to mention tomato soup, Neelar’s meal of
choice when he’s in the mess hall with Lucas.
If you have ever had the luxury of hearing me talk about Bolians,
then you have undoubtedly heard my tomato soup rant (and if you haven’t heard
the said rant… well, you’re about to).
Really. I’m not kidding. I’m about to talk about tomato soup.
This all stems back to that travesty of an encyclopedia
available for viewing at startrek.com.
Now, I don’t usually make fun of the powers that be… but I have to
admit, that encyclopedia is the absolute WORST Star Trek resource available on
the Internet. Not only did it claim
that the Borg first appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
(they did manage to fix that error), it is so poorly written that it makes your
eyes bleed:
BOLIANS
A
Federation race of humanoids, most distinguishable in appearance by the narrow
yet distinctive ridgeline running at least from over the skull from the spine
to the nose and down the neck. In addition, they also have longer ears than
humans and their skin tone ranges from a yellowish green tinge to a blue darker
green tinge to medium blue.
Though three Bolians who appear — V'Sal, Mot and Rixx —
are bald, the Bolian Haro (later discovered to be a false image) has a
head-full of styled, green-tinted blond hair, parted and thinning along the top
front of her head and exposing her Bolian ridgeline.
Though very few Bolians serve in Starfleet, they can be
found in various places throughout the Federation. Natives of this bald, bluish-skinned
Federation race are often seen around Deep Space Nine on the station's
promenade — including Lysia Arlin, who runs the Jumja kiosk and has a crush on
Constable Odo, circa 47603. Bolian Freighters often visit Deep Space Nine and
the area. A civilian female member of the blue-skinned, bilaterally-ridged
humanoid species is a regular at Quark's, and is there in the Founders' imposed
hallucinatory test of a United Federation of Planets-Dominion test. Another is
an ensign in the security section on the sabotaged, Tzenkethi-bound Defiant.
Bolian "crystal steel" is a highly collectible
material and not usually available on DS9 — one of Quark's would-be expanded
sales items by inter-station monitor. Cultural items include a variety of
tomato soup.
Wow, don't
those Bolians have an incredible culture? They're probably the only race in the
universe known for their variety of tomato soup. By the way, did you know that
the Bolians are blue-skinned species of humanoids from the Federation? And that
three Bolians are bald—but this one Bolian had hair, so we’ll talk about that
at length, even though she wasn’t actually a Bolian… Oh, and get this… you can find Bolians in various places
throughout the Federation! Really! You can find a member of the Federation
WITHIN the organization’s borders! Holy
shit! And naturally, when historians
look back upon the great Bolian Empire, they will undoubtedly note that Lysia
Arlin ran a jumja kiosk on DS9. End
even more noteworthy is the fact that an unnamed female Bolian visited
Quark’s—centuries from now, Bolian children are going to be required to know
this…
But none of that manages to top the tomato soup reference. The Bolian civilization has undoubtedly
flourished for centuries, yet the only thing noteworthy about their culture is…
an unspecified variety of tomato soup?
That’s not even a Bolian food!
It’s HUMAN! If I were Bolian, I
would be downright furious. I mean, I
would be filing a complaint with Federation Council!
… …Anyway, now you can see the humor behind the tomato soup
reference.
There is one last thing I wanted to share in this commentary,
and that is a deleted scene.
Originally, you got to see the derelict freighter get creamed by the
Qinxaea in the beginning of the episode—this was the last scene in the
prologue. I cut the scene because I
didn’t want to reveal the Qinxaea so soon—and because I just wasn’t too fond of
it to begin with; it was bit too vile, even for TFF standards. So… here it is (and yes, I recycled the
names once this scene was cut):
“We are going
to be rich!” Aaitus Tor gleefully proclaimed as he staggered through the dark,
narrow corridors of the cargo ship Hidraea. After what seemed like several years of misfortune on the final
frontier—freak warp core breaches, greedy marauders, ion storms—Aaitus and his
crew finally had something to be proud of.
“We’re gonna
be filthy rich!” sneered Boedus, the Hidraea’s scraggly little
navigator. The man certainly had the filthy
part down, that much was certain. “When
we gets ourselves back to Darsaea—hiccup—I’m gonna get me one of those fancy
replicator things!” He to took a swig
from his misshapen bottle of Grintaka Ale.
In his drunken stupor, he probably didn’t even realize that there were
replicators located throughout the Hidraea. “What you gonna do, Aaitus?
You gonna get you a replicator, too?”
“No,” Aaitus
calmly replied. Even though he was also
quite drunk, Aaitus liked to maintain the illusion that he was still in command
of his body. “I’m going to buy a few
Orion slave women.”
Boedus opened
his mouth to comment on the pending purchase, but an incredibly sonorous belch
rang out instead. Boedus immediately
broke into laughter. “Hey, that one was
pretty good!”
Impressive as
it was, Aaitus saw no need to comment on the belch. Anything he might say would undoubtedly encourage Boedus to drink
and belch even more—and that was the last thing Aaitus wanted. A drunken navigator was never a pretty
sight. “I think you’ve had enough,
Boedus…”
Despite his
drunken state, Boedus stopped dead in his tracks. “What?”
Slowly,
Aaitus reached for the gangly bottle of ale.
Boedus still had a death-grip on the bottle’s neck, but Aaitus knew that
a simple distraction would be more than enough to loosen Boedus’ grip. At times like this, the man had the
attention span of a Trindorian maggot (and the stench, too). But before Aaitus could put his plan into
action, the ship itself provided an ample distraction… The deck started to vibrate.
The rumbling
immediately caught Boedus’ attention.
“Maendor must be in the shitter!” he proclaimed, his sonorous words
echoing throughout the narrow corridor.
“I don’t
think so,” said Aaitus, shaking his head.
In the distance, he could hear the bulkheads beginning to groan. Tremors jolted through the deck plates, and
the lights began to flicker. “This is
something else entirely…”
But the
realization came too late.
Something
suddenly blasted through the bulkhead in a heavy rain of sparks and
debris. Aaitus only caught a glimpse of
the greenish tendril as it crashed through the bulkhead on the opposite side of
the corridor. The lights summarily
failed, and in the blink of an eye, both Aaitus and Boedus were dead…