Saturday, March 2, 2013

Hailing frequencies closed, sir.

I was really young when I first saw the TNG episode, "Skin of Evil." And, aside from catching snippets of it on TV inadvertently, I have never seen it since. This isn't an accident. I've been avoiding this episode since I was a little girl.

If you've never seen the episode, I'll just go ahead and let you know that Tasha Yar dies in this one. An evil, sadistic creature kills her for no reason. Her death is meaningless and, in spite of their technology and Crusher's excellent skill as a doctor, her death is final. She's just gone.

This episode had a huge impact on me as a kid. I wasn't terrified. I don't remember crying or hiding behind a pillow or anything like that. I remember watching wide-eyed and spellbound until the very end. And I remembered the whole episode, and especially Tasha's funeral, very clearly throughout my childhood.


I realize now that Tasha's death was the first one I ever experienced. I had probably seen characters die in movies but Tasha's death was different. I felt like I knew Tasha. I watched her on TV every week. I liked her. Other people that I felt as if I knew liked her. Her death was hard on them and, consequently, it was hard on me.

Even if I couldn't put it into words at the time, I learned from this episode that death is permanent. I learned that it can happen suddenly, to anyone. I learned that when someone dies, everyone else is left to suffer and that once that person gone there will be no more chances to say the things to them that you always meant to say. I learned that there is often no purpose in death, no meaning and no gallant ending. For most people, it just happens. One minute we are here and the next minute, we're not. From Tasha's own, pre-recorded funerary message, I learned that "death is that state in which one exists only in the memory of others--which is why there is no end. No good byes. Just good memories."

Since then, I've lost people that I knew in real life--people I loved. They exist in my memory and the memory of others. I think about them and I think about myself. I think about trying to be better. Trying to do everything I want to do before I'm gone. Trying to tell the people I love just how much I love them. Trying to make sure that the memories I leave behind are good memories. I know I'm thinking a lot about myself but that's what happens when you think about death. 

As Data says after Tasha's funeral, "My thoughts are not for Tasha, but for myself. I keep thinking how empty it will be without her presence. Did I miss the point?"

Picard replies, "No, you didn't Data. You got it."

And, hopefully, I got it too. I'll see how I feel about this episode in another twenty-something years.
 

8 comments:

  1. Wonderful post. I too saw this episode as a child and it really kind of opened a door into adulthood, or at least into a real internal discourse of death and loss. The worst part for me was that she was killed for no reason, abruptly, without warning. As a side note, Denise Crosby was in an issue of Playboy back in the late 80s. In my mind, she is the first woman I saw naked (I cant remember if she actually was naked). She was a very big part of me growing up.

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    1. Thanks, Charles! I love that you saw Denise Crosby in Playboy. I'll be heading over to google now...

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  2. I remember watching this episode with my parents. I was sure she was going to come back to life at the end. And when she didn't, I was devastated. And then my mother said "Well, if they're not going to send down random ensigns, this was bound to happen sooner or later." -Larry

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    1. Ha! Yes, exactly. I think by this point, the whole "Red Shirts Die" thing was a part of popular culture and it makes sense that Roddenberry wanted to say, "Yeah, it is dangerous and if you're one of these guys, even if you're a guy with a name, you're probably going to bite it on an away mission."

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  3. I was always conflicted with this episode. The genuinely emotional acting was great, but the effects were so awful it was hard for me to overlook it.

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    1. You know, once you get past the original CGI puddle, the effects don't bother me at all. Everything that matters to me is practical. Armus is a guy in a suit actually covered in goop, the part where Riker's face surfaces is an actual plaster cast of Riker's face, and that crewmen who comes out covered in the black oil always looked cool to me. I might also be biased because I just finished watching all of TOS and, effects-wise, it's just a whole other thing.

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  4. This was a really great post with a great lesson. Thanks for sharing!

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  5. When I saw this as a kid I held it in until after I brushed my teeth and went to bed, and then cried with the pillow over my face so my brother in the top bunk wouldn't hear me. Shoo wee...

    With this episode, TNG totally took the gloves off, and death/mortality became a powerful recurring theme.It may be the future, but we are still mortal. I agree, TNG was not a show where the ensigns were treated like Kleenex. A couple of other episodes that stands out to me is the one where a boy begins to imitate Data, to avoid emotions of loss/grief, and Picard dealing with sending a woman he loves into harms way...thank goodness they had a ship's counselor on board!

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