Television Review: The Royale (Star Trek: The Next Generation, S2X12, 1989)

The Royale (S02E12)

Airdate: March 27th 1989

Written by: Keith Mills
Directed by: Cliff Bole

Running Time: 46 minutes

Amongst the devoted legions of Star Trek: The Next Generation enthusiasts, the second season holds a peculiar status. It is frequently heralded as the pivotal moment when the series decisively stepped out of the long shadow cast by The Original Series, shedding its initial growing pains to embark on the genuine transformation into the undisputed classic of science fiction television it would ultimately become. This perception, however, risks oversimplification. The episodic nature of TNG, particularly in its early years, meant its evolution was far from a smooth, linear ascent; it was a jagged trajectory marked by significant fluctuations in quality, ambition, and execution. Within this context, the Season 2 episode The Royale emerges as a rare and egregious instance where The Next Generation delivered a narrative and conceptual product demonstrably worse than many episodes of the comparatively raw and effects-limited Original Series.

The episode commences with a premise brimming with potential intrigue: the USS Enterprise-D investigates mysterious debris orbiting the unmapped planet Theta VII, debris initially reported by a Klingon cruiser. This detritus, shockingly, bears unmistakable United States insignia, ultimately identified as part of a NASA manned deep-space vessel launched in the mid-21st Century, a craft whose disappearance had long been a historical enigma. The mystery deepens profoundly when sensors confirm Theta VII’s surface is utterly inhospitable to human life – a barren wasteland devoid of atmosphere, subjected to extreme cold and ferocious winds. Yet, paradoxically, a single, inexplicably habitable zone exists. Captain Picard dispatches Commander Riker, Lieutenant Commander Data, and Lieutenant Worf to investigate this anomaly. Beaming down, they are immediately plunged into absolute darkness, confronted only by a strangely out-of-place revolving door. Passing through it, they find themselves not on a desolate alien world, but inexplicably transplanted into the interior of what appears to be a 1980s-era Earth hotel casino. Staff and guests, including flamboyant characters like the gambler "Texas" (Noble Willingham), populate the space, yet they remain utterly oblivious to the Starfleet officers’ arrival and prove frustratingly unhelpful when questioned, insisting they are still firmly on Earth. Data’s tricorder reveals the chilling truth: there are no life signs. The away team’s attempts to exit or beam back to the Enterprise are thwarted by an impenetrable force field, trapping them within this bizarre simulation.

The resolution, when it comes, feels less like clever deduction and more like narrative surrender. After exploring the casino’s labyrinthine corridors, the team discovers a skeleton in a room – that of Colonel Stephen Richey, the sole survivor of the vanished NASA mission. His final, despairing log entry reveals the core conceit: Richey was rescued by an alien species after his crew perished from a virulent pathogen. However, misinterpreting a tawdry, cliché-ridden pulp novel ("It was a dark and stormy night...") found aboard his ship as an authentic anthropological guide to human culture, the aliens constructed this elaborate, inescapable casino simulation as Richey’s "ideal" environment. He was condemned to relive the novel’s trite plot for 38 years until his death. The Enterprise crew’s escape hinges on manipulating the simulation’s programming by fulfilling the novel’s predetermined ending – Riker and his team posing as the novel’s protagonists to resolve a a plot.

Herein lies the episode’s fundamental flaw: its core premise is profoundly unoriginal. Dedicated Trek fans immediately recognise strong echoes of the Original Series Season 3 episode Spectre of the Gun, where Kirk and crew are trapped in a simulation of the O.K. Corral gunfight by non-corporeal aliens testing humanity’s violent tendencies. While Spectre of the Gun itself is often regarded as a subpar entry even by TOS standards, it possesses a distinct conceptual purpose – Roddenberry’s vehicle for promoting his philosophy of non-violence, culminating in the crew simply refusing to play the deadly game. In stark, damning contrast, Tracy Tormé’s script for The Royale feels like little more than a cheap, cynical excuse to utilise Paramount’s readily available, slightly shabby modern-day sets, bypassing the need for the holodeck or time travel tropes. The potential for deeper commentary on cultural misunderstanding, the nature of simulation, or even the absurdity of human constructs is utterly squandered. Cliff Bole, a director otherwise respected for his work on the series, appears utterly uninspired. His direction lacks the necessary surreal, disorienting, or even subtly menacing quality that could have elevated the material. Gone is the psychedelic, disquieting atmosphere of Spectre of the Gun; instead, we get flat lighting, perfunctory camera work, and a casino that feels less like an alien construct and more like a half-empty, slightly tacky Las Vegas lounge on a Tuesday afternoon.

The comparison extends beyond Trek itself, and The Royale falters catastrophically. When measured against cinematic giants exploring similar themes – Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, whose enigmatic Star Gate sequence utilised alien simulation for profound, almost spiritual transcendence, or Kubrick’s The Shining, where the Overlook Hotel’s haunted grandeur generated genuine, lingering dread – The Royale’s casino appears laughably banal and devoid of any thematic weight or visual poetry. It lacks the conceptual ambition of 2001 and the oppressive, character-driven horror of The Shining. Even the later, immensely popular Groundhog Day, which explored the existential torment of reliving the same day, handled its central loop concept with far greater wit, emotional depth, and narrative purpose than Colonel Richey’s dreary casino purgatory.

Producer Michael Hurley, seemingly aware of the script’s inherent weaknesses, attempted a clever meta-narrative justification: the simulation’s awfulness is the point, stemming from the aliens’ reliance on a poorly written novel. The opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night," was intended as satirical commentary on the clichés being presented. Yet this device spectacularly backfired. Instead of providing clever critique, it merely highlighted the episode’s own derivative nature and lack of originality, making the audience hyper-aware of every tired trope without offering any meaningful insight beyond acknowledging them. The satire was too on-the-nose and insufficiently woven into the narrative fabric to succeed. Tormé himself was so dissatisfied with the final product, feeling his script had been compromised and mishandled, that he disowned it entirely, insisting on being credited under the pseudonym "Keith Mills" – a rare and telling indictment from the writer himself.

While there are fleeting moments of attempted humour – primarily from Noble Willingham’s scenery-chewing performance as "Texas" – they feel forced and fail to elevate the overwhelmingly predictable, plodding plot. The solution is telegraphed early, the stakes feel artificial, and the entire scenario lacks the intellectual spark or emotional resonance expected of TNG at its best. The episode is, quite simply, utterly forgettable, a bland interlude that fails to engage on any level beyond surface-level puzzle-solving.

Furthermore, "The Royale" suffers from the ignominy of becoming another notorious example of Star Trek’s frequent struggles with futurology. During their investigation, Picard and Riker discuss Fermat’s Last Theorem, a famously intractable mathematical problem, and remark that it remains unsolved even in the 24th Century. In stark reality, British mathematician Andrew Wiles definitively proved the theorem in 1994, a mere five years after the episode aired. This specific, easily verifiable error didn’t just date the episode; it rendered a key piece of its "futuristic" dialogue instantly obsolete and unintentionally comical, adding a layer of historical embarrassment to its already considerable flaws.

The Royale represents a significant low point in The Next Generation’s critical second season. While the season overall showcased the series finding its voice, this episode exemplifies the perilous dips in quality that accompanied the ascent. Its unoriginal premise, poorly executed direction, reliance on tired clichés masked as satire, utter lack of thematic depth, and subsequent obsolescence due to real-world events combine to create an experience that feels not just mediocre, but actively regressive. It is not merely a bad TNG episode; it is a rare instance where the sequel series produced something conceptually and executionally inferior to the original, a garish, forgettable casino built on the shaky foundations of a cheap novel, serving as a stark reminder that even the path to becoming a classic is paved with missteps of considerable magnitude. Its legacy is one of squandered potential and a cautionary tale about the perils of prioritising production convenience over imaginative storytelling.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

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