Television Review: Too Short a Season (Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1X16, 1988)

Too Short a Season (S01E16)

Airdate: February 8th 1988

Written by: Maurice Hurley & D. C. Fontana
Directed by: Rob Bowman

Running Time: 45 minutes

With long-running episodic television series, particularly those achieving the enduring legacy of Star Trek: The Next Generation, significant variance in episode quality is an almost inevitable reality. This fluctuation was especially pronounced during the show's notoriously uneven first season, a period where flashes of brilliance – such as the tightly plotted and conceptually intriguing 11001001 – were frequently juxtaposed against entries that struggled to find their footing. Too Short a Season, airing shortly after that high point, suffered considerably from this unfavourable comparison. While the shadow of a superior predecessor undoubtedly amplified its shortcomings, rendering it feel even weaker than it might have standalone, the episode ultimately represented a profound disappointment in its own right. It squandered a potentially compelling political narrative with a distracting, poorly executed sci-fi conceit and a series of critical execution failures that undermined its thematic ambitions.

The plot centres on the USS Enterprise-D being dispatched to the planet Mordan IV, a world only recently emerged from four decades of brutal civil war. Despite the nominal cessation of hostilities, instability persists. A faction of terrorists has seized the Federation ambassador and other officials, refusing to negotiate their release with Karnas (Michael Pataki), the planet's current governor. Karnas informs Starfleet that the terrorists demand negotiation with a specific Federation official: Admiral Mark Jameson (Clayton Rohner), whose legendary diplomatic skills supposedly resolved a near-identical hostage crisis on Mordan forty-five years prior. Jameson, accompanied by his wife Anne (Marsha Hunt), is brought aboard the Enterprise. We discover he is an 85-year-old man, ravaged by the incurable, degenerative Iverson's disease, confined to a wheelchair. Despite his frailty, Jameson is resolute in undertaking the mission. Dr. Crusher, however, becomes immediately suspicious upon noting his medical records are inexplicably two months old, not the standard two days. During the journey to Mordan, Jameson astonishingly begins to walk and appears significantly younger. He later confesses to Captain Picard that years earlier, during a diplomatic mission to Cerberus II, he received a previously mythical but very real de-aging agent as a reward. He has secretly self-administered it, heedless of potentially dangerous side effects, solely to regain his youth and physical capability for this critical mission.

The narrative takes its crucial turn when Jameson, now restored to apparent middle age, reveals the devastating truth: there are no terrorists. The hostage-taking was orchestrated by Karnas himself, solely to lure Jameson into a trap and enact decades of pent-up vengeance. Forty-five years prior, Karnas, then a tribal leader, had seized hostages and demanded Federation weapons. Jameson, perceiving no alternative to save lives, acceded to the demand. However, to avoid breaching the Prime Directive's core tenet of non-interference, he secretly supplied equivalent weaponry to Karnas's enemies, attempting to preserve a balance of power. This calculated intervention, intended as a stabilising measure, instead ignited and prolonged the devastating forty-year civil war. Karnas holds Jameson directly responsible for the carnage that consumed his world and seeks retribution. As a revitalised man, Jameson insists on leading the away team to rescue the hostages, but the mission ends in failure. Jameson, succumbing to the de-aging agent's fatal backlash, is dying. Picard agrees to beam down with Jameson, Anne, and Dr. Crusher when Karnas threatens execution. Karnas, initially sceptical of Jameson's youthful appearance, ultimately releases the hostages upon Jameson's death, his vengeance rendered meaningless by the admiral's demise.

Developed by Michael Michaelian and co-written by the legendary Star Trek veteran D.C. Fontana, Too Short a Season exemplifies a recurring issue within TNG's first season: a distinct whiff of The Original Series (TOS) rather than a confident stride into its own future. The shadow of TOS looms large, not only through the presence of Michael Pataki – who had previously played the boisterous Klingon Korax in Trouble with Tribbles and here delivers a performance bordering on caricature as the vengeful Karnas – but also through a plot structure heavily reminiscent of TOS's A Private Little War, which also dealt with Federation intervention inadvertently escalating a planetary conflict through arms supply. Furthermore, the writers explicitly cited contemporary resonance, drawing parallels to the then-recent Iran-Contra Affair. The episode attempts to mirror the Reagan administration's controversial, covert arms sales to Iran (ostensibly to secure hostage releases but also to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua), thereby prolonging the Iran-Iraq War, much like Jameson's arms deal prolonged Mordan's civil war. This real-world parallel offered fertile ground for a serious exploration of diplomatic ethics, accountability, and the profound, often unintended, consequences of intervention – core Star Trek themes ripe for TNG's more mature treatment.

Alas, the script commits a critical, self-sabotaging error by burdening this politically charged narrative with the utterly distracting and poorly realised de-aging subplot. This conceit does not merely shift the episode's focus away from the intriguing ethical dilemma of Jameson's past actions; it actively shatters the audience's suspension of disbelief. The makeup effects employed to depict Jameson's rapid rejuvenation are lamentably unconvincing, appearing more like ill-fitting rubber masks than a plausible biological transformation. Clayton Rohner, while a capable actor, struggles immensely to portray the elderly Jameson convincingly; his physicality and vocal delivery lack the authentic frailty and weight required, making the initial premise difficult to accept. Consequently, the entire de-aging gambit feels like a cheap, unnecessary gimmick rather than a meaningful narrative device. Compounding this waste of potential is the underutilised presence of Marsha Hunt, a genuine Classic Hollywood veteran (and one of the few Star Trek alumni to reach her centenary). Her character, Anne Jameson, is relegated to a near-silent, emotionally hollow shell – a devoted wife with no discernible personality, backstory, or agency beyond fretting over her husband. Her significant legacy is utterly squandered on a role that feels entirely superfluous. The final confrontation between Jameson and Karnas further drags the episode down; Karnas's eventual, grudging acceptance of Jameson's youthful appearance feels rushed and psychologically unconvincing, while the prolonged dialogue exchange that follows becomes tedious rather than cathartic, failing to deliver the emotional or thematic payoff the setup demanded.

Director Rob Bowman does inject one moment of genuine vitality: the mid-episode hostage rescue attempt. This sequence is dynamic, well-paced, and features a genuinely tense, action-packed gunfight. It serves the valuable purpose of re-establishing both Tasha Yar and Worf as formidable martial presences within the crew, a necessary reminder early in the series. However, this single, competently executed set piece is woefully insufficient to salvage the episode. It stands as a lone bright spot in an otherwise muddled and frustrating narrative. The fundamental flaws – the jarring de-aging plot, the unconvincing performances in the central roles, the wasted potential of the political allegory, and the underdeveloped characterisation – collectively overwhelm any merits. While the intention to grapple with the complex fallout of the Prime Directive and real-world political scandals was commendable, the execution is fatally compromised. Too Short a Season ultimately fails to transcend its TOS echoes or deliver the nuanced, character-driven drama TNG aspired to. Instead, it remains firmly entrenched as one of The Next Generation's more forgettable and disappointing early missteps, a cautionary tale of how a promising premise can be utterly derailed by a reliance on gimmickry and superficial storytelling.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

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