‘DARMOK’ (TNG)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
This is a really baffling episode in the ‘Star Trek: TNG’ series. I’m not sure I get what’s going on in this episode, since it features an alien race who have a unusual way of speaking in terms of their language.
In the episode, the Enterprise are on a mission to make contact with the Tamarians. Contact has been made between the Federation and the Tamarians, but nothing meaningful has been achieved thus far.
Once the Enterprise makes contact with a Tamarian ship, they find the communication barriers rather difficult to break through. The Tamarians have a bizarre way of speaking as the crew can’t understand.
This is pretty unusual for a ‘Star Trek’ alien race. It turns out that they use metaphors and examples of stories and imagery to communicate their words. It’s such a tricky way to understand the Tamarians.
Deanna Troi describes an example later on during the episode. If you were to say ‘Juliet stood on a balcony’, it would be a metaphor for romance. This is something that wouldn’t be readily understood.
Like with the Enterprise crew, the Tamarians can’t understand the straight-forward language of humans. The Tamarians repeat of phases like ‘when the walls fell’ and refer to their legendary figures.
Because of the lack of understanding and communication between the Enterprise crew and the Tamarians, the Tamarian captain has him and Picard beamed to the planet El-Adrel. Why, it is unclear.
Paul Winfield guest stars as the Tamarian captain, Dathon. This is the second ‘Star Trek’ appearance for Paul Winfield, as he played Captain Terrell in ‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’. Uncanny, isn’t it? 😀
I wouldn’t have recognised Paul Winfield in all that alien make-up he has on to play Dathon. His performance is unusually intriguing, since he plays an alien that can understand his unusual language.
Dathon utters phrases like ‘Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra’ to Picard when they’re on the planet El-Adrel. He offers Picard a dagger, but Picard is uncertain what Dathon wants him to do with the dagger.
Picard thinks Dathon is challenging him to a duel and refuses to have the dagger from him. Dathon gets frustrated with Picard for not understanding his words whilst they’re spending time on the planet.
Gradually, Picard and Dathon soon come to understand each other a little better through the language barriers. This is when Dathon offers Picard his fire at night-time and declares, “Temba, his arms wide.”
It’s clear that Dathon doesn’t want to fight Picard in a duel when he offers one of his daggers to him. But it turns out there’s a hostile predator that stalks the two on the planet which is somewhat invisible.
Picard and Dathon do share in fighting the beast. Picard somewhat understands the meaning behind Dathon’s word despite those language barriers getting in the way. Unfortunately, Dathon gets injured.
During the night, Picard tends to Dathon’s wounds and asks more about the meaning behind his words including ‘Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra’. Dathon also wishes to hear a tale to be told by Picard to him.
Picard recounts a human story, the Epic of Gilgamesh, in order to parallel the allegory of Darmok and Jalad. Dathon seems to understand the words given to him by Picard, before he slowly dies that night.
Meanwhile, aboard the Enterprise, the crew struggle with understanding the Tamarians from their spaceship. Data and Deanna Troi gradually get to comprehend what the Tamarians’ language is about.
Despite this, Riker orders for the Enterprise to fire on the Tamarian ship to disable the scattering field in space and beam up Picard. This is a short battle in space between the Enterprise and the Tamarians.
Fortunately Picard stops the battle in time and uses his newfound knowledge of the Tamarian allegories to communicate with the Tamarian ship. This luckily gets to the Tamarians who understand.
Colm Meaney guest stars as Chief O’Brien in the episode for his standard transporter chief duties. This episode also has the first brief appearance of Ashley Judd as Robin Lefler in the ‘Star Trek: TNG’ series.
‘Darmok’ is a puzzle of a ‘Star Trek’ episode for me. I wouldn’t say it’s a favourite of mine, but it is intriguing in terms of its concepts. It does open my eyes to how language can be conceived differently.
By the way, Picard is wearing a different style of uniform in this episode. It’s like he’s wearing a jacket version of his red uniform over a blue sweatshirt of a Starfleet uniform. It must be captain’s privileges.
‘Darmok’ (TNG) rating – 6/10
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