Cost of Living

We couldn't get through this one. We usually skip Lwaxana episodes but the Netflix preview didn't let us know she was in it. So we watched awhile and she didn't disappoint; painfully annoying as usual. And the scenes on the weirdo Parallax colony on the holodeck? Yikes, even more annoying. Add in a child actor and you have a real stinker of an episode.

Lwxwana Troi visits Enterprise to get married and teaches Alexander Rozhenko how to enjoy freedom and have spontaneous fun.

This is an episode that focuses heavily on the guest characters and I think you have to like them and enjoy the humour for it to work.

The story is okay, with a decent amount of irony written into the situation involving Lwxwana, her free spirited nature, and the personality of her potential husband. It does though take number of random turns to get where it needs to go and has a rather uninspired subplot.

Lwxwana and Alexander share plenty of screen time, and these are the scenes likely to be the most enjoyed or disliked. I struggled with most of them, particularly the holodeck sequences which have imagery that would not look out of place in a Stephen King horror scene. Thankfully, Worf just about makes some scenes bearable with some well delivered lines and Deanna Troi has some positive moments. Well done to Michael Dorn and Marina Sirtis.

Majel Barrett makes the best use of material she has, but I don't think it is very well written. She is consistently a great performer within the franchise, but most of the humour associated with this character never works for me.

Brian Bonsall also has weak material and it makes him appear to be an awkward actor, but I don't think he is bad, it's how the character is used that does him a disservice.

The subplot is just a sci-fi tick box exercise in my opinion and I expect to forget it's detail in very short space of time.

Visually it is pretty good, with some good costumes, props, and makeup effects. Even the weird holodeck moments are memorable to look at.

...however, over the years I realized if an actor is irritating or angering you? They're achieving their goal. I can't stand the Lwaxana episodes. But upon my recent viewing, I was blown away at the "Noises Off!" Trek-style hilarity of the episode. That film was a great nod to the Broadway play, released the same year as this episode. I know what I'm getting with Lwaxana...but Majel just KILLS in this one! Lol.

Give this another chance once you're much older. It's so much Marx Brothers' "A Night At The Opera", especially when Troi responds with "Ha!" to her mothers' comment and Alexander echoes "Ha!" Not to mention the silly end.

It's a good time and the writers took a chance.

Troi's Mother is absolutely insufferable. Is she supposed to be funny? I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would write a character like her; and the stories containing her character are ridiculously stupid. I honestly dislike the Troi character too, but she's nowhere near as repulsive as her Mother. Mama Troi just bulldozes over everyone, pushing her agenda and never listens to anything anyone says. She appears to be dumber than a bag of hammers, completely narcissistic and has no regard for anyone else's feelings or needs. What is even more incomprehensible is the way everyone just lets her have her way all the time with no accountability or repercussions. This episode also contains the unfortunate child of Worf. I like the idea of Worf having a son, but Alexander's character is poorly written and poorly acted. Unless you are masochistic, skip this episode.

What was the point of this episode? I must've stopped and started this watching this one on Netflix about 6 times because I couldn't watch more than a few minutes of it in a row.