When the Bough Breaks (Season 1 - Episode 17) Star Trek TNG

When The Bough Breaks, is a very entertaining extravaganza of intergalactic baby stealing! Haha...okay maybe not baby stealing but, that sounds funnier than child stealing! Personally I think the purpose of this episode was to serve as foreshadow for the second season episode, Up The Long Ladder (if they steal babies in this season, then the audience will be that much more sympathetic when they're stealing DNA in the next season! I'm just saying). [for those unaware - a friend and I produced a very entertaining song about Up The Long Latter, listen to it here.] Refresh your memories for a second with this ridiculously-tacky but absolutely official trailer for, When The Bough Breaks!
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So anyways, I appreciate this episode because of it's attempt to display the imperfections of future technology again! That's something that I always appreciate about STNG, unlike other si-fi shows (or Voyager - don't get me started), the future's technologies are just as problematic as our technologies today!

Nevertheless, Aldea, the planet that they have been hailed by (which is has been drown in myth in the TNG universe because they've managed to cloak the whole planet so that they don't have to worry about war/invasion/visitors/etc and can focus on community/art/etc) has several very interesting characters. I think that it's interesting that the people on this planet have lost the ability to have intelectual growth because thier "custodian" (aka: computer) controls EVERYTHING! It controls thier way of living, thier execution of technical things, etc. Thier ancestors built this computer so that the people could stop worrying about training scientists, politicians, etc and instead focus on the quality of life & art making!

I'm not sure how I feel about this - is this episode trying to make a statement about the artist's idea of utopia specifically, or is it simply providing a comentary on what happens to culture when there is that kind of imbalance (all artists, no scholars). Maybe I should be thankful that in order to graduate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago I had to take more art history courses than any other school, and I had to have a full academic roster! Who knows!?

Maybe there is no real critique upon the "artist" so much as in a society who never has to work for anything, they don't understand the value of anything - even another sentient being! Stealing children for a society that cannot bare children anymore is right there with stealing bread for the hungry! Neither is correct, but both seem justifiable!