How Did I Miss This?

I always have a dvd ready and waiting for those evenings when there's nothing new to watch.

With baseball on the All-Star week break and few shows that interest me on the go right now, tonight was one of those nights I found myself with nothing to watch.

I've been re-watching Star Trek - The Next Generation for the last few months on these nights and I'm coming into the home stretch.  Season 7, Disk 5 to be exact.

One of the episodes is "Genesis", a rather weak "the crew is 'de-evolving' into a bunch of monsters" episode.  When Picard and Data return from a mission to retrieve a wayward test torpedo, they find the ship dark and the crew in various states of "de-evolution".  The questionable "intron" science used to explain this aside, it's not the show's best work.

With one brilliant exception.

Somehow, against all the odds, actor Jonathan Frakes managed to slip something almost unbelievable past the network censors.  Intentionally or accidentally, his de-evolved Australopithecus-like hominid version of Will Riker manages to flip the bird to Captain Picard and Data when they find him mindlessly trying to get his hands on the (presumably) tasty fish in Picard's aquarium.

 

That's my preferred bird flip - fingers bend at the knuckle rather than a fist.  

More sophisticated.

To be clear, this is at least my 5th time watching this series from start to finish.  Season 1 is the first television series set I ever bought and I've gone through the whole series many times since then.  Somehow, I never caught this.  

Interestingly, this is the only episode of TNG that was directed by a female cast member.  Gates McFadden had to lobby for years for the chance to direct.  It's a shame they gave her this weak-sauce episode and I'd be interested to know if this was something she and Frakes cooked up or just Frakes on his own.  I wouldn't blame her if it was her sending a message to the show's producers.

I suspect the copious hair on Frakes' hands helped get this by the censor.  I also have a hard time believing that the gesture was pure accident.  It's just too specific.  

Whatever the story is, seeing Riker flip off the Captain made my otherwise dull evening into a ton of fun that I'm more than happy to share.