"The Cloister"
Airdate: December 6, 1999
Whoever wrote this story needs a beatdown, 'cause it sucks the rag. This is the worst episode in season three to date, and I'll tell you why. My complaint isn't with the acting or special effects, but with the premise laid out in this unthinkingly misogynist story.
The main action takes place when Da'an (Leni Parker), Xo'or (Anita LaSelva), Liam (Robert Leeshock), Sandoval (Von Flores), and Renee (Jayne Heitmeyer) visit a Sisterhood of Taelon-worshipping nuns to participate in an energy sharing ritual. Predictably, wherever the Taelons go, trouble follows; a nun is murdered and the episode quickly turns into a whodunit. Yawn.
Despite red herrings like the energy signatures found on Sisters Elizabeth (Danielle Brett) and Jenna (Karen Glave) that pointed to our Taelon friends and the shuttle, the real killer's identity was easy to spot practically from the first murder.
The aspect of this story that not so subtly digs at organized religion was a little bit more interesting. The depiction of nuns who are implied to be pregnant before the ep began, either by willing donors or more likely artificial insemination is a slap in the face of the Catholic church, where nuns and monks must be virginal, chaste and pure. Sister Margarette (Marina Sirtis), who is sterile but encourages pregnant nuns to share energies with Taelons so that the children are born in an enlightened state, calls to mind Dune's Reverend Mother Mohiam. The Cloister's Enlightened Baby program isn't nearly as hard-core as the Bene Gesserit's breeding program to produce a superbeing though.
From one perspective it was definitely a critique of internal monastic politics: the infighting that can happen over one's place in the hierarchy, the worldly ambitions of spiritual orders, and the mistakes that can happen when personal emotions get in the way of true spirituality. It was an attack on the false gods (i.e. Taelons), which is a theme they did in the first season, too and better (case in point the veiled bitchfest scene between Elizabeth and Jenna - a mirror parallel of the infighting between Da'an and Xo'or).
In another way, Xo'or's and Sister Margarette's fanatic desires for a child, coupled with Margarette's misguided reverence of the Taelons is a double-edged means to delve into/poke fun at religious extremism and examine human and Taelon biological imperatives in overdrive.
In some ways, it was actually coming down on the side of genuine spirituality, and genuine monasticism (see Thomas Merton), a critique of how the institutions can get corrupted, and turned away from genuine spirituality.
Roddenberry projects have almost always (exceptions being Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes like "Inner Light" ) held to light what is thought to be the irrationality of religions, if religion is mentioned at all. Gene's universe is a rational one where faith has no real place.
Heitmeyer got little screen time, as did Flores, which suited me fine; Sandoval was being his usual asinine self. I know the side he showed in "Thicker Than Blood" wasn't going to last long, but a woman can still wish, can't she? As wasted as Marina Sirtis was as a psycho killer in a funny hat, I enjoyed seeing her working the sci fi circuit as something other than aristocratic Commander Troi.
I'd subtitle this episode "Baby Crazy" or because at the forefront of my irritation with "The Cloister" is the tired 'nutso woman who can't have babies so she acts out in antisocial ways' theme. Put those notions to bed, please. I saw this theme in The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, and a long ago aired Christmas episode of Sisters where a woman kidnaps Frankie Reed's baby because she thinks it's her own. The writers for this show better get it up during the hiatus; if this week's installment is any indication of where the show's going, it is unlikely there will be a fourth season.
This could have been an at least halfway decent, watchable hour of television but the womb envy gone buck wild crud just worked my goddamn nerves. I wouldn't even be so harsh about it if I didn't know the people running the show could do better.
--Vivian E. Lee
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