Talk:Masks (episode)

Dorn
In case anyone is interested, Michael Dorn was asked during a convention in South Bend, Indiana (Creation Entertainment) back in 1997 or so what his least favorite episode was. After asking around for the episode title, he finally came up with it and said, "Masks... I'm sorry, but what the hell was that?"
 * I think that information is okay to be added. We have others (eg Armin Shimerman's dislike of ).

Interpretation
I just re-watched this and found the descriptions of the different alien characters very interesting. Unfortunately, I could not find adequate interpretations online of this episode. Apparently many people seem to think it was a straightforward Sun/Moon dichotomy, but I don't think it's nearly as simple as this. Such a shallow interpretation dismisses all the other character's personalities.

I'm thinking... Masaka is certainly the sun. Her father represents the solar system's accretion disk. Her subjects are the solar system bodies, like planets and whatnot. Hence the explanation of her chopping up her father and using his bones to create the world. Ihat is represents a comet, which is why he was able (or so he though) he was able to escape, but he was re-captured anyway and killed. I think the story the archive is trying to convey is some sort of disaster that destroyed their solar system, with many of the planets escaping their sun's orbit and being flung off into empty space alone.

But using these interpretations, I have no idea what Korgano's role really is. Another star, perhaps? Some other huge object? Maybe it was approaching their sun, entered their solar system, disrupted all the planets and destabilized their orbits, then left the system for another very very long orbit? I dunno!!

Any fresh thoughts as to its interpretation?

(Klonov) 68.83.10.206 02:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it is safe to assume that Korgano is a moon. His and Masaka's behavior strongly suggest that, and a lot of myths combine elements of other/earlier myths.


 * I always thought that the writer of this episode was a reader of Parabola, a journal where they talk about just this type of thing. I would have loved to have seen them cover it. They did have an issue devoted to "Mask and Metaphor" in the fall of 1981. --KTJ 19:22, December 6, 2009 (UTC)

The first question I had after watching this episode: why did the writers choose to use the sun and moon as types for Korgano and Masaka? Earth has one sun and one moon, but this civilization wasn't on Earth. Troi comments that only the sun or the moon could rise at once, which she would have no way of knowing because they didn't even know what planet the probe came from (only the sector). Jonvs 06:20, June 16, 2011 (UTC)

Brent Spiner
Brent Spiner is clearly mistaken in his comment. He mentions Colm Meaney, who would not have been around during this episode's production as he was doing DS9 at this time. I'm thinking Spiner may have misremembered the episode title. It sounds more like he is referring to "Power Play" from Season 5, in which both Meaney and Marina Sirtis had important roles.

74.210.241.207 17:30, December 30, 2012 (UTC)