Kidnapped from a conference, Troi awakens to find herself aboard the Romulan Warbird Khazara, disguised as a Tal Shiar special intelligence officer and smack in the middle of a plot by the Empire’s underground to smuggle out three high-level defectors to the UFP via a neutral Corvallen freighter.
At first, the dazed “Major Rakal” is dependent upon Subcommander N’Vek, her contact, as the usually soft-spoken counselor uses all her wiles in dealing with the ship’s bitter and suspicious Commander Toreth, whose father was a midnight victim of the Tal Shiar.
After N’Vek destroys the Corvallens when Troi senses they are traitors, Toreth is furious when “Rakal” orders the Warbird to cloak and wait, buying time for a backup plan.
Meanwhile, the Enterprise has picked up a rare Romulan defector, whose message from Spock and the underground leads them to the wrecked Corvallen ship and then the cloaked Khazara ­ aided by a subtle signal from the Warbird’s sympathetic engineer.
The stoic Toreth braces for a battle or a collision until Troi, having bolstered the wavering N’Vek, surreptitiously beams over the defectors. N’Vek is killed when Toreth senses the plan and retakes her bridge, but a relieved Troi is beamed home just in time.
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This “fish out of water” plot, which Marina Sirtis herself felt was a series-long landmark for the character, began as a Dr. Crusher story until the staff realized Troi’s empathy would make her better suited to espionage. Michael Piller, among those roundly praising both Sirtis and Seymour for their performances, recalled that a similar Hunt for Red October-style premise had been killed until the staff “cajoled” Rick Berman into giving it a try. (Ron Moore recalled that long-ago Q premise in which the whole crew is deposited on a Romulan Warbird had been discarded for its likeness to Quantum Leap.)
The prize to be delivered to the Federation evolved from a Romulan ship to actual Romulans ­ Vice-Preconsul M’Ret would have been just under Proconsul Neral of “Unification”; The Empire’s underground and Spock’s “cowboy diplomacy” phrase also hark back to that story. As Shankar rushed out the easy-flowing first-draft teleplay in six days from Echevarria’s staff-generated story outline, at one point Piller had joked about allowing the Romulan “Popsicle people” to reveal that Spock tried to get out but didn’t make it. “It was one of those craaaazy moments,” Shankar added. “You can’t kill somebody like that offscreen!” The writer also was pleased to break Troi out of the caregiver role for once, make the Romulans sympathetic, with a three-dimensional internal conflict, and create the first Federation defector ever seen. A trimmed scene follows defector DeSeve after the food units refuse his Romulan beverage and he struggles to remember “coffee.”
Winslow had last appeared two years earlier as McKnight (“Clues”, “In Theory”), while Seymour makes her second appearance as a Romulan (“Contagion”) and her third overall on TNG (“First Contact”); McDonald would later turn up human in the second spinoff series Voyager’s pilot. Shankar said Seymour might reappear as Toreth; the name change came because it was initially assumed her earlier Romulan, Taris, had been killed. Toreth was created as a male, and Shankar recalled writing dialogue as if Red October’s Sean “Captain Ramos” Connery himself were delivering it ­ an interesting twist when the unchanged words were kept intact after the female-female conflict was hit upon. He named the Romulan’s KGB-like “Tal Shiar,” indicated by an extra strip on the chest sash’s right side, as an homage to the “tal shaya,” the fatal Vulcan neck-break created by D. C. Fontana for 1967’s “Journey to Babel.”
This story allows TNG’s first real peek aboard a Warbird: the senior officers’ “wardroom” mess is just off the small bridge (a nomenclature change since “Control Central” of 1969’s “The Enterprise Incident”) and the helmsman is dubbed the “pilot.” We learn too that “Imperial Romulan Warbird” is the formal prefix for the ships, which use a forced quantum singularity as a power source and monitor their EM emissions while cloaked. Also, the cloak-detecting tachyon field (“Redemption, Part II”) is recalled, while the Corvallens’ old Antares-class freighter is of different design than the Bajorans’ flat angular ship of the same name (“Ensign Ro”).
Worf’s ponytail debuted here but it was a long time coming, according to hairstylist Joy Zapata: she and Dorn had both long lobbied for it ­ ”[Worf’s hair] used to remind me of a Klingon that had gone to the beauty salon; it looked like Donna Reed!” ­ but in relenting Rick Berman didn’t want it to look trendy, as if copied from 1992’s Last of the Mohicans or any of the other long-hair look features out that year. “Now we tie it back, he carries himself differently ­ he’s a whole different person” The two wigs, alternated for daily use, are made of hair sold by Russian children for the money and cost $5,000 each.
Amid a light FX show, supervisor David Stipes got director Beaumont to agree to let the ill-fated Nevek die a more gruesome, writhing death than usual on TNG when vaporized.
With the Enterprise in dry dock for repairs after the Borg attack, Picard, full of doubts about himself and his abilities, beams down to Earth to visit his family’s French vineyards. He has not been home in nearly twenty years, since a falling-out with his brother.
Meanwhile, Worf’s visiting foster parents are saddened at his coldness, but they are comforted by Guinan’s reassurances. They let their gruff but grateful son know they support him, as they always have, and they know he did not deserve his recent discommendation by the Klingons.
Dr. Crusher shares the literal ghost of her late husband, Jack, with the son he barely knew, by letting Wes view a stored holotape Jack made just after Wesley’s birth.
Picard is made welcome by Robert’s family and meets his nephew, a youngster whose dream of being in Starfleet echoes Picard’s own wishes at that age. To his surprise, the captain finds himself tempted to leave Starfleet to head up a planned continent-raising project on Earth, but his brother, after a fight, reminds Picard that wherever he stays, he must come to terms with the self-doubt and guilt caused by the Borg incident.
The captain beams back aboard Enterprise, which then leaves orbit, having been far more healed than the ship itself.
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A daring departure for the series, “Family” is the only installment in Trek’s twenty-five-year history with no scenes on the bridge. Airing right after the season-opening cliff-hanger resolution as an epilogue to the Borg two-parter, Ronald D. Moore’s introspective character story was controversial even among the writing staff. Unfortunately it was the lowest-rated show of the season, even though it gave a deeper insight into more of the show’s characters than virtually any other segment.
Michael Piller suggested a third segment in a proposed Borg trilogy. When that was rejected, Piller lobbied for a follow-up that would at least let Picard heal his emotional wounds on-camera after his virtual rape by the Borg. At first Berman agreed to it but insisted that a science subplot be used to round out the show. After weeks of trying various story lines that just didn’t work ­ including a child stowaway, and a paranoid’s nightmare of disappearing crew members, a story line that was used on its own in “Remember Me” ­ Berman relented and allowed the other family-theme subplots to fill out the hour.
The lush Emmy-nominated photography in this episode was enhanced by a distinguished guest cast and two days of location shooting. The Picard family home in Labarre, France ­ where the hard-driven young Jean-Luc was class valedictorian, school president, and a star athlete ­ was actually a private residence in Encino. The vineyard scenes were shot at a private dryland operation near Lancaster in the extreme heat southwest of Edwards Air Force Base. Dan Curry digitally manipulated a matte painting background to match the windblown vineyards in the live foreground shots.
And what a cast, all with years of stage and film experience! Samantha Eggar and Jeremy Kemp would pack enough star power into any episode. Theodore Bikel, an internationally known folksinger as well as an actor, and Georgia Brown are two of the biggest stars of Yiddish theater. Their presence initially caused some studio concern that Worf’s parents might become comically “Jewish,” but as Piller says the finished product “treads the line” of universal humor ­ and it led to a return visit by Brown in “New Ground”. Still, no mention is made of the Rozhenkos’ own son, described by Worf in “Heart of Glory”, or of their years on the farming planet Gault.
Some sequences with Wesley’s father, taken from Susanne Lambdin’s premise after dozens of Jack Crusher spec scripts had been received through the years, were cut to save time. Piller remembers that the holotaped speech really hit home for him, arriving soon as it did after the birth of his own daughter.
In an unused sequence from the final-draft script Jack says he’s about to report to the Stargazer and that Wesley “R.” Crusher ­ a name later seen in Beverly’s personnel file in “Conundrum” ­ was named for Jack’s grandfather, Richard Wesley Crusher, who gave Jack his first flying lesson. We also learn that a great-grandfather had a painting on exhibit in the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. Other Trek continuity touches in the scene included mentions of a Crusher who was a horse thief on Nimbus III (the planet in Star Trek V), another who served as a Confederate soldier at Bull Run, and a third who died at Station Salem One, referred to in “The Defector” as the site of an enemy surprise attack a la Pearl Harbor during an unmentioned war.
Jack Crusher wears the old-style uniform of a lieutenant (j.g.) in the holotape, but his locker with his last effects is labeled with the rank of lieutenant commander and the middle initial R. Beverly recalls that he proposed to her when she was in medical school. As a dream image, Doug Wert would appear as Jack Crusher again in “Violations”.
After two seasons the full name of Colm Meaney’s character is finally revealed: Miles Edward O’Brien, the name of a little boy Rick Berman knew. Curiously, Worf’s foster father, a Starfleet veteran, mistakes O’Brien for a noncommissioned crew member, even though he clearly wears the two solid pins of a lieutenant, just as Sergey’s own son does. The “chief” in O’Brien’s title refers not to a rank, like chief petty officer, but to his duty position as transporter chief.
Trivia notes: the captain’s ditty bag is stenciled simply with his name and title, Jean-Luc Picard, Captain; the bottle of family wine given to him by Robert is later seen stored and then shared in upcoming shows (“Legacy”, “First Contact”); the Intrepid, Sergey’s old ship, had already been mentioned as the one that found Worf at Khitomer some twenty years earlier (“Sins of the Father”); Riker once enjoyed Worf’s favorite food, rokeg blood pie (“A Matter of Honor”); Guinan’s “prune juice” remark refers back to her gift to Worf (“Yesterday’s Enterprise”); and Picard tells his friend Louis of the starship’s efforts to stabilize the tectonics of Drema IV (“Pen Pals”).
Wesley has finally been accepted into Starfleet Academy, but before he leaves, he is to accompany Captain Picard on one last mission.
They’ve been sent to mediate a miners’ dispute, but the rattletrap of a shuttle sent for them malfunctions, and they crash-land on a desert moon. Their pilot, Dirgo, overconfident of his own planning and leadership abilities, didn’t stock water, so the trio is forced to set out for some distant caves. Meanwhile, the Enterprise is summoned to remove an old garbage scow that is leaking radiation into a planet’s atmosphere.
The crash-landing survivors finally find a fountain, but it is guarded by an energy sentry. An impatient Dirgo causes a rockslide that wounds Picard, then bullies Wesley into an attack on the sentry that results in Dirgo’s death.
Riker and the crew struggle to finish their job and then go hunt for the missing shipmates. Meanwhile, Wesley works to keep Picard alive while figuring out a way to defeat the sentry. After forging new bonds with his nearly comatose captain, he does both ­ keeping himself and Picard alive until rescue finally comes.
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Wil Wheaton bows out as a TNG regular in this story, giving what was probably his best performance of the series to date. He had asked to be let go so he could pursue the many film offers coming his way, but the door was left open for future appearances by finally shipping Wesley off to the Academy, as Gene Roddenberry had suggested. And in this last appearance, Wheaton didn’t “save the ship,” only his captain. “He directly saved the ship only one and a half times and had a hand in contributing to the solution of the problem two times! That’s it!” Wheaton once asserted, long accustomed to defending his character against some fans’ scorn.
Corey Allen returns for his first directorial outing since the pilot and season one’s “Home Soil”, just in time for two days of location shooting on the El Mirage Dry Lake Bed in San Bernadino County, east of Los Angeles. Jeri Taylor said the story, originally set on an ice planet where only Picard and Wesley crash-land, was changed to a desert locale because it was feared a Planet Hell ice-world set would be too hokey.
Nick Tate, who played Dirgo, is known best to genre audiences from his regular role on Space: 1991. Mary Kohnert would be the first of many (mostly female) replacements for Wesley at the conn, though her role would last only another episode.
The decrepid Nenebek shuttle, re-dressed from the SS Arcos escape pod in “Legacy”, features “archaic” labels and controls lifted from the present-day space shuttle by Michael Okuda. The episode’s only headache was caused by the spring fountain, built indoors on Stage 16. Both live and optical effects for its shield at first failed to deliver. Finally, on two days’ notice, Legato succeeded in devising what he called “an acrylic log” that rotated with reflective bits.
Trek continuity touches included Dirgo’s use of “old-model” pistol phasers from Star Trek III; mention of the shuttle’s duranium hull (“A Matter of Perspective”, “Hollow Pursuits”); and the use of hyronalin, first described in 1968’s “The Deadly Years” as a treatment for radiation sickness. And Picard contributes a look forward and backward: while semiconscious he hums “Aupres de Ma Blonde,” the French song that he and his brother sang while drunk after their tussle in the mud in “Family”, and he tells Wesley about Boothby, the Academy’s gardener, who would be seen a year later in “The First Duty”.
Teleplay by Dennis Russell Bailey, David Bischoff, Joe Menosky, and Ronald D. Moore
Story by Marc Scott Zicree
GUEST CAST
Chancellor Avill Durken: George Coe
Mirasta: Carolyn Seymour
Berel: George Hearn
Krola: Michael Ensign
Nilrem: Steven Anderson
Dr. Tava: Sachi Parker
Lanel: Bebe Neuwirth
A reconnaissance mission on the planet Malcoria III goes disastrously wrong when Commander Riker (in native disguise) is injured and taken to a native hospital. There, Malcorian doctors soon uncover his true identity.
To prevent worldwide panic, Picard and Troi beam down to meet with the astonished planet’s leader. But though Chancellor Durken and his science minister Mirasta (in charge of Malcor’s fledgeling space program) are both convinced by the Enterprise crew’s message of peace and friendship, Durken’s security officer Krola remains suspicious. After Riker unsuccesssfully attempts to escape from the hospital, Krola steps in to interrogate him, using potentially lethal drugs.
When his questioning proves fruitless, Krola stages his own death and makes Riker appear to be the executioner, hoping both to prevent the aliens from gaining a foothold on his world, and to quash Mirasta’s dreams of space exploration. Dr. Crusher beams in, however, bringing both Riker and Krola back up to sickbay, where she convinces Durken of what really happened.
Though the Chancellor is satisfied of the Federation’s good intentions, he realizes his people aren’t ready to accept the idea that they aren’t alone in the universe yet. Durken quietly puts his world’s nascent space program on hold ­ while granting Mirasta’s wish to leave with the starship.
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Michael Piller had to persuade Rick Berman to let him bend the rules and tell this story ­ for the first time in Trek’s twenty-five years, the teaser of 1967’s “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” notwithstanding ­ from an alien culture’s point of view. The gamble worked to perfection in this homage to the classic 1951 science fiction movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, which gave us a look at what must be an ongoing process within the Federation. We also learn that a bungled first-contact mission was the reason behind decades of Klingon-Federation conflict.
The multiple teleplay credits include versions by “Tin Man” scriptwriters Dennis Putnam Bailey and David Bischoff and another by Ronald D. Moore and Joe Menosky that tried to use the point of view of the Enterprise crew after Marc Scott Zicree ­ author of The Twilight Zone Companion ­ first pitched this basic story idea during season three.
Throughout its evolution, the idea took many twists and turns. It was considered for the season-end cliff-hanger and, in a version called “Graduation,” as Wesley’s swan song in which he was to stay planetside permanently after a cultural-contact mission. One rejected concept, according to Zicree, had the new space travelers finding out about the Federation by taking in Picard & Co.’s crippled shuttlecraft. In another, the members of the contact team become celebrities.
The excellent cast includes George Coe, perhaps better known in genre circles for his old Max Headroom role as Network 23 president Ben DeVore; Carolyn Seymour, who played Romulan Sub-Commander Taris in “Contagion”; and Bebe Neuwirth, a longtime fan who plays Dr. Lilith Crane on Cheers. Here she’s a Malcorian nurse in a late-draft cameo, written with her in mind; she offers to help Riker escape if he’ll fulfill her greatest fantasy: to make love to an alien. Did Riker ­ or didn’t he? Well, he escapes somehow!
Clever use is made here of Malcorian medical and anatomical terms that sound almost authentic: “cardial organ” for heart, “costal struts” for ribs, “terminus” for foot, and “renal organ” for kidney.
~1:[3,#b],4:[2,#i]@1“The First Duty”@2Next Generation episode #119
Production No.: 219
Aired: Week of March 30, 1992
Stardate: 45703.9
Directed by Paul Lynch
Written by Ronald D. Moore and Naren Shankar
GUEST CAST
Boothby: Ray Walston
Cadet First Class Nicholas Locarno: Robert Duncan McNeill
Lieutenant Commander Albert: Ed Lauter
Captain Satelk: Richard Fancy
Superintendant Admiral Brand: Jacqueline Brookes
Cadet Third Class Wesley Crusher: Wil Wheaton
Cadet Second Class Jean Hajar: Walker Brandt
Cadet Second Class Sito: Shannon Fill
Cadet: Richard Rothenberg
En route to deliver the commencement address at Starfleet Academy, Picard learns that a horriyfing accident has occurred. While rehearsing for the graduating ceremonies, a member of Wesley Crusher’s five-person flight squadron has been killed.
A routine inquiry into the accident finds discrepancies between the cadets’ filed flight plan and their testimony. Nova Squadron leader Locarno reluctantly reveals that the dead squadron member, Joshua Albert, panicked and caused the mishap. This news comes as a painful blow to his already grieving father.
But in a squadron meeting later, Wesley is angry. Locarno lied, he says. Joshua Albert wasn’t to blame. But the squadron leader makes an impassioned plea for the four remaining team members to stick together, pointing out that their careers will be over if they reveal the whole truth.
The next day, Wesley’s testimony is countered by surprise evidence from a satellite. But to the surprise of both Picard and Beverly, he refuses to expain the discrepancy. Returning to the Enterprise after a talk with his old mentor, Boothby, Picard realizes that the accident occurred because Nova Squadron was practicing the Kolvoord Starburst, a spectacular exhibition of stunt flying banned for over a century, that would have made Locarno a living legend.
Picard confronts Wesley with the truth and says he will reveal it if Wesley doesn’t. Despite a last-minute entreaty by Locarno to stand by his team, an anguished Wesley agrees that his first duty is to the truth. Locarno is expelled, while Wesley and his mates must repeat the past year and face the difficult time ahead.
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For over twenty-five years, Starfleet Academy had been talked about but never seen ­ until this story, developed during the writers’ Mexican retreat by Ron Moore, who wound up in a philosophical argument with Michael Piller over Wesley’s ultimate decision. “I thought he should choose the truth, and Ron thought he couldn’t go back on his friends,” Piller recalled. “Ultimately I gave the order to go with the truth ­ that’s what I’d want my kids to do ­ but I think it shows how much we can get into these characters when we find ourselves debating the points they’re arguing.”
Boothby, of course, had twice before been mentioned by the captain ­ in “Final Mission” and in “The Game” ­ but was seen here for the first time. Ray Walston, immortalized forever in TV reruns as the title alien in the 1960’s sitcom My Favorite Martian, commented that throughout his days of shooting, the cast and crew approached him with the old character’s schtick of head antenna and finger-wiggling “levitation”.
Satelk is the first Vulcan captain seen in TNG, while the presence of Cadet Sito proves that Ensign Ro is not the only Bajoran in Starfleet. While the exact date of Betazed’s first participation in Federation affairs has yet to be pinned down, we do know that a Betazoid headed the Academy at least as early as Riker’s years, set at 2353-2357 in the Okudagram bio files that Michael Okuda prepared for “Conundrum”; Picard’s graduation with the “class of ’27” is also included there. Earlier, the head of the academy was called “commandant” when the position was offered to Picard in “Coming of Age”.
The exterior views of Starfleet Academy, matted into the twenty-fourth-century Starfleet environs, were location scenes filmed one day at the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, the same site that provided the exteriors for Rubicum III in “Justice”. Notice the Academy flag flying at half mast. Dan Curry added that to the exterior matte painting.
That little touch and the Academy seal on the flag itself were just two of many the staff threw in. The seal’s equilateral triangle form, adapted by Michael Okuda from a design by Joe Senna, features the sun behind the Golden Gate Bridge in the logo’s center; an animated version with the sun rising into place was considered but ultimately not used. The name “Starfleet Academy” adorns the left leg of the triangle while the bottom reads “San Francisco/MMCLXI,” the Roman numerals for its founding date of 2161, the same as that of the Federation, as established in “The Outcast”. The right leg of the triangle bears the Academy’s Latin motto, “Ex astra, scientia,” or “From the stars, knowledge” ­ quite a pacifist notion for what some might mistakenly regard as a military school. Okuda reports the motto is taken from that of the ill-fated Apollo 13, “Ex luna, scientia.”
The various sensor log tapes used in the inquiry were all computer-generated by Curry’s team, including the brief tape of the cadets’ ships in flight. Wesley’s dorm room contains models of both an Apollo command-service module on display in the background and Kirk’s original Constitution-class Enterprise.
The cadets’ collar pips, descending among Nova Squadron from Locarno’s four to Wesley’s two, appear to be the same as the longer pins adorning the movie-era uniforms’ white sleeve cuff. The inquiry’s hearing bell was also used in the original series’ official proceedings as seen in “Space Seed” and “Courtmartial.” And the “Yeager Loop” maneuver pays tribute to an even earlier ancestor of TNG ­ Chuck Yeager, the pilot who first broke the sound barrier in 1947.
