Story by Ward Botsford & Diana Dru Botsford and Michael Piller
GUEST CAST
Chief Miles Edward O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Keiko Ishikawa O’Brien: Rosalind Chao
Ensign Ro Laren: Michelle Forbes
Young Picard: David Tristin Birkin
Young Ro: Megan Parlen
Young Keiko: Caroline Junko King
Young Guinan: Isis Jones
DaiMon Lurin: Mike Gomez
Berik: Tracey Walter
Morta: Michael Snyder
Alexander Rozhenko: Brian Bonsall
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg
Kid No. 1: Morgan Nagler
Molly O’Brien: Hana Hatae
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
After they are beamed off an endangered shuttlecraft through an energy field, Picard, Ro, Keiko, and Guinan are turned into the physical equivalents of twelve-year-old children. Their minds, though, are left intact.
As the cause is probed, the awkwardness is rampant: Picard turns over command to Riker when he realizes his commands seem odd, and O’Brien and his wife have their own personal life to sort out.
Life is complicated when renegade Ferengi in Klingon Warships disable the ship and declare it theirs, but the “youngsters” realize their advantage and gain control through the school’s computer after the captain poses as Riker’s son and Number One gets them secret access during a technobabble explanation for a confused Ferengi.
With computer access, the “children” beam in to surprise the occupying Ferengi and retake the ship, while O’Brien and Crusher help discover how to use the transporter to undo the masked effect on their genetic code that caused the incident in the first place. All are restored, including Ro ­ who finds she’s become more at peace with the carefree childhood she was never able to have.
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A story left over from last season ­ dubbed “The Year of the Child” by Piller ­ ”Rascals” survived various rewrites to pose the old question about reliving childhood: Would anyone want to stay there? Jeri Taylor said she and Piller, the staff “elders,” were the only two on staff who wanted to buy the idea ­ also an echo of animated Star Trek’s “The Counter-Clock Incident” ­ which then led to numerous rewrites that no one could crack. Moore finally found the handle when the process drew a deadline as Whoopi Goldberg committed to doing the slot for Adam Nimoy, son of the famous Vulcan-playing actor. Everyone was bothered that the Ferengi takeover of the Enterprise came so easily, but as Taylor noted, “Would you believe four little kids could retake it from the Cardassians?”
The younger Nimoy, trained as an attorney, had decided to leave that career and built upon his familial show-business instincts, first through several UCLA extension acting and film master’s classes, then by assisting Nick Meyer on Star Trek VI. “The day we wrapped that feature,” he recalled, “I was in Rick Berman’s office about observing directors on TNG.” After doing so for Season 5, he got the nod here and, despite his rookie status, won praise from his boss, who noted that the “nightmare” of directing four child actors playing their first roles “would have been a challenge for Francis Ford Coppola!”
With Ro’s return to adulthood never shown, Taylor said that the staff toyed for a time with the idea of letting her choose not to. “Where else but on Star Trek could you do something like that?” she laughed. “But it seemed too drastic for us, and we were sort of squelched on that.” We do learn here that Ro has an interest in biology, and that Guinan’s father is still alive and over seven hundred years old (or at least two hundred during the “Time’s Arrow” saga). Another moment foreshadows Picard’s nagging temptation to take up archeology full-time, later seen in “Suspicions”; the Professor Langford he mentions was named after a woman Moore was dating at the time ­ ”She wasn’t a fan and we stopped going out soon after, so I don’t think she ever saw it!” ­ and was unintentionally used again next episode.
Moore pointed to Riker’s scene confusing the Ferengi as his “Salute to Technobabble” ­ Trek’s unique tech talk that has bogged down more than one writer; listen closely and you can hear terms from the “Back to the Future” movie trilogy. He also owned up to inventing RVN ­ merely a pleasing-sounding set of letters he and Shankar hoped would go by so fast if didn’t sink in ­ after Berman asked for something new other than DNA.
Also here: Guinan recalls her Tarcassian razor beast (“Imaginary Friend”); we learn that Miles and Keiko O’Brien take their coffee “with cream” and “double-sweet”; the built-in ship defense anesthizine gas is mentioned again (“The Hunted”, “Power Play”), as are the ruins of Tagua (“Qpid”); Shuttle Bay 2, the smallest, is only about twenty yards wide; Ferengi revere their children but never take them aboard service starships; and the Klingon Bird-of-Prey is christened the B’rel class ­ with the unlikely sight of Ferengi using the sparkly-red Klingon transporter. And in a minor blooper, the “young” captives’ computer screen is labeled for “Classroom 7” while the room is referred to as “Schoolroom 8”; its computer design icon was the state fish of Hawaii, the reef triggerfish (Rhinecamthus aculeatus) or in Hawaiian, humuhumunukunukuapua’a. And its “periodic table” has only sixty-five cubicles instead of the 110-plus, with elements such as “Daffy Duckium,” “Harponium,” “Marxium,” and “Grouchonium”; in-house homages like “Neskoronium” (for art director Andy); and categories like “World Series” and “Mega Series.”
~1:[3,#b],4:[2,#i]@1“Realm of Fear”@2Next Generation episode #128
The ever-nervous engineer Barclay sees his victory of devising a method of boarding the disabled U.S.S. Yosemite turn sour when he confronts one of his worst fears ­ transporter beaming.
Emboldened by Troi’s counseling, he makes it over to the dead ship but in mid-transport and discovers creatures living in the transporting beam that seemingly try to attack him when he transports back alone.
Knowing his own shaky reputation, Barclay keeps the story to himself until the spot on his arm where the creature touched him begins to glow. He finally reports the incident to a skeptical crew, but with O’Brien’s help the determined engineer finds the creatures again during another trip.
Then Dr. Crusher discovers that his arm is radiating the same energy as a dead Yosemite crew member, and she realizes the glowing light is a life-form trapped in Barclay’s body. The only way to separate the form is in mid-beaming, while his molecules are disassembled, so he once again must confront his old phobia of molecular limbo.
Then, during the beaming, he not only doesn’t panic but realizes he can grab the creature ­ who turns out, upon rematerialization, to be one of a lost Yosemite crewmen. The others are rescued too, and Barclay finds himself a hero after all.
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Though wary of too much “tech” talk near the end, Braga enjoyed developing Barclay for this romp that updates for the twenty-fourth century the writer’s own fear of air travel: “In some ways it’s my most personal show to date, because I relate to Barclay ­ it comes from the heart!” The story, fleshed out from a premise Michael Piller initially felt was too close to the old Twilight Zone segment in which William Shatner sees a monster sitting on his airplane’s wing, also provides the first TNG look at a transporter’s guts and a beaming subject’s point of view ­ and a little hypochondria with “transporter psychosis,” first diagnosed in 2209, or within fifty years or so of the century-old system’s origins (“The Masterpiece Society”). Braga’s “multi-infarct dementia” would later resurface in his “Frame of Mind”, while the “plexing” gag was to have been repeated again in the final scene between Barclay and his spider.
After much testing and designing, various versions of the plasma creatures for Berman’s final choice were designed by Dan Curry and built by modelmaker/sculptor Carey Howe. To avoid the need for motion-control or animation, Curry donned green tights to operate the creatures as a hand puppet against a green screen matte ­ and credited his tai chi for the slow and graceful movement he had to bring to the task.
O’Brien had borne full lieutenant’s rank since Season 2 and was even addressed that way before he had a name (“Where Silence Has Lease”), but here he sports a single back-centered pip for the plot point that Lieutenant j.g. Barclay outranks him. Taylor said it had always been intended even before her tenure that O’Brien be a noncommissioned “chief petty officer,” as Sergey Rozhenko noted (“Family”) ­ not a chief by position, as in “security chief” ­ and so this corrected an original miscue by the wardrobe department. Still, actor Meaney’s unnamed character had been an ensign initially (“Encounter at Farpoint”, “Lonely Among Us”), indicating a promotion before the CPO rank flap arose. O’Brien, who hasn’t received his promised promotion after transferring to Deep Space 9 by year’s end on that series, has been a transporter operator at least twenty-two years with nary an accident ­ which only occur about two or three times a decade at all, thanks to system redundancies. For the record, in “real” screen time Barclay is in the transporter beam about 105 seconds, not just thirty to forty as hoped.
The workhorse Grissom model from ST III turns up as the U.S.S. Yosemite, while Talarian hook spiders apparently share the homeworld of a race seen before (“Suddenly Human”). The dual-system linkup is not new (“Symbiosis”), while Crusher’s cardio-stimulator is a smaller version of McCoy’s from The Original Series (1967’s “Journey to Babel”). O’Brien’s throwaway reference to planet Zayra IV honors Zayra Cabot, Jeri Taylor’s secretary at the time, while the dead Robert Kelly wears the oft-seen silvery scientists’ civvies, first used in “Home Soil”, even though he’s titled as a lieutenant.
~1:[3,#b],4:[2,#i]@1“Redemption, Part I”@2Next Generation episode #100
Production No.: 200
Aired: Week of June 17, 1991
Stardate: 44995.3
Directed by Cliff Bole
Written by Ronald D. Moore
GUEST CAST
Gowron: Robert O’Reilly
Commander Kurn: Tony Todd
Lursa: Barbara March
B’Etor: Gwynyth Walsh
K’tal: Ben Slack
General Movar: Nicholas Kepros
Toral: J. D. Cullum
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg
Klingon First Officer: Tom Ormeny
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
Sela: Denise Crosby
In his role as Arbiter of Succession, Picard returns to the Klingon homeworld to oversee Gowron’s installation as emperor. The captain also urges Worf to confront Gowron over his family’s discommendation.
En route, the starship is intercepted by a Klingon vessel bearing Gowron, who informs Picard that a faction of the Empire, led by the family of the dead Duras is mounting a rebellion against his throne. Picard refuses to get involved, though: he won’t risk dragging the Federation into a Klingon civil war.
In turn, Gowron refuses to restore Lieutenant Worf’s family honor, citing the need to shore up his own power. Worf’s younger brother, Kurn, wants to join the rebellion against Gowron, but the lieutenant persuades him not to do so ­ the family will back Gowron, for now.
Then Duras’s bastard son, Toral, makes a surprise claim to the throne, backed by his powerful family, including Duras’s sisters. But Picard, knowing full well their Romulan ties, rejects their claim to the throne.
As Worf again presses Gowron to restore his family name, Duras’s forces ambush them; only Kurn’s timely appearance saves them from defeat.
Gowron is installed as leader, and restores Worf’s honor. Feeling the tug of his heritage, the lieutenant resigns his Starfleet commission.
Meanwhile, members of the Duras family meet with their Romulan backers, who include a woman who looks amazingly like Tasha Yar. . . .
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Opening the final chapter of the Klingon trilogy that began with “Sins of the Father” and “Reunion”, Ronald D. Moore’s epic provided this season’s cliff-hanger: Worf’s departure from Starfleet to fight alongside his brother and Gowron to preserve the Klingon Empire. The return of Denise Crosby to the series, already hinted at in “The Mind’s Eye”, occurs here but will not be explained until the concluding segment that will launch the fifth season.
Also returning are actors Robert O’Reilly from “Reunion” and Tony Todd, who appeared in “Sins of the Father”. Meanwhile, befitting his rise in stature, Gowron has left behind his Bird of Prey, Buruk, in favor of the Bortas, a Vor’cha-class attack cruiser.
Guinan continues to be full of surprises, as she again proves to be no slouch with a weapon, a skill we first saw in “Night Terrors”; she actually tops Worf’s score on the phaser range.
We learn that the UFP-Klingon alliance treaty includes a pledge of mutual defense. And we are told that Worf’s son, Alexander, who first appeared in “Reunion”, is already having a hard time on Earth, foreshadowing his return next season in “New Ground”. Gowron’s father is M’Rel ­ though once again, Duras’s name is used for his family in place of Ja’rod, as in “Sins of the Father”. A script description that was not included in the show’s dialogue reveals that K’tal is the longest-serving member of the Klingon High Council, which here is given eight members besides him.
Bob Blackman’s costume designs include a revealing bustline for the Duras sisters’ standard Klingon outfit that quickly came to be known among fans as “Klingon kleavage” ­ but those on the show attest that, like Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II, neither actress used chest padding.
And for the truly trivial: note the use of “kellicams” as the Klingonese unit of distance (first used in ST III, and again in “A Matter of Honor”, and Movar’s title, “general” ­ the first ever non-naval rank used for a Romulan.
~1:[3,#b],4:[2,#i]@1“Redemption, Part II”@2Next Generation episode #101
Written by Ronald D. Moore
Directed by David Carson
Stardate 45020.4
First aired in 1991
The Gowron regime retains control of the Klingon High Council, and Worf regains his family honor. This was the first episode of the fifth season.
After welcoming her mentor, Dr. Quaice, an elderly man sadly reflecting on the loss of his wife and friends, Dr. Crusher visits her son in the engineering department. Wesley is working on a warp-field experiment. As Beverly watches, the project aborts in a brief flash of light. The moment is forgotten until, one by one, Quaice, her staff, and even the senior bridge officers begin to disappear. Those who remain, even Data, know nothing about the vanished.
But it is actually Dr. Crusher who has disappeared ­ into an alternate universe. Aboard the “real” Enterprise, the Traveler reappears to let Wesley know that the experiment is to blame. He, La Forge, and Data try to retrieve Dr. Crusher, but their efforts appear to her as a vortex that she resists being sucked into.
After even Picard vanishes and the universe begins eroding away, Dr. Crusher figures out what has happened. This “world” is ruled by the thought in her mind at the time of the failed experiment: the loss of friends and loved ones.
Realizing the way back to the real world is the site of the flash, she dashes back and falls into Wesley’s arms just as her “new world” collapses.
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Marked by the return of Eric Menyuk as the Traveler, this budget-minded bottle show actually served as a delightful showcase for the talents of Gates McFadden as Dr. Crusher soloed in her own decaying universe during about 40 percent of the script. The actress absolutely shines as she deals with increasing double-talk from Data and Picard, her own fear of insanity, and the prospect of being left with the humorless computer as her only companion.
We also learn more about Beverly’s background, including the fact that she interned with Dr. Quaice only fifteen years ago ­ in other words, after Wesley was born. She repeats her recurring opening line to Picard when they are both alone on the bridge (“Arsenal of Freedom”, “The High Ground”).
McFadden performed all her own stunts for the swirling-vortex effects sequences, including the most outlandish maneuver ­ when she appears to be sucked out horizontally by the vortex while clutching the back of a chair. Rob Legato had a chair mounted on the wall, and McFadden hung down out of the chair. Legato used compressed-air machines and other devices to animate the scene; the footage was then matted in at a 90-degree angle. Only days after that strenuous shoot, McFadden learned she was pregnant ­ see “The Host”.
This story, Lee Sheldon’s only contribution to the series during his short tenure as producer, began as a subplot for “Family” in which crew members begin to disappear because of a wormhole. But, according to Piller, the staff felt there was not enough room for both story lines in that script, and the “Remember Me” material was cut loose to be developed on its own.
Teleplay by Thomas Perry, Jo Perry, Ronald D. Moore, and Brannon Braga
Story by Drew Deighan, Thomas Perry, and Jo Perry
GUEST CAST
K’Ehleyr: Suzie Plakson
Gowron: Robert O’Reilly
Duras: Patrick Massett
K’mpec: Charles Cooper
Alexander: Jon Steuer
Security Guard: Michael Rider
Transporter Chief Hubbell: April Grace
Klingon Guard #1 (Duras aide): Basil Wallace
Klingon (Vorn) Guard #2: Mirron E. Willis
Ambassador K’Ehleyr, Worf’s half-human former love, beams aboard the Enterprise with two pieces of shocking news: Klingon leader K’mpec has been poisoned, and the young boy with her is her son ­ and Worf’s.
K’mpec wants Picard to help him perform the ritual selecting a new leader. After revealing his suspicion that one of the contenders poisoned him, he tells Picard that no one on the Klingon Council can be trusted. One contender for the throne is Duras, who hid his own father’s guilt by accusing Worf’s father of being the Romulan collaborator in the Khitomer massacre.
Picard stalls for time as Duras and his rival, Gowron, beam aboard the Enterprise for the succession ceremony. Worf opts not to acknowledge his son so as to save him from the family’s dishonor. K’Ehleyr’s efforts to research the truth lead to her murder by Duras; he in turn is killed by a vengeful Worf.
Gowron is named leader of the Klingon Empire as a somber Worf sends Alexander off to be raised by his own foster parents on Earth.
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In directing this chapter in Trek’s ongoing Klingon saga, Jonathan Frakes again drew a no-lose episode for his second directorial outing, with actors like Patrick Massett, Suzie Plakson, and Charles Cooper at his disposal. Despite the multiple writing credits, the story shines. It also takes a lot of chances, including the deaths of both K’Ehleyr and Duras. Michael Piller and Ronald D. Moore defended the decision to kill off Worf’s popular mate, who in an earlier draft had a relationship with Duras. We “wanted to get to a place where Worf was going to take Duras apart, and there’s no good reason for him to do it unless she dies,” Piller said.
And what a time for Worf! In one fell swoop he learns he has a son, his mate is killed, and he in turn kills her murderer and his family’s accuser; he then sends his newfound son off to live with his own foster parents.
This episode is not exactly a vacation for Picard, either. It’s a tribute to both actors and to the writers that what would always have been thought inconceivable is completely believable here: a human from the Federation choosing the next leader of the Klingon Empire!
For summer intern Brannon Braga, sitting down with Ron Moore to hash out the teleplay as his first TNG writing credit was an “illuminating, exhilarating” experience. Braga, who arrived with a strong production background from Kent State and the University of California at Santa Cruz, had produced music videos but got his first writing job as a member of the TNG staff for season five.
Dan Curry, nominally the visual-effects supervisor on alternating shows, drew on his martial arts background to design Worf’s bat’telh weapon and helped Michael Dorn develop the unique movements used in wielding it.
Like his Klingon counterparts Plakson, Massett, and Cooper, Robert O’Reilly was also a TNG veteran, although he was first seen not as a Klingon but as Scarface, one of the hoodlums in “Manhunt”. Michael Rider, who plays an unnamed security guard in this show, was seen as a transporter chief in the several early pre-O’Brien shows. During K’Ehleyr’s briefing, we learn that the territories of the Ferengi and the Tholians border those of the Klingons and the Federation. And the sonchi pain sticks are ceremonial versions of those used for Worf’s Rite of Ascension as seen in “The Icarus Factor”. However, K’mpec ­ who is revealed to have led the Klingon Empire longer than anyone else in history ­ says his people and the Romulans have been “blood enemies” for seventy-five years, even through Worf once said that the two were still allies at the time of the infamous Khitomer massacre.
To this point budget constraints had forced the staff to use the two Klingon vessels from the films, but TNG finally got its own Klingon ship, the Vor’cha-class attack cruiser that debuted here. Roughly three-quarters the length of a Galaxy-class starship, the three-foot model ­ designed by Rick Sternbach and built by Greg Jein ­ reflects the post-alliance era with warp nacelles that have a Starfleet look. Even its color is new, midway between the old Klingon dark green and the bluish white of Starfleet. Within a year the model was released as an AMT kit.
Puzzled by the recovery of a chunk of a twenty-first-century Earth spacecraft, Worf, Data, and Riker beam down into the middle of the lone structure they find on the nearest uninhabited planet.
After passing through a revolving door set in an otherwise black void, they cannot escape from what appears to be a resort casino named the Hotel Royale.
Bizarre scenes now unfold before them: a cliched love triangle, gamblers who invite the Starfleet men to join them, and finally the discovery of a twenty-first-century American astronaut’s remains in a hotel suite.
There Data also finds a book entitled The Hotel Royale, and the pieces of the mystery begin to fall into place.
By reading the astronaut’s diary, the away team learns that aliens found his disabled ship and created a world in which he could live out his life. Unfortunately they used the badly written pulp mystery as their model.
As the love triangle resolves itself yet again with a mobster gunning down a bellboy, the trapped crewmen find a way to break the time-loop trap. Using the novel’s ending, in which foreign investors buy the Royale, Data returns to the craps tables and breaks the bank, angering the casino characters but allowing the away team to exit for beam-up.
In that early draft Dr. Pulaski at one point was supposed to say, “I’m a doctor, not a magician” ­ harking back to DeForest Kelley’s Dr. McCoy, but that line was lost in the revisions.
Lending sparkle to this outing is veteran character actor Nobel Willingham, who has played many film and TV roles. He appeared on Northern Exposure in 1992 as Maurice Minnifield’s former U.S. Marine commander.
Despite the story’s unevenness, much Federation and Earth history is revealed here. As seen in Colonel Stephen Richey’s uniform patch, the United States is said to have had fifty-two states in the years between 2053 and 2079, the year the “new” United Nations fell ­ see “Farpoint”. Richey’s flight, launched on July 23, 2037, and overseen by NASA with its 1970’s-era logo, was the third to try to push outside the solar system. Given the series’ date, according to “The Neutral Zone”, his death 283 years earlier would have occurred in 2082.
By the way, for math fans: the missing proof for Fermat’s Last Theorem, devised by the seventeenth-century inventor of differential calculus and differential geometry, would show that xn + yn = zn where n>2 and x, y, and z are whole numbers.
