The crew needles Picard into taking a much-needed rest, but the galaxy’s most reluctant vacationer soon finds himself in the middle of an adventure the likes of which he’d never get into aboard ship.
In rapid succession, he meets two Vorgons from the twenty-seventh century, traveling back in time to locate the superweapon Tox Uthat; Sovak, a Ferengi interested in buying the artifact; and Vash, a brash, striking woman whose late boss was an archaeologist also searching for the Uthat.
According to the Vorgons, Picard is destined to find the Uthat. He agrees to honor their request to return the Uthat to them and their time, but he doesn’t count on falling for Vash on their overnight hike to get the artifact.
They are joined by a leering, armed Sovak, but their long dig at the presumed burial site yields nothing. Picard finally realizes that Vash found the Uthat a week ago and staged the dig to get Sovak off her trail.
She recalls how Vorgons are said to be thieves, not retreivers, and Picard has the returning Enterprise destroy the Uthat once and for all while beaming it up.
The Vorgons depart, while Picard and Vash muse whether they’ll see each other when the alien thieves try again ­ in time.
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This story, the first-unit debut of assistant director Chip Chalmers, grew out of Stewart’s desire for more “sex and shooting” for the captain. It also introduced the oft-mentioned Risa resort, a Fantasy Island-type getaway spot that apparently can meets needs even a holodeck can’t satisfy.
According to Michael Piller, the first draft of the story concerned only the group’s search for an ancient artifact a la The Maltese Falcon, but at Ron Moore’s suggestion the time-travel element was added. The off-ship opening was a first for the series, but an echo of that scene planned to close the show ­ implying that the Vorgons were already returning to try again ­ was cut when it became too confusing.
Jennifer Hetrick, who began as a model and in commercials, followed in the footsteps of her onetime L.A. Law costar Corbin Bersen (she played Arnie Becker’s wife Corinne) with her TNG guest role. She came back for more in season four in “Qpid”, a sequel to this episode, also written by Ira Stephen Behr. Michael Grodenchik would also return, in “The Perfect Mate”, though as a different Ferengi (making him the third actor to play more than one member of that race).
Other races seen in the Risian lobby are an Andorian, a Vulcan, and an Antican (“The Last Outpost”). The Daystrom Institute, spoken of in “The Measure of a Man”, is mentioned again when Vash promises to turn over the Tox Uthat. For the record, the Risian idol of sexuality is a horgh’an, and the state one hopes it brings is jamaharohn.
Notice the cave in which the treasure hunters all converge. The set is enlarged by a matte painting, but not the typical kind. As he would throughout the series on his shows, visual-effects supervisor Dan Curry created this background with pixels instead of pigment, and his computer-painted matte was then digitally blended with the live action.
~1:[3,#b],4:[2,#i]@1“Cause and Effect”@2Next Generation episode #118
Production No. 218
Aired: Week of March 23, 1992
Stardate: 45652.1
Directed by Jonathan Frakes
Written by Brannon Braga
GUEST CAST
Ensign Ro Laren: Michelle Forbes
Nurse Alyssa Ogawa: Patti Yasutake
Captain Morgan Bateman: Kelsey Grammer
The crew’s regular poker game suddenly feels too familiar to Dr. Crusher, who experiences feelings of deja vu that are at first puzzling and then maddening. Those feelings intensify when she is called away to treat La Forge for a minor but baffling dizziness. Preparing for bed, she hears strange voices in her cabin.
Meanwhile, the Enterprise is continuing to chart the Typhon Expanse when the ship’s propulsion systems fail, hurling it onto a collision course with another starship that appears out of the void. Picard follows Data’s advice to use the tractor beam to alter the other ship’s trajectory, but the tactic fails. The ships collide, and both are destroyed. . . .
The regular poker game resumes, and this time Beverly is not alone in her feelings of deja vu. After experiencing another cycle of destruction, she records the voices she hears in her room, which Data discovers are the echoes of their own conversations from past time loops.
As another cycle climaxes, Data plants a clue for himself in the next time loop ­ recurring instances of the number 3. Realizing at the last second that the three refers to the pips on Riker’s uniform and his plan to decompress the main shuttle bay to alter course, Data follows the first officer’s suggestion rather than his own ­ and the loop is broken.
They find the Enterprise has been trapped for seventeen days, but Picard wonders how he will explain to the crew of the other starship, the Bozeman, that they have been caught for ninety years.
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Braga, who said he’d always wanted to do a time-travel story without the cliche of the “screwed-up time lines,” called this solo story the smoothest he had yet worked on, though it provided a challenge in drawing out the subtleties of the varying time loops. Beginning with what he called “the ultimate teaser,” he was proud for once to be able to tie the poker game scene into the plot as a major point.
Kelsey Grammer became the third Cheers actor to enter the Trek universe ­ after Bebe Neuwirth in “First Contact” and Kirstie Alley in Star Trek II ­ but his viewscreen scenes were all shot separately from the rest of the cast, again using the old movie bridge set re-dressed. The staff had wanted the first officer to the right of Bateman to be Kirstie Alley as Lieutenant Saavik, but the scheduling couldn’t be worked out.
The USS Bozeman was a “new” Soyuz-class ship: the Reliant miniature from Star Trek II minus the roll bar and with new sensor turrets, docking port, and bridge. Originally the plan was to make the ship a 1960’s-era, pre-movie Constitution-class starship, but budget demands put an end to that when the costs of creating and filming ship, props, and costumes were added up.
The enormous main shuttle bay was depicted for the first time in any form. It was actually a tabletop model built by Michael Okuda on which the two shuttlecraft were named ­ in lettering too small to be legible ­ the Berman and the Piller!
Written by Jaron Summers, Jon Povill, and Maurice Hurley
GUEST CAST
Lieutenant Commander Hester Dealt: Seymour Cassel
Ian Andrew Troi: R. J. Williams
Transporter Chief: O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Miss Gladstone: Dawn Arnemann
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg
Young Ian: Zachary Benjamin
Engineering Ensign: Dore Keller
The Enterprise is ferrying samples of a deadly plasma plague for study when Troi stuns the crew by announcing she’s pregnant.
What she describes as a glowing white light impregnated her during sleep. According to new chief medical officer Kate Pulaski, the fetus will grow full term in just thirty-six hours. As Picard and his officers debate the security concerns raised by the “invader,” Troi announces flatly she’s having the baby.
The counselor has a remarkably easy birth ­ her son, Ian, appears completely harmless but continues his unusual growth rate, aging eight years in twenty-seven hours.
Almost oblivious to all of this is young Wes Crusher, who seeks counsel from the mysterious new Ten-Forward hostess, Guinan, about whether to join his mother, who has left to head Starfleet Medical. He finally decides to stay on board.
Meanwhile, one of the plague samples inexplicably begins to grow ­ threatening to break its containment and infect the crew within two hours.
It turns out that Ian ­ or at least, the life-force that took the form of the human child to learn more about humans ­ is a stimulus for the viral sample’s growth. A tearful Troi watches Ian revert to his real form; the virus stops growing, and the ship’s mercy mission can be finished.
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During the writers’ strike, “The Child” was chosen from among the old unused Star Trek II series scripts to be turned into a season opener, although Hurley stated his rewrites proceeded from premise, not from the original outline. Instead of Troi, of course, in the original tale the “immaculate conception” happens to Star Trek III’s Deltan navigator Ilia ­ yet another parallel between the two female characters, who already share an empathic trait and similar onetime love interests, Decker and Riker. That original final draft story of January 9, 1978, opened with the same glowing light that was used here, but in that case the fast-growing baby was causing the ship’s hull to turn to powder. Overseen by a nearby probe via an “umbilical” scanner beam, the child was being made to develop through its race’s past stages of evolution prior to noncorporeality.
Meanwhile, Ron Bowman, the director, secured permission to film this season opener with extra camera work and equipment, including the impressive opening shot, and he credited Marina Sirtis with meeting the challenge of an expanded role for Troi. By making her son her father’s namesake, the writers let us know that Troi’s father was named Ian Andrew.
Epsilon Indi, one of the stars seen by Guinan and Wesley in this episode, was home to the extinct pirates in “And the Children Shall Lead,” an original-Trek episode, and is traditionally the home star of the Andorians, thanks to nonfiction written by fans. Among the unreadable Okudagrams are references to several TNG staffers: the four associates of the mutated plague strain’s developer are Drs. Bowman, Hurley, Summers, and Povill (the latter two were the writers of the original Trek II story) and the plague is believed to be related to the “Legato infection” or the “Hutzel infection.”
As the Enterprise is on its way to investigate a mysterious planet, a wormhole suddenly appears in the ship’s path, knocking the crew unconscious. As they begin to come to, Data, who is immune to the wormhole’s effects, tells them only thirty seconds have passed since their encounter with the phenomenon.
But soon evidence mounts that the crew was out for much longer ­ an entire day, in fact. A twinge of pain in Worf’s wrist reveals a recent fracture, a botany experiment records a full twenty-four hours’ growth, and the ship’s chronometer has been tampered with.
A check of Data’s systems shows nothing wrong, but an analysis of the probe he sent shows it was rigged to send false information.
Picard finally orders the crew to proceed to the mystery planet, over Data’s objections. The android refuses to say why, but he does tell Picard the captain himself ordered him to lie.
Suddenly a being called a Paxan inhabits Troi’s body. Data then explains the truth: the horribly isolationist Paxans stun intruders and send their ships on their way, but Data’s presence foiled their plan. The Enterprise did go to the planet, but the Paxans demanded the starship be destroyed. Picard, though, won agreement to a short-term memory wipe for all the crew, with Data ordered to keep the secret.
During the second visit Picard assures the Paxans that the bugs in his plan can be worked out so that their existence will remain a secret.
____________________
Story creator Bruce D. Arthurs proved it can be done: the fan and Phoenix, Arizona, mail carrier had his spec script for TNG bought and turned into an episode, helped along by a rewrite that won Joe Menosky a staff job. Michael Piller called this bottle-show mystery, which includes the first appearance of Dixon Hill since “Manhunt” in season two, one of his favorites for the season. Notice director Les Landau’s use of longer and more fluid camera takes for the flashbacks, in contrast with a choppier style with more cuts back and forth for real time.
In addition to bringing back Rhonda Aldrich as Madeline, Dixon Hill’s secretary, this segment includes the only mention of Nurse Ogawa’s first name ­ Alyssa. There’s also a fleeting glimpse of a t’ai chi class led by Worf, with Riker, Troi, and Geordi among the participants. We also learn the transporter trace records can be used to determine elapsed time judging by cellular cycle, and that a ship’s clock exists apart from the chronometer ­ which only La Forge and Data can reset ­ used by the computer system. Wormholes have previously been seen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Data mentions having encountered them twice in his own career: during the Barzan affair in “The Price” and during his service aboard the Trieste, mentioned already as a previous assignment (“11001001”).
~1:[3,#b],4:[2,#i]@1“Code of Honor”@2Next Generation episode #4
Production No.: 104
Aired: Week of October 12, 1987
Stardate: 41235.25
Directed by Russ Mayberry
Written by Katharyn Powers and Michael Baron
GUEST CAST
Lutan: Jessie Lawrence Ferguson
Yareena: Karole Selmon
Hagon: James Louis Watkins
Transporter Chief: Michael Rider
A plague on Styris IV sends the Enterprise to the only known source for an organic vaccine, Ligon II.
Negotiations go smoothly for the vaccine until the planet’s chief, Lutan, suddenly kidnaps Yar after being impressed by both her beauty and her strength. To get her back, Picard must abide by the Prime Directive and the Ligonians’ strict patience and code of honor ­ and Yar must combat Lutan’s current “First One” wife, who now feels her honor challenged, in a fight to the death.
Picard tries every diplomatic trick in the book, but he is finally left to hope that Yar can score a hit in the poison-tipped glavin combat. She does, and the fighters are beamed aboard, where Dr. Crusher concocts an antidote to the Ligonian poison.
Not only is honor served and Yar rescued, but wife Yareena’s “death” satisfies tradition. Alive in reality, though, Yareena transfers her land and property rights to Lutan’s lieutenant Hagon when she claims him as her new husband, in effect dethroning the chief. But Lutan takes it all in stride with Ligonian pride and calls the orderly transfer far more “civilized” than the Enterprise crew’s society.
Amused but wiser, the crew warps out to help fight the plague.
____________________
Writer Katharyn Powers, an original-series fan and a veteran of series such as Kung Fu, Logan’s Run, and Fantastic Journey, had known D. C. Fontana for some time when she got invited to pitch story ideas for the new show. She and writing partner Michael Baron initially tried to base the Ligonian “honor is all” culture on that of the Japanese Samurai, using a reptilian race called the Tellisians.
The yellow-on-black grid of the empty holodeck wall made its debut here, but a phonelike programming unit used by Tasha ­ a seeming redundancy with vocal commands ­ was never seen again. Tried here and once more ­ in “The Last Outpost” ­ before being scrapped was the building of Picard’s extreme pride in his Gallic heritage to the point of humorous defensiveness in his banter with Data ­ an echo of the original series’ recurring “Russian joke” with young Chekov, who believed his motherland was the home of all discoveries and inventions.
Fred Steiner made a onetime musical contribution to TNG with this episode, the only composer from the original series to do so.
~1:[3,#b],4:[2,#i]@1“Coming of Age”@2Next Generation episode #19
Production No.: 119
Aired: Week of March 14, 1988
Stardate: 41416.2
Directed by Michael Vejar
Written by Sandy Fries
GUEST CAST
Admiral Gregory Quinn: Ward Costello
Lieutenant Commander Dexter Remmick: Robert Schenkkan
Mordock: John Putch
Lieutenant Chang: Robert Ito
Jake Kurland: Stephen Gregory
T’shanik: Tasia Valenza
Oliana Mirren: Estee Chandler
Technician No. 1: Brendan McKane
Technician No. 2: Wyatt Knight
Rondon: Daniel Riordan
As Wesley prepares to beam down to Relva VII to take his long-awaited entrance exam to Starfleet Academy, Picard’s old friend, Admiral Quinn, beams up for surprise business that he won’t explain: a tough interrogation of the captain’s senior officers.
Meanwhile, Wes consoles his friend Jake, who didn’t make the final cut, and begins his grueling challenge while meeting the other candidates. He’s in a neck-and-neck race for the single Academy slot open, and he’s nervous about the infamous psych test.
Picard, along with Riker and the crew, grow increasingly bitter over the demeanor of Remmick, Quinn’s probing aide, but the admiral won’t talk until he’s ready. He suspects a conspiracy growing within Starfleet, and he had to test Picard’s loyalty . . . before offering to make him commandant of the Academy.
Picard is flattered but wants to think it over. In the meantime, Wesley returns rejected: his success on the psych test gave him food for thought, but he came in a close second in the competition. After consoling Wesley and saving a dejected runaway Jake from a near-fatal shuttle crash, Picard decides to stay on board.
____________________
This episode provides further evidence that Wesley was already being better written as a character, thank you, and the title is indicative of TNG’s emerging self-confidence as well as the story. The show marks a number of firsts for the series: the first Vulcan in a speaking role, the first retrospective look at the crew’s new starship as seen through Remmick’s prying eyes, the first attempt at a true continuing plotline ­ threads of which would be picked up in “Conspiracy” ­ and the debut of TNG’s shuttlecraft.
Filmed but cut to save time was a scene in which Wesley’s friends help him celebrate his sixteenth birthday, with predictably pithy comments from Worf and Data about human birthday rituals. Also revealed here was Wesley’s enjoyment of the equivalent of today’s computer bulletin boards. On the trivia side, the head of Starfleet Academy carries the title “commandant,” but this would later be changed to “superintendent” in “The First Duty”.
Original Trek fan Robert Schenkkan, whose turn as the inquisitor Remmick was so well received that he was asked to return for “Conspiracy”, came from the New York stage and racked up credits in the films Sweet Liberty and The Manhattan Project and in miniseries such as George Washington, where he played Alexander Hamilton.
The tale of this first appearance of the shuttlecraft, initially named the Copernicus III by Probert, is another uncanny echo of the original Trek. In both series, the building of a full-scale shuttlecraft was put off for budgetary reasons until writers made the craft an integral part of a story so that it had to be built. In the original Trek, that episode was appropriately titled “Galileo 7.” In this case, though, to save money, only a quarter of the shuttlecraft filming set was built. Added sections were made for specific story requirements during the next season, as money allowed.
Unfortunately, piecemeal construction could not match the expensive formed curves seen in Probert’s miniature, and the full-scale mock-up eventually looked nothing like the small-scale model. Because of that, the majority of the live shuttlecraft filming needs would be met by the quick-and-dirty “shuttlepod” seen first in “Time Squared” and later by the Magellan-class craft “Daimok”, though the original would turn up occasionally when a whole view wasn’t needed (“The Host”).
Lieutenant Commander Dexter Remmick: Robert Schenkkan
Admiral Aaron: Ray Reinhardt
Captain Walker Keel: Jonathan Farwell
Captain Rixx: Michael Berryman
Captain Tryla Scott: Ursaline Bryant
Picard is disturbed when his old friend Walker Keel summons him to a secret meeting with two other captains on a deserted planetoid, but he warily agrees. The subject? The trio’s suspicion, much like Admiral Quinn’s on Relva VII, that a conspiracy is spreading within Starfleet. Picard is skeptical until Keel’s ship explodes and Data finds a disturbing pattern among command orders. Picard makes a decision: the Enterprise will return to Starfleet Command on Earth to check the suspicions firsthand.
Three top admirals, including Quinn, greet the ship with surprise and invite Picard and Riker down for dinner to discuss their concerns. But something does not feel right.
Then all hell breaks loose: the crew discovers that Quinn, aboard the Enterprise for a visit, is controlled by a tiny intelligent parasite, whose presence is revealed only by a gill-like protrusion from the host’s neck.
Picard walks into a trap set by the other two admirals and Remmick, Quinn’s former aide, but a fake “gill” on Riker helps him foil the ambush. Soon the admirals are dead, along with Remmick, who housed the mother creature.
Quinn is cured and Starfleet saved, but the aliens’ source and purpose remain a mystery.
Planned to push the limits as a hard-edged thriller, the story was originally inspired by Seven Days in May, and the conspirators were not aliens but members of a faction within Starfleet ­ all Picard’s friends ­ who rebel against the Prime Directive and Federation-wide complacency following the Klingon detente. Ironically, although GR ruled against painting Starfleet in such dark colors, just such a conspiracy within the service later became a major plot point in the movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
Henry Darrow, the first to play a speaking Starfleet Vulcan character and deliver the legendary neck pinch in TNG, has a long resume that includes roles in the daytime soap Santa Barbara and the part of Manolito on the 1960’s series High Chaparral. Jonathan Farwell, whose character introduced Jack Crusher to Beverly, was another longtime Trek fan and veteran guest star. He appeared in The King and I opposite Yul Brynner and on The Young and the Restless.
The Probert-designed Ambassador-class starship was first mentioned here as Keel’s ship, the Horatio already having been designated as the Enterprise-C’s class (“Yesterday’s Enterprise”). The FX shots of Earth and spacedock and the matte painting of Starfleet Command were all from the Trek movies; the banquet room’s heavy doors with inset etched-glass ovals would be used on the standing set for Ten-Forward, which was built during hiatus.
Though the story left room for a sequel, the parasites have never been seen again.
Crossing the Neutral Zone to answer an SOS from the USS Yamato, the Enterprise arrives in time to see widespread computer malfunctions destroy its sister ship.
When log tapes from the Yamato reveal that its captain had tracked the mythical planet Iconia to this location, Picard has his ship retrace the Yamato’s course: discovering the secrets of the extinct Iconian civilization would be worth risking an encounter with the Romulans. But after the same computer malfunctions begin to plague the Enterprise, La Forge realizes that an Iconian probe’s energy burst infected the Yamato with a computer virus that rewrote that ship’s control software. By downloading the Yamato’s logs, the Enterprise has now become infected as well.
A desperate Picard beams down with Worf and Data to a control tower on long-dead Iconia, where they discover a time gateway. There Data becomes infected with the Iconian virus as well.
Meanwhile, the crew is forced to raise shields and strand the away team when a Romulan ship suddenly attacks the Enterprise. But Riker soon learns the enemy vessel is also crippled by the virus.
Picard decides to destroy the control tower and the remaining Iconian probes, but first returns Data and Worf to the Enterprise through the time gateway. Once Data arrives back on board ship, his self-correcting function eradicates the Iconian virus in his system; that reminds La Forge that the ship’s computers have the same capability.
The Enterprise regains transporter capability in time to rescue Picard from the planet below. The Romulans, of course, offer no thanks for the virus cure that saves them as well.
____________________
Appropriately enough, this story was conceived by a fan and computer technician (Beth Woods) who works on the Trek offices’ computer systems. It also introduces another Picard interest, archaeology, which will figure prominently in two later episodes, “Captain’s Holiday” and “Qpid”. Carolyn Seymour would also turn up later as a member of a different alien race in “Future Imperfect”.
This segment features Picard’s first oral food-slot order, for “Tea, Earl Grey ­ hot,” and the first-ever name of a Romulan ship in twenty-three years of aired Trek: Haakona. A familiar character, Commander Bruce Maddox, is already being mentioned as a genius after his debut earlier in the season in “The Measure of a Man”.
Rick Sternbach designed the Iconian gateway with lots of Japanese inscriptions that refer to numerous anime titles and characters. And the names of the show’s cowriters, Steve Gerber and Beth Woods, can barely be seen in the list of Yamato’s log entries, as the ship’s first and second officers.
