Captain Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, Ret.: James Doohan
Lieutenant Bartel: Stacie Foster
Waiter: Ernie Mirich
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
The Enterprise crew is amazed by two simultaneous discoveries: an immense Dyson sphere (an artificially constructed habitat built around a star), and Starfleet engineering legend Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, kept alive for seventy-five years in molecular limbo within a transporter diagnostic loop aboard a shuttle crash-landed on the sphere.
But depression sets in for James Kirk’s old “miracle worker” when an impatient La Forge blurts out that the old man is only “in the way” now. Drink in hand, a blue Scotty is joined during a holodeck look at his old Constitution-class bridge by an understanding Picard, who later urges his engineer to put Scotty to use in a check of the downed Jenolen shuttle.
Then things get rough when the Enterprise is drawn inside the sphere and Riker manages to pull the starship out of a deadly spiral into the sun, only to be threatened by its long solar flares once in a close orbit. Only later does the crew realize that a subspace frequency had activated the sphere’s tractor beam, which pulled them inside, just as the Jenolen had done.
Back in the shuttle, it is Scotty who figures out a way to power it up to open the sphere’s doors long enough to get the Enterprise out ­ and a split-second beam-out when the craft has to be blown clear.
Rejuvenated, Scotty is given his own shuttle ­ and a new sense of purpose.
Ron Moore’s roots as a longtime Star Trek fan had never shown as brightly as in this instant classic, which included not only the appearance of Scotty, the third character from original Trek on TNG, but the use of the Dyson sphere as a plot device after it had been bandied about so long it had been almost a joke. And the icing on the cake was the appearance of the old Constitution-class bridge ­ and the struggle to get it on film has already become as big a tale in Star Trek lore as Scotty’s appearance itself.
The original sixties bridge, struck not long after the series was canceled, in 1969, had been turned down for re-creation only a year earlier due to money constraints (“Cause and Effect”), but this time Moore was determined to see it done. After a fully rebuilt set was scoffed at during early production meetings due to the cost of both materials and labor, it looked as though the latest movie-era version would be unpacked and used ­ unless, as graphic artist and fellow longtime Star Trek fan Mike Okuda recalled, a way could be devised to create the sixties bridge for the same amount of money. Michael Piller remembered that he huddled afterward with Jeri Taylor and Moore to suggest that they should come up with alternatives to present, such as renting a fan-built replica or using miniaturization.
That got the “think tank” juices flowing. Designer Richard James suggested using Scotty’s single “pie wedge” station from the old bridge with a blue-screen matte from old film, and FX producer Dan Curry revealed his own Trek fan roots by recalling such a scene: the bare few frames of a mutiny-emptied bridge from “This Side of Paradise.” They were brightened and lengthened by computer into a loop that is seen as Scotty enters the holodeck door. Only the turbolift alcove and engineering station were built anew, but James said that that alone meant hours and days spent in research on dimensions and colors which had to be refigured from film clips since no set plans existed. He, Curry, and cameraman Jonathan West even figured out the original camera angles and lenses so the new footage of Scotty, Picard, and the set would match seamlessly with the old. “They lit the set with color [in the sixties], and that threw us off trying to establish what color to paint our set,” James said. “We had to look through old calendars and photographs ­ we were really back on the level of fans!”
Ironically, Okuda added, it took the discovery of fan Steve Horch’s center console and captain’s chair, built for display at conventions, to keep the project on budget. “We rented it and then enhanced it a little bit and he was happy with that,” laughed James, who said the unexpected extra pieces gave more depth for director Singer to work with. James also designed the single-viewer upper panel so it could be changed out for the opposite two-viewer section behind Picard on reverse angles.
The total effect ­ the marriage of modern construction, research, and twenty-six-year-old footage ­ held up so well it fooled many viewers and even passed muster with visiting Original Series producer Bob Justman, who was amazed to point out only one small error: the carpet color. “They had that gray carpet but it looked rust,” James recalled with a smile, “and I just assumed it was that because in those days that was such a common color. But he pointed it out and I said, ‘Why didn’t I call you?’ And he laughed and said ‘I don’t know!’ “
Even beyond the art staff, much of the creative team went above and beyond in their own way to make the segment special. Curry, for instance, recalled seeing a box in storage labeled “Star Trek Transporter Sparkle” from his days as an intern at Cinema Research Corp., and thus was able to retrieve the actual sixties-era photographic element from the original transporter glitter effect; to match it, co-producer Wendy Neuss hunted down the old transporter whine from studio archives (although technically both effects would have predated the changed look and sound of the movie-era Jenolen). Original Trek’s live FX man Jim Rugg had given Greg Jen bridge buttons from his keepsakes for the consoles. “The people in the production department put in a lot of extra hours and a lot of free work because they really wanted it to look good,” Moore said. “They really wanted to sweat the details because they knew everyone was going to be watching us ­ it’s the kind of thing you better not screw up or you’re going to be hearing about every little thing!”
Through it all, Moore praised his two top bosses for standing by him to help present one of TNG’s magical moments. “Michael and Rick were both very supportive and said ‘All right, let’s do it!’ Two years ago they may not have, but I think the show has gotten to the point where they’re more comfortable with the Original Series stuff. Here it was always just a question of money.”
Moore reveals that the story had its roots as a uncredited premise bought from Michael Rupert about a crewman saving himself in a transporter loop, which Piller prophetically suggested could be a vehicle for returning a Kirk-era character if the chance ever arose again. “Everything gravitated toward using Scotty,” he said. “McCoy is old (“Encounter at Farpoint”), Spock’s playing James Bond on Romulus (“Unification I-II”) ­ and we couldn’t do Kirk; it would raise too many other things. Nothing against the other characters, but Scotty seemed like the one with the most ‘fun’ quotient.” Given a movie format, though, Shatner’s Kirk would eventually cross paths with the TNG crew in Star Trek Generations.
So many lines are in-joke references to some of actor Doohan’s best scenes in sixties Trek: the first Moore conceived was based on Scotty’s reference to a beverage as only “It’s green,” from his duel of drinking in “By Any Other Name”; the line about needing thirty minutes to restart a cold warp engine is right from “The Naked Time”; and of course the Dohlman of Elas was the guest character of “Elaan of Troyius” ­ making, coincidentally, a sampling from each of original Trek’s three seasons.
The writer mentioned two scenes he hated to lose: the “It’s green” Ten-Forward scene with Data originally written for Guinan before her schedule ruled it out, and a filmed but cut-for-time scene just before that showed Troi’s visit with Scotty after his blowup with Geordi. At first taken with “the lass” and her charms, Scotty indignantly declares that he’s “not crazy” and tells her “I know what I need and it’s not here!” before stomping off to the lounge. The three-page scene also revealed that counselors have been assigned to starships for about forty years ­ and explains why he gives Troi a kiss in what now seems to be her first appearance at story’s end.
In contrast to the rest of the well-oiled episode, Moore sheepishly admits that nothing can explain how Scotty and Geordi were beamed through the Jenolen’s shields in the climactic scene ­ a nominal violation of long-established Trek technology ­ unless the shield cycling technique O’Brien once used explains it away (“The Wounded”). “It’s just a straight, flat-out mistake!” he admitted. “I didn’t think about it, I didn’t catch it, the producers didn’t catch it, the technical consultants didn’t catch it ­ it was just one of those things and a single line of dialogue could’ve explained it away.”
Singer, a self-taught veteran of the craft with five features and 262 series episodes to his credit since moving out West from Brooklyn in 1959, knew full well how lucky he was to draw what he called “an instant classic” as his first-ever Star Trek assignment. An associate of both Rick Berman (on MacGuyver) and Jeri Taylor (In the Heat of the Night, Jake and the Fat Man), he had counted himself a science-fiction fan since his boyhood in 1938 but had never worked on a Star Trek series until now. So touching was the day’s shoot on the old bridge set, he recalled, that both he and his less sentimental wife ­ not necessarily a Star Trek fan either ­ were moved to tears at the “mythic quality” of the moment and what it meant for American pop culture. Though he had not worked extensively with SF series lately, he breezed through the filming with the FX and art staffs helping out and was asked back for two more episodes in turn and three the next year. The Jenolen itself, NCC-2010, was named for some caves Moore visited during a convention trip near Sydney, Australia, which in turn provided its “Sydney class” designation. The craft actually began as the admiral’s shuttle seen briefly in the opening of ST VI: The Undiscovered Country, built for the movie by former ILM modelbuilder John Goodson. Turned upside down with an added bridge module and Starfleet nacelles, the design was at one point a candidate for the new runabout vessel for DS9, said illustrator Rick Sternbach ­ and the forward and side windows in that craft’s full-size cockpit set were based on it. The movie shuttle’s three front windows were combined into two and the set was built around them. Greg Jein built the huge model of the Dyson sphere and doors, shot from various angles, with the interior supplied via a matte painting by Eric Chauvin. And the fate of the newly built bridge section? It was struck and given to DS9 and onetime TNG designer Herman Zimmerman for use in a planned Star Trek theme park.
Given that the current year is 2369 (dated from “The Neutral Zone”), it’s apparent from clues here that Scotty was born in 2222 and disappeared at age seventy-two, after having served on eleven different ships. We also learn here that there is a Fleet museum which numbers a Constitution-class starship among its artifacts, and that isolinear chips debuted about “forty years ago,” while transporters, sensors, and subspace radio have remained largely unchanged since Scotty’s time and impulse engines have been little altered for two centuries ­ or the era of the first Romulan War. And we find out that synthehol is not all Guinan has available in the bar.
Also: Bartel is called a lieutenant although she wears an ensign’s pip; the small Jenolen displays a graphic of a Galaxy-or other large-class starship’s warp reactor; and the holodeck computer knows without asking that Scotty wants the Constitution-class version of his Enterprise’s bridge, even though the uprated ship of the first three movies was also known simply as NCC-1701 ­ with no suffix letter.
Left unsure of his beliefs after the “stranded” Klingon youths of Carraya IV embraced them so heartily ­ and with his job performance slipping ­ Worf wins a leave from the Enterprise to “seek Kahless,” his peoples’ mythic spiritual leader, on the planet where clerics await his promised return.
After ten days the dismayed Worf is ready to leave with no insights when suddenly Kahless appears, rallying those at the temple and planning to unite and uplift all Klingons again. Gowron, the High Council leader, asks the Enterprise to ferry Kahless back to Klingon space, to avoid arousing any more native passions until he can be checked out. There, Worf remains skeptical until various tests ­ including a DNA match with a blood sample on a sacred ancient knife ­ seem to rule out deception.
Worf is overjoyed, but Gowron is not about to hand over his hard-won government. When they meet at last, Gowron shocks the crowd by outfighting the “greatest warrior of them all.”
At that, head cleric Koroth admits this Kahless is just a clone of the original, specially programmed with a memory taken from sacred texts. But with word of Kahless’ devotion already spreading ­ and Worf agreeing that their people need a renewal of purpose ­ Gowron agrees to let this “heir” to Kahless rule as emperor and a moral authority, while he and the council retain their political power. Worf is crushed again until Kahless reminds him it’s the words and teachings, not the man, that are important.
Alluding to 1993’s blockbuster film about the resurrection of dinosaurs from preserved DNA, James Brooks dubbed his premise “Jurassic Worf” when he pitched the idea of a cult of Klingons returning one of their mythic figures to life in similar fashion and passing him off as the real thing. But while Brooks’ story was more concerned with intrigue and politics among the clerics, Moore said he was proud to take his story where TNG had practically never gone before: an examination of spiritualism and faith in the twenty-fourth century centered on Starfleet’s lone Klingon. “Gene Roddenberry was very much a secular humanist, and I don’t think that story would have worked with anyone else but Worf,” Jeri Taylor added, noting that this script’s break sessions opened up the staff’s various views on religious faith and its place in TNG.
One point finally cleared up is the status of the Klingon Empire’s “emperor.” Gowron, who has grayed with the demands of office since last seen (“Redemption, Part II”), and K’mpec before him (“Sins of the Father”) had been called “Leader of the High Council” and Gorkon of ST VI was titled “chancellor” ­ but here we learn that the title hasn’t been used in “three hundred years.” A past reference in “Sins of the Father” to an emperor at the time of the Khitomer massacre was just a throwaway, Moore said, before the government was fully sketched out a year later (“Reunion”). Actor Oppenheimer later changed races to become the ill-fated Captain Keogh in DS9’s “Jem’Hadar” segment.
For “missing trivia” buffs, lines in the cut scenes put Kahless’ original death 1,547 years earlier ­ or a.d. 822; in another, Alexander’s absence is finally explained as a visit back on Earth (“Family”, “Reunion”); a third deleted exchange mused whether the Kahless figure is a front for the Duras sisters (“Redemption”, Generations, DS9’s “Past Prologue”) or the “B’nok faction.” Still onscreen are mentions of a coalescent creature (“Aquiel”), Worf’s original Rite of Ascension ceremony, performed on the Home World (“Icarus Factor”), and that his brother Kurn (“Sins of the Fathers”) now has a seat on the High Council since the civil war (“Redemption”). And we learn that Kahless created the first bat’leth sword.
The Klingon temple, whose design was inspired by similar structures Dan Curry recalled from his days in the Himalayas, was an impressive set that the small screen did not do justice to. For one thing, over $4,000 alone went into the fat beeswax candles used on the set, according to set decorator Jim Mees.
