While picking up Antedian delegates on diplomatic escort duty, the Enterprise is graced once again by Troi’s mother, Lwaxana, who checks aboard this time with full ambassadorial status as a delegate.
Her daughter is dismayed to learn that Lwaxana is not only chasing Picard again but is in the midst of the Betazoid “Phase” ­ a midlife female cycle that quadruples (at least) the woman’s sex drive.
Picard escapes from Lwaxana’s dinner-for-two trap and flees into the holodeck to hide out and play Dixon Hill, his favorite gumshoe.
Lwaxana moves on to a short-lived engagement with Riker, then tracks both men down on the holodeck, only to fall for the program’s bartender.
Meanwhile, in sickbay the fishlike Antedians have remained in a trance, their race’s preferred state for deep-space travel. Upon arrival at the Pacifica conference site, they awaken and prepare to beam down just ahead of Lwaxana.
The whole flight having been a waste of time for her, Troi’s mother finally shows off her telepathic powers by casually pointing out that the two Antedians are assassins carrying undetectable explosives with which to bomb the conference.
With security officers sheepishly standing by, a departing Lwaxana manages to redden her old friend Picard’s face one more time.
Longtime Trek fan Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac became the second rock music figure to appear as a guest star on TNG, though as the piscean Antedian terrorist in disguise he kept a much lower profile than did Michelle Phillips in the earlier episode. Fleetwood, by the way, shaved off his trademark beard to accommodate the makeup, which took 2-4 hours to apply.
While monitoring the progress of a neutron star’s core fragment, the Enterprise crew is shocked to learn of an unknown human colony on Moab IV, now threatened by the fragment ­ and even more surprised when the residents refuse to relocate.
Their leader, Aaron Conor, explains that the colony has been genetically planned and engineered to be the perfect society. Any contact with outsiders is bound to be corrupting. Conor reluctantly agrees to let Enterprise officers beam down to discuss the danger posed by the fragment.
The colony’s chief scientist Hannah Bates begins working with La Forge to develop a tractor beam that will be powerful enough to deflect the core fragment. When Bates must beam aboard the Enterprise with Geordi to continue her research, Troi stays behind, fascinated by the soft-spoken Conor. After spending the night with him, she berates herself for allowing the brief affair, knowing her Betazoid DNA would not be welcome in the genetically closed colony.
Ironically it is the VISOR of an “imperfect” blind man that inspires the needed tractor beam enhancement; but to install the equipment necessary to deflect the fragment, fifty more people from the Enterprise will have to beam down.
Conor reluctantly agrees to their presence. The engineers’ plan works, and the fragment is diverted. But the colony’s problems are far from over. Hannah, after a taste of the outside world, decides to leave. She fakes an alarm to force evacuation, but Geordi sees through her ruse. Yet despite pleas from Conor and other colonists, Bates and twenty-three others decide to leave. Conor decides he can’t stop them, despite the irreparable damage their departure will cause.
Picard is left to wonder which ultimately posed the greater threat to the colony, the core fragment or his ship’s “help.”
____________________
In the most reasoned and focused Trek position on selective human breeding since 1967’s “Space Seed,” Picard echoes the classic Roddenberry-inspired argument against eugenics as dehumanizing and a detriment to free choice. Michael Piller himself took over this script after it had passed through five other writers’ hands over a season and a half. He struggled mainly with the question, “What exactly is a genetically engineered society?”
Hannah’s laboratory, once again, was built over the frame of the old two-level movie bridge set with the “science lab” set pieces in place; her computers use black-on-white, almost Macintosh-like computer visuals.
~1:[4,#b],5:[2,#i]@1“Matter of Honor, A”@2Next Generation episode #34
Production No.: 134
Aired: Week of February 6, 1989
Stardate: 42506.5
Directed by Rob Bowman
Teleplay by Burton Armus
Story by Wanda M. Haight, Gregory Amos, and Burton Armus
GUEST CAST
Ensign Mendon: John Putch
Captain Kargan: Christopher Collins
Lieutenant Klag: Brian Thompson
O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Tactics Officer: Peter Parros
Vekma: Laura Drake
In a new exchange program, Riker becomes the first Starfleet officer to serve aboard a Klingon vessel. He throws himself into the job, taking a crash course in Klingon culture and cuisine from Worf.
Meanwhile, the same program brings the young Benzite Mendon aboard the Enterprise but a cultural difference nearly destroys the ship when he lags in reporting the presence of hull-eating bacteria.
Aboard the Klingon cruiser Pagh, Riker uses Worf’s lessons to gain respect from his new captain and subordinates. He enjoys a hearty meal with the Pagh crew and banters with its women, but the discovery of the bacteria on the Klingon ship leads its captain, Klag, to brand Riker a traitor and order an attack on the Enterprise.
Riker uses an emergency transponder given to him by Worf to beam Klag off the bridge when he dismisses the Enterprise’s warnings ­ making Riker captain long enough to demand the “surrender” of the Starfleet ship to preserve the Klingons’ honor.
A shrewd student of culture, Riker takes an uppercut from the returned Klag to let him regain his crew’s respect, and Mendon makes amends by helping find a solution to the bacteria, saving both ships.
____________________
Maurice Hurley intended this story to be a reverse spin on Worf’s situation aboard a human ship, and it became one of the bright spots of the second season, scoring a 12.2 rating ­ TNG’s highest to that point ­ on the Nielsen Television Index used for syndicated programs. This episode gave Jonathan Frakes his meatiest role to date; he and director Rob Bowman both sank their teeth into it. “Every day it was Jonathan and I doing high-fives and trying to put forth on film all the energy and the spirit and adventure that was in that script,” the director said. In one particularly nice scene Riker trains on the firing range as he tries to become ambidextrous in his use of the phaser.
The completed episode, as often happens, ran too long and had to be cut by several minutes; the deleted scenes included the engine room of a miniature Klingon Bird of Prey.
A ladder aboard the Pagh in one scene is actually a bike rack Bowman picked up off the Paramount lot. And Klingons are heard here to use kilometers as a unit of measurement, even though kellicams had been used in Star Trek III and would later reappear in “Redemption”. The heart of a targ, Worf’s onetime pet animal (“Where No One Has Gone Before”) is a delicacy in this episode, while gagh (pronounced “gakh”) worms are said to taste best when served alive. Later, in “Family”, we learn that rokeg blood pie is one of Worf’s favorite foods.
After seven outings, Meaney’s character finally gets a last name, O’Brien; another two years would pass before viewers learned his first and middle names. Vekma’s fellow female Klingon, a nonspeaking character, is named Zegov. And John Putch, who appeared as Ensign Mendon, made TNG trivia history by becoming the first guest star to appear twice as a member of the same alien race but in a different role (see “Coming of Age”); how convenient that some Benzites really do look alike.
~1:[4,#b],5:[2,#i]@1“Matter of Perspective, A”@2Next Generation episode #62
Production No.: 162
Aired: Week of February 12, 1990
Stardate: 43610.4
Directed by Cliff Bole
Written by Ed Zuckerman
GUEST CAST
Krag: Craig Richard Nelson
Manua Apgar: Gina Hecht
Dr. Nel Apgar: Mark Margolis
Lieutenant O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Tayna: Juli Donald
A routine stop at a science station is anything but that when the wife of the lone researcher accuses Riker of having murdered her husband, who was killed in an explosion seconds after the first officer’s departure.
Dr. Nel Apgar had been doing research for Starfleet on Krieger waves, a potential new source of energy. Apgar’s wife, Manua, says Riker tried to seduce her, and his assistant backs up her claim that Riker and Dr. Apgar exchanged angry words during Number One’s visit. Other evidence shows that an energy beam that struck Apgar and caused the explosion originated at Riker’s beam-out point.
That is enough for Tanugan Inspector Krag to extradite Riker. Convinced of his first officer’s innocence, Picard persuades Krag to use the holodeck to re-create the events prior to the explosion.
Riker is finally vindicated after La Forge, Data, and Wes look into a mysterious periodic energy burst that pulses through the ship. It turns out to be Krieger waves from the lab’s ground-based generator, which is still switched on.
Actually the researcher had already made his breakthrough but was secretly trying to develop a new weapon he could sell on his own to the highest bidder. Fearing that Riker knew, Apgar aimed to disrupt Number One’s beam-out with the generator ­ but the waves were deflected back into the lab instead, setting off the explosion. With Apgar’s plot exposed, Krag drops the charges.
____________________
This episode’s major plot device ­ having an officer accused of murder ­ recalls Scotty’s dilemma in original Trek’s “Wolf in the Fold,” but the use of the holodeck to re-create the scene of the crime adds an interesting twist. Director Cliff Bole enjoyed what he called “our little trilogy,” another conceptual device that foreshadows episodes to come, including “Cause and Effect”, while filming one of the most claustrophobic bottle shows ever.
After Data’s unintentionally harsh criticism of the captain’s artwork in the show’s teaser, Picard has never been seen painting again. And in a moment that barely keeps the Riker-Troi relationship afloat, the counselor can be seen squeezing Number One’s hand when he is cleared.
The mention of duranium is a throwback to an original-series episode, “The Menagerie”: here the metal is still said to be an important alloy in starship hulls and interior walls.
~1:[5,#b],6:[2,#i]@1“The Measure of a Man”@2Next Generation episode #35
Production No.: 135
Aired: Week of February 13, 1989
Stardate: 42523.7
Directed by Robert Scheerer
Written by Melinda M. Snodgrass
GUEST CAST
Captain Phillipa Louvois: Amanda McBroom
Admiral Nakamura: Clyde Kusatsu
Commander Bruce Maddox: Brian Brophy
O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg
Data’s rights as a sentient being are questioned when Commander Bruce Maddox, a cyberneticist, wants to disassemble the android to make duplicates for Starfleet.
When Maddox seems uncertain of his ability to reassemble Data, the Enterprise second officer refuses to submit to his experiment and resigns from Starfleet. But that resignation is made moot when Maddox gets a ruling that the android is Starfleet property under a three-hundred-year-old law.
Picard is ready to tackle that decision in a court of law, but the insufficient legal staff at the new starbase forces Riker to serve as both prosecutor and defender. On top of that, the base’s judge advocate general, Captain Phillipa Louvois, is an old flame of Picard whose zeal in handling the USS Stargazer inquiry years before split them up.
Riker, warned to do his best or see a summary judgment in Maddox’s favor, dramatically proves that his second officer is just a machine by removing one of Data’s arms and then turning him off completely.
Picard has all but conceded until Guinan helps him see that Maddox’s plan for an army of androids without rights would amount to slavery.
Confident again, Picard successfully argues that all beings are created but not owned by their creator. Later he and Louvois agree to a dinner date, while Data assuages Riker’s guilt for taking part in the prosecution’s case.
____________________
Writer Melinda Snodgrass drew on her own experience as an attorney to craft this timeless tale of personal rights. This episode, which marked her TV debut, was nominated for a Writers Guild award. Now an established SF novelist, Snodgrass hit the New York Times best-seller list with her first book, Tears of the Singers, also set in the Trek universe. She has coedited the Wild Cards SF book series with friend and fellow SF-fantasy author George R.R. Martin, a producer on TV’s Beauty and the Beast.
Guest star Brian Brophy, who may be best known to genre fans as Traker from Max Headroom, earlier played a doctor on the “good” side of the research ethics question in the film Paranoia. His Maddox character, who is actually more impulsive than villainous, has since popped up occasionally. In “Data’s Day” he is corresponding with the forgiving android all the way from the Daystrom Technological Institute ­ an homage to computer genius Richard Daystrom from the 1960’s episode “The Ultimate Computer.”
Amanda McBroom, a longtime Trek and SF fan, had a recurring role on Hawaii Five-O and won the 1980 Golden Globe for co-writing “The Rose,” the hit Bette Midler song from the movie of the same name. A Broadway actress, she had guested on MASH, Hart to Hart, Remington Steele, Magnum P.I., and Taxi.
During the trial, Data is forced to reveal his on-off switch to Picard and Riker (“Datalore”) as well as his intimate encounter with the late Tasha Yar in “The Naked Now”; he keeps a small copy of the hologram she recorded for her memorial service. Here we learn that Data’s Starfleet awards include decorations for valor and for gallantry; the Medal of Honor, with clusters; the Legion of Honor; the Starcross; and three others seen in a case. His computer file, as viewed by Riker, refers to the android as NFN NMI Data; the initials stand for No First Name, No Middle Initial. And, for computer buffs, Data’s storage capacity is said to be 800 quadrillion bits, with a rating of 16 trillion operations per second!
The regular poker game among Picard’s officers is seen here for the first time, as is the redesigned flag officer’s uniform. An attempt is also made ­ here with a novel and later, in “Up the Long Ladder”, with love poetry ­ to reestablish an ethnic-pride joke for Worf and the Klingons, a successor to the original Trek’s Russian joke for Chekov and the short-lived French joke for Picard.
Picard and Betazoid officials have their doubts about allowing Ferengi to take part in a biannual Betazed trade conference, but it seems to come to a smooth conclusion for all except Lwaxana Troi, Deanna’s mother, who is followed by a pesky lovestruck DaiMon Tog.
Riker and Troi stay behind for a rare romantic shore leave on the planet while their ship finishes a routine assignment. But just as Lwaxana interrupts once again to nag her daughter about settling down, Tog appears and kidnaps all three, determined to use Lwaxana’s telepathic skills for his own profit ­ and to make her his mate.
Riker and Troi outfox their guards and try to secretly signal their ship while Lwaxana keeps both Tog and her conscience at bay. Meanwhile, Wesley is due to leave to take his Starfleet Academy orals but stays behind at the last minute to help decode Riker’s signal, which later earns him a field promotion to ensign.
Tog’s doctor suspects their escape attempt almost too late, but Lwaxana, already in pain from his mind probes, asks him to let Riker and Deanna go free while she stays behind.
Then, with the young officers safely back aboard the Enterprise, Lwaxana signals the captain, her old would-be flame. Picard plays along by pretending to be her jilted lover. His performance is good enough to scare Tog into giving her up without an incident.
____________________
Rob Legato crossed over from his position as supervisor of visual effects to direct this episode, which included the first-ever look at the Betazed surface. Actually the Betazed scenes were filmed on location at the Huntington Library Botanical Gardens in San Marino, an L.A. suburb. Legato recalls that the show was thick with visitors, including Gene Roddenberry, since it was the first sale for his assistant, Susan Sackett, and also the yearly vehicle for GR’s wife, Majel Barrett. To mark Wesley’s promotion to full ensign at show’s end, the Great Bird presented actor Wil Wheaton with his own ensign’s bars, earned in the U.S. Navy thirty years earlier. General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was on hand for the ceremony.
Sackett recalled that the comic idea began with an O. Henry short story, “The Ransom of Red Chief” ­ the tale of a hostage nobody wanted. Still, aside from the moment when Riker and Troi are about to share their first on-screen kiss, the most memorable scene may be the one in which Picard mangles his beloved Shakespeare volume to get Lwaxana back.
After almost being abandoned as a Federation threat earlier, here the Ferengi are developed even further. We learn about their four-node brains which resist being sensed by empathic races like the Betazoids, and their erogenous ears that are sensitive to stroking, or oo-mox. Frank Corsentino became the third actor to play two different Ferengi roles (“The Battle”), after Armin Shimerman and Michael Grodenchik; and another Dirty Pair anime reference creeps in when Tog begins his access code: “Kei-ee, Yur-ee. . . .” Also, the Ferengi sidearm seen here is different from the ones used by Sovak in “Captain’s Holiday”, suggesting that the Ferengi’s may be bought off the shelf.
The USS Bradbury, of course, is named for the great science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, while “Cochrane distortion” pays homage to the discoverer of the space warp, Zefrem Cochran, mentioned in 1967’s “Metamorphosis.”
Meanwhile, Michael Westmore dug into his bag of tricks to devise the makeup for the trade conference delegates. Seen at various times in addition to the Ferengi and Betazoids are a Klingon female and uniformed male, a Vulcan woman, a Selayan, a Zakdorn male, two Bolian females, and a Mizarian male, along with the Algolian musician. And yes, body doubles were used for Barrett and Sirtis in the nude scenes.
A subtle clue is given to the background of the Troi family: Deanna’s father, Ian Andrew, Sr., may not have been Lwaxana’s first husband: Rheitan Grax says he and her first husband were great friends, but he’s only known Deanna “since she was a child,” not from birth. And Lwaxana’s second husband ­ or next lover ­ was named Zon.
En route to a vacation and seminar on Risa, La Forge is kidnapped by Romulans as part of a complex plot to split the Federation-Klingon alliance.
While he is gone, Klingon Ambassador Kell comes aboard the Enterprise to investigate a Klingon governor’s charge that Starfleet is aiding rebels fighting for independence on his colony. La Forge, who returns with false memory implants of his Risa trip, and Data work to show that phaser rifles seized by Governor Vagh are really Romulan replications. Their work does little to change Vagh’s mind, though, especially when a shipment of arms is detected being beamed from the ship.
The cargo was beamed over by La Forge, who is being mind-controlled by the Romulans. The engineer’s next task: assassinate Vagh and split the Federation-Klingon alliance.
Kell, ostensibly the cool-headed mediator, turns out to be the Romulan sympathizer manipulating La Forge. Data, meanwhile, has been tracking strange E-band emissions and finally discovers what is going on, and warns Picard, who knocks La Forge’s phaser fire astray just in time. Vagh is furious, but even more so when Data explains the story.
Kell’s quick asylum request is refused by Picard and he uneasily departs in Governor Vagh’s custody, while Troi sits down to the painful task of helping La Forge regain his memory.
____________________
Line producer David Livingston had come from ABC way back in February 1987 to be production manager for the “Farpoint” pilot. He got a powerful story for his first shot at directing: a retelling of The Manchurian Candidate that foreshadowed the mounting Klingon civil war that would reach its climax at season’s end. It features a chilling depiction of Geordi’s reprogramming aboard a warbird and the first use of his VISOR as the camera’s point of view since season one’s “Heart of Glory”.
Livingston, an unabashed fan of The Manchurian Candidate, tried unsuccessfully to get someone from the movie to appear in this episode as an extra. There’s even an homage camera shot in which the possessed O’Brien is shot in Ten-Forward.
Geordi’s preference for guitar music on his lonely ride is an echo from his dinner date with Leah Brahms in “Galaxy’s Child”. His Shuttlepod 7 is the Onizuka from “The Ensigns of Command”, formerly Shuttle 5, which was seen earlier as the El-Baz in “Time Squared”.
For some time Rick Sternbach had played with various designs for a phaser rifle, and when it was at last needed for this show Livingston made the final choice. And the first TNG look at the Klingon and Romulan transporter beams occurs here. The Klingon beam is a quick solid red wipe from top to bottom with a few residual gold sparkles; the Romulans use a green beam that dissolves rapidly with little shimmer.
The reality of the new Klingon Empire is artfully brought home when Vagh longs for the old days when an insurrection could be violently put down. Curiously, Krios may be a Klingon colony fighting for independence, but somehow it is also involved in a centuries-old civil war with Valt Minor, as seen in “The Perfect Mate”.
