Data proves his Holmesian prowess to Pulaski, while La Forge’s Dr. Watson looks on.
To make up for having lost “The Big Goodbye” the previous season, director Rob Bowman grabbed this period piece when offered a choice of early-season shows. The wondrous Victorian London set was built on Stage 16 in just three days. Workers toiled around the clock with fiberglass and plaster to build the street, two side alleys, the warehouse, a wharfside, and the entrance to Moriarty’s lair, and after two days of filming the over-budget $125,000 set all came down again.
Sadly, the popular Holmes milieu will likely not be used again on TNG for legal reasons. After this segment aired, Paramount received notice that the Arthur Conan Doyle estate still owns a percentage of the rights to the Holmes character, after nearly a century, and would require a usage fee if it was ever used again.
Anne Elizabeth Ramsay’s character, Engineer Clancy, turned up again later as a command-division bridge ensign at the conn in “The Emissary” (146).
THE OUTRAGEOUS OKONA
* * *
Production No.: 130 Aired: Week of December 12, 1988
Stardate: 42402.7 Code: ok
Directed by Robert Becker
Teleplay by Burton Armus
Story by Les Menchen, Lance Dickson, and David Landsberg
GUEST CAST
Captain Thaduin Okona: William O. Campbell
Debin: Douglas Rowe
Kushell: Albert Stratton
Yanar: Rosalind Ingledew
Benzan: Kieran Mulroney
Lieutenant B. G. Robinson: Teri Hatcher
The Comic: Joe Piscopo
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg
* * *
Near the twin Madena planets, the Enterprise picks up young trader Thaduin Okona while helping him repair his small craft. The roguish charmer quickly makes friends, especially among the female crew members.
Intrigued by Okona’s wisecracks, Data lets Guinan talk him into a stint on the holodeck as a comic. He conjures up a twentieth-century comedy club and a stand-up of the day to coach him.
Meanwhile Picard faces a confrontation that’s more of a headache than a crisis: the two hotheaded leaders of Madena’s twin worlds are demanding Okona’s hide. Straleb’s ruler accuses him of stealing their sacred Jewel of Thesia, while Atlec’s raves that Okona made his daughter pregnant.
Picard faces the exasperating prospect of the two tiny vessels actually opening fire on his ship or each other, until an inquisitive Wes Crusher persuades the trader to “fess up.”
Okona baits the Straleb leader’s son into admitting everything: the two fearful children used Okona as go-between for their romance and used the jewel as a nuptial vow.
With the two planets now bound for union, a Data despondent over his bad luck with humor unintentionally spouts a Gracie Allen nugget—and cracks up the bridge.
Destined to soar three years later in Disney’s Rocketeer, William 0. Campbell—no relation to the same-named actor behind the original Trek’s Squire Trelane and Klingon Captain Koloth—had almost been cast as Riker when the regulars were being assembled. Rick Berman, echoing Justman’s recollection, said that the studio executives, who had the final say, considered their runner-up “too soft.” Funny, if a bit predictable, and helped by the misplaced arrogance of the two planet’s leaders, this teleplay by producer Burton Armus features a main plot that actually has to compete for attention with the subplot of Data’s holodeck comedy adventures.
Joe Piscopo, the Saturday Night Live veteran, does a good turn as a buck-toothed Jerry Lewis character. Lewis himself was to have played the part, but a schedule conflict with his guest spot on the show Wiseguy got in the way.
In-jokes include the Charnock Comedy Cabaret sign, which honors crew paint foreman Ed Charnock, Jr., and a holodeck menu of “humorists” taken from the office phone directory for the TNG staff, producers, and aides; the file chosen is actually that of visual-effects associate Ronald B. Moore. And when Data asks for the funniest performer available, those listed besides “Stano Riga”—seen only briefly—include the Great Bird himself as well as Maurice Hurley and Farouk El-Baz, a planetary geologist at Boston University who, during his NASA days, worked with Berman on a documentary and who later had a shuttlepod namesake in “Time Squared” (139).
Of the three vessels seen, Okona’s Erstwhile is a redress of the Talarian Batris (“Heart of Glory”/120); Debin’s Atlec ship is the merchant ship from Star Trek III, with more length; and Kushell’s Straleb ship was new, a design Rick Sternbach said was simply modeled after “a big Easter egg.”
Another of Greg Jein’s contributions turns up here in the background: a tridimensional chess set that’s a tip of the hat to its original-Trek cousin. This set, however, features among its pieces the Jupiter II spacecraft from Lost in Space for bishops. The kings are modeled after the robot from that same old sci-fi series.
Data experiments with humor.
THE SCHIZOID MAN
* * *
Production No.: 131 Aired: Week of January 23, 1989
Stardate: 42437.5 Code: sm
Directed by Les Landau
Teleplay by Tracy Tormé
Story by Richard Manning and Hans Beimler
GUEST CAST
Dr. Ira Graves: W. Morgan Sheppard
Lieutenant Selar: Suzie Plakson
Kareen Brianon: Barbara Alyn Woods
* * *
Kareen (Barbara Alyn Woods) and the crew find Data unconscious.
Dr. Noonien Soong may have been Data’s “father,” but the brilliant Dr. Ira Graves turns out to be Soong’s mentor and Data’s “grandfather.”
Graves is dying of a terminal illness when the Enterprise answers his young female aide’s call for help on their secluded research world.
Once he arrives on the planet, Data becomes close to Graves, leading the genius to reveal his last breakthrough: a device capable of transferring a human personality into a computer.
Graves dies, and his assistant, Kareen Brianon, is evacuated. But Data begins to act irrational, even accusing Picard of lusting after the beautiful Kareen. A diagnostic check of Data reveals nothing, but Troi performs a psych test that shows two competing personalities fighting to control Data: his own and Graves’s.
Meanwhile Kareen is shocked when Graves-Data tells her of the transference, his love for her, and his plans to make her immortal by transferring her consciousness into another android body—which she refuses to consider.
That triggers his violent denial of the wrongness of his plans. After unintentionally crushing her hand, he hides in Engineering, rendering La Forge and an aide unconscious before Picard discovers him.
Graves knocks Picard out for arguing for the release of Data’s body, but when the captain comes to, he finds the cyberneticist has reconsidered—and put himself into the Enterprise computer as simple data.
The tale of Ira Graves and the transfer of his intellect into Data began with Richard Manning and Hans Beimler, who wrote a concept called “Core Dump.” During the rewrite process, this concept was combined with a separate but similar story that Tracy Tormé had pitched. In that tale, “Ménage,” a woman comes aboard who once had a triangular love affair with two men from Omicron Theta, the now-dead colony whose memories are stored within Data (“Datalore”/114). The memories grow so strong when Data is in her presence that the two men’s personalities fight for control of him.
The role of Kareen was the first that onetime Chicagoan Barbara Alyn Woods auditioned for when she arrived in Los Angeles—a departure from the “bimbos and wild girls” that, in her words, she had played in films and guest TV. Sheppard was later a Klingon commander in Star Trek VI.
Suzie Plakson’s Dr. Selar was the first female Vulcan officer ever heard in Trek, but the actress would later go on to infamy on TNG as a member of another alien race in “The Emissary” (146) and in “Reunion” (181). Tormé has since revealed that he wanted to develop a romance between Selar and Worf, but that
suggestion was nixed. Suzie Plakson counted the national tour of Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, opposite Anthony Newley, as a highlight among her improv comedy, regional theater, Broadway, and off-Broadway credits. After guest spots on Murphy Brown and Beauty and the Beast, a recurring voice on Dinosaurs, and the film My Stepmother Is an Alien, she landed a regular role on Love and War. Still, Dr. Selar would remain aboard by mention (“Tapestry”/241, “Suspicions”/248, “Sub Rosa”/266, “Genesis”/271).
A subplot in Tormé’s script involved Data’s lack of ego; trimmed along with several of the scenes featuring Data’s beard was the original tag scene-already a legendary TNG story—in which he is seen trying yet again to emulate an admired and respected crew member. In this scene, to Picard’s chagrin, the android is bald.
LOUD AS A WHISPER
* * *
Production No.: 132 Aired: Week of January 9, 1989
Stardate: 42477.2 Code: lw
Directed by Larry Shaw
Written by Jacqueline Zambrano
GUEST CAST
Riva: Howie Seago
Warrior/Adonis: Leo Damian
Woman: Marnie Mosiman
Scholar: Thomas Oglesby
O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Warrior No. 1 (Blond Solari leader): Richard Lavin
Warrior No. 2 (Brunette Solari leader): Chip Heller
Lieutenant (Traitor Solari): John Garrett
* * *
His Chorus dead, Riva (Howie Seago) ponders his next move.
To help settle a civil war, the Enterprise is sent to retrieve the great Ramatisian mediator Riva, whose résumé extends to negotiating early UFP-Klingon treaties.
The crew is surprised to learn, though, that Riva and his ruling family were born deaf and use a three-member telepathic chorus to communicate: the Woman, the Scholar, and Warrior/Adonis. The latter informs Troi that Riva is taken with her.
But an incident on strife-torn Solais V wrecks the peace mission and Riva’s self-confidence as well when a terrorist opens fire, killing the chorus.
The loss sends Riva into a fit of grief and helplessness. Data learns to read his frantic signing, but Picard cannot draw Riva out. When the mediator even refuses Troi’s attempts to help, she opts to try the mission herself.
Plying Riva for negotiating hints, she inspires him to use his own main strategy: “turn a disadvantage into an advantage.”
Reinvigorated, Riva beams down alone, determined to start from scratch and teach both Solais factions his sign language, no matter how long it takes.
Howie Seago, who is actually deaf, met with the producers during the writers’ strike to suggest a show built around a deaf actor as a guest star. This episode is the result, and in it Seago helped to change what he felt was a dangerous myth regarding deaf people: the first draft’s premise had his character learning to speak overnight after the failure of a mechanical translator he used to communicate with his chorus. The day before shooting he suggested an alternative scenario, where after the killing of his chorus Riva stays on Solais V to teach the combatants sign language. To his surprise the idea was eagerly accepted; the supportive mail from both deaf and hearing people seemed to bear out the wisdom of that idea.
Marnie Mosiman kept her TNG guest role in the family: she’s the wife of John “Q” de Lancie. Richard Lavin had previously appeared as the second mediator in “Justice” (109).
LeVar Burton campaigned for a time to let Geordi’s sight be restored so that he as an actor could use his expressive eyes, and Pulaski’s line about perhaps doing so surgically seems to be a preparation for that. Despite some alternate universes (“Future Imperfect”/182, “All Good Things…/277-78), it would never happen—and Burton came to suggest he stay blind but replace the VISOR with cloned implants to keep Geordi as a role model for all handicapped people, much as Uhura of sixties Trek became an inspiration for Whoopi Goldberg, other blacks, and indeed all women.
Look quick: Riva’s “indigenous rock” table includes markings alluding to Kei and Yuri (more animé!), and one of Riva’s hand signs to Data is the Vulcan spread-fingered greeting turned sideways! The mediator’s youthful appearance is somewhat baffling, however. Like Sarek later (171), Riva is credited with many of the early UFP-Klingon treaties.
UNNATURAL SELECTION
* * *
Production No.: 133 Aired: Week of January 30, 1989
Stardate: 42494.8 Code: us
Directed by Paul Lynch
Written by John Mason and Mike Gray
GUEST CAST
Dr. Sara Kingsley: Patricia Smith
Transporter Chief: Colm Meaney
Captain Taggert: J. Patrick McNamara
Transporter Ensign: Scott Trost
* * *
Answering a distress call from the USS Lantree, the Enterprise finds by visual scans that the supply ship’s entire crew has died of old age.
Mysterious “hyperaging” has also hit the ship’s last stopover, the Darwin genetics lab, where the stricken staff begs to have its genetically bred “superchildren” rescued, after assuring the Enterprise crew the children do not carry the disease.
A skeptical Picard wants the children checked anyway; to avoid crew contamination Data pilots a shuttle so that Dr. Pulaski can examine one child in isolation.
But the youth and his “siblings” turn out to be infected, and the crew is shocked when Pulaski herself is quarantined at Darwin to help with the cure research.
Picard is not willing to accept the loss of his chief medical officer. He pushes his people to modify the transporter biofilter to screen out the virus. A hair sample finally provides the necessary pre-infection DNA, and the doctor and the lab staff are eventually cured.
Sadly, the fate of the Darwin youth cannot be so easily reversed, and because of the health threat, the “superchildren” must be isolated forever.
Dr. Pulaski shows the effects of the Darwin viral hyperaging.
In one last gesture, the Enterprise returns to the Lantree and solemnly atomizes the plague ship with full Starfleet ceremony.
An echo of an original-series episode, “The Deadly Years,” this story almost let the proverbial “cat out of the bag” by using the transporter to reconstruct a “Younger” Dr. Pulaski. To avoid a stream of endless complications (unlimited duplication of the characters, for one), specific limitations were later laid down on the use of this technology. The script is the only dual effort by John Mason and Mike Gray during their half-season stint as coproducers.
TNG’s first named shuttlecraft is called the Sakharov, in honor of the late Soviet physicist and human rights advocate Andrei Sakharov, and a little more interior space has been added.
The Darwin “superchildren” were originally to have appeared nude and the extras were asked to shave from the neck down. But the use of transparent furniture quickly nixed that idea, and costumes were hastily made as the extras endured stubble itch. The youth who was brought aboard the Sakharov was played by actor George Baxter and had a name, David, but in a budget crunch all his lines were cut to save money.
A MATTER OF HONOR
* * *
Production No.: 134 Aired: Week of February 6, 1989
Stardate: 42506.5 Code: mt
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 th
e 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, Kargon, to brand Riker a traitor and order an attack on the Enterprise.
Riker uses an emergency transponder given to him by Worf to beam Kargon 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.
Riker confronts his Klingon “captain,” Kargan (Christopher Collins).
A shrewd student of culture, Riker takes an uppercut from the returned Kargon 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 Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition Page 13