Counselor Troi is seduced by Devinoni Ral (Matt McCoy).
A re-dressed set for Troi’s office turns up here after its debut in “The Icarus Factor” (140). For trivia fans, its location is given as Deck 8/3472, while her quarters are at Deck 9/0910. This story also introduces Troi’s love of chocolate, heard often (“Deja Q”/161, “The Game”/206, “Violations”/212, “Imaginary Friend”/222, “Man of the People”/229, “Liaisons”/254, “Parallels”/263); she says her passion for Ral exceeds even her early years with Riker (“Second Chances”/250). The European Alliance, mentioned as Ral’s birthplace, is likely a successor to the European Hegemony of two hundred years earlier (“Up the Long Ladder”/144).
Though elusive here, a stable wormhole did become a historic find on spinoff DS9. The Ferengi ship here is first called a “Marauder,” while a Ten-Forward crewwoman’s rebuke of Goss’s advances leads to his subtle gesture harking back to an original Ferengi concept: the male’s large sex organ.
THE VENGEANCE FACTOR
* * *
Production No.: 157 Aired: Week of November 20, 1989
Stardate: 43421.9 Code: vf
Directed by Timothy Bond
Written by Sam Rolfe
GUEST CAST
Yuta: Lisa Wilcox
Brull: Joey Aresco
Marouk: Nancy Parsons
Chorgan: Stephen Lee
Volnoth: Marc Lawrence
Temarek: Elkanah J. Burns
* * *
The Enterprise traces an attack on a Federation science outpost back to Acamar III. There, Picard discovers responsibility for the attack lies with the Gatherers, a thieving band of renegades who split off from Acamarian society a hundred years ago. The captain decides to bring an end to the raids by healing the split between the two groups.
Marouk, Acamar’s leader, agrees to offer amnesty to the renegades; Brull, the first Gatherer chief they encounter, admits a yen for peace himself.
Unknown to all, Yuta, the chef-taster to Marouk, is actually an assassin who’s been cellularly altered to live for centuries. Her only purpose in life is to kill off members of the Lornack clan who massacred her own Tralesta clan.
Mystery surrounds the talks between Brull (Joey Aresco) and Marouk (Nancy Parsons).
Riker is attracted to Yuta but puzzled by her sadness over her inability to love. Thanks to Data and Dr. Crusher’s research, he discovers that she murdered a Lornack among Brull’s pack, and another one fifty-three years ago, among countless others.
Brull leads Picard and Marouk to his chief, Chorgan, and final talks commence, though stormily. Just in time, Riker learns that Chorgan is the last Lornack and dramatically saves him from Yuta by downing her with three phaser shots.
The talks succeed, and the two groups of Acamarians are reconciled, but peace is the last thing Riker feels.
Veteran actress Nancy Parsons welcomed the chance to play a matriarchal monarch after becoming famous to millions of moviegoers as Coach Balbricker in the Porky’s series, while Lisa Wilcox counts among her credits a three-month stint on General Hospital. She also survived encounters with Freddy Krueger in parts 4 and 5 of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Mallon, the nonspeaking blond Gatherer whom Brull puts in charge after he leaves, was played by Sirtis’s boyfriend, Michael Lamper; the two were married in June 1992.
The fusion reactor seen here is the same one used in “Who Watches the Watchers?” (152), but it’s been re-dressed with more stick-on panels and labels. It is established in this episode that Data is indeed stronger than Worf.
THE DEFECTOR
* * *
Production No.: 158 Aired: Week of January 1, 1990
Stardate: 43462.5 Code: df
Directed by Robert Scheerer
Written by Ronald D. Moore
GUEST CAST
Sub-Lieutenant Setal (Admiral Jarok): James Sloyan
Commander Tomalak: Andreas Katsulas
Admiral Haden: John Hancock
John Bates: S. A. Templeman
Michael Williams: Patrick Stewart
* * *
While fleeing his own people across the Neutral Zone in a small scout, a low-level Romulan tactical clerk asks for asylum, bringing with him shocking news: the Romulans plan to retake that buffer area after almost two hundred years.
Can Picard trust the defector? A probe finds some cloaklike spatial disturbances at the Nelvana III site mentioned by Setal, the defector, but this evidence of his good faith is fragile at best—certainly not reason enough to justify crossing the Neutral Zone and risking war.
Then the lowly clerk reveals himself as the Romulan admiral Jarok, and provides Picard with defense and planning data he has seen. His defection, he says, was prompted by the blind aggression of the new Romulan command—and by concern for his daughter’s future if a senseless war breaks out.
But the truth is revealed when the Enterprise risks a Neutral Zone encounter: no invasion is planned; the signs of activity were faked. Three warbirds decloak and demand that the Enterprise surrender. Jarok, already in disfavor for his protests, has been used.
All seems lost until, on a prearranged signal, three Klingon ships appear. With the odds reversed, the warbirds leave, but the Romulan admiral knows what his fate will be. He is found in his cabin, dead by suicide, leaving only a letter that Picard wistfully hopes can be delivered to his home someday—in peace.
Surprisingly enough, what writer Ronald D. Moore calls “the Cuban Missile Crisis at the Neutral Zone” at one point during rewrites became a love story between Crusher and Jarok. That angle was eventually written out except for the scene in which she treats the Romulan in sickbay. A planned Sherlock Holmes teaser with Data was cut just two days before filming began due to a lawsuit, Piller recalled, and he turned to Stewart as company scholar for help in picking out a replacement. They decided on Henry V, with a heavily made-up Stewart in the role of Michael Williams, one of the soldiers.
Adding to the tension and tragic nature of James Sloyan’s performance and the story were the visual effects, which gave us for the first time in any Trek a glimpse—almost a travelogue—of Romulus. Also new for this episode were the Romulan scout vessel and the third and final version of the Starfleet admiral’s uniform.
A puzzling reference into Trek’s own history is the mention of renewed Romulan bitterness over their “humiliating” defeat at the Battle of Cheron, apparently fought during the original Earth-Romulan War a century before Kirk’s time and first mentioned in “Balance of Terror” in 1966. Two seasons later, however, in 1969’s “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” Cheron was an unknown but long-dead world where two advanced native races had destroyed each other over racial bigotry.
More trivia: Jarok is unable to synthesize Romulan ale, referred to as illegal decades earlier in Star Trek II. The Hood, spoken of here, was Riker’s prior assignment, as mentioned in “Farpoint” (101) and an original Kirk-era starship, from 1968’s “The Ultimate Computer.” And in a rare verbal homage to animé, the alleged base site, Nelvana III, takes its name from a famous Canadian animation studio.
The Romulan Admiral Jarok (James Sloyan)—torn between his duty, and his conscience.
THE HUNTED
* * *
Production No.: 159 Aired: Week of January 8, 1990
Stardate: 43489.2 Code: hu
Directed by Cliff Bole
Written by Robin Bernheim
GUEST CAST
Roga Danar: Jeff McCarthy
Nayrok: James Cromwell
Lieutenant O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Zaynar: J. Michael Flynn
Wagnor: Andrew Bicknell
* * *
The Enterprise is relaying reports to back up Angosia III’s application to join the Federation when it stumbles across an ugly skeleton in the planet’s closet: the treatment of its war veterans.
A tenaciously cunning escapee from a lunar prison colony turns out to be Roga Danar, one of the top soldiers for the victorious planet in t
he Tarsian War. Now branded a murderer by the Angosians, he turns out to be a patriot who was turned into a killing machine by his government through biochemical and mind control.
Warned to shy away from this internal affair, Picard learns from Prime Minister Nayrok that the prison was constructed as a colony for those super-soldiers who could not re-adapt to peace-time civilian life.
Picard’s hands are tied, and he is about to hand Danar over to the Angosians when the soldier escapes from a transporter beam, beginning a chase that ends when he commandeers a police vessel.
From there Danar attacks the prison, setting his fellow veterans free to march on Nayrok’s government and demand treatment. Held at gunpoint, the dour Nayrok now asks for help but is shocked when Picard beams up, “agreeing” that the debate is an internal matter.
Rampaging superkiller soldier Roga Danar (Jeff McCarthy) is finally subdued.
If Nayrok’s rule survives, Picard says, Angosia will be a welcome addition to the UFP.
This analogy to ignored Vietnam veterans was to have hit even closer to home with a planned Rambo-style eruption when the soldiers stormed the capital, but time limits and a budget crunch would again play a part in reducing an episode directed by Cliff Bole. The result is a bit anticlimactic but funny, too, as the Prime Directive for once provides both a pretext for a fast getaway and an opportunity for local action.
On the trivia side, the “Jefferies tube” crawlways mentioned here are another homage to sixties Trek. That show’s circuitry access area carried the name of Matt Jefferies, art director and designer of the original Enterprise. An actual set for this century’s version, though, would have to wait another season, until “Galaxy’s Child” (190). In another Trek first, the daring Danar breaks free of a transporter beam—supposedly due to a chemical that interferes with the signal—and powers up a transporter with a phaser’s power pack. Also, the security section cell here takes on its standard look after debuting in a humbler version (“Heart of Glory”/120). James Cromwell later was a Yridian (“Birthright”/242-243).
Data and Beverly tend to the wounded on Rutia IV.
THE HIGH GROUND
* * *
Production No.: 160 Aired: Week of January 29, 1990
Stardate: 43510.7 Code: hi
Directed by Gabrielle Beaumont
Written by Melinda M. Snodgrass
GUEST CAST
Alexana Devos: Kerrie Keane
Kyril Finn: Richard Cox
Waiter (Katik Shaw): Marc Buckland
Policeman: Fred G. Smith
Boy (Ansata): Christopher Pettiet
* * *
While helping victims of a terrorist bomb blast on nonaligned Rutia IV, Dr. Crusher is taken hostage by one of the terrorists, Kyril Finn. Finn is fighting for the independence of his people, the Ansata.
Aiding the abduction and all their other terrorist acts is dimensional-shift beaming, a mostly untraceable technology whose use came with a high cost: it breaks down body chemistry and is fatal if used too often.
Finn plans to keep Crusher for her medical skills and as a bargaining chip to increase Federation pressure on the Rutians to settle the conflict with his people.
Local police chief Alexana Devos, saddened but steeled to her job, is infuriated when Riker wants to bargain for Crusher. Angered by the medical aid brought to the Rutians by the Enterprise, Finn leads a raid to bomb its warp chamber. His plans are foiled by a cool-headed La Forge, but the Ansatan leader manages to get away with Picard as a second hostage.
After Wes develops a scan for the dimensional beaming and locates the Ansata underground base, the hostages are freed—but not until Devos kills Finn just as he’s about to shoot the captain.
Devos is coldly defensive: it’s better for Finn to die than to live as a prisoner. The crew leaves, thankful for their liberated officers but sobered by the unlikely prospects for peace anytime soon on the troubled planet.
Written in response to the producers’ request for another action-adventure script, Snodgrass had to come up with the concept of dimensional shifting to meet Gene Roddenberry’s concern that the terrorists have a logical way to defeat the Enterprise’s vast array of technology.
Originally conceived of as a parallel to the American Revolution, the Ansata rebels’ cause was changed to resemble that of Northern Ireland, according to Snodgrass, although Finn’s reference to himself as a latter-day Washington stayed in. (During the episode, Data reveals that the reunification of Ireland on Earth occurs in 2025.)
Stewart’s campaign to give Picard’s character more action and romance may have begun to bear fruit by this time. The normally stoic captain belts a terrorist on the bridge of the Enterprise, foreshadowing his encounter with the Borg later on. The story also provides this season’s version of the ongoing tease of Beverly’s interrupted confiding to Picard, begun in “Arsenal of Freedom” (121). We also learn that she hails from North America.
DEJA Q
* * *
Production No.: 161 Aired: Week of February 5, 1990
Stardate: 43539.1 Code: dq
Directed by Les Landau
Written by Richard Danus
GUEST CAST
Q: John de Lancie
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg
Dr. Garin: Richard Cansino
Bre’el Scientist: Betty Muramoto
Q2: Corbin Bernsen
* * *
As if Picard didn’t have enough headaches trying to keep Bre’el IV’s moon from crashing into the planet, Q shows up, claiming to be powerless. The alien says he’s been evicted by the Q Continuum for his past mischief.
Data is assigned to keep an eye on Q, whose story no one believes—until a gaseous Calamarain life-form catches up with Q to exact a little revenge. Realizing Q really is defenseless, Data gets a severe electrical shock trying to protect him from the Calamarain.
Another Q? Corbin Bernsen plays the bearer of good news for Q (John de Lancie).
Q is moved by the android’s sacrifice for him and steals a shuttlecraft to lure away the Calamarain so the Enterprise can lower its shields and get on with trying to save Bre’el IV.
But just as Picard tries to talk Q out of sacrificing himself, another Q arrives in the shuttle to say the Continuum was pleased with Q1’s selfless act. The visitor restores his powers—on a probationary basis.
Overjoyed, Q celebrates by providing a mariachi band, cigars, and women for the bridge crew. Furious again, Picard orders him off the Enterprise—but not before Q rewards Data with a onetime belly laugh as a lesson in humanity.
As Picard is wondering whether Q is finally going to learn a lesson himself, the impish being returns with a warning: “Don’t bet on it.”
This story, midyear staff writer Richard Danus’s only solo effort, provided some of the best comic scenes in either Trek series. After five appearances, de Lancie said his hardest TNG scenes yet to film were the bridge scenes, which went on from 7:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M. on Thanksgiving eve. Not only did his simulated trumpet playing require several takes, but after finding no way to fake the scene in which he appears suspended in the nude, he finally just did it au naturel.
The script originally told the story of a looming Klingon-Federation war that was actually caused by Q, who faked his loss of powers and then later rushed in to become a hero. Piller said GR suggested the portrayal of a godlike creature cut down to size. Most scenes are played for laughs, especially that ending, with the mariachi band, blondes, and cigars—although Q’s reunion with Guinan leaves the viewer with chills when Guinan tries to stab Q with a fork.
Best known for his well-regarded performances as divorce attorney Arnie Becker on L.A. Law, Corbin Bernsen has said he took the role of Q2 not so much as a fan of Trek but to be a part of its legacy and its humanistic outlook.
The Berthold rays used by the Calamarain’s scanning beam were referred to in 1967’s “This Side of Paradise.” We also learn in this story that Data requires no food but occasionally �
��eats” semiorganic nutrient suspension in a silicon-based liquid medium to “lubricate his biofunctions.” He too is well aware of Troi’s chocolate habit (see notes, “The Price”/156).
A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE
* * *
Production No.: 162 Aired: Week of February 12, 1990
Stardate: 43610.4 Code: mp
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.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition Page 19