Stardate: 44085.7 Code:br
Directed by Rob Bowman
Written by Rick Berman
GUEST CAST
Jake Potts: Cory Danziger
Lieutenant O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Willie (Potts): Adam Ryen
Ensign Kopf: James Lashly
Lore/Dr. Noonien Soong: Brent Spiner
* * *
A boy’s practical joke backfires, leaving his younger brother dangerously ill. But as the ship rushes toward a nearby starbase with the medical facilities the boy needs to survive, Data inexplicably malfunctions. The android isolates himself on the bridge and changes course. It turns out that Data has been automatically and unknowingly “called home” to the lab world of his reclusive creator, Dr. Noonien Soong.
Soong has at last perfected an “emotions” chip for Data, but the android and his creator are both surprised when Lore, Data’s “older brother,” who was left to drift in space some years earlier, responds to the same signal.
Data at last meets his creator, Dr. Soong (Brent Spiner).
Lore disables Data and tricks Soong into installing the chip in him, then goes on a rampage, fatally injuring the doctor. Help arrives, but Soong insists on being left behind after Lore escapes.
The young boy is rushed to the starbase to receive medical care, leaving Data to ponder the emotions he could have had, his late “father,” and the strange bond between him and his “brother.”
Making his debut as a TNG writer, Rick Berman, in the relatively calm hiatus after the third season, finally had the chance he’d always wanted. Initially, he had rejected the idea of bringing back Lore (“Datalore”/114) for this story of Data finally meeting his creator, but then, at Piller’s suggestion, he changed his mind, providing Spiner with the rare opportunity to play three roles. For a time, however, veteran actor Keye Luke—an original-Trek guest in “Whom Gods Destroy”—was considered for the role of Soong, Berman revealed.
Rob Bowman, who had directed Lore’s first story and was once TNG’s most active director, returned to the show after a year away working for series like Alien Nation, Baywatch, and In the Heat of the Night. Piller recalled that Bowman, Legato, and Spiner worked on the elaborate Stage 16 lab set for three days before shooting began, taping off the floor and blocking out the action for camera moves, as if they were preparing a stage play or a multi-camera TV show. This is rarely done on TNG, but it was needed here to avoid costly downtime with a whole crew standing by.
During the filming in Soong’s lab, Legato recalled, Spiner would shoot one day as Lore-Data and the next as the elderly scientist. Some shots, as when Soong grasped his creation’s cheeks, were done inexpensively “in the camera” without post-production compositing by placing the Soong’s bent elbow below the frame line. On “Soong” day, after four hours of makeup, Spiner was shot with his arm going down; on his “Data” day, the film was reshot with a photo double’s hand coming up to grasp his face.
“It was difficult,” Spiner recalls, “because I had to hear dialogue that I hadn’t read yet coming out of somebody else’s mouth before I would get to it. [I had] to remember where I was when I was Data, and so on.”1 To help him, the set was closed during the two and a half days when Spiner soloed.
True to Lore’s story of having been picked up by Pakleds, he wears one of their outfits (143). Among other continuity threads picked up here: Data whistles the same halting version of “Pop Goes the Weasel” he tried in the pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint” (101-102), and “Often Wrong” Soong mentions the Crystalline Entity (“Datalore”/114, “Silicon Avatar”/204), whom he refers to as the “giant snowflake.” At his creator’s death Data finally calls the old man Father.
FAMILY
* * *
Production No.: 178 Aired: Week of October 1, 1990
Stardate: 44012.3 Code: fa
Directed by Les Landau
Written by Ronald D. Moore
Based in part on a premise by Susanne Lambdin and Bryan Stewart
GUEST CAST
Robert Picard: Jeremy Kemp
Marie Picard. Samantha Eggar
Sergey Rozhenko: Theodore Bikel
Helena Rozhenko: Georgia Brown
Louis: Dennis Creaghan
Lieutenant O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg
Jack R. Crusher: Doug Wert
René Picard: David Tristin Birkin
* * *
With the Enterprise in dry dock for repairs after the Borg attack, Picard, full of doubts about himself and his abilities, beams down to Earth to visit his family’s French vineyards. He has not been home in nearly twenty years, since a falling-out with his brother.
Meanwhile, Worf’s visiting foster parents are saddened at his coldness, but they are comforted by Guinan’s reassurances. They let their gruff but grateful son know they support him, as they always have, and they know he did not deserve his recent discommendation by the Klingons.
Dr. Crusher shares the literal ghost of her late husband, Jack, with the son he barely knew, by letting Wes view a stored holotape Jack made just after Wesley’s birth.
Picard is made welcome by Robert’s family and meets his nephew, a youngster whose dream of being in Starfleet echoes Picard’s own wishes at that age. To his surprise, the captain finds himself tempted to leave Starfleet to head up a planned continent-raising project on Earth, but his brother, after a fight, reminds Picard that wherever he stays, he must come to terms with the self-doubt and guilt caused by the Borg incident.
Picard and his family—nephew Rene (David Tristin Birkin); sister-in-law Marie (Samantha Eggar); and brother Robert (Jeremy Kemp).
Sergey (Theodore Bikel) and Helena Rozhenko (Georgia Brown) visit foster son Worf.
The captain beams back aboard Enterprise, which then leaves orbit, having been far more healed than the ship itself.
A daring departure for the series, “Family” is the only installment in Trek’s twenty-five-year history with no scenes on the bridge. Airing right after the season-opening cliffhanger resolution as an epilogue to the Borg two-parter, Ronald D. Moore’s introspective character story was controversial even among the writing staff. Unfortunately it was the lowest-rated show of the season, even though it gave a deeper insight into more of the show’s characters than virtually any other segment.
Michael Piller suggested a third segment in a proposed Borg trilogy. When that was rejected, Piller lobbied for a follow-up that would at least let Picard heal his emotional wounds on-camera after his virtual rape by the Borg. At first Berman agreed to it but insisted that a science subplot be used to round out the show. After weeks of trying various story lines that just didn’t work—including a child stowaway, and a paranoid’s nightmare of disappearing crew members, a story line that was used on its own in “Remember Me” (179)—Berman relented and allowed the other family-theme subplots to fill out the hour.
The lush Emmy-nominated photography in this episode was enhanced by a distinguished guest cast and two days of location shooting. The Picard family home in Labarre, France—where the hard-driven young Jean-Luc was class valedictorian, school president, and a star athlete—was actually a private residence in Encino. The vineyard scenes were shot at a private dryland operation near Lancaster in the extreme heat southwest of Edwards Air Force Base. Dan Curry digitally manipulated a matte painting background to match the windblown vineyards in the live foreground shots.
And what a cast, all with years of stage and film experience! Samantha Eggar and Jeremy Kemp would pack enough star power into any episode. Theodore Bikel, an internationally known folksinger as well as an actor, and Georgia Brown are two of the biggest stars of Yiddish theater. Their presence initially caused some studio concern that Worf’s parents might become comically “Jewish,” but as Piller says the finished product “treads the line” of universal humor—and it led to a return visit by Brown in “New Ground” (210). Still, no mention is made of the Rozhenkos’ own son, de
scribed by Worf in “Heart of Glory” (120), or of their years on the farming planet Gault.
Some sequences with Wesley’s father, taken from Susanne Lambdin’s premise after dozens of Jack Crusher spec scripts had been received through the years, were cut to save time. Piller remembers that the holotaped speech really hit home for him, arriving soon as it did after the birth of his own daughter.
In an unused sequence from the final-draft script Jack says he’s about to report to the Stargazer and that Wesley “R.” Crusher—a name later seen in Beverly’s personnel file in “Conun-drum” (214)—was named for Jack’s grandfather, Richard Wesley Crusher, who gave Jack his first flying lesson. We also learn that a great-grandfather had a painting on exhibit in the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. Other Trek continuity touches in the scene included mentions of a Crusher who was a horse thief on Nimbus III (the planet in Star Trek V), another who served as a Confederate soldier at Bull Run, and a third who died at Station Salem One, referred to in “The Defector” (158) as the site of an enemy surprise attack à la Pearl Harbor during an unmentioned war.
Jack Crusher wears the old-style uniform of a lieutenant (j.g.) in the holotape, but his locker with his last effects is labeled with the rank of lieutenant commander and the middle initial R. Beverly recalls that he proposed to her when she was in medical school. As a dream image, Doug Wert would appear as Jack Crusher again in “Violations” (212).
After two seasons the full name of Colm Meaney’s character is finally revealed: Miles Edward O’Brien, the name of a little boy Rick Berman knew. Curiously, Wort’s foster father, a Starfleet veteran, mistakes O’Brien for a noncommissioned crew member, even though he clearly wears the two solid pins of a lieutenant, just as Sergey’s own son does. The “chief” in O’Brien’s title refers not to a rank, like chief petty officer, but to his duty position as transporter chief.
Trivia notes: the captain’s ditty bag is stenciled simply with his name and title, Jean-Luc Picard, Captain; the bottle of family wine given to him by Robert is later seen stored and then shared in upcoming shows (“Legacy”/180, “First Contact”/189); the Intrepid, Sergey’s old ship, had already been mentioned as the one that found Worf at Khitomer some twenty years earlier (“Sins of the Father”/165); Riker once enjoyed Worf’s favorite food, rokeg blood pie (“A Matter of Honor”/134); Guinan’s “prune juice” remark refers back to her gift to Worf (“Yesterday’s Enterprise”/163); and Picard tells his friend Louis of the starship’s efforts to stabilize the tectonics of Drema IV (“Pen Pals”/141).
REMEMBER ME
* * *
Production No.: 179 Aired: Week of October 22, 1990
Stardate: 44161.2 Code:rm
Directed by Cliff Bole
Written by Lee Sheldon
GUEST CAST
The Traveler: Eric Menyuk
Commander Dalen Quaice, M.D.: Bill Erwin
Lieutenant O’Brien: Colm Meaney
* * *
After welcoming her mentor, Dr. Quaice, an elderly man sadly reflecting on the loss of his wife and friends, Dr. Crusher visits her son in the engineering department. Wesley is working on a warp-field experiment. As Beverly watches, the project aborts in a brief flash of light. The moment is forgotten until, one by one, Quaice, her staff, and even the senior bridge officers begin to disappear. Those who remain, even Data, know nothing about the vanished.
But it is actually Dr. Crusher who has disappeared—into an alternate universe. Aboard the “real” Enterprise, the Traveler reappears to let Wesley know that the experiment is to blame. He, La Forge, and Data try to retrieve Dr. Crusher, but their efforts appear to her as a vortex that she resists being sucked into.
After even Picard vanishes and the universe begins eroding away, Dr. Crusher figures out what has happened. This “world” is ruled by the thought in her mind at the time of the failed experiment: the loss of friends and loved ones.
Realizing the way back to the real world is the site of the flash, she dashes back and falls into Wesley’s arms just as her “new world” collapses.
Marked by the return of Eric Menyuk as the Traveler, this budget-minded bottle show actually served as a delightful showcase for the talents of Gates McFadden as Dr. Crusher soloed in her own decaying universe during about 40 percent of the script. The actress absolutely shines as she deals with increasing double-talk from Data and Picard, her own fear of insanity, and the prospect of being left with the humorless computer as her only companion.
We also learn more about Beverly’s background, including the fact that she interned with Dr. Quaice only fifteen years ago—in other words, after Wesley was born. She repeats her recurring opening line to Picard when they are both alone on the bridge (“Arsenal of Freedom”/121, “The High Ground”/160).
McFadden performed all her own stunts for the swirling-vortex effects sequences, including the most outlandish maneuver—when she appears to be sucked out horizontally by the vortex while clutching the back of a chair. Rob Legato had a chair mounted on the wall, and McFadden hung down out of the chair. Legato used compressed-air machines and other devices to animate the scene; the footage was then matted in at a 90-degree angle. Only days after that strenuous shoot, McFadden learned she was pregnant—see “The Host” (197).
This story, Lee Sheldon’s only contribution to the series during his short tenure as producer, began as a subplot for “Family” (178) in which crew members begin to disappear because of a wormhole. But, according to Piller, the staff felt there was not enough room for both story lines in that script, and the “Remember Me” material was cut loose to be developed on its own.
The “Cochrane,” by the way, is used here as a unit of measure of subspace field stress. The term was coined by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda as yet another homage to Zefren Cochran, the discoverer of space-warp physics—see “Ménage à Troi” (172). Mention is made here of Kosinski, the Traveler’s original companion (“Where No One Has Gone Before”/106) and Dr. Selar (“The Schizoid Man”/131); we also learn that the Enterprise was carrying 1,014 people, including Dr. Quaice, when it docked at the starbase.
The Traveller (Eric Menyuk) returns to help Wesley retrieve his mother.
LEGACY
* * *
Production No.: 180 Aired: Week of October 29, 1990
Stardate: 44215.2 Code: le
Directed by Robert Scheerer
Written by Joe Menosky
GUEST CAST
Ishara Yar: Beth Toussaint
Hayne: Don Mirault
Lieutenant O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Tan Tsu: Vladimir Velasco
Coalition lieutenant: Christopher Michael
* * *
Déjà vu sets in when the Enterprise attempts to rescue two Federation engineers lost on the late Tasha Yar’s planet, Turkana IV. There they are surprised to discover her sister, Ishara, involved with one of two warring factions.
One faction, the Alliance, has taken the ship’s engineers hostage: their rival, the Coalition, offers to help retrieve the engineers and volunteers the services of Ishara as a guide.
Ishara beams aboard the Enterprise, where Picard tries to reverse Ishara’s view of her sister as a runaway and a quitter, and Data finds his memories of Tasha rekindled by Ishara, who shows some interest in joining Starfleet.
What Riker and Picard don’t know is that the plan Ishara helps them devise is also meant to defeat the proximity detectors both Turkana factions agreed to years ago, so Ishara can disable the Alliance’s power plants and cripple their defense.
Ishara leads the rescue effort but is stopped by Data at the reactor, where he dares her to shoot him. She is about to do so when Riker stuns her, then tells Data he’s just learned about betrayal.
An allegory on gang warfare with added complications provided by Tasha’s previously unknown sister, Joe Menosky’s first script for the series will forever live in the annals of TNG trivia as the eightieth episode—the one that broke the record of the seventy-nin
e-episode run of the original series. To help mark the milestone, the cast and staff wrapped the filming with a party, reported by Entertainment Tonight, and a cake adorned by the art staff’s special congratulatory logo.
Tasha Yar was given even more background history in this outing. We learn that her parents were killed in cadre crossfire just after Ishara was born, about four and a half years after Tasha. Also, Picard says he asked Tasha’s former captain to transfer her to his command when the new Enterprise was about to be launched.
The starship Potemkin, the last to have contact with Turkana IV, was a former assignment of Lieutenant Riker’s mentioned in “Peak Performance” (147), and a namesake of a Kirk-era starship seen in “The Ultimate Computer.”
As his predecessor had done in season one, production designer Richard James made the precious budget for sets go farther by ingeniously re-dressing the Borg ship interiors, left standing on Stage 16’s Planet Hell, for use as the Turkana underground tunnel complex. He would also make good use of them in several episodes to come, as would happen with the hostages’ escape pod off the Arcos, a Sternbach design that would be re-dressed often (“Family”/183, “A Matter of Time”/209).
Data learns about betrayal from Yar’s troubled younger sister Ishara (Beth Toussaint).
REUNION
* * *
Production No.: 181 Aired: Week of November 5, 1990
Stardate: 44246.3 Code: re
Directed by Jonathan Frakes
Teleplay by Thomas Perry, Jo Perry, Ronald D. Moore, and Brannon Braga
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition Page 24