The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition
Page 25
Story by Drew Deighan, Thomas Perry, and Jo Perry
GUEST CAST
K’Ehleyr: Suzie Plakson
Gowron: Robert O’Reilly
Duras: Patrick Massett
K’mpec: Charles Cooper
Alexander: Jon Steuer
Security Guard: Michael Rider
Transporter Chief Hubbell: April Grace
Klingon Guard #1 (Duras aide): Basil Wallace
Klingon (Vorn) Guard #2: Mirron E. Willis
* * *
Ambassador K’Ehleyr, Worf’s half-human former love, beams aboard the Enterprise with two pieces of shocking news: Klingon leader K’mpec has been poisoned, and the young boy with her is her son—and Worf’s.
K’mpec wants Picard to help him perform the ritual selecting a new leader. After revealing his suspicion that one of the contenders poisoned him, he tells Picard that no one on the Klingon Council can be trusted. One contender for the throne is Duras, who hid his own father’s guilt by accusing Worf’s father of being the Romulan collaborator in the Khitomer massacre.
Picard stalls for time as Duras and his rival, Gowron, beam aboard the Enterprise for the succession ceremony. Worf opts not to acknowledge his son so as to save him from the family’s dishonor. K’Ehleyr’s efforts to research the truth lead to her murder by Duras; he in turn is killed by a vengeful Worf.
Gowron is named leader of the Klingon Empire as a somber Worf sends Alexander off to be raised by his own foster parents on Earth.
The ill-fated K’Ehleyr (Suzie Plakson) presses Worf about their son.
In directing this chapter in Trek’s ongoing Klingon saga, Jonathan Frakes again drew a no-lose episode for his second directorial outing, with actors like Patrick Massett, Suzie Plakson, and Charles Cooper at his disposal. Despite the multiple writing credits, the story shines. It also takes a lot of chances, including the deaths of both K’Ehleyr and Duras. Michael Piller and Ronald D. Moore defended the decision to kill off Worf’s popular mate, who in an earlier draft had a relationship with Duras. We “wanted to get to a place where Worf was going to take Duras apart, and there’s no good reason for him to do it unless she dies,” Piller said.
And what a time for Worf! In one fell swoop he learns he has a son, his mate is killed, and he in turn kills her murderer and his family’s accuser; he then sends his newfound son off to live with his own foster parents.
This episode is not exactly a vacation for Picard, either. It’s a tribute to both actors and to the writers that what would always have been thought inconceivable is completely believable here: a human from the Federation choosing the next leader of the Klingon Empire!
For summer intern Brannon Braga, sitting down with Ron Moore to hash out the teleplay as his first TNG writing credit was an “illuminating, exhilarating” experience. Braga, who arrived with a strong production background from Kent State and the University of California at Santa Cruz, had produced music videos but got his first writing job as a member of the TNG staff for season five.
Dan Curry, nominally the visual-effects supervisor on alternating shows, drew on his martial arts background to design Worf’s bat’telh weapon and helped Michael Dorn develop the unique movements used in wielding it.
Like his Klingon counterparts Plakson, Massett, and Cooper, Robert O’Reilly was also a TNG veteran, although he was first seen not as a Klingon but as Scarface, one of the hoodlums in “Manhunt” (145). Michael Rider, who plays an unnamed security guard in this show, was seen as a transporter chief in the several early pre-O’Brien shows (103-105).
During K’Ehleyr’s briefing, we learn that the territories of the Ferengi and the Tholians border those of the Klingons and the Federation. And the sonchi pain sticks are ceremonial versions of those used for Worf’s Rite of Ascension as seen in “The Icarus Factor” (140). However, K’mpec—who is revealed to have led the Klingon Empire longer than anyone else in history—says his people and the Romulans have been “blood enemies” for seventy-five years, even through Worf once said that the two were still allies at the time of the infamous Khitomer massacre.
To this point budget constraints had forced the staff to use the two Klingon vessels from the films, but TNG finally got its own Klingon ship, the Vor’cha-class attack cruiser that debuted here. Roughly three-quarters the length of a Galaxy-class starship, the three-foot model—designed by Rick Sternbach and built by Greg Jein—reflects the post-alliance era with warp nacelles that have a Starfleet look. Even its color is new, midway between the old Klingon dark green and the bluish white of Starfleet. Within a year the model was released as an AMT kit.
FUTURE IMPERFECT
* * *
Production No.: 182 Aired: Week of November 12, 1990
Stardate: 44286.5 Code: fi
Directed by Les Landau
Written by J. Larry Carroll and David Bennett Carren
GUEST CAST
“Ambassador” Tomalak: Andreas Katsulas
Jean-Luc/Ethan: Chris Demetral
Minuet: Carolyn McCormick
Nurse Ogawa: Patti Yasutake
Ensign Gleason: Todd Merrill
Transporter Chief Hubbell: April Grace
Transporter Chief: George O’Hanlon, Jr.
Barash: Dana Tjowander
* * *
After having passed out during a mission to Apha Onias III, Riker awakens to an unbelievable scene: sixteen years have passed; he’s now captain of the Enterprise and a widower with a teenage son!
Dr. Crusher explains that during his mission to Alpha Onias III he contracted a virus that only recently became active; the virus wiped out his memory of the years since then. Riker also discovers that a peace treaty with the Romulans is about to be signed and that his onetime nemesis Tomalak, now an ambassador, is on board the Enterprise, as is “Admiral” Picard.
“Admiral” Picard and his aide Troi (above) come aboard the Enterprise to sign a peace treaty with “Captain” Riker and the Romulan “Ambassador” Tomalak (Andreas Katsulas) (below).
But Riker senses something is wrong when the ship’s computer takes an unusually long time to respond to his queries about his missing years. He then discovers that his late wife was Minuet, an ideal woman created for him by the Bynars.
When he confronts Tomalak with this knowledge, the scene dissolves into a Romulan holodeck, with only Tomalak remaining. Riker is then thrown into a dungeon with his “son,” who turns out to be a boy who was captured by the Romulans.
The boy then helps him escape, but makes another reference to “Ambassador” Tomalak. Finally, the boy reveals the truth: he is an alien named Barash who captured Riker and devised the elaborate memory-loss scenario to have company during his exile. Riker then invites the youngster to return with him to the Enterprise.
Albeit in illusory form, “Future Imperfect” continued the family theme that marked the season’s first nine shows. The episode also gave Frakes a chance to show he could invest Riker’s character scenes with the same level of intensity Stewart had brought to Picard’s in “Family” (178). The script gained perhaps its most poignant scene at the last minute, when for once the pace of filming was going too fast. Writers Larry Carroll and David Bennett Carren had to meet after hours with Rick Berman and Michael Piller to thrash out a new scene the night before it was to be shot. What evolved was the turbo-lift scene between Riker and his “son” in which Number One admits his fear of repeating his own father’s mistakes as a parent—a satisfying echo of “The Icarus Factor” (140).
Their efforts won Carroll and Carren a spot on the writing staff that would last all season. Carren had written previously for Starsky and Hutch, the 1980s Twilight Zone, and the 1970s Buck Rogers. Carroll had been a film editor on the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and had written low-budget films for independents and for Empire, including Ghost Warrior, which he also directed.
Back again, though only briefly, is Carolyn McCormick as Riker’s onetime holodeck soul mate, Minuet (“11001001”/116). Another
nice long-term continuity touch is Andreas Katsulas’s third appearance as a Romulan villain (“The Enemy”/155, “The Defector”/158). Patti Yasutake began her continuing role as a nurse here. She would go on to acquire not only a name but even a personality by season five. And, though she was seen once before, and will appear in many shows to come, it is only in this episode that April Grace’s character, a transporter chief, is given a last name: Hubbell.
The transporter chief of Barash’s illusion is played by an actor whose background includes both space and fantasy, sort of: George O’Hanlon, Jr., is the son of talented voice actor George O’Hanlon, perhaps best known as Hanna-Barbera cartoon star George Jetson. Todd Merrill’s character, Gleason, returns but seems to have been demoted since the Borg battle; here he is a services-division ensign rather than a command-division lieutenant (j.g.), as he was in the season opener, “The Best of Both Worlds,” Part 2 (175). And under the Barash alien costume is an uncredited extra, Dana Tjowander.
Barash managed to conjure up a whole new look for the Federation in his future fantasy, including new Starfleet communicators (which were quickly put on sale by Trek merchandisers), a female Klingon ensign, and a Ferengi at the conn; a scar for Worf, a cranberry uniform for First Officer Data, a replacement for Geordi’s VISOR, and a gray-streaked, married Troi as “Admiral” Picard’s aide.
Some things weren’t changed, though: Riker still had his trombone handy, kids still got hurt playing Parrises Squares, and Number One clearly managed to pass on his love of fishing to his son.
Tomalak’s fantasy Romulan warbird, Decius, carries the name of the brash, young aide to Mark Lenard’s unnamed commander in original Trek’s “Balance of Terror,” and we also learn that the original eight outposts along the Neutral Zone, seen in that 1960s episode, have grown to at least twenty-three. Once again, the original Borg interiors seen in “The Best of Both Worlds,” Pat 2 (175), came back to life, this time refigured by Richard James as the underground Romulan base. Next to an old twentieth-century Apollo lunar module, the other model in Riker’s “future” ready room is the Nebula-class USS Melbourne, designed by Ed Miarecki.
FINAL MISSION
* * *
Production No.: 183 Aired: Week of November 19, 1990
Stardate: 44307.3 Code: fm
Directed by Corey Allen
Teleplay by Kacey Arnold-Ince and Jeri Taylor
Story by Kacey Arnold-Ince
GUEST CAST
Dirgo: Nick Tate
Chairman Songi: Kim Hamilton
Ensign Tess Allenby: Mary Kohnert
* * *
Wesley has finally been accepted into Starfleet Academy, but before he leaves, he is to accompany Captain Picard on one last mission.
They’ve been sent to mediate a miners’ dispute, but the rattletrap of a shuttle sent for them malfunctions, and they crash-land on a desert moon. Their pilot, Dirgo, overconfident of his own planning and leadership abilities, didn’t stock water, so the trio is forced to set out for some distant caves. Meanwhile, the Enterprise is summoned to remove an old garbage scow that is leaking radiation into a planet’s atmosphere.
The crash-landing survivors finally find a fountain, but it is guarded by an energy sentry. An impatient Dirgo causes a rockslide that wounds Picard, then bullies Wesley into an attack on the sentry that results in Dirgo’s death.
Riker and the crew struggle to finish their job and then go hunt for the missing shipmates. Meanwhile, Wesley works to keep Picard alive while figuring out a way to defeat the sentry. After forging new bonds with his nearly comatose captain, he does both—keeping himself and Picard alive until rescue finally comes.
An Academy-bound Wesley faces his biggest challenge yet in saving Picard’s life.
Wil Wheaton bows out as a TNG regular in this story, giving what was probably his best performance of the series to date. He had asked to be let go so he could pursue the many film offers coming his way, but the door was left open for future appearances by finally shipping Wesley off to the Academy, as Gene Roddenberry had suggested. And in this last appearance, Wheaton didn’t “save the ship,” only his captain. “He directly saved the ship only one and a half times and had a hand in contributing to the solution of the problem two times! That’s it!”2 Wheaton once asserted, long accustomed to defending his character against some fans’ scorn.
Corey Allen returns for his first directorial outing since the pilot and season one’s “Home Soil” (117), just in time for two days of location shooting on the El Mirage Dry Lake Bed in San Bernadino County, east of Los Angeles. Jeri Taylor said the story, originally set on an ice planet where only Picard and Wesley crash-land, was changed to a desert locale because it was feared a Planet Hell ice-world set would be too hokey.
Nick Tate, who played Dirgo, is known best to genre audiences from his regular role on Space: 1991. Mary Kohnert would be the first of many (mostly female) replacements for Wesley at the conn, though her role would last only another episode.
The decrepid Nenebek shuttle, re-dressed from the SS Arcos escape pod in “Legacy” (180), features “archaic” labels and controls lifted from the present-day space shuttle by Michael Okuda. The episode’s only headache was caused by the spring fountain, built indoors on Stage 16. Both live and optical effects for its shield at first failed to deliver. Finally, on two days’ notice, Legato succeeded in devising what he called “an acrylic log” that rotated with reflective bits.
Trek continuity touches included Dirgo’s use of “old-model” pistol phasers from Star Trek III; mention of the shuttle’s duranium hull (“A Matter of Perspective”/162, “Hollow Pursuits”/169); and the use of hyronalin, first described in 1968’s “The Deadly Years” as a treatment for radiation sickness. And Picard contributes a look forward and backward: while semiconscious he hums “Auprès de Ma Blonde,” the French song that he and his brother sang while drunk after their tussle in the mud in “Family” (178), and he tells Wesley about Boothby, the Academy’s gardener, who would be seen a year later in “The First Duty” (219).
THE LOSS
* * *
Production No.: 184 Aired: Week of December 31, 1990
Stardate: 44356.9 Code: Is
Directed by Chip Chalmers
Teleplay by Hilary J. Bader and Alan J. Adler & Vanessa Greene
Story by Hilary J. Bader
GUEST CAST
Ensign Janet Brooks: Kim Braden
Ensign Tess Allenby: Mary Kohnert
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg
* * *
The Enterprise finds it cannot resume course after stopping to check out what appeared to be images in its path. At the same moment, Troi discovers her empathic powers have completely disappeared.
The roadblock is found to be a unique cluster of two-dimensional life-forms that have caught the starship up in their wake.
Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) must counsel the counselor when Troi loses her empathic sense.
Meanwhile, Troi suffers denial, panic, and even anger at friends. Despite the protests of Guinan, Picard, and Riker that she still has her professional training to lean on, she resigns as ship’s counselor. Then Data and Riker realize the creatures are heading for a cosmic string that would doom the starship, and a desperate Picard turns to Troi for help.
After trying to warn the creatures of the danger, she realizes they want to seek out the cosmic string. When Data creates a “dummy” string to the ship’s rear, the creatures are confused and stop long enough for the Enterprise to break free.
Troi’s powers come rushing back to her as she realizes that the strength of the two-dimensional creatures’ feelings overwhelmed her powers. She resumes her job with renewed confidence in her abilities.
“The Loss” demonstrates that the TNG writers have finally learned to create conflict in Gene Roddenberry’s perfect world by using outside stimuli. This episode gave Marina Sirtis a rare chance to stretch and shine as Troi—and made those weeks of almost being written out of the serie
s in season one seem very far away indeed. Riker here calls Troi a “blue-blooded Betazoid” who’s always had a unique means of control to fall back on, giving her character a subtext that was sadly lacking in the early years. Their relationship, long shunned or even denied by the writers, revealed here how well it could survive if it was shown and not just talked about. In this show we hear the Betazoid endearment, imzadi, for the first time in nearly two years since “Shades of Gray” (148).
Another landmark is Troi’s conversation with Guinan. One of the few criticisms of the addition of Whoopi Goldberg’s character is that Guinan seems to duplicate Troi’s shipboard function, but in this case that “competition” is turned on its ear and used to great effect.
Writing intern Hilary Bader added the science subplot of the cosmic string, and Michael Piller revealed that for a time the staff even toyed with the daring idea of not giving Troi back her lost empathic sense. Sirtis has remarked that many fans with disabilities reacted warmly to her performance in this episode. Ironically, the episode that almost cost her her empathy is the one that begins by finally showing her counseling an adult crew member.
We learn that Betazoids’ empathic abilities lie within the cerebellum and cerebral cortex, and that the Breen and others as well as the Ferengi cannot be sensed. Picard’s equestrian interest (“Pen Pals”/141, Generations) is noted with a Kabul River Himalayan ride on the holodeck, and Kim Braden would later play his “wife” in the first TNG film.
A major concept in warp-drive design is introduced here by Michael Okuda and Rick Sternbach in a passing reference to the ship’s structural integrity field, a force that keeps the ship intact under various inertial forces and stresses when the simple vacuum and null gravity of space aren’t enough.