THE GAME
* * *
Production No.: 206 Aired: Week of October 28, 1991
Stardate: 45208.2 Code: gm
Directed by Corey Allen
Teleplay by Brannon Braga
Story by Susan Sackett, Fred Bronson, and Brannon Braga
GUEST CAST
Ensign Robin Lefler: Ashley Judd
Etana Jol: Katherine Moffat
Lieutenant Miles O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Nurse Alyssa Ogawa: Patti Yasutake
Cadet Wesley Crusher: Wil Wheaton
Ensign: Diane M. Hurley
* * *
During his first visit back aboard since entering the Academy, Wesley Crusher falls for a young engineering ensign, Robin Lefler, while the rest of the crew seem to fall for a new interactive video game that is worn over the eyes like antique eyeglasses and rewards the player with a pleasurable sensation.
Riker has brought the game back from his latest trip to Risa, and it proves so popular that Wesley and Robin begin to get the creeps. It seems as if the others are playing it all the time.
First step to mental addiction: Etana (Katherine Moffat) shows Riker her “game.”
Indeed they are. Sensor scans show that the game induces a chemical release in the brain that leads to psychological addiction and interrupts higher reasoning processes. All of the crew members are affected except Data, who was mysteriously “injured” shortly after Riker brought the game on board. Wesley and Robin find the android, but cannot reactivate him. They decide to fake addiction to avoid suspicion. Shortly thereafter, Etana Jol, Riker’s “date” on Risa, appears. She had passed on the game as part of a plan to conquer the Federation one starship at a time. She now orders an all too compliant crew to begin distributing the game to other vessels.
The crew soon catches on to Wesley and Robin’s deception; they capture and convert Robin, who tells them where to find Wesley. As they’re about to force him to play the game, Data emerges carrying a neuro-optic burst device. Its flash reverses the game’s effects, robbing Etana of her would-be foot soldiers just in time.
Braga’s first assignment on staff was to polish this comment on game addiction, which Susan Sackett and Fred Branson, who wrote “Ménage à Troi” (172), had pitched the year before. “Wesley’s come home and his family’s out to get him” is how Braga summarized his more sinister treatment. He made a conscious effort to make Wesley “a little hipper,” showing him as a ladies’ man and a cadet capable of pulling a practical joke or two. Michael Piller, pleased with the treatment, said it also marked the birth of a good writer. “If you can get away with having Troi describe how to eat chocolate for thirty-five seconds so that it doesn’t slow down the story, then you’re doing something.”
Pleased with Ashley Judd’s first outing as Lefler (“Darmok”/202), the staff had been looking for a vehicle in which to bring her back, and this story seemed perfect. A hoped-for third appearance (“The First Duty”/219) didn’t work out, though.
Wesley’s Academy uniform—as did Haro’s (“Allegiance”/166)—did not yet have the class rank pips established in “The First Duty.” Jol’s Ktarians were mentioned again (“The Game”/206, “Birthright, Part I”/242, “Timescape”/251, “Liaisons”/254, “Phantasms”/258, and Generations—the last as a Kirk-era reference), while actress Moffat turned up as a Bajoran widow later on DS9’s “Necessary Evil.” Troi’s chocolate habit was not new (see notes, “The Price”/156).
UNIFICATION I
* * *
Production No: 208 Aired: Week of November 4, 1991
Stardate: 45233.1 Code: u1
Directed by Les Landau
Teleplay by Jeri Taylor
Story by Rick Berman and Michael Piller
GUEST CAST
Spock: Leonard Nimoy
Perrin: Joanna Miles
Capt. K’Vada: Stephen D. Root
Klim Dokachin: Graham Jarvis
Senator Pardek: Malachi Throne
Proconsul Neral: Norman Large
Romulan No. 1: Daniel Roebuck
B’ljik: Erick Avari
Admiral Brackett: Karen Hensel
Sarek: Mark Lenard
Soup Woman: Mimi Cozzens
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
* * *
Picard is shocked to learn that the legendary Vulcan scientist and ambassador, Spock, appears to have defected to the Romulan Empire.
While traveling to Vulcan, where Spock’s equally legendary father, Sarek, lies near death, the captain learns that Spock may be working toward rejoining the Vulcan and Romulan peoples, who split aeons ago when the Vulcans adopted logic as the cornerstone of their civilization. Sarek’s human wife, Perrin, reveals her bitterness at Spock’s continued estrangement from his father, especially in her husband’s last days. Picard is soon saddened to hear that Sarek has died.
After securing a cloaked Klingon ship and disguising themselves as Romulans, Picard and Data venture on to Romulus in the hope of meeting Spock’s contact, Pardek, an aging peace advocate now back in favor. Neral, also an apparent reformer, has been elected proconsul.
Meanwhile, Riker and the crew track a Vulcan deflector stolen by the Ferengi. The search leads them to a ship junkyard, whose manager is surprised when several Vulcan vessels turn up missing. Encountering an unidentified ship at one of the vanished ship berths, the Enterprise fires a warning shot at the mystery vessel—which promptly self-destructs.
On Romulus, Picard and Data are discovered and taken hostage, but their captors turn out to be members of Pardek’s Romulan underground who help them, finally, to meet Spock.
If any doubts remained that TNG had become a worthy sequel to its namesake after five years, even the most skeptical diehard had to admit that Leonard Nimoy’s presence as Spock quashed them. There had always been rumors that more of the original cast would turn up following De Forest Kelley’s appearance in the pilot, and scripts had actually floated around to that effect. Tracy Tormé, for example, had been signed to do a second-season opener called “Return to Forever,” bringing the movie-era Spock together with the Spock of the twenty-fourth century through the Guardian of Forever time portal from 1966’s “City on the Edge of Forever.” But, during the Writers Guild strike that summer, talks with Nimoy fell apart just as the outline was being finished, and the project never went any further.1
But things had changed in the intervening three years. Nimoy, an even hotter property than before, thanks to his success as a director of Star Trek III and IV and Three Men and a Baby, could not afford to ask much less than a salary that by itself would have soaked up most of the episode’s budget. As Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country went into planning. Rick Berman said, the key turned out to be an idea of Paramount president Frank Mancuso’s—“to somehow find a way to lock the two together” during Trek’s silver anniversary.
On his deathbed, Sarek (Mark Lenard) tells Picard of his love for Spock.
Berman recalled that he and Nimoy talked about story ideas. After that “we structured a deal with him: he got very little, a little more than scale [union salary minimum]. But with Leonard as executive producer of Star Trek VI, what you had in essence was a cross-promotion. It made everybody happy.”
Star Trek VI director Nick Meyer was brought in to discover ways to bridge references between the generations in his movie script and in “Unification,” since the motion picture filmed long before the episode did. “Nimoy loved the idea of making slight references in the future” to the Kirk era, Berman recalled. The recent filming of the movie helped in other ways, too: the movie’s Klingon Bird of Prey bridge and other sets on Paramount’s Stage 5 were used for Picard and Data’s cloaked ship in both segments.
Michael Piller was to have written the teleplay for both parts, but the time squeeze and the shift in production order proved too demanding and he offered Part I to Jeri Taylor. At first disappointed to do only the story setup, she had no idea how much a part of her life “Unificat
ion” would become. When Pocket Books called to suggest a novelization of the historic meeting of the Trek eras, Taylor—who wanted to break into books—asked for the job.
“The hitch was that I had thirty days to do it!” she said. “Yes, September 1991 was a month I’ll never forget. I was writing Part One, I was writing the novel—it was like an endless finals week. You live on coffee, you’re wired, you shut yourself off from family and friends: I had no other life but ‘Unification’!”
Dokachin is the first speaking Zakdorn seen since Kolrami (“Peak Performance”/147), while actor Throne was twice a guest on Spock’s other two-parter, 1966’s “The Menagerie”—as Commodore Mendez and the original Keeper’s voice in the first pilot “The Cage.” Lenard provided the first death of a sixties-era Trek figure, after he and Miles had of course graced TNG’s “Sarek” (171). Large took time out from Phantom of the Opera to play Neral; he would return as a Cairn (“Violations”/212) and a Kobherrian (DS9’s “Duet”).
Former Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy) touches minds with Captain Picard.
UNIFICATION II
* * *
Production No. 207 Aired: Week of November 11, 1991
Stardate: 45245.8 Code u2
Directed by Cliff Bole
Teleplay by Michael Piller
Story by Rick Berman and Michael Piller
GUEST CAST
Spock: Leonard Nimoy
Captain K’Vada: Stephen D. Root
Senator Pardek: Malachi Throne
Proconsul Neral: Norman Large
Romulan No. 1: Daniel Roebuck
Omag: William Bastiani
Romulan No. 2: Susan Fallender
Commander Sela: Denise Crosby
D’Tan: Vidal Peterson
Amarie: Harriet Leider
* * *
Having found Spock on Romulus, Picard must perform the uncomfortable task of telling the ambassador his father has died. The news, combined with Picard’s attempt to fulfill his friend Sarek’s requst by telling Spock of his father’s love, breaks the tension between the two. Spock then reveals he is indeed undertaking an unauthorized mission to pursue the reunification of the Vulcan and Romulan peoples. While Data begins working to crack the Romulans’ computer net, Picard confides to the ambassador that he mistrusts the Romulans.
Meanwhile, the trail of the missing Vulcan ships leads Riker to a Ferengi smuggler, who finally admits that Romulans are involved. Number One contacts Picard, who has met Proconsul Neral in person and still does not trust the Romulan’s intentions.
Soon they find Spock has indeed been double-crossed: a proposed peace envoy of Vulcan ships is just a ploy staged by Commander Sela, Picard’s Romulan nemesis in the Klingon civil war. She and Neral plan to send the stolen vessels filled with Romulan troops as a “Trojan horse”—a sneak attack to conquer Vulcan.
Betrayed by Romulan Senator Pardek, Data is captured.
Sela captures Spock and the two disguised Enterprise crew members, but can’t force the Vulcan to publicly endorse the phony peace mission. She then reveals a holotape in which the ambassador does just that. Left unguarded in her office, Spock and Data send a coded signal to Riker and use a holotape of their own to escape Sela and her guards.
When Riker intercepts the “peace envoy,” the Vulcan ships are destroyed by their cloaked escorts to remove any trace of the mission. Spock decides to stay on Romulus and work with the underground for real peace. At the last he bids his father good-bye by sharing Sarek’s previous mind-meld with Picard.
Part 2’s production number precedes that of the opening segment because it was filmed first to accommodate Leonard Nimoy’s schedule. During his five days of work, the set was closed to visitors, although Rick Berman recalled that the week was like most others on the series. Nimoy has said that his TNG experience was a sentimental yet hectic reminder of his days of weekly television, a stark contrast to the more leisurely pace of motion picture production.
Michael Piller used the unification of Germany as his basic thematic metaphor but was disappointed that his teleplay couldn’t provide more chemistry in the Picard-Spock scenes. “We got some good moments, and Leonard was splendid,” he said, “but I thought a lot of it was flat, talky, and dull.” The historic meeting of Data and Spock was one of his favorite scenes, though, and he took issue with fans who ridiculed the idea of a Romulan invasion force of only three ships bound for Vulcan. “That’s the only way you could do it, with a Trojan horse,” he said. “You couldn’t launch an all-out attack.”
With two episodes to spread the cost over, the size and scope of the Romulan street-office complex built on Stage 16 rivaled the Victorian London holodeck set in “Elementary, Dear Data” (129). Production designer Richard James also re-dressed the cargo bay—last seen as the control room of the attack cruiser Bortas’ in “Redemption” (200)—to the Quaylor II piano bar seen here.
“One of the show’s major strengths,” observed Rick Sternbach, “is how they can put these Tinkertoy set pieces together again and again in different ways and repaint them and come up with completely different looks.”
Pardek (Malachi Throne) and Commander Sela (Denise Crosby) mastermind a plot to destroy Vulcan.
The Vulcan ships were originals, built by Greg Jein from an original design by Sternbach, with a Reliant-like feel featuring long, pointed engine pods and a bridge-over-hull look. Urged to go for a more alien non-Starfleet look, Sternbach said he based the design on a central core surrounded by a wraparound circular generator.
Notable among the nonspeaking actors in the Qualor II bar scene—which includes Riker’s Trek play on words, “Andorian Blues”—were Jerry Crowl as yet another background Antican, Shana O’Brien and Heather Long as Omag’s women, Leonard Jones as the Zakdorn waiter, and April Rossi as an extra known as Space Hooker.
The title of this most unusual of all TNG episodes carries more than the usual layers of meaning. The hoped-for reunion between Romulans and Vulcans is only the first of many “unifications.” Symbolically carried out through Picard’s mind-meld with Spock, it extends not only to a posthumous reconciliation between Sarek and his estranged son but indeed to both incarnations of Gene Roddenberry’s vision. Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. When this episode is viewed in tandem with Star Trek VI, it’s clear the torch has been passed, and any breach that may have existed between productions and between fans has been closed.
A MATTER OF TIME
* * *
Production No.: 209 Aired: Week of November 18, 1991
Stardate: 45349.1 Code: ma
Directed by Paul Lynch
Written by Rick Berman
GUEST CAST
Dr. Hal Mosely: Stefan Gierasch
Berlingoff Rasmussen: Matt Frewer
Ensign Felton: Sheila Franklin
Female Scientist: Shay Garner
* * *
While trying to reverse the nuclear winter-type effects caused by a crashed asteroid on Penthara IV, the Enterprise is visited by a time-traveling historian from twenty-sixth-century Earth, Berlingoff Rasmussen.
The officers’ initial suspicions give way to impatience when Rasmussen asks repeatedly to see their “artifacts” and to have questionnaires filled out. Troi is convinced he is hiding something, but most crew members go along with his teasing and his annoying cheeriness.
Supposed “time traveler” Rasmussen (Matt Frewer) doesn’t impress everyone aboard.
The ship’s first try at helping Penthara IV only makes matters worse; then La Forge comes up with an alternative plan that will either clear the atmosphere or burn it off entirely, killing every living thing on the planet. Desperate for help, Picard turns to Rasmussen, but the time traveler says he can’t divulge the future. When the Pentharans agree to Geordi’s plan so does Picard. Luckily, it works.
Rasmussen quickly moves to leave after the planet is saved, but Picard first demands he be allowed to search the time pod for items reported missing by his crew. The time
traveler agrees to let Data enter because he can be ordered not to divulge any secrets of the future, but once the two are inside the pod, Rasmussen pulls a phaser and reveals he is really from the twenty-second century. He appropriated the real twenty-sixth-century time traveler’s craft and came forward in time to gather trinkets—which now include Data—that he could claim to have invented.
But a suspicious Picard had Rasmussen’s phaser deactivated. Helpless, Rasmussen is stranded in the twenty-fourth century when the pod’s timed return mechanism whisks it away without him.
Rick Berman said he’d always been interested in the idea of someone traveling through time to steal Data, and he got the chance to do it in this, his second and last turn at TNG storytelling. “It’s like imagining what Newton could have done if he’d had a calculator,” Berman said. Max Headroom’s Matt Frewer played it to the hilt, but one wonders about the outcome had Berman gotten to cast Trek fan Robin Williams, who had to turn it down while making Hook.
The effort to replace Wesley with a female conn officer had of course ended with the addition of Ro, but beginning here and for five shows this season, Sheila Franklin’s Ensign Felton filled in as well. Though never spoken aloud, the name Felton appeared in all of the scripts she turned up in: “New Ground,” “Hero Worship,” “The Masterpiece Society” and “Imaginary Friend” (210, 211, 213, and 222).
Among the tidbits of Trek information provided here: a phaser on maximum stun is required to stun Data; the Federation was founded after the Romulan War “The Outcast” (217); and phasers, medical forcefields, and the warp coil were all invented after the twenty-second century.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition Page 31