Meanwhile, the curious Samuel Clemens—convinced that Guinan and the stranded Data are themselves an alien threat—follows the Starfleet group to the cave where Data’s head will be found in the future. The crew has realized that the cave is the time-travel focusing device, but when the two aliens surprise them and grab back the cane, the resulting blast of the “time door” opening decapitates Data. Picard seems trapped when he alone doesn’t make it back through to the twenty-fourth century, but he keys a crude escape message in Data’s head that he hopes will be “found” later.
Data and Counselor Troi in 1890s garb.
Once reconnected, Data’s “old” head recites Picard’s message and the door is opened, but just far enough for one. A reassured Clemens volunteers to go back so Picard can return, and with all as it was. The aliens’ doorway is destroyed—leaving no clue to their true motives.
“Any time you deal with time you’re going to have complexities that are hard to grasp,” Piller said. “But if you really look at that closely I think we got them all nicely stitched.” Taylor, who modeled her mix of historical fact and fiction on the writings of E. L. Doctorow, was satisfied with the outcome but regretted how much the demanding writing distracted her from settling in with the staff right after hiatus. It would be the last cliffhanger conclusion whose writing would be put off until after hiatus—an “exciting” but “Very scary” custom she was determined to end.
Regretting that more wasn’t done with the 1890s period, Ron Moore said that one of the ideas dropped due to time and budget would have picked up the time-travel crew in various jobs after several months, centered around their meeting place at a wharfside cafe run by Picard where the running joke was how bad his food was.
More than ever before (“The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”/175, “Ensign Ro”/203), the facts of Guinan and Picard’s first “true” meeting presented here mean that the “listener” was misleading Wesley Crusher when she told him at their first meeting that she’d “never met the captain before I came aboard” (“The Child”/127). In reality, all three top producers pleaded guilty to not realizing the line planted in Guinan’s very first appearance, which predated all but Berman’s tenure on the show.
While writer Jack London turned up as the bellboy, a sidelight to the use of Mark Twain, the “Judge Williams” and “General Mallory” mentioned were fictitious. Twain’s reference to Halley’s Comet harkens to his birth during its 1835 appearance and his famous comment that he “came in with the comet and will go out with the comet”—o prophecy of his 1910 death.
Hardin had not played Mark Twain before and was simply cast for the general physical type, Berman noted, but he became so enamored of the author that he created a one-man touring show. William Boyett had played a TNG cop in another past time—he was holodeck Lieutenant Dan Bell back in Season 1’s “The Big Goodbye” (113). Repeat faces would include Enberg (“Lower Decks”/267) and Kosh (“All Good Things …”/277-278); extra Leonard Jones was the Bolian crew member spied by Twain, while O’Brien is spoken to but not seen.
Unlike Part I, the period scenes were shot not on location but right on Paramount’s newly completed New York Street backlot; original plans called for using one at Universal, but with a few camera cheats and the removal of non-period fire escapes they made do. The scenes sported a horse-driven fire vehicle from a museum that had loaned it out for the first time ever thanks to “the power of the words ‘Star Trek,’” noted production designer Richard James. Among the in-joke signs adorning the street were the “Okuda Laundry,” “James Bank,” and “Purser Carpentry,” for TNG scenery shop foreman Tom Purser.
Visual FX supervisor Ron B. Moore noted that the many opticals here included new computer “morphing” by Joe Walter to clarify the ophidian snake-head cane’s transformation first seen in Part I. Accomplished completely by computer were the arcs and sparks of Data’s “invention” when disturbed by Clemens—a moving-camera shot—and Data’s decapitation in the explosion, though Moore recalled the first take on the effect, as sometimes happens, proved comical until some extra animation touches and a change-up in speed were added to dull its effect. Smoke filmed through lighted holes in paper provided the main element for the vortex itself.
REALM OF FEAR
* * *
Production No.: 228 Aired: Week of September 28, 1992
Stardate: 46041.1 Code: rf
Directed by Cliff Bole
Written by Brannon Braga
GUEST CAST
Chief Miles Edward O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Nurse Alyssa Ogawa: Patti Yatsutake
Lieutenant (j.g.) Reginald “Reg” Barclay III: Dwight Schultz
Admiral Hayes: Renata Scott
Crew Member: Thomas Belgrey
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
* * *
The ever-nervous engineer Barclay sees his victory of devising a method of boarding the disabled U.S.S. Yosemite turn sour when he confronts one of his worst fears—transporter beaming.
Emboldened by Troi’s counseling, he makes it over to the dead ship but in mid-transport discovers creatures living in the transporting beam that seemingly try to attack him when he transports back alone.
Knowing his own shaky reputation, Barclay keeps the story to himself until the spot on his arm where the creature touched him begins to glow. He finally reports the incident to a skeptical crew, but with O’Brien’s help the determined engineer finds the creatures again during another trip.
Then Dr. Crusher discovers that his arm is radiating the same energy as a dead Yosemite crew member, and she realizes the glowing light is a life-form trapped in Barclay’s body. The only way to separate the form is in mid-beaming, while his molecules are disassembled, so he once again must confront his old phobia of molecular limbo.
O’Brien doesn’t believe Barclay’s story of monsters in the transporter beam.
Then, during the beaming, he not only doesn’t panic but realizes he can grab the creature—who turns out, upon rematerialization, to be one of a lost Yosemite crewmen. The others are rescued too, and Barclay finds himself a hero after all.
Though wary of too much “tech” talk near the end, Braga enjoyed developing Barclay for this romp that updates for the twenty-fourth century the writer’s own fear of air travel: “In some ways it’s my most personal show to date, because I relate to Barclay—it comes from the heart!” The story, fleshed out from a premise Michael Piller initially felt was too close to the old Twilight Zone segment in which William Shatner sees a monster sitting on his airplane’s wing, also provides the first TNG look at a transporter’s guts and a beaming subject’s point of view—and a little hypochondria with transporter psychosis,” first diagnosed in 2209, or within fifty years or so of the century-old system’s origins (“The Masterpiece Society”/213). Braga’s “multi-infarct dementia” would later resurface in his “Frame of Mind” (247), while the “plexing” gag was to have been repeated again in the final scene between Barclay and his spider.
After much testing and designing, various versions of the plasma creatures for Berman’s final choice were designed by Dan Curry and built by modelmaker/sculptor Carey Howe. To avoid the need for motion-control or animation, Curry donned green tights to operate the creatures as a hand puppet against a green screen matte—and credited his tai chi for the slow and graceful movement he had to bring to the task.
O’Brien had borne full lieutenant’s rank since Season 2 and was even addressed that way before he had a name (“Where Silence Has Lease”/128), but here he sports a single back-centered pip for the plot point that Lieutenant j.g. Barclay outranks him. Taylor said it had always been intended even before her tenure that O’Brien be a noncommissioned “chief petty officer,” as Sergey Rozhenko noted (“Family”/178)—not a chief by position, as in “security chief”—and so this corrected an original miscue by the wardrobe department. Still, actor Meaney’s unnamed character had been an ensign initially (“Encounter at Farpoint”/ 101, �
�Lonely Among Us”/108), indicating a promotion before the CPO rank flap arose. O’Brien, who hasn’t received his promised promotion after transferring to Deep Space 9 by year’s end on that series, has been a transporter operator at least twenty-two years with nary an accident—which only occur about two or three times a decade at all, thanks to system redundancies. For the record, in “real” screen time Barclay is in the transporter beam about 105 seconds, not just thirty to forty as hoped.
The workhorse Grissom model from ST III turns up as the U.S.S. Yosemite, while Talarian hook spiders apparently share the homeworld of a race seen before (“Suddenly Human”/176). The dual-system linkup is not new (“Symbiosis”/123), while Crusher’s cardio-stimulator is a smaller version of McCoy’s from The Original Series (1967’s “Journey to Babel”). O’Brien’s throwaway reference to planet Zayra IV honors Zayra Cabot, Jeri Taylor’s secretary at the time, while the dead Robert Kelly wears the oft-seen silvery scientists’ civvies, first used in “Home Soil” (117), even though he’s titled as a lieutenant.
MAN OF THE PEOPLE
* * *
Production No.: 229 Aired: Week of October 5, 1992
Stardate: 46071.6 Code: mn
Directed by Winrich Kolbe
Written by Frank Abatemarco
GUEST CAST
Ambassador Ves Alkar: Chip Lucia
Nurse Alyssa Ogawa: Patti Yasutake
Admiral Simons: George D. Wallace
Ensign Janeway: Lucy Boryer
Sev Maylor: Susan French
Jarth: Rick Scarry
Liva: Stephanie Erb
Ensign (Troi’s): J. P. Hubbell
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
* * *
After the Enterprise assumes the transport of an ambassador to the site of an interplanetary war’s peace talks, Troi begins aging rapidly and acting without abandon following the sudden death of the mediator’s aged mother.
The woman had accused Troi of having designs on her son Alkar, a Lumerian, but after her strange death he refused an autopsy according. Upset at the woman’s outburst and later death, Troi aids Alkar in what he says is his planet’s “funeral ritual,” which leaves her feeling odd and her libido running amok.
First she seduces a young ensign after both Alkar and Riker turn her down. Then, appearing to age rapidly, she stabs Picard—which leads him, after recovering from the wound, to order an autopsy of Alkar’s dead “mother.”
It is found that Alkar and Troi actually shared a process that let him “dump” his negative thoughts in her in order to keep his mind clear for negotiating. The dead woman was not his “mother,” just his previous victim.
Picard, angry at Alkar’s nonchalant admission, waits until near the end of the successful talks before faking Troi’s death. The broken “link” with Troi in mid-link forces Alkar to turn to one of his aides, whom Picard has beamed out—leaving Alkar to die in agony, aged just like his victims.
Dr. Crusher is unable to explain the death of Ramid Sev Maylor (Susan French).
Piller and Moore, among others, praised Sirtis’ “sexy but scary” scenery-chewing performance for lifting one of the season’s early disappointments, an episode that shows the signs of being rushed into production one slot early when the next show, “Relics,” had to be pushed back due to the schedule of James “Scotty” Doohan. With Abatemarco an experienced writer but the “new guy” on the block, the staff each took an act and pulled another committee-write to break the script for his treatment. “He was a seasoned veteran, but it wasn’t a fair introduction for him,” said Taylor, who was still preoccupied with the season debut at the time. “It remained for his later work for everybody to realize that perhaps this wasn’t for him.”
A Q story by Echevarria was considered for this slot, Piller revealed. The plot had the superbeing dividing the crew into twins representing opposite halves, but not just good/bad as in original Trek’s “Enemy Within”; in fact, the lack of agreement on what the two polarities should be is what bogged down the story.
This episode’s closing is one of the warmest Riker-Troi scenes yet, her chocolate habit (see notes, “The Price”/156) is recalled, and the plot device of an autopsy ban would be used later in the season (“Suspicions”/248). Here Troi’s quarters are seen to be Deck 9/0910, Worf’s martial arts class (“Clues”/188, “New Ground”/210) is glimpsed again before gaining a name (“Birthright, Part II”/ 243), the biobed forcefield restraint is used again (“Time Squared”/139), and the extra playing Chief Daniels is seen with a solid ensign’s pip, as per O’Brien’s rank from the preceding episode. Past references include the cortical stimulator (“Ethics”/216, “Inner Light”/225) and the stimulant inoprovalene (“Transfigurations”/173, “Ethics”/216), while mention of the drug cordrazine (see “Shades of Gray”/148) and the Federation Council date back to sixties Trek.
The voice of Captain Talmadge was provided by Terrence Beasor, who had previously given uncredited vocal life to aliens (“Skin of Evil”/122, “The Ensigns of Command”/149, “Devil’s Due”/ 187).
RELICS
* * *
Production No.: 230 Aired: Week of October 12, 1992
Stardate: 46125.3 Code: rl
Directed by Alexander Singer
Written by Ronald D. Moore
GUEST CAST
Ensign Sariel Rager: Lanei Chapman
Ensign Kane: Erick Weiss
Captain Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, Ret.: James Doohan
Lieutenant Bartel: Stacie Foster
Waiter: Ernie Mirich
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
* * *
The Enterprise crew is amazed by two simultaneous discoveries: an immense Dyson sphere (an artificially constructed habitat built around a star), and Starfleet engineering legend Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, kept alive for seventy-five years in molecular limbo within a transporter diagnostic loop aboard a shuttle crash-landed on the sphere.
But depression sets in for James Kirk’s old “miracle worker” when an impatient La Forge blurts out that the old man is only “in the way” now. Drink in hand, a blue Scotty is joined during a holodeck look at his old Constitution-class bridge by an understanding Picard, who later urges his engineer to put Scotty to use in a check of the downed Jenolen shuttle.
Then things get rough when the Enterprise is drawn inside the sphere and Riker manages to pull the starship out of a deadly spiral into the sun, only to be threatened by its long solar flares once in a close orbit. Only later does the crew realize that a subspace frequency had activated the sphere’s tractor beam, which pulled them inside, just as the Jenolen had done.
Back in the shuttle, it is Scotty who figures out a way to power it up to open the sphere’s doors long enough to get the Enterprise out—and a split-second beam-out when the craft has to be blown clear.
Rejuvenated, Scotty is given his own shuttle—and a new sense of purpose.
Ron Moore’s roots as a longtime Star Trek fan had never shown as brightly as in this instant classic, which included not only the appearance of Scotty, the third character from original Trek on TNG, but the use of the Dyson sphere as a plot device after it had been bandied about so long it had been almost a joke. And the icing on the cake was the appearance of the old Constitution-class bridge—and the struggle to get it on film has already become as big a tale in Star Trek lore as Scotty’s appearance itself.
The original sixties bridge, struck not long after the series was canceled in 1969, had been turned down for re-creation only a year earlier due to money constraints (“Cause and Effect”/218), but this time Moore was determined to see it done. After a fully rebuilt set was scoffed at during early production meetings due to the cost of both materials and labor, it looked as though the latest movie-era version would be unpacked and used—unless, as graphic artist and fellow longtime Star Trek fan Mike Okuda recalled, a way could be devised to create the sixties bridge for the same amount of money. Michael Piller remembered that he huddled
afterward with Jeri Taylor and Moore to suggest that they should come up with alternatives to present, such as renting a fan-built replica or using miniaturization.
Scotty on the holodeck version of the old Enterprise bridge.
That got the “think tank” juices flowing. Designer Richard James suggested using Scotty’s single “pie wedge” station from the old bridge with a blue-screen matte from old film, and FX producer Dan Curry revealed his own Trek fan roots by recalling such a scene: the bare few frames of a mutiny-emptied bridge from “This Side of Paradise.” They were brightened and lengthened by computer into a loop that is seen as Scotty enters the holodeck door. Only the turbolift alcove and engineering station were built anew, but James said that that alone meant hours and days spent in research on dimensions and colors which had to be refigured from film clips since no set plans existed. He, Curry, and cameraman Jonathan West even figured out the original camera angles and lenses so the new footage of Scotty, Picard, and the set would match seamlessly with the old. “They lit the set with color [in the sixties], and that threw us off trying to establish what color to paint our set,” James said. “We had to look through old calendars and photographs—we were really back on the level of fans!”
Ironically, Okuda added, it took the discovery of fan Steve Horch’s center console and captain’s chair, built for display at conventions, to keep the project on budget. “We rented it and then enhanced it a little bit and he was happy with that,” laughed James, who said the unexpected extra pieces gave more depth for director Singer to work with. James also designed the single-viewer upper panel so it could be changed out for the opposite two-viewer section behind Picard on reverse angles.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition Page 37