At a meeting intended to ease tensions, Jellico enrages Gul Lemec and his party with ploys at intimidation until the Cardassians reveal that they know of Picard’s secret mission and walk out.
Meanwhile, the raiders discover that they’ve walked into a trap when they find nothing and realize the metagenics story is a hoax. Worf and Crusher are forced to escape without Picard, who is captured in the ambush and faces a Cardassian interrogator who promises to reward Picard’s silence with death.
Aside from setting up a terrific battle of wills in its conclusion, this story also introduced the news of the Cardassians’ Bajoran withdrawal to set up the events of DS9’s pilot, airing less than a month later. In fact, Ron Moore revealed that the two-parter was meant to be a crossover (with the Solok scene written word-for-word for DS9 resident Ferengi Quark) until someone realized it would air before DS9 was out!
Moore said he took most interest in developing Jellico—whose name Abatemarco had lifted from the British fleet commander at World War I’s Battle of Jutland. To make Jellico a mix of personable as well as irritating and “just different” qualities, Moore added aspects such as displaying his son’s art and ditching Livingston, the ready-room fish (though it played more harshly than intended). A scene cut to save time, similar to one revealing his early warmth shown Riker, had Jellico tell Geordi that he’d played rugby at the Academy with the chief engineer’s former captain Zimbata from the U.S.S. Victory (“Elementary, Dear Data”/129, “Identity Crisis”/192). But again, the man who’d helped negotiate the Cardassian-UFP armistice only two years earlier (“The Wounded”/186) also carried a “captain on the bridge” formality and ordered “Get it done,” his own catchline contrasting Picard’s “Make it so.”
Another contrast with Picard, Jellico’s request that Troi wear a standard uniform while on duty, made good a goal that Moore had wanted to try and Sirtis was all too happy to oblige. With the disliked cheerleader-like “skant” uniform from the pilot a dim memory, she began here to alternate the standard uniform with her other outfits in future episodes.
Ronny Cox, who these days puts more time into his first love as a burgeoning country singer than acting, once played nice guys on the short-lived Apple’s Way and Cop Rock series and the movie Deliverance but may be best known for his stern types: Eddie Murphy’s boss in the Beverly Hills Cop films and the villainous executives in Robocop and Total Recall. Often combining his music with guest-starring roles—such as an L.A. Law segment with fellow country songster Pam Tillis—he offers here a unique mix of qualities that, despite a first glance, lived up to Moore’s intent.
Actor Wagner later appeared as another Ferengi, Krax, in the first-season DS9 segment “The Nagus,” while Durbin, as had castmate Marc Alaimo, emerged from under the alien masks of “Lonely Among Us” (108) to play a Cardassian, Nogulich’s admiral would surface again in “Descent” (252) and throughout various crises (“Journey’s End”/272, “Preemptive Strike”/276, and DS9’s “The Maquis, Part II’ and “The Search, Part II”), while—like Selar and Barclay—another past crew member would return by mention only: tactical officer McDowell (“The Next Phase”/224). There’s also a glimpse into Starfleet training when Jellico is able to reassign a third of Geordi’s engineers to security.
For trivia’s sake: Riker graduated eighth in his Starfleet class of 2357 (as seen in “Conundrum”/214) and has been decorated five times, while Picard is the first on TNG to get a serial number, SP937-215, and be seen in a ship command-transfer ceremony; his marathon running is also recalled (“The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2”). The formal name of Cardassia for the aliens’ homeworld is introduced, although “Cardassian Union” is used instead of “Cardassian Empire” here for the only time on either TNG (“Ensign Ro”/203) or DS9. Their hand weapon debuted here, described by Sternbach as a “copper-colored banana” and firing a purple beam, while their would-be metagenic weapon harkens back to the 1980s “clean” neutron bombs once hailed for killing armies while leaving infrastructure intact.
Seen before: the black commando fatigues (“The Outcast”/217), the shuttle Feynman shown as the original model from stock footage of being launched (“Unnatural Selection”/133), and the Torman IV matte painting, originally the Genome Colony (“The Masterpiece Society”/213).
Curiously, Solok wears a Ferengi uniform but no head tattoo, and is called a DaiMon but wears no “ying-yang” color rank; he was originally named “Selok,” but that name had been used already (“Data’s Day,” 185). Also in the bar—where Beverly revives the stimulating art of “oo-mox” (“Ménage à Troi”/172)—are a Bajoran, a Mizarian (“Allegiance”/166), and a lavender-faced alien Westmore dubbed “Rotciv,” a palindrome of the Algolian chimes musician from Season 4 dubbed “Victor” (“Ménage à Troi”) after the extra who’s under both makeups, Victor Sein. Reflecting its roots, the scene’s tight angles are a try at concealing its real identity: the replimat corner of Quark’s bar from DS9. Blond script typist Jana Wallace (namesake of longtime extra Guy Vardaman’s persona in “Descent” [252]) is seen as a foreground extra in Ten-Forward’s transfer-of-command scene.
CHAIN OF COMMAND, PART II
* * *
Production No.: 237 Aired: Week of December 21, 1992
Stardate: 46360.8 Code:c2
Directed by Les Landau
Written by Frank Abatemarco
GUEST CAST
Captain Edward Jellico: Ronny Cox
Gul Lemec: John Durbin
Gul Madred: David Warner
Jil Orra: Heather Lauren Olson
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
* * *
Captured after the failed Celtris III raid, Picard tells all he knows about Starfleet motives in the area under effects of a truth drug. But his captor, Gul Madred, isn’t satisfied and presses on with horrendous torture, both physical and psychological, to break the captain’s will.
Meanwhile, after retrieving Worf and Dr. Crusher, new Enterprise captain Jellico refuses Riker’s request for a rescue mission of Picard until they learn he is still alive. The new captain relieves Riker of duty after he opposes Jellico’s trade admission to the raid for Picard’s release. Then Jellico, over his senior staff’s objections—orders a first strike readied on the theory that the Celtris III matter portends a Cardassian invasion.
Meanwhile, despite his beatings and captivity, Picard eventually holds his own in his battles of will with Gul Madred, his interrogator, and even wins a few, to the Cardassians’ chagrin.
Aboard ship, Jellico swallows his pride to ask Riker to lead a mine-laying mission to stave of war, and uses the mines to bargain for Picard’s release when the outraged Cardassians realize what has happened.
Having never succumbed to his captor, a weary Picard is returned and his command restored.
Captain Picard is held by the Cardassians.
Abatemarco had dug into the research books on everything from Amnesty International to the psychology of torturers, their methods, and their survivors for what he hoped would be a grander opus than the rushed “Man of the People” (229). As the scope of the project swelled (the episode was designed as a money-saver, and a bigger final confrontation between opposing ships had to be scrapped, Moore said), Piller and Berman suggested a two-parter, and Amnesty supporter Patrick Stewart threw his support into it—later to grow concerned when the inevitable rewrites came across and pleasing that its intensity not be diluted.
Of course it wasn’t and the story—the first of two to be expanded to a two-parter this season—became a tour de force for Stewart in what many believed to be his most intense and focused acting on the series to date, if not in his career. (A method actor, Stewart, was at his insistance, nude during the one interrogation scene but performed that scene on a closed set.) “There’s just nothing better than putting Patrick Stewart alone in a room with one other good actor and really letting him go for an hour,” noted Piller, who took out a full-page ad in Variety to back an unsuccessful Emmy nominati
on for the actor. “It is not possible that there are five better male actors in this town than Patrick Stewart!” Taylor agreed, “It’s probably his finest performance—he literally threw himself, physically and mentally, into that.”
Warner, of course, included among his long career guest-starring roles in both the fifth and sixth Trek features—where his roles as the human St. John Talbot and the illfated Klingon Chancellor Gorkon combined here to make him another one of the few who have played multiple races in the Trek universe.
For the one-on-one scenes between Madred and Picard, designer Richard James provided a sparse interrogation-room set that was almost theatrical in its stark simplicity, with pools of light and tight lighting designed to provide the focus needed. He had originally planned a grand staircase for its entrance with a floating ceiling piece from which the captor would lord it over the captive, à la Man of La Mancha, but budget cuts dropped that back to the massive doors shown and the simple manacles, often reused (“Lower Decks”/267, DS9).
We are also given the up-by-the-military-bootstrap history of the Cardassians, see that Riker’s cabin is Deck 9/Room 0912, and discover that the equivalent of today’s Geneva accords on war is the Milky Way’s “Seldonis IV Convention”—called the “Selonis” convention by Riker, thanks to a script typo. An unaired reference gives the Minos Korva colony a population of two million, while we do hear that Picard’s mother’s maiden name is “Gessard” and that the family sang after Sunday dinner—a nice touch setting up the captain’s occasional lapses into song (“Family”/178, “Final Mission”/183).
SHIP IN A BOTTLE
* * *
Production No.: 238 Aired: Week of January 25, 1993
Stardate: 46424.1 Code: sb
Directed by Alexander Singer
Written by René Echevarria
GUEST CAST
Professor James Moriarty: Daniel Davis
Countess Regina Barthalomew: Stephanie Beacham
Lieutenant (j.g.) Reginald “Reg” Barclay III: Dwight Schultz
Gentleman: Clement von Franckenstein
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
* * *
After a glitch turns up in Data and La Forge’s “Sherlock Holmes” role-play holodeck game, Barclay, while making repairs, comes across the stored file of Holmes’ fictional archvillain Professor Moriarty, accidentally given consciousness and intelligence four years earlier.
Incensed that he has been “forgotten,” Moriarty astounds the naysaying officers when he walks off the holodeck, alive and whole! While the crew struggles to understand, he demands that his love, the Countess Regina Barthalomew, be made alive as well—taking control of the ship’s computer from Picard until he agrees to do it.
Amid the effort—made more dire by the ship’s dangerous proximity to two colliding gas planets to be studied—Data realizes that he and Picard are trapped in a holodeck simulation themselves that Moriarty devised: the professor isn’t real, but he does have computer lockout on the ship and access to their program.
To outwit him, the officers create their own false reality and have Moriarty and the Countess “beamed” into it, ostensibly giving them a shuttlecraft in return for releasing ship control.
Once “launched,” Moriarty returns control to Picard and the two lovers are allowed to roam forever in their own “reality” within a protected file.
Barclay (Dwight Schultz) and Data worry about regaining control of the ship.
After three years, it turned out that the perceived taboo in doing more Sherlock Holmes stories—first laid down in Season 3 (see “The Defector”/158) following the first Moriarty story a year earlier (“Elementary, Dear Data”/129)—had all been a mistake! “Apparently the Arthur Conan Doyle estate was irritated with Paramount because of [the movie] Young Sherlock Holmes and they said no more, ever,” Taylor said, “Well, as in many walks of life it was never say never again; to my amazement they were willing to give us the characters for a very reasonable license fee.”
Even with that hurdle cleared, a planned Moriarty script fell through and the idea languished until Piller told Taylor to ask about one of the three story ideas Echevarria had suggested during his very first pitch session during Season 3—a feat that amazed the young writer: “My God, the man’s an elephant! He remembered that pitch?” Though not a Holmes story, the premise centered around a character on the holodeck who actually thinks he’s aboard ship. While brainstorming at one of Taylor’s Sunday sessions, Echevarria recalled, his hostess had just spoken of watching the first Moriarty episode and an idea to bring back the professor though alien embodiment when the two ideas struck him—solving the problem of getting Moriarty off the holodeck plausibly. Still, the nested universes kept even the writing staff dizzy: Ron Moore recalling diagramming the various universes as nestled boxes during the break sessions.
Schultz was booked to reprise Barclay when it was initially felt a character was needed who had not known about the first Moriarty encounter in Season 2, but that became a moot point and viewers—as well as director Singer, asked back after his first-ever TNG outing (“Relics”/230)—got to enjoy Schultz, Daniel Davis, and Stephanie Beacham—later of SeaQuest DSV—all in the same episode. Too, Echevarria mused, no one but Barclay could have made the whole episode’s final punch line work.
Set decorator Jim Mees revealed that his crew had to please two masters of continuity when outfitting the 221-B Baker Street study—the original Doyle story descriptions as well as the previous scene in Season 2. For instance, the first set’s wallpaper design had been discontinued in the past four years and could not be exactly matched.
Not to be overlooked, too, is FX supervisor David Stipes’ sequence featuring the collision of the star and gas planet; Stipes which allowed him to bring in “real science.” Designer Rick Sternbach said of the effect, “Our cry became ‘This is not Nova’,” he joked, referring to the PBS science series, “but we wanted to be as accurate with the gas exchange as possible. A lot of testing ensued, along with the discovery of the need for longer than usual sequences—twelve seconds as opposed to the typical four-to-five-second shot.”
Dr. Moriarty (Daniel Davis) and Countess Regina (Stephanie Beacham) think they’ve escaped from the holodeck.
For detail hounds, it is made clear in back-to-back shows that voice command codes are changed often: Picard’s goes from “Delta-5” (“Chain of Command, Part I”/236) to “Epsilon 7-9-3” here. The pattern enhancers are old hat (“Power Play”/215, “Time’s Arrow”/226, “Frame of Mind”/247, “Inheritance”/262), while the newer rear-entry live shuttle set doesn’t match the stock footage of the Sakharov original (from “Unnatural Selection”/133). Other oddities: Picard orders a “Class A” probe be launched when all others had previously been designated with numbers, and the “real” Riker talks to the Holo-Generated Moriarty via the main viewer.
AQUIEL
* * *
Production No.: 239 Aired: Week of February 1, 1993
Stardate: 46461.3 Code: aq
Directed by Cliff Bole
Teleplay by Brannon Braga & Ronald D. Moore
Story by Jeri Taylor
GUEST CAST
Lieutenant (j.g.) Aquiel Uhnari: Renee Jones
Governor Torak: Wayne Grace
Commander Morag: Reg E. Cathey
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
* * *
An odd mystery unfolds when La Forge, while replaying the personal logs of the missing lieutenant Aquiel Uhnari and befriending her dog—finds himself fall in love with her as he probes into the mysterious abandonment of her two-man relay station on the Klingon-UFP border.
With DNA residue found at the station, suspects yielded by her logs range all the way from the Klingon Morag, who had occasionally harassed her, to her own crewmate, Keith Rocha—until unexpectedly, the Klingon’s superior delivers both Morag and Aquiel to the Enterprise, where she returns La Forge’s affection.
Morag and Aquiel then become suspe
cts in Rocha’s disappearance, especially when the station crew’s ongoing fights, Aquiel’s quick temper, and her log tampering are revealed.
Despite La Forge’s support, clues are pointing to Uhnari’s guilt when the DNA residue shocks Crusher by suddenly assuming the shape of her hand. Picard’s staff realizes that a coalescent creature is at work and had taken the form of Rocha, then Aquiel’s dog—and La Forge barely escapes the creature when it wants to kill him and take his form.
Her name cleared but her career tainted, Uhnari can only bid La Forge a fond farewell and hope the two can meet again.
This story, generally felt to be one of the few disappointments of the season, originally began as yet another try at providing Geordi a recurring romance while tying into Piller’s suggestion of a mystery in the manner of the classic movie Laura—falling in love with someone who first appears to be dead and then turns up alive. “We now portray the twenty-fourth century as being full of single people,” Taylor observed. “We lost the O’Briens [to DS9] and everybody else is footloose and fancy free. It seems to me that’s not the only comment we should be making—that marriage and serious relationships DO survive into the twenty-fourth century. But how to tell a love story with an SF spin on it?”
The beautiful Aquiel (Renee Jones).
Geordi falls for Aquiel (Renee Jones).
Moore said the problem was that no one was ever satisfied with the person “whodunit.” Aquiel was initially to have been the killer, but when the plot seemed to be veering toward a Basic Instinct clone, both the Klingon and the dead Keith Rocha—named by Moore for another one of his high-school friends—were in turn considered for the murderer and then dropped as seeming too obvious. “At one point,” he recalled, “we finally said ‘Why not the dog?’ He had always been in the script; we had meant to leave him with Geordi from that time on.”
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition Page 40