When Worf’s capture was the moment chosen to climax the expanded first part and a B-story was needed to fill out the hour, the filler evolved under deadline desperation into the acclaimed sequence of Data’s dreaming—a chance to expand the android’s character with surreal images and metaphysical archetypes that Brannon Braga recalled coming up with while having pizza with Echevarria. Initially the bit had concerned “flatlining,” Echevarria recalled, until just before “Tapestry” mined the subject. Many fans greeted the lack of a follow-up to the Data plot in Part II with disappointment, but the staff praised the outing and promised a follow-up story in this new area of Data’s humanity—a plotline initially considered for the season’s cliffhanger. He would eventually get a chance to follow up on the nightmare side of those dreams (“Phantasms”/258).
As usual, FX supervisor David Stipes used storyboards in creating the dream sequence—featuring an airbrushed nebula by his boss, Dan Curry. Like the character, his motif was “breaking free” of the mundane—in this case, camera angles—and he joined Braga in crediting director Cliff Bole for the lyrical quality of the bird flight sequence and in keeping consistent feel through both the live and FX sequences. Jim Magdaleno, Alan Kobayashi, and Mike Okuda of the TNG art department provided Data’s paintings—except for a landscape Curry had done for the painting scene with Timothy in “Hero Worship” (211). Actor Brent Spiner was thrilled to take Data in a new direction, while the forties-ish Dr. Soong took far less effort to prepare than his initial appearance, though he wears the same lab wrap (“Brothers”/177, “Inheritance”/262”).
Time constraints and a broken leg suffered by actor Cromwell (also in “The Hunted”/159) over the holiday break between the two segments’ filming forced the trimming of the part of Jaglom Shrek—a name Braga coined from Henry Jaglom, independent film director, and the old Yiddish/Hebrew word for “shriek.” A sympathetic scene in which he confesses he was once a prison camp inmate himself was lost, while another cut before filming would have contrasted with Worf’s actions even more by having Shrek assassinated during a shipboard interrogation by one of the captured Klingons’ grown sons who was determined not to hear the truth about his father. Shrek’s craft was the old “alien shuttle” live set and miniature (“Legacy”/180, “Final Mission”/183, “A Matter of Time”/209, “Liaisons”/254, “Gambit, Part II”/257), redressed once again.
One of the oddest bits of casting here is the debut of the “new” Spot, since producers had lost track of the original source (“Data’s Day”/185) until the day of filming, when it was too late to change. The result was a breed change from Somal to mixed short-hair. With full-time prop master Alan Sims now using Rob Block’s Critters of the Cinema for most animals, Brandy now would be “passive Spot,” with backup “active” Abbott, eventually replaced once by Bud and for the duration by Monster—the animals “cast” by photo alone. “I did suggest they have Data give Spot away and get another cat (to cover the change), but they turned it down,” Block recalled. The legendary Spot would be seen again in “Descent” (252-253), “Phantasms”/258, “Force of Nature”/261, “Genesis”/271, and Generations—and even undergo pregnancy after being male here!
Worf learns that his father may well be alive.
We find here that Data does indeed “grow” hair, “breathe,” and have a “pulse”; his room is still adorned with his Sherlock Holmes garb (“The Last Outpost”/107, “Elementary, Dear Data”/129, “Ship in a Bottle”/238), his violin (“The Ensigns of Command”/149, “Sarek”/171, “Lessons”/245, “Inheritance”/262), and the supposed “holodeck” Musketeer cap and foil (“Hollow Pursuits”/169). The Merrimac, mentioned briefly, was part of Picard’s blockade (“Redemption, Part II”/201), and had provided transport for Wes Crusher (“The Game”/206) and Sarek (“Sarek”/171). Along with Bashir we get a glimpse of a Bolian and the recurring silent alien Morn from DS9, learn that the Ktarians (“The Game”/206, “Timescape”/251, “Liaisons”/254, “Phantasms”/258, Generations) had spacegoing technology three hundred years ago, and hear that the hammer is a Ferengi archetype for sexual prowess, building on that old joke (see “The Price”/156). And thanks to prior clues (“The Bonding”/153) we know that Worf was younger than six during the ritual hunt L’Kor speaks of.
BIRTHRIGHT, PART II
* * *
Production No.: 243 Aired: Week of March 1, 1993
Stardate: 46579.2 Code: bi2
Directed by Dan Curry
Written by René Echevarria
GUEST CAST
Gi’ral: Christine Rose
Jaglom Shrek: James Cromwell
Toq: Sterling Macer, Jr.
Tokath: Alan Scarfe
Ba’el: Jennifer Gatti
L’Kor: Richard Herd
* * *
Held captive by an unlikely, peaceful Romulan-Klingon colony on Carraya IV, Worf discovers that the tale of his father’s survival that lured him there is untrue.
Kept hostage so the Klingons’ survival during capture will not dishonor their survivors, Worf learns from Klingons L’Kor and Gi’ral of their eventual peace in the camp—and even Gi’ral’s marriage to Romulan leader Tokath, somewhat of a rebel himself for keeping them alive and staying there with her.
But Worf, hating Romulans since his family’s death at Khitomer, is disgusted by the intermarriage and his realization that their lovely daughter Ba’el, who was attracted to him, is a half-breed. An escape try foiled by the cynical young Toq leaves Worf a caged animal in the compound, but even more so he is disturbed to see the Klingon youths ignorant of their heritage. A wary Tokath and L’Kor allow his stories and teachings, even letting Toq go with Worf to take part in—and insure his return from—the Klingons’ ritual hunt.
But Toq and the other youths grow so restless following his truths that Tokath sadly decides to kill Worf rather than lose the historic peace of the village. But the youths and the elders stand with Worf, who takes the youths with him under guise of “crash survivors” while keeping the elders a secret and their honor intact.
Though he had worked in live theater in college and had long been directing TNG second-unit and pickup shots, visual FX producer Dan Curry got his first crack at directing in the long form here and credited director of photography Jonathan West, sound mixer Alan Bernard, and Dorn himself for easing his transition. Sadly, he had to cut some seven minutes of character scenes due to time, including “steps” showing Worf and Ba’el’s relationship, and the confrontation between Worf and Gi’ral in which the Klingon woman who married a Romulan stands up to the presumptuous interloper about her mixed-race marriage.
Surprisingly, Echevarria said that so much effort went into making both the Klingons and Romulans sympathetic here in the two-parter’s main story arc that many fans felt Worf came off looking like a fascist racist who ruins a peaceful place. “His motives are in fact racist, when he’s dealing with Romulans,” the writer said. “But his actions are different; all he said was these people should know the truth and be free to leave. He never advocated violence and bloodshed.” A smaller in-house debate raged over the depth of the Worf-Ba’el affair: whether a rendezvous would have been dramatically correct or too contrived for a one-hour episode.
Curry’s hands-on mark shows up throughout the episode—and not just from throwing the spear through the wheel for the insert shot during the Klingon youths’ game sequence. Drawing on the same background in swords and weaponry that produced Worf’s bat’telh he designed the blade for the Gin’tak spear (see notes, “Firstborn”/273), modeling it on the wavy-bladed Balinese kris dagger with the “capturing flanges” inspired by Northern Chinese weapons, while Sternbach designed the shaft, Curry’s tai chi expertise also came to the fore when Worf’s Klingon movement, first seen briefly in “Data’s Day” (185), finally gets a name, Mok’bara—though a reference to Kahless as its creator was yet another cut for time. One of the most famous Klingon weapons, the spring-loaded dagger first seen in ST III, is finally chr
istened here as a D’k tahg.
The Romulan fortress miniature, complete with computer animation that added tiny walking figures and flying birds, was computer-inserted into Laotian jungle photos Curry snapped in the sixties during his days in Southeast Asia. The large fortress live set, also designed by Richard James, built from a budget spread over two episodes; in one shot it appears to include a wheelchair-access ramp over a curbstone (though that’s just for mundane camera work). With filming for the two episodes split by the December holiday break, all the live plants and trees from the substantial jungle and garden sets died untended on the dark, sealed-off soundstage and had to be replaced!
Listen for the blooper as Picard transposes two digits in his log’s stardates, saying “46759.2” instead of “46579.2”; compared to Part I’s stardate the difference means Worf was gone for over two months! Another curiosity is the location of the Carraya system, since it is seen on an Okudagraph map to be just outside Romulan space though apparently here not lying too far from DS9 in the Cardassian border area, which had earlier been set as on the opposite “side” of the Federation; the same map displays an unmentioned third star as “Echevarria,” Throughout the two-parter the massacre at Khitomer (seen in the same map as within Romulan space) is referred to variously as occurring twenty-five, twenty, and twenty-three years ago, though by taking the period of “Twenty years ago” literally in Season 3’s “Sins of the Father” (165) only the latter can be correct. Further mythic conflict between Kahless and his brother Morath (“New Ground”/210, “Rightful Heir”/249, “Firstborn”) is also featured. Among the guests, Alan Scarfe had played a Romulan already (“Data’s Day”/185) while Richard Herd was well known to V and later SeaQuest DSV viewers.
On the former prison planet, Klingons and Romulans live in peace.
With music composed by Jay Chattaway, Braga said it was the writing, broadcast, and residual payments for this episode’s Klingon lyrics—along with those for the “Song of Aquiel” (239) and Data’s bad poetry (“Schisms”/231)—that ironically won the self-described nonmusical Chattaway an invitation to join ASCAP, the songwriter/lyricist union. “We did a Klingon rap version of it too,” co-producer and sound overseer Wendy Neuss recalled, and then joked: “I’m going to do an album someday, Songs From Around the Universe.”
STARSHIP MINE
* * *
Production No.: 244 Aired: Week of March 29, 1993
Stardate: 46682.4 Code: st
Directed by Cliff Bole
Written by Morgan Gendel
GUEST CAST
Commander Calvin “Hutch” Hutchinson: David Spielberg
Kelsey: Marie Marshall
Devor: Tim Russ
Orton: Glenn Morshower
Neil: Tom Nibley
Satler: Tim deZarn
Kiros: Patricia Tallman
Waiter: Arlee Reed
Pomet: Alan Altshuld
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
* * *
With the Enterprise shut down and its crew evacuated at the Remmler Array for a routine yet deadly baryon-purging sweep, the senior officers brace for a dreary reception at nearby Arkaria Base with Commander “Hutch” Hutchinson, known as the king of boring hosts.
Picard, anxious to slip away to get his saddle on the ship for some planetside riding, discovers a plot by six thieves to drain off the warp engine’s toxic waste, trilithium resin, whose only use is as a weapon. Escaping capture, Picard begins a cat-and-mouse game on the lifeless, darkened ship as he escapes and slowly knocks off the gang one by one.
Picard knocks out the field diverter that would have protected the thieves from the sweep, sending them all scurrying to Ten-Forward to escape the beam. Back on the base, administrator Orton,—a co-conspirator—leads a takeover and kills Hutchinson, taking the senior officers hostage.
Gang leader Kelsey, after killing a cohort who’d rigged a stabilizer for the explosive resin, recaptures Picard but loses her last assistant to one of his booby traps. After they fight for the container, she grabs it and beams off to a waiting shuttle. Picard’s pleas for help over his captured communicator are heard by his officers, who have turned the tables on their captors. The beam fades just as Kelsey’s shuttle explodes—thanks to the stabilizer he removed during their melee.
This take on Die Hard was a violent action/adventure concept so far off the TNG norm that Jeri Taylor predicted it probably wouldn’t have been done in years past, “It was very violent,” Michael Piller agreed, “but it’s good to have one of these kind in the mix [of stories]”; Stewart enjoyed the break from the “sitting and talking” norm and did several of his own stunts, as he had in “Tapestry,” With only a slight rewrite by Ron Moore for budget needs—“all those stunts take forever to shoot—we’re just not geared to it,” he noted—the script from Morgan Gendel won praise as coming from one of the show’s better outside writers. It was far afield from his last effort, the gentle “The Inner Light” (225).
Denied extras in the reception scenes due to cost, director Bole asked co-producer Wendy Neuss to round out the effect with background small talk among the regular cast—who had only the gabby Commander Hutchinson and two terrorist/servants to make up a formal occasion. In a unique move, Neuss virtually choreographed all the dialogue with a flowchart, tracking the cast involved even when not on camera and what they might be saying. She even had staff writers Brannon and Echevarria write scripted small-talk “walla” for the regulars, which led to the series’ first-ever group “looping” (or redubbing) session by the cast at Modern Sound. Unfortunately, Neuss noted, most of that—Gates McFadden’s improv with the waiter about him being an out-of-work actor, for one, and Braga’s lines for Troi and Geordi about cheese logs, later deemed too over-the-top—will never see the light of day.
Picard’s interest in horses was nothing new (“Pen Pals”/141, “The Loss”/184, Generations), but his apparent use of a Vulcan neck pinch is really supposed to be just a carotid-artery block; amid the chatter Data mentions the Sheliak (“Ensigns of Command”/ 149) and Hutchinson reveals he’d met Beverly during her stay at Starfleet Medical (“Evolution”/150). The matte shot of Arkaria Base was originally used as Darwin Genetics Research Station (“Unnatural Selection”/133) and would be reused again this season (“Descent”/252). And with the need for routine baryon “cleansing” of starships established, Geordi mentions that his starship gets double the number of warp-hours as is usual; it is also established that his VISOR comes with a pain-blocker. And for an odd bit of background, we learn that Phaser IIs are stored in Sickbay when Picard pulls one out of the same bin that Riker uses later (“Timescape”/251).
Filming the Remmler Array, as designed by Rick Stembach and built by Greg Jein, proved tricky in itself since video of the eighteen-inch miniature had to be composited with the four-foot starship model. FX supervisor David Stipes revealed than an actual laser was used to scan the ship, its reddish glow serving as a target for the green-tinged animation added later. Curry’s shuttle drone briefly seen was the same used earlier in “11001001” (116): a six-inch “quick-and-dirty” model with disposable Gillette razor handles as nacelles. Budget cuts also trimmed the look of the male “shoelace eye” alien terrorist, whom Michael Westmore said was to have had a fuller face treatment. Kiros, the lesser female terrorist, was a Bajoran and was played by Patricia Tallman, a frequent stunt double—Crusher’s, for example, in “Suspicions” (248). The later much-traveled cast also included Arlee Reed, script coordinator Lolita Fatjo’s husband and later “human” (“Emergence”/275); Alan Altshud, a later Yridian (“Gambit, Part I”/256); Glenn Morshower, also seen as a bridge officer reincarnated from one Enterprise (Generations) to another (“Peak Performance”/147); and finally Tim Russ, who was not only the Klingon T’Rul in DS9’s “Invasive Procedures” and a 1701-B crewman in Generations but played older Vulcan regular Tuvok on the second TNG spinoff, Voyager.
Geordi and Deanna are polite but bored at Commander Hutchinson’s (
David Spielberg) reception.
LESSONS
* * *
Production No.: 245 Aired: Week of April 5, 1993
Stardate: 46693.1 Code: In
Directed by Robert Wiemer
Written by Ronald Wilkerson & Jean Louise Matthias
GUEST CAST
Lieutenant Commander Nella Daren: Wendy Hughes
Computer Voice: Majel Barrett
Lieutenant (j.g.) Marques: R. Cox
* * *
The captain’s usually solo personal life suddenly becomes a duet when his new chief of stellar sciences, Lieutenant Commander Nella Daren, checks in aboard his ship.
The lovely, intelligent woman is also an accomplished pianist, and after a concert Picard tells her of his Ressikan flute and the odd way he learned to play it. Their duets quickly lead to love: Troi assuages the captain’s guilt about his command image, while an unintended incident between Nella and Riker leads the captain to remind her that in any choice between her and the ship, the Enterprise must come first.
But that credo is more than put to the test when the ship arrives to study the firestorms of Bersallis III. The scientific excitement turns tense when the storms threaten the UFP outpost earlier than expected, and Nella goes down with the teams when she and La Forge create a shield to cover the evacuation.
But Picard finds himself ordering Nella to her possible death when the teams must remain to control the shields manually. When she and her crew are presumed dead, it is all he can do to keep life going, but even her miraculous reprieve with a team member leads them both to realize they cannot remain lovers while working as commander and subordinate.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition Page 42