TNG – Final Mission

Plot – I’m not sure there is much of a plot to Final Mission. It manipulates Wesley into a position where he has to stand up for himself and save the Captain but it does so in the most simplistic way you can imagine. Side by side with this is a shipboard ‘drama’ featuring some very dull aliens whose name I have already forgotten that seems to exist merely to give the regulars something to do alongside the Wesley plot and is an excuse to keep them out of the way from saving Wesley and allowing for the father/son time. In plot terms, this is about as anaemic as TNG comes.

Character – Has anyone ever stopped to ask Wesley if he wanted to join Starfleet Academy? I think it’s always been kind of assumed because he is such a brainbox that that would be the natural direction for him. It’s very sweet that he has finally made after all these years but I would have thought that all the exposure he has had on the Enterprise would have guaranteed him a position and probably the reprieve of skipping the first two years. Bless Wesley – imagine him being the person who failed to save Captain Picard? What a burden that would be on his career. Ultimately he comes to the conclusion that he doesn’t want to be another Starfleet drone and had somebody thought to let him have his say and consider his future perhaps he might have reached that conclusion a lot sooner.

Captain Picard has always been a father substitute for Wesley, albeit an awkward one at times and here he delivers the delightful news (or at least he seems to think so) that he will be enjoying his final mission on the Enterprise with him. He isn’t just a pretty face; his survival techniques are what keep the alien initially on this overheated planet.

Dirgo is such a rogue that I’m not sure we’re ever supposed to think anything but hatred for him. I prefer a little more ambiguity in my guest characters, an uncertainty as to whether I should trust them or not. Nick Tate plays another villain later in DS9’s run and it is a much more sophisticated character, one who we come to get close to personally whilst he is doing some pretty obscene things at the same time. Dirgo in comparison is a plot staller, he’s there to get in the way and to shout at. Admittedly the episode wouldn’t be half the length without him but I’m not sure that would be such a bad thing. When he dies the episode doesn’t even falter, which shows you how essential he was to how things play out.

The scene where Dr Bev, spotting Troi ducking in her door, chooses to ignore the fact that she is there rather than listen to her empathise about the loss of her son. I’m not the greatest fan of this character but I was right there with her in that moment.

Production – Does anybody think about the practicalities of these alien species who are designed with their mouth’s half sown up? What a very odd way to go about things. They must have to live their lives sucking in nutrients through a straw.

Without an incredible amount of surprise, the bucket of bolts that Picard and Wesley embark in is careening out of control and crashing within about five minutes.

The astonishing shot of Picard leaping from the shuttle in the desert and walking around the ship as it smokes in the burnt orange sunlight. Trek really was finding its feet visually in the early 90s here.

Best moment – Fortunately the one moment where Final Mission hits and wins is the moment Wesley opens out to Picard and admits that he worked as hard as he did to make him proud of him. I’ve always said that Wil Wheaton seems to up his game when he acts alongside Patrick Stewart and this is probably his strongest scene to date in the series. The moment when Picard admits that he envies Wesley because he is just at the beginning of the adventure sneaked up on me and really broke my heart. Patrick Stewart is absolutely heart-breaking here.

I wish they hadn’t done that – Trekking through the desert isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I approached a Star Trek episode and it does get pretty tedious fairly quickly, no matter how well filmed it is. There isn’t a narrative to this journey, it’s just endless scenes of these characters looking hot and sweaty and trudging on in the sun. I was grateful when they reached the cave because some semblance of a plot exists there.

A reason to watch this episode again – There’s not enough incident here to fill 45 minutes, which is a shame because the basic premise of this episode (Wesley on a final rollicking adventure with Picard) is sound. Instead of going for the Indiana Jones style adventure that this story perhaps should have been it plays out like your typical Trek morality play, deathly serious and about as enjoyable as that sounds. There’s desert, there’s water and there’s a forcefield and Wesley has try to figure out the puzzle before Captain Picard dies. Seasons three and four (and six for some of its run) are my personal favourites of TNG but episodes like Final Mission show that for all the leaps and bounds it had made from its humble beginnings, there were still lessons to be learnt. The very sweet performance from Wil Wheaton and his relationship with Patrick Stewart that bleeds onto the screen is what keeps this afloat.

**1/2 out of *****

Clue for tomorrow's episode: