Plot – When the teaser entirely consists of Wesley Crusher returning to the Ship in a sullen mood, you know the episode in question is in trouble.
This is where the whole Maquis storyline came to be born and in a brilliantly written scene between Picard and Nacheyev we learn that within the negotiations between the Cardassians and the Federation that neither side got everything they wanted but both sides got something, and even that was an uneasy compromise. If we go down the ‘needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one’ route then this is the best hope for peace between the two (and trust me when they go to war in the latter DS9 years it is a bloody conflict that should be avoided at all costs) and the unfortunate side effect of that alliance is that several Federation colonies need to leave their homes and be relocated. It is politics having a detrimental effect on innocent people (isn’t that always the way) and it is how those people react to that where the drama lies.
Character – I love love love the fact that there is a small female Admiral out there that can bring Picard to his knees with a line and make him wither with a stare. She’s a micro-managing robot with no time for pleasantries and she demands perfection and total obedience. Picard just can’t seem to establish a decent relationship with her, no matter how hard he tried and given he is a diplomat that is a bitter pill to swallow. This is probably the gentlest example or their relationship and it is still prickly.
Performance – Wil Wheaton is much more suited to playing the idealistic Starfleet cadet than this hormonal, bastard of an adult who has seen everything that the Federation has to offer and thinks it is a bit of a joke. Before it was like a child pretending to be an adult and now it is more like an adult pretending to be a child. It was Ronald D. Moore that pushed for Wesley to head off with the Traveller rather than end up at the helm of the Enterprise. It’s a good point to make because ever since the first season of this show they have been suggesting that this boy wonder is so much more than he seems and for him to end up as no much more than a sub-par Chekov. There’s nothing wrong with being at the helm of the Enterprise, but with Wesley comes the promise of more (apparently). In order to get there, we have to watch him behaving like a stroppy teen with no investment in his future.
I can’t quite believe the last scene between Wesley and Dr Bev, which is trying its damndest to pull on the heartstrings but to me seems like two actors struggling to bring weight to a relationship that this show has long moved on from. Gates McFadden (to give her her due) is doing some of her best work here and it still isn’t quite enough to convince.
Best moment – The Traveller turning up and telling Wesley ‘let’s chip, they can sort out these difficulties on their own.’ Man, why does he never turn up and tell me the same thing when the chips are down. I guess I’m just not exceptional like Wesley.
Worst moment – There’s a suggestion here that he has been following in his father’s footsteps this whole time but that has certainly never been brought up before, and Wesley appeared in over half of the TNG episodes. It’s been Captain Picard’s footsteps that he has been tracing and that has been explicitly explored several times during the shows seven years.
It’s a get out clause without guts, much like the rest of the episode. The Indians decide to revoke Federation status and the Cardassians promise to leave them alone. The drama would lie in Picard being forced to take them against their will and his core beliefs. Or if this conclusion was drawn and they were wiped out by the Cardassians soon after. To simply end the episode with everybody shaking hands and agreeing to leave each other alone seems so spineless.
I wish they hadn’t done that – Trust TNG to take the blunt pipe approach and have the colony that needs to be moved Native Americans, making the allegory less subtle and more in your face. This is the first real flirtation with this kind of Native American mythology that would plague Voyager. DS9 and Voyager made the Maquis regular people trying to cling on for their lives. That’s powerful. The idea of the flagship of the Federation having to sweep in and displace a bunch of Indians lacks any complexity because it so obviously trying to appeal to the audience for sympathy. Even worse they directly refer to events in history to give this more weight but only serve to remind us that this entire storyline has been stolen wholesale from the past. They may as well have made this a time travel episode and actually shown the Native Americans being forced away from their land for all the differences that they stamp on this future colony.
A reason to watch this episode again – This is an unusually reticent episode of TNG for Ronald. D Moore and a lacklustre final effort for Wesley Crusher. A direct allegory to Native Americans being dislocated (direct as in Moore is there swinging a pipe to your head) is gutted of worth by being entirely bloodless and political. An attempt is made to make it personal but throwing in Picard’s ancestor feels a bit cheap, trying to give him an emotional involvement into a story where he is the facilitator of a monstrous act. Usually he just sweeps in, does what he is supposed to do and warps out quoting the Prime Directive with a smile on his mouth. At this late stage I don’t see why this should be any different? The direction is decidedly lacklustre but with a script that affords so few opportunities I’m not surprised…and besides static seems to be the TNG approach in the final season. Wesley gets to pop off with The Traveller after playing protestor; it’s a reasonable end to the character (we never see him again after this) but it’s hardly something that anybody would talk about for longer than a minute. ‘Oh yeah…Wesley left.’
** out of *****
Clue to the next episode:
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