The Enterprise is en route to a scientific mission, when Picard receives an urgent message from Walker, an old friend high up in Starfleet, diverting Picard's ship to meet with him face-to-face. After a seemingly paranoid Walker and two other Starfleet captains insist on verifying that Picard is who he says he is, Walker talks about strange orders and mysterious deaths within Starfleet. Though Picard remains skeptical, Walker urges him to keep his eyes open.
The Enterprise returns to its original course. But then the ship picks up debris - belonging to Walker's ship, which was totally destroyed in an apparent "accident." When Data confirms Walker's suspicions, that there has indeed been a pattern, one that could be a prelude to invasion, Picard orders the ship to return to Earth, to confront the officers at Starfleet head-on!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: With no evidence, Picard refuses to completely go along with Walker at the meeting. But he does trust his old friend and the caliber of the other two captains involved, so he enlists Data to study recent Starfleet orders to see what kind of pattern actually is there.
Riker: When Picard fills him in on Walker's suspicions, Riker is even more skeptical than Picard was. It is only when Data confirms that pattern and lays it out for him and Picard that he fully buys into Walker's conspiracy theory. Jonathan Frakes gets a particularly good scene late in the episode, when Riker appears to have been taken over, proving again that actors have much more fun when they get to "play evil."
Dr. Crusher: Gets a chance to participate in an action scene, going in literally with her phaser blazing. Once she examines a victim of the conspiracy, she advises Picard to set his phaser to kill - not what you'd expect from the normally moralizing doctor.
THOUGHTS
Coming of Age and this episode effectively work as a 2-parter that happens to be separated by a handful of other episodes. It's not the first season finale, but it probably should be. With its dark tone, and an ending that leaves hints of things having changed and things left unresolved, this would have been a strong end note for an uneven-at-best first season.
Pacing has been a frequent problem in the first season of TNG, with what should be urgent situations lacking any sense of urgency. This episode gets the pacing right. It starts off with an ominous, moodily lit scene that evokes the paranoid thrillers of the 1970's, as Picard is let in on the plot that will soon put him in mortal danger. From that point on, the episode moves very quickly, allowing the viewer little chance to question any potential plot-holes that arise.
For all that, I really think this should have been stretched out to a second episode. The scenes at Starfleet Command feel under-developed, the entire situation being resolved too quickly. This is a good one-parter, but I suspect it might have been an outstanding two-parter. Incidentally, can you imagine if a different path had been taken with Tasha's exit, and this had been made her final episode? She could have been unmasked as a member of the crew who had been taken over. That would have made the payoff of Coming of Age even more dramatic, while at the same time providing a much more memorable exit than being blasted by a bit of goo.
The other frustration is one that has nothing to do with the episode itself, and more to do with what came after. This episode is clearly designed to act as a trigger on an arc. The ending promises a payoff down the line, one which never ended up coming. Admittedly, part of that is that the producers came up with a better idea (the Borg). Even so, at least one more episode should have been made somewhere in Season Two or Three, just to tie up the loose ends.
Rating: 7/10.
Previous Episode: We'll Always Have Paris
Next Episode: The Neutral Zone
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