7-24. Preemptive Strike.

Ro Laren is assigned to infiltrate the Maquis.

THE PLOT

The demilitarized zone along the Cardassian border has been destabilized by the Maquis, the resistance group formed by Federation colonists whose worlds were repatriated to Cardassia. With many in the Federation sympathizing with the Maquis, the group has grown in numbers and in access to Starfleet weaponry.  This has in turn renewed tensions with the Cardassians.

Picard turns to Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes) to infiltrate the Maquis. Her background, both as a Bajoran and as a Starfleet outsider, will make her apparent defection convincing. Ro has little difficulty ingratiating herself with the Maquis cell run by the kindly Macias (John Franklyn-Robbins). She volunteers to use her knowledge of the Enterprise's security systems to steal medical supplies, and the success of that mission gains the confidence of the entire group.

Which is when Picard proposes the next step. A convoy will be planted as a target, with intelligence spread to indicate that the ships are transporting components of biogenic weapons. The potential threat will be too great for the Maquis to send anything less than its full force to combat - allowing the Enterprise to cripple the resistance group in a single devastating blow!

It's a good plan, and with Ro's help its success is all but assured. But Ro is uncertain about betraying a group whose motives strike so close to home...

CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: When he sees Ro overwhelmed by the effusive welcome of the full command staff, he sends an official call for her to report to the bridge to allow her an escape. He understands that while she wants to catch up with everyone, she prefers to do so "one at a time." He is very proud of her achievements, and acts as something a father figure for her in the episode - an authority figure who has nurtured her, and whom she desperately doesn't want to disappoint. He remains fiercely dedicated to duty, however.  When he sees Ro beginning to question her assignment, he does not hesitate to outline the damage to her career if she sabotages the mission.

Lt. Ro: This is very much Ro's episode, as she agrees to infiltrate the Maquis. It's easy enough to predict the story trajectory, as she bonds with the members of the Maquis cell and starts to question her assignment. It is a combination of Michelle Forbes' very good performance with writer Rene Echevarria's understanding of the character that makes the drama work as well as it does. Her final choice is extremely easy to anticipate, but her progression to that point is so convincingly played that the journey remains absorbing.

Cardassians/Maquis: As was the case in DS9's two-parter, The Maquis, we see that the Cardassians are deliberately and repeatedly violating their agreement to respect the rights of the Federation colonists. Gul Evek (Richard Poe) insists to Picard that the Cardassian government is doing all it can to stop these abuses, but his assurances ring hollow - though, to the episode's credit, so do Picard's return assurances about Starfleet's efforts to curtail the Maquis. The episode does stack the deck, in that the Maquis we meet are all clearly decent people - It would be more interesting, and ring truer, if there were a few criminals or fanatics in the mix. Still, the script makes clear that both Cardassia and Starfleet have elements who are sympathetic to the supposedly unauthorized actions of individuals, which lends some enjoyable moral complexity to the situation.

THOUGHTS

Season Seven's otherwise mediocre Journey's End concluded with Picard negotiating a settlement that allowed Federation colonists to remain in territory that a peace treaty had ceded to the Cardassians - a far from ideal solution, but the best of the bad options available. The direct fallout was saved for Deep Space 9. That series' very good 2-parter, The Maquis, showed the escalation of tensions on those colony worlds, leading to the formation of the Maquis.

Preemptive Strike bounces the Maquis thread back to TNG, as Picard attempts to deal with a Maquis that is on the rise, gaining strength and growing ever more aggressive in its fight against the Cardassians. As if conscious of picking up where Deep Space 9 left off, writer Rene Echevarria creates an episode that feels closer in tone to DS9 than to TNG - and in so doing, he manages to deliver something that I haven't seen since Lower Decks and didn't expect to see again until All Good Things: A genuinely good episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

As a writer, Echevarria has always been particularly good at character material, and he plays to that strength here. He opens the episode by focusing on Ro's return to the Enterprise, signaling that this story will center on her. He allows a couple of scenes to lay out the "big picture" issues of the Maquis conflict: The Cardassian abuses of Federation citizens, the tensions flaring up between Cardassia and Starfleet over the rise of the Maquis, and the fear that it might spark a new war between the two powers. This shows us why Picard is so focused on stopping characters we will soon see as sympathetic, while at the same time acknowledging the Cardassians' bad behavior and the legitimacy of many of the colonists' grievances.

Then the episode returns to Ro and stays almost exclusively with her until the (very effective) tag with Picard and Riker. Ro is a character particularly well-suited to the Maquis arc. Her background as a one-time prisoner of the Cardassians, someone who watched as they murdered her father, makes it a given that she sympathizes with the Maquis. Her rising Starfleet career and her respect and gratitude for Picard leave her torn. But Ro has always been led mainly by her emotions. She sees people who have genuinely been oppressed, much as her own people once were, and quickly finds herself balking at the thought of stopping them from fighting back. Through this filter, the focus becomes the decision she must make - a decision that's all but a foregone conclusion, but that still feels earned by the end.

It's not quite as sharp as the very best Trek stories: There isn't much negative shown about the Maquis; the viewer doesn't directly see that their actions might harm innocents.  Sure, Admiral Nechayev (Natalija Nogulich) talks in vague terms about their increased aggression and worries about a new war - but nothing is demonstrated to show a dark side to what is, in effect, a terrorist group. This keeps the story from being as morally complex as it should be, though it is still far above-average for the series in this respect.

Mostly, I'm just relieved to be able to give a good review to TNG's final single-part episode. After the creative death march that has been the last third of the season, it's good to remember the kind of storytelling the series is capable of.

Overall Rating: 8/10.

7-20. Journey's End.

Wesley undergoes a Vision Quest.

THE PLOT

A new treaty with the Cardassians has left several Federation colonies in Cardassian space - including a Native American tribe that lives on Dorvan V. Picard's orders are to relocate the tribe using "any means necessary."

Negotiations with Anthwara (Ned Romero), the tribe's leader, do not go well. Anthwara states that this world is their home, and that he has no interest in finding another. Efforts are further complicated when a Cardassian survey team led by Gul Evek (Richard Poe) arrives. Evek wonders why Picard needs to negotiate at all when the treaty has already settled all this, and his soldiers' heavy-handed presence sparks new tension among the colonists, threatening to reignite the very conflict the treaty was meant to officially end.

Meanwhile, Wesley Crusher visits the ship while on leave from the Academy. His mother and Geordi are eager to spend time with him. But Wesley is sullen and snappish, responding with exaggerated irritation to all attempts at conversation. When Wesley visits the planet, Lakanta (Tom Jackson), a tribal mystic, leads him on a "vision quest" that makes him discover that his disillusionment is because he is on the wrong path - leading him to a decision to resign from Starfleet Academy!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: His inclinations toward peace making are shown at the very start, when Admiral Nechayev (Natalia Nogulich) comes aboard. Picard resolves to diffuse the tension that has marked their previous interactions by laying out a snack tray that includes her favorite canapes. She responds to this gesture, and is clearly pained at having to give what she knows are terrible orders. Picard, to his credit, does not blame her for the assignment and makes sure that she knows this. This side of Picard, the patient diplomat, is on display throughout the episode. His solution is an imperfect one and he knows it, but his victory is that he manages to uphold his duty and avoid starting a new war, even if the colony will end up suffering more in the long-term than if they had simply allowed themselves to be relocated.

Dr. Crusher: Is bewildered by Wesley's sullen behavior, and tries to enlist Picard to snap him out of it. When Picard replies that Wesley will need to work through his issues on his own, she bows to his judgment, but her worry is clear. In a conversation with Wesley, she reveals fear that she pushed him too hard to be what was expected. She accepts his decision at the episode's end, but does not do so happily.

Cardassians: Gul Evek, who would later be seen in Deep Space 9's The Maquis, leads the Cardassian team that intrudes on Picard's negotiations. Evek initially comes across as the Cardassian stormtrooper seen in his DS9 and Voyager appearances. He is not immune to Picard's reasoned pleas for peace, however. He has too much first-hand knowledge of how much the war cost both sides to want hostilities to resume. In his willingness to listen to Picard, he shows that the Cardassian military is not simply made up of mindless automatons... Though his initial tactics show why Picard's solution at the end of this episode never had any chance of long-term success.


SHUT UP, WESLEY!

After the enormous strides made with the character in previous appearances, most notably The First Duty, this isn't so much a step backward as a giant leap. Adding to the disappointment is that this script is from First Duty co-writer Ronald D. Moore, who had previously done such a good job of making Wesley into a relatable human being. Here, he comes onto the ship acting like a bratty teenager. Then he allows himelf to be led by the nose by Lakanta to discover that he doesn't really belong in Starfleet after all. Never mind the years of episodes showing that Wesley genuinely loved being a part of Starfleet - It turns out that was just him doing what was expected of him. So he rebels by... doing what the Traveler (Eric Menyuk) said he should way back in Where No One Has Gone Before, right down to agreeing to have the Traveler guide him in his new studies.


THOUGHTS

Journey's End can lay claim to being an important episode for the franchise. It is the last real appearance of Wesley Crusher (discounting a throwaway cameo in Star Trek: Nemesis). It establishes the Federation/Cardassian treaty that would be so effectively followed up by The Maquis. And with a story that draws deliberate parallels to the forced resettlement of Native American tribes in the 19th century, it draws on the kind of historical/social fabric that has fueled many good and even great Star Trek episodes.

Journey's End is not a good episode.

The episode has many potentially interesting ingredients: The tying of up Wesley's "Traveler" storyline, and making that work with his Starfleet Academy arc by showing his disillusionment with that life (likely in part a reaction to the events of The First Duty); Picard's negotiations with Anthwara, and the revelation of heinous acts against Native American tribes by one of his own ancestors; the dispute with the Cardassians over how to resolve the impasse, and Picard's own ultimate solution. There's plenty here to make for a worthwhile episode.

Which is part of the problem: There's too much. The Wesley material never feels like an organic part of this episode. Tying up his storyline should have been a show in itself - It's not like Season Seven hasn't offered up some expendable storylines that could have made way for it! This episode reduces his story to a hastily-executed "B" plot, making it more of a distraction than anything else.

I will say that the scenes between Picard and Anthwara work well, in large part thanks to the performances and sheer screen presence of Patrick Stewart and Ned Romero. I also enjoyed Picard's interactions with Gul Evek, which provided new background on the Federation/Cardassian War by showing in Evek's final decision that it was a conflict that scarred both sides. The heavy-handed manner of the Cardassians, and the violent way in which the colonists react to them, sews the seeds of the entire Maquis storyline - something that was clearly deliberately done, given that The Maquis aired less than a month after this episode.

Unfortunately, as has been true of almost every Trek treatment of Native American culture, the colony is portrayed in broad and mystical terms. The tribe is mystical and the land speaks to them and they have deep wisdom to share with any white man who wants to be Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. Voyager co-creator Jeri Taylor evidently intended that Chakotay came from this colony, and it's easy to see echoes of Chakotay's most tedious traits in the condescending way in which this tribe of "magic Indians" are treated. They aren't really individuals - They are stereotypes, with only Ned Romero managing to lend a bit of stature to the weak material.

I will say that Journey's End is far from the worst of TNG's disappointing final season. It is at least trying, and there are some good scenes and elements. But this is an "off day" for writer Ronald D. Moore, who is capable of so much better, and yet another weak episode in the increasingly long string of weak episodes that is bringing this show to its end.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Episode: Genesis
Next Episode: Firstborn


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