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| Picard and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) are caught in a Romulan trap. |
THE PLOT
Picard is given a top-secret mission from Starfleet Command. Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has disappeared from Vulcan, only to reappear on Romulus! Starfleet suspects Spock has defected. Spock's dying father, Sarek (Mark Lenard), thinks otherwise. Sarek suggests Spock has made a rendezvous with Pardek (Malachi Throne), a former Romulan senator who has been a voice for peace and moderation within the Empire. Picard calls in a favor owed by the Klingons to secure a cloaked ship for travel across the Neutral Zone.
Picard is able to find Spock fairly quickly and discovers that Sarek was right. Spock has not defected to Romulus, but is instead working with Senator Pardek and a Romulan underground movement. Through Pardek, Spock is trying to appeal to a new Romulan proconsul to work toward the reunification of Vulcan and Romulus. But when the proconsul appears a bit too eager to help Spock achieve this dream, Picard suspects they have all walked into a carefully-laid trap!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: It is now difficult to remember how weakly Picard came across in the early days of the series. Between the ever-improving character writing and the performance of Patrick Stewart, Picard has grown from the tedious grumpy old windbag of early Season One into a genuinely complex and formidable figure. We get to see multiple sides to him, even within the first twenty minutes. He is gentle and compassionate in dealing with Sarek, even as he keeps firmly on topic in getting what information the old Vulcan can give. In contrst, he is all tough shrewdness in dealing with the Klingons, selecting his words with care to convey just enough of a threat to remind Gowron of how much he owes to Picard and Starfleet. These two scenes, coming one right after another, are masterful demonstrations of Picard's skill as a commander, and Patrick Stewart seems to revel in them.
Spock: Leonard Nimoy's special guest appearance as Spock was heavily advertised at the time... which probably left a lot of viewers of Part One frustrated, as Spock barely appears in that episode. Part Two makes up for that, giving him a very large role that respects the character's place within the franchise without marginalizing Picard in any way. Spock's interactions with Picard are vastly different than his interactions with Kirk. There, Spock was usually the voice of caution. Here, Picard fulfills that function, cautioning Spock about the likelihood of a trap and trying to make the Vulcan slow down and think. Effectively, Picard becomes Spock's version of Mr. Spock - adding to the humor of Spock's observation of how "analytical and detached" Picard is. It's actually a very interesting partnership, and I'm actively sorry that Spock wasn't seen again in TNG - either in the show or the movies.
Riker: The "B" plot puts Riker back in command of the Enterprise. It's a role that continues to suit him, which only reinforces how insupportable it is for him not to be transferring to his own command by this point. We do see some of the differences between Riker and Picard in command. Where Picard tends to be analytical, Riker is more instinctive. His handling of the Ferengi in the smugglers' bar is certainly more Kirk than Picard, as he does not hesitate to get physical and intimidating in order to get the information he needs.
Sela: Denise Crosby makes a return appearance as the half-Romulan Sela. I think she's better here than she was in Redemption, with her stiffness well-suited to a character whose only real emotion is thinly suppressed anger. Still, save for a single reference to Redemption, there's nothing here to really use the character's backstory. You could easily replace her with Tomalak for the same effect - and I'd actually have preferred that, as the thought of Patrick Stewart, Leonard Nimoy, and Andreas Katsulas all acting up a storm is genuinely irresistible. Ah, well. Crosby's not bad here, and I actually think it's a shame that the character never recurs again.
Sarek: Mark Lenard only has a single scene, but it's a powerful one. Sarek is reduced to near-incoherence, lying on his bed, shaking and moaning. We are told this has become an almost constant state, save for brief periods of lucidity. Picard's presence manages to spark one of these lucid moments, but it's not the old Sarek - not even the declined Sarek of the late Season Three episode - that we see. It's an old man who can, in his most lucid moments, remember being that man. A double torture, and he's unable to even cling to that for more than a couple of minutes. Lenard's performance is striking, and it's difficult to shake that this ignoble agony is the ultimate fate of such a dignified figure. This, coupled with the standout performances of both Patrick Stewart and Mark Lenard, make this scene by far the best of the entire 2-parter.
THOUGHTS
This highly touted 2-parter opens with a dedication to the recently-passed Gene Roddenberry. Though The Game was the first episode broadcast after his death, this is an infinitely more appropriate story for the dedication. It's a big episode: the return of both Spock and Sarek, and the final appearance (chronologically, at least) of the latter character.
It's a story that pulls together many different running threads of the series. We touch on the Klingons again, and learn that Gowron is rewriting Klingon history to eliminate the Federation's role in his succession. We see more of Romulan society, with a culture that seems modeled on life in East Berlin before the Wall came down. There are informants everywhere, and Picard and Data are initially taken for being secret police. Meanwhile, we see that Romulan society isn't monolithic, with a growing group of younger Romulans clearly yearning for something more. In this way, both the Romulan and Klingon strands that have run through this series since Season Three are developed further.
It's interesting that this 2-parter has different writers for each episode. Jeri Taylor, the credited writer for Part One, is generally weak on plot but good with character scenes (at least, when not allowed to dip into soap opera melodrama). Part One is fairly light on plot, just putting some story pieces into play around several strong character scenes. Most of the story happens in Part Two - which is written by Michael Piller, arguably the series' best writer in pure plot terms. By tailoring the nature of each part to the strengths of the two writers, both are allowed to do good work. Even better, both halves fit together as a single piece. I watched both parts in one sitting, essentially as a "movie," and it played quite well.
Quite well, but not perfectly. It is clear that there isn't quite enough story to support 90 minutes. Part One has a blatant scene of padding in which Picard attempts to sleep on the Klingon ship, but is unable to relax because of Data's presence. The scene gropes about for laughs that it utterly fails to find, and the only reason for it to have remained in the episode was to stretch the running time. In Part Two, we get yet more padding, with endless scenes involving a four-armed piano player in a smugglers' bar that's basically a poor man's Mos Eisley. Despite all the padding, the resolution feels rushed, the defeat of the Romulans' trap accomplished all too easily. It's not an awful ending, but neither is it entirely satisfying.
Despite the padding and the flaws, Unification is still a strong episode. Not only is it wonderful to see Leonard Nimoy's Spock again in a way that ties the full franchise more closely together, this is a good story, one that is mostly well-told. It's not the great episode that I'd have liked from TNG's sole Spock story. But it's still well above the series' average.
Overall Rating: 8/10.
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