1-25. Conspiracy

THE PLOT

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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1-19. Coming of Age

THE PLOT

Wesley is beamed down to the planet Relva, where he will compete against three other brilliant young men and women for a single open slot in Starfleet Academy. Wesley quickly makes friends with the friendly alien Mordock (John Putch) and the appealingly insecure Oliana (Estee Chandler), and does well with his tests. But he finds himself increasingly nervous about the final test: The Psych Test.

Back on the ship, Picard has a visit from his old friend, Admiral Quinn (Ward Costello). Speaking privately to Picard, Quinn insists on Picard's cooperation with an investigation of his ship by Remmick (Robert Schenkkan). He will not say what the investigation is about, save that Remmick is looking for "problems." As it becomes ever clearer that Remmick is specifically investigating Picard, the captain is left to wonder exactly why his old friend seems to have targeted him for a witch hunt!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: Tries to accommodate Remmick's investigation... to a point.  Once it becomes clear that what was declared necessary is descending into a hysterical witch hunt, he stands up for both himself and his crew.  When Remmick gets in his way during a crisis, he loses patience and insists the man get out of his way.When Remmick begins to sound outright paranoid in his accusations, Picard declares his intention to shut down "this charade."

Riker: Upset at having to put up with Remmick's investigation, and the disruption it creates among the bridge crew. He feels that as first officer, he should know exactly what is being investigated, and worries that it might be him under the microscope - a worry Picard can neither confirm nor deny. When he discovers that it is actually Picard being investigated, he if anything becomes angrier.

Wesley: A Wesley-centric episode. Though I normally file Wesley bits under "Shut Up, Wesley," it isn't actually warranted this time... because for possibly the first time ever, there's a full episode that actually makes good use of him! The usual points are made about Wesley's brilliance. But since he is competing against two other prodigies, and one non-prodigy who works very hard to keep on their level, we get to see Wesley genuinely insecure, particularly as he tries to prepare for the dreaded Psych Test. For a change, we are presented with a genuinely nice (rather than smug or cloying) young man, who tries to help others without calling attention to helping them. Writer Sandy Fries also makes use of character background not even mentioned since Encounter at Farpoint, by bringing up the death of Wesley's father and hinting at the circumstances of that death. The result is an episode in which Wesley is a genuinely well-written character, for the first time ever! Wil Wheaton delivers a good performance, likely thankful to actually have something to play that isn't insufferable for a change.

Data: Though not a particularly Data-heavy episode, he does get one great scene, when interrogated by Remmick. "There is nothing wrong with Captain Picard, there is nothing wrong with the ship's logs, so there must be something wrong with your original assumption." In context, with pitch-perfect delivery by Brent Spiner (and a satisfying reaction from Remmick), it's a moment geared to earn applause, and deserving of it.

Annoying Space Bureaucrat of the Week: Robert Schenkkan is Commander Remmick of the Inspector General's office, assigned with the task of finding something "wrong" with Picard's command and his logs. Schenkkan does a good job of making Remmick consistently aggravating, without actually crossing the line into being ludicrously odious. There's a nicely human bit mixed into the scene in which Picard talks a boy who has stolen a shuttle out of danger. Remmick, who starts the scene (and finishes it) by getting in Picard's way, nevertheless both smiles and applauds genuinely when Picard's maneuver succeeds in saving the boy. Moments like this help to make the ending more convincing than it might have been. He's a "villain" because he is opposed to the characters we have been watching and growing to like, not because he is Snidely Whiplash, back from the North.

Cute Student Space Babe of the Week: Estee Chandler is Oliana, the most human of the four students competing for the one open slot in Starfleet Academy. She is made sympathetic in that, unlike the other three genius candidates, we see that she is someone who actually has to struggle very hard for the right answers. Chandler's performance is somewhat flat, though not to an extent in any way unforgivable for a young actress. She is genuinely appealing, and it's easy to see why Wesley is so pleased when she dubs him "cute."


THOUGHTS

A Wesley-centric episode should be reason to run for the hills. The bulk of the season has demonstrated Wesley to be both the worst-scripted and, with all sympathy to Wil Wheaton, generally the worst-acted character on the program. Previous Wesley-centered episodes, particularly When the Bough Breaks and Justice, have been among the show's worst... and, given Next Generation's rather weak first season, "worst" means "really, really bad."

Against all odds, Coming of Age is a genuinely good episode.

The credit for that largely rests with the script, very well-crafted by Sandy Fries. Though not the first Next Generation episode to utilize an A Plot/B Plot structure, it is the first to really use it well. Given that the Picard plot is basically set-up for Conspiracy, and the Wesley plot is just a series of fairly transparent tests, neither story on its own is up to carrying an episode. Cutting between the beats of each story creates an enjoyable and satisfying episode.

Fries' script allows both plots to develop at a pace that's neither too slow nor too rushed, and the script knows, on each cut to the other plot, to allow enough time to get absorbed in that plot strand before cutting back to the other. While the plots are not actually interconnected, Fries finds ways to allow the themes of one plot to echo in the other plot. Note the line in the Academy plot, "Everything is a test, and not all tests are announced." It basically is the Picard plot in a nutshell.

The script makes good use of almost all of the characters, with only Troi and (as usual) Tasha lacking a single strong scene. Worf gets one of his best scenes to date, as he talks with Wesley about facing his greatest fear, and how that fear "is still (his) enemy." I could quibble with Dr. Crusher, Worf, and Data all getting similar verbal smackdowns of the Annoying Space Bureaucrat, and I could observe how obvious the nature of Wesley's Psych Test was... but the scenes are snappy and superficially entertaining, so I won't carp too much.

The episode ends with the plot elements of the individual episode satisfactorily tied up, but with some enjoyably ominous overtones left for a later payoff. This episode clearly sees the production team looking forward to the season finale. It's also far more confident in both storytelling and production than most of the series' previous entries. The show might still be lurching back and forth between good and bad episodes - but it's finding its voice, and its characters (most of them, at least) are finding their identities.

It doesn't entirely make up for a mediocre season, but at least it promises much better things for the future.


Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Home Soil
Next Episode: Heart of Glory


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