“Sarek”
Written by Marc Cushman & Jake Jacobs and Peter S. Beagle
Directed by Les Landau
Season 3, Episode 23
Production episode 40273-171
Original air date: May 14, 1990
Stardate: 43917.4
Captain’s Log: The Enterprise is given the singular honor of escorting Ambassador Sarek to a conference with the Legarans, a first contact that Sarek has worked on for 93 years. His staff—Ki Mendrossen, a human, and a Vulcan named Sakkath—beam aboard first, warning the captain that the ambassador will require rest and that Picard should forego the usual ceremonial stuff that ships do when ambassadors come on board. Picard is disappointed, but agrees.
Sarek materializes and insists upon seeing the conference room despite the attempts by his wife—a human woman named Perrin—and his staff to get him to rest. La Forge and Wes are getting the room ready for the Legarans, who have very specific requirements.
Picard expresses regret to Riker and Troi, as he was hoping to spend time with Sarek. They had even planned a concert in his honor, and Troi suggests that Picard invite his wife. She agrees to attend, and she winds up bringing Sarek along. However, during the concert—which starts with a performance of Mozart’s Quartet for Strings #19 in C, and then moves on to Brahms’s Sextet #1 in B-flat Major—Sarek is so moved by the music that he sheds a tear. Sakkath is telepathically working to hold Sarek’s emotional control together—something Troi senses—and Picard sees Perrin wipe Sarek’s tear away.
Meanwhile, there are outbreaks of anger and violence all over the ship. Wes and La Forge go at it in the conference room—with some truly nasty things said—Crusher slaps Wes (for the first time ever), and Ten-Forward erupts in a good old-fashioned bar brawl.
The incidents happened as soon as Sarek and his party beamed on board, and that, combined with what Troi sensed during the concert, leads Crusher to theorize that Sarek has a rare condition that occasionally afflicts Vulcans over the age of 200 called Bendii Syndrome. The problem is, the test for it will take several days to produce results, and the conference with the Legarans is in twelve hours. They cannot postpone—Mendrossen not-very-patiently explains that the schedule alone took three months to negotiate—and the Legarans will not accept any negotiator save for Sarek.
However, Sakkath admits to Data—when the android, urged by Picard, pushes the young Vulcan on the subject, especially since Sakkath queried Data regarding the diplomatic qualifications of both Picard and Troi—that the mission is in jeopardy.
Picard confronts Sarek, despite the best efforts of Perrin and Mendrossen to deflect him. Sakkath admits to Sarek that he has been using his “limited abilities” to keep Sarek’s emotions in check. Sarek angrily asks him to stop; Sakkath says that that would not be wise, and Sarek much more calmly admits that it is probably not wise, but it is necessary. Sakkath accedes and leaves.
Sarek wishes to speak to Picard alone, which he does over the objections of both Perrin and Mendrossen. Picard insists that Sarek is not able to complete his mission; Sarek’s emotional deterioration over the course of the scene proves him right.
It is Perrin who suggests a solution to Picard: a mind-meld. Sarek gains Picard’s emotional control, but Picard’s mind is flooded with Sarek’s very turbulent emotions unchecked. Crusher stays with the captain to help him through it, while Sarek is able to conclude the negotiations with the Legarans as scheduled.
The mind-meld wears off and Sarek and Picard are themselves again, for better or worse. Quietly, Picard assures Perrin that Sarek loves her very much, which she already knew.
Thank You, Counselor Obvious: Troi senses both Sarek’s emotional turbulence and Sakkath’s attempts to control it during the concert. She also winds up with a pretty full plate of counseling sessions as people act uncharacteristically angry, and then immediately run to their shrink—when Crusher does so after slapping Wes, Troi says that the doctor is the tenth person to come to her with such a problem.
If I Only Had a Brain : Data once again shows off his fiddlin’, having previously played it in “Elementary, Dear Data” and “The Ensigns of Command.” He gives Perrin and Sarek a choice of which performer he might emulate during the concert (he’s been programmed with 300 styles, though he only provides four options for them to choose from).
Later, Data gives Sakkath a tour of the ship, during which the latter queries him about Picard and Troi, something that raises suspicion—which Data himself later confirms in conversation with Sakkath. Data is also confused as to why Perrin, Sakkath, and Mendrossen are in such denial regarding Sarek’s condition.
There is No Honor in Being Pummeled: As with “Hollow Pursuits,” it feels like a missed opportunity to not have Worf be one of the ones affected by Sarek’s emotional outbursts. One could argue that he was, and we just didn’t notice the difference, but Worf has as tight a rein on his emotions as any Vulcan (as seen in “Sins of the Father,” and to be spelled out in “Redemption Part 1” by Guinan and Worf himself in Deep Space Nine‘s “Let He Who Is Without Sin ”).
On the other hand, Worf does have one of the episode’s funniest visuals, as he holds apart two of Ten-Forward’s bar-brawlers with his bare hands.
The Boy!?: Wes takes the cheapest of cheap shots at La Forge when they argue. Yes, La Forge says that Wes has no chance with someone like Ensign Suzanne DuMont, with whom he has a date, but Wes’s riposte is to throw holographic Leah Brahms in La Forge’s face.
Later on Crusher slaps him for being mean to La Forge. Well, okay, she actually slaps him for going on the date with DuMont instead of attending the concert….
No Sex, Please, We’re Starfleet: Quite a bit of romance in the air in this one, from the simple pleasantness of Wes having a date to Sarek and Perrin’s understated love for each other—which becomes somewhat less understated during the mind-meld, and Picard-as-Sarek laments that he could never tell Perrin or his first wife Amanda or his son Spock how much he loved them—to Crusher’s support of Picard during the meld, which is ostensibly as his doctor, but it quickly becomes apparent that she’s there as someone who cares deeply about Picard and wants to be there for him in his hour of need.
I Believe I Said That: “I am so old. There is nothing left but dry bones and dead friends.”
Sarek’s emotions, but Picard’s words.
Welcome Aboard: Most of the guest stars in this episode are pretty nowhere. Joanna Miles is charmless as Perrin, William Denis is overly smarmy as Mendrossen (though I do love that his denial to Sarek’s face of Sakkath’s telepathic aid only confirms to Sarek that Sakkath did provide that aid), and Rocco Sisto is dreadful as Sakkath. Sisto makes the same mistake as far too many other guest Vulcans have made over the years, mistaking emotional control for emotionlessness.
Luckily, “most” is not all: the backbone of this episode is the late, great Mark Lenard, reprising his role as Ambassador Sarek, the father of Spock, which he debuted in “Journey to Babel” on the original series. Lenard’s portrayal of Sarek has been one of the most beloved recurring roles in the franchise’s history, and this episode is a beautiful illustration of why. (Lenard also played the unnamed Romulan commander in “Balance of Terror,” and the Klingon captain at the top of Star Trek: The Motion Picture; he was the first actor to play a Romulan, a Vulcan, and a Klingon.)
Trivial Matters: Besides “Journey to Babel,” Lenard previously appeared as Sarek in the animated episode “Yesteryear” and the movies Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. After this episode, Lenard will again appear as Sarek in “Unification Part 1,” as well as in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The character of Sarek has also been played by Jonathan Simpson (in flashback to Spock’s birth in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) and Ben Cross (in the alternate timeline of the 2009 Star Trek).
When Sarek appears next in “Unification Part 1,” the Bendii Syndrome will have ravaged him pretty badly. The WildStorm comic book Enter the Wolves by A.C. Crispin, Howard Weinstein, and Carlos Mota is sort of the first part of a trilogy that this episode is the middle of, with “Unification” being the conclusion, involving Spock, Sarek, Perrin, and the Legarans.
Picard mentions meeting Sarek briefly “at his son’s wedding.” While this was never explicitly stated as being Spock, authors Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz interpreted it as such when they chronicled Spock’s wedding to Saavik in the novel Vulcan’s Heart—and there’s a young Lieutenant Jean-Luc Picard present.
When Riker makes reference to Sarek’s triumphs, two of them are Coridan’s admission to the Federation (thus revealing for the first time what the decision was after the events of “Journey to Babel“) and the Klingon alliance (later chronicled, with Sarek present, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).
During the mind-meld, Picard channels Sarek making references to Spock and Amanda, the latter being his second wife, also a human, and Spock’s mother. Like Sarek, she first appeared in “Journey to Babel.”
Sarek’s outpouring of emotion through Picard is reminiscent of Spock’s similar outburst in “The Naked Time” on the original series; both scenes were done in a single take. Sarek’s regretful words that he never told Amanda how much he loved her were echoed in the alternate timeline of the 2009 Star Trek by Sarek after Amanda is killed.
Picard’s mind-meld with Sarek will prove useful (in a way) when combating the chova in your humble rewatcher’s comic book Perchance to Dream (reprinted in the trade paperback Enemy Unseen). His Bendii Syndrome is revealed to be the result of poisoning by extremists in the novel Avenger by William Shatner and Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens.
Sarek has appeared in more tie-in fiction than it is possible to list here, but mention simply must be made of A.C. Crispin’s landmark novel Sarek, which chronicles the ambassador’s life and times, and Diane Duane’s Spock’s World, which tells the history of Vulcan.
The DS9 episode “Favor the Bold” will establish a U.S.S. Sarek as a Starfleet ship.
Michael Piller stated in an interview that this episode had extra resonance for the staff because Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was also in ill health and deteriorating, and no longer capable of running the day-to-day of TNG.
This episode was written by Peter S. Beagle, best known as the author of The Last Unicorn. Beagle and Conlan Press have been promising a making-of type book about this episode called Writing Sarek, originally planned for October 2005, and which is still forthcoming, according to the publisher’s web site (last updated in August 2011).
Make it So: “It would be illogical! Illogical! Illogical!” Okay, I need to get the negative stuff out of the way first, and it will take a bit. This episode is, in many ways, a callback to “Journey to Babel,” Sarek’s first appearance, which the vast majority of Star Trek fans would consider a loving tribute.
Except for one problem: “Journey to Babel” is a simply awful episode.
Bear with me for this digression—I’ll try to be brief. Yes, “Journey to Babel” is an important episode because it gave us Spock’s parents, as well as Andorians and Tellarites, not to mention McCoy getting the last word. But it’s also dumb from the ground up and dumb from the roof on down the other side. We’ll leave aside that the matriarchal society we saw in “Amok Time” has apparently been abandoned for a female-subservient marriage that looks like something out of 1950s middle America. Instead, let’s focus on Spock’s refusal to give up command in order to help transfuse his father, which Amanda says is because of his Vulcan insistence on doing his duty to the exclusion of all else, never mind the fact that it has nothing to do with his being Vulcan, and everything to do with him being a commander in Starfleet. To make matters worse, being in charge is so important that Spock can afford to waste tons of time arguing with his mother in his quarters about the fact that he can’t spare the time for the transfusion (yet he can spare time to argue with his mother, y’know, a lot).
Amanda is, as portrayed in “Journey to Babel,” an awful character, a tiresomely submissive housewife with no identity beyond that of her husband. (Later fanfic and tie-in fiction would create a wonderfully complex backstory for her and make her into a formidable presence, but the actual character portrayed by Jane Wyatt in “Journey to Babel,” “Yesteryear,” and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a cipher.)
So yeah—calling back to “Journey to Babel” is not really a good thing. We jump right in with Sarek’s new wife, Perrin—Amanda pretty much has to be dead by now, since she was middle-aged on the original series that took place a century earlier—who is referred to as “she who is my wife” by Sarek and “Mrs. Sarek” by the captain, thus making my teeth hurt all over again. Perrin also has no identity beyond being Sarek’s wife, and this time she states it explicitly to Picard. Mark Lenard beautifully and subtly plays Sarek’s obvious love for Perrin, but Joanna Miles does nothing to make you understand why he does. She’s an even worse cipher than Jane Wyatt was.
The plot is also dopey sci-fi stuff with Sarek’s telepathy bleeding out into the rest of the crew, a well Trek will dip into again, and it’s mostly a chance for the regulars to yell for a scene or two, and to finally, after two years, have a bar fight in Ten-Forward. (And I’m sure lots of folks cheered when Wes got himself slapped.)
Ultimately, though—despite the amount of time I’ve spent on it—the bad stuff doesn’t matter, because the good does actually outweigh it by a considerable margin.
First off, this episode would get an above-average rating from me for the concert scene alone, which is an absolute tour de force by director Les Landau, who more than made up for his weird-ass lighting and camera angles in “Sins of the Father” with this episode. With the lovely Brahms music as the scene’s base, we see Sarek being emotionally affected, Sakkath leaning forward, Troi reacting to Sakkath (obviously sensing something more going on), Sarek shedding a tear, Picard’s shock as Perrin wipes it away, and then the entire party leaving. I’m not doing the scene justice here, but luckily YouTube is our friend.
And finally, what makes this episode rise far above its tired plot, its callbacks to an overrated episode, and its mediocre guest stars are two great actors at the absolute top of their game.
Lenard is, of course, brilliant: gentle, subtle, emotional, pained, dignified, struggling, frustrated, angry, sad. As an added bonus, after the mind-meld, he does a frighteningly good combination of Sarek and Picard, with nuances of both characters showing through. (When he calls out “Number One” upon arriving on the bridge, it’s a scary-good impersonation of Sir Patrick Stewart.) He does a stellar job, one of the best in the history of Star Trek.
And it’s only the second-best performance in the episode. Stewart simply owns the mind-meld, a turbulent, raw scene that leaves the character of Sarek completely exposed, and Stewart sells it amazingly. At that point, the plot contrivances are forgotten, as you realize that the whole episode was worth it to watch this amazing scene (which was done in a single take).
Warp factor rating: 7
Keith R.A. DeCandido really enjoyed writing Sarek in his novel The Art of the Impossible, and especially loved making use of Picard’s mind-meld in the comic book Perchance to Dream. You can preorder the reissue of the trade paperback that includes the latter from IDW, which will be out in March. Go to his web site to order his newest works of fiction, and also be linked to his blog, his Facebook page, his Twitter feed, his many podcasts, and much much more.
Mark Lenard’s best appearance in any Star Trek. His and Stewart’s scene in Unification is the best part of that as well.
Love this episode, for all the reason cited by our humble rewatcher.
The last time I watched it I couldn’t help but notice the huge amount of exposition Picard and Riker have in their corridor conversation. Thank you, Captain Infodump!
I don’t give a flip about problems with the backstory; the fact is that this and “The Inner Light” are the very soul of Star Trek. If the episode had simply shown Mr. Lenard and Sir Patrick having a discussion of history over a game of tri-D chess, it would still be on the top 10 list of all the series’ episodes.
To be charitable, one could assume that the characters of Amanda and Perrin simply make the same mistake of which you accuse the actors who play Vulcans: they mistake emotional control for emotionlessness. Not that I’ve done (or will do) an in-depth analysis of this, but I seem to recall both of them doing the “I’m trying to be emotionless” thing, at which they are (of course) completely unsuccessful anyway, and then they lose it completely and act like any normal human who has been trying so hard to supress all her emotions. It’s a thought, anyway.
Well, I liked this too (even more so then our reviewer), but I think that I must comment on one of your critisisms “Journey to Babel.”
First off, though it’s not one of my TOS favorites, I did enjoy “Journey to Babel.” Although you would never get Spock to admit it, I do believe that part of the reason for his not giving Sarek the transfusion is animosity, after his father basically disowned him for entering Starfleet, rather then Vulcan Academy of Sciences. I believe Spock also did it for the reasons you say (which doesn’t work, I admit), but remember that Spock is half-human, so it’s not as easy for him to hide his anger at his father.
It also somewhat makes sense to me, that Amanda and Perrin are not great women. Since Vulcans are so advanced from Humans, with regards to technology, they must find it logical that any Vulcan woman can do the job better then any human, so to say (hence, strong Vulcan woman like T’Pau and T’Lar). I assume it’s the same thing WRT human males on Vulcan if they married one of those woman, but we never see any of those.
Worf is affected by Sarek’s telepathy. That’s why he put the “model officer” ensign (I can’t remember his name) on report. I agree though, it would have been nice to see him just totally lash out at someone, rather then have it be done off-camera.
As an aside, does anyone else besides me think that someday, Mendrossen will be transported to the 29th centuary, where he will eventually become the second Captain Braxton? I swear, I thought it was Bruce McGil the first time I saw him in this episode, and was a little dissapointed to discover that it wasen’t him.
I enjoyed this episode very much. Season 3 has two great episodes (“Yesterday’s Enterprise” and the finale), and many others that are just one notch below that. I throw this one in the lot with “The Defector”, “The Enemy”, “The Offspring”, et al.
I generally like the episode for the reasons you gave, Keith, but one of the things that I hate about it is that it’s yet another episode built around stripping a Vulcan of his emotional control. They did it to Spock way too often, and then when they finally get a chance to have Sarek appear on TNG, they had to go and do it to him.
Sure, Stewart’s masterful scene could not have happened without this particular plot device, and Mark Lenard could not have shone in quite the same way but I hate that they had to break the emotional control thing again. It sometimes seems as though the only idea a writer ever has when he or she is presented with representing the heart of a Vulcan is to strip away what makes a Vulcan in the first place.
So frustrating.
Keith wrote: “Rocco Sisto is dreadful as Sakkath. Sisto makes the same mistake as far too many other guest Vulcans have made over the years, mistaking emotional control for emotionlessness.”
TNG had pretty bad luck casting guest Vulcans. I remember the Vulcan Academy instructor in “The First Duty” being particularly awful. To be fair, playing Vulcan is a difficult balance for an actor and it can take a while to figure it out, more time than a day player would have. Even Leonard Nimoy needed much of the first season to get a handle on how to play Spock. Tim Russ got it pretty much right from the start, but that was because Tuvok was basically Tim Russ doing a Spock impression (which isn’t a criticism, because it’s the only good Spock impression I ever saw prior to Zachary Quinto’s). I guess it’s a testament to Mark Lenard that he was able to pull it off so superbly in just a few guest spots.
“We’ll leave aside that the matriarchal society we saw in “Amok Time” has apparently been abandoned for a female-subservient marriage that looks like something out of 1950s middle America.”
Err, aren’t you forgetting the part in “Amok Time” where T’Pau said that T’Pring would “become de property of de wictor” of the kal-if-fee? Hardly sounds matriarchal to me.
Anyway, I agree about the direction and performances here. Patrick Stewart did an absolutely amazing job in the mind-meld scene, even making his voice sound like Mark Lenard’s. It’s one of the greatest pieces of acting I’ve ever seen in my life, and it was a major influence for me when I wrote a scene of Picard having a major emotional breakdown/breakthrough in my TNG novel Greater Than the Sum.
@mike S:
To borrow a phrase, that’s illogical. There should be something exceptional about them, for super vulcan Sarek to fall in love with them. Exceptional brains, exceptional personality, exceptional beauty..something (and I’d assume “beauty” wouldn’t necessisarily be the trait that he looks for..though he is a politician…)
Once you go human, you’ll always be zoomin?
You might have mentioned Barbara Hambly’s book Ishmael, which combines TOS with the TV show Here Come the Brides — in which Mark Lenard played the sawmill owner who housed the “brides” before they were married. In the book, his character more or less adopts an amnesiac Spock who as the victim of a Klingon attack time-travels to the Seattle of the 1870s… it sounds silly, but it works beautifully. I re-read it whenever I need a Mark Lenard fix.
I wonder if anyone has done a good treatment of the dynamics of why a human and a vulcan would ever fall in love in the first place.
Frequently, when humans who are very different from each other fall in love and marry, there are deeper emotional issues. Young girls marrying older men are seen to have “daddy issues.” Sometimes people marry their opposites — a spendthrift marrying a tightwad, or a free spirit marrying someone with control problems.
So what’s with human/vulcan pairings? Whether Sarek/Amanda/Trip, or T’Pol/Trip, what’s with a volcan who needs to be with a human who is, by their standards, pathologically emotional. And what’s with a human who wants to be with a vulcan, the ultimate emotionally unavailable mate? There’s got to be some serious mental pathology here (or there would be, if this was not Space Opera).
Interesting that you bring up the issue of human women and the Vulcan they love. Cleveland Amory was an author about whom there was much to admire (especially his animal activism), but in his 1960s TV Guide review of the original series, he remarked (about Sarek and Amanda), “we’ve warned you men before about marrying below you.” As TV Guide noted in a 1995 Trek tribute issue, Amory’s review “makes you realize how ahead of its time ‘Trek’ really was.”
That aside, I can take or leave “Journey,” but I remember enjoying “Sarek” for precisely the scenes you mention (with Leonard and Stewart). I would note that this episode continued the eventual penetration of Picard’s steely nature (as seen in “Encounter at Farpoint”) that came to a head in “The Best of Both Worlds” and “Family,” that lead to his becoming more emotionally open and closer to his crew in “All Good Things…”
I’m not someone who would call A.C. Crispin’s novel a “landmark”. In most of her Star Trek stuff, I find her to be far too much in love with the characters to say anything interesting about them other than she really, really, really likes them.
@krad, It’s true that in Amok Time T’Pau is introduced as a matriarchal figure and that she’s probably the most important member of Spock’s extended family. It’s also true that T’Pring chose the Kalifee, but it was also completely unexpected. Everything having to do with Spock’s wedding was ritualistic, based on old traditions, and admittedly less-than-logical. Therefore I don’t think you can infer from those events that Vulcan is a matriarchal society. It may have been back during their emotional/illogical origins, but it isn’t any longer. Besides, as earthmen we are all pretty much used to the fact that the woman gets the last word when it comes to wedding plans. ;)
Further, Surak is known as the “father” of the modern Vulcan civilization and T’Plana-Hath is noted as the “matron” of Vulcan philosophy. Seems like sexual equality to me…
I also think you overstate Amanda’s subservience to Sarek in Journey To Babel and a bit harshly criticize her and Perrin as “ciphers.” I would hypothesize that their seeming subservience has more to do with their being human than being female. It’s also not a stretch to conclude that in the 23rd & 24th centuries, some women are simply content to be wives rather than careerists (See Janice Mannheim of We’ll Always Have Paris). Oh and IMO, Jane Wyatt and Joanna Miles’ acting performances are just fine as Amanda and Perrin, respectively. Although, both would turn in better performances in ST:IV (Wyatt) and Unification (Miles).
I agree that the concert scene is fantastically done. There is virtually no dialogue, but based on the expressions on the characters faces we know exactly what they are thinking/feeling. Wonderful, wonderful stuff. Ditto on Patrick Stewart’s emotional turmoil scene. A monologue I pretty much have memorized based on how many times I’ve watched it.
This was the first TNG episode to truly bridge the gap between TOS and TNG. I remember how excited I was seeing the previews of this episode right before it originally aired. My expectations were understandably high and it completely lived up to them. Were the rating up to me I’d give this one a 9. Hell, it gets a 7 based solely on the virtue of the fact that it has Mark Lenard as Sarek. Sarek is far and away my favorite non-regular Star Trek character. He owns every scene he’s in from his scenes in Journey To Babel, to his uncharacteristically emotional confrontation with Kirk in ST:III, to his logical showdown with the Klingon ambassador in ST:IV, to his (far too few) scenes in TNG. I wish there had been more of Sarek, but what we do have is precious.
Tehanu: Yeah, I remembered Ishmael this morning, long after I’d submitted the blog to Tor.com. Sarek’s presence in the tie-in fiction is voluminous to say the least, and I knew I was going to leave stuff out…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Quoth Mike S.: “Worf is affected by Sarek’s telepathy. That’s why he put the “model officer” ensign (I can’t remember his name) on report.”
Nope. It was Ensign D’Mato, and it was D’Mato who was affected by Sarek’s telepathy, not Worf. If Worf was affected, he wouldn’t have responded by filing a report–but D’Mato being dumb enough to be insubordinate to a Klingon does fit the pattern. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@15 krad:
Fair point, I guess. The way that scene is presented, I got the impression that D’Mato didn’t do anything wrong, and Worf put him on report anyway. At least, that’s the way Riker’s dialouge came across to me.
You’re way makes more sense though, and is probably what the writers were shooting for. Still I agree, would have been nice to see Worf kick a fellow crewmember’s you-know-what.
Completely disagree with you about all your dislike for “Journey to Babel” (good episode) and Spock’s mom (who has more presence of mind ahnd command of the room than many female characters in the show’s old days). We’ve already gotten into it about your feelings regarding the supporting charactesr who are spouses and, ya know, play a supporting role in the episode plot. I won’t write all my points out again, but I will register my disagreement again. Thanks.
I liked “Journey to Babel” just fine. Big scale, plenty of action, and gobs of character development. My take is that the mom-arguing may have lasted as long as a TV transfusion, but in real time would be dealt with quickly. And probably every reason listed is part of why Spock refuses at first; that complexity is more real to me.
Christopher L. Bennett @6-
Amok Time showed an aberrant Vulcan marriage ceremony. If the ceremony had proceeded the way the attendees had expected, everything would be fine and equal. T’Pring’s choice of challenge meant a significant change, thus T’pau’s (certainly unneeded) caution to T’Pring that, under the challenge rules, she would (theoretically, at least) become property.
Since there is some disussion on the quality of actors with vulcan roles in TNG, I was wondering what people thought of these in the other series, in particular in Entreprise (T’Pol).
Another question about Vulcan characters. Was is intentional from the begining that male names start with and “S” and female names start with a “T”? Or was that just a coincidence that later became the rule?
@19 Kaboom: I didn’t like T’Pol at first, but she grew on me in the later seasons. I wish they had just given her a normal looking uniform. Catsuits are illogical. Gary Graham was very good as Soval.
Tim Russ as Tuvok from Voyager goes without saying. Alexander Enberg as Vorik was also good. He also played a vulcan in the TNG episode Lower Decks.
I liked both Kirstie Alley and Robin Curtis as Saavik. Kim Cattrall was also good as Valeris, but the writers should have stuck with the original idea that Saavik was bent on revenge for David. Dame Judith Anderson was an excellent T’Lar. Arlene Martel was sufficiently cold and calculating as T’Pring. Celia Lovsky was fantastic as the elder T’Pau. Kara Zediker as younger T’Pau had huge shoes to fill and was merely adequate. Also, where was the accent?
Bertila Damas was very good as Sakonna, the young Maquis member from DS9 who tried and failed to mind meld with Gul Dukat.
@Kaboom,
There was a making of Star Trek book in the 70s that included some production memos. The original idea for vulcan male names is that they would all be 5 letters starting with S and ending with K. A memo circulated with Spork, Spook, Stink, Stank, Stunk (etc., obviously a little inter-office humor thrown in for good measure.) They obviously diverged a bit (Stonn) but the basic pattern was intentionally set. The choice of the later series to keep the pattern was probably also intentional.
Nice review and I agree that Patrick Stewart is at the top of his game. I still think “Chain of Command: Part 2” is his finest performance of the entire series. THERE. ARE. FOUR. LIGHTS!
I really LOVE journey to babel! epeseclly Kirk post knifing.
I think you have done a great review.
Very well articulated, and you touched on all the subtlies in the episode.
It’s interesting that this episode comes right after “The Most Toys” since both have at the heart of their plots the question of emotional control. Did Data show whatever passes for anger within him and fire the disruptor? We know that Vulcans control their emotions, but what depth do those emotions go to? This episode does a good job of investigating that latter question. It seems that Vulcans are just as burdened by emotions and use a huge amount of self-control.
Which leads me to the question of emotionless versus emotion control. Tuvok, Spock, Sarek and T’Pol all have large amounts of screen time which lets us their emotions “slip out” in subtle ways. Spock telling Star Trek to go to hell (if he were human), Tuvok’s sneaky sarcasm, Sarek’s pride and T’Pol’s concern for Archer all come out over the various hours they are on the screen. Also, Kirstie Allen as Saavik and Kim Cattral as Valeris also do this to a lesser extent. The other characters don’t get as much time to be Vulcan so we never really get a chance to see them be multi-dimensional.
Also, I wonder if part of the problem with Vulcans, especially in TNG is misunderstanding by the directors. Rather than tell their minor characters to mute their emotions, they just tell them to be emotionless, making this less an acting issue as opposed to a leadership issue. It still doesn’t help Perrin and Amanda, who are humans and are just plain wooden, but I wonder if the other Vulcans are just poorly informed as to what they should be.
RE: Sarek in Star Trek V– Despite the character of young Sarek played by Johnathon Simpson only having two words of dialogue to speak in the script (“So human”), the voice is actually that of Mark Lenard, who was brought in to provide the voice-over.
For all the greatness of this episode, the concert scene is spoiled for me by the sheer hideousness of the performance miming. The other players are at least reasonably close, they’re probably actual musicians trying their best to ‘violin-sync’, but Spiner is just hideous. Data would have flawless technique, you would think, but he can’t even draw the bow across the strings realistically, or even hold his hands the right way, much less do a convincing ‘air violin’ with his fingers.
The screen grab towards the middle of this review shows this clearly. Every 5yo violin student is constantly reminded to not let their wrists go ‘pancake’ like that. It’s a guaranteed sign of someone who does NOT know what they’re doing.
It’s just something that frustrates me, as a professional musician, when I see TV shows (not just Star Trek) go to great lengths to get details right in every other area, but figure “meh” when it comes to making music playing look convincing. It implies an attitude of “anyone can play an instrument, it’s not THAT hard” or something. And then they don’t even try to mask it (like doing closeups on a real piano player’s hands but hide the hands in a wide shot), but even do close-ups on the shoddy attempt at performance miming. They put more effort into actors’ accents, why not a little coaching on the physicalaties of a particular instrument?
So I really appreciated when Frakes would play his trombone because he would ACTUALLY PLAY the damn thing, and hell yes you can tell the difference.
So we’re back to disagreeing. This I am used to. Journey to Babel is one of my favorite TOS episodes. Amanda was such a sweet and devoted wife and mother, you can ignore any flaw of her not having her own identity beyond being Sarek’s wife. I’m guess I’m less progressive (or less picky) about that, as I can appreciate the idea of the full time wife and mother, even in the 23rd and 24th centuries (somebody’s gotta raise the kids, right?) Besides, this is the future, with freedom of choice and all that, right? A woman shouldn’t choose to be a full-time wife and mother (or in Perrin’s case, a full-time wife) just because she has other options? Thus I can appreciate Perrin as well, whose love for Sarek really comes through to me, as did Amanda’s a century earlier on another ship called Enterprise.
That aside, despite whatever you think is a contrived plot, Sarek is aboard the Enterprise. That Sarek, Spock’s father Sarek! Who cares about the flaws of the plot, its fricking Sarek of Vulcan! You can turn off your brain to any overused plot lines or whatever for that fact alone. Because when you do, you get a great episode with one of Mark Lenard’s and (in particular) Sir Patrick Stewart’s finest performances. A truly extraordinary hour with two extraordinary actors in the center. I give it an 8.
The thing is, as of this point in the development of Star Trek: The Next Generation, you’ve got one good show after another, bang bang bang. You can quibble about this and that, but by this time–by this episode–ST:TNG has established itself as some of the best television ever made. Once you’re finished with one show, you simply can’t wait to see the next one. It’s Star Trek done the way Star Trek is supposed to be done. It’s an outstanding achievement, and this series is worth revisiting again and again over the course of a lifetime. It’s smart, imaginative, well produced, and well written. It’s even educational, visionary, and inspiring. It’s very much unlike the vast amount of mainstream garbage that pollutes our culture. And, while the rest of the cast is darn good by this time, Spiner as Data and Stewart as Picard are OUTSTANDING at their craft.
I believe everything that needed to be said about this episode have been said. I like this episode, but what bugs me is the re-dress of the Ten Forward set for the concert hall. Really? Slap a moveable wall in front of the bar and in front of the windows, but leave the big wood doors and three sconce lights? It’s so obviously Ten Forward. Why not just have the concert in Ten Forward? Also, the palm to the face Riker gets in the bar room brawl is priceless.
Am I the only one who got really pissed by the weird aliens not showing up???
They show that damn whirlpool the whole episode, the preparation for the conference room, and them we get only the captain’s report saying that ” the negotiations were succesful” ????????? WTF??
my respect for patrick stewart’s acting, already high, went through the roof in that scene.
another problem with this episode is why didn’t they choose
sakkath to do the mind meld with sarek? after all, as a vulcan he wouldn’t be as overwhelmed by emotions as the human picard was.
(the real reason is because then we wouldn’t have gotten that awesome picard scene with some of the finest acting in tv history, but there’s no logical reason in terms of the plot.)
ah well!
@34 – I just watched the episode and that was my reaction as well. Maybe the idea was that Picard, having diplomatic experience as well, would be a good match for the state of mind Sarek needed to achieve to complete the negotiations, but given that there were two perfectly good Vulcans there for Sarek to meld with (one of which had already been covertly soothing his emotions for him), it seemed to be an awkward plot contrivance. I really enjoyed the Geordi/Wesley catfight. They said to each other pretty much everything I’ve wanted to say to them ever since I got a grasp on their characters.
@15ff I understood it as exquisite irony that the effect on Worf, who has to visibly restrain himself on every provocation, is to file a report, while the rest of the ship resorts to fists.
I agree with a lot of what you’ve said about what makes this episode great – the concert scene, the mind-meld scene, Mark Lenard in general. I also agree that “Babel” isn’t the greatest original series episode but I think it’s got a lot going for it with the introduction of Sarek and a bunch of other alien races.
But I think your argument about Amanda and Perrin is a bit overstated. How would you suggest giving them an identity outside of being Sarek’s wife? Throw-away comments about their hobbies or professional training before meeting Sarek? Certainly that would have intruded into the story (just as it would have had it come from any of the other supporting guest characters in this story). And I think it makes a lot of sense that both of these women might have subsumed their personal lives into their roles as the wife of one of the Federation’s leading diplomats and ambassadors.
OK, Keith — you want to hear my classical music nitpicks? Well, I always imagined that some time after this episode, Sarek said this to Perrin:
Do you want to know the real reason I cried? It was not because of the music. It was because of what was done to the music, and I am confident that after you hear my explanation you will agree that it was a perfectly logical reaction, my malady notwithstanding.
First, let us consider the Mozart quartet that opened the concert. It is known colloquially as the “Dissonant” quartet. It is so named because of the dissonance in the introduction to the first movement. These musicians skipped the introduction completely and opened with the first theme. [Of course the episode would cut this introduction because it was too long but this is about what Sarek actually *heard* in the concert.]
Then let us look at the Brahms sextet. I counted four musicians in the room, not six, and yet all the parts were intact. The only logical explanation I can come up with was that the extra viola and cello parts were pre-recorded and played through Commander Data’s audio system. I can accept that. What I cannot accept is that in the second movement, which is a theme and variations, after the musicians finished the theme, instead of moving to the first variation they repeated the theme. It was at that moment that my single tear fell. I should be commended at having the self control not to object out loud to the way the musicians were butchering the pieces. rather than being taken to task for shedding a single tear in a personal reaction.
@39 RichF: Good ear! As a composer and classical music buff myself, it’s good to know that someone else pays attention to these musical matters!
While the concert scene is definitely not perfect from the performance point of view as others pointed out (Data’s performance, 4 musicians for a sextet etc.) but all in all, it’s one of the best scenes of Star Trek. A rare moment in a TV show when all aspects of a scene are so great.
@39/RichF – Good ear indeed, and good use of Sarek’s voice!
You finally got to Patrick Stewart performance at the end. I remember three things from this episode, Stewart tour De-force scene,Mark Lenard’s performance and the music at the beginning. Every thing else in the episode doesn’t matter–whether it’s good bad or indifferent. It’s scenes like Stewart’s that made that St-NG have a good place in my memory. I must admit I object, to the criticisms of Journey to Babel, but apparently now even classic episodes of the original series are subject to people dismissing them.
No other Vulcan could take the meld, as they already were showing they couldn’t handle the emotions.
And I do think you have a problem realizing that not all characters have to be three dimensional. Both of the wives were just support characters, as were the other Vulcans. If you aren’t a main character, portraying the complexities of your character can get in the way.
And tranfusions take days. The actual transfusion takes hours, since you have to wait on the body. But then you have the recovery. Spock would not have been at optimum health. Plus, as you well know, talking is a free action–and it has always been portrayed as such on Star Trek. All the explaining what they are doing makes things take much longer.
Now, granted, I do think they should by this time have the medical advances to take just a small portion of Spock’s blood and create a synthetic version, but the episode shows transfusion.
I also think it makes sense that the Vulcan matriarchy doesn’t apply here. Amanda isn’t Vulcan. And Sarek seems the type who can’t stand disobedience–it’s the same reason he’s upset with his son. Maybe that’s why he winds up having Pon Farr with human women, whose resulting pregnancy would then make it “logical” to stay with them.
Why do people think Vulcan is a matriarchy? Because T’Pau presided over Spock’s abortive wedding ceremony and holds high government office? From that they extrapolate matriarchy? Everything else we see implies that the traditional Vulcan family is patriarchal. However as it would be illogical to limit the contribution of half the population Vulcan women clearly have equal opportunity to pursue careers. Traditional Vulcan religion/spirituality seems to give authority to women as adept and teachers whether in preference over men or equally is uncertain.
According to her son Amanda did have a career as a teacher, of what to whom is unclear and obviously she’s on leave during Journey to Babel. Perrin on the other hand seems to have dedicated herself entirely to caring for her sick husband, as many another spouse has done.
Sarek seems to have learned something from Journey to Babel, this wife and these aides are completely in the know.
Poor Michael. There is no room for her in Sarek thoughts inside Picard’s mind… everything is for Amanda, Perrin and Spock.
@46/IndyJoserra: The same is true for Sybok and his mother.
Sarek is a man of the moment. He pays no attention to the past nor thought of the future.
Maybe Sarek can only obsess over one child at a time.
What an acting tour-de-force by Mark Lenard and Patrick Stewart! The mind-meld scene where Picard is having a breakdown towards the end and Crusher is there to embrace and comfort him had me weepy. The musical scoring was very effective too during this entire scene.
I had to scoff when Mendrossen swore on his honor that Sarek was in fine health. I guess the former has no honor then.
The concert scene where Sarek loses his emotional control was impressive in its editing and blocking. And the bar fight scene was just a lot of fun. Great stunt work.
It would be cool to actually see the mysterious Legarans someday and in there native slimy habitat.
I wonder whatever came of that proposed making of Sarek book that was announced all of the way back in 2005? Did it come to be?
@50/GarretH: The Legarans are seen in the Wildstorm graphic novel Enter the Wolves by A.C. Crispin and Howard Weinstein, which is set in the early 24th century and includes a Legaran delegation in the story of Sarek’s early negotiations with the Cardassians (leading to his new rift with Spock) and the beginnings of his marriage to Perrin.
RE: Actors portraying Vulcans — No love for Suzie Plakson as the Vulcan physician Lieutenant Selar in “The Schizoid Man”? She didn’t get a lot of screen time in that one, but I thought she did a really fine job with what she had.
There should be a Starfleet regulation against any ship named Enterprise EVER transporting Ambassador Sarek. Not a good combination!
Peter S. Beagle wrote an incredible book in The Last Unicorn. I think some of its incidental observations on the nature of life and time crept into Picard and Sarek’s little speeches.
I was reminded of the skull, whose part became very silly in the movie, but in the book, it all ties together wonderfully:
“Fifty years dead, what else can I do?” The skull had ceased its grotesque twitching, but frustration had made its voice almost human. “I remember,” it said. “I remember more than wine. Give me a swallow, that’s all — give me a sip — and I’ll taste it as you never will, with all your runny flesh, all your buds and organs. I’ve had time to think. I know what wine is like. Give it to me.”
But the skull was laughing again; this time making a thoughtful, almost kindly noise. “Remember what I told you about time,” it said. “When I was alive, I believed — as you do — that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said ‘one o’clock’ as though I could see it, and ‘Monday’ as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year, as though I were actually moving from one place to another. Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year’s Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know that I could have walked through the walls.”
“The clock will never strike the right time,” the skull said. “Haggard scrambled the works long ago, one day when he was trying to grab hold of time as it swung by. But the important tiling is for you to understand that it doesn’t matter whether the clock strikes ten next, or seven, or fifteen o’clock. You can strike your own time, and start the count anywhere. When you understand that — then any time at all will be the right time for you.”
<3
@52: Agreed regarding Suzi Plakson. It’s a pity her character wasn’t brought back again (even though she was referenced in various episodes) especially once her other character, K’Ehleyr, was killed off.
Coming here eight years after this post was written because I can’t believe no one has commented that the second piece played in the all-Mozart concert was by Brahms and not Mozart! (Yes, I’m a music nerd and a violist so this discrepancy is particularly frustrating to me.) But maybe in the edited version of TNG they left out the line about it being an all-Mozart concert so maybe no one noticed? I don’t know, just supposing that might be the case.
Slow Gin Lizz: Um, did you read the post? I mentioned it right there in the plot summary.
I mentioned it again later in the review segment when I was discussing the scene and RichF mentioned it in comment #39 also.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Yes, krad, I did read it and you did mention that, but did you mention that it was an all-Mozart concert? That’s what I’m objecting to, the major oversight by whoever programmed the music for this episode not remembering that right there in the dialogue they said it was an all-Mozart concert and then the music dept had them play something by Brahms. I mean, wow, that’s a really blatant oversight obvious to any classical music fan in the audience. That’s why I asked if maybe in a recent remastering they had maybe removed that line, since if it were gone this wouldn’t have been an issue. But I’m assuming they did not, since removing dialogue is not something generally done in a remastering.
I can see how easily this could happen, where someone in production (or would this be done in post-production? I dunno, I’ve never done TV) was like, hmmm, what can we put in here that would make someone cry? And the Brahms is a great choice for this – it’s absolutely beautiful and poignant – but whoever was doing the music didn’t have a copy of the script and wasn’t told about the “all-Mozart” thing, so didn’t know they should have limited themselves to only looking at Mozart’s oeuvre. And again, the whole thing could have been avoided simply by leaving out the line about the concert being all-Mozart. But then, what would we music nerds have to object to in this episode? (Plenty, tbh. I HATE watching Brent Spiner pantomine violin playing every time he does it. And as mentioned in another comment, the Brahms is a sextet and there was only a quartet onstage. You’d think the music dept would have taken that into account as well. Sigh.)
That is a fair point — Picard did refer to it specifically as a Mozart recital.
And yeah, Spiner pantomimes the violin horribly….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I would love to one day see a live-action dramatization of the mentioned wedding of Spock, seeing the lady that stole his heart, Sarek and a young Picard in attendance. But even better would be seeing the actual romance preceding the wedding. Does Spock actually get together with Saavik? Maybe it’s Number One from his Pike era? Would it be a Vulcan or human or none of the above? With Strange New Worlds coming in the relatively near future maybe we could get a flash forward to these events or perhaps a separate mini-series.
As I recall, at the time this episode came out, the fact that Sarek/Picard didn’t mention Sybok was taken as evidence of the non-canonical nature of Star Trek V. After all, unless Star Trek V was just Captain Kirk’s dream (“life is but a dream,” after all!), wouldn’t having a son who rejected logic, led a dangerous cult, and ended up dying in a fight with God rank pretty high on Sarek’s list of regrets?
I also seem to recall fans (including myself) being unhappy at the time because Vulcan telepathy works differently in this episode than in TOS. In TOS, the mind meld basically required total concentration; you couldn’t walk around and do other stuff while mind-melded with someone. In this episode, Vulcans can basically throw their minds around. Other fans countered with the idea that, since the only person we had seen performing a mind meld up to that point was Spock, maybe full Vulcans had more powerful telepathic abilities (hinted at in TOS).
Rewatching it three decades later, I think it is a poignant commentary on aging and dementia. It’s also interesting that Piller saw Sarek’s condition in this episode as representing what was happening to Gene Roddenberry in real life at the time.
@61/Dave Palmer: “In TOS, the mind meld basically required total concentration; you couldn’t walk around and do other stuff while mind-melded with someone.”
That’s not true at all. That’s exactly what Spock did while melded with Kollos in “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” The Sarek-Picard meld was pretty much the exact same process as that one — two minds joining and remaining joined while one of them carried out a task.
It’s also possible to interpret the climax of “Spectre of the Gun” as Kirk, McCoy, and Scott still being melded to Spock to enable them to withstand the illusory bullet barrage.
I forgot about “Is There In Truth No Beauty?” — although that was a “mind link,” not a mind meld, and seemingly required both participants to be telepaths. But what about Sakkath “managing” Sarek’s emotions at a distance? (Yes, Spock was able to plant a suggestion in the Eminian guard’s mind in “A Taste of Armageddeon,” but he needed to concentrate to do so). And what about Sarek’s emotional state affecting the entire crew? This seems to imply telepathic powers that are significantly stronger and work differently than in TOS.
@63/Dave Palmer: The term “mind meld” was only used twice in TOS (in “Spectre of the Gun” and “Elaan of Troyius”) and never in TAS; its use was not standardized until the movies (though that was because of its use in The Making of Star Trek, which was the authoritative reference source back then and was written around the same time as the two episodes that used the term). TOS/TAS used a variety of interchangeable terms for what we now call the “mind meld,” including “mind probe” and “mind touch” three times each and “mind link” and “mind fusion” once each. Both times it was used in season 1, it was just “a Vulcan technique,” and in the writers’ bible it was just a “strange Vulcan ‘ESP’ ability.”
I, too, used to assume that there was a difference in the specific techniques referenced by the various terms — e.g. I assumed that a “mind touch” was a more superficial communication than a full meld. However, on examining the issue more closely, I came to understand that the terms were used interchangeably in TOS because there was no standardization of the term yet. See here for my more detailed analysis: https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/star-trek-trivia-the-evolution-of-mind-meld/
As for Sakkath managing Sarek’s emotions, as I said, I think “Spectre of the Gun” shows much the same thing.
“And what about Sarek’s emotional state affecting the entire crew? This seems to imply telepathic powers that are significantly stronger and work differently than in TOS.”
It implies nothing, because an exception is not a rule. Sarek was an anomaly, suffering from a rare disorder that was never seen in TOS, which deprived him of the ability to control his telepathy the way other Vulcans did. So it does not contradict TOS in any way. It’s merely a different circumstance.
It does not follow from the fact that TOS was inconsistent in its terminology that all of the techniques used by Spock were the same. The Spock/Kollos mind link in “Is There In Truth No Beauty” was unique in TOS in that Spock could walk around, recite poetry, and fly the ship while doing it. It was depicted as a very challenging and risky technique that normally required extensive preparation, and required both parties to be telepaths. As for the “mind meld” in “Spectre of the Gun,” this was more like the “suggestion” technique that Spock used in “A Taste of Armageddon” and “The Omega Glory”; he wasn’t actually inhabiting anybody’s mind, just planting the idea that the bullets were not real.
And yes, “The Making of Star Trek” was hugely influential, in ways that are probably hard to understand now.
@65/Dave Palmer: “It does not follow from the fact that TOS was inconsistent in its terminology that all of the techniques used by Spock were the same.”
Read the blog article I linked to. I discussed how the various terms were used in TOS, and it’s quite clear that different terms were used for the same thing and the same term was used for different things. Any attempt to parse the different terms as separate concepts is a fan invention after the fact. As I said, I used to do the same thing, but then I looked at the facts more closely and realized it didn’t work.
The point is that there is no reason whatsoever to assume that “Sarek” is inconsistent with TOS, because TOS was inconsistent enough to begin with that it’s ridiculous to split hairs so thinly and insist there’s no possible way to reconcile them. It’s really extremely easy to reconcile them, unless you’re making a deliberate effort to avoid doing so.
In 1990, a lot of us were hypersensitive to any perceived inconsistencies between TOS and TNG. This is probably one of the reasons why Roddenberry was so reticent to include TOS characters in TNG; certain fans were ready to scream, “You’re getting it wrong!” Like I said in my original comment, it doesn’t really bother me anymore (30+ years later). Obviously, Spock had whatever abilities the plot required him to have, and it’s the same for Sarek and Sakkath in this episode.
@67/Dave Palmer: “In 1990, a lot of us were hypersensitive to any perceived inconsistencies between TOS and TNG.”
It has always been thus. Some fans are predisposed to look for excuses to hate any new incarnation of Trek, so they make a federal case out of supposedly “irreconcilable” inconsistencies far tinier than those they readily excuse or handwave away in the previous series. It’s a kneejerk reaction to every new series, a grossly unfair and dishonest double standard.
I agree — although I think the vehemence with which some fans seem to reject Discovery is far more intense (and nastier) than “TNG is not as good as TOS” sentiment in 1990. (By 1990, it had mostly died down anyway — after all, by this point, TNG had nearly as many episodes as TOS).
@69/Dave Palmer: No, I think it’s been just as vehement in every case. It’s the nature of human memory that we don’t retain unpleasant memories as well as we retain pleasant ones, so that we habitually believe that things in the present are worse than they were in the past. So we should always be skeptical of that perception. And I can say with confidence from personal experience that the hatred of Enterprise and the Kelvin films was every bit as vicious and extreme as the hatred of Discovery. And I’m aware there was vicious misogynistic hate directed against Voyager. I’m sure there was just as much ferocity directed against TNG as well, because people wouldn’t have changed that much in just seven years.
After all, 1990 was three years into the series. That’s a long time for the hostility to last against a series we now look back on so fondly. Heck, even much of the TOS cast was in on the anti-TNG sentiment, due to their fear of being replaced. I don’t think Shatner came around until Generations.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, then, because I, for one, was eagerly awaiting each new TNG episode as it came out on 1990 and enjoyed the series immensely, but would also nitpick anything that seemed inconsistent with TOS (even though, as you point out, it’s not as though TOS was actually all that consistent in the first place). Anybody who ferociously hated TNG was presumably not watching it.
@70,
Right, it’s like everyone who b****s about DS9 not being real Trek because it wasn’t on a starship.
@71,
I think another factor was that at that point in the franchise history, TOS and its film were still the bedrock.
Yeah, it will always be the foundation, but in 1990, the lion’s share of the canon still consisted of TOS, TAS, and the first five films. The very idea of new Trek, let alone without Kirk and company, was still a novelty and a risk (even with TNG three Seasons into its run).
Now, 30 year later and after so many spinoff shows and films, that immediacy has long since faded. Trek has more than proven it can tell stories in different settings and time periods without Kirk of the Enterprise.
@71 & 72: The thing about inconsistencies is that the newer ones always seem greater than the old ones because we haven’t had as much time to reconcile them in our minds or gloss them over in our memories. As with the nostalgia illusion, it’s just a function of the unreliability of human memory. We always rewrite the past when we recall it, constructing a narrative that’s more cohesive than the real thing. And we do the same with TV continuity. We smooth over the rough edges with repetition. We get used to the bits that stood out as odd the first time, and they don’t stand out as much anymore, because they just become part of the whole. But that process hasn’t happened yet with the new stuff, so the inconsistencies feel worse. It’s an innate function of how we remember things, which is why it happens with every new series and why we need to be skeptical of the perception that the newer inconsistencies are worse.
Dave Palmer: Trust me, the vehemence with which a segment of the fanbase hated TNG when it first aired was at least as strong as the hatred that is expressed by a segment of the fanbase against Discovery now. It was expressed in fanzines and at conventions instead of on the Internet, but it was there, trust me.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Just as there’s always been an overly harsh reaction from a segment of fans, we should also acknowledge there’s also always been a segment of Star Trek that, well… just plain sucks. I mean, early TNG did deserve quite a bit of the criticism. Forget the nitpicky fan nonsense about canon and whatnot. As a basic piece of televised Roddenberrian edutainment, it was often times embarrassing. Like an afterschool special in space.
Thankfully though, they eventually found their own voice and stopped trying to ape TOS so badly. Something I wish modern Star Trek would try more often.
@75/Cheerio: Personally, I found early TNG endearing for exactly these qualities. It wasn’t as good as TOS, but it tried to take its idealism and optimism to the next level at a time when these had already become anachronistic. I wish modern Star Trek would try to “ape” TOS in this manner more often instead of dressing up a borderline grim society in TOS (or TNG) clothes.
@75/Cheerio: “early TNG did deserve quite a bit of the criticism… it was often times embarrassing.”
To an extent, yes, but what people often forget is that most other science fiction TV in the 1980s was far, far worse. Aside from a handful of notable exceptions like the Twilight Zone revival, the original V miniseries, Starman, and Max Headroom, pre-TNG 1980s SFTV in the US was mostly cheesy, dumb nonsense like Galactica 1980, Buck Rogers, Knight Rider, Manimal, and the rest of the V franchise. Compared to that baseline, even TNG’s first season was exceptionally good. We were aware of its flaws, but its flaws were no worse than those of its predecessors and contemporaries, and its virtues were far greater. That’s why it succeeded.
It’s just that TNG’s success opened the door for its own subsequent improvement and the emergence of more smart, classy shows like Quantum Leap, Alien Nation, etc. So the quality of American SFTV improved massively in TNG’s wake, and so the first season or two look far worse in retrospect than they did at the time, when the bar was so very, very much lower.
@74: Well, there was rec.arts.startrek and there were various Star Trek BBSs. And there were a handful of people who were adamant and mean-spirited about how “TNG is not real Trek.” But there were a lot more of us who watched TNG and liked TNG, but were willing to nitpick to death anything that challenged the unsupported fan theories we had developed over years of watching TOS. This was stupid and a waste of time, but it wasn’t mean-spirited.
@75 & 76: The first season of TNG is nearly universally acknowledged as bad, but I don’t think its utopianism and earnestness were what made it bad. I actually thought the anti-drug episode with Merrick Butrick (“Symbiosis,” definitely the most “after school special”-like episode) was one of the best of the first season, and the one about the deaf mediator played by a deaf actor (“Loud As A Whisper”) was one of the best of the second season. I agree with JanaJansen that it would be nice to see more of this optimism and idealism.
@78/Dave Palmer: The thing about bulletin boards is that they’re usually moderated, so the most hateful voices get filtered out. Ditto with magazine letter columns — they were curated, with only the most worthwhile letters getting chosen for publication. It’s not that the more vicious haters didn’t exist, it’s that they weren’t able to be heard as widely as they are now.
Although I certainly did encounter some really fanatical haters back in the days of local BBS systems. In the late ’90s, there was this guy on my local message board who was incredibly, almost frighteningly vehement in his hatred of the 1996 Doctor Who revival movie. Any time anyone on the BBS happened to mention the movie in even vaguely positive terms, he would launch into an extended tirade condemning them as ferociously as if they’d just endorsed eating babies or something. It was the same kind of kneejerk hate you see toward new Trek productions, though if anything even more vicious.
In Trek fandom, there was the infamous James Dixon. He was an obsessive cataloguer of Trek continuity, maintaining an amazingly comprehensive chronology encompassing every episode, book, comic book, etc. — and when the later movies, TNG, etc. came along and started to contradict those books and comics and whatnot, he denounced them with the fervor of a religious fundamentalist condemning heretics. He continued to catalog all the new shows and films and incorporate them into his ever-evolving chronology, but he still rejected the canonicity of anything after ST:TMP. I was one of many people who got into really fierce arguments with him on the TrekBBS, until he finally got so abusive that he was permanently banned. And I can think of one or two other posters back then who were similar in their opinions and attitude. Keith’s right — it’s absolutely not a recent phenomenon. The fact that you didn’t experience it back then just means you were lucky, not that it wasn’t there.
Jesus, I had forgotten about James Dixon. Thanks so much for reminding me of that guy, Christopher. I’m gonna go drink now…. *laughs*
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I don’t hate any Trek but I must admit I’ve liked all the subsequent shows less than TOS. I basically stuck with TNG for several years because of Patrick Stewart (rwor!) But eventually drifted away. Same deal with Voyager and Enterprise. Never got into DeepSpace Nine, I was watching Babylon 5, and of course I haven’t been interested enough to sign up for the CBS plus shows. Discovery and Picard sound fairly awful but I thought Lower Decks was kind of cute.
Quoth princessroxana: “Never got into DeepSpace Nine, I was watching Babylon 5.”
This made me crazy 25 years ago, and makes me crazier now. What the heck does one thing have to do with the other thing? They’re both excellent shows that are also the same genre. Why does watching one preclude watching the other?
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
In my case it did. Probably because of my history of losing interest in new Trek shows.
@80/krad: “Jesus, I had forgotten about James Dixon. Thanks so much for reminding me of that guy, Christopher. I’m gonna go drink now…. *laughs*”
It took me some time to remember him too. See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. We try not to think as much about the bad stuff from the past, so we let ourselves forget it, and thus we convince ourselves the past wasn’t as bad as the present.
@82/roxana: “because of Patrick Stewart (rwor!)”
It’s amusing to look back at how TNG’s creators assumed that Riker would be the sex-symbol action hero and Picard would just be the stuffy elder statesman.
Obviously there were no women among them
A fit older man with a powerful presence is incredibly sexy!
I liked both B5 and DS9. DS9 is the Best Trek Yet, IMHO. The ones I lost interest in were Enterprise, once the “Temporal Cold War” got going, although the 4th season was apparently much better. Someday I’ll find the time to watch it. And Voyager. After the 4th season I drifted away.
Caught Disco last year when it was broadcast on CBS and liked it, though not enough to subscribe to CBS+. Fortunately I don’t care about spoilers so I read along with the recaps here.
Everyone has their own favorite Trek. It’s all good.
90’s genre TV was so much better than 70’s and 80’s.
@76.
The later seasons of TNG did exactly that, though. It was positive and optimistic without being overly earnest. I agree, however, it was more in line with Star Trek than the current grim takes, which seem to think making references to the older stuff are good enough.
@86/roxana: “Obviously there were no women among them”
Dorothy Fontana was one of TNG’s creators, though she was denied proper credit for it.
“A fit older man with a powerful presence is incredibly sexy!”
Okay, I really need to get back in shape…
@88/Cheerio: The perception that the modern shows are “grim” is totally wrong. They’re just serialized. Most stories start out grim, with bad stuff happening that the heroes have to contend with, but they often end up having bright, happy endings with the heroes triumphing over the bad stuff. There were TOS episodes that began with whole planets being annihilated, yet ended with the crew laughing and joking at the end. But with serialized seasons, you only get one long story broken up over multiple episodes, so you have to wait until the end of the season for the happy ending.
All the serialized seasons of Discovery and Picard that seemed so dark and grim in their early episodes actually had quite optimistic, hopeful resolutions that reaffirmed Star Trek‘s positive values. If anything, I feel the resolutions of DSC seasons 1-2 and PIC season 1 were too optimistic and rosy, wrapping things up a little too easily and neatly.
TNG was my gateway into Star Trek and sci-fi/genre in general. I would go into the local Crown Books and Waldenbooks stores (remember those?) to read up on the latest monthly issues of genre magazines like Starlog (remember that?) for info or interviews Trek-related. And I distinctly remember reading the letters (!) from the readers section early in TNG’s run and Star Trek fans would grumble how the series wasn’t real Trek or it was just some pale imitation. I just thought they sounded like old fuddy-duddies. So some things never change. I’m not the kind of person who would ever say Discovery isn’t real Trek, just that it’s different, which is a good thing to a degree, because doing the same format over and over shows no originality and bores the audience. The real test is if any of these newer shows are enjoyable enough to where someone would want to watch them over again and again or own them for their personal home entertainment collection. Personally, I love having and pulling out my blu-ray collection of TNG and TOS for regular viewing (and streaming DS9 and VOY) but I feel no desire to shell out money for Discovery or Picard on disc at this point, or even Enterprise. I just have no real fondness for these particular series. And I can’t even get through Lower Decks. But each of these series is still Star Trek despite the negative reactions they may elicit.
@89
No, those series are quite grim. Overbearingly so, I find. Okay, they’re serialized. It’s a long winded grim then.
Fingers crossed De Lancie brings some much needed levity and pokes fun of Robo-Picard.
@91/Cheerio: “Okay, they’re serialized. It’s a long winded grim then.”
The point is, most stories are grim until the ending, and the difference between an upbeat story and a downbeat story is how it ends — and with a serialized story, you have to consider the whole season to judge that, not just the first few episodes. And DSC and PIC tend to have implausibly easy happy endings, if anything. A genuinely dark story would have a more ambiguous ending and not be so casual in sweeping all the more troubling implications under the rug in order to achieve a pat, upbeat finale where every problem turns out okay. For instance, Picard spent its first few episodes setting up the synth ban as this big social crisis and moral failing of the Federation, but then in the finale they just had the Federation overturn it offscreen between one scene and the next. Not to mention the way a certain character’s act of murder was just shrugged off and forgotten and they were welcomed back into the fold. That’s about as dark as The Flash, which did the same thing in its second season. A truly dark story is one that commits to its darkness, rather than flirting with it and then pretending it never happened for the sake of a cheerful ending.
You want a really dark Trek show, look at Deep Space Nine, which went far deeper with the grim and morally ambiguous stuff than the new shows have dared to do. For that matter, TOS itself had plenty of episodes that ended in tragedy and ambiguity, like most adult dramas did in the ’60s. It didn’t get a reputation for optimism because it shied away from darkness. Optimism isn’t about denying or avoiding grim realities, it’s about how we face them.
For that matter, TOS itself had plenty of episodes that ended in tragedy and ambiguity, like most adult dramas did in the ’60s. It didn’t get a reputation for optimism because it shied away from darkness. Optimism isn’t about denying or avoiding grim realities, it’s about how we face them.
Yeah, I’m reminded of one of my all-time favorite Kirk quotes:
“How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life…”
Completely meaningless trivia alert: During the concert scene I noticed the violin performer, the woman in command red uniform to Data’s right, had a weird mix of the earlier TNG uniform with the revised one. A lot of the women characters in Starfleet uniform in Season 3 and beyond had the obviously spandex version with a collar added as this lady had. But the weird thing unique to her is that her uniform still had the red color piping on the top black part of the uniform which was the design for the first two seasons. It’s like the costumer forgot to fully modify the extra’s uniform which especially stood out because the other performers aside from Data had both the newer baggier uniform with collar and the original spandex uniform. So yeah, completely useless info but something to look for the next time one watches this episode/scene.
@89, CLB; Dorothy Fontana was one of TNG’s creators, though she was denied proper credit for it.
They obviously didn’t listen to her!
“A fit older man with a powerful presence is incredibly sexy!”
Okay, I really need to get back in shape…
You do that!
@94, I’ll take the criticism a bit farther. The musicians would presumably be off-duty for the concert, and as a performing quartet, they should all be dressed in the same color and style, so that no performer stands out from the others.
They shouldn’t be wearing their combadges either. What if a babysitter calls?
One of the reasons why I try to keep an open mind about the new series, even when I don’t personally agree with some of the writing choices, is that I remember being a kid who absolutely loved TNG when it first came out and constantly had to listen to a certain segment older fans complaining about how bad it was, and how it wasn’t real Star Trek, and how it was pandering political correctness gone mad because they had changed the opening narration to say “no one” instead of “no man,” and so on and so forth.
Geordi must’ve been awfully free in speaking about his and holographic Leah Brahms’ connection if Wesley knows about it.
“Picard expresses regret to Riker and Troi, as he was hoping to spend time with Sarek.”
There’s almost painfully obvious-in-retrospect foreshadowing I hadn’t ever noticed before when Picard says, to Riker of Sarek, “I suppose they were foolish and vain, my expectations of this voyage — sharing his thoughts, memories, his unique understanding of the history he’s made.” Expectations met and then some, I think.
Stewart is, obviously, just fantastic; as if that complete breakdown weren’t enough, he composes himself to speak as Picard to Crusher and your mind gets blown even further.