“Preemptive Strike”
Written by Naren Shankar and Rene Echevarria
Directed by Patrick Stewart
Season 7, Episode 24
Production episode 40276-276
Original air date: May 16, 1994
Stardate: 47941.7
Captain’s Log: The Enterprise is headed to a briefing on the situation in the Demilitarized Zone and also welcomes Ro back on board, as she has just completed Starfleet Advanced Tactical Training and been promoted to a full lieutenant. She’s a bit overwhelmed by the welcome-home party.
Upon receiving a distress call from a Cardassian ship, the Enterprise diverts and has to rescue the Cardassians from the Maquis. (Riker comments on the ridiculousness of firing on Federation ships to defend a Cardassian ship.) They’re able to drive the Maquis off and provide medical assistance to Gul Evek and his crew. Picard and Evek trade frustrations over the situation in sickbay, and then Picard meets with Admiral Nechayev. The Maquis’ ranks are growing, and they seem to be preparing for a military posture rather than simple self-defense against Cardassians who’ve harassed them in the DMZ.
They also don’t know where the Maquis actually are, and they need an undercover operative. Conveniently, they have the perfect person on board: Ro, who has just completed tac training, is Bajoran, and has a rough enough history that her cover story will be convincing. Ro accepts the assignment, mainly to validate Picard’s faith in her.
Ro shows up at a bar in the DMZ, followed shortly by Worf and Data who claim to be looking for her, saying she’s responsible for the death of a Cardassian soldier. A human says that she was there, but she just left. Worf and Data leave and Ro thanks the man, whose name is Santos. Santos then stuns her and brings her to a Maquis camp. Santos, along with two others, Macias and Kalita, interrogate her. The story is a mix of truth (her childhood, her prison sentence) and fiction (that she killed a Cardassian soldier, that she’s AWOL from Starfleet). Kalita and Santos check her story out while Macias shows her the camp and tells his story. He lived on Juhraya where Cardassian soldiers dragged him from his bed and beat him.
Her story checks out, and they welcome her to the ranks.
After a few days, they hear that the Cardassians are supplying Pendi II with biogenic weapons to be used on the Maquis. They need to make a strike, but they need medical supplies to treat the wounded following the strike. Ro offers to steal supplies from the Enterprise, which Macias agrees to, but Kalita insists on accompanying her, as she doesn’t entirely trust their new recruit yet.
Ro is able to spoof the sensor buoys on the border so they can traverse the border to Federation space without being searched. Then they go to the Topin system, which is filled with various bits of interference that make communications and sensors all but useless, and send out a distress call, claiming to be a science vessel. The Enterprise responds to the call, as Ro expected, and she’s able to penetrate the ship’s shields and beam the medical supplies from Cargo Bay 7. A piggybacked comm signal alerts Worf that she’s on board, so Picard has them play along to let them take the supplies and escape.
That mission gives Ro the Maquis’ trust, so she’s able to meet with Picard. They plan to give the Maquis a target: supply false evidence of those biogenic weapons they’re worried about and lead them into a trap. Ro is having a bit of trouble with betraying people she’s come to care about, especially Macias.
Three Cardassians ambush the camp and just start shooting indiscriminately. Macias is among those killed, and Ro is devastated. She later meets with Picard at the same bar where she was recruited insisting he cancel the mission. She’s getting cold feet, but Picard makes it clear that the mission needs to be completed. He sends Riker back with her to make sure she carries it out. (Riker is given Bajoran nose ridges and an earring, and poses as a relative of Ro’s. This is hilarious given what happened in “Conundrum”…)
The convoy goes into position and the Maquis move to attack it as expected. Ro, however, pulls a phaser on Riker and exposes the Starfleet task force hiding out in a nearby nebula. The Maquis pull out and Ro beams away to stay with them, telling Riker that she’s sorry she let Picard down.
Can’t We Just Reverse the Polarity?: The Topin system is full of plot-convenient interference that makes it easy for Ro and Kalita to be all covert and stuff. Though the plan would never have worked without Picard and the gang’s cooperation.
There is No Honor in Being Pummeled: When rescuing Evek’s ship, Picard asks Worf if he can detonate torpedoes between the Maquis ships and the Cardassian ship—which he does, a rather fine piece of needle-threading with high explosives. Because he’s just that awesome.
No Sex, Please, We’re Starfleet: Ro grabs a random stranger and kisses him in the bar so Worf and Data won’t notice her when she starts her mission. Later, she and Picard pretend to be making out in a corner of the bar while having a clandestine meeting. (Which means Sir Patrick Stewart got to direct himself making pretend nookie with a hot chick. It’s good to be king…)
In the Driver’s Seat: Ro relieves Ensign Gates at conn during the rescue of Evek’s ship.
I Believe I Said That: “When an old fighter like me dies, someone always steps forward to take his place.”
Macias’s last words.
Welcome Aboard: Michelle Forbes returns as Ro for the first time since the sixth season’s “Rascals,” and we find out what the character’s been doing all this time.
Richard Poe and Natalija Nogulich return as Evek and Nechayev, respectively—those two were also in “Journey’s End” and “The Maquis” on Deep Space Nine. Both actors will appear again in the same roles on DS9, Poe in “Tribunal,” Nogulich in “The Search Part 2.”
Shannon Cochran makes the first of two appearances as Kalita; she’ll play the role again in DS9’s “Defiant.” Cochran will also play Martok’s wife Sirella in DS9’s “You Are Cordially Invited…” and Romulan Senator Tal’Aura in Star Trek Nemesis.
William Thomas Jr. gets to be mildly slimy as Santos, John Franklyn-Robbins gets to be paternal as Macias, and Sam Alejan gets to be kissed by Michelle Forbes as the guy the in the bar.
Trivial Matters: Ro’s career in the Maquis will be chronicled in various novels and comics: Rogue Saucer and the Dominion War novels Behind Enemy Lines and Tunnel Through the Stars, all by John Vornholt; Wrath of the Prophets by Peter David, Robert Greenberger, & Michael Jan Friedman; and Marvel’s Star Trek: The Next Generation Special #1 by Dan Abnett & Ian Edginton and Andrew Currie. After the Dominion War, Ro would wind up joining the Bajoran Militia and serving as Odo’s replacement as security chief on Deep Space 9 starting in the novel Avatar by S.D. Perry and continuing in the assorted DS9 post-finale novels that have been published since 2001. Ro has, over the course of several novels, rejoined Starfleet when Bajor became part of the Federation (Unity, also by Perry), and became executive officer and then commanding officer of DS9 (Rough Beasts of Empire by David R. George III). She currently holds the rank of captain.
This episode continues the storyline begun in “Journey’s End” and continued in “The Maquis” two-parter on DS9, intended to set up the Maquis and the upcoming spinoff series Voyager. The lieutenant commander Ro refers to who joined the Maquis was intended to be a reference to Chakotay, the eventual first officer on Voyager.
In the bar, we see a human of Native ancestry, a Klingon, and a dark-skinned Vulcan all near each other, a nice little preview of the bridge crew of Chakotay’s Maquis cell (Chakotay, Torres, and Tuvok) in the Voyager premiere episode “Caretaker.”
Nechayev makes reference to Picard providing her with canapés in “Journey’s End.”
This is Sir Patrick Stewart’s last time in the director’s chair, and the only one of his five directorial endeavors that did not have a heavy focus on the character of Data.
Make it So: “Goodbye, Will.” The last regular episode gives us the last of the recurring character sendoffs (Barclay in “Genesis,” Wes in “Journey’s End,” and Alexander in “Firstborn”), as Ro returns and immediately defects. Oopsie.
As part of the ongoing efforts of the writing staffs of both TNG and DS9 to give us the Maquis conflict that provides the spine of Voyager’s setup, this works nicely. Seeing a character we actually know and care about being seduced to the Maquis is an even more effective stratagem than some guy we’ve never met but who we’re told is an old friend of the lead (the Cal Hudson character in “The Maquis” on DS9, who’s a buddy of Sisko’s; it doesn’t help that the ever-mediocre Bernie Casey played Hudson). Ro’s the perfect character for this, too, as she’s never been entirely comfortable as a Starfleet officer, and as a refugee from the Bajoran camps, she’s got plenty of animus against the Cardassians.
But the story itself plods a bit. The beats are all depressingly predictable and obvious. Santos and Kalita are ciphers, Macias practically wears a neon sign that says “FATHER FIGURE” on his forehead, and everything proceeds exactly as you’d expect, particularly Macias’s oh-so-telegraphed death. It doesn’t help that Echevarria’s script is uncharacteristically clunky (much of the dialogue is flat and expository rather than conversational, even more so than is usual for TNG), and Stewart’s direction remains as lifeless as ever.
What makes the episode work are two performances. One is by the venerable John Franklyn-Robbins, who takes the walking talking cliché of Macias and makes him warm and convincing. Yes, he’s a bog-standard character whose dialogue can be seen a mile off, but Franklyn-Robbins’s warm smile and avuncular mien are eminently likable.
The other is by Michelle Forbes, who ends a nifty little character arc that began with her eponymous episode in season 5 and progressed nicely to this, where she comes full circle: once again making a decision that puts her on the outs with Starfleet. Forbes inhabits the character so completely, from her awkwardness at the reception in her honor to her playing the role of rebel, to her pain at thinking about her father (though that scene is one of the worst in the script, as just the mention of a musical instrument sends her into a tear-filled reminisce), to her decision to betray Starfleet and the Enterprise.
My main disappointment with the episode is that it focuses so much on Ro’s relationship with Picard that it ignores her relationship with Riker—though at least those two are paired up for Ro’s final scene. I love how Jonathan Frakes plays it—he doesn’t make any kind of effort to stop her, or even talk her out of it. He knows better than to try.
It’s a good sendoff for a character who deserved a great one.
Warp factor rating: 6
Keith R.A. DeCandido wishes them that celebrate a fine Passover or a good Easter. For the rest of us, well, we can just enjoy our weekend….
I’d think you summed it up well.. it’s a good, but not a great send off for Ro Laren. I like that they retconned where she’s been for the last year since she sort of just vanished, but the episode just sort of clunked along. It’s one of those episodes (Like Descent for example) that some outside group has some plot going on that unless the Enterprise is involved probably wouldn’t work.
I do in general like the Maquis episodes though- I always have had issues with the “Federation is paradise” notion that seems rampant in earlier seasons and that there are in fact people who are just marginally (or not) getting by or who are dissatisfied. However, the Maquis here are a little too trusting. Woman walks into a bar and tells a story and voila, she’s immediately 100% trusting? Sounds like just about anyone with nose ridges could join this organization- why is Starfleet having so much trouble infiltrating them?
Overall though, Michelle Forbes is awesome as Ro (as always) and makes me wish we had seen far more of her. She is so unlike the rest of the cast that it makes things far more interesting.
@@@@@ MikeKelm: I find your “federation is paradise” comment interesting when one notices that two of the send-off episodes–“Journey’s End” and this one–end with a character rejecting Starfleet, with neither Picard nor Riker putting up much argument.
@@@@@ KRAD: As amusing as I always find your “because he’s/she’s just that awesome” line whenever a character accomplishes an allegedly improbable feat, I also take some issue with it, at least in this instance: Worf is a Starfleet-trained tactical officer on the flagship of the fleet, and he’s had nearly seven years on the job. I don’t find his level of skill with the torpedoes implausible. To paraphrase a song from “Camelot,” “impossible deeds should be (a Starfleet Officer’s) daily fare.”
Re the line “when an old fighter like me dies, someone steps forward to take his place:” a nice metaphor for TNG ending and Voyager beginning a few months later?
This first aired when my daughter was four. At the last moment, when Picard is speechlessly seething in his office as Riker gives him the final report, the camera focused on Picard’s face. My little girl turned to me and said, “He angry, Mommy.”
To me that remains one of the best Trek moments. Gave me chills, and even a four-year-old got it.
I have not been able to find copies of most of the post-finale DS9 novels…if Ro Laren has command of DS9 now, what happened to Kira Nerys? (I have most of them up to and including David Mack’s Warpath, with a few gaps here and there. I know she gets an artificial heart at some point…)
Worth noting that John Franklyn-Robbins was one of the first actors to appear in both Star Trek and Doctor Who; he played a Time Lord in the classic “Genesis of the Daleks” in 1975. Apparently the first was Barrie Ingham, who was Danilo O’Dell in “Up the Long Ladder” after having played two characters in DW (including Paris of Troy); the second was Maurice Roëves, a Romulan captain in TNG: “The Chase” and Stotz in DW: “The Caves of Androzani”; and Franklyn-Robbins was third. There have been quite a few since, notably Simon Pegg. (Memory Alpha and the DW Wiki both claim that an actor named Gregg Palmer, who had an uncredited role in TOS: “Spectre of the Gun” in 1968, was the same person as the Gregg Palmer who appeared in a few DW episodes in 1966 & 1969, but that seems unlikely and DW isn’t listed in Palmer’s IMDb filmography, so I’d call that unconfirmed.)
I figured this is where Ro would end up and soon as the writers created the Maquis to fight the Cardassians and sent Ro in undercover. It was practially tailor made for a rebellious Bajoran. Ro is the most rebellious contrary Bajoran we know. This episode works as a send off for the character as does the fact she ends up on DS9 in the tie-in fiction.
Geoffrey Palmer OBE ewas the actor in the two Dr. Who episodes attributed to American actor Gregg Palmer.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Palmer_(actor)#Television
Jeremy: Kira left Starfleet to take Bajoran religious orders, becoming a Vedek.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
It’s funny, I have been wating for you to come to this episode for a while because its one I remember, yet when I read it the sequence of events wasn’t quite what I remebered. For example I had always remembered that it was Picard’s idea that Ro could sneak through the shields.
It was probably twenty years ago that I watched the episode though so that might explain a few things . . .
By the way, for some reason this post isn’t showing up on the site’s “Latest Posts” listing on the right side of the screen, even though more recent posts are showing up there.
I always thought the lieutenant commander Ro was referring to was Cal Hudson, but having the reference be Chakotay makes sense to set up the upcoming series Voyager. I always enjoyed this one, cliches and all. Macias was such a warm genuine character, and his interactions with Ro make you feel the warmth between them. Made me wonder how any other officer in Ro’s place, seeing Macias brutallly murdered in front of their eyes, would have been willing to betray the Maquis group anymore than Ro was. For the penultimate episode of TNG, it had great unexpected, yet somewhat expected twists, given that Ro Laren was at the center. Thoroughly enjoyable, I’d give it a 7.
This is possibly the only season 7 episode that I remember hating when it first aired, and yet enjoyed quite a bit on this re-watch. I think a 6 is being a little harsh, I think this is strong 7, light 8-ish.
And I HATE the Maquis. I hate the bajorans. To counter the MikeKelms of the world, I love the TOS, early TNG federation that was likable and always the good guy, and something that I myself would like to join. Not the beaurocratic UN-style a-holes they become in late TNG-DS9. I will freely admit that it is more dramatic, but I really have a hard time watching this “more real” Star Trek.
Plus i have stated many times that I find the correlation intersting that when Trek started pulling away just a bit from that rosy-roddenberry esque federation (5th Season TNG), also seems to be when people generally feel trek started to lose a step.
I think this is very simple, the reason roddenberry ST works is because it is a future you WANT to be in. I love DS9, but I would NEVER want to be on that terrible war torn space station for half a day! I am very serious in that critisicm of post-Roddenberry trek.
Ro Laren deserved a really good send off and I don’t see why every one is so ready to pounce on this as a bad one. They play along like they’ve done so many times before (like with LaForge and the Pacleds {sp?}) when Ro tried to punch through the sheilds of the Enterprise. And having her make the deceision to leave with Riker riding shotgun is great! Particularly BECAUSE of their recent one-on-one history. I agree, the fact Riker doesn’t put up a fight, mostly because he knows it would be pointless, is all I needed as far as a nod to their relationship.
There was a fair amount of telegraphing but a lot of good stuff too. I particularly LOVE that Picard walks out as soon as she walk into her party, then calls her into the hallway… Saving her from social anxiety. Man I wish I had more friends like that.
Is it me, or is Admiral Necheyev looking a lot better at this point? ..Or is it just that she’s finally treating Picard with a little kindness? Like it would have killed her to go a little easier on the brotha sometime sooner…
And so I guess the Cardassians DID, in fact, make biogenic weapons after all. I have to admit, I’m a TNG superfan, but it doesn’t extend past this and TOS. This means I’m not as versed in the plots and politics of the books, comics, DS9 or Voyager. This is the 1st mention of it I’ve heard since Picard was plucked out of his command and sent on that random mission (with 2 other main characters, instead of actual experts in espionage)
Its a tough thing for Picard. He spent a lot of time and energy advocating for Ro and for this “other” older guy steps in and in a week, has her wrapped around his finger, mostly by playing on that void that was created by the loss of her father. It is, after all, hard in space for a single girl. Once he’s dead though, why doesn’t she fall back on the only other person in the galaxy that’s supported her? I realize she feels like she “belongs” with the fighters, but years of uphill climbing SHOULD be enough to rid her of the childish impulsivness she showed early on. But as Star Trek likes to remind us, we’re only human.
I can’t wait for the final eposides. I’m also bummed I stumbled onto this rewatch only weeks ago. Fortunately I’ve been wathching the show a lot anyway. Just because.
Certainly not one of TNG’s best episodes, but I still enjoyed it and was glad to see Ro one final time in the series. Both Ro as a character and Forbes as an actress have always stood out for me. Ro was truly different from the rest of the TNG command staff. I always liked her abrasive and angry attitude. It created some good conflict in most of the stories she was in.
I also liked Ro’s more militaristic style compared to the other TNG officers. In some ways, she’s even more martial than Worf. That would make sense, given her harsh upbringing and watching her father tortured to death.
As for Forbes – she brought a great intensity and anger to the character that was believable and well-nuanced. I always regretted that Forbes didn’t accept the spot on the DS9 series. Recently, I had also read that she was offered a spot on Voyager as well. I can see why the producers wanted her back – she’s a competent actor.
Nooooo, it’s almost over! What am I supposed to do with the next two years of my life??
Ginomo: follow my rewatch of Deep Space Nine? :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Any TNG episode is instantly made 50% better by the incluion of Ro Laren.
It’s a shame the send-off wasn’t better, but it was still very good in my opinion. And it is more a symptom of the show format than any fault of the writers or producers. The story had to play out over 43 minutes, which kind of forces the writers back on situations people know and understand rather than having to provide reams and reams of exposition. It’s a shame that the episodic nature of TNG means that this could not have been played out as a story arc over a number of shows, which would have allowed for much more depth to the story.
Yep, right on the button, Krad… Forbes is the best reason for re-watching this episode. Was so glad they cast her in the BSG rework… although Admiral Cain was only in two episodes and later the mini-film “Razor” … truly talented actor. Would have liked to have seen her on a more permanent role in the ST universe.
@17: I don’t think leaving Ro out of “Rascals” could’ve made it any worse.
@18
Yeah, Forbes as Cain on BSG. It gives me the chills just writing the Admiral’s name.
A truly evil character that Forbes played with such depth that, while I could never sympathize with someone that evil, I didn’t end up hating her completely. As despicable as Cain got, Forbes was able to bring complexity to a role that could’ve easily been played as a cliche or stereotype.
Back to Ro – thanks to this Re-Watch, I’m now planning to acquire the Trek novels that follow Ro’s career post-TNG. Ididn’t know that she continues on in Trek novels, and I’m especially pleased that she eventually reconciles with Starfleet and becomes DS9’s commander, years later.
Another source of interesting Ro stories, albeit FanFic, is Gina Dartt’s take on Voyager. She surmises that one of the Maquis that boards Voyager right from the beginning is Ro with a pseudonym. Dartt is a superb writer and a published mystery novelist in her own right. She really captures Ro’s voice and presence. Be warned that her FanFic can be adult in nature.
@20: Ugh, I just hate what the BSG revival did with Cain, and Forbes couldn’t save it. People say the new series was so much smarter than the original, but the original’s Cain was a nuanced, complex, ambiguous character while the revival version was just a one-note psychopath. It’s the one thing where the original show’s version was just plain smarter and better than the remake’s.
About the Ro novels and comics, be aware that the DS9 post-finale novels don’t acknowledge any of the earlier ones and contradict several of them. So they don’t offer a consistent version of her post-TNG career, but more like a variety of different possibilities.
@21
It’s true that the rebooted BSG Cain was pyschopathic! Especially in her three episode appearances (“Pegasus”, “Resurrection Ship Pt I” & “PtII” during the Season 2.
There’s quite a bit more depth to Cain’s character that’s revealed in the Razor movie though. Especially the extended DVD version. It certainly doesn’t excuse Cain, but the viewer gets to see how a person travels down the path of evil.
@22: I disagree — Razor made Admiral Cain far less complex. It didn’t show anything about “traveling down the path” — she was a psychopath from the very beginning. At least before that damn movie came out, we could believe that Cain and her crew only gradually degenerated in their ethics due to months of horror and despair. But instead, in the movie, they were completely one-note characters. Cain was just as much a psychopath before the invasion as she was in “Pegasus.” And her crew sank to the same brutal depths at the very first opportunity, quite soon after the invasion, rather than starting out better and only gradually descending to that level. It was one-dimensional writing that robbed the characters of any trace of complexity or depth. There was no explanation of why or how they came to be that way; they were just arbitrarily that awful at the first opportunity, for no other reason than shock value. Razor retroactively made the other Cain/Pegasus episodes even worse by stripping away any nuance they might otherwise have been believed to have.
I was all excited to get to this episode, but now I’m sad, because it means the re-watch is almost over :(
But…anyway…really liked the episode, it was a breath of fresh air after some of the others. And I was really half expecting Ro to stay with the Enterprise because that’s how these kinds of shows usually work, so it was actually kind of a cool ending to me that she didn’t.
I liked this one. Didn’t love it though mainly due to the problems that Keith had with it. 6 or 7 seems about right.
I quite liked this episode, mostly for the performances by Forbes, Stewart, and Franklyn-Robbins. It may be predictably written, but it’s a much better final episode for a recurring character than we got for most of the other returning characters this season (Lore, Hugh, Noonian Soong, Lwaxana Troi, Wesley Crusher, The Traveler, Alexander, DaiMon Bok). Only Q and Ensign Sito Jaxa have better sendoffs. I’d give it a 7.
I’ve always thought it would have been awesome to have Ro end up on Voyager as the Maquis leader rather than creating Chakotay, but I’m sure heads would have exploded if both the Captain AND first officer were women of the female persuasion.
One thing I’ve never understood about this episode: what the hell were those three Cardassians thinking when they walk in the middle of the marketplace and start randomly shooting at people? They know these folks are armed rebels, so there’s no way in hell they’re gonna survive the shootout. And if they were meant to carry out some kind of a suicide mission, killing as many of the Maquis as possible before they die, wouldn’t it have made more sense to snipe people from a distance, or to set up a bomb in the marketplace? As such, the whole scene is just a convenient way of killing Macias and making Ro yearn for revenge, but the actions of the Cardassian make no sense at all.
It must have seemed to viewers at the time that Ro had vanished into the ether like Guinan, so it’s good the writers realised before the end that they had to give Ro a send off (Whoopi Goldberg had to wait until Star Trek: Generations for them to remember Guinan).
The VGR episode In the Flesh later contradicted that Chakotay was the Lt Commander that defected to the Maquis, since Chakotay resigned his Starfleet commission in 2368, two years before Ro was at Advanced Tactical Training.
I loved the last shot, because it was much better then what was originally scripted. It gave us too much information on Picard’s anger and betrayal when it was better seeing that etched into Patrick Stewart’s face and his stony silence.
Ro’s relationship with Riker has always been more interesting than with Picard’s; it’s fitting that he was the last member of the Enterprise crew to see her off when he was the first to “welcome” her aboard two years ago.
14: Competent!!!
Ro said she’d spent half her life fighting the Cardassians. When did that happen? I guess she could have fought them in Starfleet since the war only ended four or five years ago if I’m remembering correctly.
Sito in “Lower Decks”, Wesley in “Journey’s End”, and now Ro in this episode. Season 7 is the season where Picard is a strike-out as a mentor figure.
Given the connections between “Lower Decks”, this episode, and DS9 you could say it’s an intrusion/foreshadowing of that show’s gloominess compared to the orderly and clean world of TNG.
I dissent. Ro’s defection is puzzling at best and contrived at worst. If Ro Larrn truly passed advanced tactical training, it seems to me that would make her more ingrained and loyal to Starfleet and personally loyal to Captain Picard. We see her emphasize that point three times in the ep. Ro Laren doesn’t strike me as a liar. But this ep makes her out to be a liar to Captain Picard and Macias-and the latter- a relationship which lacks the depth of the former-spurs her defection. I don’t buy that that event or the sum of Ro’s mission leads to the end of this episode. It doesn’t work-there are missing links and at odds with Ro Laren’s character. But that’s just me.
@30/Joe S.: “If Ro Larrn truly passed advanced tactical training, it seems to me that would make her more ingrained and loyal to Starfleet and personally loyal to Captain Picard.”
Huh? That’s a complete non sequitur. What do tactics have to do with loyalty? Tactics means the study of combat techiques, maneuvers, and deployment of forces to achieve the optimum result. This isn’t some Stalinist dystopia where education is about indoctrinating people in the approved politics or instilling blind obedience. If anything, Starfleet encourages its officers to be independent thinkers.
Ro’s loyalty to Picard was a function of their personal relationship, of what he’d come to mean to her as a mentor. But she came to see Macias as a mentor and father figure too, and that divided her loyalties. Having an inner conflict does not make someone a liar.
Also, remember, she mentioned early on that one of her instructors in tactical training defected to join the Maquis. That alone should prove that there’s no correlation between tactical training and loyalty. If anything, I’d think advanced tactical training would potentially increase someone’s willingness to join the Maquis. After all, it means training for combat, so people in Starfleet who are inclined toward a more combat-oriented mindset might be more receptive to the idea that fighting the Cardassians is preferable to appeasing them.
31, I can’t speak with certainty for a fictional entity, but one aspect of training today does involve the mindset in which to use it, so it’s not beyond reasonable, especially in whatever could conceptually fall under “Starfleet Advanced Tactical Training” as I would not want persons trained in combat operations not to be thoroughly trained in the desired thinking of a Starfleet officer. One man’s indoctrination is another’s discipline after all.
It was a bad idea to send Ro on an undercover mission at all. She’s so upfront and outspoken, and personal loyalty is so important to her, I don’t think that she’s able to bond with people and then betray them. She’s unsuited to be a spy. This is all Picard and Nechayev’s fault.
@32/LV: But Starfleet training would seek to instill loyalty in the principles that Starfleet stands for, not merely blind submission to the authority of the state. That’s why so many Starfleet officers defected to the Maquis — because, in their minds, that was the only way to uphold the principle of protecting innocent lives. In their view, it was the Federation’s leadership that had failed to uphold that principle by making a bad treaty with Cardassia. So they couldn’t be blindly loyal to a government that they thought had made the wrong choice.
34, that would be their rationalization, yes, however I’m addressing your question by noting the particular aspect of training that concerns itself with mindset. There is a widely recognized connection.
TNG isn’t kind to its gruff female characters. K’Ehleyr was killed, Pulaski disappeared after one year and was never mentioned again, and now Ro Laren defects in the penultimate episode.
I think it is kind of a weak point that the Enterprise crew had to help Ro Laren penetrate the shields.
Of course this is to show how mighty and invicible the Enterprise is, but IMHO it would have made a far better story if Ro Laren would have used her training and her knowledge of the Enterprise to exploit a REAL weakness without telling anybody on board.
Also, was it ever mentioned later on that the events of this story will NOT look good on Picard’s record? After all, it was him who recommended Ro Laren, and basically gave the Maquis a huge boost with her defection.
@27: Totally agree. This bugged me too.
It never made sense to me that the Starfleet-Maquis conflict had to be played out on “Voyager”. I could understand the occasional confrontation between the two crews during the first two seasons – especially the first season. But I’ve always felt that the Federation-Maquis conflict should have played out mainly on “Deep Space Nine”. It was too late to do so on “Next Generation” and “Voyager” was set in the Delta Quadrant, where that crew should have been more concerned with surviving . . . especially during its conflicts with the Kazon during the first two seasons.
Your comment that this episode focused too much on Ro and Picard makes no sense to me. This was the type of story that Ro’s romantic or sexual feelings for Riker SHOULD NOT have played a heavy part.
@39/Lee Jones: But… the Maquis conflict did mostly play out on DS9. The Maquis backstory was created for Voyager, which was an odd choice since they immediately took the characters away from the setting where it mattered, so they wrapped it up pretty quickly there and didn’t do that much with it. But DS9 took the Maquis ball and ran with it in “Defiant” and the Eddington arc.
*sniff* I can’t believe it’s almost over.
I had never seen this season before, and I really liked this episode, aside from Macias’ death. I was hoping that he wouldn’t die, just to put a twist on expectations – but oops.
I wish there were a feature-length version of this. Like, what was it like when Ro crashed at Kalita’s place that first night? What was it like when Ro introduced Riker to her Maquis friends, and how much of that time is Riker spending suspecting what’s inevitably soon to happen? So much good stuff packed in here that couldn’t be fit in.
I appreciated that they got to play with the odd attraction between Picard and Ro. Always something, always not quite anything.
Missed opportunity: Macias should have called her Laren. Or perhaps when she says goodbye to Will, he should have. It seems so natural to call her Ro, and it’s a cool name, but her actual personal name is Laren, and I feel like a bittersweet reminder of that might have been a callback to her eponymous ep and hit a touching little note. Oh well.
The encryption algorithm to find this meeting place again (no cash on the table required): rewtch emptive
Lockdown rewatch. When I first saw this episode I liked it and liked it again on the rewatch. Not much I can add to what everyone else has to say except when rewatching the previous Ro episodes and knowing this one was coming it slightly spoiled them as for all the characters redemptive scenes in those episodes you know she’s going to betray Picard and Starfleet in the end. It doesn’t quite “Alien 3” (or Terminator Dark Fate if you prefer) those episodes but it is always there in the back of your mind.
RIP Ro. I know she’s not dead but this is her last canonical appearance in the franchise. She was one of my favorite characters on TNG and better than half of the actual main cast. She was primarily a season 5 character. She did feature in that one episode in season 6 where they become children, though Michelle Forbes’ appearance was little more than a cameo. And then in her final episode in season 7. I haven’t seen DS9 but apparently the Bajoran first officer character was written with Ro in mind. I would rather watch 7 seasons of Ro than of O’Brien and his wife.
I don’t think she was explicitly created with this purpose in mind, but her character feels like almost a re-do of Tasha Yar. The strong, female character with a troubled upbringing. Michelle Forbes is 10x the actor that Denise Crosby is but it’s too bad that Tasha ended up being such a bad character.
The episode itself feels very Star Wars-y. There’s rebels, an evil empire of sorts, talk of war and smuggling and a cantina-like bar. The low budget is rearing its head again where all the action in the finale is essentially played out on a tactical screen. It wouldn’t surprise me if the space battle at the beginning is a rehash of DS9 footage as well. But I guess they spent all that time and money on the Maquis base sets.
Picard ends up being 0 for 2 on sending Bajorans on special missions. And both times leave him in his ready room chair overwhelmed by the disastrous results.
This was one of the best episodes in season 7, and a good sendoff to Ensign Ro, but I just wish we got to see more of the character and Michelle Forbes. I’ll have to check out some of the TNG novels, especially since our kind host here and some of the other commenters are prolific authors of them.
Just caught this episode on TV, and unlike almost every other TNG episode, this might only be the second time I’ve seen it. (I swear I’ve watched The Survivors, Remember Me,and some others classics over a hundred times each.) The level of intimacy between Picard and Ro throughout this episode is notable, and not only in the bar scene. He seems to be standing unusually close to her when they speak outside Ten Forward. I’m not suggesting anything untoward from the morally irreproachable Picard—quite the opposite. In a way it helps to set up his fondness for her as almost a daughter (a Prodigal Daughter as it turns out).
I can’t help myself from noting here that the always-stunning Michele Forbes looks particularly gorgeous in this episode as Ro. I think they gave her bangs in this episode, which works nicely.
@44: Well, maybe it’s too soon to say RIP to Ro because there’s always Star Trek: Picard she could pop on. Maybe not, but one could hope. The space battle at the beginning of the episode is not a re-use of any DS9 footage and is original to TNG. It’s one of the more impressive space battles especially for TNG since they are usually so static with ships not or barely moving. I think the SFX for this particular battle is where a lot of the budget went along with the phaser battle later in the episode. I agree that Michelle Forbes is an excellent actress. She did a guest star role on a few episodes and one off TV movie for Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica and she was so amazingly good and frightening in her performance. She would have been great on DS9 too. I believe I read that she turned down the role because she didn’t want to commit to doing a regular TV series role when she was just getting her feature film career going. It looks like she consistently acted in films but obviously didn’t become a movie star. Still, I’m glad that she didn’t end up on DS9 because Nana Visitor is also amazing as is the character of Kira Nerys and it makes more sense that Sisko’s right-hand women be an actual non-Starfleet officer and member of the Bajoran government, as well as her background as a terrorist being integral.
@45: Yes, the level of intimacy portrayed between Picard and Ro here is palpable, more teacher/student, father/daughter than anything. It makes the betrayal in the end all the more brutal for Picard. I think Ro also had bangs in “Cause and Effect.”
I agree with others that this is one of the best episodes of season 7 (and there were few good ones unfortunately) and also a nice send-off for Ro. I totally bought that she feels more comfortable in her role with the Maquis than with Starfleet. Post-Maquis I could see her living her life as some type of mercenary/bounty hunter. Basically she would be her own boss which suits her personality best.
@36: I never thought of K’Ehleyr as being ‘gruff’. She was very direct and passionate, and considering she was a blend of two passionate species, that is no surprise (although I am not objective about her, as one of my main STNG crushes besides Crusher herself). I did find Ro ‘gruff’ and even difficult to like, but yet I still warmed up to her and found her rather brilliant. And Pulaski was definitely gruff, but I warmed up even to her in ‘Pen Pals’ when she said, “Data’s friend is going to die. That means something”
@47/Gothmog: Oh yes, that was a great Pulaski moment. It also meant that she had finally accepted Data as a person.
I loved all three of them, and was frustrated by the way their stories ended.
Doing my own rewatch and just saw this episode. If I were the Maquis agent on deck at the bar, I’d be immediately suspicious of Ro because two Starfleet officers walked in, asked if the subject of their investigation was around, then took my word for it that she had left without:
1. whipping out a tricorder and scanning for Bajoran lifesigns, and
2. even bothering to do more than glance around the room, just somehow missing her because she was in a dark corner or something.
Still enjoyed the episode, tho.
Surf Wisely.
@ChristopherLBennett, all I’m saying is that Ro Laren’s 270 degree turn here from Captain Picard’s golden mentee to Federation traitor is abrupt at best and contrived at worst. I may not be a student of psychology. But I don’t see enough in a 45 minute drama to justify that. It’s bad writing. But that’s just me.
@50/Big Joe S.: I hate this episode. I can’t say if it’s believable or not because, as you say, it’s too abrupt, and there’s a load of background information missing. But either way it’s pessimistic and cynical. It’s the complete undoing of “Ensign Ro”.
I admit I had a near spit out my coffee moment while watching this and seeing Kalita all incredulous when Ro says she can get on the Enterprise for medical supplies. “The Enterprise is a fortress!” she says, breathlessly. Yeah, not so much. The Enterprise should have a big sign on the ship that says “For a good time, board me. ” Jeez, it was just last week when some dumbass disgraced Ferengi was coming and going as he pleased.
I generally like this episode because it’s a bit of a brave move to have Ro betray Picard so completely after all he did for her, and Patrick Stewart sells that final moment like crazy, like he always does. She lies right to his face. As others have noted, it would be interesting to know if Picard got any flak from Starfleet about his role as her mentor. I’m imagining Admiral Nechayev returning to her ballbreaking ways with him and chewing him out for this one, LOL
Not a big fan of the Macias character though. As krad noted, he’s such an over-the-top caricature of the kindly old man stereotype. To be honest, I really wasn’t sold on Ro getting so attached to him. That guy would bore the hell out of the Ro I know – of course I’m sure it helped that he liked the same kind of food and played the same instrument as dear departed daddy. That scene where Macias was talking about having a celebration played like a Hallmark movie, complete with sniffly Ro and heartwarming music. Dripping sweet and not in a good way.
Perhaps it is due to Ron Moore’s work in other franchises but I’m actually of the mind Macias was deliberately playing the role of father figure to bring Ro into their ranks. That kind of cynical manipulation is something that Picard, himself, did with Ro. It’s just that he put her in an impossible situation and expected her to jump when the other side of the cliff was full of Cardassians.
I give credit to this episode and DS9 that the Maquis are forever a group that you can’t really put into the “good idea” or “bad idea” category as even die-hard Trekkies are divided on them. Ro joining them makes perfect sense and it’s a shame we never found out what happened to her.
I feel this ep is strong 6-8. I would very much have preferred they invested the time and effort to allow this to be developed more fully and deeply over a two-parter. THEN imagine how emotionally impactful Ro’s decision would have been by the end. I believe the subject matter and the plot more than deserved a deeper two-part treatment.
Just like Conspiracy at the end of season 1 when you short a substantial story it’s necessary half or two-thirds, you lose a huge part of its power and impact on your audience.
A compressed rushed storyline can never be as satisfying as one that is allowed to more organically develop and be more completely shown.
John Franklyn-Robbins looked an awful lot like one of my grandfathers, which made him all the more endearing. I enjoyed Macias and Ro bonding over hasperat because the actors sold the baldly mawkish script; also thought that Patrick Stewart did an excellent job re Picard’s unswerving dedication to the mission and Starfleet coming through even as he clearly sympathized with Ro during their (literal) tête à tête — I haven’t quite described exactly what I mean there. We really didn’t get enough of Michelle Forbes on the show, unfortunately.
It felt like at the end that Picard realized he drove Laren into the Maquis and was angry at himself for that. He pushed her into making a choice between 2 conflicting loyalties and it backfired.
The resolution of Ro’s story arc in the 3rd season of ‘Picard’ was pretty satisfying.