“Coming of Age”
Written by Sandy Fries
Directed by Mike Vejar
Season 1, Episode 18
Production episode 40271-119
Original air date: March 14, 1988
Stardate: 41461.2
Captain’s Log: Wes and Jake Kurland have an unintentionally hilarious conversation where Wes apologizes, and Jake says it’s okay even though it isn’t. It’s not until the captain’s log voiceover that we realize we’re talking about the Starfleet entrance exam—Wes qualified to take it, Jake didn’t, thus spoiling our episode of Brokeback Enterprise .
Wes beams down to a testing facility on Relva 7. Admiral Gregory Quinn requests a meeting with Picard, and he arrives with Lt. Commander Dexter Remmick and wants to speak to Picard alone—without even the first officer. Riker looks like someone killed his pet at the news.
Remmick is with the Inspector General’s office, and he’s conducting an investigation of the Enterprise. Quinn is parsimonious with specifics, to Picard’s annoyance.
Wes meets the other three candidates for entry to Starfleet Academy at the facility on Relva: Oliana Mirren, a human woman, T’Shanik, a Vulcan woman, and Mordock, a Benzite man who formulated “the Mordock strategy,” according to Wes. Tac Officer Chang starts the testing, and the kids go at it.
Remmick starts interrogating the crew—La Forge about “Where No One Has Gone Before,” Troi about “The Battle,” Worf about “Angel One,” Data and Riker about the captain’s logs and computer records, Crusher about her relationship with Picard, and Picard about “Justice.”
Jake steals a shuttlecraft. Remmick asks the question I always ask whenever someone steals a shuttle: why isn’t the shuttle bay secured? I mean, okay, maybe Jake spoofed the computer or something, as he’s supposed to be bright, but there’s a thousand people on the ship; can’t they spare just one or two to, y’know, watch the place? (It didn’t bother me as much in “The Doomsday Machine,” because the shuttle was stolen by a commodore who could’ve intimidated the guy guarding the place with his rank.)
Anyhow, Jake breaks the shuttle, and Picard guides him back, causing Remmick to justifiably ask how pathetic is this ship where kids can steal shuttles, and wasn’t this hotshot Academy candidate trained in discipline? Picard is equally justifiable in his response: he’s a teenaged boy, for cryin’ out loud.
Wes continues the testing, both planned and unplanned. He has an encounter with a Zaldan, plays with a 3D Rubik’s Cube (just in case you forgot that this episode was filmed in the 80s), and has the psych test. In the latter, two people are in danger, but Wes can only save one of them; his fear was that he couldn’t make that decision when it mattered.
Remmick gives Quinn his report: he couldn’t find anything wrong with the ship. In fact, he requests a transfer to the Enterprise when his tour in the IG is up. Quinn finally explains himself: he’s worried about something that is trying to undermine the Federation—the admiral isn’t sure where the threat is coming from, inside or outside. Now that Quinn has cleared Picard of being involved with this threat through Remmick’s investigation, he wants to promote the captain and put him in charge of the Academy. A shocked Picard politely declines—he’s not at all comfortable with politics—to Riker’s obvious disappointment. (No, seriously, when Picard mentions the promotion, Riker’s words say “Congratulations! What a wonderful choice, sir! You’ll be able to shape the minds of the future leaders of Starfleet,” but his face says, “MINE! THE SHIP IS MINE! MINE MINE MINE!” and he gets so totally crestfallen when Picard makes it obvious he’s declining the promotion.)
Despite his declining to run the Academy, he does do a nice job of bucking up both Jake and Wes—the latter being disappointed that he failed the entrance exam, at which point Picard reveals that he failed the first time, too (admonishing Wes never to tell anyone). Quinn beams off, saying that maybe he’s just been playing politics too long, and the Enterprise heads off to its next mission.
Thank You, Counselor Obvious: When Troi is being interrogated by Remmick, he asks if Picard suffered any mental lapses. Troi says no, and Remmick brings up the events of “The Battle.” When Troi points out that Picard was controlled by a mind-altering machine against his will, Remmick says, “I would call that a mental lapse.” Troi at that point stews in annoyance, as if she’s been defeated by Remmick’s verbal trickery. What Troi should have said in response was something like: “You can call it that all you want, but since I’m a trained therapist and have medical degrees in psychology and stuff, I think my definitions of a mental lapse are of more use than those of an IG drone. Also: stop staring at my cleavage.”
Can’t We Just Reverse the Polarity?: The first two options listed when Jake’s shuttlecraft breaks down are the tractor beam and the transporter, but said options are rejected because the shuttle is too far away. What a pity that they’re not in a space ship that is capable of locomotion under its own power and would therefore be able to cut the distance by moving closer to the shuttle .
Once that idiocy is out of the way, Picard guides Jake through a nifty maneuver that bounces the shuttle off the atmosphere, a move very similar to one made by John Crichton in the premiere episode of Farscape .
No Sex, Please, We’re Starfleet: At one point, Oliana tells Wes: “It’s a good thing you’re cute, Wesley, otherwise you’d be really obnoxious.” This results in the patented Wesley Crusher Goofy Grin. She flirts with him a few more times before the episode’s over.
The boy!?: Half the episode focuses on Wes’s Starfleet entrance exam, the structure of which makes absolutely no sense. Seriously, what possible logic is there in having so cut-throat a system where only one of four brilliant candidates are allowed in? Starfleet is a huge organization. It’s obvious that Wes, Oliana, T’Shanik, and Mordock are incredibly bright and talented, more so than most. So why is the Academy only taking 25% of them? This is never described as a gifted-students program or an early-admissions test, where that level of difficulty would make sense. There’s simply no way Starfleet could properly and regularly replenish their officer corps if they’re this fussy about who gets in.
There is No Honor in Being Pummeled: Worf and Wes have a nifty conversation about the psych test, where Worf opens up (in his own way) about his own psych test and his fear of depending on others—which he very characteristically describes as being his “enemy.”
Welcome Aboard. Ward Costello, Robert Schnekkan, and John Putch all make the first of two appearances. The former two will reprise their roles as Admiral Quinn and Lt. Commander Remmick in “Conspiracy,” this episode’s sequel; the latter will come back as a different Benzite in the second season’s “A Matter of Honor.” Robert Ito is his usual dignified self as Chang, and Estee Chandler is delightful as Oliana.
I Believe I Said That: “You don’t like me very much.”
“Is it required—sir?”
Remmick showing how observant he is, and Worf confirming his observation.
Trivial Matters: This episode sets up “Conspiracy” several episodes hence. It also sets a record for references to past episodes through Remmick’s investigation.
Picard’s assurance that Wes will test again in a year’s time is made reality in “Samaritan Snare.”
This is Mike Vejar’s first of many Trek directing credits, though it’s his only time directing TNG. He would go on to do plenty of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise episodes. This is also the first time we see a shuttlecraft on TNG.
A scene was cut with the crew celebrating Wes’s sixteenth birthday in case he got into the Academy and would therefore not be around for it. Said scene had a wonderful line from Worf when asked how old he is: “Klingons do not celebrate birthdays. You are born, you become a warrior, you die.”
Wes’s psych test was in Room 101, proving that the Academy administrators have read George Orwell.
The courtesy-free Zaldans wouldn’t return on screen, but would get used in several novels, most notably your humble rewatcher’s own A Singular Destiny, where the Zaldans’ brutal honesty would be used against them.
Make it So: “Breathe! I gotta remember to breathe!” I don’t have any bad feelings about this episode, but every time I think about it, I’m less than impressed. There are no real surprises in the testing phase, which is bog-standard and not that exciting. You know Wes isn’t going to get in the Academy and you know Picard isn’t going to accept the promotion to admiral because Wil Wheaton and Sir Patrick Stewart are in the opening credits. Jake Kurland doesn’t seem to serve a purpose except to give Picard a chance to show off his ability to make shuttles bounce off atmospheres, and the entire procedure for letting officer candidates into the Academy makes nothing like sense.
Remmick is the ultimate cliché of the jackass interrogator, stirring up trouble and misinterpreting and generally being a nuisance to no good effect. Vejar does do a good job with the jump-cutting in the later interrogation scenes, going from Data to Worf to Crusher to Picard.
And yet, I don’t actually dislike this episode and enjoy watching it. The performances help. This is one of Wheaton’s better turns in the first season, and we see Wes’s intelligence and his insecurity without any of the smug obnoxiousness or adult stupidity that all too often accompanied the former. Nobody ever went wrong casting Robert Ito in anything, and John Putch is eminently likeable as Mordock.
Ultimately a run-of-the-mill episode, hence the dead-average rating.
Warp factor rating: 5.
Keith R.A. DeCandido made that utterly gratuitous reference to Farscape above mainly because he is writing the monthly Farscape comic book for BOOM! Studios, in collaboration with Rockne S. O’Bannon, that show’s creator. Two other TNG writers worked on Farscape: David Kemper and Naren Shankar. Keith’s other recent novels are the high-fantasy police procedural, Unicorn Precinct (currently available for the Kindle, available in other eBook formats and trade paperback later this month, from Dark Quest Books) and the superhero police procedural Super City Police Department: The Case of the Claw (currently available in all eBook formats from Crossroad Press). To find out more, read Keith’s blog, or follow him on either Facebook or Twitter.
Are they admitting “3 of 4” or 25%? Can’t be both. :-)
Teenaged Wil Wheaton so kawaii. But WHAT is that stripe-y sweater… turtleneck… thing… he’s wearing in the first still? It doth bring the fugly.
Points for a cool alien but yeah if Star fleet is so hard to get into explain BaRKLEY
Man, Remmick is so over the top in this. I mean it helps breathe life into the story, and gets the stoicicty out of the way with the cast, but it’s like he goes for the throat without any instigation. Beyond Riker’s initial blow up (that, truth be told, seemed way over the line to begin with), no one gives him any just cause to do so.
I also love the Jared Leto look alike, too. Shame we never really saw more families stealing shuttle crafts in future episodes.
grenadier: GAH! That was a typo. It’s now fixed. Thanks for the catch.
jyhash: To be fair, Riker himself apologizes and admits he overreacted. It was a perfectly understandable, human reaction to Remmick being an asshole….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
The other question I had whilst watching this episode was whether or not (SPOILER ALERT) the infestation had taken ahold of Quinn or Remmick by this point yet. Remmick is not easy to discern, as he had no “tell tale signs” like the gill they find on Quinn, but was it supposed to have gotten to those two yet by this point? Having Picard on Earth within reach of Quinn is kind of sketchy, but you’d think that if he was infected that he’d have just ended up ordering Picard to report for his new posting. I’d like to think he wouldn’t because that would ruin the subtext of Infested Quinn’s character, but I don’t think the writers of Season 1 were much for subtext…
My personal take as that Remmick was already “turned” — he had to have been, honestly — but Quinn wasn’t, and that Remmick made Quinn part of the conspiracy after the events of this particular episode….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
This is always the episode where the “Every alien species has one world culture that every member shares, one default personality type” that infests the entire Star Trek franchise always leaps out at me. Because I can never stop imagining how badly Wes’ encounter with the Zaldan would have gone if the guy had been, you know, a person instead of being a test to prove that yes, Wes is good at cataloging stock responses based on stereotypes.
(I know, I know. Worf is an even more blatant example of this problem. But it’s not until the later seasons that this becomes something that continually shoves me right out of the episodes focusing on him.)
Yeah I wanna see some Klingon look at worf and say “god no wonder you drink prune juice.’
It may not hold up well lo these many years later, but as a teenage Trekkie (now an adult Trekkie — I don’t see that term as a slur!) I liked this one a lot because (a) any chance to see the inner workings of Starfleet was okay by me (and, hey, maybe accepting only 25% of the applicants is a really, really high commitment to standards? Could be); and (b) it was the first real attempt Star Trek on TV had ever made at paying attention to the continuity of specific episodes (excepting, I suppose, “I, Mudd”). The referencing of past adventures just really wasn’t done in Trek prior to this; and though I didn’t like (and still don’t) how it would pay off in “Conspiracy,” this nascent attempt at arc-building is a pretty significant milestone in overall Trek history.
I always had the impression that there was only one space left at the academy for that particular sector. Like someone defaulted after the main admission session. But now that I think about it, that does not make much sense either.
This kind of episodes of recapping the season (and probably saving money in footage) has since become very annoying in other tv series, like Stargate for example. Almost every year had one of them.
Nothing implausible about a 25% acceptance rate; that’s higher than plenty of selective colleges. If we assume that Starfleet Acadamy is the equivalent of West Point, well, West Point’s acceptance rate is around 15%, about the same as Cal Tech’s.
But that applies to the general run of applicants–not to four particular candidates that the script goes to great trouble to establish as extraordinarily talented. They could easily all have made Starfleet without having posed a problem for Starfleet’s acceptance rate, just like more than 15% of students from Bronx Science can make it in to Cal Tech.
I actually had the opposite impression of Remmick in this episode–I assumed that neither officer had been turned yet, and his douchey personality was supposed to shake up the crew in case any of them had been “turned” already, which is what makes it tragic later in the season that the conspiracy has caught up to Remmick and Quinn after all.
@14: I tend to agree – Remmick seemed sincere in his request at the end of the episode to be assigned to the Enterprise – indicating that he had been deliberately offensive in an attempt to find weaknesses in the crew, but was so delighted to find that there were none that he wished to serve with Picard, et al.
@12, Kaboom
This kind of show is called a clip show and it has become just about standard for special effects heavy shows to turn a lame story idea into a clip show episode as a tool to extend their effects budget for the season. Other shows also do it to extend their budget for guest stars or other special things they plan to do that season. By the way. Battlestar Galactica did something different. They took an idea that could have been the clip show – “Unfinished Business” with the use of boxing matches to work out tensions and grudges – but used clips that were all (or mostly) new material.
On to the question of the test and the selection process. I had the impression that this test was for a political appointment to the Adacemy. This Starbase had had only one slot open for a political appointment at that time. However, this is quite different from what we saw in Star Trek: The Reshuffle a few years ago.
I didn’t take any of what I saw of the exams as tests for intelligence. I saw all of it as a test of character. The Command Staff at this Starbase would have been aware of their test scores and general schooling reports but how much of the person’s character would have come through in those freports. These tests are a fishbowl. That Wes quickly caught the tell-tale sign in that encounter was not the “correct” response in that there was no “correct” response. How Wes handled the situation – no matter where it progressed – was what they wanted to see. Even if the encounter became a confrontation, would Wes eventually realize that it was a cultural misunderstanding or would he hold a grudge against “those people”. I can see where trained observers (within the Star Trek universe) could gain a lot from these silly tests. That’s how I felt about it when I first saw this episode and I still feel that way about it.
I definatly don’t think that Quinn was infected at this point, but I do think that Remmick was.
Look at the way his head and neck move when Riker blows him off the first time. I know he’s pissed off, but that’s just not normal, and of course, we know that the “mother parasite” attacked in his head.
Did you notice the one crewmember whose interview with Remmick wasen’t shown? Yup, Tasha Yar. Rewatching this season, it’s very easy to see why Denise Crosby left the show. Levar Burton, and especially Michael Dorn, were taking major screen time away from her by this point (I thought she was the “star” of the first three episodes).
MikePoteet: “and, hey, maybe accepting only 25% of the applicants is a really, really high commitment to standards? Could be” The problem is — they have hundreds and hundreds of ships, most of which have hundreds and hundreds of people on them. If entry was really that stringent, they’d never fill up an officer class (especially given how choked Starfleet is with officers — DS9 was the only show that regularly acknowledged that there were enlisted personnel) for more than a couple three ships.
Kaboom: Except this wasn’t a clip show, because there was no footage from past episodes, just talking about it. You’re perhaps conflating this episode with “Shades of Grey,” which really was a clip show. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
How old is Wes (the character) supposed to be in this episode? If he’s any younger than 17, and he sounds like it, then maybe this is some sort of accelerated early-entrance program. Wes may be brilliant, but he’s no Doogie Howser.
And now I just got Wil Wheaton-Neil Patrick Harris pictures in my head… *shudder*
JasonD: T’Shanik asks if he meets the age requirement, and he defensively says he’ll be 16 soon.
My problem with the notion that it’s an early-admissions test is that nobody ever at any point in the episode says it is, when there are plenty of opportunities to. And both Picard and Worf talk about their own experiences with the same test. It’s discussed consistently as the standard entrance exam.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Aren’t all Rubik’s Cubes 3D?
Julie: Yeah. I meant virtual Rubik’s Cube. I could go in and edit it, but I’ll take my screwup like a man………. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
One thing that always bugged me about this episode is during the *looks up* dynamic relationship test, is that Mordock is panicking, Wes talks him through it while simutaneously doing his own and finishing only seconds later, but when Chang comes in, it’s Mordock he praises for his time. I know he does belatedly praise Wes when Mordock protests, but I still hate it.
I don’t really have much to say about this one. It’s kind of just there. Nice idea to do a story that’s more about drama than action (though they had to tack on the pointless shuttle sequence to meet the obligatory action quota), but it was somewhat unfocused.
Yes, Remmick was a jerk in the interrogations, but that was his job, to push and see if anything gave. His final scene, where he dropped the act and showed he was a nice guy after all, helped redeem his earlier portrayal. It was a cliched role, but it was one the character adopted intentionally to serve a purpose.
And I’m sure that parasite possession wasn’t even an issue for the people involved in making this episode, since I don’t think the idea of the parasites had been settled on yet. The conspiracy Quinn was talking about was meant to be a cabal of high-ranking officers, sort of like what we later got in ST VI or “Homefront”/”Paradise Lost,” but Roddenberry didn’t want Starfleet to be anything less than perfect, so it got reworked into the parasite thing. Maybe you could retcon it and assume the parasite queen was already inside Remmick, but that idea wouldn’t have been around yet when this was made, I think. (Or would it? Scripts are written well ahead of shooting, and we’re getting fairly late in the season, so maybe the script for “Conspiracy” would’ve been in the works during the shooting of “Coming of Age.” It doesn’t really feel like it to me, though.)
Given the things some of the genius kids would get up to (like accidentally creating intelligent lifeforms that escape and declare war on Federation personnel), I assume the academy had to calculate how many students of that type they could survive in an average semester. Wes was lucky to be considered.
The remaining 75% of academy positions are reserved for patronage and nepotism.
@23: I thought that (the praise at Mordock’s speed, and neglect of Wesley’s) was another test – to see if Mordock would acknowledge the help he’d receive and to see if Wesley would react badly (very reminscient of some of the testing at the beginning of “Space Cadet”)
I don’t have much to say about the episode, but I want to add a bit of praise for these posts. As a lifelong fan (I was five when TNG first aired), I find myself consistently overrating the episodes (as I try to guess the warp factor rating) only to read the review and find that I cannot help but agree.
Thanks for the great posts, and, please, keep it up!
I vaguely remember this episode. Looking back on it after reading this, it strikes me as the “entrance exam” being more like the Voigt-Kampff test in Blade Runner, in that the actual test isn’t the point of the test, but the subject’s reactions to it.
And 25% enrollment rate does seem really low, especially when you have people like Barclay and Kosinski from “Where No One Has Gone Before” in Starfleet.
@24 – According to Sandy Fries, Remmick had not been turned yet because Fries did not have a conspiracy as the reason for the interrogations. Fries mentioned this at a writer’s seminar in DC back in 1995.
Philosophizer: Thank you so much!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
You passed me up in my own rewatch, Keith, and are now way ahead of me. So expect the occasional comment I make to be on increasingly old posts.
My two major thoughts on this ep are that a) the Worf monologue about his own “psych test” is probably the most he’s said in the show to this point, and b) baby jesus didn’t tell me that there is a deleted line that clarifies that this was an early entrance exam, but it’s the only way the whole thing could possibly make a lick of sense, so it’s a part of my “personal continuity”.
I agree, Remmick was definitely turned at this point, which is why, I think, he requested the transfer to Enterprise. He also had the mother creature in him, which means he had to have been turned rather early. Also, doesn’t Remmick seem like the perfect recruit for Section 31? Too bad that hadn’t been established yet…
Yeah, I always had a problem with the exclusiveness of these exams. Chang did say only one candidate would be accepted from Relva, but still…I like to think these were early entrance exams. Overall I thought this was an enjoyable episode and it felt like the series was finally getting in to some sort of groove.
@29 – The Voigt-Kampff test? LOL! I can just imagine Wesley saying, “My mother? Let me tell you about my mother !” (whips out phaser)
I think the only logic in Barclay getting weeded out this way is possibly through the psych tests. He’s established to be brilliant, even before an alien probe boosted his IQ.
I got the impression that they only had one spot open for this particular planet…making it seem like an affirmative action sort of thing, i.e., Starfleet has to accept equal representation from each sector. Even if Starfleet only accepted so many applicants across the board, it seems like there could be room for more than one of these guys. In terms of 25% being able to fill a starship or an entire officer corps, I think it depends on how many people in the galaxy are applying each year. It certainly seems odd, when you think about it, that there is only ONE Starfleet Academy, in San Francisco. That DOES seem rather limited. Why not, SA-SF, SA-Vulcan, SA-Betazed, etc. Maybe we can stretch our imaginations and say that’s what this was; the local SA to that sector only had one spot left. Still doesn’t explain Picard failing the first time.
Otherwise, I don’t see much evidence in THIS episode to say that either the admiral or Remmick had been taken over yet. I guess it’s just opinion, unless other evidence from “Conspiracy” sheds light on it.
@29, well, clearly this exam had to be a reaction test, because as an *exam*, it sucked. e.g. as far as I can tell, everyone had to complete each question in the hyperspace physics test in synchrony, hugely limiting given that different candidates can quite reasonably want to take different amounts of time over different questions. Nothing else is compatible with the system reading the questions out to the whole group one by one, as seemed to happen.
It seems unlikely that nobody on the writing staff had ever taken a real-world exam, so clearly these changes from the current norm were intentional — but whether they were thought through is another matter. (Whether anything this early in the series is thought through is arguable.)
I’m not as bothered by the 25% admission rate for Starfleet. There is only so much space (excuse the pun) at the Academy, and top universities in the U.S. TODAY routinely have acceptance rates of under 10%. Yes, it isn’t fair that equally qualified bright and motivated candidates don’t all get to go to the Academy. Or Harvard. Or Columbia. But when you want the best of the best, balanced by location (Relva vs. Vulcan), a test by location with low rates of acceptance from each location works for me.
I attended a special viewing of this episode hosted by the writer, Sandy Fries in the late ’80s in London, Ontario. When asked if this was a direct pre-curser to “Conspiracy” he said yes but made mention that there was no evidence that Remick was compromised at this point.
Here’s a little trivia point: the painting of the exterior of the Relva starbase was actually first used in several Buck Rogers In The 25th Century episodes.
The contaminant Remmick was “asking” Worf about could have been the one from The Naked Now, but could just as equally have come from Angel One. Two viruses infecting the crew of the flagship of the Federation, all within the same year. I’m surprised Remmick didn’t tear Worf, Picard and Tasha a new one for that.
my favorite moments of this episode were too instances where characters didn’t say anything. First, when the Remmick discloses he wants to serve on the Enterprise, Picard just gives him the “buggar off” look, and the second is when the actor in Wes’s test comes out of the room and gives him the “hey what up bro” look as he brushes past.
I agree that the Starfleet acceptance rate thing is questionable, but why are you guys obsessing about something plausible when a hugely important plot point MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE? Seriously, a shuttle has escaped. How can it be out of transporter range when the surface of the planet is within transporter range? And even if it is out of transporter range–hell, even if the transporter doesn’t work–use your freaking impulse engines (or even your warp drive if you need to get there w/ tons of time to spare) to get to within tractor-beam range. And even if your tractor beam doesn’t work, get b/t the shuttle and the planet or detonate a photon torpedo close enough to the shuttle to use the shockwave to send it away from the planet.
This is the stuff that pisses me off about the 1st season. I don’t care if it was new, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to remember stuff you’ve actually already written in the show, or even stuff that just makes logical sense.
luc: Er, I commented on that very thing in the “Can’t we just reverse the polarity?” section………….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’m sorry, but did you honestly choose to read the intro scenes in that Brokeback way when you first saw the episode? When I first saw it on the first broadcast (very much pre-Brokeback), and when I watched it again just minutes ago (to say nothing of numerous times in between), all I saw was a rather obvious attempt at creating foreboding about some “mysterious” back story. I’m not saying I can’t see someone reading it the way you did, but, I guess my point is that a lot of this stuff is in the eye of the beholder . . . and that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as it were.
I really liked this episode. A couple of subtleties put it on the “good” side for me.
Wesley had good chemistry with the other applicants, especially Mordock–something that would be followed up on in a later episode, although with a different Benzite. The competitive atmosphere reminded me of similar dynamics among “gifted” students in school. They were aware of each others’ status as rivals, and some of their interaction reflected that, but also they were some of the few people they’d ever meet on their own intellectual level, and so they wanted to connect. I thought that push-pull came through pretty well.
Remmick–I wanted to hate him. But his behavior at the end of the episode launched my opinion of him much higher. He came in suspicious based on personal impressions. But once he completed his report, he not only praised the crew but clearly admired them to the point of wanting to transfer in. It’s a rare thing to meet someone who has a strong opinion changed by facts, and good to see. I felt so bad for him when I found out his fate later, and I still feel his second appearance deserved a better ending.
Yeah, the least the writers could have done is make up some technobabble explanation about why transporters won’t work in the vicinity of Relva 7, and send Wesley down in a shuttlecraft, if Picard’s coach-piloting stunt was so important. Really, how did they get Wesley back if the upper atmosphere is out of transporter range? As for the tractor beam option… Keith made me laugh seltzer out of my nose.
I really like this episode. Not because it makes perfect sense, which it only sort of does, but because it is an early example of the show being good. Picard and Quinn have some really solid acting realism going. Wes isn’t annoying. It feels good, it has good pacing.
I do wish the psych test weren’t so obviously a fake; it would have been more striking if it had begun on the way into the room instead of after he was left in the room. Like he’s supposed to go to the end of the hall, but he hears an alert sound through a door midway down, and he is willing to sacrifice his Starfleet career to save the people inside.
“Aren’t all Rubik’s Cubes 3D?”
I swear the one I had as a kid was at least 4D.
This episode plays out better than most of S1, mostly because you want to know what the mysterious inquisition is all about. That plot-line has the right mix of intrigue and antagonism: Remmick plays a pretty good weasel, and his interrogations produce a few good moments. I especially like how Data smacks him down.
The academy exam sub-plot is a little clunky, for sure. I don’t have an issue with the idea that they only accept one of four, although you’d hope in the future that kind of thinking would give way to a more rational approach. Obviously, if you have two or more spectacular candidates for one slot, you find a way to bring them all in. It is better than most Westley-centric plots, but nothing really interesting comes of it. My two big gripes are that, first, you wouldn’t allow interaction (or want it) on a test of mental skills, and second, wasn’t it obvious that the “accident” was part of the psych test? A more forward-thinking approach would have been to give the group of four a series of scenarios that tested knowledge, intelligence, problem-solving, and ability to interact. The best bit to come out of it all is Westley’s conversation with Worf – after being in the background for the first half of the season, Worf starts to show some life.
Overall, this one holds up surprisingly well, I can comfortably give it warp six. It could have been better if the academy exam piece had some more compelling elements, plus it has no tie-in whatsoever with the conspiracy plot. It really feels like they had two scripts that didn’t have enough meat for their own episode, so they slapped them together. Not the first or last time for that, but at least the result here is more watchable than the typical product, and the end result is well above average for S1.
@37/Electone: “Here’s a little trivia point: the painting of the exterior of the Relva starbase was actually first used in several Buck Rogers In The 25th Century episodes.”
Oh, that’s interesting. Odd that a Universal asset ended up at Paramount.
When I did my Buck Rogers rewatch a while back, I was surprised to realize how close BR and TNG were in time, just 6 years between the end of one and the start of the other. I realized this when BR did an episode where the Draconians were using a holographic simulator to record Buck’s piloting skills or something, and I was struck by how it presaged the holodeck concept.
It’s weird, because I think of them as being from two different eras of SFTV. But then, TNG was essentially the beginning of the modern era of smarter, more sophisticated SFTV, although it took a couple of years for it to really kick in. We trash the quality of TNG’s first two seasons in retrospect, but the reason the show succeeded was because most of SFTV back then was much, much worse, so TNG looked fantastic by comparison. It opened the door for the renaissance that followed in the ’90s and beyond.
@40/luc: “Seriously, a shuttle has escaped. How can it be out of transporter range when the surface of the planet is within transporter range?”
Maybe it’s moved around the curve of the planet, so it’s farther from the ship than the surface is? For instance, if the planet’s radius was 6000 km and they were orbiting at an altitude of 14,000 km, then a shuttle 90 degrees away in their orbital path would be the length of a straight-line chord spanning 90 degrees through a circle 20,000 km in radius, which is (consults online applet) 28,284 km, about twice the distance to the surface.
Although I think TNG-era transporter range was 40,000 kilometers, as I recall from the tech manuals, which should be enough either way.
“get b/t the shuttle and the planet or detonate a photon torpedo close enough to the shuttle to use the shockwave to send it away from the planet.”
First of all, there are no shock waves in the vacuum of space. A shock wave is something that propagates through a medium. Second, even if there were, shock waves don’t push things, they pass through them. They’re basically very intense sound waves. The blast wave from an explosion, the expanding front of gases, can push things to an extent, and that often gets confused with a shock wave. But the blast wave from an antimatter warhead exploding in vacuum would be minimal. The main effect on any nearby craft would be an intense burst of radiation.
Of course, fiction often shows “shock waves” in space and pushing things, to my perennial annoyance, but early TNG tended to have much more plausible science than later Trek productions.
@46/UncreditedLT: “I don’t have an issue with the idea that they only accept one of four, although you’d hope in the future that kind of thinking would give way to a more rational approach. Obviously, if you have two or more spectacular candidates for one slot, you find a way to bring them all in.”
They do — namely, you get to take the test again the following year. That’s how Picard got in.
A pretty good episode, in spite of the stupid only the applicant with the highest marks gets picked aspect. Season 1 seems like it’s been improving with the last few episodes.
An interesting question is why they chose Mordok to join Starfleet when Wesley seemed to be kicking his ass. A very easy argument that fans can see if that Wesley was brushed off simply because he’s not legally an adult at age 15. No matter how good he is at the testing part, Starfleet might reasonably believe that is too young to join for a human (and 16 would be an extremely big exception to make).
What’s happening to me in my old age that some Wesley episodes don’t make me cringe? I really didn’t hate this one. I actually found parts of it touching. The crew’s answers to Remmick really made the episode though.