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thegreaterlink · 2 years

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Reviewing Star Trek TNG - S1E1 “Encounter at Farpoint”

So… you’re probably wondering why I’m only doing this now. Well, some of you may remember that this originally started as “reviewing every TNG episode I haven’t seen before,” similar to my early TOS reviews, but I quickly realised that was redundant because that applied to nearly all of them. So I just made it a proper review series.

Unfortunately this decision came after I skipped the season premiere. I’ve been meaning to rectify this for a while now, and what better time to do it than between the series' most infamous cliffhanger?

Let's just pretend I posted this back in February, okay? Just ignore the fact that the reviews for the subsequent episodes are going to look a lot worse in comparison. I could just edit those reviews or just re-review those episodes entirely, but…

And yes, I'm treating this as one review, since this was originally aired as a single feature-length episode and was only split into parts for reruns. That's why this took so fucking long.

So join me way back in season 1, when Riker's face was shaved, Wesley Crusher was merely an irritating child and I still had hope that Tasha Yar was going to get any sort of character development.

THE PREMISE

In the year 2364, the Federation's newly-built flagship, the USS Enterprise-D, is embarking on its maiden voyage under the command of Captain Jean-Luc (pronounced zhon-luke) Picard. Their first mission is to travel to the planet Deneb IV to examine the mysterious Farpoint station, which the Bandi species is offering to the Federation.

Suddenly the ship is surrounded by a massive force field, and a mysterious figure appears on the bridge, calling himself Q (John de Lancie) and warning them not to go any further.

MEET THE CREW

A lot of this episode is just character introductions, so I thought I'd save some time and just get it all out of the way here, even though this is probably one of the most famous casts in all of popular culture, and most of them are kinda just... there in this episode.

From left to right:

Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) - The son of Doctor Beverly Crusher, who has been raised by his mother since the death of his father on an away mission led by Picard.

Lieutenant Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) - The ship's tactical officer and chief of security.

Lieutenant Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) - The ship's helmsman, who is blind and depends on his visor to see.

Commander William Thomas "Will" Riker (Jonathan Frakes) - The ship's newly-promoted first officer.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) - The Enterprise-D's commanding officer.

Doctor Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) - The ship's chief medical officer.

Lieutenant Worf (Michael Dorn) - A Klingon junior officer who carries out several miscellaneous roles on the bridge.

Lieutenant Commander Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) - The ship's half-human, half-Betazoid empathic counsellor. She and Riker are basically better-developed versions of Decker and Ilia from The Motion Picture.

Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) - An android created by the late Doctor Noonien Soong who serves as the second officer and operations officer.

MY REVIEW

At the time, this was the first completely original Star Trek property in almost twenty years... and to be honest, it kind of shows. Because everything feels very rough around the edges.

Case in point, the episode's inciting incident happens almost immediately after Picard's bland introduction - standing in front of an ugly wooden background then heading up to the bridge while his voiceover gives us exposition. This episode is 90 minutes long and yet it's already racing off before it's even tied its shoelaces, even going to a commercial break less than ten minutes in.

Fortunately, John de Lancie is already having a blast as Q, who changes through many costumes from human history as he calls out humanity as a savage and childish race, living through the same destructive cycle throughout history.

Picard of course protests, and Q disappears after some cryptic warning about how they'll be judged and prosecuted per Picard's "suggestion."

As an alternative, Picard attempts to outrun Q at maximum warp, pushing the ship to its limit while Dennis McCarthy's music tries to convince us that this is more exciting than it actually is.

They're of course unable to escape, and Picard (rather abruptly, in my opinion) decides to separate the ship's saucer section. Worf (who is never even named in this episode) is given control of the saucer, while Picard and his senior crew (which at this point is just Yar, Troi and Data) retreat to the set of Star Trek 3, which is apparently the ship's battle bridge.

If you ever feel incompetent, remember that somebody looked at Data and O’Brien slouched down in their chairs and decided that setup was good enough to keep for an entire season.

The episode decides that the separation is apparently exciting enough to warrant a replay of the theme song, and the two sections part ways.

You can probably count the number of times this'll happen on one hand, but it's apparently a thing they can do now. For some reason.

It quickly becomes clear that the star drive section (the bit on the left) is just a distraction for the saucer to get away, as Picard surrenders to Q's terms, a move so unexpected that Troi starts tearing up when the order is given.

I believe their intent was to have Troi physically emulate whatever emotion she was sensing, which I guess makes sense with her being an empath, but it was pretty much dropped entirely after this.

Bloody hell, this whole thing reads like a first draft.

They're surrounded once again, and the senior crew find themselves transported to a court of the late 21st century (2079 to be specific), with Q as the judge. It becomes clear that they've been put on trial to answer for the crimes of humanity in a kangaroo court.

Fortunately this leads to another character getting some damn personality, with Yar knocking out a guard and making it clear that she's having precisely none of Q's bullshit.

Picard: Tasha, no!

Yar: I must! Because I grew up in a world that allowed things like this court! And it was people like these that saved me from it! This so-called court should get down on its knees to what Starfleet is! What it represents!"

Sure, she's immediately frozen for it, but I can appreciate the effort. Just like I can appreciate this script for trying to give her some actual development.

After some more courtroom chicanery where Picard continues to plead not guilty, the guy filming Patrick Stewart's closeups forgets to fully uncover the camera lens and Data shows an ability to mimic people's voices which he subsequently never uses again, Picard proposes that Q test the Enterprise crew, to which Q agrees and transports them back to the battle bridge, where I guess a yet-unnamed O'Brien had just been waiting this whole time.

Suddenly we cut to Commander babyface Riker, who is already at Farpoint station. He's meeting with Bendi administrator Groppler Zorn (which is perhaps the most sci-fi name I've ever heard) for a scene which doesn't really serve much of a purpose except to establish that the station is supposedly too good to be true and that the Bendi is working with some mysterious force that can make objects appear from thin air.

Get you a man who looks at you the same way Riker looks at those apples.

To any writers reading this, this is what we call "showing your hand too early." The whole idea of a mystery is that someone can't work out the whole thing a third of the way through.

We get a few more character introductions (Dr Crusher, Wesley, Geordi - who also isn't given the courtesy of a name), Riker beams up to the ship to be briefed, then the two ship sections are rejoined. Riker has to oversee the rejoining manually, in an interesting little dynamic where Picard tests Riker's potential and Picard finally gets some development as a captain whose need to maintain his reputation makes him emotionally closed-off.

We also get a nice scene where Data escorts an elderly Admiral McCoy (once again played by DeForest Kelley) onto a shuttlecraft.

I realise that this was probably only added to pad out the runtime, but I'm glad it was included. It feels like McCoy is passing the torch to the next generation in a scene which Kelley did for minimum pay as a favour to Gene Roddenberry.

Plus it's not like this is the first time he's interacted with the TNG crew.

Sometimes you find the greatest things when you're combing through behind the scenes pictures.

Anyway, speaking of padding out the runtime, Q shows up again to inform them that they only have 24 hours before final judgement.

The reason I'm mostly going over the plot in broad strokes instead of covering it beat-to-beat is because a lot of it just isn't terribly interesting. The original plot only focused on the mystery surrounding Farpoint station, but Paramount insisted on making this a double episode, so the subplot about Q (among other things) was added to pad out the script.

That's right. The most memorable part of this episode and one of the best characters in the entire franchise was never meant to be exist in the first place. That bodes well for the rest of the plot.

Back in the "main" plot, an away team finds some tunnels under the station, which Data analyses.

"Sorry, sir. I seem to be commenting on everything.”

That’s okay, Data. Just throw in the odd bad joke or snarky comment and a bunch of strangers will give you internet points.

...Did I say that out loud?

Anyway, that scene doesn't really go anywhere before the Enterprise encounters a generic-looking ship that attacks the Bandi city.

Meanwhile, Q reappears to provide some much-needed tension, trying to goad Picard into attacking the ship, violating the Prime Directive and proving humans to be the savages he accuses them of being.

Their attempts to find Zorn and get some answers prove fruitless when he phases out of existence, and they have no choice but to beam over to the ship, which is apparently a sentient being. Its corridors are identical to the ones beneath Farpoint, as well as Zorn being tortured.

Just when it seems that Picard will have to fold to Q's demands, the away team is beamed back to the Enterprise. Picard (and the writers) finally realise the truth, and we get our big explanation.

The Bandi have somehow captured an alien life form and have constructed Farpoint Station (as well as anything they want) by feeding off its power. The mysterious ship is actually the life form's mate which has come to free it. Not really sure how it assumed the form of a ship and how it simulated the weapons, but okay.

The Enterprise blasts Farpoint to oblivion, freeing the land-locked alien and allowing them to fly off as a happy pair of space jellyfish.

Because they've solved the mystery, I guess that means that the deal with Q is off. It's here where it becomes obvious that he was never meant to be part of the plot.

Picard: Get off my ship!

Q: I do so because it suits me to leave. But I do not promise never to appear again.

Please hurry back.

With the mission over, we get the usual denouement of the crew settling in to their new roles and setting the stage for the rest of the series.

"Let's see what's out there. Engage!"

Roll credits.

As you can probably guess, I have mixed feelings about this episode. The whole Farpoint mystery is… adequate but nothing special, and it’s difficult to give Q and his subplot any credit when you learn that it was essentially a happy accident. A pilot is supposed to be about putting your best foot forward, but having viewed the rest of this season I suppose it is representative of the series’ initial quality.

Yeah, I’m actually doing some reviewing for once instead of just going through the plot and making jokes. I’m surprised too.

It isn’t offensively bad like some of the other episodes in this season, but if I didn’t already know that the series got better after this then I genuinely don’t know if I would keep going from here.

6/10 - A decent enough start, I suppose.

And now my review list is finally up-to-date.

I can't wait for people to stumble upon the review masterpost and get confused when the review quality fucking plummets in the next one.

Speaking of which:

TNG Masterpost | Next Episode

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