Title: Encounter At Farpoint
Airdate: 9/28/1987
Plot Summary
It’s about 70 years after Kirk’s final mission. The 24th century has a new Enterprise, the NCC-1701-D, ready to start a new mission to seek out new life. Captain Jean Luc Picard takes command. He along with Security Chief Tasha Yar, the first Klingon Starfleet officer Worf, the ship’s half betazed counselor Deanna Troi, and the android Lieutenant Commander Data to Farpoint station. There they will pick up the first officer William T. Riker, the helmsman Geordi LaForge, and the ship’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Beverly Crusher and her son Wesley.
But on the way, they are stopped by an all-powerful entity who calls himself “Q.” He’s puts humanity on trial for being a grievously savage race. Picard objects and after some back and forth in a mock trial, he demands Q test them to see if they are still that way. Q is intrigued and believes the Farpoint mission will provide a great test. They arrive at farpoint to find a station that will magically give you whatever you might be thinking of. But are the Bandi hiding something? And why has an alien ship arrived to attack the Bandi but not the station? Picard and the crew must solve the mystery before either the alien or Q destroys them.
Make It So
Patrick Stewart makes his debut as Captain Jean Luc Picard. He’s the most British Frenchman you’ll ever meet. Stern but thoughtful, doesn’t like kids, might have a thing for Crusher. He pretty much owns the role from the beginning, despite a few growing pains that were mostly the writer’s fault. He soon settles into the role and grows as time goes on.
Number 1
Jonathan Frakes plays William T. Riker. Unlike Picard, he takes some time to settle into his character. Over time he would become a much more jovial guy, someone who could find amusement in the unlikeliest of situations. He’s fiercely loyal to Picard and to the crew. He just needs some facial hair on that baby face. Maybe they’ll consider it in future seasons.
Fully Functional
Brent Spiner plays the android Commander Data. He mostly has the part down from the beginning though the writers have him be overly silly at the beginning. Like babbling on about synonyms for “Snoop.” He would have too many of those types of moments in the first season but he would calm down and really figure out how to make the android smart yet occasionally naive. His unwavering honesty and inability to understand humor would become his defining traits. Of course it’s all in pursuit of becoming human and lack of emotion is what really keeps him from his goal.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Michael Dorn as the Klingon Worf. It’s hard to believe from this first episode that Worf becomes one of the most important characters in the show, not to mention the actor with the most Trek appearances ever. He’s pretty much cardboard cutout Klingon. I have no idea what his role is in this first season while Tasha Yar is head of security. He doesn’t wear his silver metal sash but the gold one I’m pretty sure is the same one Kor wore way back in “Errand Of Mercy.”
They just didn’t quite know what to do with him in this early season and in this episode he does a lot of stupid things like try to blast a hole in the viewscreen. Otherwise he’s just saying what they are obviously seeing on the viewscreen. Sometimes he’s standing behind Yar at some station or sitting at the helm when one of the others is on an away mission. He’ll become great but he’s wasted in this episode.
Phase Inducers
Levar Burton plays Lt. Geordi Laforge. Like Worf, they just don’t know where to put him yet. For the first season he’s mostly the helmsman. Unlike Worf, Burton nails the character from the get go. He would find his place on the ship later on but how he plays LaForge would never change. Probably not the most memorable character of the cast, he didn’t really get one of “those” episodes that made the character awesome like the others did but he was solid the entire show.
He of course had to act with that visor blocking his vision most of the time and acting without your eyes is most difficult. Not just from a seeing perspective, but from a emoting perspective. Eyes being the window to the soul and all that and his are blocked. So let’s cut Burton a little slack.
Counselor Cleavage
Marina Sirtis plays Deanna Troi, the ship’s empathic counselor. She probably took the longest to get her character right. The first season she played it part telepathic mystic, with mostly a worried expression on the verge of tears. The next three seasons for every good to great episode she had, she would have a stinker that made you want to beam her into space. It wasn’t really until season 5 on that they really figured out a good balance with her. She has some banger episodes in those final years too.
Dancing Doctor
Gates McFadden plays Dr. Beverly Crusher. She’s great and pretty damn gorgeous. She has the warm motherly demeanor that works so well for her scenes with Wesley as well as make her a compassionate doctor. But she also knows when to stiffen up and knock someone on their ass, figuratively speaking, when they are screwing around. She plays all the parts with a lot of subtlety and it really works.
She always comes across super-competent but never girl-boss. When it’s a bad situation, she knows to keep her head down and let Worf do the heavy lifting, so to speak. But she can also turn around and intimidate Worf of all people and you believe it.
Security Chief Dead Meat
Denise Crosby plays Security Chief Tasha Yar. She has the first of her many near-death experiences, getting frozen by Q. She rushes into fight and can’t keep her emotions in check. She has a crazy backstory involving a failed colony where she had to stay on the run from rape gangs.
Shut Up, Wesley
Will Wheaton plays Wesley Crusher, son of Dr. Beverly Crusher. People hate this character with a white hot passion but I don’t. I however DO hate him in most of the first season, especially at the beginning when he’s constantly boy wonder. He’s not too bad here yet but it’s the next episode that really cemented the “kill Wesley Crusher” faction of fandom. Wheaton didn’t do himself any favors in recent years by being insufferable himself but if you step back and watch the character from late season 1 onward, he’s really not bad at all. He’ll make mistakes and do stupid things which make him far more relatable and likable later on.
Canon Maker
So let’s start with the ship. The Enterprise D is established and is specifically mentioned as the flagship. We see it’s engine room, transporter room and it is mentioned that there are more than 1 transporter rooms.
We have helm on left, ops on the right. Captain still sits in the center but he’s flanked now by the first officer and the ship’s counselor. There are also little end stools for when more people are on the bridge, guests or sometimes Dr. Crusher. Behind the captain is the security officer’s position where they stand at the weapons and communications arch. Now there is no communications officer like Uhura, those functions have been wrapped into security, which actually makes a lot of sense.
The captain’s ready room is right off the bridge, a little office for the captain to have some meetings in. We even see Picard’s lion fish. He has a desk and a small couch.
McCoy is still alive in the 24th century and is 137 years old. And an Admiral. And his crankiness has grown with his age.
The ranks are clearly designated by the pips on the collar. Four solid pips is Captain. Three is Commander. Two solid and one hollow is Lieutenant Commander, two solid is Lieutenant, One is ensign. No pips is usually an enlisted man though it would take some time for the showrunners to get that idea worked out.
We go back to the colored uniforms like back in the original show. While blue continues to be sciences and medical, red and gold have swapped. So while Redshirts in Kirk’s time meant death, now it would be gold shirts. That being said, Next Gen spread out the death to everyone quite nicely throughout its run.
Some of Data’s abilities are established, including superior strength and the ability to speak in anyone’s voice.
The holodeck is introduced and is clearly the most advanced one ever on a starship.
Canon Breaker
Q says this court took place in 2079. This is contradicted by first contact with the Vulcans happening 2063. While I suppose it’s possible this sort of thing could still be going on, it was heavily implied that after first contact, earth began on the road towards the paradise it would become. Also Enterprise didn’t show anything close to this Mad Max world. It’s a big planet, weird stuff like this could’ve been happening but it doesn’t seem likely.
I’m not sure they can really separate at high warp speeds like that but ok. Let’s say that worked. In any case, after the whole “trial” mess, the star drive section heads to Farpoint and the saucer catches up. But if the saucer can only go impulse speeds, it would’ve taken months, perhaps years to get to Farpoint.
Data would be on the ops station for the entire run, except for this one where he’s the helmsman, for some reason.
O’Brien is first seen here but unnamed. As we get to know the character, he is a proud enlisted man, not an officer. But he’s an ensign here, would be called Lieutenant a few times before finally they settled on “Chief.” I get they were still figuring everything out but rules is rules. An ensign or lieutenant doesn’t go back to being an enlisted man.
Picard seems to be interviewing Riker for the job he already has. Later on, he’s surprised that Crusher is his CMO. Captains tend to pick their senior staff, the senior staff then requests their own staff. It’s after that people get “assigned” to a ship. It’s nutty that Picard gets his first officer and Chief Medical Officer assigned to him without any say. I’m not saying that sometimes Starfleet command makes some of those decisions but not for a long term mission like this.
The holodeck can’t have any matter it creates taken off the holodeck or else it disappears. So how is Wesley not instantly dried off when exits the holodeck? That was a holodeck creek he fell in.
At one point Riker refers to Troi as “Lieutenant.” while it’s technically correct, she is a Lieutenant Commander, according to her rank. Typically Lieutenant Commanders are referred to as “Commander” for short.
Other than this somewhat advanced station, the Bandi do not appear to be spacefaring. The Prime Directive baseline rule is that they have no contact at all with civilizations that have no warp capability.
A Little Bloody Nose
Two people frozen but they both got better.
Technobabble
The original Enterprise was a Constitution class starship. The D is a Galaxy class. The ship can hit warp 9 fairly easily but getting closer to warp 10 gets pretty tough. We also see that it can separate the saucer section. Something that will happen only 3 more times I believe.
When the ship is separated, the saucer can only go at impulse speeds. The star drive section has the engines, main armaments, and the battle bridge.
We have communicators as comm badges, the delta insignia on the left side of the chest. It can be tapped to initiate communications or to answer a call when you get a little chime. It will have a different sounds when communications work or when they fail.
LaForge’s VISOR is introduced and how he can see the full EM spectrum as well as detect radiation. It’s basically a tricorder on his face.
Library Computer
Interesting little tidbit. For the transporter room, they took the disks the actors stood on in the original series and put them on the ceiling in the new show. So those props got a lot of use, nearly 30 years, though with a lot of downtime in between shows.
The movie Enterprise bridge set from Star Trek III was used for the battle bridge.
The opening credits feel like a quickly cobbled together homage to the original series. The rest of the series rode on the success of Next Gen’s and had budgets to do some truly gorgeous openings with their own theme music. Next Gen’s had to take hand me down music from the first movie. Still when you hear that music now, you think Next Generation, not The Motion Picture.
The opening theme music is used in-episode during the saucer separation. It will be the only time in its entire run that the main theme would be used in-episode.
Riker and Troi are clearly reboots of Ilia and Decker. If they had done Star Trek Phase II as a series, those two characters would’ve been a part of it. Here that dynamic is re-imagined for Next Generation.
Troi’s mini-skirt uniform would also have a male version. Thankfully after the first season they would dump both versions. Men would all dress in standard uniforms and Troi would get cleavage sporting outfits until Season 6.
I Know That Guy:
Michael Bell plays Groppler Zorn. He did a ton of voiceover work and a few other live action roles here and there. He would return in DS9’s Homecoming and The Maquis as two different characters.
DeForest Kelley as Adm. Leonard McCoy. Well do I need to discuss this guy?
Colm Meaney as Conn Ensign. This is the first of many guest appearances in TNG. He of course would become the transporter chief. Finally he’d get a full time role on Deep Space Nine. He’s not even named yet but Miles O’Brien’s first appearance is right here on the first episode of TNG.
Finally we got John de Lancie as Q. Man what a character he would turn out to be. He of course would appear 8 times throughout the series, then once in DS9 and a few times in Voyager. When I was a kid visiting my grandparents, my grandma always watched Days of Our Lives (or as she called it, “her stories.”) De Lancie had a guest role on it for a bunch of episodes and was the only guy I happened to recall as he was a wacky inventor or something. Point is, just a few years later, he appears here and I recognized him from that. He did a bunch of stuff up to Star Trek but became huge once he did Q. He later went on to do several episodes of Stargate SG1, a few episodes of Breaking Bad and in several movies in the 90s in supporting roles. Totally owns the role from the very beginning and became a fan favorite really quick.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
So it begins. 18 years after the original Trek ended, Paramount decided to take another crack at it. What we got was a golden age of Star Trek, with this series, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise giving us some great Trek for another 18 years. While not all of it was perfect, compared to anything going on today (Starfleet Academy) even the worst of it is better.
That being said, the first season of Next Generation really isn’t good. Encounter At Farpoint is no exception. As for the good, the show has a strong foundation. The design of the interior of the ship is fantastic. It becomes as a familiar character as any of the cast. It’s warm and sleek. Granted it has some dated aspects to it, the wood trim wouldn’t be done on any Trek show anymore but I still love it all. I get the jokes like USS Hilton but it still works for me.
Part of the lore of the show is how at this point in Trek history, the Federation had gotten a little arrogant. Sure we can make ships that feel more like luxury hotels and crewman can bring their families now! Klingons are allies, the Romulans have tucked themselves away, nothing can stop us. The next several years would give the Federation a lot of reality checks, like the Borg and the Dominion. The ships would change in their design as big scares happened.
Point is, the design may have been pure 80s but I think they made it work for them as the show grew.
The exterior design of the ship took me some time to appreciate. It still lacks the elegance of the Enterprise refit. I always felt it looked a little squashed. But it’s grown on me over the years. Sometime familiarity breeds affection.
All that being said, they really don’t have the tone quite right, as it would become in the second season and finally polished into perfection by the third season. Data is a bit too silly here and there. Picard is a pompous dick sometimes when he doesn’t have to be, specifically when he’s first talking to Riker.
I have no idea how figuring out that Farpoint is a life form the Bandi subjected to slavery proves that humanity is or isn’t a grievously savage race. If Q is as all knowing all seeing as he claims, why does he believe this? Of course, maybe it’s because he had a plan all along but who knows?
At one point Q stops them from being able to shield the city from the alien’s attack. But then it’s just forgotten? Or was it the alien? They make a point of it and then seem to forget about it after a commercial break.
At one point, the alien is firing on the planet, Zorn has been kidnapped, and Q is breathing down their necks. For some reason Picard takes this moment to have a moment with Beverly on her assignment to the Enterprise. The conversation is fine, the timing is head scratching to say the least.
All in all, this episode is not the greatest start to a show. But give it credit for laying down a great foundation that the show would grow on later. The cast is pretty spot on, though they would lose a few, the core seven are great. Q is wonderful trickster god that DeLancie makes a classic character.
There would have to be a few changes as time goes on but overall the building blocks are there. They still don’t quite know what to do with it yet, but they’ll get there.
