Title: Coming of Age
Airdate: 3/14/1988
Plot Summary
The Enterprise is at Starbase whatever greek symbol or number where Admiral Gregory Quinn and Commander Remmick will do an investigation of the Enterprise. He’s not saying what but only that something is wrong and he’s going to find out what it is. As such, the crew gets questioned on tons of past missions and everything is looked at with suspicion. Finally it’s revealed that there is nothing wrong and Quinn makes an offer to Picard to promote him to Admiral and take over Starfleet Academy.
Meanwhile Wesley is in competition with 3 other candidates to win entrance to Starfleet Academy. He also gets tested in ways he didn’t expect.
Make It So
Picard allows the investigation to go on far longer than it should have. On the other hand, he’s completely awesome in helping Jake Kurland bring the shuttle back safely by bouncing it off the atmosphere. Even Remmick couldn’t help but cheer.
We also find out that Picard failed the entrance exam to the academy the first time he took it.
Number 1
Riker is really pissed at this whole investigation and tells Remmick to go fuck himself in not so many words. He finally relents and answers the questions as best as he can. I thought he was going to punch Remmick out.
Fully Functional
Data only has one scene of any note and that’s to basically tell Remmick that he’s full of shit.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Worf gives Wesley some good advice on how the psyche test goes, and gives us some of his history on dealing with it. It’s a good talk.
Phase Inducers
Geordi is really irritated with Remmick twisting his words against him.
Counselor Cleavage
Troi tries her best to defend Picard from Remmick’s accusations but has no answer when Remmick points out that getting mind controlled by a Ferengi would be considered a mental lapse. She’s a trained psychologist, figured she’s have a better answer.
Dancing Doctor
When Remmick mentions how she might have bad feelings to Picard because he claims that Picard basically killed her husband, she’ll have none of it. Gate McFadden has a remarkable ability to be as warm and gentle as disney princess and switch to icy cold death mistress at the drop of a hat. I swear, I’d be scared shitless if she turned that look on me.
Security Chief Dead Meat
Yar is absent this episode except at the end when she’s on the bridge to stand and well… stand.
Shut Up, Wesley
Wesley is front and center this episode and it really redeems his character a lot. This is probably the first time I really liked him. His uncertainty about the test, his talk with Worf, and his revelation about himself was all great.
Canon Maker
This shows the testing process to get into the academy. The psyche tests is harsh and done in a way that the testee doesn’t realize it’s a test. It’s impressive and makes a whole lot of sense, given the shit Starfleet personnel run into. How Kirk’s crew didn’t go bugnuts insane shows how important strong minded people are needed.
Canon Breaker
I have a ton of questions regarding the Remmick/Quinn dynamic here but I’ll save that for a few episodes later this season.
So Starfleet we’ll see has tons and tons of ships. Everyone of these ships has hundreds, maybe thousands of crewmen, many of them officers. The point is, they need bodies and lots of them. While I have no doubt that it’s tough to get into Starfleet Academy, I have no idea why all four of these students wouldn’t be accepted.
Worse, Wesley didn’t win, but I have no idea why. I’d say his psyche test went well, he beat Mordok and would’ve done even better if he hadn’t helped him, and he knew the Zaldan race and how they worked. What the heck did Mordock win? Now I know the answer, Will Wheaton is in the main credits, but I wish they tried a little harder.
Any reason why the Enterprise couldn’t use its own engines to move closer to shuttle and then use the tractor beam or transporters to get the little punk?
A Little Bloody Nose
No one dies but Jake gave it his best shot.
Technobabble
You can bounce a shuttle off the atmosphere. This is actually a true thing, one of the issues with bringing a moon capsule home is that if you don’t hit the atmosphere correctly, you could either burn up or bounce off.
Please Repeat You Communication
“You don’t like me, do you Lieutenant?”
“Is it required?”
Remmick asking a question of Worf during the interrogation and Worf giving a truly Worf-reply that will become his stock in trade as the show goes on.
Library Computer
This is the first episode to show a shuttle craft. We see the first Benzite, we’ll see another later. We also get the first Vulcan appearing, at least with a speaking part, which kind of blew me away that it took this long, given how important Vulcans are in-universe.
I Know That Guy:
Ok lots of guests in this one.
Ward Costello is Admiral Quinn. He’ll be back in Conspiracy later. I know him from the movie Firefox.
Robert Schenkkan plays Commander Dexter Remmick. He’s been in a few things over the years but he’s mostly known as a playwright. He’ll also be back in Conspiracy.
Robert Ito plays Lieutenant Chang. He’s done a ton of voice work over the years but will return to Star Trek as Harry Kim’s dad.
john Putch plays Mordok. He was in a lot of movies, most notably as Sean Brody in Jaws 3d. He’ll be back as another Benzite in season 2 and then as a reporter in Star Trek Generations.
Tasia Valenza plays the Vulcan T’notspellingthat. She does the voice of Poison Ivy in the various Arkham games. She’s also done some voices in the various Star Wars animated series, so she’s one of the few that has crossed over.
Estee Chandler plays Oliana. She’s cute but her delivery just seems out of phase with everyone else.
Finally Stephen Gregory plays Jake Kurland.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
I half like this episode a lot and the other half is just ok. The Wesley half is the best part. I know, I am as shocked as you are. But Wesley is an actual character in this one. He’s nice, he tries his best, and he has a pile of doubts on the psyche test. His talk with Worf is really a highlight of the episode.
I liked Mordok too. The Benzite design is neat. I used to think that he had that contraption on to make sure he is able to breathe his home atmosphere or get some sort of element that’s not present in M-class atmospheres, but now I know it’s just the 24th century version of a vape pen.
The investigation is really ridiculous and makes even less sense when you find out the resolution to this set up. Still it does allow for the show to reference all kinds of past episodes, something the original Trek did only a couple of times and the lightest of references at that.
Remmick is a jerk doing his job and his request to join the Enterprise at the end was a bit laughable. Sure he was doing his job but he was doing it in the most insulting way possible half the time. He was lucky Picard didn’t punch him in the mouth for asking. Kirk would’ve.
Overall the problem is that there is little suspense in this story. No way is Picard going to accept a position at the academy. You might think maybe Wesley might be getting kicked off the show but that was remote, even with Yar coming up. Two people in the opening credits leaving the show? Not going to happen.
We basically have 2 b stories with no “A” story. I liked them well enough and I admit the Wesley section was fairly compelling. Just for the psyche test alone, I got to give it another star.
