The Next Generation 7x20 "Journey's End"

rating: ****

the story: Wesley Crusher finally discovers his destiny.

what it's all about: Some fans accuse Star Trek: Insurrection of being an unnecessary duplication of the earlier seventh season episode "Homeward."  Which is ridiculous.  It actually has more in common with "Journey's End," a true forced relocation story.  (But they're still pretty distinct, and you don't have to think of them in relation to each other at all.)

There's a lot of stuff going on here.  One is the more subtle Voyager groundwork episode of the season (the later "Preemptive Strike" actually features the Maquis, rather than "just" problems with Cardassians demanding things of the Federation).  The other is that this is a Star Trek episode about Native Americans that takes them much more seriously than "The Paradise Syndrome" from the original series.  Usually Star Trek metaphors use something other than what they're actually talking about, but because "Journey's End" features another attempt at forced relocation, it works perfectly well, and is allowed to properly resonate with history, as Picard points out (which actually makes Insurrection resonate quite well with this episode, too, thank you).

But you can put all that aside.  This is the last real appearance of Wesley Crusher.  After becoming a scapegoat among fans for the wildly inconsistent quality of the early seasons, this former series regular left and then only made sporadic return appearances.  Blink and you'll miss his only movie appearance (at Riker and Troi's wedding reception in Star Trek Nemesis).  But then, after "Journey's End" it would have been very difficult to pull off anyway without making it the whole focus of the story.  Fans made it clear they didn't like anything but a happy cheery follow-up when Kes finally returned in Voyager's "Fury," for instance.

No, this is a whole culmination for the character, and the payoff for "Where No One Has Gone Before," when we first meet his spirit guide, the Traveler.  Wes's journey was always about discovering his unique destiny.  Everyone tried so hard to just make him a Starfleet officer, a legacy he would've shared with his mother, Dr. Crusher, and his dead father, but he always seemed pointed in a different direction.  (Jake Sisko very quickly made a similar decision in Deep Space Nine).

What makes this episode so interesting is that it suggests a whole alternate version of Next Generation, where Wes was the lead character, and the point was to help him reach this exact point.  His last two appearances before this, "The Game" and "The First Duty" all the way back in the fifth season, very clearly set him up this in how poorly he seemed to be fitting in with Starfleet culture in his later years.  His inability to tell right from wrong in "First Duty" might have made Wes seem uncharacteristically like something other than the golden boy image he'd cultivated for so long, but the truth is, all it did was prove that he was meant for something else, something bigger.

All this sounds absurd to anyone who still hates Wes with a passion.  Good for them.  The rest of us can revel in the nuances of this character as they emerged over time, and how everything finally makes sense in "Journey's End," which is kind of the ultimate Next Generation philosophical rebuke of the original series, where a character in a similar situation would have been bad-guy-of-the-week.  Where Q, especially in the series finale, went out of his way to do much the same, having Wes do it, too, and with far less bother, just the basic human decency embodied by his mentor Picard, was also the ultimate affirmation of everything this season tried to accomplish, which was to make a final statement about the series itself, how tragedies in our past can still lead to a better tomorrow.  Isn't that the Star Trek message in a nutshell?  The decisions we make, if we make the right ones, make the future a better place, in big and small ways. 

If Wes goes off and becomes a superbeing, what else is there to say about that without making it the whole focus of the story?  Again, Kes serves as textbook example for this.  She ended up becoming very confused.  But she didn't have a guide anymore.  That's Wes's big advantage.  For all the time he seemed like he didn't have anyone who could understand him (least of all the audience), he really did always have someone to help him.  Picard hated to love him.  The Traveler never stopped believing in him.  In "Where No One," it's Wes who understood the Traveler because he didn't take his eye off him.  Well, you can bet it became the reverse.

Anyway, for an unpopular character, Wes certainly got the best possible sendoff anyone had in this series.  This is only fitting.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Rebukes the original series, in a good way.
• series - Finishes out a longstanding arc in the series.
• character - Wes's best episode.
• essential - It ties everything together!

notable guest-stars:
Wil Wheaton (Wes)
Richard Poe (Gul Evek)
Natalija Nogulich (Admiral Nechayev)
Eric Menyuk (the Traveler)

The Next Generation 7x11 "Parallels"

rating: ****

the story: Worf skips along a series of alternate realities.

what it's all about: While fans in general don't think much of the seventh season, they all seem to agree that "Parallels" is a highlight of the series.  It's just too much fun, more or less the "Trouble with Tribbles" of Next Generation.

It's really hard not to love.  Like the cleverest episodes of the series before it ("Cause and Effect," for instance), "Parallels" sets up a simple premise, lets you know everything you need to know, and then begins to chip away at that knowledge as the story progresses.  Worf returns from a Klingon tournament, which he has won, and it's his birthday, and the crew has a surprise party for him, even though Riker swears they wouldn't.  Then things change, and we get to see variations not just on stuff we know from the series (where an average episode would have drawn on), but the basics of the story itself.

And it's easily the funniest non-Q Next Generation experience you can imagine.  The more things change, the more you realize nothing's off-limits.  The Worf/Troi relationship, long teased and headed toward its culmination in the series finale, has some great material, such as when Worf ends up in a reality where he's married to Troi and has no idea! 

Wesley Crusher gets to pop up without too much fanfare thanks to the nature of the story, another prelude to later season developments (it can sometimes seem depressing, how easily Wes was to erase from later Next Generation lore, when he was so important in the early seasons, including a similar cameo in Star Trek Nemesis), and that's fun, too.

By the time the big convergence at the end of the episode occurs, and we see the harried Captain Riker of a reality where the Borg weren't defeated, "Parallels" brushes on just how serious this could've gotten, and you're grateful that it was kept so lighthearted.  Instead, it's a classic romp.  A classic, period.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Any fan would love this one!
• series - Fans of the series, certainly!
• character - Fans of Worf, of course!
• essential - It's a classic.

notable guest-stars:
Wil Wheaton (Wesley)
Patti Yasutake (Ogawa)

The Next Generation 5x19 "The First Duty"

rating: ****

the story: Wesley becomes embroiled in a quagmire at Starfleet Academy.

similar to: "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" (Deep Space Nine)

my thoughts: This is the best Wesley Crusher episode.  It has nothing to do with the Traveler, nothing to do with potential love interests, nothing to do with his mother, Picard, or even Wesley saving the day.  And it couldn't have been done with anyone else.

Since "Ensign Ro" early in the season, the series had made a concerted effort to present a more nuanced look at life in Starfleet.  The idea of visiting Starfleet Academy had been kicking around for a long time.  At one point Star Trek VI was supposed to be a reboot, with Kirk at the Academy (hello Star Trek 2009!), and that was about as recent in franchise history as was possible at that point.  I'm sure no one thought that when we finally saw Wesley at the Academy, after his early seasons hyping just how brilliant an officer he was destined to become, that he would be in any kind of trouble, let alone moral trouble.

I mean, Wesley was about as emblematic of Next Generation's early years as you could get, young and idealistic, one of the closest to the Roddenberry ideal any of these characters ever got.  I mean, he was Gene Roddenberry, for all intents and purposes.

His situation is a little complicated.  He's joined an elite squad of cadets.  He's not even its leader, but clearly he's one of the most important members.  The leader is the one who causes the problem.  Well, eventually, because the whole squad had to agree to screw up in the first place.  So "The First Duty" becomes a study of hubris, of, more or less, the kind of conceit that allowed Roddenberry to envision his perfect future in the first place, eventually settling on a hothead maverick in James Kirk to represent it, Kirk the contradiction at its center.  Next Generation went out of its way to present itself as different from Kirk as possible.  His surrogate, Riker, was the first officer, not the captain, drawn from Kirk's rival in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Decker, the man who totally disagrees with Kirk's mindset and resents him at every turn. 

Got all that?  "The First Duty" is a kind of mission statement, then, five seasons in, two seasons after the series found its voice, and deep into the season where it was confident enough to express exactly what it thought.  Kind of like how Wesley needs to find the confidence to do the right thing.  Usually Star Trek is all about doing the right thing without considering the consequences at all, flying in the face of the vaunted Prime Directive, the rule that the franchise is always the exception to.  Because life can be tough.  But being able to face that fact is usually a problem for the other guy.  Except this time.

"The First Duty" was clearly a watershed moment for the franchise.  We meet the gardener Boothby for the first time.  He shows up in two Voyager episodes ("In the Flesh" and "The Fight").  Actually, "The First Duty" is a kind of origin for Voyager in general, in that Robert Duncan McNeill, who later plays rogue officer Tom Paris, appears as the similar Nick Locarno here.  Fans tends to complain that Voyager squandered its potential by becoming a clone of Next Generation instead of following its own premise.  The producers never made any bones about setting Voyager on a ship instead of a station like Deep Space Nine because it wanted the franchise to get back to its exploring roots.  The premise wasn't a ship being lost in space.  It was about second chances.  Like what Tom Paris embodied.  Voyager was a second chance for a generation of Star Trek creators, who got to lead with their own voices.

Anyway, there's also the Bajoran cadet Sito Jaxa, who shows up again in the episode "Lower Decks," following her own thread from "The First Duty."  Out of everything else worth taking away from the episode, her journey is worth following, too.

It's an episode that's worth thinking about in even more ways than I've already presented.  It's compelling.  It's a classic.

criteria analysis: franchise - series - character - essential (all criteria met)

notable guest-stars:
Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher)
Robert Duncan McNeill
Ray Walston (Boothby)
Shannon Fill (Sito Jaxa)

The Next Generation 5x6 "The Game"

rating: **

the story: Wesley returns on break from Starfleet Academy to discover something's wrong with the crew.

similar to: "Genesis" (Next Generation)

my thoughts: It's fascinating that Wesley's very first episode back since his departure as a regular in the previous season, is quite possibly the perfect example of everything the series needed to correct about the character and needed to redeem in the first place.  Wes was the typical boy wonder, the kid genius who quickly became annoying to a considerable proportion of fans.  "The Game" is literally about a crisis only he can overcome.

Yet it works, and is arguably one of his best episodes, if not his most memorable episode, not just because Ashley Judd was particularly adorable as his love interest, but because the whole setup is cleverly thought out, so that you don't even need to think of it as an analogy for the rising evils of video games in 1991 America.

By quickly eliminating the need to focus on, well, anyone else but Wes and Judd's Robin Lefler, the viewer is allowed to focus both on how cute they are together, and the mounting dread of the inexplicable conspiracy (better than the actual episode "Conspiracy," arguably) that has sucked everyone else into it.

...But yes, you have to ignore the convenience of everyone, even Picard, falling for the gaming scam.  If you can ignore that, you will enjoy "The Game" a great deal! 

So that leaves Data, and the further convenience of someone being cognizant enough to take him out in order for everything to work.  Really, it's to the level of everyone but Kirk succumbing to Sybok's charms in The Final Frontier.  You don't have to be bothered by such niggling details, but they exist, and how much they bother you will probably color what you think of the rest of it, much like fans don't care how much Kirk bonds with Spock and McCoy around campfires.

But rest assured, it really is possible.

criteria analysis: franchise - series - character - essential

notable guest-stars:
Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher)
Ashley Judd
Colm Meaney (O'Brien)
Patti Yasutake (Ogawa)