| Episode: | 1 | | | Writer: | D. C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry | | | Director: | Corey Allen | | | Air Date: | 28-Sep-1987 |
This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the 106th story in the Star Trek franchise: Encounter at Farpoint! That's such an old school sci-fi title; it sounds like it's from a tie-in novel.
Encounter at Farpoint is also the very first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which itself was the first of the live-action Trek spin-offs. The Rick Berman-era of Trek started here. 15.7 million people tuned in for the episodes in the US, and 11.5 stuck around for episode two, The Naked Now. The series then hovered around that level for the rest of the run, with even season seven pulling in 11 million, so it's no bloody wonder they kept making more spin-offs.
I got that information from Wikipedia so you know it's all true. Though hang on, Wikipedia claims that The Naked Now is actually the third episode, not the second. The reason for this is that Encounter at Farpoint is a two-hour telefilm that can be split into two parts. Though I'm going to be splitting this review into three parts, because I've got a lot to talk about. It's a fairly important episode!
CBS spent a lot of money to go back to the original negatives and remaster the entire series, and it really looks fantastic now in HD. It's one of the best remasters I've seen, it's awesome. Though you can just go to TrekCore if all you're after is beautiful high resolution screencaps, you don't need me for that. So instead I've decided to show off the authentic fuzzy 1987 version of the episode...because I've spent money buying the ancient DVDs and I'm determined to get some use out of them. You should be grateful I'm not showing shots captured from a VHS tape recorded off BBC 2 really.
I should also give you a SPOILER WARNING as I'm going to give away absolutely everything that happens in this story. I might also spoil things from other Trek stories that came out before 1987 (so The Man Trap to Star Trek IV: The One with the Whales), but that's as far as my spoilers will go.
The movie came out in 1986, on Star Trek's 20th anniversary, and by September 1987 it'd been 13 years since the last episode of The Animated Series and 18 years after live action Trek ended with Turnabout Intruder. There was a 13 year gap between Enterprise and Discovery as well, so I can imagine how fans at the time would've been eager for some more televised Trek already.
The thing is, Trek had only ever looked like this at this point, to most people it was Kirk, Spock and McCoy, and that's what they wanted! But there was no chance of luring the actors back to TV, they just cost too much at this point, so Paramount needed a new plan, a new captain and a new ship. They came up with an idea called 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' - about Lt. Commander Richard Kincaid commanding a crew of cadets on the USS Odyssey after a gruelling war with the Klingon Empire.
The plan changed a bit once they got original creator Gene Roddenberry back on board.
It jumps straight with the opening credits, skipping the teaser, and that puts in a very elite group of episodes like The Cage and all of Star Trek: The Animated Series. I'm not surprised they were in a hurry to show it off, as it really demonstrates how far visuals effects had come in two decades. For one thing it's not a grainy mess!
It wasn't the worst outcome, as the team working on the remastered version were able to go back to the original film elements and re-composite them, revealing that the old model shots were actually movie quality... because they were done by ILM, the folks who did the effects for the good looking Trek movies (and Star Wars). The plan at the time was to spend a little cash upfront to create a library of amazing looking stock shots which could be reused over and over again during the whole run of the series. It didn't entirely work out that way, but they definitely got their money's worth out of them.
Anyway, this is the brand new Galaxy-class USS Enterprise for the new series! The Voyage Home ended with the characters coming home to a brand new Enterprise and gave us a close up of its registry number "NCC-1701-A", so fans at the time would've known right away what "NCC-1701-D" meant. It means there's been a three-Enterprise time jump since the movie.
We're in the future now, so that means a much curvier and more advanced looking vessel, based on a tiny painting of a stretched out Enterprise by Andrew Probert. I can actually still remember the first time I saw the ship, or where I saw it at least.
Oh, the opening titles also come with music by the way, and that music's introduced with the original Alexander Courage fanfare from The Original Series. It's so iconic that it was also at the start of all the Trek movies up to this point. Well, except for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which features the Next Gen theme instead weirdly.
There's actually a good reason why Next Gen stole the Motion Picture theme, and that's because the original theme they came up with sounded a bit... cheesy. It sounds like it belonged on a direct to video Superman sequel. Here, have a YouTube link, have a listen for yourself: Alternate Next Gen Main Theme. Kicks in about 43 seconds in, after that Original Series fanfare I mentioned a moment ago.
Hang on, I've jumped ahead. I haven't mentioned the opening narration yet. They've reused the exact same words read by William Shatner at the beginning of the Original Series, except this time they're spoken by Sir Patrick Stewart. There's are two slight differences though, as they're now on an continuing mission instead of five year one, and the use of the word 'man' has been replaced with the more politically correct 'one'.
I've always thought that's a little strange, as if you're seeking out new life why would you go to where no one at all has gone before? But then even if you take the word 'man' as being as gender inclusive as 'human' in this usage, it still excludes other people the ship like Betazoids, Klingons, androids, Bolians etc. so that doesn't work either. How about: "To boldly go where none of us have gone before." Nah, doesn't sound as good.
Anyway the credits start coming up, with the Enterprise swooshing past from the left, and then the right, just like in Original Series opening titles. It's like they're really trying to assure fans this is legit Star Trek. This time though the names just keep coming, with nine regulars credited.
This is one of those things where some fans swore they could see movement and others thought it was unlikely, because even the movies didn't put people in the windows and it'd be completely wasted at TV resolution. Turns out that there really were little people walking around in there even in the original version of the pilot episode, thanks to a little hand-drawn pencil animation composited in.
Here's something that's always bothered me though: why is the top of the bridge all bumpy and weird when the rest of the ship is smooth and symmetrical? It doesn't fit!
ACT ONE
You can tell this screencap is from the original 1987 version because of the colour artefacts making it look like decks five through twelve are currently at Disco Alert. There probably was some colour correction done on the footage though, as the model isn't actually this colour. The Original Series Enterprise was a (mostly) grey model that sometimes appeared blue due to spill from the blue screen. This Enterprise, on the other hand, was actually painted alternating panels of duck egg blue and sky blue, but the hull looks more like a metallic grey in the final shots.
The original pilot for the Original Series, The Cage, starts with a flashy shot that pans over the saucer and zooms in to the dome on top of the bridge, to show off where it's located and just how huge the vessel is. This shot seems like it's going to do something similar, but then it cuts to the actual set before the camera gets anywhere near the windows. Probably because the bottom of the lens was millimetres away from the model at that point.
 |
| Filming model sizes |
The 6 foot model cost $75,000 by the way, which was apparently enough to get you half an episode of Doctor Who at the time.
There are a few episodes that could claim to be the first episode of the Original Series, like The Cage, Where No Man Has Gone Before and The Man Trap, but none of them start with a focus on one character like this, establishing them as the definite protagonist. In another reality it could've been Yaphet Kotto or Edward James Olmos standing here, despite neither of them being French, but the role finally went to Patrick Stewart, who seems even less French somehow. The character was never meant to have a French accent (except for times of strong emotion), but mid-Atlantic was what they were aiming for and that's not quite what they got.
Patrick Stewart was 47 at the time, 12 years older than William Shatner was when he first started, though the character of Picard is actually 59 here. Kirk was apparently 53 in The Voyage Home, so the Next Generation hero is 6 years older than the previous gen hero he's following on from.
"Captain's log, Stardate 41153.7. Our destination is Planet Deneb IV, beyond which lies the great unexplored mass of the galaxy. My orders are to examine Farpoint, a starbase built there by the inhabitants of that world. Meanwhile I'm becoming better acquainted with my new command – this Galaxy-class USS Enterprise. I'm still somewhat in awe of its size and complexity."Picard decides to take an unnecessary tour of main engineering while his super chilled out captain's log plays as a voice over. There's a very good reason for this: they needed an excuse to get the expensive set built while they had pilot episode money to spend. Not that it was built entirely from scratch, as they'd inherited the movie series' sets as a starting point. Sure Star Trek V was probably going to need them in a couple of years, but that was their problem!
This is a very shaky handheld-looking shot, but it shows off that engineering is actually three storeys tall, with people working below the floor. I don't think we'll ever see that again. Hang on, if this set is this far above the stage floor then all the other sets must be as well, as they're all connected. Well, aside from the bridge.
"As for my crew, we are short in several key positions, most notably a first officer, but I'm informed that a highly experienced man, one Commander William Riker, will be waiting to join the ship at our Deneb IV destination."Picard continues his tour of the ship, giving us our first glimpse of the new bridge. In fact this what everyone's first glimpse at the new bridge looks like in this episode, as we get a very similar shot when Riker arrives later on and then a third one when Wesley gets a look.
D.C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry are two names that fans would've been very happy to see, with Fontana having written stories like This Side of Paradise, Journey to Babel and The Enterprise Incident, before going on to write Yesteryear for the Animated Series. She did not write for any of the films though and neither did Roddenberry after the first one, so these were the TV writers coming back, not the people working on the movies. They weren't the only Original Series crewmembers to return, as they were joined by producers Bob Justman and Ed Milkis, Trouble with Tribbles writer David Gerrold, costume designer William Ware Thiess... even Majel Barrett Roddenberry returned to provide the voice of the Enterprise's computer, though not in this particular episode.
The two writers didn't work together though. In fact D.C. Fontana originally wrote this as a one-episode story, because no one was sure what length it should be. Then Gene Roddenberry added a framing device to pad it out to feature length (and so he could put his name on it).
The Enterprise D bridge was designed to look more advanced than the original Enterprise, but also more comfortable and less like a sterile metallic navy vessel. It still has the two seats up front, except now they're more reclined and have a modern touchscreen interface (faked with coloured lighting gels and Plexiglas). The consoles along the back wall have pull-out chairs because the ship's so automated they're not even needed most of the time, and the tactical console on the wooden handrail is missing a chair because... I dunno, they wanted Denise Crosby to suffer? It could've actually been Marina Sirtis back there, as the two actresses auditioned for each other's parts. That's apparently where Deanna Troi's Betazoid accent came from, as Sirtis modified the Eastern European accent she'd been using to audition for Tasha Yar.
Anyway Picard comes walking in and the first thing he says is "You will agree Data that Starfleet's orders are difficult." This is just a cunning excuse to justify some exposition though, as he elaborates by saying that it's tricky because they have to negotiate an agreement with the Bandi for Starfleet to use Farpoint station while also snooping around to figure out how they built it. The scene also introduces us to some of the characters, as Data gets confused by a common word, Troi's able to detect a presence, and Yar stands there in the background doing nothing.
Troi immediately proves herself to be useful, taking the job of science officer, but Picard cuts her off mid-sentence to yell at someone to shut off the Red Alert noise. The camera cuts to tactical officer Yar a few times and I was sure she was about to get a line, but then some Klingon dude in the background is the one to say "Shields and deflectors up sir." Wait, shields and deflectors?
There's a few more shots of the weird rippling forcefield but I'm not complaining. I'm still trying to figure out how it was pulled off. I doubt it was CGI, but I could be wrong.
He's Q, from a people called the Q, and the thing the he says is:
"Thou art notified that thy kind hath infiltrated the galaxy too far already. Thou art directed to return to thine own solar system immediately."So he's one of those types. More of a 'you have been judged to be a savage child-like race' kind of godlike being than a Gary Mitchell who's been corrupted by power, or a Trelane who just wants to play dress-up and have fun. Apparently others in the writing staff warned Roddenberry that he was an obvious copy of Trelane, but he's really not.
The conn officer, Torres, takes a phaser out, but Q attacks him with a pair of fire extinguishers. At least I think that's how they did the effect. I'm not sure it's healthy to breathe that stuff in, but it looks really good on film!
Picard tries to make Q feel like the asshole here by pointing out that the gun is only on stun and he wouldn't have killed him, but Q points out that he doesn't much want to be captured by them either!
Okay I've counted up the lines of dialogue, and Yar has had exactly 0 so far. I think the reason for this may be because she wasn't originally meant to be in the scene at all. They just put her in the background and didn't change the script.
ACT TWO
Q has gotten bored with his conquistador look by this point and decides to put on another pair of costumes and accents. First he role-plays as a US Marine Corps captain and then a heavily padded future soldier with the Eye of Providence on his hat and a drug dispenser on his chest. Won't be the last time that last one shows up in Trek.
Oh plus he calls them a "dangerous savage child race". Picard shows off a bit of contempt for his own history with his response, saying that yeah okay they were a savage child race when they wore costumes like that, but that was 400 years ago.
But Q gets the idea to judge them and disappears anyway to make preparations. I'm going to miss him! Q's been dominating the screen in a way that never really happens in the Original Series pilot episodes, as he's much stronger villain than the Talosians or Gary Mitchell. Well, more theatrical anyway. The soundtrack here is less than theatrical though, with the synths sounding like someone playing the TNG theme on a kazoo.
Picard listens to the suggestions of his bridge crew and then takes decisive action, telling them to shut off the intercom and then sending Worf down to deliver a message to engineering.
One of the quirks of Next Gen's first season is that they didn't have a chief engineer in the cast, so there's no main characters down here for Worf to chat to. Discovery has a similar issue, but gets around it by never visiting engineering.
Meanwhile Picard uses Data as a database, asking him to look up in his brain whether anyone's successfully pulled off a saucer separation at high warp speed (the answer isn't encouraging). He tells the bridge crew that they're entitled to know that they'll be pushing their engines past their safety limits to try to outrun Q, as their only other option is to go back to Earth. Those are the two choices: escape from the godlike being or go all the way home (and presumably tell Starfleet to bring all their other ships in too).
Oh plus Picard tells them to notify all decks using print-out only.
 |
| Star Trek: The Original Series 1-11 - The Menagerie, Part I |
Back on the bridge, Troi tells Picard that the board shows green and they're ready to go, and Worf takes over at the conn. It's weird how Troi's so involved in running the ship at this point, almost as weird as Picard calling her "Commander". That skant she's wearing isn't working out like the Original Series miniskirt did, I'm not surprised people say she looks like a cheerleader, but she's getting more to do while she's in the uniform.
Picard says "Engage!" the ship goes to warp, and the forcefield turns into a fiery ball to give chase.
Worf announces their velocity as they continue to accelerate, but they're using the new Next Gen warp scale now so they're getting a lot of use out of the decimal point. Warp 9.2... warp 9.3! They get it to warp 9.5, but it's not good enough, as Q starts chasing them at warp 9.9! The trouble with this exponential warp scale is that never really get across just how much difference 0.1 can make (and it gets even worse in Voyager, with them using 0.01 changes). Warp 9.5 is apparently something like 2000 times the speed of light, while warp 9.9 is more like 3000, so Q should've flown right past them by now.
Now that they're going dangerously fast, Picard decides to do something even more dangerous... to ensure his crew's safety. He realises that they can't outrun the sphere and trying to fight it would be pointless, so he decides to fire off some torpedoes as cover, drop the civilians off, and face Q head on so they can officially give in. It's a bit unfortunate that the first thing the French captain does is surrender but hey, you can't exactly punch Q or tell him to go away because you're not in the mood.
Worf protests when he's ordered to command the detaching saucer section, as the he's a Klingon and they don't pilot the escape shuttle while the others go into battle, but Picard reminds him that he's a Starfleet officer and he has no comeback to that. Meanwhile Picard, Data, Troi and Yar head into the special battle bridge turbolift to head to the battle bridge. I mean he's got to bring Troi, she's the one who does all the scanning!
ACT THREE
This set is also very familiar, as it's a redress of the Enterprise A bridge set seen at the very end of The Voyage Home, which was itself created from the Enterprise bridge created for The Motion Picture. This set was used as all kinds of different rooms over the next few seasons, and it seems like the turbolift door alcove in the background even made it onto the Enterprise E bridge 9 years later.
It's nice that they tried to go for full equality in uniform options, but it's just not a great outfit and I'm not surprised it disappeared from the series very quickly. I mean Troi's wearing the same thing and it doesn't look good on her either. It's a definite step down from the Original Series miniskirts.
They've made a few other improvements over the Original Series' effects, as the impulse engine glows now and there are stars streaking past to show that they're at warp (all done in-camera). I don't know why the impulse engine is glowing while they're at warp, maybe it's running hot while generating power for the ship, but the bigger question is why are the stars moving like that when they're only flying 2000 times light speed? It'd take 20 hours to go from the Sun to our closest neighbouring star at that speed. In fact Trek speeds are actually a bit slow really. Fortunately the ships actually move at the speed of plot so they always manage to reach another interesting world before the next episode.
Now I'm wondering what speeds they gave writers in the Next Gen series bible.
That's 8760 times light speed! It'd take around four hours to reach our nearest star at that speed, which seems a lot more reasonable for a normal cruising velocity. They could even go visit the other side of the galaxy, as it'd take 8 years to go 70,000 light years and that's without pushing the engines.
But they've finally done it. Saucer separation was mentioned at least once in the Original Series, there was concept art drawn up for The Motion Picture, and now it's actually happened.
Hey I just noticed that the impulse engines in the saucer have fired up now as well. They're not usually turned on. I hope they've got some warp field sustaining machinery in that saucer as well or else they're about to drop from 2000 times to the speed of light to whatever impulse speed is very quickly.
Then they have to wait for Q to catch up, while an annoying alert sound plays. I kept waiting for Picard to tell at them to shut it off, but he's in a calmer mood at the moment so the beeping is left on. He orders Troi (who's running communications now I guess) to send a message in all languages that they surrender. Even though they already had a conversation with Q and they know he speaks English.
The ship rocks at a bit, there's a flash of white, and then...
Picard recognises it as being from the mid-21st century, after Earth's nuclear war. In fact it's specifically 2079, 58 years in our future and 16 years after Star Trek: First Contact.
They've got an audience of people dressed in their finest post-apocalyptic rags (including someone holding a bare umbrella frame) and Troi is convinced that it's all actually real. At least it feels real to her Betazoid senses; she's not actually qualified to determine whether the constructions of godlike beings are illusions or not. I mean I'm sure she'd find the Talosian illusions in The Cage to be pretty real as well.
Speaking of which, despite the godlike being this definitely feels more like The Cage than TOS's second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before. Which isn't a big surprise really, seeing as it's by the same writer.
This is still a pretty unexplored part of Earth history at this time in the franchise, but the Original Series was especially reluctant to tell us much about Earth. The Enterprise did go time travelling a few times, but only to the 40s, 60s (twice) and 80s I believe, so this was all new information at the time it aired.
And then the judge arrives on his awesome floating platform, complete with chocolate beaver statues to rest his arms on.
Some of those 21st century soldiers are there too, and one of them fires a few rounds into the ceiling from their arm-mounted machine gun. The guy wants the Starfleet officers to stand up, but they don't want to, so they have a bit of a problem there. Yar decides to resolve it by leaping out and beating the crap out of him. The crowd love it. They don't care who's getting punished as long as they get to see some violence.
Seems that the soldiers' padded uniforms aren't all that bulletproof, as Q directs another soldier to execute him for being rubbish. The crowd loves this even more.
Anyway, it's finally explained that the battle bridge crew has to answer for the multiple and grievous savageries of their species. Even though Data's an android and Troi is half Betazoid.
Data tries to calmly point out that no Earth citizen can be made to answer for the crimes of their race or forebears, but Q points out at this particular time in history that rule had been thrown out. This really pisses Yar off and she gets up to yell a bit at the judge (she's kind of impulsive and emotional considering she's in charge of the button that fires the ship's guns). Turns out that she grew up on a colony that had courts like this and she resents the accusation that Starfleet officers are anything like the people she escaped from.
Picard gets in Q's face about this, as he's broken his own rules by harming one of his prisoners, and Q relents, restoring Yar. The crowd do not like this. Q has to tell them to shut up in the end.
Picard recognises this court system as being the one that agreed with that line from Shakespeare: kill all the lawyers. So Picard is left to defend himself against a prosecutor who is also judge and jury. Q's basically using the unfair courtroom as part of his case in the unfair courtroom.
So Picard requests to be shown specific charges, and Q's got a whole page of them for him. Q wants Picard to read them aloud but he scans through and concludes that there's no charges there against them specifically.
What Q wants is for Picard to admit that humanity has been pretty terrible, and if he hears anything out of Picard's mouth but the word 'guilty', the two of them are getting shot.
Not a bad cliffhanger to end an act on. I mean we can be fairly sure that Data and Troi won't get killed here as they've got interesting special powers and Troi has a crucial role on the bridge, but how is Picard going to get out of this without screwing over the human race?
ACT FOUR
Picard pleads 'guilty'... but provisionally. He gets Data to repeat part of the conversation from earlier, which he does with an impersonation of their voices. At first I thought he was just playing a sound clip, but nope it's a different recording of their lines.
Picard: "Can we assume you mean this will be a fair trial.Q says it's irrelevant though, so that was all pointless.
Q: "Yes, absolutely equitable."
Picard is getting a bit desperate now and tries a different approach. Sure humans have been savage in the past, but what if Q tests what they're like now, observing the Enterprise crew over the next seven seasons! Q likes the idea, but doesn't think a mission that long will be necessary, just this episode will do. "Your immediate destination offers far more challenge than you can possibly imagine," he reveals. (Spoilers: it doesn't.)
Though there is evidence that Q's been screwing with O'Brien too, as he tells them they've been on a heading for Farpoint station all along. Why are we in the battle bridge then, huh? Answer that one. O'Brien does ask if they've heard anything about the station, though that's just to give Picard an opportunity to say he's heard it will be interesting. They're really trying to hype up the mystery of Farpoint.
Works for me, I need to entice people into coming back after a break myself so I'll take all the hype I can get.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO
TOMORROW
Please feel free to leave a comment if you want. If there's anything this article needs, it's more words added underneath.
The next post is Star Trek: The Next Generation! Did I get it right?
ReplyDeleteI've lost count of the number of times I've seen "Encounter at Farpoint" but I forgot that it's sort of suggested that this is the first, or at least a very early, outing for the crew and ship. Picard doesn't know the ship, not all the crew are present, and so on. For some reason -- probably the cosy familiarity of later series -- I sort of thought they started off with everything in place. Huh.
I also forgot that they broke out the Battle Bridge in the very first episode. My -- obviously faulty -- memory has it making its first appearance against the Borg. Although I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the BB didn't appear at all between the two episodes.
You got it 100% right! Totally nailed it.
DeleteAlso they had to break out the battle bridge in episode one or else they wouldn't have had all that expensive saucer separation footage to keep reusing!
It's so common for Star Trek series to start out with a cool new ship and a fresh crew, it's easy to forget that the TOS Enterprise had a lot of history behind it before Kirk got command.
DeleteAmusingly, there have been a number of EU stories where Picard meets the TNG main characters individually in the years between Stargazer and Enterprise, so much so that Riker is the only member of the senior staff that he doesn't already know by this episode.
You know, I think the only hero ships in all of televised Star Trek that start off with a bit of history are the original Enterprise, La Sirena and the Cerritos. Everything else is almost straight out of the showroom.
DeleteAnd the series reveals that Picard had definitely met Crusher, Wesley, Tasha and La Forge before the Farpoint mission, so he was at least halfway there.
The lumpy bits on the bridge exterior are supposed to be turbolift connectors, so cars can pass between the ship and a starbase. It's a neat idea, even though we never saw it used. I do like that the show's designers were thinking about this sort of thing. It makes it feel less ad hoc than the original series, where fans aren't even sure where main engineering was actually located or where the torpedo tubes were.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I ever knew that piece of information, but it's good and I like it.
DeleteThough I did once read a quote from someone quoting Matt Jeffries which explained exactly where main engineering was on the original Enterprise. It's in the engineering section.
I assume "deflectors" means the navigational defectors. Since they're detecting an obstacle, it makes sense to mention them. Of course, one would hope they were up, since the ship had just been traveling at warp.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the deflectors, my headcanon is that the warp streaks are insufficiently deflected particles interacting with the drive field. There is absolutely no support for this.
One bit that amuses me about the warp scene in "The Cage" you mention is that they begin using hand signals, as though they're actually blaring that music on the bridge.
ReplyDeletePike just doesn't feel comfortable going to warp without the theme playing and the speakers turned up to full.
Delete