Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-01: Encounter at Farpoint - Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still going through Encounter at Farpoint, the very first episode of seminal syndicated sci-fi series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I feel like Star Trek: The Next Generation probably shouldn't work as a title, but it does for me. It helps that 'generation' is a sciency word and 'next' has an X in it. Plus it's arguably better than just naming the series after the setting like the next four series did (Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise and Discovery). Though it was really only the next generation in real world terms, as it was made two decades after the original show but set eight decades after the last movie.

This is the second part of a three part review by the way, so if you're on the wrong part and you want to go back to the start you should click here: PART ONE.

SPOILER WARNING: I'm going to recap the entire episode and maybe even mention things from earlier episodes and movies. I won't spoil anything that comes after though.

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Previously, in the first third of this episode:

The brand new USS Enterprise was on its way investigate/negotiate to use the distant Farpoint station when it was intercepted by a godlike being known as Q. The ship jumped to warp and Captain Picard separated the ship so that the civilians could escape in the saucer while the stardrive section kept Q distracted. Once he'd caught up with them, Q brought Picard to a 21st century trial to get him to admit how terrible humans are and that they shouldn't be out in space. Picard suggested that Q should instead assess them during their current mission at Farpoint to see what humans are like now, and he agreed.

And now, the continuation:

It would've been funny if an episode called Encounter at Farpoint ended without them ever reaching Farpoint, but 31 minutes into the story we finally get to see the place and it's an actual model instead of a matte painting! It's more obvious when you see it in motion.

The episode switches protagonists here as Commander William Riker records his log entry. The stardate is 41153.7, the same as before, so these events are happening more or less simultaneously to Picard's adventure on the Enterprise. Stardates used to only have four digits before the decimal place, but the Next Gen era has switched to five digit dates. They also make a lot more sense now, with the '41' part basically referring to the year (or season, same thing), '153' being how far we are into the year (out of 1000), and .7 being how many tenths of a day it's been. I think. It's not the ideal way to measure time perhaps, but at least the number generally goes up with each subsequent episode now!

Riker's already on Farpoint station, after being dropped off by the USS Hood, and he's been asked to have a chat with the administrator in the 'old city' while he waits for the Enterprise to arrive. Hang on, if the Hood was at Farpoint that means it was further from Earth than the Enterprise. So why didn't Q go bother them instead?

Before Star Trek: The Next Generation there was another Star Trek continuation planned called Star Trek: Phase 2. Leonard Nimoy wasn't interested in returning so they came up with two new characters to replace him, one of them being the new first officer, Will Decker. Phase 2 was dropped when they decided to make a Trek movie instead, and Will Decker became one of the heroes of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. But Roddenberry was apparently really keen on the character as he's gone and brought him back, calling him Will Riker instead this time. The series Lower Decks would later bring him back again, this time under the name Jack Ransom.

Anyway, Riker is here to meet Groppler Zorn. That's his title, not his first name by the way. He's a groppler, he gropples. Zorn was played by Michael Bell, who's probably better known for his voice acting. He played characters like Raziel in the Soul Reaver games, The Fear in Snake Eater, and at least three of the Smurfs.

Riker's pretty impressed with how they've built a space station so quickly out of such advanced materials (it's one of those space stations that sits on a planet I guess). It's all due to abundant geothermal energy apparently, though Zorn isn't keen on elaborating on how that works. Zorn offers Riker some Earth fruits, but all the guy wants is an apple and he hasn't got one of them... except it turns out he has! A whole bowl full of juicy purple apples in fact, just lying there all along (they're red in the remastered version).

Once Riker's out of the door Zorn starts talking to the room, telling it that if it keeps raising their suspicions like this then he'll have to punish it! He's a wrathful groppler.

Riker runs into Lieutenant Commander Doctor Beverly Crusher and her son Wesley in Farpoint's mall, and they have a conversation so close to the tree that this extra behind them has to climb up onto the grass to get past.

Crusher isn't being particularly friendly to her new commanding officer, so Wesley decides to help out and tells him that "She's just shy around men she doesn't know." The kid didn't waste any time demonstrating why he's such a fan favourite!

Riker would like her help in investigating the station (which he was ordered to do) as he noticed those apples appear when he wanted one, but she's too focused on the fabric on sale to pay attention to him. Her duty and interests are outside the command structure, therefore she doesn't have to give a damn.

But just then she notices the exact kind of fabric she was looking for, and realises that Riker's right. She's still totally going to buy it though.

Some viewers have pointed out there's a bit of an inconsistency here, as Star Trek IV had just revealed that they don't use money in the Star Trek future (at least that's what Kirk claims to get out of paying for lunch), but that only counts inside the Federation, maybe even just on Earth. If you want to acquire things from an alien space station on the edge of known space you're going to need to pay for them, and it seems Starfleet gives its officers a way to do that. The real question is, what does someone with a replicator need with a bolt of cloth? (Personally I'd use it to put up some curtains so that aliens can't spy on me through those giant windows in my quarters).

Wesley sticks around for a moment to stare at the creepy silent merchant, and the guy stares right back. The music indicates that there's something sinister about this guy. He's just a red herring though, and never shows up again.

Oh these guys are the Bandi by the way, and that's not his hair, he's just wearing a hat. Episode one and they're already doing entirely human-looking aliens.

I thought the conversation between Riker and Crusher was bad before, but it keeps getting worse. Crusher mentions the captain by his full name and Riker assumes this means that she knows him. This gets Wesley talking about the time he brought his dad's body home to them. So this got awkward quickly. It doesn't help that Gates McFadden hadn't yet figured out how she was going to play Crusher, so she apparently dubbed over her lines later to make the character sound less irritable.

Crusher and her son leave and Lieutenant Geordi La Forge walks up to make a report. For some reason Riker switches into military mode and makes him stand to attention, which is kind of weird. La Forge tells him that the Enterprise is arriving without its saucer section and Picard wants him to beam up right away.

In an alternate universe La Forge could've been played by Wesley Snipes and I really wish we could've seen what that version of Next Gen looks like. Not that LeVar Burton isn't perfect for the role.

This set is pretty good as well actually. Here's some Trek trivia for you: this is the first of three Star Trek series to have a scene in its pilot episode that takes place in a mall. It's also the first pilot to feature combadges, and we get to see one in action here, as Riker taps the Starfleet logo on his chest to tell the Enterprise he's ready for beam up.

We also get our first look at the new Next Generation transporter effect! It's pretty good, more reminiscent of the Original Series' sparkles than the lens flare effect in Star Trek II, except it's blue instead of gold. In fact it pretty much takes the same time as the original Enterprise's transporter, implying that the Federation has spent the last hundred years coming up with flashy new effects instead of actually improving the technology.

ACT FIVE

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Actually that's not entirely true, as in the Motion Picture era they clearly put a lot of work into slowing the transporter right down. That way if there was a horrific transporter accident, the victims got some time to really suffer.

The scene is pretty much just to show off the transporter process and the room, as Yar leads Riker out and that's it. Though you do get to see an extra outside the door either waiting for her cue to move or having to stop when then two actors suddenly walked out in front of her.

Oh man I hate the twinkly music playing at this point. It's really not working for me.

Alright, this is our first look at the transporter room, which was modified from the movie Enterprise transporter room set. There's one element here from the Original Series as well, as those circles in the ceiling (Fresnel light lenses) came from the floor of the original Enterprise transporter room. The set would later get passed along to Voyager, but that was its final destination as the next show, Enterprise, built all its sets from scratch.

Riker reports to Picard on the battle bridge, but he's being even more cold and formal with Riker than Riker was with La Forge. In fact he's not even turning around. Poor Yar doesn't know what's going on here.

Picard (like Kirk before him), was inspired by Captain Horatio Hornblower, who feels like he has to act like a bit of a jerk to maintain discipline, hide his own insecurities, and prevent people feeling like they can debate his orders. The thing is, Hornblower comes from a novel series, so his thoughts and motivations are spelled out on the page, but Picard's aren't, so sometimes it seems like he's being a dick for no reason.

Even when Riker's watching TV he's still staring at the back of Picard's head!

Riker missed the first part of the episode, but Yar's got him set up with the 'previously on' recap so he can catch up. In fact there's almost a minute of footage here. The Q plotline was added to the episode to turn it into a two-parter, but I guess they needed a bit of extra padding as well.

I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't have a second camera set up during these scenes so that Riker isn't just watching the same episode we are from the exact same angles. It's a bit too close to that Spaceballs skit where they're watching an Early Access cut of their own movie, during the movie.

I remember The Menagerie did the same thing, and Kirk immediately stopped the recording to ask the guy in the video 'Did you really film your adventures like this?' The answer back then was 'no', but I guess security camera technology could've become a bit more cinematic after 100 years of development. Especially when they have holodeck technology to generate photoreal footage at more dramatic angles. It's no wonder everyone in Lower Decks is a fan of the Next Gen crew if they've been watching logs like this. Honestly I'm just glad there's no footage here from the trial in the post atomic courtroom, as that would definitely raise some questions.

After the recap Riker joins Picard in the battle bridge ready room, a set that we may never see again (and that we barely get to see here).

The saucer module has somehow managed to make it all the way to Farpoint station on its own under impulse power by this point, as Picard didn't bother to swing by and pick it up on the way. That means that they need to put the ship back together now, and it's Riker who's going to have to do the job. Picard wants to see how he handles the task and he wants him to do it manually. Everything in this ep is made to seem incredibly risky. Going too fast could've blown them up, detaching the saucer at high warp could've blown them up. Reattaching it should've been a perfectly safe procedure, but Picard had to go and find a dangerous way to do it!

Though Riker basically just stands on the bridge and tells O'Brien what to do, and Picard's still hanging out in his ready room so he doesn't even watch! For the final step Riker cuts engines and lets the stardrive section drift into place on inertia, which is great if you're somewhere with air friction, but maybe not so great in space where there's nothing to slow the ship down.

After two whole minutes of docking the ship is finally back together again! And Riker didn't accidentally kill all the children in the saucer section doing it. Still, there'll always be a next time.

Trying to wring drama and spectacle out of a slow docking scene shows that important lessons haven't been learned from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. But it's the kind of thing you want to see properly at least once in the series and the music worked for me this time, so I guess I have to give it a pass?

Now that the ship's back together, Picard can sit down and half a cup of tea in the observation lounge behind the main bridge. This set has already shown up once before, playing the role at of the forward lounge right at the very start of the episode, and it'll appear again as another set very soon.

Picard's been checking Riker's record and he has a chat with him about the time he stuck to his guns and wouldn't let Captain De Soto beam down into danger when he was first officer on the Hood. I feel like the scene is as much about establishing that captains aren't supposed to lead dangerous away missions in this era as it is about telling us anything about Riker. It makes sense to me, as Kirk leading every away mission personally got kind of ridiculous.

Then the conversation abruptly shifts to Picard talking about the children on the ship. He doesn't want them there, but seeing as they're stuck with them he wants Riker to make him look good to them. There's some nice acting here as Picard smiles while he's talking about needing to project an image of geniality, and drops it the instant he says "You're to see that's what I project." But then he grins properly and shakes Riker's hand! He's finally stopped being a dick to Riker.

This is the third scene of Picard and Riker having a talk in the last five minutes, each time in a completely different room. It's funny though, considering Next Gen's reputation, that Picard doesn't actually hold a proper meeting in here this episode. No matter what you consider to be the Original Series' first proper episode, The Cage, Where No Man Has Gone Before and The Man Trap all feature proper discussions in the briefing room, but Next Gen's just letting all of those chairs gather dust in its first story.

The episode then cuts to the same set, now redressed to play a third room this episode. Seriously, the sickbay and the observation lounge both used the same set in season one. They'd move the beds, bring in a table and chairs, and add that wall with the golden spaceship sculptures on it.

One of the problems they had during filming is that the director actually filmed scenes at a faster pace than planned, so they had to add extra scenes at the last minute to pad things out even more. Like this one of Dr Crusher examining La Forge. Personally I think they should've filmed a scene to show the ceremony where she got promoted to commander, as she's gained another full pip on her collar since the scenes on Farpoint.

Those pips are a new method of indicating rank introduced in this episode, and they've worked out pretty well I think. They're a lot easier to see than the braids on the sleeves in the Original Series and whatever was going on in the movies. Geordi has one full pip and one half pip, showing that he's a lieutenant junior grade, one step above an ensign. I can think of several characters from the later Trek series that would really love to know how you get that extra half pip.

Anyway, the two of them have a chat about his VISOR device, with La Forge quickly explaining what it does before Crusher can, just because he's sick of hearing people tell him about it. That's one way to deal with exposition! He skips mentioning that it was inspired by a hair band though, or that it stands for "Visual Instrument and Sight Organ Replacement".

La Forge was born blind and needs the VISOR to see anything at all, however it also lets him observe much of the EM spectrum ranging from infrared to radio waves. And it gives him constant pain, which he can't treat with painkillers as that'd make the VISOR less effective. It's funny that I never have any trouble remembering the 'super vision' part but I always forget the 'constant pain' part.

It's less funny that it was actually true for the actor as well: having the prop screwed to his head did actually cause LeVar Burton a lot of pain. And unlike Geordi, his vision was not augmented.

Then we get second introduction shot of the bridge, as Riker arrives for the first time. You might be thinking 'hang on, how does he not know what the bridge looks like if he was in the observation lounge a minute ago?' and there is a reasonable answer to that: the two rooms don't share a door. There's a little corridor between them that we never get to see and you don't have to go through the bridge to get in there.

Man, Worf should seem ridiculous in that makeup and gold sash, but the guy's got so much dignity that I have to take him seriously.

Riker wants to know where Data is, and it turns out he's been assigned to take an admiral back over to the Hood on a shuttle. Wait, the Hood has been hanging around nearby the whole time?

Surprise, their visitor is Dr McCoy in a glittery admiral's cardigan! I don't know how much of a surprise his cameo was at the time, but they definitely made the effort to keep it a secret. He's not even referred to by name in the script and they kept him out of the credits at the start.

The old age makeup isn't great, but to be fair it was done on a TV schedule in 1987, and McCoy is supposed to be really old here. He's 137 and DeForest Kelley was 67 when he filmed this scene, so he was playing more than double his own age. Sadly the actor himself only lived another 12 years.

McCoy's presence does two things for the show: it confirms that it is a proper continuation of the original TV series and it establishes the time it takes place. We're maybe 70 years after Star Trek IV here. Unfortunately his presence doesn't mean that we get to spend a bit of time with one of my favourite Original Series characters, as the actor's put on a more exaggerated southern accent, he keeps calling Data 'boy', and he's basically unrecognisable in every way.

No, slow down! You're going to walk into the corridor extension painting at the end of the real hallway! It's nice to see those classic Motion Picture corridors getting some more use though, even if they are decades out of date by now. Nice to see the corridors in general actually.

There's something really 'off' about this scene for me however. Maybe it's the sentimental music that makes it feel like an advert for something, maybe it's the way that all the doors they walk past are open, like they filmed it when most of the production crew was on a lunch break, I dunno.

You know, I've just thought of something else that bothers me: we were robbed of a scene between McCoy and Q.

ACT SIX

Then we get another cameo from the classic era: it's the Excelsior-class! It used to be the flashiest, most advanced ship in the fleet, now it's decades old and looks it compared to the organic curves of the new Enterprise. Somehow it feels to me like there really were decades between the Original Series movies and Next Gen, but Search for Spock was only three years earlier.

This shot really establishes how big the new Enterprise is. It's not excessively huge, but it does have a much bigger volume than the former super ship it's sailing alongside. In fact it has maybe 30 times the volume of the classic Enterprise. According to numbers I found on the internet.

According to official numbers, the Enterprise D is 642.5 meters, which means it's over twice as long as the official length of the original Enterprise at 288.5 and shorter than the 2009 Enterprise by... I don't even know anymore.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

The original Enterprise was a massive ship in her day, compared to the other spaceships you'd find in TVs and movies, but in the 70s and 80s ships got gigantic.

A regular Star Destroyer is around 1,600 meters long and has 330 times the volume of the original Enterprise. The classic Battlestar Galactica is around this length as well. Meanwhile the mining vessel Red Dwarf is around 10,000 meters long! So despite its size in-universe, the Enterprise D wasn't a particularly mammoth vessel in sci-fi at the time.

Anyway the Hood departs and Picard checks his messages to see if they sent him anything before they left. But suddenly Q appears on the big screen, and Worf leaps into action!

So much dignity.

Picard asks if he's about to shoot a hole in their viewscreen and Worf immediately realises what an idiot he's made of himself. Still, it could be worse. He could be standing in the background with no lines like Yar.

I don't remember seeing many scenes of Kirk standing right up in front of the viewscreen like this (or Janeway for that matter), but it's one of Next Gen's distinctive traits. Also it doesn't come across so much here, but the screen's holographic and 3D.

Q is losing his patience at this point and tells them they have 24 hours to solve the mystery of Farpoint. No more padding! Once he's gone Riker asks Picard what they should do. Picard replies with one of the best lines in the episode, saying that they'll do exactly what they were always going to do. "If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for what we really are." It also shows the audience that they're not just being nice because Q's watching.

Then the twinkly music starts up again. I hate it so much! I'm starting to see what Rick Berman eventually banned all melody from the franchise.
 

Cut to 11 hours later, and they've made zero progress!

We are getting another conversation with Riker and Picard in a new set though, in this case his proper ready room, complete with a fish. Kirk never got a ready room, but every captain since has been inspired by Picard's example. Can't think of anyone else with a fish tank though.

Riker finally explains his theory about how the Bandi's abundant geothermal energy let them build an advanced space station: he thinks they could've traded their energy for the materials. Well, that actually makes sense. Would've been cool if they'd actually done any kind of real investigation in the last 11 hours, but I dunno, maybe they were waiting for Zorn to wake up.

Then things start getting awkward again, as the two of them enter the bridge and Picard introduces Riker to Troi.

It's more awkward for me though than Picard, as they're communicating telepathically via voice over and he's just completely oblivious in the middle there. It reminds me of a joke in the movie Airplane and I can't take the scene seriously at all. It doesn't help that the sound quality goes to crap when they walk into the turbolift; they hadn't quite figured that out yet.

Now that Riker and Troi are together it's obvious that if Will Riker is just Will Decker again, then Troi must be Ilia. Hang on, Ilia is a Deltan and Troi is a Betazoid... wow, they really didn't try to hide this much did they? The two of them had a thing once, just like Decker and Ilia, but it apparently didn't work out. She keeps calling him 'Imzadi' though, and assures the captain that they 'know each other's abilities'.

Ilia was another new character from Star Trek: Phase 2 like Decker, but there's a third I haven't mentioned yet: a full Vulcan science officer called Xon who would've struggled to better understand human emotion. Sounds a little bit like Data to me.

Here's something Trek's never explained: why are there so many humans on these ships? Why are people like Ilia and Troi in the minority? Maybe there's an answer in the Next Gen series bible.

There are as many alien worlds as human! Damn, it never even occurred to me that humans would simply outnumber the other races in the Federation. I assumed they'd be roughly equal with the other founder members.

Of course nothing in the bible really counts unless it appears on screen, and the very next line mentions that the Klingons have recently joined up (explaining Worf's presence). That's something that's going to be extremely contradicted as the series goes on.

Picard, Riker and Troi beam down to the old Bandi city, which is even more obviously a model at this point. It's not all that obvious though how people who lived in a city without roads was able to construct something as advanced as Farpoint. I mean there's no reason to assume that this is representative of all their cities, but the way Groppler Zorn lives out here makes it seem like this was his home before Farpoint was constructed.

It's clear the Bandi have had contact with other worlds as Zorn recognises that Troi's a Betazoid right away. She clarifies that she's only half-Betazoid and her powers are limited to sensing strong emotions. Just ignore the way this contradicts the previous scene; being telepathic with Riker is a skill she's already forgotten and will never use again.

Weirdly she specifies that her father was a Starfleet officer, like she's saying she's half Betazoid, half Starfleet. Is that why she only wears half a uniform? If she had a kid with Riker would it be 75% Starfleet?

Anyway, Starfleet doesn't just want to use Farpoint, it also wants to make use of the amazing architects and engineers that created it!

Zorn is getting a bit sick of Starfleet officers trying to offer him trade and jobs at this point, and says if they don't want the starbase he'll happily offer it to the Ferengi instead.

Troi suddenly has a severe case of the emotions, getting tears in her eyes. Picard asks her to tell them what she's sensing, Zorn too, as there's no reason to keep it a secret. It turns out that she's sensing "Pain, loneliness, terrible loneliness, despair," and it's not from Zorn or any of his people. You don't need to be a Betazoid to sense that he's frustrated and clearly hiding something, as he starts complaining about how irrelevant this is.

Picard's obviously suspicious and decides to adjourn for a bit to give him time to think. Zorn repeats his threat to offer their starbase to the Ferengi, and Riker gets a huge grin on his face when Picard replies he hopes they find him as delicious as their other business associates. A tasty groppler.

The Ferengi were meant to be Next Gen's equivalent to the Klingons, so they're making sure to hype them up early. They're so bad they literally eat people! Apparently.

Back on the Enterprise, Riker's making another attempt to find Data. It's been over 11 hours since the Hood departed and he still hasn't ran into him. Has he tried the bridge maybe?

Riker's having a bit of trouble though, as the ship's new to him and he doesn't know his way around yet. He's found a lounge though, which is pretty impressive. I'm not sure the series ever finds its way back here again.

I thought it was the doctor's office at first, as it's the same set, but they've taken out the table and replaced it with a sofa. This is another set that was originally built for the Motion Picture. It's making me realise just how impressive Deep Space Nine's sets were by comparison, as they all had to be built from scratch instead of being inherited from a $44 million movie.

Riker goes to an ensign for help and she reveals that you can ask the computer for directions and it'll give you markers to follow on the black panels lining the corridors. Which is cool. The scene shows that even an experienced officer like Riker is impressed by what this new and awesome Galaxy-class starship can do. And the shot of the ensign checking out his ass when he leaves shows that she's impressed with his ass.

Seems that Data's currently inside a 'holodeck', whatever that is. Maybe a futuristic evolution of a Steam Deck? Riker opens the door and steps inside.

I still love this shot. In fact I love any shot of the holodeck door opening into a place like this. It's like seeing the doors open on the Tardis and staring into the console room. And in both circumstances you probably shouldn't enter without permission. I also love how the holodeck has a unique door and a unique sound to go with it, it makes it feel special.

The holodeck scenes look fantastic, mostly because they were filmed on location at the Ferndell Nature Museum in Griffith Park. These were actually the first scenes ever filmed for Next Gen, because I guess it made more sense to schedule it that way

Riker shouts "Hello!" with no response, then leaps across some stones to cross the river and continue his search. I'm sure he could just use his combadge to contact Data, but I suppose that's a bit weird when you know you're in the same room. Fortunately he's able to use the sound Data's bad whistling to track the android down, and then completes the tune himself (Pop Goes the Weasel) to announce his presence.

We've already met Data but here we get an exposition dump explaining what his deal is. His rank isn't honorary, he went through the academy and then earned it the slow way. In fact he's actually been serving in Starfleet for years, so it's kind of weird maybe that Riker had never heard of him until now.

He says he's from the class of '78, which doesn't really match up with the dates we get later, but then when stardates are involved who even knows what he's referring to. He could be from the class of Stardate 7841, before they switched to five digits.

Riker admits that he's a little troubled by the fact that he's a machine, and even more so by the fact that Data considers himself superior to humans. But Data reveals that his character arc through the series is going to be his efforts to become more human, and Riker calls him "Pinocchio" with a grin. So they're friends now.

Not the most dramatic moment to end an act on really, or an article for that matter, but it is what it is.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART THREE

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TOMORROW

Star Trek: The Next Generation will return with the final third of Encounter at Farpoint, where the mystery of Farpoint is revealed and Q's trial comes to its dramatic conclusion! Hopefully!

You should leave a comment by the way, give me some feedback and share your thoughts about the episode so far.