Character Insight No. 308: Best of Jean-Luc Picard

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we celebrate the completion of 7 years of This Week in Trek by covering the best of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, from TNG.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp308 

We covered the best of Q last week, and many of the same episodes could also be repeated on a list of best Picard episodes.  However, we will branch out this week into other episodes that feature Captain Picard, making a two part best of kind of like All Good Things, which we quoted last week.

Our journey through Picard's best moments begins in season 1's Conspiracy, in which an alien infiltration of Starfleet is uncovered and stopped by Picard and his crew.  We learn that Picard is a critical thinking and skeptical leader who will stand for the Federation's core principles above all else, including orders from commanding officers when necessary.  Plus, there's that memorable final head explosion scene.

QUOTE (from Conspiracy, S1):

Any recapping of Picard's best moments would be incomplete without a mention of The Best of Both Worlds, the cliffhanger spanning seasons 3 and 4, in which Picard is abducted and converted into a Borg.  But I draw your attention to the episode following this cliffhanger in season 4, which was entitled Family, and it deals with the fallout of the Borg incident as Picard and others recover from the trauma.  Picard has to deal with complicated family relations when he returns home to France, and it's an episode that makes the character really relatable on a number of levels.

QUOTE (from Family, S4):

From later in season 4, another top moment appears in the episode The Drumhead, in which Picard is found in a courtroom-style setting defending himself and his crew from an overzealous Starfleet admiral questioning them about an explosion on the Enterprise.  If you like Picard monologues, this episode is a great one.  

We then turn to season 6, and the epic two-parter Chain of Command.  Once again, Picard is removed from command but this time for a covert mission in Cardassian space.  Unfortunately, he is captured and tortured by a Cardassian Gul, and Patrick Stewart puts on arguably his best acting performance in the second half of this two-part episode.  Which leads to the iconic quote...

QUOTE (from Chain of Command, S6):

Picard - There are four lights!

Just a few episodes later in season 6, the episode Tapestry aired as another of Picard's top moments.  Picard almost dies and wakes up in an afterlife managed by Q, and this leads to an opportunity for Picard to relive some key life moments and change them.  But when he does, we learn that some of his past mistakes were key in forming the strong captain we see in the series, which is a good lesson for all who have mistakes and ghosts in their past.  This is Star Trek character building at its absolute best.

QUOTE (from Tapestry, S6):

Picard was the centerpiece of what made Star Trek different in its second iteration, but he became just as strong a character in his own way as the original Captain Kirk.  And the best news of all is that Picard's story is not yet complete, with a new CBS All Access series coming for this character.  These episodes from my past 2 segments should be required viewing to prepare for the new content on this character.

Jean-Luc Picard was played by Sir Patrick Stewart, who has had a long and memorable acting career.  He can also be seen in X-Men movies like the recent Logan, and in upcoming films such as The Kid who Would be King, where he plays the iconic Merlin.

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Character Insight No. 307: Best of Q

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we continue our series on the best of TNG with a look at the best moments of Q.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp307 

While Q is only a recurring character on TNG, he is perhaps the most notable one and recurs in enough important episodes to be like a main character.  His involvement with Picard's crew as a sometimes antagonist, sometimes benevolent alien being stretches all the way from the pilot to the series finale.  With Mike and Darrell planning to cover that finale next week in Episode Insight, now is a great time to review the best episodes and moments of Q.

Shortly after Q's first appearance in the pilot Encounter at Farpoint, where he puts humanity on trial, he appears again to test the crew with a deadly game to try and lure Commander Riker to join the Q Continuum.  He gives Riker Q powers to try and encourage him to join them and help them understand humanity's drive to explore and expand, but he ultimately rejects the offer at the end of Hide and Q.

QUOTE (from Hide and Q, S1):

Riker - Something about us compels us to learn, explore.

Q - Yes, the human compulsion. Unfortunately for us, it is a power which will grow stronger century after century, eon after eon.

Riker - Eon? Have you any idea how far we'll advance?

Q - Perhaps in a future which you cannot yet conceive, even beyond us.

One of the most critical moments comes later in the episode Q Who, in which Q offers his services as a member of Picard's crew and Picard rebuffs him by saying the humans can handle any threat they encounter.  Q then throws the Enterprise to the Delta quadrant to face the Borg for the first time.  This, of course, leads Picard to eventually beg Q for help and later, the Borg invasion that would define the futures of Picard, the Enterprise-D, and all the Federation.

QUOTE (from Q Who, S2):

Q - I'll be leaving now.  You thought you could handle it, so handle it.

Picard - Q, end this.

Q - Moi? What makes you think I'm inclined or capable of terminating this encounter?

Picard - If we all die, here, now, you will not be able to gloat!

My personal favorite moment for Q comes in his next appearance in the episode Deja Q, where Q is stripped of his continuum powers and requests asylum on the Enterprise.  During this time, he learns more about humanity from interacting with Data than he had in his previous encounters with the Enterprise, an important character moment for Q and for Data.  His selfless acts in this episode lead to his powers being restored, and this fun exchange just when Picard thinks he is done with Q for now.

QUOTE (from Deja Q, S3):

Picard - I suppose that is the end of Q

Q - Au contraire, mon capitan! He's back! I'm forgiven.  My brothers and sisters of the continuum have taken me back.

Riker - Swell.

Q - Don't fret, your good fortune is my good fortune!

Riker - I don't need your fantasy women.

Q - Oh you're so stolid.  You weren't like that before the beard.

There's many further fun episodes and interactions with Q, like when he decides to teach Picard a love lesson by putting the crew in a Robin Hood scenario in Qpid, but it all culminates in the finale All Good Things.  Q says that the trial and test of humanity never ends, and then puts Picard through a time-traveling challenge to save humanity from an anomaly of anti-time erupting in Picard's past, present, and future.  It's a fitting send off for Picard and the crew as Q challenges them once more and teaches them just as much about their own character as Q learns about humanity in the process.

QUOTE (from All Good Things, S7):

Picard - I sincerely hope that this is the last time I find myself here.

Q - You just don't get it, do you Jean-Luc? The trial never ends.  We wanted to see if you had the capability to expand your mind and horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.

Picard - When I solved the paradox.

Q - Exactly.

The character of Q is kind of the glue that holds the overall narrative of TNG together, and the fun portrayal of this character by John de Lancie was key to making this work.  His most famous role outside Trek is on the soap Days of our Lives, but he continues to act and voice act today, perhaps most notably as the weaselly antagonist Discord on the My Little Pony series.  It will be fun to see if he appears again in any form on the new Picard series in development. 

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Character Insight No. 306: Solbor

Happy Holidays, and Welcome back to Character Insight!  This week, we review a recurring character named Solbor from Deep Space 9.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp306 

Solbor is a Bajoran ranjen who serves as an assistant to Kai Winn, one of the most complicated characters in the Deep Space 9 story.  Solbor's first appearance is in the episode Til Death Do Us Part, and he joins the Kai as she comes to the station to be the officiant of Benjamin Sisko's wedding to Kassidy Yates.  During this visit, Solbor is deceived by Gul Dukat, who was disguised as a Bajoran farmer named Anjohl Tennan, into allowing Dukat to visit with the Kai.  Of course, Dukat is on the path to releasing the pah-wraiths by this point, which is something Solbor would not be copacetic with.

This role was supposed to be for just one isolated episode, but the showrunners loved actor James Otis and his portrayal of this character, so Solbor became a recurring character as a result.  One of his later episodes was simply a small role in Strange Bedfellows, where the Kai sends him to obtain the Orb of Prophecy for her.

The appearances for this character culminate in another episode near the end of the series centered on the Kai, Dukat, and Solbor struggle, that being The Changing Face of Evil.  Solbor begins to see though Dukat's Anjohl disguise when the Kai starts acting strangely, including asking Solbor to go retrieve the Book of the Kosst Amojan for her.  This text is believed to be evil by Solbor, and it leads him to test Anjohl's DNA, leading to the realization that this is a Cardassian in disguise.

QUOTE

When Solbor confronts his boss the Kai about the deception, he realizes too late that she is now in on the plan to release the pah-wraiths.  And thus, Solbor met his grisly end at the hand of the Kai.  Later on, a pah-wraith in the appearance of Solbor shows up in a couple more episodes, but the real Solbor is gone forever. 

As mentioned before, James Otis plays Solbor.  Outside Trek, he played small roles in movies like The Prestige and The Black Dahlia.  His most recent acting credit was in 2010 in the TV series Supernatural, and he has retired from acting in the meantime.

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Character Insight No. 305: The Roles of Marco Rodriguez

Welcome back to Character Insight!  This week, we review the background characters brought to life in Star Trek by actor Marco Rodriguez.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp305 

Rodriguez was a background actor who played a couple of different roles on The Next Generation.  In the episode The Arsenal of Freedom, he plays a holographic recreation of Captain Paul Rice, one of Will Riker's former Academy classmates.  The hologram is made by the Minosian weapon Echo Papa 607, which is trying to gather intelligence on Starfleet and the Enterprise.  Will Riker sees through this ruse after testing the apparent Mr. Rice as follows.

QUOTE (the U.S.S. Lollipop)

In the episode The Wounded, Rodriguez plays a Cardassian named Glinn Telle.  The Enterprise tries to prevent the beginning of another war with the Cardassians caused by a rogue Starfleet Captain.  Telle is an assistant in a delegation of Cardassians who come aboard Enterprise to observe the ship while passing through some Cardassian space.  He speaks much less in this role than he did as the fake Captain Rice.

Interestingly, stock footage from the Paul Rice episode was re-used in the finale All Good Things.  He can be seen for the sharp-eyed viewer on a computer screen in this episode.  So the character of Paul Rice is credited with multiple appearances, despite Rodriguez only ever donning a character costume once for each character. 

Marco Rodriguez did not have any further Trek appearances, but he can be seen in other movies including High School High and Million Dollar Baby.  In 2019, you will be able to see him in the mystery crime film from Quentin Tarantino entitled Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. 

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Character Insight No. 304: Best of Wesley Crusher

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we continue our series on the best of TNG with a look at the best moments of Wesley Crusher.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp304 

Wesley Crusher was the first regular recurring young adult actor in Star Trek.  As the wonder-boy son of the Chief Medical Officer on board, there was plenty of canvas to build his character within, and he serves an important role in growing the characters of others like Captain Picard, who becomes his mentor and a father figure of sorts.

For this segment we will skip past many awkward first and second season episodes featuring Wesley and go right to Evolution, the third season premiere.  Wesley must overcome a mistake he makes in letting nanites loose during a science experiment he runs on board, while also learning to deal with his mother coming back on board and the high expectations of all the adults around him.  As always, Guinan is around to help with those human issues.

QUOTE (from Evolution, S3):
Wesley - "You won't tell anybody will you...oh ok, I will...if it's true."
Guinan - "Wes, do you think you're going to get a good grade?"

Wesley - "I always get an A"
Guinan - "So did Dr. Frankenstein"

After learning all he can from the Enterprise crew, the acting ensign receives admission to Starfleet Academy.  Captain Picard decides to transport Wesley to the ship that will take Wesley to Academy so they can spend some final time together, but the shuttle crashes on a desert moon and Wesley must keep Picard alive until they can be rescued.  When things look grim for the duo, Picard shares his best life advice and Wesley expresses his gratitude for his years aboard Enterprise.

QUOTE (from Final Mission, S4):
Ensign Wesley Crusher: "Sir, in the past three years, I've lived more than most people do in a lifetime. I think I'm very lucky, no matter what happens. How many people get to serve with Jean-Luc Picard?"

Ironically, the best Wesley episode comes when he is off the ship as a regular character, that being the season 5 episode The First Duty.  Now an academy student, Wesley is part of an elite flight team Nova Squadron that is to perform a flight demonstration for graduation ceremonies at the Academy.  But when the flight team commander convinces his team to do a dangerous and banned maneuver, leading to the death of one of the team in a practice run, Wesley is torn between loyalty to his remaining team members and telling the truth in the investigation.  It takes some strong words from Picard, who was to speak at the graduation ceremony, to get Wesley to admit the team's fault and suffer the consequences.

QUOTE (from The First Duty, S5):
Picard - "The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based, and if you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform. I'm going to make this simple for you, Mr. Crusher; either you come forward and tell Admiral Brand what really took place, or I will."
Crusher - "Captain-"
Picard - "Dismissed!"

Although Star Trek writers have often struggled with young adult and child actors, the TNG series would not have been as memorable without Wesley Crusher.  It's made actor Wil Wheaton a bit of a nerd cult hero following the general initial dislike for his character.  Wheaton can be found today on the web series Tabletop as well as on Big Bang Theory and as voices in Transformers and Teen Titans Go.

Other great episodes featuring Wesley include The Game, the Dauphin, Coming of Age, and Justice.  And we'll never forget the iconic 80's rainbow shirt Wesley wore in his early appearances.  So let's close with:

QUOTE
"Shut up Wesley!"

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Character Insight No. 303: Lydia Anderson

Welcome back to Character Insight!  This week, we review a background character from Voyager named Lydia Anderson.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp303 

We've covered a number of these regular background "face in the crowd" characters from Voyager, and Lydia Anderson is a crewman who serves in the engineering and security divisions.  As such, many of her appearances are as part of teams working on ship problems or escorts for guests and hostiles.

Unlike some of the other background characters of this variety, Anderson appears in episodes spanning from the first season to the last.  In her only first-season appearance in the episode Fury, Anderson wields a phaser rifle and helps other security officers in a firefight with invading Vidiians.  This leaves a memorable first impression that likely caused the show writers to use her more and more for background in future seasons.

Many of Voyager's two-part episodes involved crises where the Voyager crew would have to abandon ship or be abducted or the like.  So it should come as no surprise that crewman Anderson plays roles in these episodes as security detail in Equinox and as a brainwashed crew member in Workforce.  It is in this latter two-parter where her image appears on screen in Tuvok's computer files, and the name Lydia Anderson is finally applied to this character.

While crewman Anderson has no speaking lines in her 16 appearances, and thus is uncredited throughout the show's run, she ranks in the top 10 of recurring characters in number of appearances.  It may be hard to believe, but she shows up as much as Naomi Wildman.

Joyce Lasley played Lydia Anderson, and this was her most notable role as a regular background and stand-in character for Voyager and Deep Space 9.  She played a number of aliens throughout Voyager as well, often wearing prosthetics with no nose holes and no ear holes!  She also recurred as a background Starfleet instructor in the 2009 Star Trek movie, and most recently has served as a stand-in for the TV show Glee.

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Character Insight No. 302: Best of Dr. Katherine Pulaski

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we continue our series on the best of TNG with a look at the best moments of Darrell's favorite main character, Dr. Katherine Pulaski.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp302 

Dr. Pulaski comes in to season 2 as a result of the show writers being unhappy with how Dr. Crusher's character had failed to develop enough in season 1.  Pulaski was initially written to be a bit of an homage to Doctor McCoy from TOS, although her brash style and crankiness did not really fit well with the completely revised cast in TNG.

Over the course of season 2, we see Pulaski go from completely bigoted views about artificial life forms like Data to someone who learns to care for her crewmate Data.  One of the shining examples of her misunderstanding of Commander Data comes in her first episode where she can't understand his interaction with other crew members.

QUOTE (from The Child, S2):

"Counsellor Troi is going to need the comfort of a Human touch, not the cold hand of technology."

When not being a royal pain for all non-human life forms on board in her first few episodes, the new Doctor espouses her view for old world medicine sometimes being the best option.  Again, this fits in with her overall molding after the prior character of Dr. McCoy. 

QUOTE (from Contagion, S2):

"It's a time-honored way to practice medicine, with your head and your heart and your hands."

One of the turning points with Data comes in the episode Unnatural Selection, in which Data stays with Pulaski for a long period of time when she is infected during the crisis at the Darwin Station.  Her respect for him grows in this and other episodes and she ends up being one of Data's biggest backers when she and Picard guide Data through challenging world champion Kolrami to a couple of games of stratagema in the episode Peak Performance.

QUOTE (from Peak Performance, S2):

"Pulaski - Alright Data, enough of this.  How long are you going to sit sulking like Achilles in his tent?

Data - I am running diagnostics. 

Pulaski - You may be able to sell Troi that story, but not me.  And you may be able to sell Troi that story, but not me. 

Data - I am concerned about giving the Captain faulty advice.

Pulaski - I wish I had never convinced you to play that game."

Thus, while the show writers and actress Diana Muldaur mutually decided to part ways following season 2, her biggest contribution was helping in the fast tracking of Data's character development, which hit several key notes in season 2 including Measure of a Man and the aforementioned Peak Performance.  She is also memorable in her fascination with Worf and Klingon culture, and her challenging of Captain Picard on multiple occasions.  So while Darrell and many others may rightfully dislike this copycat character, she served some purposes and held us over until the writers bought back Dr. Crusher and successfully developed her character in seasons 3-7.

Diana Muldaur was the only regular cast member of a post-TOS Trek to have appeared on TOS, as she guested on a couple of episodes Return to Tomorrow and Is There in Truth No Beauty.  She retired from acting in 1993 but was best known for her role on L.A. Law following her short stint on TNG.

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