The Enterprise is transporting samples of a deadly plague so they can be studied in pursuit of a cure. As the ship passes through space, an energy lifeform comes aboard and impregnates Counselor Troi, being born just hours later as her child. As the crew questions the rapidly aging child's intentions on the ship, containment begins to falter on the deadly plague samples, threatening everyone aboard. Are the two incidents linked?
The second season of the series began airing in November, two months later than usual, because of the Writers' Guild strike of 1988. The season would end up being four episodes shorter than any other in the series, and many of the episodes that were produced bear the marks of the strike in different ways. "The Child" is notable in that it was not even originally conceived of as a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode.
Back in the late 1970s, Paramount got the idea that it could launch its own television network. And with Star Trek popular in syndication, they felt that the flagship television series of that network should be a Star Trek show. Interestingly, this all came to pass with UPN and Star Trek: Voyager in the 1990s, but in this first attempt, the TV network deal fell apart, leaving Paramount with a bunch of finished sets and contracted actors that would instead take the form of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It also left them with 13 new scripts for that aborted TV show.
Fast forward a decade to the writers' strike. It had resolved in time to save most of the television season, but with the writers of every show desperate for ideas they could quickly put before the cameras. The Next Generation decided to take one of those aborted "Star Trek: Phase II" scripts, substitute Ilia with Counselor Troi, and quickly churned out their new season opener. They did at least do more than a simple "Find/Replace" pass on character names in creating this script; there are a good number of character beats in the episode, specifically crafted for the Next Generation crew.
Still, you can sense the lack of inspiration in the plot itself as the episode plods through in a rote fashion. The plague side plot feels conspicuously tacked on, a bad way of manufacturing jeopardy that is too easily resolved by the alien child sacrificing himself. Everything is all wrapped up with exposition from Troi explaining what just really happened. You don't even get it firsthand from the alien, because they couldn't have banked on finding a child actor capable of performing it.
Of course, part of the reason the plot gets such short shrift is that the episode had a great deal of housekeeping to do: the introduction of two new characters, and explaining the departure of another.
Fans could only speculate at the time, but today it is known (and discussed rather frankly in the special features of the Season 2 Blu-ray set): Gates McFadden was fired from the series between seasons. I've read in places that executive producer Maurice Hurley was the main force behind it. McFadden more diplomatically avoids naming names, saying that she was too vocal in her complaints about flawed season one writing. In any case, out she went, her character of Beverly Crusher at least not being killed off when she was written out. Even if the character who replaced her had been a good one, this still would have been a great loss for the show; I've written that the Crusher-Picard relationship was the best character relationship of the first season.
Interestingly, writing out one character required an explanation of why another character wasn't being written out. Wesley Crusher is 16 years old at this point in the show. And while it's certainly not unheard of for a mature teenager to be living on his own, it's still a weird premise to have a kid's mother move out and leave her young son behind. It's weirder still for a kid with no family aboard to be allowed to remain on the ship, even with the "acting ensign" commission. There is a fun scene at the end of the episode where the bridge crew pokes some fun at Wesley about assuming parental duties, which at least gives us a good moment out of it all. Still, the underlying weirdness of it all remains unacknowledged.
Adding to the contrived explanation to leave Wesley in place, and the missed presence of Beverly, the final insult in the whole ordeal was that the replacement doctor character, Katherine Pulaski, was pretty awful. A small part of the problem was the casting of actress Diana Muldaur, who always seems at odds with the medical technobabble that being a Star Trek doctor inevitably requires. But the far larger problem with the character rests with the writers.
To begin with, they didn't actually create a character -- they just brought Leonard McCoy onto the show. The "new" doctor is an irascible person with a down-to-earth background, uncomfortable with cutting edge technology, meant to challenge the captain at times, and to poke fun at the series' emotionless character at other times. Seriously, close your eyes and imagine DeForest Kelley saying any given Pulaski line when you're watching a second season episode. You almost couldn't tell the difference, except that it'll probably sound better in your head. Well, that, and the fact that here in her first episode, Pulaski actually tries to out-McCoy the real McCoy. Her first meeting with Picard is him coming to chastise her for not following protocol. And as he begins the dressing down, she interrupts him, tells him to sit down (a tacit "...and shut up" unspoken), and he does!
But what's really grating is Pulaski's interactions with Data. She doesn't even refer to him correctly, pronouncing his name with a short "a" (as though it were spelled "Datta"), and teases him about having bruised feelings when he calls her on it. The fact that Data seems genuinely intrigued at the possibility that he might have an emotional reaction of any kind doesn't take the sting out of the insult we the audience feel on Data's behalf.
In fact, it all makes me really start picking at the McCoy character on the original series, and makes me start to question slightly if he was really as good a guy as I thought! You always got the sense that when McCoy teased Spock, it was out of a playful friendship. But stop and think about it for a moment, and you realize that McCoy was always poking at Spock for being an alien... or worse, a half-breed. He was poking right at the heart of a person with deep inner conflict about his own self-identify. That's where a bully goes, not a friend. This is the stuff that's fueling teen suicides. And it's not even like Spock doesn't have emotions, he just suppresses them. So basically, Pulaski is making me think that maybe McCoy was kind of a dick. So screw you, new character, for making me like a classic old character less!
At least the other new character introduced in this episode was a success. Whoopi Goldberg's first appearance as Guinan is in this second season premiere. A huge fan of Star Trek, and of Nichelle Nichols' character of Uhura in particular, Goldberg lobbied to be on The Next Generation from the moment it started up. Being an actress of growing prestige at the time -- and then, primarily a comic one -- the producers at the show didn't think she was being serious about her offer. Finally, the message got through, and they created the enigmatic Enterprise bartender (and a new set: Ten Forward), leaving the door open for an appearance whenever Goldberg wasn't busy on a film.
Guinan is established here with great clarity. She's an old alien with great wisdom, but always shares it in a circumspect way. Her typical way of conversing is never to come out and say what she's thinking, but to play devil's advocate in a way that makes the other person state her thought and realize it for themselves. We see it first here when she gets Wesley to admit that he doesn't want to leave the Enterprise, but it's the same in virtually every Guinan scene for the rest of the series. It never seemed to get old either, which is a testament to Whoopi Goldberg's skill -- but also I think a convenient side effect of her not being available for every episode at any time. A little Guinan goes a long way.
That said, part of me does wonder if even a little Guinan perhaps did damage to the character of Troi. Almost every Guinan appearance saw her acting as a sounding board and giver of advice. A counselor. Had Guinan never been on the show, it's not a leap to imagine that nearly all of her scenes would have been given to Troi instead. I'm certainly not wishing Whoopi Goldberg hadn't joined the show. Quite the opposite. In fact, Marina Sirtis even raves herself in an on-disc interview about Goldberg's addition to the cast. But I do believe that Guinan's arrival stunted Troi's growth as a character.
All this talk -- already running longer than most of my TNG Flashback posts -- and I still haven't said all that much about the episode itself. So let me come back around to that. I've already noted that it features a bare bones plot that isn't very engaging. And yet, in spite of that, it does actually manage to brush up against a very provocative topic: abortion.
When it's revealed to the senior staff that Troi is pregnant, a conversation ensues about the ramifications. Troi sits silently in reflection as others (all men, many would notice) weigh in with opinions. Worf wants to terminate the pregnancy, citing security concerns. Riker seems to be siding with that opinion, though at least mentions concerns for Troi's health. Data advocates letting the child live... though mainly for the opportunity of scientific study. Finally, Troi announces she's having the baby, and Picard instantly declares the discussion closed. Though the scene is hardly a focal point of the episode, it's a curious two minute melange of pro-choice, pro-life, chauvinism, and enlightenment all rolled up into one.
There's further, less explicit commentary on the same issue in the rapid aging of Troi's child, and the deep bond she forms with him, even though they have only a few hours together before birth (and a few days after). How fast does the bond between a mother and child really form? How different is that bond from one mother to the next? Your answers to these questions will likely inform your analysis of Troi's reactions in this episode, and I can only imagine that reaction could vary greatly between men and women in the Trek audience.
Want to go even deeper down the hot button rabbit hole? Then consider this: Troi's child is basically a child of rape. The episode doesn't quite want to grasp this live wire, because Troi expresses no sense of trauma over the experience. But at its core, an alien presence enters her bedroom as she sleeps and impregnates her against her will. Maybe the writers don't want to acknowledge the seriousness of that, but the composer sure does. In an uncharacteristic bit of music, Dennis McCarthy puts some seriously sinister undertones on the "impregnation" scene.
In short, I have to wonder if this rather bad episode might have in fact been a really good episode -- or at least a really provocative one -- had it dared to truly look at these issues it only skirted.
But enough talk of rape and abortion. How about some other observations instead?
- Director Rob Bowman clearly asked for a bigger budget on this season premiere. There's a gratuitous shuttlebay shot at the beginning only because "hey, we can build that set this year!" The lighting throughout the episode is moodier. One scene opens with an elaborate matte painting of the Enterprise hull outside Ten Forward. The camera is often placed in unusual angles like nothing seen before. And there's a long single-take shot in the opening designed to show us a bunch of the new changes on the show all at once: Worf's switch to a gold uniform, Riker's beard, and Wesley's new acting ensign attire.
- Having already thoroughly established the "make it so" catch phrase for Picard, the writers seem to be trying to give him another one here. In two different scenes, he response to an order being carried out with "Grand." I'm glad that one didn't stick.
- Riker's umbrage at Troi's pregnancy is clear when he says: "I don't mean to be indelicate, but who's the father?" It's a completely honest moment for the character by Jonathan Frakes, and yet it can't help but be unintentionally funny in an otherwise serious scene.
- Intended comic touches come when Data has an arsenal of questions about pregnancy for Troi. And it's capped by a truly sweet moment, after the delivery, when he thanks her for allowing him to participate. It's a wonderful performance by Brent Spiner.
- I suspect that I'm already so primed to be insulted by the character of Pulaski that I'm making something out of nothing, but here I go anyway. In the scene where the doctor is dismissing Data as being incapable of providing support to Troi during her delivery, Pulaski manages an insult to a chunk of the viewing audience too! She says that in nearly all of the past deliveries she's performed, the father has been present. An unintended but unthinking jab against any single mothers, gays, or lesbians watching at home. Sure, those are each exceptions to a general norm. But take them collectively, along with any other reason you can think of that a father might miss out on a child's birth? The idea that a physician with around 30 years of experience would still say that the father was almost always there seems unrealistic.
- Troi's miraculous pregnancy ends with a miraculous birth in which she experiences no pain. This spares Marina Sirtis from having to scream wildly pretending to give birth, and spares us all from having to watch that.
- Why does everyone seem shocked when Troi's child continues to age rapidly after being born -- just as it did during her pregnancy?
- Hey, nitpickers! Guinan says in this episode that she never met Picard before coming aboard the Enterprise. Eventually, the time traveling adventures of "Time's Arrow" would make a liar of her. (Kind of, sort of.)
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