The Enterprise is ordered to assist a cocksure scientist, Dr. Paul Stubbs, as he conducts an experiment at a binary star system where a rare astrophysical event is about to take place. Meanwhile, Wesley is conducting an experiment of his own for a school project, allowing microscopic surgery robots called nanites to interact with each other to see if they can work collectively. When he falls asleep from exhaustion, leaving his container of nanites open, two of them escape into the ship's computer. And they do indeed work collectively, quickly breeding an entire civilization of intelligent computers that threatens to destroy the ship.
"Evolution" is hardly an amazing episode, and even the co-writer Michael Piller and director Winrich Kolbe acknowledged this in later interviews. Both felt that the aspects of character development were strong here, while the plot itself didn't quite come off as well. And that criticism nails the truth exactly. That said, you can still tell right away that something has changed on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Little changes are apparent from top to bottom, and they collectively make the series feel more mature and polished than ever before.
The visual effects take a quantum leap here beyond anything we've seen before. The binary stars, one cannibalizing gasses from the other, are a startlingly beautiful image, and are literally the very first thing we see in the episode. The opening credits go through a major overhaul too. Gone is the flyby of Jupiter and Saturn -- and when you think about it, what was so exciting about a tour of our own solar system anyway? Instead, we have wilder images of a vivid nebula and a burning red planet. (The theme itself was re-recorded too, thankfully eliminating a wavering horn note in Alexander Courage's Star Trek fanfare that always bugged me.)
The costumes have been changed. While minor characters are still wearing the spandex of seasons one and two (for now), the main characters are all outfitted with two piece, collared uniforms that make things seem a bit more dignified. Reportedly, this change occurred because the taut spandex had actually been causing the cast members to experience lower back pain after long days of filming, and the production decided it was worth $3000 (in 1989 dollars!) per new uniform to address that.
The lighting of the sets undergoes the most noticeable change of all. While the first two seasons are bathed in a uniform, almost florescent-looking light, suddenly in this episode there are dramatic shadows everywhere. The bridge seems far more formal, and the shuttlecraft bay appears to be in "nighttime" mode. The unexplained jars of red and blue water in Sickbay draw the eye immediately, because they seem to glow in the midst of the more subdued environment. Not that all this change is just in the lighting; the bridge appears to have been recarpeted, for example.
Beverly Crusher is back, and not a moment too soon. It seems writer and show runner Maurice Hurley was primarily responsible for booting Gates McFadden off the show in the first place, but when he departed after season two, producer Rick Berman happily asked her back. Other character changes are there too, if considerably less dramatic; Worf and Geordi both have received promotions since season two, according to their collars.
But the change that really makes it seem like Star Trek: The Next Generation is growing up is the writing. This episode was penned by Michael Wagner and Michael Piller. The former was the new show runner... though he would end up leaving after just a few episodes and handing that job over to the latter. Piller really wanted to bring an emphasis to character in the storytelling, and you can see it in this episode. Characters banter in a more natural way. There are scenes solely about exploring character that don't necessarily advance the science fiction plot (and I mean that in a good way).
As noted above, the most successful element of the plot is actually this character material -- Beverly's reacclimation into Wesley's daily life. She's concerned that her son is driving himself too hard, and is on a course to burn himself out, miss his youth, and become a crass and graceless man like this week's guest character, Dr. Paul Stubbs. This storyline includes a fantastic scene between Picard and Beverly, discussing what she has missed of her son's life, and an equally good one between Beverly and Wesley that feels like literally the first realistic mother-son exchange the two characters have ever had. It's frankly amazing at this point that you feel any sympathy for Wesley making a foolish mistake at all, since until now, his character was written in a way that made most of the fans hate him.
That guest character who plays an important role in this story is interesting too. Though Stubbs is abrasive at times, and callously indifferent to the emerging intelligence of the nanites, he's written in a way that you can understand his point of view. (He's also given a quirky love of baseball, one of Michael Piller's own passions.) This character then gets a fairly good performance from actor Ken Jenkins, later best known for administrator Dr. Kelso on Scrubs. Jenkins is over-the-top in the handful of moments where his character is recovering from something painful, but he nails the dialogue scenes nicely.
Other observations:
- This episode has another wonderful score from Ron Jones. He represents the nanites and the jeopardy they cause with an unsettling synthesizer melody, but then cleverly replaces that artificiality with pure strings in the final scene where they communicate with the crew through Data. (As a side note, Ron Jones got to score both the premiere and the finale of this season, even though composers usually alternated episodes. That's because this episode -- while always intended to air first -- was actually filmed second.)
- There's a fun mention of the Borg made, as the crew believe they're encountering one of their vessels during a shipwide malfunction.
- Troi has a few good scenes trying to interact with Paul Stubbs. But there's also a humorously subtle dig at her character's often marginal role on the show, when Picard responds to one of her observations: "Even my sensory perception picked that up."
- This episode ran long after filming and was cut to fit the time. You can feel this in the ending, where Picard rushes through the wrap-up in a closing log entry. He breezily explains that Data's fine, the ship is fine, and the nanites get a homeworld. Everything worked out. But note that they chose to glide through this material and not cut some of the purely character-driven scenes. That's that shift in the show's tone at work.
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