Episode summary at Memory Alpha.

Themes and Discussion

The Ligonians are also isolationist and distrustful of outsiders. They use their own transporters to beam aboard the Enterprise. This won’t be the first time the crew encounters an isolationist or xenophobic species. Some parts of our own political spectrum lean more towards isolationism, and I think Star Trek knows that and wants us to have a conversation about that over the course of the series. The Prime Directive has some part to play in that conversation; I’ll address some of that here, and some of it in a later, longer post.

The Ligonians value honor and respect above all else and have a rigidly ritualistic culture. They are a male-dominated culture, but it is the women who hold the land and money, so there is a small reversal there.

I can’t talk about the episode without talking about race a bit. The culture presented here is referred to as being influenced by ancient Chinese culture, but it seems clear that it also draws influence from African cultures, too. Not to mention the fact that this species seems to be made up only of people of color. It’s more than a little bothersome that they are dressed in a somewhat provincial way and portrayed as backwards. That looks racist to me. However, a tiny bit of that is mitigated by the fact that they outsmart the Enterprise crew initially by taking Tasha, but that’s not enough to offset the negative stuff.

Here, the crew is also faced with a common Trek theme: weighing the lives of the many versus the lives of the few or the one. Just based on my past viewings of the episodes, I’d have to say that it is this scenario where the crew pushes against the Prime Directive the most often. The crew values the lives of individuals, but they are also often trying to help a group of people.  

A lot of this episode also centers around cultural misunderstanding, and how the Prime Directive comes into play when this happens. For those who don’t know, the Prime Directive is Starfleet’s policy of non-interference. Basically, they are not allowed to take sides in conflicts or politics; they can’t give their technology to a species that isn’t technologically on the same level; and they are to respect the cultures and laws of other species. Here, Picard relies heavily on his crew for background information about what the correct response to the Ligonians is, based on the research they have done on Ligonian culture. He wishes to respects their customs and laws, but he is also faced with the kidnapping and possible death of one of his officers. This leads to an innovative solution (giving Yar’s opponent the antidote to the poison after allowing the ritual fight to play out as Ligonian custom demands) that perhaps satisfies both the Prime Directive and Ligonian custom.

In the last rewatch, I looked at the issue of relationships in Starfleet and that is brought up again here. She is attracted to the Ligonian who captures her (she admits this), but she says that a relationship with him is impossible because she is a career Starfleet officer. Later, after her opponent is brought back to life and revealed to the Ligonians, Yar is asked if she wants the Ligonions who took her. She turns down the offer, remarking that there would be complications. What sort of complications, I wonder? Long-distance relationship complications? Keeping a man on the ship with her complications? It is never specified, but I suspect it has to do with this unspoken code of singleness that Starfleet seems to have.

Technology/interfaces

Most of the episode is focused on people and not technology so much. The Ligonians are pretty interested in the holodeck and its use for tactical training, so they are given a demonstration by Yar. When Yar creates a virtual opponent, one of the Ligonians exclaims “You can create a person without a soul!” Yar explains that the holographic fighter is merely an embodiment of a computer program and not a real person. I don’t know about anyone else, but this was one of the moments where I cringed. Did the Ligonians really need to be told what a hologram is? They are advanced enough for the Federation to make contact with them, and they have a transporter, so a hologram shouldn’t be beyond their comprehension. However, the episode seems to want to portray the Ligonians as antiquated–their mode of dress, their heavy reliance on rituals, their belief in spirituality (the series is told from a humanist point of view and is almost always suspicious of religion of any variety, portraying it as backwards) are all used as evidence for this.

Information seeking behavior

Though Riker, Troi, and Data conduct much background research on the culture of the Ligonians, it isn’t clear how they search for the information or where–presumably in the ship’s computer. I’m actually curious if they split up the research areas and searched individually, or if they all collaborated in the search process (much like Riker does with Data in “The Naked Now”). Sometimes having more than one point of view about how to conduct a search can take the search in many fruitful directions. My former boss and I would often bounce ideas off each other when we received a research request, and I always found that helpful; she inevitably thought about an issue in a different way than I did, so we found a good assortment of sources between the two of us. In other episodes of TNG, we see the crew using this kind of collaborative approach.

In the later portion of the episode, we see Picard telling Data and Geordi to gather information about Ligonian armaments: “especially important is an analysis of combat capabilities.” Geordi asks for more information, and Picard tells him to look at the cutting edges of the weapons wherever applicable and to analyse durability, composition, and weaknesses in material. Data asks if they should look with any particular point of view. Yar’s use of the weapons in combat is the perspective that Picard has them consider. Picard should have been giving Data the search instructions in the last episode. He clearly has a specific information need and clearly formulated query.   

Side note: I assume that a large amount of information gathering is happening by using the ship’s computer. How often are the ship’s databanks updated? Is there something like Windows Updates in the future that pushes information to the ships of the fleet over subspace? Do they get updates from the computers of starbases or other ships? How does the transfer and updating of information happen? It would be useful to know how current the data is on the ship at any given time.

Use of weapons/force by Starfleet/Federation

A lot of force is used in this episode, though only some of it is used by the Enterprise. In the initial encounter with the Ligonians, they are to hand over the vaccine. As one of the Ligonians brings it to Picard, Yar insists on inspecting it, but the Ligonian tries to move around her. She grabs his arm and flips him to the ground. So, the Enterprise is the initial aggressor in the encounter.

After the Ligonians kidnap Yar, Picard orders the firing of photon torpedoes to detonate above the surface as a display of firepower to try to convince the Ligonians to give her back. This doesn’t work.

The Ligonians give the Enterprise a way to get both the vaccine and Yar–a fight between Yar and Lutan’s first wife. The fight is to be to the death. Yar fights and wounds her opponent with the weapon coated in poision, but she doesn’t allow the woman to die. Instead, they are beamed to the Enterprise so she can be treated.

Assorted musings

I had forgotten how much advising Troi does in these first few episodes. I don’t think she’s the voice that a decision hinges on, but she does advise Picard on policy issues, not just what others are feeling. While she was pretty emotional in the first episode, she’s been a pretty good advisor in episodes 3 and 4. I have the sense that her role, going forward, is more as a lie detector than an advisor, but I’ll be interested to see if I’m proven wrong about that.

The colors of the ship’s decor are so 1990s. The tan and mauve and dusty blue. There are office chairs in my workplace from the same time period in that color scheme. In many ways, the show transcends its time period. In others, it is very dated. I don’t think there is a way to avoid this; it is extremely hard to get outside one’s own historical moment, especially when you are projecting into the future.

And the shiny clothes. Shiny == the future. Or, if you are Wesley, frumpy and uncomfortable sweaters == the future.

We get the first instance of Data and Geordi exchanging some humor. It is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

So, just based on the costumes that the Ligonians are wearing here, I have to wonder if a more ridiculous costume is supposed to be equivalent with a less advanced species/race. When we meet the Ferengi in the next episode, some of this is happening, but as I am thinking about the species I can remember, the ones with the worst costumes do stick out as being the most backwards (technologically and/or culturally). I’m curious to see if this bears out over the series. Clothing is used as a signifier in our culture, so it is plausible–and perhaps inevitable–that it becomes one in this future world. 

Episode summary at Memory Alpha.

Themes and Discussion

The major themes in this episode are temptation, lack of control, self-inhibition, and intimacy. Something that is becoming more clear is the crew is still a bit regimented. They don’t know how to be easy with each other, trust each other, or have a little fun. This is probably more emblematic of the newness of the show and the ship, but there’s something here that speaks to a particular ethos that seems endemic in Starfleet. Starfleet is not a fun organization; in fact, in several episodes throughout the series and the movies, we are shown that Starfleet is a humorless and often clueless bureaucracy that is not always to be trusted or followed.

Even though Starfleet is an exploration outfit, it is still a lot like the military. And, like the military, fraternization does not appear to be encouraged. The crew is already, then, in the awkward position of having families on board, but having the officers living mostly celibately. But the officers form their own family among themselves. It’s almost as if they do it despite Starfleet’s inherent coldness.

Looking at the apparent stiffness of Starfleet and the contrast between that and the very public displays of affection and lack of inhibition in this episode makes me think about the Victorians. Stay with me. Victorian cultural norms were a bit prudish about sex, sexuality, and lack of inhibition. However, read Victorian literature and you’ll see lots of bottled up sexual frustration and pushing against those norms. This TNG episode is functioning on a similar level. We see that the crew does have needs and desires that are not necessarily being met. This isn’t only sexual. Consider Wesley Crusher’s need to be accepted and his desire to be a part of the crew. Or Geordi’s desire to see with real eyes. All of these are brought to the surface by the intoxicant.

I find it interesting that it is the women who are acting overtly sexually aggressive in the episode. That could be seen as a reversal of traditional gender roles (only brought to the fore by intoxication). Or it could be a variation on the misguided idea that women are all sluts. In any case, I find it problematic that only the women become sexualized here and not the men. One would think that Riker would be out prowling the halls with Tasha (and maybe he would have if the full intoxication had been allowed to set in). In large part, these advances by the ship’s main women characters (Yar, Troi, and Crusher) are not welcomed by most of the male characters. In later episodes, we also see a discomfort with female sexuality: almost any episode featuring Lwaxana Troi shows this, but several others. We’ll revisit this as we come to those episodes.

Technology/interfaces

In this episode, we get a better view of the tricorders used in TNG; however, they are reasonably useless in this episode as they do not pick up any unusual readings of the intoxicating substance. We also get a better view of sickbay.

We also see Wesley’s science project: a small-scale tractor beam. When he is showing this off to La Forge, he also shows off a voice simulator he has created. It simulates Picard’s voice giving orders. Wesley has created this so that he can pretend that he is on the Bridge. So, this is Wesley’s version of fan fiction. He ends up playing out the fantasy of taking over the ship by using that voice simulator to get key members of the Engineering staff to leave. He then uses his tractor beam as a repulsor and effectively locks everyone out of an important area of Engineering. And then he gets to save the ship once he’s sobered up by using the same technique he used to reverse his small tractor beam, and he shows up the Chief Engineer. Wesley saving the ship and outsmarting the adults is going to happen a few more times in the series before the writers adjust his character to be a little less “Gary Stu” (the male analog to the “Mary Sue” fan fiction trope.)

Information seeking behavior

A search query of the ship’s computer gets some prominence in this episode and is worth looking at. Riker approaches Data on the Bridge and asks him for help finding computer information about “someone taking a shower in their clothes.” Riker states that he remembered reading something that contained this information. Data starts with this very vague information and searches for some time. Later, we come back to Riker and Data and Data asks if Riker has any other information, but Riker initially tells him that he does not. Data’s use of the word “historical” reminds Riker that he had been reading a history of ships named Enterprise. Data focuses the search on “Enterprise history, aberrant behavior, medical cross reference.” These criteria allow them to find the information about the incidents in TOS’ “The Naked Time” and a lead for an antidote.

As a librarian, I had to chuckle at this search request. This is the kind of request I would get on a fairly regular basis at work. Folks always seem to think that such a request is quick and easy, when, in fact, they often take a long time. I am pleased that Riker and Data seem to know that such a vague query would take a long time. However, I wish Data would have conducted a better reference interview on Riker during the initial request; he would have saved time if he had pressed Riker initially about where such a thing was read. Data may have been able to narrow the search field down to Enterprise history within the first minutes of the search rather than spending valuable time looking for a needle in a haystack.

Use of weapons/force by Starfleet/Federation

No uses of force in the episode.

Assorted Musings

Troi calls Riker “Bill” in Engineering. She is the only one who calls him this, and it is used as a sign of their past intimacy, but the nickname only shows up in the first season. The rest of the series, she calls him “Will” like everyone else.

 

 

Introduction

For a while, I’ve been meaning to go through and not only rewatch all of the TNG episodes, but to write about each of them. Doing so will allow me to examine the overarching themes that develop over the course of the series, and how all of those are in dialog with each other.

I don’t plan on recapping each episode super thoroughly; by now, most people have (or should have) seen the episodes since TNG is almost (gulp) 30 years old [if you haven’t watched this series, stop now and go binge watch them on Netflix]. For very detailed episode summaries, I’d advise going over to Memory Alpha and reading what the fine folks there have written. Here’s the episode summary for “Encounter at Farpoint.”

Themes and Discussion

This first episode sets up the notion that humanity has changed for the better and is more than a “savage child race.” Star Trek holds the notion that we can change and that we will. Having the crew “tested” in the opening episode is a way of saying to the audience, “here’s why humans are pretty terrible now, and why we’ll get worse, but then we’ll get better, and this crew is here to show all of you what is possible for all of us.” The idea that we can, as a society, rise above violence is a critical part of Star Trek’s underlying ideology.

In this particular series, Picard differentiates himself from Kirk immediately by being a thinking man, not a fighting man. His goals are to assess and understand the situation and try to find a peaceful or diplomatic way out, not fight his way out.

Even though Picard tells Riker that he’s not a family man, this episode is, in many ways, centered around the notion of family and loved ones. In this episode, we see or explore the relationships of the Crushers, Riker and Troi, and that of the two space entities the Enterprise reunites. This theme is fitting, as the rest of the series revisits it again and again; it is arguably one of the series’ most important themes. Picard may not think of himself as a family man, but he is the man around whom the crew build a family, and that family is their most important one. Perhaps that is a comment on the families you build versus the families you are born into.

You will notice as we go through the series that none of the main crew members are married or have a family (with the exception of Beverly, who has Wesley, and later, Worf, who will have Alexander), despite living on a ship supposedly full of families. Many of the senior officers have various relationships, but most of those only last an episode (Riker and Troi are the exception, and they are on-again-off-again). Did you ever notice that the beds in the crew quarters of the senior officers are just large enough for one person? And many of the families introduced throughout the series are single-parent families, where one of the parents has died. Let’s look at that some more in future episodes and see how this tracks throughout the show.

 Information seeking behavior

When I was doing research in grad school for this paper and others, I found that there was not a lot of literature on the representation of information seeking in literature or popular culture, so part of this exercise is to chronicle that behavior in TNG here.

Most of the information seeking in this episode comes out of direct sensory experience rather than looking for information in the computer. Geordi uses his enhanced vision to examine the walls of Farpoint station. Troi uses her empathic abilities to sense the entities. Riker and Picard question Zorn directly.

Technology/interfaces

We get a first view of many features of this new Enterprise: the transporters, the sleek touch interfaces, Gerodi’s VISOR, and the voice controlled computer. The most impressive is the holodeck (and this one gets the most screen time), which converts energy into matter much the same way the transporters and replicators do. We also get the first view of the saucer separation, which is only used two other times in the series (“Arsenal of Freedom” and “The Best of Both Worlds” part 2) and once in the movies (Generations). 

Use of weapons/force by Starfleet/Federation

Something I’ve been thinking about tracking for a while in Star Trek is the actual use of force. The Federation can easily be read as imperialistic (a flip side of the Borg, really, but that’s a long post for another time), so I’ve been interested in seeing how this plays out in terms of use of force. This is an issue that we are more attuned to now, especially in light of the many instances of the overuse of force by police, so I’m curious how TNG’s portrayal of force might appear to a modern audience.

Uses of weapons/force in this episode:

1. Torres goes for his phaser when Q initially comes aboard, but Q freezes him before he can use it.
2. Picard fires photon torpedoes at the Q entity when it is pursuing the ship, but as a way of distracting them and allowing the saucer section to continue to Farpoint.
3. Riker and Data use phasers to release Zorn from the entity.
4. Picard has the phasers rigged to send an energy beam to the entity on the planet.

What’s interesting here is that Torres apparently carries a phaser around everywhere. That doesn’t seem like standard procedure, especially when not even the chief of security carries a weapon on board.

The other uses of weapons in this episode by the Enterprise crew are pretty benign in nature; in the last case, the use is subverting the weapon to turn it into aid.

Assorted Musings

Although Picard later tells the story of “a young lieutenant commander I recruited as a first officer,” (in “The Best of Both Worlds” part 1) we hear in this episode that Riker has been assigned to the Enterprise and Picard seems to know little about him.

In the marketplace on the station, Crusher tells the Bandi merchant that she’d like to buy the entire bolt of fabric, to send it to the ship, and “charge it to Dr. Crusher.” As Starfleet and the Federation do not use currency, this seems out of place. In other episodes later on–and in First Contact–we are often told about how the drive for money is ancient and a bit unseemly.

Troi tells Groppler Zorn that she is only half Betazoid and that her “father was a Starfleet officer.” Um, that’s not a species or a race; that’s a job title. He couldn’t have been a Betazoid Starfleet officer? Are we to assume that Starfleet = human? Even though Star Trek is anthropocentric, this still seems a bit heavy-handed.

In this first episode, Conn and Ops are in different places. Here, Conn is to the captain’s left and Ops to the right. In later episodes, Conn is on the right and Ops on the left.

When Picard is on the battle bridge, he sends a signal of surrender with “no terms or conditions.” In one of the few other scenes on the battle bridge, in “Best of Both Worlds,” Riker and Locutus discuss surrender and terms.

Boy, is everyone jumping out of their seats in this episode.

It’s very interesting to me that a show that eschews religion begins and ends with an omnipotent being (alpha and omega, anyone?). Q starts the Enterprise D on its journeys and is with them at the end of the series. He shows up in 8 episodes (well, 10, if you count each half of the premier and finale as separate episodes), with an average of 25 episodes between appearances. Most of the time, Q is there to be the show’s Loki and cause trouble. Other times, he changes the trajectory of the show: testing the crew at Farpoint, bringing the ship in contact with the Borg, and helping Picard with the anomaly at the end of the series.