Star Trek -- Season 2 Episode 10 (Journey to Babel)

Star Trek tended to focus mostly on the stories.  The crew of the Enterprise is made up of people that presumably have families.  Very little is said about these families  We’ve seen that Kirk had a brother.  But we never see Uhura’s family.  I think there was mention of Dr. McCoy being married.  The only notable exception is meeting Spock’s parents, Sarek and Amanda.  This would be their only appearance in the TV show.  In fact, we’d be surprised to learn in one of the movies that Sarek had another son.  In Star Trek: Discovery, we’d learn that he has a stepsister.  This is how little character development there was.

The episode revolves around the Babel Conference.  The Enterprise is escorting various Federation ambassadors to the location, including Spock’s father.  The purpose is to discuss admission of a system to the Federation.  There’s all sorts of infighting as the various member planets don’t always get along.  When they get to Vulcan, Kirk suggests that Spock beam down to see his parents.  Kirk is surprised to learn that Sarek and his wife are Spock’s parents.  You’d think that Spock would have mentioned who his father was, given that he was supposed to be married at the beginning of the season.  (Spock’s family was curiously absent.)

Well, this planet that they’re discussing is important.  It’s so important that there’s a ship following them.  Kirk is stabbed and Sarek suffers an episode due to heart problems.  This leaves Spock in command when his father suddenly needs a blood transfusion.  Spock could be a donor, but it would be difficult.  Just moments before the operation is to begin, the ship is attacked.  Spock refuses to turn command over to Scotty, saying that he’s not experienced enough to handle the situation.  It seems like a run of bad luck, but there it is.  Kirk has to trick Spock to go down to sickbay and help his father.

I have to wonder if this was done just to get the character development.  I get that Vulcans are logical and all, but the entire thing seemed forced.  To have Spock refuse to go to sickbay to retain command made him seem spiteful.  Kirk thought Scotty could take command.  Why wouldn’t Spock?  Is this his way of spiting his father?

There also seemed to be a lot of fighting among the ambassadors.  One even turns up dead, with Sarek as the likely suspect.  I looked up the definition of federation.   It‘s a group of states with a central government, but still have independence in terms of their own affairs.  This is why they have ambassadors in the first place.  Still, you’d think they’d get along better.  You don’t hear of ambassadors to the UN killing each other.

It’s a shame that the series didn’t have better continuity.  I was never really clear on the structure of The United Federation of Planets.  This was the only episode to give any sort of real insight into that.  We‘d also have to wait for the movies to see Sarek again.

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Star Trek -- Season 1 Episode 14 (Balance of Terror)

There were some things about the original Star Trek that made you wonder.  For instance, exactly how did stardates work?  It was supposed to be a way of having a standard calendar, but what was a year?  How did you measure a week or a month?  I don’t think it was every explicitly stated.  (To make matters more confusing, The Next Generation seemed to use a different system.)

Balance of Terror introduced the Romulan Star Empire, which posed an interesting problem: The Romulans didn’t have warp drive.  This meant that they had to go between stars at sublight speeds.  Romulans are suspected to be an offshoot of Vulcans, which would make them long-lived.  However, even if we assume this, that’s no way to run a star empire.  The closest star outside of our system is 4 light years off.   That means that it takes light four years to get from there to here.  It would take years (if not decades) to travel interstellar distances.  (For that matter, how did they destroy the outposts in short order?)

We can ignore that for now.  Why?  Because the Romulans have a cloaking device.  The have to become visible to use their super weapon, but they can travel and not be seen.  It makes for a pretty good episode because the commanders of both ships (Kirk on the Enterprise and the unnamed Romulan Commander) have to use their wits.  Both seem equal in skill.  The Romulan Commander even admits that they may have been friends under different circumstances.

The episode works because it deals with the issues.  At least one crew member is paranoid.  No one has ever seen a Romulan, meaning anyone could be a spy.  When the appearance of a Romulan is revealed, it ups the paranoia.  Not only do they look like Vulcans, the Romulan Commander is played by Mark Lenard, who would go on to play Spock’s father.  Does this mean that Spock is one of them?  Even though Spock has been in Starfleet for years, his pointy ears are a liability now.

This is to say nothing of the potential for war.  The Romulans have crossed The Neutral Zone.  This would be an act of war, except that the Romulan ship has some deniability in that they usually can’t be seen.  If the Enterprise crosses in, that would give the Romulans cause to start a war.  (Does it really even matter who started a war?)

The thing I like most about the episode is the use of appearance.  Romulans and Vulcans look similar.  This is the only reason that doubt is cast upon Spock.  Simple appearance.  This still holds true today, where people of a certain nationality or skin color are suspect simply because of the way they look.  Sometimes, no other consideration matters.

The Romulans are also portrayed in a sympathetic light.  The Romulans all have families waiting for them.  They really aren’t much different that the crew of the Enterprise except that they’re from the other side of a border.  Reacting out of fear and impulse might be understandable, but will often lead us to the wrong conclusion. 

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Star Trek The Next Generation - Episode 108 (Unification I)

Note:  I’m following production order with the reviews of individual episodes.  Since Part II started production before Part I, it has a lower episode number.


In the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, one episode featured an aging Ambassador Sarek.  Here was the father of Spock, going on one last diplomat mission for The Federation.  He was suffering a degenerative disease known as Bendii Syndrome.  Fast forward a few years and now he’s all but lost control of his mind.  Bendii Syndrome seems to present much like Alzheimer’s in humans, which can be humiliating for a logical Vulcan.  It’s with bad news that Captain Picard has to visit him; his son, Spock, has seemingly defected to Romulus.

For what reason, no one knows, but it’s Picard’s hope that Sarek might have some answers.  Alas, Sarek is too far gone to be of much help other than giving one name:  Pardek, a Romulan senator.  Picard will have to make do with what little information he has.  First, he has to get a cloaked (Klingon) ship to go into Romulan space.  It takes a little diplomacy and a not-so-subtle hit, but Picard gets his cloaked ship, taking Data with him to Romulas and leaving Commander Riker to deal with the mysterious wreckage of a Ferengi ship.

The episode does moderately well for setup.  We go through a brief bit of family issues with Spock and Sarek.  They didn’t seem to get along well in the original series and The Next Generation continues that with Spock leaving Vulcan without saying goodbye to Sarek.  We get the impression that Spock and Sarek still didn’t see eye to eye.  Before Picard and Data reach Vulcan, Sarek dies, ending any chance Spock to reconcile.

As you might expect, Spock doesn’t show up until the end of the episode.  A lot of time is spent getting to Romulus and looking around.  The name of the episode comes from the fact that Spock is looking to reunify Romulus and Vulcan; Romulans and Vulcans share a common ancestry.  When Vulcans became the logical lot that they are, Romulans left the planet and settles on Romulus to continue their warlike ways.

You will have to know a bit about the history of Star Trek to watch this episode.  Certain things will go over your head if you’re not familiar with the Trek universe. Also, the big draw here is going to be Spock and Sarek.  It’s also worth noting that these two episodes aired shortly before Star Trek VI was released.  There was the aspect of a small amount of promotion.

I did learn something from this episode.  Picard and Data had to wait for Pardek outside an intercessor’s office.  I’ve never seen the term used outside of this episode.  It refers to someone who intervenes on behalf of another.  From what I can tell, it has a religious connotation.  It’s usually meant to refer to someone who prays on behalf of another.  I’m not sure if it’s meant to have a nonreligious connotation here or if it’s meant to imply that Romulans are religious.  (I’ve always wondered what an intercessor was.  It wasn’t until a week or two ago that I looked it up.)

Many questions are answered in Part II.  What’s the deal with the wreckage?  What is Spock really up to?  A few more will be raised.  (Many along the lines of what were the writers thinking?)  I remember enjoying the episodes when they first aired, although there were certain things I missed.  I’ll save those for the next episode.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 71 (Sarek)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

There was a duality about Star Trek:  The Next Generation.  On the one hand, Gene Roddenberry didn’t want to use any of the alien races from the original series, hoping not to rely on the original series too much.  Yes, we had Leonard McCoy as a passenger on the first episode and the second episode was essentially a recycled episode from the original series, but I think the hope was to have a show that looked new.  We had all new characters and a new ship going out to see new worlds and meet new civilizations.

Then again, you had this entire universe to draw upon.  The show was set 70 years after the original series, but it wasn’t unusual for a human to live to be 100 there were some long-lived species.  In “Sarek“, Mark Lenard reprises his role as Spock’s father, Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan.  He has one last mission as ambassador before retiring.  He’s to negotiate with Legarans.  The Legarans are sticklers for details.  It took three months just to set a schedule for this conference.  They insist that it’s Sarek conducting the negotiations or no one.  You’d hope that nothing would go wrong.

Sarek is 202 years old.  Vulcans do have emotions, but are normally in very tight control of them.  This is why it’s unusual to see Sarek cry at a concert.  Add to this the random fights breaking out around the ship.  At first, it’s just two people having an argument.  It quickly escalates to a bar fight in Ten Forward.  This all started roughly the time that Sarek came on board.  It’s possible that he has Bendii syndrome.  At first, his aides, Mendrossen and Sakkath, deny that anything is wrong.  The reason that he doesn’t come out of his quarters much is that he’s an old man that needs his rest for one last, great diplomatic mission.

Sakkath eventually admits that he’s bolstering Sarek’s mental state telepathically.  The conference is causing Sarek so much stress that Sakkath can’t handle it all; the overflow is causing the fights.  What saves the day is Sarek performing a mind meld with Captain Picard.  This gets Sarek through the meeting and everything goes back to normal.

When I first saw the episode, I was a little confused.  I actually still have a few questions.  The most obvious is why the anger.  Everyone’s fighting.  It’s said that Vulcans have the same emotions that other species do.  Why don’t you see someone laugh uncontrollably?  There might be some random officer sobbing about something trivial.   Maybe two people would be overcome with lust and be caught making out behind some barrels or something.  (Okay…Maybe that last one wouldn’t make it past the censors.)

I also wonder why Picard was used for the mind meld.  It’s something that’s very intimate and maybe even too powerful for a human to withstand.  I could see Sarek not wanting to risk his wife’s life and he may not want to be that intimate with one of his two aides.  I’d think that there would be at least one Vulcan on the ship that could fill in.

Don’t get me wrong.  Patrick Stewart does a great job conveying the range of emotions that Sarek feels for those around him and past events.  I’m just wondering why a Vulcan wasn’t used.  On that note, Mark Lenard does a great job showing a Vulcan robbed of the one thing he values most:  emotional control.  This would be difficult enough for a human.  It was a little scary the first time watching Picard serve as an anchor for Sarek.  (When the episode first aired, I was a little confused as to exactly what was going on.)

This is an excellent episode.  I’m not sure it will have the same emotional impact for those that haven’t seen the original series.  This was one of the better Next Generation episodes.

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