Episode One, Encounter at Farpoint Station Part One
My first thought as the episode opens is the bridge is so empty, no Riker, Geordi, and Dr Crusher, the set itself looks sparse, spread out especially in the shots from the doorway looking down. Everything also looks like it’s made of cardboard, and this is true of all the sets for this episode, Farpoint Station with its sparse market and plastic fruit Not only are we missing bowls. You notice it less in the courtroom scenes because it’s so full of people you can barely see the sets, which is probably on purpose. It’s as if it’s an intentional nod to the original series, but also it looks like they weren’t certain this new show with a new crew was going to work and so didn’t want to invest too much money into the sets early on. This nervousness probably also explains the cameo later. The first season was run in syndication, as none of the big networks would commit to a full season, so even though it would run 1.3 million per episode, most of that money went into shots of the outside of the ship, meaning sets would need to be reused more often. There are other small things that will change in time, in this first episode the captain’s log is supplementary, not yet supplemental. And our first scene of Picard drinking Earl Grey, hot, is in a weird handle-less cup, making it futuristic looking but unwieldy.
My second thought is Troi’s headband and original series length uniform! We’ll see her uniform change over time; they’ll give her pants eventually but what she gains in length will cause her neckline to plunge. Again, it feels like a little bit of a nod to the original series, but when you compare her uniform and demeanor to Tasha Yar’s, it feels like the show is clearly signaling that the demurer Troi is the one they expect men to be more attracted to. Her lines are much more simplistic as well, playing captain obvious when she shouts, “He’s frozen!” when the unfortunate red shirt does indeed fall, covered in ice.
Q enters dressed as Christopher Columbus! And then a World War Two soldier! And then a late 21st century soldier who drugs himself!! The decision to include Q from the very beginning is an interesting one. We have a ship full of not just humans, but also other races from different planets. Troi is half Betazoid, Worf is Klingon, and Data is an android. Why Q thinks they and the other non-humans on the ship must go back to earth is never really explained. Also to have humanity at its very best, in the 24th century, judged as just as terrible and war hungry as those of us in the 21st was a bold move, when most of the appeal of Star Trek is the warm cozy feeling that in the end, humanity does ok. We aren’t truly as awful as history and the nightly news would have us believe. The inclusion of Q and the later courtroom scenes set in the late 21st century, (2079, according to Q), give us a glimpse of something we’re told about in the Original Series and movies, but don’t get to see.
The idea of families living on the ship was such an interesting choice, but it makes sense. This is a science mission, not a war mission. This seems to be something the writers really wanted to impress upon the viewer, both in this scene and later when Picard confesses to Riker that he’s uncomfortable around children, so he needs Riker to help him look cool around the kids. This tells us something about Picard as a person, that this would be top of mind for him, that he recognizes a flaw in himself and seeks help from his Number One to improve that flaw, or at least hide it better.
Much like with the original series, the show is set in a more evolved time culturally, but it never quite escapes the culture of the 80’s and 90’s. We get the man in a dress uniform, which feels like a step up in acceptance of gender non-conformity and subtle queer coding that says, “We’re cool, just don’t ask us to have two men holding hands or anything”. But we also get the casual racism of the courtroom scene, where the two Asian characters are dressed in a very specific way that is different from all of the other characters in the room. There also appear to be no Black people in 2079, if this scene is meant to represent the demographics of the time. Of course, except for Geordi, we don’t see very many Black characters in the 24th century either. Which also feels like a choice of when the show was filmed, and not the time it is set. It will be interesting to see how and if this evolves in later seasons.
The separating and reconnecting of the Enterprise makes some choices, and it’s clear they blew most of the budget on the separation, which takes several minutes while the theme song plays triumphantly. The reconnecting is something we see on a tiny screen, and even though Riker is ordered to do it manually, takes very little time at all, and is not nearly as sexy as it could have been. Ah well, missed opportunities.
Tasha Yar, was there already a writer or executive who didn’t like Denise Crosby? We get her kicking ass, which is awesome, but then she gets frozen and must be rescued by well meaning words by the captain. She was a character type we were slowly getting more of, an aggressive woman who used her fists and feet more than her sexuality, but it is frustrating to see her still being held back from what she could become.
The courtroom scene doesn’t completely work for me. For one thing, the lighting on Picard’s face is so weird, with the top shaded. And yet in other scenes shot from above, there’s nothing that would have shaded his face in that way. What on earth was going on with that lighting? It also just feels really talky and, if we’re talking about the spectators, shouty. Nothing really gets resolved, and again both the Betazoid and the android are somehow being held responsible for the faults of humanity.
Cut to Farpoint Station, where we finally get Riker, Geordi, Dr Crusher, and Wesley. No beard on Riker yet, he looks so young without it, Jonathan Frakes was 35 at the time but looks 21. Riker likes apples, which I can’t tell is more of a nod to Adam and Eve or Snow White. Or, maybe, an apple is just an apple in the 24th century. Wil Wheaton is so young here, and they only know how to write one boy character in 1987, don’t they? A little precocious and talks too much and overshares. I don’t remember Dr Crusher being this cold and suspicious of men as she is here, although she does give Riker credit when the fabric she wants to buy changes pattern. We get very little of Geordi in this episode, which is a shame.
It’s very weird how the show shifts gear towards the end of the episode. We’ve been in this very distressing place where a handful of people, (and Klingons and Betazoids and androids), are held accountable for all the sins of humanity. And then, we get a Deforest Kelly cameo! Dr, (now admiral) McCoy still won’t beam down, although at 100 plus years old I don’t know if I blame him. He’s wearing the pants of the Original Series uniform and still seems to have some centenarian views when it comes to women, (she’s a fine lady if you handle her right), and Vulcans (androids are almost as bad.) The new ship, but she’s got the right name line still gets me though. The old man makeup is a little overdone, and he has more of a southern twang than he had in the original series, but it is nice to have him here. Of all of the original series characters, McCoy was the most curmudgeonly and set in his ways, it would have been interesting to see what he’d make of Q. It’s a shame they didn’t write him in a little more so we could have seen that interaction, according to Picard this weird old admiral was on the ship the whole time so there’s really no excuse not to take advantage of using him while he was there. Kelley still had 12 years left in him, he would die at the age of 79 in 1999, I don’t see why they wouldn’t use him in 1987 as more than just nostalgia bait at the end of the episode.
Watching now in 2025, I can see mixed in with the idealism moralization that was in line with the late 80’s, (the Orwellian drug sniffing 2079 soldiers may as well have been poster boys for the DARE campaign). The idea that humanity at its base is cruel and violent is something I’m still uncomfortable with as much as I was as an 11-year-old child but looking around and seeing the constant threat of gun violence, it doesn’t feel as far-fetched. I grew up around guns, and it would just be the next summer after this episode aired that I would shoot one for the first time, but it never felt at the time like something to be proud of or make a big deal over. It feels like the more we rely on weapons to be safe, the less safe we become. Of course, even when our phasers are set to stun, we run the risk of getting frozen.
I have always liked Dr McCoy as a character, both the DeForest Kelly and the Karl Urban versions. Watching the original series and movies, it felt good to have someone there who was a little less high-minded, was allowed to become frustrated and mildly swear, (the Dammit Jim tattoo on my left shoulder can attest to how appealing that aspect of the character was to me). But he was also kind, and loyal to his friends, even the ones he pretended to hate. I think in many ways he was the character most like my father, but where at the end of the day McCoy could enjoy a laugh with Spock and Jim at his own expense, Dad would hold a grudge against it for years. McCoy may generalize about all Vulcans, but there was also respect between McCoy and Spock in a way I never saw my dad relate to people of color.
We have unresolved issues at the end of the first episode, which feels truer to life than the stand alone episodes, but not nearly as satisfying as wrapping a story up in forty odd minutes. It would certainly make my life easier if that was all the time it took.
