TNG’s pilot episode is a strange mixture of elements with real merit that show the potential of the new series (albeit a potential that would largely go unrealized for the rest of the first season), and elements that just don’t work at all and prefigure many of the failings of the show’s first season. In brief, the Q elements of the story are worthwhile, and the basic idea of putting the crew “on trial”—with Q as the audience’s stand-in—is a cool device that works well on several levels as an introduction to the new series. The Farpoint/Bandi plot, however, is absolutely terrible. Additionally, both parts of the story suffer from the very cheesy, poor execution that would plague the entire season. As for the character-introducing material, much of it actually works fairly well (even surprisingly so), despite some definite missteps.
The conflict between the Enterprise people and Q, as I noted, is pretty much brilliant (all issues of execution aside). Within the reality of the episode, Q is challenging and testing humanity by treating the officers of the Enterprise as its representatives. But on a meta-level, the show is basically putting itself and its characters on trial for the audience, as successors to past incarnations of Star Trek—using Q as a meta-commentating audience surrogate (a role he will play again in more than one future episode). And on yet another level, arguably, this material represents the show engaging, at least a little bit, with the whole loaded premise underlying all incarnations of Trek, in which humanity has outgrown many of its worst characteristics. Have they, really? What does this mean, and how does the main characters’ behavior illustrate it? Especially in light of the season of badness that was in store for us following this episode, the cleverness and sophistication of this device is actually quite astounding! And it works marvelously as the centerpiece of the new series’s pilot episode.
Execution-wise, the episode opens promisingly enough, with a majestic shot of the new Enterprise followed by a brief sequence introducing Captain Picard as he tours his ship and records a log entry. Once he gets to the bridge, however, things leap much too abruptly into plot mode, allowing insufficient time for the audience to settle in and for establishment of tone and context. Q soon appears, and the ensuing back and forth between him and the captain about humanity and progress is genuinely engaging and meaty—but what follows next, unfortunately, is a lot of cheesy and failed tension-building: the jumping-through-hoops chase sequence, the whole business of separating the sections of the ship, the “we surrender” moment, etc. None of this does the episode any favors, and the fact of not being able to escape Q’s reach should have been established much more efficiently and with much less hoopla. As for the saucer separation—while it’s a cool idea for the ship to be able to do this, the episode relies way too much on that “inherent coolness,” rather than doing anything with it. Also, the first episode was probably not the right time to show (as opposed to merely mentioning/establishing) it; we barely know either the ship or its crew yet, so there are no real stakes, and it thus has no emotional impact. It also sets a precedent that the show will never be able to live up to in subsequent episodes, unless the writers were going to have our heroes separating the saucer section every time anything dangerous happens—i.e., in almost every episode.
Problems continue when we get to the courtroom/trial scene. It was an interesting idea to set this in a context that, for the characters, represents a part of their history that they are not proud of, but the problem is that for the audience, said context is merely made-up. Moreover, the episode tries really hard—and totally fails—to create a sense of danger and vulnerability in this scene. The guard who keeps shooting his machine gun never feels real enough, or like enough of a wildcard, to create any fear that he’s ever going to point it at anyone, and the main characters aren’t even roughed up or disheveled as they go through the whole “being treated like criminals” experience. Done completely differently, this scene could have been really compelling—but it isn’t. Q does manage both to be menacing and to make the audience feel the powerlessness of the main characters, and Picard acquits himself (not literally, of course) pretty well, but the scene needed major work.
The episode then moves on to arriving at Farpoint, introducing some more characters, and in general slowing down a bit and focusing on world-building and setting up character dynamics, which is very welcome. It surprises me, looking back, that the writers made the choice to start the episode with some of the regulars not yet aboard, and to show people meeting up for the first time. This was a good move, and one that I wish had been followed up on better in subsequent episodes by showing relationships evolving between them and all of them gradually transitioning from a group of strangers to a well-functioning team. Still, I appreciate the scenes of Riker, Geordi, and the Crushers meeting up planetside, for example. The whole sequence where Riker first comes aboard and meets the captain showcases both the best and the worst elements of the episode as a whole. The “manual docking” is treated as way more tense and significant than it really feels, and Picard’s general brusqueness toward Riker is definitely overplayed, but the overall manner of his approach to establishing a working relationship with his new first officer is a classic piece of the series—especially the part where he questions Riker about not letting his previous captain beam down. (But the “I don’t like children” bit is somewhat awkward.) The episode also has some interesting Data material (especially the scenes, both in the holodeck and down on the planet, that start to establish—of all things—a working relationship between him and Riker), though on the whole he is (as he would remain all season long) too goofy here, and not quite the Data of later years. Yar, Worf, and Troi, on the other hand, all fare very poorly throughout the pilot. In Worf’s case, the episode barely pays any attention to him at all—an odd choice given that Klingons had been enemies of the Federation last we knew, but one that will be characteristic of his treatment throughout much of the season. It has to be remarked, too, that no sapient being (much less a Starfleet Academy graduate) could really be as much of an idiot as Worf in his “pointing his phaser at the viewscreen” moment. This is really the guy to whom the captain entrusts command of the saucer section during the separation sequence? The less said about Troi in this episode, of course, the better. And finally, notwithstanding all the crap that’s in store in future episodes, Wesley actually seems fine here as just a kid who’s excited to be on a starship and nothing more. Some of the “character moments” in the episode work better in and of themselves than they do in context, as they often feel a bit too casual and low-key given the Q threat hanging over all the proceedings (and the lengthy Riker-and-Data holodeck scene whose pretext is that Riker is looking for Data to ask him to join an away team is particularly weird), but there’s still a lot to like about the pilot’s introduction of the main characters.
As previously mentioned, however, the Farpoint/Bandi plot is really quite bad—not even coming close, for instance, to living up to the hype heaped upon it by Q as a challenging test for Picard and his officers. For one thing, it’s just plain not very interesting. For another, the Bandi leader is an uninspired character who is far too transparently evasive and anxious about his secrets being discovered. The convenient and timely arrival of the station-creature’s “mate” makes the puzzle of what’s going on all too obvious, and if that weren’t bad enough, Q actually helps the characters figure things out in places for some reason (in between other moments when he is deliberately interfering). All in all, then, this portion of the episode is pretty much a total waste. It’s too bad, too, since if this side of things had been even just minimally adequate, the pilot as a whole might have merited a three-star rating (warts and all).