The First Duty (⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑)

The second, and hands-down the best, of the three episodes to feature Wesley Crusher subsequent to his departure back in season four, “The First Duty” is gripping character drama that strikes a somewhat different tone from TNG’s norm. This is a Wesley story that is about as far away as one could get from the bad old days of him being portrayed as smarter than all the adults and the only one who could save the ship. Gone, too, are the goofy grins and cheesy naiveté of his earlier years on the show. “The Game” had already debuted a “hipper” version of the character that felt a bit truer to life, but he was still basically a golden boy in that episode. This time, we get a story about a young person making a mistake. And not just any mistake, but a reckless, illicit mistake of exactly the sort that humans are lamentably prone to making at his age (this was not falling asleep while pulling an all-nighter on a school project, which we saw in the first episode of season three)—and one that resulted in someone getting killed. Not only that, but he goes on to participate in a cover-up of what really happened! That’s kind of dark for TNG, given that we’re talking about a former regular character (“one of our own,” as Picard calls him), and that the show chose to go there is rather impressive.

The writing does an excellent job of blending plot considerations (what happened to cause the accident, etc.) with character drama, and revealing the right amount of information to the audience. We know from the first scene between Wesley and Nick Locarno that the cadets are hiding something, but we remain in suspense about what exactly they actually did until later in the episode when Picard works it out. Meanwhile, we are treated to scenes like the agonizing one where the dead cadet’s father apologizes to Wesley, and the one where Dr. Crusher blithely assumes that Wesley is innocent of any wrongdoing even though his testimony has just been contradicted by video evidence. Also, I really appreciate the characterization of Cadet Locarno, who could easily have been written as an over-the-top villain but who instead comes across in an appropriately nuanced way. He undeniably has something of the bully about him, but you also see his charm, and you can empathize with Wes and the rest of the team for allowing themselves to be swayed by him. Plus, of course, he proves to be as good as his word, assuming most of the blame for the incident once the truth has come out so as to save the others’ future careers. (Voyager later choosing to cast the same actor for a regular character with a similar background, but not just have that character be Locarno, was just one of the many, many irredeemably dumb things that that show would do.)

But anyway… The dramatic core of the episode, of course, is watching the normally uber-responsible, uber-perfect Wesley wrestle with his conscience after having done something wrong, torn between covering up the truth to protect his career (and those of his friends) vs. doing the right thing by speaking up, even though it feels like betraying the other (surviving) members of his team. He initially makes the wrong choice, even, and he seemingly would have stuck with it if not for Picard’s intervention! To portray Wes as doing the right thing, but only at the last possible moment—and even then only under duress (since Picard threatened to expose the truth if he didn’t cop to it himself)—was a gutsy move, but it was very clearly the right one, dramatically speaking. I appreciate, too, that the episode ends with an acknowledgement that there will be consequences and real fallout for Wesley, and a suggestion that the incident will actually change him. Our wunderkind boy genius, who was an “acting ensign” at age 14 and who, we learn in this episode, beat out several upperclassmen for a spot on the elite Nova Squadron, will now not advance along with his classmates, and the shadow of this incident will hang over his remaining time at the academy. Really, so much about this episode represents the show being willing to take things in surprising directions.

The most memorable scene in the episode, for me, has always been the one in which Picard confronts Wesley and delivers the speech from which the title is derived. It’s such a tense and uncomfortable scene, making you feel just what Wes is feeling as he realizes that his captain knows what he did—and knows, too, that he lied about it at the inquiry. Picard calling back to the first time he met Wesley, in the scene from Encounter at Farpoint where Dr. Crusher brings Wes onto the bridge, is a nice touch, too…and then, of course, the line about how he never questioned his decision to make Wes an acting ensign, or that he would grow up to be a outstanding officer…until now. The sting of having Captain Picard tell you that you have disappointed him is no small thing! (We heard him say something strikingly similar to this to Worf once, in season four, and it stung then, too.) And then… “The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth!” is a line that I (nerdily) have often repeated as an expression of my own commitment to integrity, and to looking reality squarely in the face, over the years (translating “Starfleet officer” to “admirable person,” more or less). I’ve always appreciated, too, how Picard further delineates this principle, applying it to multiple facets of life: “scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth.” (One only wishes that more people in our times would embrace truth in all of these contexts…) It’s just a really great Picard speech—and it’s made even better when in the very next scene, Nick Locarno mocks it! Wes tells Locarno that Picard knows everything and that he (Wes) has decided to come clean, and Locarno is all like: “He got to you, didn’t he? Picard told you some big story about duty and honor.” And when Wes essentially confirms this by looking vaguely sheepish, he adds: “Well, it must have been a pretty good speech to make you turn your back on your friends.” (You weren’t there, Nick, so you can mock…but yeah, it was pretty good.)

All of this would be enough in itself to make a first-rate episode, but we actually get even more. Not forgetting the back story that the show had previously established about the captain’s relationship with a groundskeeper named Boothby during his own academy years, “The First Duty” gives us Picard duly seeking the old fellow out (as one would, during a visit to the alma mater), thus allowing us to meet him for the first time. But more than that, it even sketches in some additional back story that resonates with the main story surrounding Wesley! We don’t get details, but by revealing that Picard himself got into some kind of potentially serious trouble while at the academy, and that Boothby played, for him, essentially the same role that Picard plays in this episode for Wesley, the story takes on more universal dimensions. The point isn’t that Wesley screwed up, or that Locarno is a bad influence, or that Picard is disappointed in his protégé; the point is that everyone screws up and does the wrong thing sometimes, and what’s important is what you do next. Do you own up, course correct, and do whatever you can to make amends, or do you let your initial misstep (however serious) divert you onto a path that just keeps getting wronger and wronger? Of course, having mentor figures who genuinely want what’s best for you is always helpful, but as the words that Boothby says to Picard and that Picard then repeats to Wesley imply, we generally know on our own what we need to do in such a situation; the challenge is in choosing to actually do it. And the full-circle aspect to the story, wherein his mysterious youthful transgression and his gratitude to Boothby for helping him through it inform Picard’s stern but compassionate handling of Wesley, adds a delightful layer to both the episode and to the captain as a character. (Along with the banter in the teaser about Picard having been called to the superintendent’s office a time or two as a cadet, this hints in the direction of the arrogant troublemaker that our captain was in his youth—something that we’ll learn more about in a future brilliant episode.)

One nitpick that I should raise before wrapping up this review concerns how odd it is that the show is so very much more interested in the Wesley-Picard relationship than it is in Wes’s relationship with his mother, even though Dr. Crusher (of course) is also one of the show’s main characters (!). I mean, in some respects, I’m okay with this. We don’t get many scenes of Beverly interacting with Wesley here, but we can assume that they do interact more than what we see; the story just chooses to focus on the Picard-Wes relationship more. In a vacuum, that’s perfectly valid. It’s just that Crusher is supposed to be (as I noted) a main character in her own right, and she’s such a chronically underused and underdeveloped character. If even an episode like this one, where the plot revolves around her son screwing up and being in a serious accident and covering up his misdeeds and then being persuaded to come clean and all that, can’t carve out more of a role for her than the rather minimal one that she plays here, then what’s the point of her? This is mostly more of a criticism of the show’s handling of her as a whole than a flaw of this episode in particular, but it needed to be mentioned. (Also, though…when the academy superintendent contacts the ship to inform them that Wes was in an accident, she asks to speak privately to Picard as “a close friend of the Crusher family,” rather than to Dr. Crusher herself!? That doesn’t make sense.)

(I guess another small nitpick is this: Why was the superintendent going to close the inquiry for lack of evidence proving that the cadets were lying (until Wes fessed up), given that the video footage captured via satellite directly contradicted their testimony? Something doesn’t quite add up there. But, whatever.)

Final comments: This episode also portrays Starfleet Academy for the first time ever, and I’ve always been pleased with the look and feel of it as realized here. Also, in contrast to Voyager‘s missed opportunity (or rather, dropped ball) concerning Locarno, there is another member of Nova Squadron whom we will see again, even though her role in this episode is insignificant on its own—and that’s pretty cool. 🙂