I used to think of this episode as a semi-bright-spot in the mostly dismal first season, and not without reason. Still, it’s fraught with problems. On a character level, the Wesley story works, is a good way to use the character, and even creates a moment at the end (the scene with him and Picard) that I quite like. Finally, as we start to approach the end of the season, the fundamental Picard-Wesley character dynamic that gives the latter character a reason for existing begins to emerge here—and the scene is also a rare-for-first-season instance of an end-of-episode statement of “message” (or put less negatively, theme) that actually feels earned, and contains wisdom, rather than being heavy-handed and obvious and/or painfully stupid. On the other hand, very little of the actual plot or events of either storyline stands up to scrutiny, or can be justified as anything that resembled a good idea—and most of the shipboard story is actually pretty bad. The Wesley character stuff and the overall structure and themes of the episode, however, still stand up well enough to qualify the episode for a two-star rating.
Wesley taking an “entrance exam” for the Academy was a good story idea, but the nature of the exam makes it look as though practically no one can actually get into the Academy! That is not how it should be. In particular, what’s the point of making it a competition and only allowing one “winner,” even though (as the examiner acknowledges) all four of them really are qualified? That said, the testing scenes are all very watchable, and Wesley’s interactions with the other candidates are handled well. Along the way, too, there’s even a scene between Wesley and (of all people) Worf that isn’t half-bad, and that constitutes one of the first-ever sincere and not-really-dumb attempts at character development for the Klingon. Also in the plus column are the episode’s efforts to relate its two storylines thematically; the symmetrical structure wherein Wesley starts the episode apologizing to a peer on the ship about having out-competed him, then finds himself on the other side of a similar situation with the winning candidate in the end; and the fact that this is a rare quieter story into which the writers don’t seem to have felt the need to try to inject astronomical stakes. The “psyche test” does a decent job of developing Wesley as a character, and the whole episode comes together around themes of being tested, how we define “measuring up,” and continuing to try after an initial failure. On these levels, the episode was really quite nicely done.
As for the shipboard plot, I find it ill-conceived in basic premise and rather poorly executed as well. To start with the latter: Once again, nothing good is served by having the inspector character (Remick) come across as a complete dick from minute one—and having him reveal a different attitude in his final scene, I’m afraid, totally fails to save him. If the intent was to portray a good guy doing a thankless job, and butting up against the regular characters as a result—i.e., situational friction between people who might get along in different circumstances—then every scrap of dialogue and everything about the way that the actor approached the part needed to be thrown out and replaced with something better. I should say, too, that for their part, the regular characters are far too defensive, and let themselves be provoked way too easily. Children behave in this way, but not Starfleet officers (or even reasonably mature adults, period—but especially not the competent, professional officers of Starfleet that we are supposed to see the Enterprise folks as being). In addition, the notion that the admiral behind the whole thing is an “old friend” of Picard’s is something we are told a couple of times, but never shown; it never feels real.
But beyond these issues of execution, the purpose underlying this whole plot—a setup for the coming episode “Conspiracy”—is just ill-conceived. While I certainly laud the writers for aspiring to serialize the show a bit and trying to tell a larger, multipart story, the particular story aspired to is much too large to be treated as it is treated here. This episode contains dark hints at really huge, big bad things—things that are basically ignored by Picard, and are then totally dropped by the show until six episodes later. To do a story about a sinister, unknown force infiltrating the highest levels of Starfleet, and an ironically conspiratorial group of officers joining together to fight it, you would really have to make that story the focus of your whole show—or at least of a season or so of it—and build everything around that. It’s not something you can hint at in one episode, then unveil and resolve in another, and never mention otherwise. Plus, even if it could be done in two episodes, this one does a piss-poor job of setting it up; there’s a total lack of anything at all concrete (like what the hell the admiral is even talking about!), and Picard totally shrugs it off, and the proposal of promoting Picard to admiral and putting him in charge of the Academy comes out of nowhere (and what it was actually supposed to accomplish is scarcely even addressed). One is simply left wondering what in the hell it was all supposed to be about—and not in a suspenseful way, but in a “that was just weird” way. Unfortunate.
Oh, and also—this episode, not at all to its credit, introduces the recurring “it’s stupidly easy to steal an Enterprise shuttlecraft” motif. Boo.