Attached (⭑⭑⭑)

I like “Attached.” I always have. I want it to be much better than it is, but even so, I do enjoy it. (I guess you could say that I’m…attached to it. Badoomboom!) Okay, but seriously: If I’m being honest, this is an episode with a lot of shortcomings, and one that disappoints on multiple fronts. I feel like it lacks the courage of its convictions, and it’s also hampered by broader problems that go beyond the episode itself. And yet, I enjoy the character interactions at its core, and I have always remembered it with fondness. I guess that pretty clearly adds up to three stars.

From the very beginning, TNG had always wanted to suggest that there might be something romantic between the captain and Dr. Crusher. Outside of this episode, though, the show was never very successful at making this idea particularly convincing. Thus, even though “Attached” actually does do a reasonably good job of this, it was never going to be possible for a single episode to overcome more than six seasons of failure to actually develop the character of Dr. Crusher in ways that might have made the pairing plausible. Even the idea that these two are close friends and that they typically breakfast together in the morning, which has been an established premise for some while at this point, always felt like a bit of stretch to me. Don’t get me wrong; I like the idea. I just always wanted the show to do more to convince me of it, you know? A potentially rich and interesting back story between these two characters was even built into TNG from day one, but for six solid seasons, the writers never really did much of anything with this (sometimes even seeming, inexplicably, to deliberately back off from obvious opportunities to explore it, as I’ve commented in various past reviews; see both “Conspiracy” and “Lessons,” for example)—and this on top of a series-long criminal neglect of Crusher as a character in general. Also not particularly helpful in selling the romantic potential between these two is the significant age gap. (I looked up the relevant info; apparently they’re about 19 years apart. Jack Crusher, for his part, was apparently about the same age as Picard, meaning that he and Beverly likewise had a large age gap between them. I guess the doctor has always had a thing for older men…?) So, in any event: After more than six years, the writers finally decided to actually explore the romantic angle between Picard and Crusher a bit, and honestly, they actually do a pretty good job of it. The uncomfortable, yet compellingly intimate, nature of suddenly being able to read each others’ thoughts is conveyed well, and the romantic tension that rises to the surface genuinely works for me. The bit where Picard gently probes at Crusher’s embarrassment over a youthful memory in which she inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings actually does some meaningful characterization work for the doctor; then, later, when she catches a whiff of the thoughts and feelings that Picard would most like to keep private from her, the earlier scene has helped establish a context for why she would explore it, and why he might let her. The deliciously awkward tension that thickens in the air during that campfire scene is gripping and utterly relatable, and the whole episode is almost made by just this one scene. And yet…imagine what the episode might have been, if the six seasons of show that came before it had more successfully built up the Crusher character, and made more of the back story between her and the captain!

The other somewhat vexing thing about the Picard/Crusher not-quite-romance surrounds the question of exactly who feels (or doesn’t feel) what, when, and for whom. Because, looking at the series as a whole, I would have to say that most of the signs of interest have historically come from her, rather than from him. Back in season one, when the writers actually seemed interested (sometimes) in the pairing (however poorly they may have handled it), we got scenes like her trying to seduce him while “drunk” in “The Naked Now,” and her processing feelings of jealously when his “old flame” showed up in “We’ll Always Have Paris”; and then, of course, there was the whole running gag of her occasionally starting to tell him some big thing that she’d been wanting to tell him for some while, but always getting interrupted, which surfaces in various episodes all the way up through season four’s “Remember Me.” Picard, on the other hand, has never really said or done anything to suggest that he harbored romantic feelings toward Crusher prior to this episode (the one time that he seemed to be doing so, in “Allegiance,” it turned out not to be the real him). In “Attached,” though, the focus is pretty one-sidedly on Picard’s attraction to and feelings for Crusher, as opposed to the other way around. Now, granted, the episode does establish a clear (and very believable and in-character) reason why, if he does have such feelings, he has never let on before. But still, when Crusher learns from his thoughts that he has long had these feelings for her, she does not react by revealing that she has feelings for him as well, nor does he acknowledge perceiving via their mind link that she has them. The focus is entirely on his feelings, and why he’s never revealed them before, etc. Beverly is gently accepting of his revelations, but she never says anything to indicate that she reciprocates his feelings. And of course, in the end, when Jean-Luc seems willing to actually explore a change in their relationship, Beverly shuts him down (just as she did four years earlier, when the alien posing as Picard in “Allegiance” tried to open the same door). So…does she have feelings of this sort for him, or doesn’t she? The writers seem to want to have it both ways. It’s frustrating, too, that said writers went as far as they did here toward confirming the hints and suggestions of previous years, only to pull back at the last moment and preserve the status quo. Sure, one can see in retrospect that this may have been intended as setup for the series finale to posit a possible future in which they end up both marrying and later divorcing, but…why? Either go there (actually, and on screen, during the run of the show), or don’t, say I.

Meanwhile, there is a secondary storyline in “Attached” concerning a civilization that wants to join the Federation even though it has not managed to achieve unity on its own home world. There were some definite interesting ideas here, but the episode is not really interested in them and in the end mostly plays this storyline for laughs, which I have always found pretty disappointing. I mean, in the opening scene with Picard and Crusher chatting over breakfast, the issues are laid out pretty nicely: the general premise of Trek somewhat preconditions one to instinctively agree with Picard that planetary unity “says something” about a people’s readiness to join the larger interplanetary community, but Crusher’s Australia analogy seems sound to me (despite whatever objection Picard was about to raise before being interrupted, in what has always felt to me like a cop-out on the part of the writers). And indeed, when you think about it at all, Picard’s position really makes very little sense; the existence of a group of people who don’t want to join together with another group doesn’t necessarily “say” anything at all about that second group. All else being equal, one could, with equal justification, fault humans and other Federation types for not having achieved unity with the Romulans or the Cardassians, as fault the Kes for the separatism of the Prytt. (And then, of course, need I bring up the Vulcan/Romulan rift?) Still, the prospect of a Federation world with a separate, isolationist, non-aligned people also living on it is an interesting idea, and such a situation would no doubt give rise to interesting practical, ethical, and philosophical complications. But does the episode either a) explore any of that, or (heaven forbid) b) actually commit the show to the premise of Kesprytt joining the Federation, thus dangling the promise of future exploration of such issues? No, of course not. Instead, it retreats from the whole idea by quickly revealing that the Kes and the Prytt are not merely non-unified; they’re actively hostile toward each other. Worse, the Kes themselves turn out to be cartoonishly suspicious and paranoid, and clearly not ready for anything like Federation membership. One is, again, left wondering how these messed-up POTWs keep getting even as far as this in the process of being considered for membership (shades here of season three’s “The Hunted”). The Kes and the Prytt end up being reduced to a one-note joke—a problem to keep Riker and company occupied throughout the episode, with the payoff of a rant from our favorite first officer (as he previews his report about Kesprytt for the two peoples’ leaders) that is clearly meant to make us chuckle but kind of falls flat (at least for me). Meanwhile, the action down on the surface culminates in Picard and Crusher getting recaptured by the Prytt just moments before escaping to the relative safety of Kes territory, and Crusher impulsively pushing the captain across the border before a force field goes up, stranding her on the wrong side—only for this all to immediately prove irrelevant, as they are both beamed up to the Enterprise seconds later, since Riker has just browbeaten the two societies’ leaders into cooperating. Anticlimax much? (Maybe some points are due for the loose thematic parallel between Picard and Crusher being “attached,” like it or not, via the mind link, and the Kes and Prytt being “attached,” like it or not, by virtue of having to share a planet. But the episode can’t actually wring much meaning out of this parallel, since neither story individually really has much to say.

In short: The heart of this episode consists of some memorable and effective character interaction, largely conveyed via an uncomfortably (in a good way) relatable scene thick with romantic tension in which we learn some new information about our captain. It’s valuable for that, and I generally think of it fondly as a result. Unfortunately, though, too much of the actual story either doesn’t really work, or at least could have been much better if only the rest of the show leading up to this episode had more adequately prepared the ground for it.