"Encounter at Farpoint" (Episode 1, Season 1, Air Date 09/28/87, Star-date 41153.7) restarted Roddenberry's Star Trek years after 'Star Trek: The Original Series', beginning a new search across the universe much in the tradition of the original. It set a thoughtful, imaginative, and visionary tone for the entire 7 season series.
The most interesting feature of this two-part episode consists of little gems below the surface of the show, not the overall plot. But I thought some character actions contradicted its main questions and tests (more on this below): Is humanity civilized? Are we 'savage lifeforms' or a 'dangerous child race'? Can we ever advance to the point where we are not dominated by war, drugs, and immorality? Patrick Stewart plays Captain Picard and enters the series in a dramatic emergency. A God-like alien called Q confronts Picard and his crew with the record of 'savage' wars in our past. Q puts Picard and humanity on trial to decide whether we should be allowed to exist or be exterminated. And then the rest of the episode puts Picard to the test against the mystery of a new Farpoint station and an interesting space-dwelling organism.
However, my question as I re-watched this episode was whether the show violates its own test of humanity. Picard challenges Q to test him and his crew as an example of humanity's current state of sophistication. Picard seems apt to pass the test of civilization's moral worth; he intelligently investigates Farpoint to solve the mystery, he is not prone to cause destruction with evil intentions, and his crew responds automatically to emergencies and the needs of the injured.
But does his crew (both human and Klingon) sometime act like irresponsible imbeciles? The answer is a huge yes. Possibly it is done consciously and by intention. Several crew members act without thinking: Tasha wants to fight Q (which would be lethal since he is an almost all powerful being) and Worf thinks about blasting an image of Q on the front viewer of the ship. Obviously humans (and Klingons) need additional growth to shed their war-like tendencies.
In addition, the crew is typically compelled to act like dare devils; Picard ignores probabilities at times and pushes the ship to speeds well past safety limits. He even tries a new maneuver to separate the ship's saucer section when he never ever tested the procedure at such high speeds. My question was: How will this crew survive Q's test at this rate? And will it instead prove that our emotional prejudices against reason and probabilities will be our demise?
Here are some highlights I enjoyed:
(1) Data announces his desire to be more human-like. This makes me ask: Should Data learn to whistle and become more human, or should he ignore silly human qualities and take pride in his own characteristics? Since he strives to be more human than he is, he sets out on a goal to participate in the Form of Humanity (as Plato might say) as closely as he can; he is like one of Plato's imperfect instances or shadows of a Form, always trying to attain a more perfect human Form or identity (Plato's 'Republic' or 'Phaedo').
(2) Data points out that humans tend to be prejudiced against machines, which makes Riker wonder whether Data thinks he is superior than humans. Data says he is in many ways (in a matter of fact way). Of course, Riker probably knows that by simply pointing to a prejudice, Data doesn't imply any thoughts of superiority.
Cool technology: (3) Introduction of the Holodeck. (4) The ship computer can locate any crew member anywhere (a little frightening for privacy). (5) The ship has a low gravity gym. (6) Dr. Crusher uses a paperless and thin, hand held, computerized screen to do her work.
(7) Admiral McCoy inspects the ship and converses with Data, who he compares to a Vulcan and calls 'boy' a lot for some reason.
(8) Wesley Crusher gets to visit the bridge and show off his knowledge of ship equipment. Picard feels uncomfortable around kids, but even he can't avoid sharing in the wonder of a child examining the bridge for the first time.
(9) The alien space-dwelling organisms in the episode are able to transfer energy into matter at will (in a more advanced way than ship transporters). They can safely live in space, reminiscent of the space child born at the end of Kubrick's '2001 - A Space Odyssey'.
(10) Q says he might be back and he will be. Q was never my favorite invention in the series, but a few interesting ideas become possible through such a powerful being.
Gene Roddenberry reimagined the show with a larger crew and cast than the original series; the captain is older, many children live on ship with their parents, the ship lighting looks more like a Kubrick film (compare it to '2001: A Space Odyssey' or even 'The Shining'), a mysterious android joins the crew, and many characters have special abilities.
But as Stephen Hawking points out, Star Trek doesn't generally imagine humans as much more biologically or personally advanced than us (see Ch. 6 on Star Trek in Hawking's 'The Universe in a Nutshell'), except for those few special cases listed below.
LeVar Burton as Geordi has enhanced vision, Marina Sirtis as Deanna has extra sensory powers for the emotions of other lifeforms (through her half-Betazoid/half-human empathy), Brent Spiner as Data has immense physical strength and far superior mental processing, and later we find that Wil Wheaton (as Wesley Crusher) has potential to become a time traveler and the 'Mozart' of understanding technology.
I think the episode highlights the struggle to overcome our flaws, and perhaps it highlights just how much SF depends on hubris and a lucky turn of events to save us! Can humanity dare to hope for such luck too?
The most interesting feature of this two-part episode consists of little gems below the surface of the show, not the overall plot. But I thought some character actions contradicted its main questions and tests (more on this below): Is humanity civilized? Are we 'savage lifeforms' or a 'dangerous child race'? Can we ever advance to the point where we are not dominated by war, drugs, and immorality? Patrick Stewart plays Captain Picard and enters the series in a dramatic emergency. A God-like alien called Q confronts Picard and his crew with the record of 'savage' wars in our past. Q puts Picard and humanity on trial to decide whether we should be allowed to exist or be exterminated. And then the rest of the episode puts Picard to the test against the mystery of a new Farpoint station and an interesting space-dwelling organism.
However, my question as I re-watched this episode was whether the show violates its own test of humanity. Picard challenges Q to test him and his crew as an example of humanity's current state of sophistication. Picard seems apt to pass the test of civilization's moral worth; he intelligently investigates Farpoint to solve the mystery, he is not prone to cause destruction with evil intentions, and his crew responds automatically to emergencies and the needs of the injured.
But does his crew (both human and Klingon) sometime act like irresponsible imbeciles? The answer is a huge yes. Possibly it is done consciously and by intention. Several crew members act without thinking: Tasha wants to fight Q (which would be lethal since he is an almost all powerful being) and Worf thinks about blasting an image of Q on the front viewer of the ship. Obviously humans (and Klingons) need additional growth to shed their war-like tendencies.
In addition, the crew is typically compelled to act like dare devils; Picard ignores probabilities at times and pushes the ship to speeds well past safety limits. He even tries a new maneuver to separate the ship's saucer section when he never ever tested the procedure at such high speeds. My question was: How will this crew survive Q's test at this rate? And will it instead prove that our emotional prejudices against reason and probabilities will be our demise?
Here are some highlights I enjoyed:
(1) Data announces his desire to be more human-like. This makes me ask: Should Data learn to whistle and become more human, or should he ignore silly human qualities and take pride in his own characteristics? Since he strives to be more human than he is, he sets out on a goal to participate in the Form of Humanity (as Plato might say) as closely as he can; he is like one of Plato's imperfect instances or shadows of a Form, always trying to attain a more perfect human Form or identity (Plato's 'Republic' or 'Phaedo').
(2) Data points out that humans tend to be prejudiced against machines, which makes Riker wonder whether Data thinks he is superior than humans. Data says he is in many ways (in a matter of fact way). Of course, Riker probably knows that by simply pointing to a prejudice, Data doesn't imply any thoughts of superiority.
Cool technology: (3) Introduction of the Holodeck. (4) The ship computer can locate any crew member anywhere (a little frightening for privacy). (5) The ship has a low gravity gym. (6) Dr. Crusher uses a paperless and thin, hand held, computerized screen to do her work.
(7) Admiral McCoy inspects the ship and converses with Data, who he compares to a Vulcan and calls 'boy' a lot for some reason.
(8) Wesley Crusher gets to visit the bridge and show off his knowledge of ship equipment. Picard feels uncomfortable around kids, but even he can't avoid sharing in the wonder of a child examining the bridge for the first time.
(9) The alien space-dwelling organisms in the episode are able to transfer energy into matter at will (in a more advanced way than ship transporters). They can safely live in space, reminiscent of the space child born at the end of Kubrick's '2001 - A Space Odyssey'.
(10) Q says he might be back and he will be. Q was never my favorite invention in the series, but a few interesting ideas become possible through such a powerful being.
Gene Roddenberry reimagined the show with a larger crew and cast than the original series; the captain is older, many children live on ship with their parents, the ship lighting looks more like a Kubrick film (compare it to '2001: A Space Odyssey' or even 'The Shining'), a mysterious android joins the crew, and many characters have special abilities.
But as Stephen Hawking points out, Star Trek doesn't generally imagine humans as much more biologically or personally advanced than us (see Ch. 6 on Star Trek in Hawking's 'The Universe in a Nutshell'), except for those few special cases listed below.
LeVar Burton as Geordi has enhanced vision, Marina Sirtis as Deanna has extra sensory powers for the emotions of other lifeforms (through her half-Betazoid/half-human empathy), Brent Spiner as Data has immense physical strength and far superior mental processing, and later we find that Wil Wheaton (as Wesley Crusher) has potential to become a time traveler and the 'Mozart' of understanding technology.
I think the episode highlights the struggle to overcome our flaws, and perhaps it highlights just how much SF depends on hubris and a lucky turn of events to save us! Can humanity dare to hope for such luck too?