Darmok

Picard's life in danger and Troi to the rescue in this one-of-a-kind sci-fi tale about language and metaphor

‘Enigmatic’ isn’t a word Picard resorts to often, so you know there’s something of a mystery coming up - and when the teaser establishes that the Children of Tama are ’incomprehensible’, you’d be forgiven for doubting that what you’re about to watch could turn out to be something as wonderfully unique as this episode. When Captain Picard is beamed down to a planet with the captain of the Tamarian ship, Worf suspects a challenge and Picard refuses to pick up the knife he is offered. But it is not a duel against one another, but a chance to co-operate against a deadly invisible enemy - can the Enterprise crew solve the riddle in the Tamarian’s language before it's too late...?

Words

My friends and I were blown away by this episode - indeed, one of my friends from my computer science degree named his own server ‘Tanagra’ after this story. It will come as no surprise that it began as a spec script from someone outside the core writing team, namely Philip LaZebnik - who worked as a writer on Pocahontas, Mulan, The Prince of Egypt, and The Road to El Dorado (as well as being one of many writers sacrificed to “Devil’s Due” earlier in TNG). LaZebnik had pitched his original idea back in season three, more than two years before it became an episode, and had been resisted from the start by Rick Berman, who disliked the premise. Michael Piller was always intrigued by the idea, however, and gave it to Joe Menosky to develop.

LaZebnik’s original tale involved the away team meeting in turn a mysterious boy drawing images in the dirt who greeted everyone with a single word, “Darmok?” No matter what they said, they were each catapulted into orbit inside a strange cocoon. Eventually, Picard realises that ‘Darmok’ means play, and sits down in the dirt with the child. Menosky felt this was rather too much like the ‘Bridge of Death’ in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and rejected the premise. As far as I can tell, everything that makes this episode tick comes from Menosky’s efforts to reconfigure the original concept - and the only thing he seems to have kept is the word ‘Darmok’.

But Menosky did not find this easy. He struggled with it for many days without getting any progress. He later recalled:

When Michael reconvened the staff to talk about it, I truly thought that I might be fired. But Michael was really excited. He’d just seen Dances with Wolves and was completely blown away by the scene with Kevin Costner’s character and the Native American warrior around the campfire, who don’t speak a word of each other’s language, but finally make themselves understood. Michael announced, ‘That's it: one man, one alien, alone on a planet, around a fire. They don’t know each other’s languages, they struggle to overcome their differences, and finally break through to communication. And maybe there’s a big monster.’

From this germ of an idea, Menosky began to make progress. He sent a memo (shown below) to Piller with an outline for themes around communication, languages, and mythology... He was inspired by the work of psychologist James Hillman, who had famously said of language “all is metaphor”, along with poet and translator John Ciardi’s remark “Every word is a poem”, with some further influence from the use of historical metaphor in the I Ching.

His final screenplay was a triumph, and Berman was won around, later calling it one of his all-time favourite episodes. Patrick Stewart was also impressed, calling it “a brilliantly written episode based on the myth of Gilgamesh”. A month after it aired, Stewart was asked to speak at the funeral of Gene Roddenberry, and referenced “Darmok” in his speech. Menosky was touched:

He used it as a way to validate and praise Gene’s creation. That moment might have been the proudest I’ve ever been about anything I’ve written for Star Trek.

Quite possibly the greatest high concept story I’ve ever encountered on television.

Acting Roles

So much of this episode is a double act between Patrick Stewart’s Captain Picard and Paul Winfield’s Captain Dathon, which is great news as the two are magnificent together. Their growing relationship, despite the enormous linguistic gulf between them, is the hypnotic core of the episode.

Winfield is no stranger to Trek, of course, having memorably played Captain Terrell in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

His career started in 1965, and is full of other roles that every sci-fi nerd should know, including the Vodoo houngan who befriends the main character in The Serpent and the Rainbow, and Lieutenant Traxler in The Terminator. But he was also a serious actor, picking up an Oscar nomination for his performance in 1973’s Sounder, and Emmy nominations for his roles in King and Roots: The Next Generation. Patrick Stewart was thrilled to work with Winfield, calling him “one of our most distinguished guest stars”.

Solid support is provided by Richard Allen as the Tamarian first officer, who had previously played a small role in “The Ensigns of Command”.

His performance here is assured and forceful, pairing well with Winfield in his bridge scenes, and offering a convincing leader in his captain’s absence.

And who’s this in the lower decks assisting LeVar Burton's LaForge? Why, it’s none other than the youngest member of country trio The Judds (Ashley Judd) as Ensign Robin Lefler.

We'll see her again in a month’s time, but you’d hardly know back in 1991 that she was headed for movie stardom that would eventually eclipse her sister Wynonna’s fame as a country singer.

Lots to spot on the lower decks, too. We get a bit of Colm Meaney as Miles O'Brien (left), but it's all just transporter room bumf and after letting him out a bit last season it all feels a bit meagre here. There’s also Jocelyn Robinson at the Conn (right), and Tracee Lee Cocco (centre, marked with the LCARs bracket) lurking about at the back of the bridge, but no speaking lines and no mention in the script for either of them.

On top of the guest cast, there’s plenty for everyone in the main cast to do this week, with a successfully constructed ensemble cast story back on the ship. During the process of keeping everyone busy, Michael Dorn’s Worf tries to take a shuttle to the planet’s surface, but has a thruster shot out by the Tamarians, forcing him to retreat (Worf 11, Aliens 15) but later gets his own back by knocking out their particle beam emitters (Worf 12, Aliens 16) bringing him to 3-2 for the season, and we’re only two episodes in!

The most memorable aspect of keeping the ensemble cast busy this week, however, is that Marina Sirtis’ Troi is actually allowed to solve the mystery this time. While everyone chips in, it is Troi who puts the pieces together and unravels the nature of the Children of Tama’s language. Of course, this doesn’t matter too much in practice, as Picard works it all out on his own down on El Adrel IV, but at least the writers are finally giving Troi a chance!

Models, Make-up, and Mattes

There’s a real commitment to the latex designed for the Children of Tama, which is far from the lazy ‘plop a little latex on their faces’ approach that is starting to dominate.

Lots of location work this week, which was all shot at Bronson Caves, which as this production map shows, is very close to the Paramount Studios.

Meanwhile in the SFX department, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Tamarian starship was a new model - but this is a clever redress of the Talarian observation craft from “Suddenly Human”.

This studio miniature has two more at-bats in DS9 and Voyager, but this is the last time we seek it in TNG. Notice how they shoot it almost entirely from below to make it feel big, whereas in its last appearance it was shot from above and with the Enterprise-D in the foreground, to make it feel titchy.

But the lover of classic special effects in me has to single out Rex Pierson’s man-in-a-monster-suit performance as the Entity at El-Adrel IV as the highlight of episode’s SFX. They cover over the limitations by making the creature invisible, so it phases in and out, making it feel much more menacing.

Great performances, a brilliantly inventive story, and wonderful special effects? This is one of season five’s two truly outstanding episodes - but alas we’ve a long way to go to get to the other one…