Troi is hanging around in bars asking awkward questions with Riker, Worf, and Dr Crusher when they suddenly discover that Captain Picard has been vaporised. Yeah, right. They’re going to kill off their main character off camera. We’re all sooo convinced. Riker isn’t buying it either, and gets permission to send the Enterprise off on an investigation - whereupon he promptly gets kidnapped! Oh look, there’s Picard, hanging out with space pirates and not dead as everybody in the audience already knew. And he's telling the Pirate Captain to kill Riker. The plot thickens, and it was pretty thick to begin with. Why are these intergalactic buccaneers chasing down ancient artefacts? How will Riker and Picard escape? All these answers have to wait for Part II.
Words
Here in the teaser is the TNG debut of ‘gold pressed latinum’, which had been introduced in the first DS9 episode after the pilot. TNG had gone a long time pretending that the Federation had moved beyond money, then it was forced to admit that money was out there somewhere, but not forced to give it a name. DS9 gave it a name, and soon after a whole economy was built around gold pressed latinum. Here, it’s just a throwaway reference to Deep Space Nine rather than a cogent part of the story, but it’s a sign of what's to come all the same.
Anyway, latinum certainly wasn't any part of the spec script that the episode grew out of, which had been submitted by Christopher Hatton during season six (one of two story concepts of his that were picked up during the final season). These episodes launched Hatton’s career as a writer, as he would go on to work on a variety of sci-fi B movies and the like. His concept broke a long-standing Star Trek taboo handed down from Gene Roddenberry himself: there are no space pirates in this universe. Indeed, both Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor were sceptical of this pitch, but as Taylor was trying to scrape out any remaining nuggets out of the conceptual mineshaft she began to see in this idea a chance to make a “less talky romp”.
Rick Berman knew full well the taboo against space pirates, but was nevertheless willing to consider this proposal. Apparently, he tied a red bandana around the eyes of the bust of Gene Roddenberry that lived on his desk while they discussed the story, explaining:
I just blindfolded it as a joke one day. Whenever they come up with a story I don’t think Gene would like I blindfold him when we discuss the story…I take it on and off, depending on who’s in here.
I even found a picture of the bust!
The original spec script was constructed from Picard's perspective, and didn’t involve Riker. I think I would have preferred this framework, as it’s far too obvious that Picard isn’t dead, which wastes quite a bit of time at the start of the episode. Naren Shankar reworked Hatton’s original idea, and shared the ‘Story by’ credit with the freelancer. Shankar had mixed feelings about it spilling out into two episodes:
To me, it’s one of the classic television problems: if you start off the show by saying the captain’s dead, no one’s buying it…and you’re just marking time until the captain’s revealed.
I simply couldn’t agree more, and I don’t know why anyone thought this was the path to follow, but whatever, it is what it is.
There was a lot of resistance to pursuing this story. One of the major voices against it was Brannon Braga:
When the story was purchased, I was not attracted to the campy, swashbuckling elements and was afraid it would just look very corny. I don’t think we do campiness very well – especially in the way we tried to do it with “Gambit”. It came off like Buck Rogers: The Series and why do that? Is that good? We try many different mediums. I was curious as to why we were involving ourselves in a medium that is not usually a respected one.
As for myself, I have mixed feelings about “Gambit”. I like the intrigue on the pirate ship, where Picard gets to request that Riker gets bumped off to maintain his cover, but it’s a bit of a flabby story, and Part I takes a fair while to get rolling. This isn’t a terrible episode, but it never quite fires on all cylinders.
Acting Roles
What on earth is Sondra Huxtable doing on the bridge?
Yes, for some strange reason they decided to cast somebody extremely recognisable for comedy as an officer on the Enterprise-D. The screenplay not only gives her the name ‘Giusti’, Shankar included it in the pronunciation guides (JOOS-tee). Apparently, this character is named after one of Shankar’s personal friends. Director Peter Lauritson’s reminiscences suggest that Sabrina LeBeauf might have asked to be on the show:
Sabrina was a fan, and though she’s a professional, I think sitting down at the controls of the Enterprise kinda unnerved her a bit, but she picked it up and did fine.
In so much as we notice her at all, this puts her head and shoulders above most of the extras who sit in the front chairs
We have a brief appearance of Bruce Gray as Admiral Chekote, a role he had already played on the DS9 episode “The Circle”, which had first aired the week before this episode. He has absolutely nothing to do with the similar sounding Chakotay from Voyager, which is the only Trek show in this production run he didn’t crop up in, since they got him back for Enterprise at the end of the line.
With 180 roles, Gray has been around the block, so you’ll be unsurprised to know he was in L.A. Law before appearing in this episode. Sci-fi buffs might have seen him as an interrogator in Babylon 5, or perhaps more likely as Sky Marshall Dienes in Starship Troopers. He also cropped up in Earth: Final Conflict, Cube 2: Hypercube, and Stargate SG-1. As usual with throwaway admirals, he has no material with which to achieve any performance worth talking about.
Alan Altshuld plays the Yridian Yranac, which sounds like a tongue twister. We already had him on TNG once before, as Pomet in “Starship Mine”, but that WAM was packed and he got squeezed out.
They got him back twice in Voyager - once without latex, which must have been a relief! A very modest career, with only twelve roles, the most notable of which is as ‘Volkswagen Driver’ in 1986’s The Money Pit. He’s perfectly enjoyable in this episode, though, although barely a load-bearing part of this story.
The there’s Stephen Lee as ‘Bartender’.
He was in “The Vengeance Factor” as Chorgon, one of over a hundred forgettable roles over a career of bit parts, including playing a Sergeant in 1983’s WarGames. He’s more enjoyable here than he was in either of those other roles, but he’s largely here to wear heavy make-up and look alien, which isn’t the toughest of acting challenges.
But what about the rest of the guest cast? What about Richard Lynch as the Pirate Captain, and Robin Curtis - replacement Saavik from the movies? Well, I’m out of space so I’ll get to all of these fine folks in Part II.
Models, Make-up, and Mattes
Say hello to a brand new studio miniature representing the unnamed Space Pirate ship!
Except... it’s not really new. It’s the model used for the Miradorn Raider that appeared in the first season DS9 episode “Vortex”. Yes, TNG is now getting DS9’s hand-me-downs. The script describes this as a “sleek, dangerous-looking mercenary ship”. It was designed by Ricardo Delgado for DS9 and it seems to have been known as the Raptor behind the scenes.
There’s an absolute ton of make-up in this episode, as the pictures above make clear, but it also has the dubious honour of containing Star Trek's longest ever phaser fight shown, consisting of over seventy shots. Pew pew!
Worf. Hits. No-one. This is especially galling as at the end he just stares dumbfounded as the Space Pirates kidnap Riker, who is on the ground and there is absolutely no danger of him hitting his crewmate. It’s an inexplicable act of incompetence that is not at all covered over by the necessity of the plot. Look at him dithering here!
The location shoot took place at Griffith Park’s Cedar Grove, about twenty minutes drive from Paramount Studios with good traffic (which in Los Angeles is considered miraculous). All the explosions had to be added in post production as there was a fire season ban on live explosives at the park. It’s another great example of how while the writing team is running out of coffee, the SFX team have become Q-like in their awesome powers. Roll on Part II!
