The Game

The Enterprise-D is in jeopardy once again as it stumbles across the rarest thing in the universe - a good Wesley episode!

Little Riker is getting Big Riker into trouble again on Risa (although all we get to see of the planet is a hotel room), when suddenly he is introduced to a VR game about putting disks into cones. In no time at all, the entire Enterprise crew are addicted to videogames and it's up to Wesley Crusher and his new fling, Ensign Robin Lefler to save them all!

Words

This is a ship-in-jeopardy story with a decidedly different feel, and another episode that took a long time to travel from concept to episode. During the previous season it had been pitched by Susan Sackett and Fred Bronson (who wrote “Ménage à Troi“), and there were two complete drafts following the pitch that ended up being scrapped in their entirety. According to Bronson, the originally idea was inspired by Tetris, which he was hopelessly addicted to - so don't listen to anyone who says that this wasn't about videogames!

For a long time, Michael Piller was utterly convinced that this concept could not be saved, but Rick Berman felt that the lack of sci-fi premises in recent episodes gave an opening, and suggested giving this one to Brannon Braga. It was his first assignment after joining the writing room as a regular. He was inspired here by the classic 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers (a must-see if you don’t know it - but don’t get fobbed off with a remake!). At some point in the process, he gave an amusing summary of his treatment: “Wesley’s come home and his family’s out to get him.” Love it!

In terms of Braga's writing, a special mention is warranted for ‘Robin's Laws’, which in some respects foreshadows the DS9 conceit of the Ferengi ‘Rules of Acquisition’, which seem to have mostly come from fellow TNG alumni Ira Steven Behr. As with so much Trek lore, it’s usually a group effort.

While Braga always admitted that it was a corny story, he had a blast writing it:

We were going for fun and high concept. It’s an atypical show in some ways and a lot of people had trouble believing Picard would become addicted and all these people would get hooked, but that’s the story. Either you tell it or you don’t. Not that we didn’t give a lot of thought to how the characters became addicted. The characters only become addicted because they were getting the game from people they trusted, which is exemplified in the notorious chocolate scene, which had a very mixed reaction, but I had a lot of fun writing it.

Sadly, this was the first episode to air following Gene Roddenberry’s death on 24 October 1991. But I think ‘the Great Bird of the Galaxy’ would have been proud of it.

Acting Roles

Obviously this entire script is a vehicle for bringing back Wil Wheaton’s Wesley Crusher, and even if there’s nothing new in the idea of a ship-in-jeopardy plot where Wesley saves the day, it still feels fresh and interesting here.

Director Corey Allen (right) with Brent Spiner and Wil Wheaton (you know who they are, right…?)

Part of that is due to the very effective pairing of Wheaton with Ashley Judd’s Robin Lefler. She first appeared in this role in the previous episode, and then never appeared in Trek ever again.

This is her first ever acting role, but not her first brush with showbusiness since she was part of country mega-trio The Judds. As you probably know, she went on to have a glittering film career after this, and I’m not at all surprised as she is great in this role and to some extent makes the episode. The pairing with Wheaton feels right from the first scene to the last, I love every time they’re on screen together... and this is not something I usually say about Wesley!

The other notable guest star is our villain, Katherine Moffat’s Etana.

Katerhine Moffat’s Etana - naughty (left) and nice (right)

She had a career of bit parts (and a few brief recurring roles) from the 1970s through to the 1990s, including Trek getting her back for DS9, a small role on Babylon 5 and, her last role as far as I know, a gig on Sliders. She’s perfectly fine here, but of course this role doesn’t exactly require much from her. Flirty in the teaser and gruff in the late acts, it’s a fairly perfunctory role, which is hardly Moffat’s fault. I do like her commanding attitude in the later acts, though, and she’s great as she all but stammers when the jig is eventually up.

It’s also great that this was an ensemble cast episode, including a brief appearance of Colm Meaney to beam Wesley aboard, and an encounter with Patti Yasutake’s Nurse Ogawa in the turbolift.

Although it divides fans, I personally love the scene Braga wrote for Marina Sirtis’ Troi…

It seems Michael Piller did too:

He delivered that script and did some wonderful things. He wrote scenes that didn’t depend on action but went straight to character; and a two minute scene with Troi and a chocolate sundae which was wonderfully written. He has an extraordinary talent to find the moments in scripts where you can throw in character development and spend the time doing that for the sheer delight of getting to know the character better – and not interrupting the flow.

A certain other member of the cast was extremely unlucky during the filming of this one, though. When Gates McFadden’s Dr Crusher deactivates Brent Spiner’s Data, Spiner came down so hard on the bed that he cut his chin open and had to go to the hospital.

They didn't even manage to get that take in the can, so when he returned to the set director Corey Allen immediately asked him to shoot it again! It's tough to be an android sometimes.

Models, Make-up, and Mattes

There’s new alien make-up for Etana, the Ktarian (see above), which is in the now-standard style of ‘slap some latex on that forehead, stat’. It's okay, but nothing exceptional.

There’s a ship (possibly the U.S.S. Zhukhov that is mentioned in dialogue) that’s portrayed using the same model (and the same shots) as the ship in “The Drumhead”.

And there’s another returning studio miniature - it’s the modified version of the Tarellian plague ship from “Haven” in exactly the same configuration that we saw in “Transfigurations”, its previous appearance. All the footage here is new, though, and it looks great.

Of course, the big SFX this week is the graphics for the game which are... well, terrible in an awesome way.

Jonathan Frakes, the master of ribbing TNG, was particularly disappointed:

They told me it was going to be this incredible graphic, and all it was… was a tuba on a checkerboard.

I can hardly argue with that! But the true achievement of “The Game” is bringing back Wesley and giving him a great episode. What’s even more amazing is that there’s an even better Wesley episode later in this season! Whatever my grumbles about season five, it does have its high points.