Unification I

We're off to Romulus... to find Spock. I'm sure it will make sense eventually

The teaser is just a blurry image of Spock, so I hope you recognise him (my wife didn’t) or this setup fails completely! There follows a long and rambling storyline with two parallel plotlines, neither of which is very interesting. The Captain and Data hitchhike to Romulus on a Klingon bird-of-play very, very slowly, while Riker and Troi smooth talk a Zakdorn scrapyard quartermaster for what amounts to no good reason at all - although they do get to blow up a ship. Along the way we get the last appearance of Sarek and Perrin, a whole bunch of Klingons and Romulans, and the first and only fragment of the spoken Romulan language, “jolan tru”. Quite a lot to get through, but it’s all just spinning our proverbial wheels as we wait for the concluding part next week.

Words

This episode begins with an acknowledgement of Gene Roddenberry’s death, and in many respects the entire two-part storyline is a tribute to what ‘the Great Bird of the Galaxy’ achieved through Star Trek. It began as an off-hand suggestion by then-chairman of Paramount, Frank Mancuso, Sr, during the early days of pitching the sixth Star Trek movie. Since it would be the 25th Anniversary of Star Trek, he wanted to find a way to make the film series and the new show to work together somehow. So like Spock going to Romulus, Rick Berman went to Leonard Nimoy and director of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Nicholas Meyer, and they made some trades. The movie got Michael Dorn playing his grandfather (although this is never stated on screen anywhere), and TNG got Spock. As Berman later noted, Leonard Nimoy settled for standard union rates for the gig, which for a movie star is not much:

We structured a deal with him: he got very little, a little more than scale. But with Leonard as executive producer of Star Trek VI, what you had in essence was a cross-promotion. It made everybody happy.

Nimoy was indeed one of the happy folks:

I thought that if we could do a TNG episode in which we hinted at the beginnings of a crossover between the original series and The Next Generation through the Spock character and through the backstory of Spock’s character, it would be helpful to both. I thought it would be interesting to the fans to see the connection between the two stories. It just seemed that it made sense for me to make an appearance at that point.

But it still wasn't easy coming up with a plot that Nimoy was happy with, and Berman and Michael Piller pitched many ideas before the concept of Vulcan-Romulan reunification hit the bullseye. There was a pleasing symmetry here between the film and the show - the movie was inspired by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and this two-parter was inspired by the reunification of Germany. But to Piller, the title has a deeper and more obvious significance:

We’re really telling the story of the unification of the original series and Next Generation, symbolically closing the gap that had always been in the fans’ minds, if no one else’s, between the two shows.

The metaphorical wall between old and new Star Trek was coming down once and for all.

Acting Roles

Despite teasing Spock to the audience at the very beginning, the writers cheekily held him back for the cliffhanger as well, so we basically get none of him in this episode. We do, however, get a wonderful scene with Mark Lenard as Spock’s father Sarek. Lenard, however, was apparently not very happy about being killed off, even though he liked his scene, which he described as “a bit like King Lear”. Joanna Miles also reprises Perrin, and remains excellent in the role - as well as beautifully dressed by the wardrobe department!

The slow-playing of Spock does allow the episode to be something of an ensemble cast show, although it’s primarily about Patrick Stewart’s Picard and Brent Spiner’s Data. The secondary plot pairs up Jonathan Frakes’ Riker and Marina Sirtis’ Troi reasonably well, though, with LeVar Burton’s LaForge providing amiable support.

We also have a bevy of guest stars! Firstly, we have Karen Hensel’s Admiral Brackett in the teaser.

This was supposed to be the return of Fran Bennett’s Fleet Admiral Shanthi but she wasn’t able to make it and Hensel was substituted at last minute. They get her back for DS9 in a different role, but she’s most known for playing Doris Collins on The Young and the Restless for a whopping eighteen years, on and off. She’s fine here, but it’s a throwaway part at best.

Then we have the Klingons, most notably the awesome Stephen Root as Captain K’Vada.

You know Root from dozens of shows, but he’ll always be Bill Deauterive in King of the Hill and Milton in Office Space to me. With nearly 300 roles, though, you definitely recognise him from something (oh, and he was in L.A. Law before TNG, with a recurring role).

Hat tip to Erick Avari as officious Klingon functionary B’ijik - you may recognise him better as Vedek Yarka from DS9, or perhaps from his role in Enterprise. He’s good fun here, though, with a well-written scene he delivers with a restrained panache.

Oh, and we get a Zakdorn too - Graham Jarvis’ Klim Dokachin.

He’s a lot of fun in this role, one of hundreds of his bit-parts, although he had a longstanding role as Charlie Haggers in satirical soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and in its rebranded version Forever Fernwood (oh, and he was in L.A. Law after TNG, like they had an exchange programme or something!).

How about the Romulans!

Malachi Throne as Senator Pardek (left) and Norman Large as Proconsul Neral (right)

Malachi Throne’s Pardek is foreshadowed more than he appears here, but he does have a solid scene with Norman Large’s Proconsul Neral. The role of Neral is reprised in DS9, where he manages to ascend to the position of Praetor, but oddly it was recast, for reasons that have never been made clear. Large returns in other roles in TNG, DS9, and Voyager, though, so it wasn't any beef with the actor (oh, and he was in L.A. Law shortly after TNG. If you're keeping score, afterwards is winning this week).

As for Throne, he’s practically sci-fi royalty as he has two roles in classic Trek too - both in “The Menagerie”: Commodore Mendez and the voice of the Keeper.

But that’s not all! Among his other bit parts are appearances in 60s sci-fi TV shows The Outer Limits, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the Adam West Batman (as False Face), Lost in Space, The Wild Wild West, Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Mission Impossible, and Land of the Giants (that was in 1970, which technically is still in the 60s since there was no year zero in the Gregorian calendar). What a star!

Models, Make-up, and Mattes

Just imagine how busy the make-up team were in this episode! Not only all those Klingons, Romulans and Zakdorns, but Patrick Stewart has to join Brent Spiner in the make-up chair for once!

Believe it or not, that cool looking new ship is yet another redress of the Husnock warship from “The Survivors” - it really looks completely different!

Of course, I'm going to gush about the brilliant matte painting of the planet Romulus, painted by the legendary Syd Dutton - absolutely beautiful!

But the big SFX moment is the space junkyard.

Not only do we get a reuse of the wreckage from “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” (the Wolf-359 shot is the foundation of the composition), they add in lots more bits and pieces including an old school Klingon cruiser, a four-nacelle version of the Excelsior, and even a study model for the classic Enterprise. It’s a great shot, recomposited from the previous shot of wreckage with the new bits thrown in over the top. I love it!