“Some eager beaver at play.”
It is “The Child’s” formidability as a prototype for Next Gen 2.0 that earns it my substantial fondness. The episode’s plot proper isn’t awesome – a hasty affair wherein Troi gives birth to an enigmatic alien child, who then allows himself to die when he realizes he is jeopardizing the ship – but in all other regards, “The Child” moves boldly to establish credible adjustments to Star Trek: The Next Generation that answer most of, if not all, the series’ weaknesses from the initial season. With the series off to a wobbly start critically and popularly, and with the entire industry subject to a writer’s strike in the summer of 1988 which delayed the start of the fall season indefinitely, Next Gen’s return for Season Two was far from a foregone conclusion. Thankfully, the confidence on display here propels the entire franchise towards strange new worlds.
Director Rob Bowman shows off some of the cosmetic changes right from the off, in a lengthy tracking shot from the rear of the bridge to the conn position. Worf and Wesley and Troi have their new colours, and Riker has finally become my beardsake. I often think of Season Two of Star Trek: The Next Generation as the darkest season, somewhat in storytelling, but also in visual style; there is a richness to the pools of shadow onscreen this year that evaporates in Season Three. On blu-ray, the bridge scenes in “The Child” pop a gargantuan amount of grain out of the original negative – Season Two used a different film stock from Season One, and a different one in turn from Season Three. Ed Brown was the cinematographer, and departed the following year.
The structural changes come fast and furious as the episode gets rolling – Worf is now the chief of security; Geordi has been promoted to chief engineer; Dr. Crusher is gone (written off with a single line! The ignominy!) and replaced by Diana Muldaur as Katherine Pulaski – who would likely be remembered as one of the series’ better characters were it not for the white heat of rage that greeted her succession. And, down below, we have Guinan.
The scene between Wesley and Guinan in Ten Forward is one of my favourites in the whole season. It begins with a terrific effects shot starting above the saucer section and then tracking down across minute external details to arrive on Ten Forward’s big viewports, giving us our first full look at the Enterprise’s new bar/lounge. A later effects shot reverses the perspective and shows us Wesley and Guinan’s view of the ship going into warp; and all while the pair conduct a fine conversation about Wesley’s future and his ability to make selfish decisions. With Beverly gone, Wesley is a dangling story point in this episode, but the producers obviously didn’t want to get rid of Wil Wheaton just for having eliminated his onscreen mother. “The Child” is one of Wesley’s best episodes, in fact, and Wheaton (under Bowman’s guidance) shows a startling management of his voice in his dialogue scenes which render each line a thoughtful, melancholic near-whisper.
And so Guinan, and Ten Forward, and even keeping Wesley on the ship, defy expectation (on paper, they do sound silly) to become the missing pieces of the overall dynamic that Star Trek: The Next Generation sorely needed. The closing scene, where the bridge crew take on communal parenting responsibility for Wesley, is more emotionally convincing than anything that passed between Wesley and Beverly in the whole first season. Though there is still a lot of development yet to come on the series, everything seems to fit into its proper place for the first time in “The Child.” Even the introduction of Pulaski is, in retrospect, quite an enjoyable move. Diana Muldaur is wonderful throughout the season, and if she weren’t occupying a more popular character’s desk chair, she’d have been a fine permanent addition to the crew.
Trivia note: if I recall correctly, “The Child” is one of a handful of scripts that were originally written not for Star Trek: The Next Generation, but rather for the aborted Star Trek Phase II. In my mind I’ve always assumed it was Uhura who bore the child in that version of the episode, though in thinking about it now I suppose it might have been Lt. Ilia, who was the Troi surrogate in Roddenberry’s first reconfiguration of the Enterprise crew. Part of me really wants to see that episode, and it has played many times in my mind’s eye.
At my brother’s behest, I rate Next Gen episodes with Enterprises, out of five. “The Child” gets three and a half.
Blogging The Next Generation runs every Tuesday as I work my way through every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on blu-ray. Season 2 is available now.