“At the time I thought you were a mean-spirited, vicious old man.”
Hidden among the general mediocrity of Season Five are a few of the most memorable episodes Star Trek: The Next Generation ever produced, and right up on the top is “The First Duty,” if only because Picard’s line in the fourth act – “The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth!” makes pretty much every Next Gen clip reel ever. (And, of course, it’s in The Picard Song.) It’s Jean-Luc’s A Few Good Men moment, and as we’ve come to expect from Picard/Stewart, it’s also the performance highlight of the episode; hell, of the whole back half of the year. “The First Duty” is also far and away the best Wesley episode ever, although I suppose that’s not saying too much. Nonetheless, it’s a really solid piece of drama, showing us Starfleet Academy for the first time, and giving Wes a moral dilemma whose resolution is pretty much the series’ final (useful) word on the character.
Once again, unfortunately, Next Gen outright denies any opportunity for Beverly to actually be a parent to her son, sending him instead to the nearest available Male Role Model (the captain, of course). In this, at least, the episode comes by its patriarchal hegemony honestly: we also meet Picard’s original Male Role Model, Boothby the gardener. We never find out what Nova Squadron-esque clusterfuck Picard got himself mired in while at the Academy, but we know that Boothby’s advice helped him bail himself out of it; now Picard must do the same for Wesley.
Boothby is a bit of a disappointment to me in the flesh. He seemed so much more of a dramatic figure when described in “Final Mission” than the tiny little Ray Walston performance we finally find here. Walston’s fine, but the cranky old white man performance he gives seems easy and trivial. It is admittedly interesting, though, to see how meek Patrick Stewart becomes in his presence, while trying to thank Boothby for his mentorship all those years ago.
The real spine of “The First Duty” is actually Nova Squadron itself; for a one-off set of characters (well, two-off in the case of Sito Jaxa, who would return in Season Seven’s excellent “Lower Decks”), “The First Duty” does a workmanlike job of setting up the four surviving pilot hotshots as credible characters. Key to the success here, of course, is Robert Duncan McNeill as the group’s leader, Nick Locarno. It’s a better performance than McNeill ever gave in seven years on Voyager. I was sort of pissed that they invented a new character for him when creating Voyager in the first place, instead of just carrying Nick Locarno over. (Tom Paris, too, was a washout Starfleet officer and ace pilot. Why complicate things?)
But Wesley, Jaxa, Locarno and Hajar are a compelling unit, and we believe the drama because we believe the team. And they’re all so very pretty in their form-fitting Starfleet Academy uniforms! I could write some Nova Squadron erotica like you wouldn’t believe. I’d call it “Diamaond Slot Formation,” and let me tell you, a Kolvoord Starburst would be the least of this group’s problems.
Blogging The Next Generation runs every Tuesday as I work my way through the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on blu-ray. Season Five is in stores now.