The Enterprise travels to Earth so Captain Picard can give the commencement address at Starfleet Academy. Word comes in as the Enterprise is approaching Earth that there has been an accident involving Wesley's squadron. Joshua Albert, one member of the squadron, was killed but Wesley and the other three survived.
An inquiry into the incident occurs. Nick Locarno, the leader of Nova Squadron, encourages the other three members of the team (Wesley, Sito Jaxa, and Jean Hajar) that they are a team and that they need to stick together during the inquiry. Wesley is uneasy but agrees to go along with the plan.
Locarno indicates in his testimony that Albert must have caused the crash. The other three back him up on this. There is some satellite footage introduced into the hearing that contradicts the testimony of four cadets. Wesley starts to feel very uneasy about the story that he and the others have put forth. He tries to talk Nick about it but Locarno insists that they need to stick with their story.
Captain Picard has Geordi and Data look at what is known about the incident. Picard figures out, based on their analysis of the situation, what must have happened. He confronts Wesley with his suspicions but Wesley refuses to answer Captain Picard's questions.
Wesley changes his mind and speaks up as the inquiry is about to close. He tells the truth. Wesley, Sito, and Hajar are forced to repeat a year at Starfleet Academy. Locarno is expelled.
Thoughts
Picard plays a bigger role in this episode than Doctor Crusher does although she is in a fair number of scenes. All the other regular members of the crew are also in this episode but to a much lesser degree that either Captain Picard or Doctor Crusher.
Ray Walston was in this episode. He played Boothby, a gardener at Starfleet Academy. He only interacts with Picard. I got the impression, based on one of their conversations, that Boothby helped Picard to avoid some sort of trouble when Picard was a student at Starfleet Academy.
Sito Jaxa returns in 7.15 (Lower Decks). She plays a smaller role in this episode than she does in that one.
One thing that feels missing from the episode is the reaction of Doctor Crusher to the reveal that Wesley and the others were lying.
This was an excellent episode. I knew what was coming although it was pretty clear early on that something was not right, that the surviving members of Nova Squadron were lying. I figured that Wesley wasn't going to come clean until the end of the episode but I didn't know exactly how it would play out.
No comments:
Post a Comment