P/C run amok...

Anyway, back to the discussion at hand ...

"The Big Goodbye" indeed epitomised Picard's blissful ignorance on this subject back in season 1, also shown in both "The Arsenal Of Freedom" and "We'll Always Have Paris". Things changed when she returned in the third season.

It does make me wonder how the character would have evolved if she'd stayed on for season 2. Would there have been an abrupt shift in their relationship? Would it have changed slowly over time? Or might the writers have got stuck in a rut and continued with the season 1 pattern? Leaving for a year may actually have helped the Crusher character, as it enabled them to do a "re-invention" of sorts when she returned. I don't think that the season 1 style would have worked too well over a full seven years.

 

Arsenal of Freedom comes close to Attachment for me in terms of screaming at the TV. Beverly more or less tells him to come and lie down beside her, and she's injured anyhow, which should have been an excuse. And what does Jean-Luc do? He starts blundering around the cave like a blithering idiot!! I started a rewrite of this, but didn't get very far.

Re development... OK, paramout are plonkers for not following the whole P/C thing up. But then we wouldn't have so much fun. I personally don't find the R/T relationship so interesting (although that might partly be because of Troi's weird and wonderful accent) because even though they're officially friends, they're unofficially something more, and they're honest about it too. Well, comparatively. It wouldn't be hard to do better than P/C.

 

Arsenal of Freedom is a difficult one. It was originally supposed to be more of a romance, but it was nixed by Gene Roddenberry. As such, it represents the point at which TPTB realised that the P/C arc in season one was leading somewhere that they didn't want it to go.

In a sense, whatever the situation with Maurice Hurley, I wonder whether part of the reason for Gates McFadden's departure in season two wasn't similar to the reason for Grace Lee Whitney's departure from TOS. In other words, she threatened the captain's status as an independent man. When they brought her back in season three, they'd clearly decided that the relationship was going to be different. So in that sense, the question of what Beverly would have been like in season two is a moot point. It was difficulties with her character that caused her not to be there in the first place.

 

You know I was watching Coming of Age the other day and a thought struck me. During that nice scene where they intercut the crew answering Remmick's questions I realised that he really didn't put too much of a horrible spin on what he asked Beverly.

You can be completely open with me....About how you feel serving with a man who was responsible for the death of your husband.

Now if Remmick wanted to stir things up (and he was certainly phrasing his questions to everyone in order to get a rise), why not say serving with the man who killed your husband? It's neater and nastier.

I wonder if he actually was putting spin on what was a tragic accident? Blackening Picard's good name by even suggesting he was in any way responsible?

Maybe Picard had nothing to do with Jack's death after all?

 

I guess you could say that Picard has a general responsibility for his crew, although "Coming Of Age" implied a stronger involvement in the incident than that.

 

I think Remmick said about Picard's decision to rescue not Jack but somebody else in the mission captain led. See Wesley's words in this episode after his psychotest:

Because of my father? Because Cap... Because someone made that choice...and my father died.

I wonder, why Wesley stopped at the word "Captain".

 

I have some difficulty squaring Jack's death with the events depicted in Wesley's Psych test. Obviously it can't be too much of a match unless Jack was some yellow coward screaming for help in the corner of a room. I prefer to think better of him than that.

 

It could be simply a case of Picard helping an injured man whilest Jack was healthy.

 

^ I still don't like it. If he was healthy he'd have not needed Picard's help. Besides, Wesley would have realised it was the psych test if events mirrored his father's death too closely.

 

I also would prefer to think that it wasn't a simple matter of Jack not being rescued. Because it doesn't put a particularly heroic spin on his death, even if he wasn't actually cowering in a corner begging for help. The novelisation of Encounter at Farpoint (not a canon source, I know) has Jack having been given a hero's funeral. Far better to think that Picard ordered him into some dangerous situation (trusting Jack, more than anyone else, to keep calm and save the ship), and that Jack succeeded in accomplishing whatever it was, but paid with his life.

However, it's probably clear by now that I have a bit of a Jack Crusher fixation, and prefer to put him in the best light possible. So don't place too much credence in what I have to say...

 

In Fridman's book "Reunion" (non-canon, I know) the survivor of the mission told Beverly how it happened. (Though that story contradicts the notion in "Bonding" that Picard led the mission.) And Jack is really a hero there.

Picard chose to rescue other man, because he appeared to be unconscious (and Jack is not) and because other man was closer to Picard, and he had little time before explosion (if the captain has gone for Jack, all three would be killed). Jack didn't go away himself, because he tried to prevent the explosion (they were afraid it would destroy the ship, but it didn't), though he knew it was little chance for that, and he was in mortal danger.

As I said, this story contradicts canon somewhat, but I think the real events may be something like that.

Edit: Naraht, I think that story really fits your wishes. One exception is Jack's heroism didn't help to save the ship (though she wasn't desroyed), but it wasn't his fault, it was fault of someone else...

By the way, in "Bonding" Wesley says he was angry at Picard because he returned from the mission, and Wesley's father didn't, *not for Picard's choice*. It is highly probable that five-old Wesley wasn't told about it... but when did he get to know that, then?

 

^ The Bonding does alter things a bit from Coming of Age. Yes.

That tells us Picard led the mission on which Jack died but, tantalisingly, gives us no more details. You're right, Wesley's anger is that Picard came back not that he took any life-or-death decisions that affected Jack.

Now I think we can assume Wesley knows the full facts of his father's death by that time. So although the Bonding is about how Wesely reacted at the time, his feelings as a small boy, I do think it was the perfect opportunity to raise any other concerns he might have had. - "Oh and BTW, did you murder my dad?" - that sort of thing.

It doesn't come up. Therefore there's no blood on Picard's hands.

Interestingly, by Attached Picard is referring to the events as 'the accident'.

 

I've always interpreted "the accident" as meaning that it was something like what was shown in Coming of Age... that is, some sort of technical problem rather than a combat situation. No one was actually trying to kill Jack (not even Picard), hence it was an accident.

 

"Accident" would also imply he bore no responsibility for it at all. Not even in role of commanding officer.

 

^^^ Not in my book it doesn't. Someone can still be responsible for an accidental death, can't they?

I still don't understand why they never decided to do anything to clear up the Jack Crusher backstory. Apparently they got a huge number of spec scripts involving Jack in some capacity, and they must pretty much have rejected them all. Did they just get sick of reading them? Did they feel that it would get rid of the mystery? Or did they just feel that there was no point delving into the past for stories when there were so many other stories to be told? The way they danced around the issue is a little inexplicable. And it's obvious that they lost interest the further into the series you go... once Jean-Luc and Beverly's relationship became defined more by their shared experiences aboard the Enterprise, and less by their past. It's notable that Jack's death hardly comes up in Attached at all, except peripherally as a reason why P and C never got together.

I want more about Jack, damn it!

 

Three beyond the grave appearances not enough for you?

 

We have one hologram, one corpse, and one hallucination. That's the total Jack Crusher count. I can forgive Wesley for not being able to remember his face; I can't either. Only the fact that the actor's neck seemed to be thicker than his actual head...

Apparently they got bucketloads of spec scripts about Jack Crusher, and just tossed them all in the bin. Well, perhaps that was a sign of their quality.

What am I doing talking about Jack Crusher anyway? This is "P/C: Because Jack's dead," is it not?

Anyway, I don't know if I've flagged this up before, but there's a nice new P/C website with lots of screencaps, both of Star Trek and of Stewart and McFadden's other projects:

From the Crater

 

Thanks for that. Just been browsing the Safe House screencaps. ::fans self furiously::

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. Very distracting!

 

^ I feel a new pointless thread coming on:

Was Jack Crusher a cardassian?