The Sabotage of Tom Riker

[Mojochi]

Lieutenant Riker will be here for a few days at least. We should do everything we can to make him feel comfortable and welcome.

Did they though, follow that order from the captain? Will basically slaps him around with his rank, after being isolated for 8 years, but was gracious & dedicated enough to serve on the current mission, & wasn't necessarily at his most dutiful. How the hell can Will not be a little compassionate? He's basically seeing what happens to HIM, if his entire life is taken away from him. I get you're embarrassed, & a little off-put, but DUDE, that guy is a shell of a man, & you can't even let him win a worthless poker hand? & the last thing you do besides shipping him out with a trombone is to torpedo his goal of rekindling his relationship with Troi... which btw, YOU end up doing, jackhole!

That guy didn't leave her, & maybe he would've, like you did, but after this? Highly doubtful, imho. Nothing irks me more about Will eventually marrying Troi, than the fact that the Riker who deserved her more got tossed aside because of the one who did. Why should Will get a second shot to love her, but Tom shouldn't?

Speaking of Troi

Crusher: He was down there a long time. I'm hesitant to send him back until he's been evaluated
Troi: I'll talk to him
Picard: Thank you counselor

YOU!? You're going to evaluate him? You? If ever there was a time to recuse yourself for a conflict, it's NOW.

She does nothing but twist that poor bum in the breeze the entire time, only to pull the rug out in the end, on the recommendation of the guy who DID leave her. At no point is she worth anything as a counselor, & this guy is in more dire need of it than anyone to ever beam aboard.

IMHO, this is maybe the worst recipe for a stranded survivor to be rescued. It's no wonder he goes all wonky, disillusioned with Starfleet, & hellbent on a hero complex. He ain't ever got himself back. He's literally the worst victim of identity theft imaginable

Dude didn't even get the same promotion to Lt. Cmdr, for the exact same acts of valor that Will was decorated for, even though he paid the far heftier cost for them. You'd think Picard would've at least lobbied for that, when he got him reassigned

Welcome him & make him comfortable? My dumpy dimpled butt they did. She would've been better off locking herself in the brig for the whole duration & Will should've just shut his yap, & let the guy do whatever he wanted, being that he's still carrying around that dirty little Pegasus secret (Yeah, I know... nobody knew about that yet lol)

The least they could've done was show a little empathy.. since one of them is an empath, & the other is HIM

It's so weird, because they basically treated one of the main cast as a guest of the week, where how they feel doesn't matter nearly as much as how our regulars feel about it. We spend the whole episode exploring how Troi feels about this, or how Will does. Nobody thinks for a second how to best help this guy. It's pretty cringeworthy now to watch how they run this poor schlub through the ringer lol

 

[TribbleFeeder]

I couldn’t agree more.

Tbh, I’m not a fan of Will in most scenarios. He often comes off as being really petty. I did like Tom though.

 

[Jayson1]

RIker was letting his emotions get the better of him but I can see how maybe if you see another you it makes you feel less unique as a person. We all go through life with only one of us but this time RIker now has another version of him who isn't even a clone but a exact copy to a point where if you believed in the idea of a soul you would wonder how that would work out. John Crighton had the same issue on "Farscape."

As for Troi she made up her own mind and simply fell back in love with our Riker. She wasn't a prize to win. I mean it is kind of unfair to Thomas RIker is the "LIfe isn't Fair" type of way that happens to all people but he made his own mistakes once he got off the planet that is his own undoing. The fact that he left to go start his career on the Ajax shows that maybe it just wasn't meant to be for him and Troi to fall in love again.


Jason

 

[Takeru]

I agree with everything you wrote. Will acted like a complete a**hole, he often had a superior attitude but in this case it was even more annoying than usual because he had NO RIGHT to criticize Tom for anything because they were literally the same person up until the accident, the person Tom had become and how he acted after his rescue is 100% what Will would have become.

And I hated that Will gave him the trombone, what a joke. Will gets the promotion, the career, the life without trauma, Deanna (despite dumping her!) and even his actual name. Tom gets the middle name and a trombone. Seriously, look at it from Tom's perspective, he hoped for years to be rescued and when it finally happens he realizes nobody looked for him, nobody missed him, he lost the woman he loves AND the career he could have had, he has to give up his own name, is shipped off to god knows where ... but here, you can have the trombone. A trombone that was presumably his as much as Will's anyway, everything Riker owned before the accident is their shared property.

Agreed about the promotion, the episode flat out says Will got promoted because of what he did on the planet so why wasn't Tom given Lt. Commander pips automatically? He is William T. Riker too and he did what he was promoted for so he could just point at the paperwork, rightfully say that it applies to him and grab a pip himself.

I give Deanna a pass though, she didn't act professional but at least she didn't act like a douchenozzle intentionally putting Tom down at every opportunity.

 

[Timo]

At the very least, Will is being consistent here. He just hates seeing himself upstaged by a copy. Tom should be happy Will didn't have his phaser at hand when first coming face to face with himself...

Of course, Will also hates seeing himself, period. The two get along more or less fine until Tom does the Riker thing and walks over Will. So Will now has to formally accuse himself of being himself in order to keep things running; it's in the Field Manual and all. Frankly, I'd be much more worried if Will got along with Tom here, i.e. was so much in love with himself in good and bad alike that it jeopardized Starfleet.

The promotion thing appears doubly counterintuitive: one might expect a deceased hero to get extra points for being so bravely dead, i.e. a posthumous promotion or other reward greater than that awarded to a surviving officer who "just did his duty" and shouldn't let it get into his still living head...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lance]

Aside from the career advancement and 'losing' Deanna, consider also the character advancement Will gets that Tom doesn't... Will eventually reconciled with his estranged father, a complex that Tom is still carrying. Will ultimately gets to come clean about Pegasus, and start to make amends, but Tom still carries that guilt too. The thing that makes Tom that bit more interesting than any boring "evil twin" story is that there is no good Riker and bad Riker, these two men are literally the same guy. One of them was lucky enough to have the chance to solve all his screw ups. The other spent decades stewing in them and going gradually insane on his own. Imagine being Tom and constantly having to live up to the reputation of a version of yourself whose got a head start on you and who literally everyone knows and is comparing you to. No wonder he goes AWOL.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I agree he should have been treated better, but a woman is not something ‘deserved’ by a guy. Troi changed after eight years too.

I’m not sure how I’d react to a former version of myself who still possesses a lot of the personality characteristics I’m no longer proud of. Or still has ambitions I have mixed feelings about giving up. I’d like to think I’d behave better but I’d feel the same.

 

[USS Firefly]

Meeting a former version of myself would be great!
Who wouldn't want to meet and spend time with a handsom genius in person?

But it would depend on when we were split up, if it is in my early 20's I would kick myself in the ass, and then train my copy to become the perfect modest man I am today.

 

[Herbert]

On the surface, who could you possibly get along better with than a copy of yourself, right? You like the same foods, play the same games, listen to the same music, can have conversations with no problem, etc, etc, but in the case of Will and Tom, there was a significant divergence due to the number of years that have passed. Will and Tom may be copies of one another but they are really very different people with very different experiences, outlooks on life and motivations. It's really not surprising that there would be conflict between them.
I think the more "BS" aspects of Tom were how they handled him after, joining the Maquis and all that.
Someone here in a past thread mentioned how the producers should have kept the Tom character (played by Frakes) and promoted Will to Captain, finally allowing him to leave the Enterprise. It would have opened up so many opportunities not only for Frakes, as an actor, but also for the writers.

 

[Sakonna]

Though I agree with basically every point @Mojochi makes in the original post, "Second Chances" is an absolute favorite ep of mine. (Anyone remember at the end of TNG when they did a 5 episode viewers choice marathon, and you called some 1-800 # to vote for your 5? "Second Chances" was one of mine! I knew it didn't have a chance in hell, I just loved it that much!)

I do think some of the characters, Will especially, behave poorly in this hour, but I also think, somewhat unusually for TNG, we are allowed the space to view this as bad behavior. The episode is not telling us Will is in the right with his reaction, we're not supposed to be on board with him here to the extent we usually are with our hero characters. Will was being a dick and as a fan of the character I wanted him to be better, but his reaction also felt believable and I'm glad the show allowed him to fail on a personal level sometimes.

And the Tom Riker story is essentially a tragedy, in a way Trek also doesn't do that often. It's correct that Tom got a SERIOUSLY raw deal and was screwed over at nearly every turn in his life, but that happens to some people, and it is a pretty haunting arc that has really stuck with me, 2 decades later. For a character that only appeared twice!

That being said, the point about how Will torpedoed Tom & Deanna, to then ultimately end up marrying Deanna himself after Tom died in prison, is devastating and not something I'd ever connected before!

Maybe in my headcannon, I'm going to put Tom at the Will/Deanna wedding. We just didn't see him! He managed to escape from the Cardassians, he's there with own awesome wife, everybody reconciled and the 4 of them have had awesome double dates, Tom and Wife weren't at the main table during the toasts because they just barely made it back in time from some intense secret mission together, they're like a non-evil Starfleet version of "The Americans"...

(I mean, Wesley being there is even less plausible, so...)

 

[flandry84]

But to put a traumatized officer straight back to work on another ship?
Where is the famous Starfleet flexibility?It seems that officers can take indefinite sabbaticals,resign their commissions and then go straight back to work.
Was Troi counseling Tom?And if she was there was some serious ethical loop de loop going on.

I always liked the idea of Tom Riker but the concept needed more time than was allocated betraying the episodes origin.Namely that it was just another episode.

 

[Sakonna]

Does anyone else like this rejected idea? From Memory Alpha:

In the early stages of writing the episode, the production team briefly considered killing off Will Riker and having Thomas join the USS Enterprise-D's crew as his "replacement". Tom Riker would have replaced Data at operations and Data would have been promoted to first officer. The idea was quickly abandoned, partly due to the then-tentative plans to bring TNG's cast to the big screen. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion)

I really wish they had done that. I love that idea, it would have been so shocking and opened up such interesting story avenues.

Also from Memory Alpha:

According to Ronald D. Moore, the working title of this episode was "Two Many Rikers!" (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion)

Another tragic missed opportunity! Should have gone with that one.

 

[Terok Nor]

Maybe he can return in the new Picard show. A bitter, twisted, resentful shell of the man he once was. Basically Will Riker whenever he went up against someone he didn't like (Shelby, Jellicoe, Tam Elbrun, his dad, and Tom)

 

[Lance]

I’m not sure how I’d react to a former version of myself who still possesses a lot of the personality characteristics I’m no longer proud of. Or still has ambitions I have mixed feelings about giving up.

See, this is a great point that I hadn't thought about before. The perspective of Will, who went through a whole epiphany back in "Best of Both Worlds" where he confronted his early ambitious self and ultimately came out having the self confidence about his choices to let go of those dreams, to feel comfortable that the Enterprise is where he wants to be, but here, he is face to face with that earlier self, literally. It goes back to my point earlier that Will has gone through many things that Tom has not. Conversely, after the transporter incident, Tom's life, desperately surviving alone, has taught him things about himself that Will has never really had to experience, and probably can't relate to from his perspective of (relative) privilege. Will looks at Tom and can't 'get' him.

The more I think about this episode, the more brilliant it feels...

 

[Lance]

On the surface, who could you possibly get along better with than a copy of yourself, right? You like the same foods, play the same games, listen to the same music, can have conversations with no problem, etc, etc, but in the case of Will and Tom, there was a significant divergence due to the number of years that have passed. Will and Tom may be copies of one another but they are really very different people with very different experiences, outlooks on life and motivations. It's really not surprising that there would be conflict between them.
I think the more "BS" aspects of Tom were how they handled him after, joining the Maquis and all that.
Someone here in a past thread mentioned how the producers should have kept the Tom character (played by Frakes) and promoted Will to Captain, finally allowing him to leave the Enterprise. It would have opened up so many opportunities not only for Frakes, as an actor, but also for the writers.

Comedy sci fi series Red Dwarf did a really good take on the idea, with Arnold Rimmer (an officious, petty, self absorbed, and utterly unheroic and unlikable man) creating a clone version of himself, because he thinks he's the only person on the whole ship he can actually get along with... but then it turns out he's such an asshole he even gets on his own nerves (In Rimmer's case, he's too self absorbed to learn anything from the experience, either )

 

[Mojochi]

Though I agree with basically every point @Mojochi makes in the original post, "Second Chances" is an absolute favorite ep of mine. (Anyone remember at the end of TNG when they did a 5 episode viewers choice marathon, and you called some 1-800 # to vote for your 5? "Second Chances" was one of mine! I knew it didn't have a chance in hell, I just loved it that much!)

If I'm being honest, I really like the episode too, & Frakes is pretty darn good as Tom Riker

I do think some of the characters, Will especially, behave poorly in this hour, but I also think, somewhat unusually for TNG, we are allowed the space to view this as bad behavior. The episode is not telling us Will is in the right with his reaction, we're not supposed to be on board with him here to the extent we usually are with our hero characters. Will was being a dick and as a fan of the character I wanted him to be better, but his reaction also felt believable and I'm glad the show allowed him to fail on a personal level sometimes.

I agree very much with this. I feel that way about some of his other episodes where he's not displaying the best characteristics, like Chain of Command, The Pegasus, or even a few moments in The Best of Both Worlds. Riker only got interesting once he did start showing some less than perfect traits imho, & it's some of the best work Frakes ever did on the show

And I hated that Will gave him the trombone, what a joke.

"Here, you ought to take this thing I can replicate another of in 5 minutes, & then we're good with all that me telling Deanna you'd have been just as much a douche to her as I was, right?"

Agreed about the promotion, the episode flat out says Will got promoted because of what he did on the planet so why wasn't Tom given Lt. Commander pips automatically? He is William T. Riker too and he did what he was promoted for so he could just point at the paperwork, rightfully say that it applies to him and grab a pip himself.

The only thing I'd think makes sense is that being promoted isn't the same as being decorated. They probably both got a commendation, but the commanding officer is who put Will up for promotion, after the fact. Tom had no such advocate

I give Deanna a pass though, she didn't act professional but at least she didn't act like a douchenozzle intentionally putting Tom down at every opportunity.

I agree. I'm at no point saying she should be obligated to love Tom instead of Will, or that she's some kind of prize to be doled out to the better man. My only real criticism of her is that she passes herself off as an objective counselor or evaluator, when for the good of the poor guy, she should be stepping aside. She is not an objective professional in this situation.

Plus, it just irks me more that Will torpedoed him at the end with that "Wouldn't he have done the same as me?" nonsense. That's just cruel to Tom. She regurgitates it to him when he talks about his post to the Gandhi, & talks about bringing her with him as his wife

She answers by pointing out that he'd said that to her before... but HE didn't say that, (Will did) & perhaps this time, he fully intends to honor what he's saying, after 8 years of realizing what he'd lost. Tom easily has an appreciation for Deanna that Will never had... & yet, Will worms his way back in there, & Tom is given no benefit of the doubt, based on Will's actions

Her other point is much more valid. She's built a life now. That ship has maybe sailed, & it's entirely fair to say it may not be in the cards to rekindle it (Except that she does... with Will, later on, on its own terms)

That's the point she should've gone with. That other thing about how Will left her behind? That's a pretty unfair way to send Tom away imho. Just be an adult, & tell him "Hey" we're both different people now. I've got a life I love & leaving it isn't really possible for me"

Tom even admits he'd be willing to stay aboard the Enterprise, but Will being there makes that too difficult for him. Honestly, I too think it might have been great if Will had been killed off & Tom had remained. What a cool twist, full of all kinds of opportunities

The two get along more or less fine until Tom does the Riker thing and walks over Will.

When did that happen? From what I recall, they have a briefing where they conclude it would be best if Tom could help them on the station, but are worried about his state, & Troi agrees to "Talk to him" as an evaluation, which turns into a total mess during the next scene, once it's clear he's been pining for her all these years. The next scene is Riker dressing him down for being late to the beam out

I guess it's been a while since you had to punch a clock... Let's Go

Dude... Really? That's 1st blood imho. Yeah, it HAS been a while, & he wasn't on a Risan vacation with his Horga'hn for all that time either, Billy, but nice way to rub some salt in the wound, man. What a callous comment. It's like he hasn't even considered it could've been him that had his life taken away. It literally IS him... & still no empathy.

 

[Jayson1]

To be fair to Troi I don't think she acting in the role of Counselor with Thomas Riker. I don't think he had any sessions at all which does seem like a oversight. You would think someone in his condition might need some help. Granted as a Starfleet officer you are kind of expected to push through personal issues and do your job and with access to planet going away in a few days you can see how they might be asking to much from him to get the mission done.

Jason

 

[Armus]

Did they though, follow that order from the captain? Will basically slaps him around with his rank, after being isolated for 8 years, but was gracious & dedicated enough to serve on the current mission, & wasn't necessarily at his most dutiful. How the hell can Will not be a little compassionate? He's basically seeing what happens to HIM, if his entire life is taken away from him. I get you're embarrassed, & a little off-put, but DUDE, that guy is a shell of a man, & you can't even let him win a worthless poker hand? & the last thing you do besides shipping him out with a trombone is to torpedo his goal of rekindling his relationship with Troi... which btw, YOU end up doing, jackhole!

That guy didn't leave her, & maybe he would've, like you did, but after this? Highly doubtful, imho. Nothing irks me more about Will eventually marrying Troi, than the fact that the Riker who deserved her more got tossed aside because of the one who did. Why should Will get a second shot to love her, but Tom shouldn't?

Speaking of Troi
YOU!? You're going to evaluate him? You? If ever there was a time to recuse yourself for a conflict, it's NOW.

She does nothing but twist that poor bum in the breeze the entire time, only to pull the rug out in the end, on the recommendation of the guy who DID leave her. At no point is she worth anything as a counselor, & this guy is in more dire need of it than anyone to ever beam aboard.

IMHO, this is maybe the worst recipe for a stranded survivor to be rescued. It's no wonder he goes all wonky, disillusioned with Starfleet, & hellbent on a hero complex. He ain't ever got himself back. He's literally the worst victim of identity theft imaginable

Dude didn't even get the same promotion to Lt. Cmdr, for the exact same acts of valor that Will was decorated for, even though he paid the far heftier cost for them. You'd think Picard would've at least lobbied for that, when he got him reassigned

Welcome him & make him comfortable? My dumpy dimpled butt they did. She would've been better off locking herself in the brig for the whole duration & Will should've just shut his yap, & let the guy do whatever he wanted, being that he's still carrying around that dirty little Pegasus secret (Yeah, I know... nobody knew about that yet lol)

The least they could've done was show a little empathy.. since one of them is an empath, & the other is HIM

It's so weird, because they basically treated one of the main cast as a guest of the week, where how they feel doesn't matter nearly as much as how our regulars feel about it. We spend the whole episode exploring how Troi feels about this, or how Will does. Nobody thinks for a second how to best help this guy. It's pretty cringeworthy now to watch how they run this poor schlub through the ringer lol

Some interesting points. I'd always felt that Will was a little cold to Tom Riker, considering how they were essentially identical twins. At least Will saves him in the end. I liked Tom Riker, I'm glad he lived. He was the ambitious young Will Riker that we never got to see. He deserved a better fate than becoming a Maquis renegade and a DS9 ratings ploy.

 

[Jedi Marso]

I basically hate every episode (and its premise) involving the transporter splitting people into two or other weird stuff like that. I'm surprised they never did a 'The Fly' episode with the transporter. Or did they?

The transporter, to me, is the most unlikely piece of tech in the entire Trekverse, up to and including the warp drive. It was conceived as a way to save production costs. The fact that it was turned into a plot device almost as fast is one my few overall pet peeves with Trek.

Rant over! (Yes, I feel better now! )

 

[Silvercrest]

Basically Will Riker whenever he went up against someone he didn't like (Shelby, Jellicoe, Tam Elbrun, his dad, and Tom)

I think it's more that Riker felt threatened by anyone who reminded him of himself ... and he reacted accordingly. Probably without even realizing he was doing it. Shelby, his dad, his clone in "Up the Long Ladder", Sam Lavelle. It's no wonder he was a jerk to Tom.