Sarek: Whose Wedding?!

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Watched Sarek last night. Whose wedding is Picard referring to when he says he attended the wedding of Sarek's son while a lieutenant?! Is there any consensus on this?

I bet when this ep first aired fans were really thrilled that we were going to see Sarek of Vulcan again.. I was so disappointed that they had to fall into the old Vulcan losing emotional control storyline again, AND they had to make it a permanent and degenerative problem for Sarek. Why do this to such a great man? It tasted cheap.

 

[Daneel]

Even great men aren't immune to the effects of old age and disease. Personally, I think having an important character like Sarek become afflicted with this condition helped to make it more meaningful to long-time Trek fans.

As for whose wedding it was that Picard attended, it's one of those great mysteries of the Trek universe; I think the writers just threw it in there to tease the fans a little and make them wonder. IIRC, though, Gene Roddenberry said that he thought Spock was the son of Sarek that Picard was referring to. There was also a line in "Unification, Part I", I think, where Picard mentions having met Spock once before -- perhaps it was at his wedding.

 

[Christopher]

Watched Sarek last night. Whose wedding is Picard referring to when he says he attended the wedding of Sarek's son while a lieutenant?! Is there any consensus on this?

Well, Spock is the only surviving son of Sarek that we know of. And given that it had been at least a quarter-century since Picard was a lieutenant, there's no way Perrin could've had an adult son at that time. So unless Sarek adopted, Spock's the only viable candidate.

As for who Spock married, there's no consensus, but the novels (particularly Vulcan's Heart by Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz) have asserted it was Saavik.

 

[Anji]

And why shouldn't Spock get married. He's quite a catch if you ask me. Not to mention this wedding might make one heck of a motion picture (hint, hint).

 

[sbk1234]

.. I was so disappointed that they had to fall into the old Vulcan losing emotional control storyline again, AND they had to make it a permanent and degenerative problem for Sarek. Why do this to such a great man? It tasted cheap.

Having been through family members being stricken with Alzheimer's Disease, I could very easily relate to this episode. When something like that happens in the real world, it is forever. There is no reset button in life. Had they come up with a last minute cure it would have cheapened the whole thing. That they did it to a character who had such respect and affection from the fans made it that much more tragic. I think it was gutsy and I respect them for it, and appreciate the choice.

 

[DevilEyes]

If it was Spock, than the marriage, to whoever it was, seems to have been over by the time of "Unification" - since Spock just upped and left for Romulus to join the Resistance, and spent decades there, and there was no wife he brought with him, and no mention of any wife he may have left behind.

 

[Vanyel]

I was so disappointed that they had to fall into the old Vulcan losing emotional control storyline again, AND they had to make it a permanent and degenerative problem for Sarek. Why do this to such a great man? It tasted cheap.

Before this episode aired, what other story line had an old Vulcan losing emotional control?

 

[Sharr Khan]

Ok I hear this was some attempt to overwrite Sybok, funny though how its played out on screen it always makes me think there's another son of Sarek out there someplace. Powers that be could have easily made it clearly Spock.

*realizes this is the first time he's ever posted in this forum...

Sharr

 

[docrice]

I always assumed this referred to Spock's wedding, unless you want to believe that Sybok has returned with the Powers of God or something. "Sarek" was definitely a TNG favorite of mine, examining the loss of Vulcan dignity as all the built-up, suppressed emotions of a lifetime surface causing a collapse of the Vulcan's house of cards.

 

[Admiral Shran]

I think it was meant to refer to Spock's wedding and be a tease for the audience.

At this point, the powers that be would have had no idea that Leonard Nimoy would reprise the role of Spock on TNG. Therefore, they probably felt that Spock would never be seen or heard from again in the TNG era of Trek history. So they probably just inserted this ambiguous reference to give the viewers a hint about what Spock had gone on to do after the movies.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

.. I was so disappointed that they had to fall into the old Vulcan losing emotional control storyline again, AND they had to make it a permanent and degenerative problem for Sarek. Why do this to such a great man? It tasted cheap.

Having been through family members being stricken with Alzheimer's Disease, I could very easily relate to this episode. When something like that happens in the real world, it is forever. There is no reset button in life. Had they come up with a last minute cure it would have cheapened the whole thing. That they did it to a character who had such respect and affection from the fans made it that much more tragic. I think it was gutsy and I respect them for it, and appreciate the choice.

I agree. Sometimes bad things--things we would rather not talk about or think about sometimes, things that we fear happening to us--happen to good people. This is also the same reason DS9's "Ties of Blood and Water" is so powerful. There was no reset button on Tekeny Ghemor's condition, either.

Sarek's or Ghemor's legacies are not tarnished by the diseases that ravaged their bodies in the end. It is how people honor their memories that matters.

 

[Timo]

Well, Spock is the only surviving son of Sarek that we know of.

Spock tends to be somewhat economic with truth, but if he's to be trusted at all, then during ST5:TFF he did not have a brother (another child of Sarek and Amanda) and only had a single stepbrother, who then perished in that movie. Nothing was ever said about sisters, of course...

If Sarek were to have one more son, it would have to be after the mid-2280s, then. Amanda probably couldn't be the mother, not without advanced medical wizardy. But Perrin is not established to have been Sarek's only other wife, so there could have been others in between (human or Vulcan or other).

And given that it had been at least a quarter-century since Picard was a lieutenant, there's no way Perrin could've had an adult son at that time.

We don't really know the details of Picard's career development. His rank was seen in "Tapestry" to be Ensign in 2327, and then in "The Battle" to be Captain in 2354. What happened in between is never revealed in detail. "At least a decade and a half" would probably be valid, but "at least a quarter-century" might not.

Agreed, though, that a son of Perrin would be a very unlikely candidate for the son in question. And Picard didn't just say "lieutenant", he said "young lieutenant", so probably his recollection of these events "many years ago" refers to rather ancient past...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Santa of Five]

.. I was so disappointed that they had to fall into the old Vulcan losing emotional control storyline again, AND they had to make it a permanent and degenerative problem for Sarek. Why do this to such a great man? It tasted cheap.

Having been through family members being stricken with Alzheimer's Disease, I could very easily relate to this episode. When something like that happens in the real world, it is forever. There is no reset button in life. Had they come up with a last minute cure it would have cheapened the whole thing. That they did it to a character who had such respect and affection from the fans made it that much more tragic. I think it was gutsy and I respect them for it, and appreciate the choice.

I totally agree. Totally. Going through people losing emotional and physical control is a horrible, horrible experience. Curing Sarek at the end of the episode would have cheapened the whole thing.

As for who Spock married, I think there is a subtle clue in Star Trek 3. When young Spock goes through Pon Farr, Saavik helps him out. She rubs his fingers, then he rubs hers... and then the scene ends. I think a little more might have gone on off-camera - it was Pon Farr after all!

Alternatively, inspired by nu-canon, maybe Spock married Uhura?

 

[DevilEyes]

As for who Spock married, I think there is a subtle clue in Star Trek 3. When young Spock goes through Pon Farr, Saavik helps him out. She rubs his fingers, then he rubs hers... and then the scene ends. I think a little more might have gone on off-camera - it was Pon Farr after all!

Alternatively, inspired nu-canon, maybe Spock married Uhura?

I wish. I find the whole Spock/Saavik thing rather icky. What with him being practically a baby when they had sex in TSFS and all.

 

[Timewalker]

Spock was biologically a heckuvalot older than the kid version of himself when he went through his first Pon Farr in "Amok Time." The scene in STIII was gratuitous nonsense, and brings up a whole other question of whether it's ethical for Spock to continue to be Saavik's mentor later on, after he's restored.

And since that atrocity STV is not canon (in my opinion), Sybok never existed.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I bet when this ep first aired fans were really thrilled that we were going to see Sarek of Vulcan again.. I was so disappointed that they had to fall into the old Vulcan losing emotional control storyline again, AND they had to make it a permanent and degenerative problem for Sarek. Why do this to such a great man? It tasted cheap.

I couldn't disagree more. Seeing an aging Sarek lose his grip on his emotions and slowly wither away was and always is emotionally powerful for me. I can't relate to a person being killed by a giant oil slick or magical pah wraiths, but I can relate to watching someone older I respect endure the loss of dignity as he slowly heads toward death. Sarek's illness and death, IMO, represent the most realistic death ever portrayed on Trek. It always reminds of Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Illych." I still get a chill up my spine every time Picard hits us with the bad news in "Unification."

Like I said, I couldn't disagree with you more.