I thought "The Chase" set up a good backstory for everything. But I was hoping they would build on that in the coming episodes or seasons. I wanted more groups of species to come together because they are all related from way (way) back. It seems that if this episode were removed, it wouldn't be missed at all. Even a few references of "heh, we hate our Romulan brothers!111!1!" by the Klingons would be appreciated.
In fact, the only annoying part of The Chase is that there was no follow-up!! I was hoping this story thread--ripe for possibilities--would be carried over finally into an epic movie. This is one case where ST's modern writing corps lack of real science fiction background hurt them. If they could have brought in a an experienced SF writer, they could have knocked the movie sequel out of the park!
Edit: Ok..the ST video game "Encounters" was a sequel, with the USS Voyager involved. The story concept does not sound promising...
The Chase is definitely a bright spot in Season six. It was a perfect mix of character story, action adventure, mystery as well as saying something Big.
It was a really well constructed interesting novel mystery with a very good ending that was pitch perfect Trek--I really liked the idea of a message hidden inside DNA. It is also one of the few epic stories the show did--I loved how they brought in all the familiar Trek races--starting out with them having opposing agendas then finally working together for a common cause. Then you had that wonderful scene with Data and the Klingon ending with the headbutt.
It was also nice seeing Galen and the actor was perfect--his death led to some very nice scenes involving Picard as well as Beverly.
Definitely a perfect 4 star episode.
By the time the episode had reached Picard's quarters I was already excited about the implications of the episode...but STNG did it one better. The coda attached to the end, with the Romulan commander finding some semblance of common ground with Picard, sent him the final message. This is perfect Trek.
"The Chase" ****
Picard sets out to finish the work of one of his former teachers.
This is a good story, but it comes with some caveats. The biggest one (in my opinion) is that it pretty much ignores real evolutionary theory as I understand it to put across the idea that much of the intelligent life in the Trek universe is derived from a single source...
This really doesn't gel with TOS' Preservers idea because the peoples they scattered were only a few hundreds or thousands of years old and not billions.
Another bone for me is that by this point TNG's idea of drama is generally lowkey. Their whole approach to telling a story onscreen is geared toward actually sapping nearly all the energy out of it. If it wasn't for the actors rising to the occasion many of these episodes would be pretty much unbearable to watch.
At this point I generally can't stomach TNG style Klingons---most of them are a ridiculous joke. I rather like seeing a prominent Cardassian female for a change. And the Romulan commander, although seen only briefly, didn't seem quite so usually cliche.
I'm grading this a 4 out of 5 because although it's a good story it's nowhere near being an excellently told one. It's still on the bland side.
They speculated within the episode that they seeded the primordial oceans of many worlds. In the Earth's case that would HAVE to be billions of years ago. They need not go against evolutionary theory, because without comparing the DNA of many worlds--only holding partial keys individually--no one ever know that they are related. In fact, we're assuming it took at least 4.5 billion years for this to happen in Trek's time (assuming no other culture found out but kept it secret). The "Preservers" were possibly the last remnants of the ancient race, doing some last minute re-populating before disappearing.
I don't see any hint of this low key drama.. If anything there is MORE of it because the writers know the characters better. I guess characters talking to each other is low key?? I think a lot of fans consider this a plus, not a negative.
The Klingons are portrayed pretty seriously throughout STNG, but such a serious race is also ripe for humor, and I think the overzealous Klingon captain here is great. He's far toned down compared to let's say, the sissy Klingon from "A Private Little War" or the downright silly ones from "Trouble with Tribbles".
I also want to point out the guest actor Norman Loyd, I've always liked him and was shocked he did a STNG episode. Loved that they finally cemented archaeology as one of Picard's great passions from his past, and not just a "hobby" as in "Contagion"...of course he was probably just being modest. There were also a lot of subtle, adventurous touches...the Yridians.."information dealers", but actually got violent because of the sheer magnitude of this prize. The Cardassian's treachery. The Romulans appearing out of nowhere in the end, making the main enemies of STNG's appearances complete.
The premise of "The Chase" was inspired by Carl Sagan's novel "Contact" in which clues to the nature of the universe are discovered in a long calculation of Pi. It was to be combined with "A Mad, Mad....World"...a crazy chase movie. A resounding ***** stars!
RAMA
Its one of the best paced episodes of the season.
