The Enterprise is en-route for Earth where Picard set is set to give the commencement address for the graduation ceremony at Starfleet Academy, soon he is contacted by the admiral in charge at the academy and informed that an accident has happened with a flight squadron of which Wesley was a member. Wesley and three other members of the squadron survived the collision but another cadet did not.
Once arriving at Earth, Wesley is recovering from his injuries as Starfleet Academy is putting together and inquiry to determine what caused the accident. Wesley, a Sophomore, was in one of the more elite squadrons in the school, mostly crewed by upperclassmen, lead by Senior Nicholas Locarno who's emphatic about convincing his crew to work together in the inquiry in order to ensure that they're consistent in their testimony in hopes that their careers will not be damaged should the truth about what happened come out.
In the inquiry the crew maintains the story that they were forming in proper formation for the maneuver they were attempting and that the deceased pilot -Josh- panicked, broke formation, collided with Wesley's ship causing the chain reaction that saw the loss of all ships. Everyone except Josh were able to activate their emergency transporters to escape the damaged ships and resulting explosion.
During the inquiry cracks in the story are showing including members of the squadron showing conflicts in the story, one cadet had filed and inaccurate flight plan and are unable to reconcile their story with logic or sense (another pilot states she was unsure of the position of an adjacent ship while flying at high speeds.) Eventually satellite data from Saturn shows the ships out of their stated formation, a revelation the cadets are unable to explain.
Up to now Picard has believed Wesley that this was simply an accident but as these cracks form he begins getting more suspicious: Either the data from the satellite and the flight recorders is faulty or the cadets are lying (either out-right or by omission) about what happened. He arranges to have Data and Geordi to look over the collected data and what they discover doesn't reveal anything to them, it does to Picard.
Picard confronts Wesley in the Ready Room about the conclusions he's made from the evidence and offers that Wesley's squadron was going to attempt a dangerous maneuver that had been banned at the academy over a century ago. Josh wasn't a confident enough a pilot to perform the maneuver and collided with Wesley's ship creating the explosion. Wesley's squadron is trying to keep their attempts secret in hopes the inquiry will end mostly in their favor and they can move on with their schooling and careers. Revealing what really happened may damage their futures. Picard offers Wesley a simple choice, reveal what happened or Picard will.
The following day as the admiral in charge is about to end the hearing without coming to any final conclusion but citing disappointment in the cadets for the inaccuracies and unwillingness to offer more information; she'll simply put reprimands in their records and revoke their flight privileges as her suspicious aren't proof. Before the hearing ends Wesley comes forward and amends his testimony saying that they were attempting the dangerous maneuver and were trying to cover up the accident in order to protect their reputations and careers.
In the wake of the events the squadron leader takes on the full blame and is expelled while the rest of squadron has their credits for the year revoked and will not advance with their classes. Picard says he's proud of Wesley coming out with the truth in the end, knowing that he would he just needed the right nudge in the right direction.
--
This another episode in the genre of "courtroom drama" episodes in Trek and like many of the episodes of this type it plays out well and it's interesting to see how the justice, or similar, system works in Trek's future. Here since they lack any hard evidence in the end of the trial they're content to reprimand the cadets for the discrepancies in the hearing rather than taking more drastic action based on nothing more than suspicion. You'd think that since whatever happened resulted in an accident and death that even suspicions would call for more than a simple slap on the wrist.
I'm also not *entirely* sure how the actions taken against Crusher and the others works. I get taking away their credits for the year and forcing them to noy advance with their class but at the same time wouldn't their next year at the academy but rather easy? Academically, that is. I mean these are classes they've already gone through and passed, wouldn't they have more of an advantage in them and an easier time completing them the second time around?
This is also another episode that takes the idea of "perfect humanity" and tarnishes that exterior a bit, which is a good thing. As much as I like the idea of a perfect humanity, and hope we achieve it, that isn't driven by personal wealth or gain there's still going to be little things that are just human nature that aren't going to be so easily erased. Here we have Lacarno and by a lesser extent the other members of the squadron willing to throw a deceased friend under the bus in order to save their own careers. Hell, their entire squadron seems to be an "elite" one they're all proud to be a part of. This shows that some form of ambition still exists and still causes flaws in humanity, that human nature still exists. And that the harm that it causes or may have caused to others does not matter as much as the personal gain.
But then we have Wesley who sees the problem in all of this and does what everyone should be willing to do, demonstrates against human nature and something along the lines of what we're told humanity is supposed to be and throws himself under the bus in order for the truth to come out so as to not dishonor the reputation of the dead. (The squadron had made it seem Josh's piloting skills were not up to snuff.)
Over all it's an interesting episode for the character stuff even if it's not the most exciting of episodes.
Some random thoughts:
I don't know why, but I find it odd that Wesley's dorm-room door is a manual one (with a power assist? It makes a noise when opened.) While it's nice to see "mundane" things like this happening it's also odd that it's a manual door since the vast majority of doors we see in the universe open on their own and here Wesley has to turn a handle in order to open it.
Hot-damn, does Starfleet provide some huge-ass dorm rooms! It's not said but, I assume Josh was Wesley's roommate, if not Wesley's dorm room is about like a good-sized apartment! Does every cadet, possibly 10s of 1000s, get such huge rooms?
I can see La Forge not recognizing the starburst flight maneuver as it's well before his time and he just may have not been well versed in flight maneuvers (though he's a pilot so you'd think he would be) so didn't think of the starburst maneuver when seeing the formation the ships were in and them preparing to ignite their plasma exhaust; but Data didn't immediately come up with the starburst maneuver when he saw the formation they were in and that they were possibly preparing the exhaust for ignition?
I really wonder what the plan was with doing this maneuver? First of all, it seemed to me the accident happened during a test-run of their flight demonstration for the commencement so they were planning on getting away with this at least once and then doing it again?
The maneuver was banned, so.... What makes them think that if they pulled it off they wouldn't get disciplined? Sure, we've seen plenty of times where Starfleet has an "if the ends justify the means" mentality when it comes to stuff and doesn't usually discipline officers when they do something wrong but everything comes out fine in the end. But here we're dealing with cadets, I'd think a bit firmer of a hand is called for.
At one point Josh's grieving father visits with Wesley and returns with a sweater Josh had borrowed during a previous ski-trip. I don't know if it was planned or a happy accident but the sweater the father carries looks a lot like the ridiculous, ugly, sweaters Wesley had in the first season of the series.
And... *sigh* here we have Beverly demonstrating stuff that makes me see her as a way over-protective parent especially given the time she lives in and the age of her son. Yes, mothers worry over their children, yes Beverly lost a husband and Wesley is only family she has left but, sheesh.
First, when Picard tells Beverly about Wesley's accident Beverly worries, out loud, about the treatments and medications the doctors will use with Wesley and says she may need to send them Wesley's medical files so they know his allergies and such.
Look, I can get that in today's world where we don't exactly have a great and efficient way of one doctor's office talking to another, both being on the same page and making sure a patient isn't given something he's allergic too. Crap like that happens all of the time because the system is so F'd up.
But this woman is living in a world where communications across great distances is almost instantaneous and medical scans are common place and very detailed and revealing. I get she's worried by would it even be on the fringes of her mind that Starfleet doesn't have Wesley's current medical documentation and history?
We also see her consoling the injured Wesley and seeming to worry over him as he recovers in his room and expressing something along the lines "get the other parents involved, you must be telling the truth and the satellite data is wrong!" after it's revealed the squadron may be lying about their maneuvers.
It just feels very odd. I'm not a parent but I am a child with two very loving parents and a such a worrying father than when I fell down the stairs as a kid he immediately rushed me to the ER for x-rays. (I was perfectly fine.) But, really, I think Beverly's reactions here are very, very extreme considering her son is an adult who also flies space ships at near-relativistic speeds. But, yeah, Bev. Worry over Wesley because his arm is sore and has to use a rehabilitation device.
Lacarno is played by Robert Duncan McNeill who would go on to play "Tom Paris" in Voyager. It didn't happen due to IP issues with the character's name belonging to the writer(s) of the episode but it would have been interesting to have had this character be on Voyager. Paris for all intents and purposes may have been written that way, more or less, but I suspect eroded a bit since they weren't as limited by Lacarno's history.
The episode is also followed up on in "The Lower Decks" in Season 7 (Recap coming next October!) where Cadet Sito, the young Bajoran woman, returns with a commission on the Enterprise on the request of Picard wanting to give Sito a fair-shake and chance at redeeming herself and setting her career off right. Shows a good amount of integrity in Picard, though I'm not entirely sure what Sito did in this episode to justify it given the way she lied during the hearing. Though, again, she was doing it under the pressure of her squadron leader and her peers.
I liked the touch of the Starfleet Academy quad having the flag at half-mast.
Again, good episode. Not a fantastic one, has faults, but it's good.
Last edited:
