“None have the right to impose”: Unification II
Last time on Star Trek: The Next Generation…
“It’s almost facile, trivial, in fact, to read “Unification”. The fandom narrative is both obvious and trite: The unification of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, or to be more precise, their fans. Collectively the first and second parts of a three-part 25th Anniversary gala celebration that will heal once and for all the acrimonious rift in Star Trek fandom that has existed since 1986, or so the story goes. In truth, this is all merely comforting platitudes designed to hide a reality deeply uncomfortable to Trekkers; that there is no such thing as a Star Trek fan. There are only fans of specific incarnations and philosophies of the meta-work, something that the looming premier of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is only going to highlight all the more starkly.”
“And sure, Sarek has an incredibly memorable scene with Captain Picard, but all that does is reinforce the Captain’s position in the narrative: It sets up that Jean-Luc is someone Sarek has a history with and is close enough with that he’ll have him near while his mental faculties are slipping away from him. Indeed, we even learn that Sarek and Jean-Luc had mind-melded at one point, a fact that is left, like the rest of their relationship (and so much about the new show’s backstory) to our imaginations in the negative space of the narrative ether.(The scene itself, I might add, really is a triumph. It’s a lot more brightly lit than I remember, though: My memories of this exchange always cast it in very stark shadow, something very much akin to “Lonely Among Us”, or even “The Empath” from the Original Series. I guess it’s the combined effect of the detail revealed by the Blu-ray restoration and the fact I no longer watch Star Trek: The Next Generation on a hulking 1980s CRT TV. I think I’ll still remember it that way though.)
With all that said, perhaps you’ll forgive me that in a two-part story that explicitly invokes the Original Series with guest appearances from two prominent characters from that show that the most memorable part of this episode for me personally is actually the B-plot involving staking out a space junkyard.”
And now, the conclusion…
Of the two “Unification” halves, this is the one my memory tends to shortchange the most. Pretty much all of the moments from this story that are personally iconic and resonant for me hail from part 1, while this one I always seem to remember as being an extended runaround to make Spock look awesome. That turns out to not be the case at all, however: “Unification II” is one of the most sophisticated and nuanced stories Star Trek: The Next Generation has done in a very long time and certainly earns the classic status is accrues along with its predecessor.…