Lessons
- Episode aired Apr 3, 1993
- TV-PG
- 45m
Picard falls for the new head of the stellar science services department, but has feelings of misgivings when he's forced to assign her to a dangerous mission.Picard falls for the new head of the stellar science services department, but has feelings of misgivings when he's forced to assign her to a dangerous mission.Picard falls for the new head of the stellar science services department, but has feelings of misgivings when he's forced to assign her to a dangerous mission.
Photos
- Ensign Gates
- (uncredited)
- Ensign Armstrong
- (uncredited)
- Lt. Jae
- (uncredited)
- Lieutenant jg Marquez
- (uncredited)
- Ensign Russell
- (uncredited)
- Sciences Division Officer
- (uncredited)
- Ten Forward Waitress
- (uncredited)
- Operations Division Officer
- (uncredited)
- Enterprise-D Sciences Officer
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis episode brings out of storage Picard's beloved Ressikan flute, that he learned to play in the previous season's critically acclaimed episode The Inner Light (1992).
- GoofsThe Enterprise beams the rescue team into a hot, dusty firestorm without basic safety equipment like work gloves or goggles, let alone respirators, self-contained air supplies, or sealed, heat-resistant environment suits.
- Quotes
[Picard tells Lt. Cmdr. Daren of his life on Kataan from "The Inner Light"]
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: ...And when I awoke, all that I had left of that life... was the flute that I'd taught myself to play.
Lt. Cmdr. Nella Daren: Why are you telling me this?
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Because I want you to understand what my music means to me... and what it means for me to be able to share it with someone.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Star Trek: Generations Review (2008)
- SoundtracksStar Trek: The Next Generation Main Title
Composed by Jerry Goldsmith and Alexander Courage
Totally wrong, at least for the Star Trek I knew. The Star Trek I knew had a strict military hierarchy with some comforts allowed for the crew that you wouldn't see on a regular naval vessel, because it's the future and there's more allowance for maturity.
But this episode really just tried to pull the wool over many a viewer's eyes, and how on Earth did it work? The captain getting romantically involved with another officer? Heck, this doesn't even happen on Cruise Ships, how in the world does it happen on a heavily armed vessel?
Once again, Star Trek the Next Generation was an examination of interpersonal relations with moments of plot interspersed within the dialogue and set as the background for the story which focuses on not interpersonal conflict per se, but character psychology and interaction.
"Didn't we agree not to let our relationship get in the way of our work?" Well, lady, if you were stationed on a US Navy destroyer or cruiser, you'd be in the brig right now in a cell next to the captain. And this would go for the Kirk and Spock era of Star Fleet, or so far as I know. But on the good mental hospital starship Enterprise-D, apparently the concept of an inferior officer sleeping with the ship's CO and the ramifications thereof, is a new and puzzling topic that needs to be explored and talked about.
Is there anything more inane? Oh, maybe it washed with the high school and middle school audiences, and possibly with the uneducated adult audience, but it strikes me that most people with any sort of nautical experience or even military experience, know why those rules and regulations are there. And yet the idea of officer favoritism in the 24th Century version of Star Fleet is a new one.
Again, a lot of soft horn, soft violin, synthesizer soft music, no real plot, an emphasis on character interaction and what most people already know about heirarchies of all sorts, and you got your "Lessons" episode.
The truth is I'm the stupid one here. But not without cause. Visual theatre is used as a deceptive tool to present people, usually criminals, a visual to relax their psychological defenses and to get them to open up about whatever it is they're hiding. And that's kind of the theory behind the supermajority of Hollywood offerings, including this television show. And so it is that when "Star Trek" was going to get new life old guard fans like me were expecting a new action-adventure in space program, and what we got instead was absolute garbage, the epitome of which was this episode, and all of the series to be honest. The idea is that because this is Star Trek viewers will be lured in, see something that gybes with their personal lives, and they might have the wherewithal to examine their personal lives, address it, and move on.
Meanwhile morons like me tuned in once or twice a year to see if the show had gotten any better, and it hadn't. And yet the top tier students and universities, their professors, and science and tech professionals kept tunning in because it had the Star Trek name on it. I quit watching regularly after the first season the show was so bad, and it hasn't been until the last seventy-two hours that I've discovered why. I had the wool pulled over my eyes, as did everyone else, but I recognized the poor and emphasis shift, I just couldn't nail what that shift was nor identify its signifiers. All the while the smoke and mirrors of this show being more intellectual polluted the Trek-social-sphere, while I was trying to figure out how to get my adventure in space show shot. Now I understand, and trying to painfully rewatch this show after thirty years, reminds me of why pursuing a career in film and TV was a bad move.
In the end the two characters separate ways in this episode after a lot of obvious exchanges of why the Commanding Officer should not be romantically involved with subordinates, especially if they're on the same ship. Whereas in adventure series prior to the 1980s nearly everyone understood why you didn't allow that on any vessel, much less one that had weapons.
And that, good people, is why this show is garbage and condescending. You may like the production values. You may like the characters. You may call this more intellectual (which it isn't), and call Captain Kirk all kinds of names and so forth, but you would be missing the basics of what I've put down in this review and others regarding this tragically formulate television show.
In the end it doesn't matter what I write, but it would behoove the casual or fan viewer to examine what it is they love, why they love it, and its actual substance.
- Blueghost
- May 12, 2023
Details
- Runtime45 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1