Lessons

Patrick Stewart is a great actor in any sense of the word. Here, his Jean-Luc Picard is smitten with an attractive woman who is multi-talented, both in her vocation and her avocation. She is a masterful musician, a pianist of great skill. One of Picard's few opportunities for artistic fulfillment, comes from a flute he was given in the episode where he lives an entire lifetime on a doomed planet. He plays along with computer generated music all by himself. He is immediately attracted to this woman and the loneliness of his position becomes a force with which he must deal. He is her superior on the Enterprise and there are understandings. Just because her role is research doesn't mean she may be required to perform a dangerous mission given the right circumstances. This episode is so beautifully done, with so much hurt and heart, that it really grabs us. Eventually, of course, those decisions are going to be made, and the role of Captain must be recognized. It's sad and poignant.

"Lessons" should be called "Music Lessons". In this episode, Picard meets the obsessive Commander Daren and the two begin a relationship, mostly consisting of them playing music (Picard the flute he got in "The Inner Light", and Daren a little keyboard pad). This is all dull and when the manufactured dilemma (which shouldn't have been a dilemma at all) comes around, are we supposed to care? This episode came right after the tense "Starship Mine" and the two episodes couldn't be further apart. A tense thriller followed by an uninteresting romance; the former is definitely much more memorable.

The German title of this episode is "Der Feuersturm", which might give you even higher expectations than "Lessons". "Lessons" implies that there's perhaps actually a point to make, which there isn't. "Der Feuersturm" gives an impression of danger, which doesn't exist for an instant.

Captain Picard begins a romance with a new member of the crew.

This is a pretty good episode that looks at the issues associated with being involved with a subordinate and provides much needed continuity to one of the greatest Star Trek episodes of all time.

As a romance it works mainly because Patrick Stewart and Wendy Hughes play the relationship convincingly. Stewart in particular seems not just enamoured with her, but portrays Picard as a private person who is outside his comfort zone. The inclusion of their shared love of music and the scenes with the Ressikan flute are great ideas.

'Lessons' tackles the issues of a leader being in a relationship with someone in their command structure in a sensible and plausible way. Things start off well, then get slightly awkward for other characters, but naturally Picard handles it perfectly. When the story gets to the main event of the firestorms and the command decisions Picard has to make, that's when it really shows how the situation between Picard and Daren is problematic. What happens is predictable, but the performances of Stewart and Hughes make it interesting. Gates McFadden and Jonathan Frakes also make good contributions.

Thankfully this episode finally provides continuity to 'The Inner Light' which is very much needed given the episodic narrative of the show. It's only right that what was depicted as such a momentous experience in a character's life is given some recognition in Picard's overall character arc.

For me it's a 7.5/10 but I round upwards.

This is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in large part because my mom was a piano education major in college; she started me on the piano when I was only 3 years old & taught piano lessons out of our home for much of my childhood. Thanks to this episode, I now claim #3 as my favorite of Bach's 6 Brandenberg concertos. This is one of 23 TNG episodes my parents have recorded on VHS cassette; my dad, who still has some musical talent, just not as much as my mom (he played trombone in high school) used the VHS cassette of this episode to transcribe the "Folk Melody" (first played in "The Inner Light"; Season 5, Episode 25) onto musical staff paper. When my dad played the melody for his dad (who HATES Star Trek), he actually thought the tune was BEAUTIFUL!

In "Generations", instead of David Carson's wife Kim Braden...

In fact for a second in Generations, I thought that actually was Wendy Hughes when they first show "Picard's wife"... but it was in fact Braden (Carson had directed Generations...), who we originally saw in "The Loss"... when she was able to lie to Troi during a time when Troi had lost her empathic powers because of 2D Creatures...

I adore this episode mostly because of the music. I don't know if that is actually a Chopin piece played by Hughes, Spiner and the Cellist, but it was a very powerful, memorable piece of music.

Also, it should be noted that the portable piano she had was purchased from "Yonada", as the Yonadans ultimate destination was Daran V.

And it is great that Picard comes up afterward to complement her on a change in an arpeggio... even though the musical language he used was technically wrong.

I just thought that Wendy Hughes was the perfect woman for Stewart. They had quite a lot in common. Not just as characters, but as actors.

Maybe that could be a problem though, maybe they were too much alike. But for whatever reason, they never brought the character back even though they should have. She was much more interesting than Vash... and Vash did just fine on her own on deep space nine without Picard even being around...

This is another episode where Picard inadvertently treats his girlfriend rudely... The first time was in Q-Pid, but I don't think that was particularly his fault. Vash was being Nosy, asking everybody that she met if Picard had even mentioned her, which he would not have. Because of his own standards where he cannot let any crewmember see any kind of weakness or humanity, let alone any kind of romantic connection at all.

Darren was much better for Picard.

We get to see stellar cartography here, but it is not the huge set that they made for generations. In fact we see the globe that Darren is using to map the future constellations all the way back in first season episodes, it was just a prop that was floating around the Paramount lot since The Original Series possibly.

Darren inadvertently talks Riker into letting her lead a dangerous mission and it's too much for her to chew on... "Never eat anything bigger than your head".

There is one point where Picard believes the worst has happened, he is never going to play his Rissican flute again. The music that is playing at that point is very similar to a piece that was used in 2001: A Space Odyssey and also at the very beginning of Aliens when Ripleys escape craft is being salvaged.

It is not quite the same music, but somebody describes this piece in the trivia section and they are spot on.