Lessons

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.

Or words to that effect uttered by Captain Picard.

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.

This episode gives Captain Jean-Luc Picard a little romance in his life. Wendy Hughes is the new head of stellar cartography a most important position since the Enterprise is first and foremost a ship of exploration. She likes classical music and she and Patrick Stewart find they have a lot in common.

Perhaps Hughes and Stewart hit it off too good. She's not the most disciplined of people. She kind of reminded me of Douglas MacArthur who could never quite grasp that whatever theater of operations he wa in was not the whole show. Hughes and Jonathan Frakes have a small blowup about that.

More important her knowledge is invaluable on an away mission to rescue colonists from solar storms. But will personal involvement impair Captain Picard's judgment.

Nice as always to see romance not reserved for just the young.

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.

Such a complicated personality. This gives more depth in his character. I was teary-eyed at the end. We all hope for the life and happiness at the end of our life.