Star Trek TNG - Season 7 - Episode 22
Star Trek TNG - 7x22 - Bloodlines
Originally Aired: 1994-5-2
Synopsis:
Picard learns he has a son. [DVD]
Problems
- The Enterprise travels at maximum warp in this episode. I guess we're all very quick to forget about the events TNG: Force of Nature, eh? Not that I care too much, I rather like the fact that that dreadful episode is being ignored.
Factoids
- A very similar technology to this subspace transporter used by Bok will be used in Ent: Daedalus. It seems just as unstable in this century as it was in Archer's!
Remarkable Scenes
- Riker: "The Ferengi government is debating an amendment to the Rules of Acquisition. It could be a while until we hear from them."
- Picard: "You'll never look at your hairline again in the same way!"
My Review
This episode would have been much more effective this supposed "son" of Picard's actually ended up being for real. Instead, we get a TOS style reset button, for our characters are not allowed to incur lasting consequences! *rolls eyes* This episode bears decent continuity with TNG: The Battle, for Bok has returned. It's convincing that Bok would pull such a ridiculous scheme, but watching it all play out is frankly a little boring. Since Picard does indeed have no son, all the character development between Picard and his new son is thus wasted, and the episode itslelf comes off largely as a waste of time. Normally I wouldn't count off much for that, but in the late final season of a show, there shouldn't be filler episodes!
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
Ughh. Ferengi are almost always terribly executed on TNG. Ughh. Picard's son turns out not to be. Ughh. How the hell did Bok a) find out about a two-week affair of Picard's from a quarter century ago, b) find the kid, c) manipulate his genes without his knowing about it, and d) know the Enterprise would be near Caymore in the first place. On top of all this, we have an interesting idea for a planet--a colony in collapse following the Cardassian war--and we never even set foot on it.
Science alert: if you change someone's genes, the cells will be different when they reproduce. In a few cell cycles, you'd have a completely different person.
This is terrible. Utterly, utterly, unwatchably terrible. The son is a complete douche, and not in an interesting way. His acting is terrible, he's badly written, and his reaction to being transported unexpectedly is completely unbelievable. The first episode with Bok wasn't that great in the first place, so it's not the best episode to return to here. I can't believe this is one of the pentultimate TNG episodes. I vaguely remembered it from the first run, and I figured it was lost in the middle of the series somewhere, not featured prominently at the end.
Not a very good episode by any means but it does contain one of my favorite scenes in all of TNG: someone finally telling the ever presumptuous Troi to buzz off. She has never met this person before but she, unsolicited, takes it upon herself to see if he wants to open up her about his whole life. His response was quite appropriate and refreshing in that the always sanctimonious Troi was put in her place.
From memory alpha: "Sagan noted that the original premise ("Fugue") was a lot darker than the aired episode. "The idea was that Bok had genetically engineered this kid from birth and advanced his growth and had been giving him memories of Picard abandoning him on the Stargazer. Then Bok was using one of the mind balls to give Picard these vague flashes of false memories, making him think that it was possible he had this sort of fugue-like experience where he basically abandoned his son on the Stargazer and blocked it out of his mind. I don't know if it would have ever worked or not, but it was kind of a really interesting, dark aspect and it gave you a sense of abandonment and trying to recapture this sense of a son he never had. Then it turns out that it's not that at all." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages)"
Why did they not make that episode? That would have actually been brilliant and interesting to watch. I can see them trying to argue that it would be too dark for TNG but it would have been brilliant
The first question Picard would have asked was "Why is Bok warning me about the fact that he's going after my son? Why wouldn't he get my son first?" The warning was the obvious signal that this was Bok's trap. Completely ridiculous that Picard and crew fell for it.