Meanwhile, in the 24th century...
Jun. 5th, 2009 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakMore TNG. I think I figured out why of all the Trek shows, I ended up rewatching this one at this point instead of having another go at DS9 or go back to TOS, via a comment from astrogirl2. See, back when DS9 found its groove, its shades of grey, darkness, and the fact that romantic relationships between regulars weren't in the background or subtext but could be important storylines were all breaths of fresh air and ways to distinguish itself from most (though not all) of TNG. Now, though? After going through three Joss Whedon shows, Farscape with its going torture-the-regulars-especially-the-hero thing and the fourth season which made the rest of the crew into the Greek chorus commenting on the John/Aeryn melodrama, their own storylines forgotten, Lost where a certain romantic triangle/quadrangle is positively my least favourite thing about the show and makes me occasionally go "kill them all" just so it finally stops, Battlestar Galactica where I hated the quadrangle of doom storyline during season 3 with the passion of a thousand suns, which was unexpectedly superceded by my hating the Adama/Roslin storyline during season 4.5 even more, Doctor Who where on a good day, only two thirds of the fandom are busy arguing for or against Doctor/Rose.... after all of this, it was suddenly TNG which felt like a breath of fresh air to me. Romance not as the be-all and end-all of someone's storyline! Subtext instead of maintext! Adventure and ethical quandraries in the foreground instead! More then one character allowed to be idealistic at a time! I tell you, it feels radical instead of stale. The times, they are indeed changing.
(Doesn't mean some episodes don't have every fault this show has ever been accused of, and then some. Which is why you won't get reviews of, say, Samaritan Snare here. But I've seen the argument elsewhere that while some episodes of TNG might still be watchable, the show as a whole has nothing to offer, to which I offer the above argument, which is about the show as a whole.)
Now, details.
The Measure of a Man was written by Melinda Snodgrass (who went on to become a story editor on TNG during the second and third season) and has a certain legendary status in addition to its content because of the rarity of what it was - an unsolicited script, sent in by a fan. (At the time, TNG was the only show who accepted unsolicited scripts.) You can also argue it coined the term "toaster" for androids - as this is where ST veteran Ron Moore got from when using it on BSG for the Cylons. And speaking of BSG, rather obviously the key argument in this episode was going to be one of the foundations. But enough of external circumstances. What about the episode itself? As opposed to several other second season TNG eps, it still holds up splendidly, and not just the big climactic courtroom scene.
One reason is that Bruce Maddox, whose request to have Data transfered to him so he can study and dissassemble "it" for future mass production of androids gets the plot going, is not an an evil bastard and/or mad scientist. He's not the most likeable of people, no, but he doesn't have it in for Data, his motives are sincere, and at the end after his defeat he doesn't rave "Ill get you next time!" but states he'll continue his android research work; future episodes have dialogue that shows Data remains in contact with him. By making Maddox a non-villain, the episode ensures our heroes will have to win the day by better argument, not because they expose Maddox as scum. And then there's Philippa Louvois, who is a great one shot guest star whom one would not have minded returning. She's the judge whose ruling decides Data's fate; she also has something of a mixed backstory with Picard (she was prosecutor at the Stargazer court martial, but before that they apparantly had been involved briefly). This makes for a great controntational dynamic; she calls him out on being pompous to her in their first scene, which he so is - all Captains have their failings, and the downside of Picard's self discipline and intellect is that he can drift into pompousness and self-righteousness on occasion, which is why the show works so well when he's juxtaposed with trickster character, and it's clear he still has issues about the zest she showed when bringing him to trial back then, but it's also clear he trusts her to do the right thing in a crisis, and the narrative supports him there, making it clear that Philippa Louvois isn't swayed by feelings either against or for Picard in her decisions. Competent female character over 40 who isn't shown as sexless but isn't there to serve as love interest, nor gets enlightened by love of a man? Check.
Speaking of competent women over 40: Guinan has just one scene in this episodes, but it serves as lynchpin. She's the one who makes it clear to Picard that the question in this case isn't just "is Data a sentient being or property of Starfleet?". Now ST's attempts to use historical parallels don't always work (I'd say each and every attempt to use Nazis is cringeworthy until DS9 gets it right with Duet, for example), but here the "a whole race of disposable people" and "you're talking about slavery" really hits home. (Rewatching this post racefail debates, I also find that letting Guinan, who is played by a black actress, first bring this up was a good choice. There have been genre episodes in which white characters lecture black ones about the evil of slavery, which... *cringes again*) The episode is constructed in a way that this realisation is something both Picard and the audience build up to instead of having it from the get-go.
Trivia: this episode is a continuity feast, from being the first one to feature a poker game of the senior staff, something that went on to became a TNG trademark, to bringing up past episodes and their emotional implications like Data's Tasha Yar hologramm, and of course Picard's Stargazer backstory. And it has one of the best uses of a quote from the TOS and TNG title credits speech: "Starfleet was founded to seek out new life - well, there it sits!"
The Emissary, season 2 TNG version, is for my money the first really good Klingon episode. The earlier s2 Matter of Honor establishes a lot of cultural stuff, from killing your captain when he's losing it to gagh, but it also has very wooden dialogue for everyone around, and since what was new about the Klingons then is now something most ST fans know about them, it has lost that allure as well. The Emissary, on the other hand, works just as well if you've never seen Klingons or if you can quote Shakespeare in Klingonese. It has another very appealing female guest star, K'ehleyr, who comes on board the Enterprise to inform Picard & Co. that they're to intercept a Klingon ship which has spent the last 84 years in statis and whose crew thus is bound to attack any Federation settlements because they don't know what happened while they were asleep. K'ehleyr is the first Klingon/human hybrid we meet, played by Suzie Plakson (who had played Vulcan Dr. Selar before and would go on playing a Q on Voyager, but this is my favourite of her Trek incarnations), and it's interesting to compare her with the Voyager regular who was modelled on her, Be'Lanna Torres. While she is somewhat uneasy with her Klingon side, K'ehleyr is nowhere near as hostile or self-loathing about it as Be'Lanna can be; Be'Lanna also lacks K'ehleyr's sense of humour, though both have intimacy issues. It's just that Be'Lanna openly pushes people away while K'ehleyr uses humour to avoid closeness, which makes it less obvious unless you're Worf. Speaking of whom: after the show gives us a good attempt to make alien foreplay look alien - i.e. not standard human -, he proves for the first time his tendency to propose immediately after having sex. Not one for casual sex, Worf. Interestingly, K'ehleyr blames this on his Klingon-ness, when after the entire run of TNG and DS9 I'd say that this is just Worf, not Klingons in general. The show itself takes a neutral approach here, letting K'ehleyr point out that getting married after one night without any thought of both their careers and places of works is nuts and she's not going to do it, but letting here also admit the sex did mean something to her emotionally. Once again, when rewatching, I regretted that we only got K'ehleyr in two episodes; she's still my favourite female Klingon, fondness for Grilka and Be'Lanna not withstanding.
Yesterday's Enterprise was co-written by Ron Moore who later regretted wasting the idea on an episode because he declared it would have made a great first TNG movie. I'm not 100% sure about that, because the effect of seeing the TNG crew in a different timeline where the Federation has been at war for 22 years depends on being familiar with how they normally are, which a movie audience wouldn't necessarily have been. (Also, TOS only watchers which a lot of the movie folk were would not have gotten anything out of a living Tasha Yar.) But I can see what he means; if the Enterprise from the past had been Kirk's instead of the C, it would have made for a more dramatic and effective meeting of generations, and definitely for a more resonating death for Kirk. In any case, an episode is what we've got, and one that usually ends up on a lot of people's "favourites" lists. (Personally, I do like it a lot, but I don't love it the way I love some others, which isn't a matter of quality - it's definitely one of the best there - but of personal preferences.) Incidentally, upon rewatching, I was inappropriately amused by the fact that the moment the timeline changes, so does the lighting, and we're suddenly seeing the Enterprise-D in what was going to be DS9's standard lighting, only on DS9 it gets blamed on the Cardassians having build Terok Nor that way. I guess the Federation at war just has something against bright colours.*g*
Seriously now, it's still a rocking episode, including the humour in the first scene with Worf and Guinan, when she introduces him to prune juice ("a warrior's drink!" - also one of the longest running Worf related gags, because as late as the latest DS9 seasons, Quark still makes remarks about this tendency of Worf's) and kids him about his confidence that non-Klingon women aren't tough enough for sex with him. The moment of change - the lighting, as I said, and then the camera revealing Tasha at the security station instead of Worf - works even when you know it's coming. This episode is probably my favourite of Denise Crosby's performance as Tasha Yar, though the slicked back hair is still a bit odd to see. The scene where she talks to Guinan and it gradually dawns on her that in the other timeline, she's dead is immensly affecting.
Speaking of Guinan, this episode is one that highlights the depth of the relationship between her and Picard, as he's willing to believe her against every logic, and arguments of his senior staff. (Though one of the differences between regular!Picard andreboot alternate!Picard is that the regular version invites more input from Riker & Co., while the alternate one is more into issuing orders; the difference between war and peace, of course.)
Yesterday's Enterprise also delivers our first female Captain of the Enterprise, Rachel Garrett, who commanded the C (and has Janeway's season 4 & 5 hairstyle) and is immensely likeable; one definite benefit of a movie would have been more screentime with her. (Except that it wouldn't have been her but Kirk, so I guess we're out of luck either way.) When rumours about Enterprise the show first were heard in fannish circles, I was hoping they'd make a series with Captain Garrett in the lead, but no. (I guess because we already knew her fate?)
Trivia: while Yesterday's Enterprise works with a "one timeline overwrites another" model - i.e. there is no indication that there were two timelines around while the alternate one was played out - later events retconned this into something more of the regular multiverse model of alternate timelines existing simultanously, due to the existence of Sela. If Alternate!Tasha instead of dying or blinking out of existence after she has helped making the "regular" timeline possible (by joining the crew of the C in their attempt to rescue the Klingons at Narendra III) gets to live a few years more as a Romulan prisoner in order to produce Sela, her timeline and the regular one have to co-exist. Mind you, the whole Sela story does take away from what is an important element in Yesterday's Enterprise, i.e. Tasha choosing her own fate and a death that allows her to save lives instead of the meaningless one she got in the regular timeline. But it's canon.
The First Duty is another Ron Moore script (co-written script, to be precise), and one he occasionally mentioned in interviews as an example of the writing restraints on TNG because his original version had Wesley sticking to the lie whereas the rewrite has him admit the truth in the end. I have to say, in this case I side with the editor, because at least the way the episode ended up on screen, with the scene in which dead cadet Josh Albert's father talks to Wesley and apologizes for his dead son endangering the team, Wesley sticking with the lie would have made me lose all sympathy for the character. Yes, yes, standing by one's friends, long live the bromance over regulations, blah blah blah, but to let an already grieving parent believe his son a) caused his death and b) almost got everyone else killed, when in reality was the other way around and everyone else got his son killed? No. There is nothing sympathetic about that.
(ZOMG! You know, it only just occured to me now: is this were Kara "Starbuck" Thrace's backstory with the late Zak Adama comes from?)
As it is, the episode we've got doesn't really have a good choice and a bad choice, just the lesser of two evils, and either way, what doesn't change is that the situation only came about because Wesley & friends screwed up mightily to begin with by doing the Top Gun thing that got their teammate killed. Nick Locarno, the team leader, was played by Robert Duncan O'Neill who impressed the ST production crew enough so that they later cast him as a regular in Voyager and gave his character there, Tom Paris, an almost identical backstory to Locarno's. I have to say I'm glad they didn't simply make the character Nick Locarno, because I took a dislike to him when he told Wesley "I'd sacrifice myself for the team, but then, that's me". Usually I tend to fall for manipulative characters, but either it's an age thing - i.e. I like older manipulative characters, not younger ones - or it's that asking for self sacrifice in such a smug fashion repelled me.
Mentioned earlier (in Final Mission) but introduced here for the first time was Academy ground keeper Boothby, whose calling in life seems to be snarking at cadets for their own good. Peter David liked him so much that he used him in pretty much every tie-in he wrote that had a scene at the Academy, including his TOS novels (where teenage!Boothby is already doing the snarking at cadets thing). We never find out quite what the catastrophic mistake young Jean-Luc made was, which is in the script mostly to draw a parallel between him and Wesley, but it fits with later Moore episodes such as Tapestry where the point that young Picard was impulsive, screwed up and needed a big time reality check in order to become the man he did is quite important.
Lastly: the use of Beverly, or rather relatively lack of same, in this episode reminds me that the show really shied away from giving the mother-son relationship between her and Wesley any narrative weight or importance. I'd say that it's not until DS9 the writing staff gets over this and makes a father-son relationship (Ben and Jake Sisko) crucial to the characters, except that this is father-son, which has always been something tv is far more inclined to than anything with mothers. The only two recent examples where this isn't the case anymore I can think of are The Sarah Connor Chronicles (obviously; Sarah-John is one of the driving forces of the show) and Six Feet Under, where Ruth's relationships with her three children, Claire, David and Nate, are all important and explored.
astrogirl2. See, back when DS9 found its groove, its shades of grey, darkness, and the fact that romantic relationships between regulars weren't in the background or subtext but could be important storylines were all breaths of fresh air and ways to distinguish itself from most (though not all) of TNG. Now, though? After going through three Joss Whedon shows, Farscape with its going torture-the-regulars-especially-the-hero thing and the fourth season which made the rest of the crew into the Greek chorus commenting on the John/Aeryn melodrama, their own storylines forgotten, Lost where a certain romantic triangle/quadrangle is positively my least favourite thing about the show and makes me occasionally go "kill them all" just so it finally stops, Battlestar Galactica where I hated the quadrangle of doom storyline during season 3 with the passion of a thousand suns, which was unexpectedly superceded by my hating the Adama/Roslin storyline during season 4.5 even more, Doctor Who where on a good day, only two thirds of the fandom are busy arguing for or against Doctor/Rose.... after all of this, it was suddenly TNG which felt like a breath of fresh air to me. Romance not as the be-all and end-all of someone's storyline! Subtext instead of maintext! Adventure and ethical quandraries in the foreground instead! More then one character allowed to be idealistic at a time! I tell you, it feels radical instead of stale. The times, they are indeed changing. (Doesn't mean some episodes don't have every fault this show has ever been accused of, and then some. Which is why you won't get reviews of, say, Samaritan Snare here. But I've seen the argument elsewhere that while some episodes of TNG might still be watchable, the show as a whole has nothing to offer, to which I offer the above argument, which is about the show as a whole.)
Now, details.
The Measure of a Man was written by Melinda Snodgrass (who went on to become a story editor on TNG during the second and third season) and has a certain legendary status in addition to its content because of the rarity of what it was - an unsolicited script, sent in by a fan. (At the time, TNG was the only show who accepted unsolicited scripts.) You can also argue it coined the term "toaster" for androids - as this is where ST veteran Ron Moore got from when using it on BSG for the Cylons. And speaking of BSG, rather obviously the key argument in this episode was going to be one of the foundations. But enough of external circumstances. What about the episode itself? As opposed to several other second season TNG eps, it still holds up splendidly, and not just the big climactic courtroom scene.
One reason is that Bruce Maddox, whose request to have Data transfered to him so he can study and dissassemble "it" for future mass production of androids gets the plot going, is not an an evil bastard and/or mad scientist. He's not the most likeable of people, no, but he doesn't have it in for Data, his motives are sincere, and at the end after his defeat he doesn't rave "Ill get you next time!" but states he'll continue his android research work; future episodes have dialogue that shows Data remains in contact with him. By making Maddox a non-villain, the episode ensures our heroes will have to win the day by better argument, not because they expose Maddox as scum. And then there's Philippa Louvois, who is a great one shot guest star whom one would not have minded returning. She's the judge whose ruling decides Data's fate; she also has something of a mixed backstory with Picard (she was prosecutor at the Stargazer court martial, but before that they apparantly had been involved briefly). This makes for a great controntational dynamic; she calls him out on being pompous to her in their first scene, which he so is - all Captains have their failings, and the downside of Picard's self discipline and intellect is that he can drift into pompousness and self-righteousness on occasion, which is why the show works so well when he's juxtaposed with trickster character, and it's clear he still has issues about the zest she showed when bringing him to trial back then, but it's also clear he trusts her to do the right thing in a crisis, and the narrative supports him there, making it clear that Philippa Louvois isn't swayed by feelings either against or for Picard in her decisions. Competent female character over 40 who isn't shown as sexless but isn't there to serve as love interest, nor gets enlightened by love of a man? Check.
Speaking of competent women over 40: Guinan has just one scene in this episodes, but it serves as lynchpin. She's the one who makes it clear to Picard that the question in this case isn't just "is Data a sentient being or property of Starfleet?". Now ST's attempts to use historical parallels don't always work (I'd say each and every attempt to use Nazis is cringeworthy until DS9 gets it right with Duet, for example), but here the "a whole race of disposable people" and "you're talking about slavery" really hits home. (Rewatching this post racefail debates, I also find that letting Guinan, who is played by a black actress, first bring this up was a good choice. There have been genre episodes in which white characters lecture black ones about the evil of slavery, which... *cringes again*) The episode is constructed in a way that this realisation is something both Picard and the audience build up to instead of having it from the get-go.
Trivia: this episode is a continuity feast, from being the first one to feature a poker game of the senior staff, something that went on to became a TNG trademark, to bringing up past episodes and their emotional implications like Data's Tasha Yar hologramm, and of course Picard's Stargazer backstory. And it has one of the best uses of a quote from the TOS and TNG title credits speech: "Starfleet was founded to seek out new life - well, there it sits!"
The Emissary, season 2 TNG version, is for my money the first really good Klingon episode. The earlier s2 Matter of Honor establishes a lot of cultural stuff, from killing your captain when he's losing it to gagh, but it also has very wooden dialogue for everyone around, and since what was new about the Klingons then is now something most ST fans know about them, it has lost that allure as well. The Emissary, on the other hand, works just as well if you've never seen Klingons or if you can quote Shakespeare in Klingonese. It has another very appealing female guest star, K'ehleyr, who comes on board the Enterprise to inform Picard & Co. that they're to intercept a Klingon ship which has spent the last 84 years in statis and whose crew thus is bound to attack any Federation settlements because they don't know what happened while they were asleep. K'ehleyr is the first Klingon/human hybrid we meet, played by Suzie Plakson (who had played Vulcan Dr. Selar before and would go on playing a Q on Voyager, but this is my favourite of her Trek incarnations), and it's interesting to compare her with the Voyager regular who was modelled on her, Be'Lanna Torres. While she is somewhat uneasy with her Klingon side, K'ehleyr is nowhere near as hostile or self-loathing about it as Be'Lanna can be; Be'Lanna also lacks K'ehleyr's sense of humour, though both have intimacy issues. It's just that Be'Lanna openly pushes people away while K'ehleyr uses humour to avoid closeness, which makes it less obvious unless you're Worf. Speaking of whom: after the show gives us a good attempt to make alien foreplay look alien - i.e. not standard human -, he proves for the first time his tendency to propose immediately after having sex. Not one for casual sex, Worf. Interestingly, K'ehleyr blames this on his Klingon-ness, when after the entire run of TNG and DS9 I'd say that this is just Worf, not Klingons in general. The show itself takes a neutral approach here, letting K'ehleyr point out that getting married after one night without any thought of both their careers and places of works is nuts and she's not going to do it, but letting here also admit the sex did mean something to her emotionally. Once again, when rewatching, I regretted that we only got K'ehleyr in two episodes; she's still my favourite female Klingon, fondness for Grilka and Be'Lanna not withstanding.
Yesterday's Enterprise was co-written by Ron Moore who later regretted wasting the idea on an episode because he declared it would have made a great first TNG movie. I'm not 100% sure about that, because the effect of seeing the TNG crew in a different timeline where the Federation has been at war for 22 years depends on being familiar with how they normally are, which a movie audience wouldn't necessarily have been. (Also, TOS only watchers which a lot of the movie folk were would not have gotten anything out of a living Tasha Yar.) But I can see what he means; if the Enterprise from the past had been Kirk's instead of the C, it would have made for a more dramatic and effective meeting of generations, and definitely for a more resonating death for Kirk. In any case, an episode is what we've got, and one that usually ends up on a lot of people's "favourites" lists. (Personally, I do like it a lot, but I don't love it the way I love some others, which isn't a matter of quality - it's definitely one of the best there - but of personal preferences.) Incidentally, upon rewatching, I was inappropriately amused by the fact that the moment the timeline changes, so does the lighting, and we're suddenly seeing the Enterprise-D in what was going to be DS9's standard lighting, only on DS9 it gets blamed on the Cardassians having build Terok Nor that way. I guess the Federation at war just has something against bright colours.*g*
Seriously now, it's still a rocking episode, including the humour in the first scene with Worf and Guinan, when she introduces him to prune juice ("a warrior's drink!" - also one of the longest running Worf related gags, because as late as the latest DS9 seasons, Quark still makes remarks about this tendency of Worf's) and kids him about his confidence that non-Klingon women aren't tough enough for sex with him. The moment of change - the lighting, as I said, and then the camera revealing Tasha at the security station instead of Worf - works even when you know it's coming. This episode is probably my favourite of Denise Crosby's performance as Tasha Yar, though the slicked back hair is still a bit odd to see. The scene where she talks to Guinan and it gradually dawns on her that in the other timeline, she's dead is immensly affecting.
Speaking of Guinan, this episode is one that highlights the depth of the relationship between her and Picard, as he's willing to believe her against every logic, and arguments of his senior staff. (Though one of the differences between regular!Picard and
Yesterday's Enterprise also delivers our first female Captain of the Enterprise, Rachel Garrett, who commanded the C (and has Janeway's season 4 & 5 hairstyle) and is immensely likeable; one definite benefit of a movie would have been more screentime with her. (Except that it wouldn't have been her but Kirk, so I guess we're out of luck either way.) When rumours about Enterprise the show first were heard in fannish circles, I was hoping they'd make a series with Captain Garrett in the lead, but no. (I guess because we already knew her fate?)
Trivia: while Yesterday's Enterprise works with a "one timeline overwrites another" model - i.e. there is no indication that there were two timelines around while the alternate one was played out - later events retconned this into something more of the regular multiverse model of alternate timelines existing simultanously, due to the existence of Sela. If Alternate!Tasha instead of dying or blinking out of existence after she has helped making the "regular" timeline possible (by joining the crew of the C in their attempt to rescue the Klingons at Narendra III) gets to live a few years more as a Romulan prisoner in order to produce Sela, her timeline and the regular one have to co-exist. Mind you, the whole Sela story does take away from what is an important element in Yesterday's Enterprise, i.e. Tasha choosing her own fate and a death that allows her to save lives instead of the meaningless one she got in the regular timeline. But it's canon.
The First Duty is another Ron Moore script (co-written script, to be precise), and one he occasionally mentioned in interviews as an example of the writing restraints on TNG because his original version had Wesley sticking to the lie whereas the rewrite has him admit the truth in the end. I have to say, in this case I side with the editor, because at least the way the episode ended up on screen, with the scene in which dead cadet Josh Albert's father talks to Wesley and apologizes for his dead son endangering the team, Wesley sticking with the lie would have made me lose all sympathy for the character. Yes, yes, standing by one's friends, long live the bromance over regulations, blah blah blah, but to let an already grieving parent believe his son a) caused his death and b) almost got everyone else killed, when in reality was the other way around and everyone else got his son killed? No. There is nothing sympathetic about that.
(ZOMG! You know, it only just occured to me now: is this were Kara "Starbuck" Thrace's backstory with the late Zak Adama comes from?)
As it is, the episode we've got doesn't really have a good choice and a bad choice, just the lesser of two evils, and either way, what doesn't change is that the situation only came about because Wesley & friends screwed up mightily to begin with by doing the Top Gun thing that got their teammate killed. Nick Locarno, the team leader, was played by Robert Duncan O'Neill who impressed the ST production crew enough so that they later cast him as a regular in Voyager and gave his character there, Tom Paris, an almost identical backstory to Locarno's. I have to say I'm glad they didn't simply make the character Nick Locarno, because I took a dislike to him when he told Wesley "I'd sacrifice myself for the team, but then, that's me". Usually I tend to fall for manipulative characters, but either it's an age thing - i.e. I like older manipulative characters, not younger ones - or it's that asking for self sacrifice in such a smug fashion repelled me.
Mentioned earlier (in Final Mission) but introduced here for the first time was Academy ground keeper Boothby, whose calling in life seems to be snarking at cadets for their own good. Peter David liked him so much that he used him in pretty much every tie-in he wrote that had a scene at the Academy, including his TOS novels (where teenage!Boothby is already doing the snarking at cadets thing). We never find out quite what the catastrophic mistake young Jean-Luc made was, which is in the script mostly to draw a parallel between him and Wesley, but it fits with later Moore episodes such as Tapestry where the point that young Picard was impulsive, screwed up and needed a big time reality check in order to become the man he did is quite important.
Lastly: the use of Beverly, or rather relatively lack of same, in this episode reminds me that the show really shied away from giving the mother-son relationship between her and Wesley any narrative weight or importance. I'd say that it's not until DS9 the writing staff gets over this and makes a father-son relationship (Ben and Jake Sisko) crucial to the characters, except that this is father-son, which has always been something tv is far more inclined to than anything with mothers. The only two recent examples where this isn't the case anymore I can think of are The Sarah Connor Chronicles (obviously; Sarah-John is one of the driving forces of the show) and Six Feet Under, where Ruth's relationships with her three children, Claire, David and Nate, are all important and explored.
