2x01 The Child

[7.0/10] Star Trek: The Next Generation is back for season 2, and all of a sudden, everything feels much more like the TNG fans know and love. Some of those changes are superficial. Riker, famously, grew a beard. Troi has ditched her giant bun and wears a less revealing jumpsuit. Geordi and Worf are in gold uniforms now. And Wesley lost his weird tri-color sweater in favor of a gray acting ensign’s uniform that’s more in line with the outfits for the rest of the crew. The look of things fits better with what’s to come from the series.

But the changes aren’t just to clothes and hair. Worf and Geordi’s color change came from a promotion, with the Klingon no longer “acting” security chief and Geordi assuming the previously-revolving door role of chief engineer. We see Miles O’Brien as transporter chief for the first time. Dr. Crusher is gone (with Gates McFadden having been driven out and possibly sexually harassed by showrunner Maurice Hurley), replaced with Star Trek vet Diana Muldaur as Dr. Pulaski. And most notably to yours truly, Guinan has arrived, tending bar and solving problems at the newly-seen Ten Forward.

Pulaski’s arrival and tour of duty on the Enterprise is something of an aberration, but otherwise, this feels like TNG putting the familiar pieces into place. Everyone’s in their proper roles, more or less. The characters seem a little more lively and connected to one another. And the tone is at least a little closer to the one the series would eventually establish for itself, and further away from its predecessor (which is ironic, considering this episode started life as a bit of TOS fan fiction).

Oh yeah, and there’s a plot! That’s the funny thing about “The Child”. The narrative isn’t an afterthought exactly. Troi being impregnated by a mysterious energy being, giving birth, and raising a small boy all in a matter of days or even hours is a big deal. The dangerous virus samples being transported by the Enterprise in order to produce badly needed vaccines are a big deal. And the one triggering the other is an especially big deal. But the storyline feels oddly straightforward, even rote, considering the stakes and weirdness at play.

Much of that comes from the fact that, ultimately, this episode is more about setting the new status quo for The Next Generation than about telling the story at hand. The tale of Troi giving birth to Ian, the rapidly-growing boy, who inadvertently triggers the viruses in cargo to start growing doesn’t really amount to much. There’s obviously some strangeness to what’s happening with Troi and her quickly-appearing, but the crew takes in stride to a surprising degree. Ian’s presence catalyzes the lethal virus, but the show doesn’t waste much time on the crew realizing this, and instead just has him acknowledge it, turn back into energy, and float out of there to save the folks. It’s all very mechanical, with little in the way of urgency, inquiry, or a real threat.

But it creates an opportunity for some lovely character moments, even if the story itself is no great shakes. Data in the delivery room is delightful, between his clinical scientific inquiries about the process at first to his heartstring-tugging sense of having experienced something “remarkable” by the end. Riker is unduly miffed when he learns of the pregnancy, but shares a warm moment with Troi after the birth. And while Marina Sirtis goes a little overboard when she thinks Ian is dead, she largely does good work here, bringing the needed emotion to the head-spinning of events of gaining and losing a child in a matter of days.

And look, there’s an unfortunate and distasteful trope in TNG of Troi being psychically violated (often implicating sexual assault) that “The Child” kicks off here and which stretches all the way to Star Trek: Nemesis. This one carries the shadows of later missteps from the franchise with it. But at the same time, there’s a heartening moment where the senior staff debates what to do about the unexpected pregnancy, Troi declares that the captain can do whatever he needs to in order to protect the ship and the crew but she’s keeping the baby, and Picard says that’s the end of the debate. It’s a weird way to affirm Troi’s agency, to say the least, but it’s a laudable moment in a story wrapped up in an unfortunate trope.

Despite that material, this episode is also a coming out party for the two new characters. Dr. Pulaski gets to be at the ready both for Troi’s pregnancy and the virus situation, but more importantly she interacts with Data, whom she doesn’t view as a real person. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to get into her anti-android prejudice over the course of the season, but her real defining moment in this one is her incredulity that Data cares whether she pronounces his name “Day-Tuh” or “Datt-Tuh”. I’ll save my feelings about Pulaski for an episode where she gets more direct focus, but suffice it to say that whatever you think about her, the episode does a good job of integrating her into the crew and of defining her personality immediately, however we may feel about that personality.

More excitingly, we get our first bit of roundabout guidance from Guinan, with a practical bent in that it’s meant to keep Wesley on the Enterprise despite the fact that his mother is taking over at Starfleet Medical. Again, I’ll have more to say in an episode where Guinan gets more focus, but right from the jump, Whoopi Goldberg has a wizened presence that suits the character and makes her believable as a source of counsel for everyone. She uses her role as bartender to deliver an object lesson to Wesley about pursuing what you want and not just what’s expected of you, in a scene that works better than it has any right to given Goldberg’s performance.

Of course, Wesley takes her advice and lobbies to stay on the Enterprise, asserting his own wishes, even to Captain Picard, when push comes to shove. It’s a nice sign of maturity and growth from the acting ensign, and while the ensuing scene where Picard jibes the rest of the crew over who’ll look after the boy in the absence of Dr. Crusher is a little too cute, it’s also sweet and playful to pass muster.

That’s the funny thing about “The Child”. If you just remember it, as I did, as “the one where Troi gets pregnant by an energy being,” then it’s liable to seem pretty meh in hindsight. But if you watch it as the episode where TNG sets a new course, in terms of its characters, its setup, and its feel, then “The Child” feels like the laudable start of something new and enjoyable. Maybe it’s effectively forty-five minutes of throat-clearing with magical space baby story tacked on, but the pivots and reactions to it all give reason to hope for better to come.