UNCUT REACTION - Star Trek TNG S3E2 - The Ensigns of Command

Data and Picard getting to be friends is so cool.

This episode’s title comes from, of all places, a poem titled “The Wants of Man” by John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States. As far as I can determine, this is the first of only two Star Trek episodes to date with titles derived from quotes by U.S. Presidents, although there are also Star Trek novels called "Last Full Measure" (Lincoln), "Fear Itself" (FDR) and "The Shocks of Adversity" (Washington). “The Ensigns of Command,” the second episode of TNG Season 3, preceded “Evolution” in production order. This is why “Evolution” has a Ron Jones score while “Ensigns” has music by Dennis McCarthy: Jones was still the usual composer for even-numbered episodes, as in the previous two seasons. TV stations carrying TNG in syndication sometimes air “Ensigns” in production order, before “Evolution,” even though this makes no sense because “Evolution” addresses Dr. Crusher’s return. (Then again, the two of you might have been happier seeing “Ensigns” first because you would have seen Gates McFadden was back in the second shot of the episode rather than in the opening titles.) “Ensigns” had a troubled production in various respects. In her afterword to a book edition of Harlan Ellison’s original script for “The City on the Edge of Forever,” Melinda Snodgrass compares the radical rewrites of her script to those of “City,” although she acknowledges that even her preferred version of “Ensigns” was far inferior to Ellison’s episode. Snodgrass’ version (available on her website) implied that Gosheven and Ard’rian were in a relationship, but that did not prevent Ard’rian and Data from *consummating* their quasi-romance, which would have been Data’s first time making love since his encounter with Tasha two seasons earlier. I suspect that viewers might not have responded well to this development (although Snodgrass manages it well), and that the writing staff was right to remove it. The 3rd Revised Final Draft script carries the pseudonym “H. B. Savage” as the name of the writer, but Snodgrass’ name appears on the finished episode. Someone else’s name does not appear in the episode’s credits: Grainger Hines, the actor who played Gosheven. TNG’s producers felt that Hines’ delivery of Gosheven’s dialogue sounded too much like John Wayne, and another actor rerecorded Gosheven’s lines in ADR. (The voice actor’s name is unknown.) As a result, Grainger Hines requested the removal of his name from the credits. The episode also sustained a last-minute, $200,000 budget cut. One person, however, may have been even more unhappy about his experience with this episode than Snodgrass or Hines: Wil Wheaton. Wheaton had accepted a role in the feature film "Valmont," a prestigious production that would have provided a major boost to his career. "Valmont" was filming in Paris, and its production would conclude in the first week of TNG Season 3. Wheaton did not anticipate that this would be a problem because he knew that the first two Season 3 episodes were filming in reverse order, meaning that he would be back from Paris in time to shoot Episode 1, for which Wesley was obviously necessary because the episode would address his mother’s return to the Enterprise. An unnamed TNG producer told Wheaton that he needed to return in time for the filming of “Ensigns” because it was a “Wesley episode” in which he would have a crucial scene with Gates McFadden. Having pulled out of "Valmont" as a result, Wheaton discovered that his role in the “Ensigns” script was minimal. The same producer then wrote Wesley out of the script almost entirely before filming began. Wheaton said years later, “The message was very clear – we own you – and it was a move to sabotage my career.” This episode’s resolution has always made me angry, but for years I thought this was my problem rather than the episode’s. Ever since I first saw the episode as a kid, I thought it was grotesquely unfair that the colonists had to leave Tau Cygna Five, and I fully sympathized with Gosheven’s arguments about why they should have been able to stay. However, I also thought that I was wrong to feel this way. Enforcement of the treaty is necessary for the sake of interstellar harmony, and the Sheliak, however unlikeable, do have the legal right to the planet. However, L. I. Underhill’s essay about the episode on the Eruditorum Press website made me realize that I was right about the situation all along. Gosheven’s people are the only intelligent lifeforms ever to have existed on Tau Cygna Five. That makes them the planet’s native inhabitants, and it is every bit as wrong to remove them as it was for European settlers to displace the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. In Data’s “reverse psychology” speech, he patronizingly says that the settlers will be dying “for land and for honor.” Millions of people throughout human history have died for those very things. Would Data say that the Indigenous peoples of America should have willingly ceded their land and gone passively to whatever territory or reservation the land’s new masters would allow them? The Tau Cygna Five settlers would have been fully justified in allowing the Sheliak to kill them all – men, women, and children – rather than give up their planet, and the right thing for the Enterprise crew to do would have been to defy the Federation and Starfleet and fight to defend Tau Cygna Five from the Sheliak, even if it meant their own destruction. (Couldn’t Snodgrass at least have let Gosheven stay on the planet to die?) Whereas the rewriting of “The City on the Edge of Forever” left only two lines of dialogue from Ellison’s script intact (“Since before your sun burned hot in space, before your race was born” and “Time has resumed its shape”), the 3rd Revised Final Draft script of “Ensigns” (available on the Star Trek Minutiae website) includes entire scenes that are word-for-word identical to their equivalents in Snodgrass’ version. (Wesley still has a slightly larger role, helping with the attempt to modify the transporter, even in this version of the script; his removal from most of it must have happened extremely late.) Since other sections of the script are different, the final script must have seemed like an ugly, ungainly patchwork to Snodgrass, although of course the viewer of the finished episode is unaware of this. Mart McChesney (the Sheliak) previously played Armus in “Skin of Evil,” in a similar costume. Christopher Collins, who had played Captain Kargan in “A Matter of Honor” and Captain Grebnedlog in “Samaritan Snare” the previous season, provided the Sheliak’s voice. This reaction features one of Josh’s most impressive recognitions of an actor to date: Mark L. Taylor (Haritath) did indeed appear in "High School Musical 2," eighteen years after this episode. Unfortunately, the malicious minimization of Wesley’s role in the episode also eliminated a memorable moment for O’Brien, which was identical in Snodgrass’ script and the 3rd Revised Final Draft. The transporter console blew a fuse after Wesley tinkered with it, causing O’Brien to say, “If you *ever* touch my transporter again… I’ll kill you.” O’Brien has no dialogue in the completed episode.

Is Gosheven ADR? I always thought he was just a terrible actor. His delivery, like a NPC voice actor.

It is not impossible for a primary character to be completely ADR from start to finish For example. 1980 Flash Gordon. Starring Sam Jones he upset the director and he was vocally erased from the movie and replaced by and adr actor who goes unnamed.

They did somewhat "fix" Troi's character by deciding to use her also as sort of a diplomatic resource, maybe a sociologist to interpret aliens, etc. They basically just stretch her job out to give her more to do.

Thanks for putting this out on a Sunday. Was able for the first time to watch the show in my theater on a projector in 5.1. Really appreciating the remastering that way. Noticed Crusher's uniform was a more "medical" teal than outright blue. Really great lighting on the planet, especially when Data first arrived and in the shuttle. I think the next two episodes are even better, but maybe the first three consecutive great episodes of TNG to come.

The intro. Today the graphics are crude but then it was impressive and the upgrade for S3 was noticeable.

Audio Volume Levels seemed to be better this time, but still a few parts where music would drown you out. Great stuff, keep em coming, you have a new Patreon. ^~^ (probably going for the Target Demographic when the trial ends.)

Loved the reaction. Especially the Picard heavy scenes. You guys thoroughly appreciate Picard in the same way we do. Love it.

This is it boys, pretty much what everyone was talking about when they said season 3 is when it gets good. Sure, the show will still throw you a stinker here and there but more often than not, this is the standard you get going forward. What would have been a standout episode for season 1 and 2 kind of ends up getting lost in the shuffle for this season. Not taking anything away from it, it's a great episode.

Funny you guys mention "that's how you talk to Data, Pulaski" because it actually was Pulaski's dialogue. When the actress left, and Gates came back, they didn't change Pulaski's dialogue for a few of the first episodes of this season. They literally scratched out Pulaski and wrote in Crusher (and they wrote Crusher-specific scenes in "Evolution" addressing her absence and return)

Didn't care much for this episode when it aired. But I was around twenty then and it was too "talkative" for the taste of my younger self. I defenitely appriciate it more today.

From IMDB According to Paramount's public records, actor Grainger Hines (Gosheven) was unhappy with his performance, so he requested his name be removed from the credits. All of his lines were subsequently overdubbed by another actor. Conspiracy theorists, however, find several holes in this idea, and many fans believe it to be a cover-story for a secret incident which Paramount did not want publicized. (Also, i think the next week preview clip has his undubbed voice)

I believe that this was supposed to be the season opener and for some reason it was switched.

I've only watched this episode a couple of times. A great episode, one that is a great preview of good ones to come. Well written and directed. Two things: one, I didn't remember at all the scene where Picard and Troi beam over to the Sheliak ship..was a pleasant surprise for me. Two: I always thought that it was a lost opportunity for Data to..ah..well you know. The girl really had the hots for him.

Definitely a better showing than Evolution, and yet still not one of S3's strong points. I'm always down for a Data episode however. He's still very early in his quest to become more human. I don't know if it's a "knowledge lost over the generations" thing, but even when the original colonists left, roughly during the TMP era, ships existed that could easily level such a settlement from orbit. Unless they have planetary shields and photon launchers, I never understood how they thought they could ever hold out. Since you mentioned Wesley not being in the episode, there's a story to that. Wheaton had been cast in a film between S1 and 2, and his commitments to filming that were set to overlap with the first week of S3 filming. However this episode was the first produced, not Evolution where he had a more significant role, so he didn't think it would be a problem. One of the producers convinced him that this was a Wesley centric episode that he couldn't be written out of and that it would advance the mother-son relationship. He cancelled his involvement in the movie, and when he showed up to the first week of production for S3, he found he'd been lied to and almost completely written out of this episode. He took the whole thing, understandable, as the producers essentially saying they owned him and discouraging him from advancing his career outside the show. He considered quitting the show for a while after that. As to Gosheven, apparently Grainger Hines sounded too much like John Wayne for the producers' liking, so his lines were all dubbed over. Hines requested his credit be removed from the episode. Seems like a silly production decision to me, but there it is. Solid episode.

Great reaction! Makes me appreciate it even more!

You guys should have laughed at the end when Geordi showed up and said "Captain, we can do it. We can modify the transporters! It'll take fifteen years, and a research team of a hundred..." Just about as funny as Picard hanging up on the Sheliak and making them wait.

I realized after watching this episode again (and you guys said this was a court episode without the courtroom) that Melinda Snodgrass, a former lawyer, wrote it, so that all makes perfect sense.

42:20 Josh getting the misty eyes this time...

37:30 I love how terrified Kentor looks during Data's demonstration.

Today's video seemed fine! Didn't notice any problems with syncing or quality.

Great reaction! Thank you, gents.

"Shellicans" makes me so happy.

Appreciate it, thank you!

Fun fact from Memory Alpha (This is not the entire poem): The title of this episode is from the poem "The Wants of Man" by John Quincy Adams. In the context of this poem, the term "ensign" means a flag or symbol, not the Starfleet rank. I want the seals of power and place, The ensigns of command, Charged by the people's unbought grace, To rule my native land. Nor crown nor sceptre would I ask, But from my country's will, By day, by night, to ply the task Her cup of bliss to fill. Yes, our sixth President John Quincy Adams. Even the long dead son of a Founding Father can still contribute to Star Trek.

Happy Sunday!