UNCUT - Second Chances (TNG S6E24) | Star Trek Journey 272

Omg. Can't wait 4 months...

why was this the BEST episode of tng ive ever seen????? the acting between sirtis and frakes was stunning, the writing was great.

I interpreted that last interaction between the Rikers on the mission as Commander Riker recognizong that Lieutenant Riker had developed a willingness to give up. Understandable after the whole situation. Maybe it would have been easier for him to just die. But Commander Riker wouldn't let "himself" give up. That's the only time I felt like Riker was talking to Thomas the way he talks to himself in his head. We are all our own strongest critic.

As for Riker always staying stagnant in the Commander position, I view that as just his views on ambition have matured. Shelby, Lieutenant Riker, and Riker 8 years ago, had the younger less mature idea of ambition where they prioritize making captain as soon as possible over everything else. That's part of why he left Deanna. He was blinded by the young ambition. It wasn't until Best of Both Worlds, that Riker realized that that kind of ambition wasn't as important as he thought. There's more to it than just rising in rank. He decided that remaining on the Enterprise, no matter what position he has, was more important to him than rising in rank on some other ship. This is a more mature view of ambition. Recognizing when where you are is where you want to be, and there's no point in climbing rank if it's just to climb rank. Where does it end? When does it stop? And as a metaphor, we have the Borg in that episode which represent that kind of ambition fully unchecked where it never stops and isn't tempered by wisdom. Lieutenant Riker doesn't get why Riker didn't keep going because he never learned that lesson. Commander Riker tries to tell him what he learned. That he chose where he is because he's confident that that's what he actually wants. He's not going to leave just because that's what everyone expects, and that's what ambition demands. As for Deanna, what's done was done at that point. Plus they still serve on the same ship. In Violations, it's actually implied that they thought about getting back together again, but not while they were still serving together.

One of TNG's bangers for sure! Also a great example of how the main plot is set up by different elements of the story. It starts with Deana requesting that song in Ten Forward - a second chance at successfully performing that solo (which he never does!) Second chance to go to the planet and complete the research (or more accurately retrieve the data left behind.) And when you get to the main plot, it is a second chance for everyone. For Thomas to get his career going and to be with Troi. For Troi to be with the version of Riker before he let her down, and to open up this part of her past with Will. For Will to face the mistakes of his youth with a version of himself who has not made his mistakes yet but inevitably does, and to open up that part of his past with Deana. That last scene after Thomas walks out of his quarters; that range of emotions on Deana's face and body is very impactful in communicating the weight of what she experienced. It wasn't the over the top wailing of Kira over Kai Opaka, it was restrained but visible. Where in DS9 such a character would have broken down crying and be held in an embrace, here she just takes Will's supporting arm and walks out of the room with him. Something occurred to me this time: Deana told Thomas that Will's plans changed when his rescue efforts on the original mission, where Thomas was left behind, earned him an early promotion. My first thought was that Thomas should be entitled to the same promotion as well. I was wanting to see him in Lt. Commander pips at the end. But after some thought, 8 years of isolation is a hell of a thing to recover from. I know from personal experience what minimal social engagement over that span a time does to someone. Thomas needs to be evaluated psychologically, and brought up to speed on modern operations, AND show competence at his level of rank under all these conditions, before he could be trusted as a Lt. Commander. So his record should show high commendation equal to the weight of a promotion, which could heavily weigh towards an early promotion if he works for hit. But just promoting him right away would be premature. Worf's responses to Data's questions was on point. We don't like seeing things in ourselves, and we often project our shadow self onto others. Both Will and Thomas had a literal duplicate of themselves to do this to.

If Roddenberry was still alive they would have added in a 3some with Tori and the 2 Rikers.

Replacing him with Thomas wouldn’t work because he is still a Lt, they can’t jump him 2 ranks and hand him XO of the enterprise job

Feeling Riker inside of her lol

The hardest thing to accept about this episode is that someone spending 8 years alone with zero contact with another living entity and no real hope for rescue…and to then just interact more or less normally and be well adjusted and no anxiety about going back down there in a transporter etc etc

Everyone thinks Riker gets along great with everybody, but that's really not the case. If you're onboard the Enterprise specifically, then Riker isn't going to like you if you act in any way that he considers not to be a model officer. Makes sense I guess considering how highly he values his career. People like Tam and Barclay who don't embody that, Riker views them as undisciplined and weak. He expects everyone to have the same standards as him, otherwise he doesn't think they deserve to be on the Enterprise. Even people like Ro he doesn't like because she didn't follow orders and got people killed. She only redeemed herself to him later by going back to acting like a model officer. In short, bad officer means Riker doesn't like you. It's just we always see him around good officers, so we assume he gets along with everybody. I think most of the friction between Commander and Lieutenant Riker actually stems from that. Lieutenant Riker isn't a model officer. He's undisciplined, doesn't follow orders, goes around the command structure, is resentful, and is less mature. He's also at Riker's earlier stage of ambition, like Shelby was, which Riker has since learned not to value as highly. So lieutenant Riker hasn't learned a lot of the lessons that Commander Riker has. And if Riker already has problems with other people not meeting his personal standards, he's going to especially have a problem when it's himself who is not living up to his own standards. I actually wish they had delved more into the psychology at play here. If Lieutenant Riker were just some random undisciplined officer they picked up, I don't think Commander Riker would have acted any differently. We really only get confrontation of this whole situation with Lieutenant Riker. He looks at Commander Riker and can't understand the choices he made. Much like how our younger selves would probably not understand how we got to be who we are today. He also resents Riker for getting the "better life." But we really don't get anything about how this is affecting Commander Riker other than he just doesn't like lieutenant Riker because he's undisciplined. We don't get any introspection on Commander Riker's part, or self critique, or self acceptance. He just kind of side steps the whole thing.

This was a great episode. If I remember correctly there was a version of the script where Commander Riker died saving Lieutenant Riker. And the show would carry on with Lieutenant Riker with Data as first officer. But not killing either was also good.

Braga rejected the replacing Will for basically the same reason you guys did. But apparently Marina Sirtis liked that version of Riker better and would remind Frake of that... going forward perhaps to put more of that Riker into his future performances

That younger Riker cared more about his career then his relationship with Deanna. It wasn't exactly that he broke up with her, it's that he made his career a priority, and by the time they both got to the Enterprise two years later both their feelings had changed. The thing is, we can't actually know Thomas Riker would do the same thing. He lived a differnt life where he was thinking of Deanna all those years. It didn't end with "we're done" it ended with "let's take some time and see what happens" which is honestly the right thing to do. There's also the element that he's built her up for those 8 years, and the reality is of course going to be different.

I guess had they gone with Thomas Riker staying alive, it would have been sort of interesting because we'd have Riker but he'd be more of the season 1 Riker as opposed to the character who, as you point out, has become a bit stagnant. A chance to breathe new life into the character at the very end. Would have been cool to at least see an "alternate timeline" episode where that happened.

Troi and Riker's connection wasn't just a typical "betazoids can sense people" thing. He was her "Imzadi". Not being both betazoids its not the full version, but its a sort of psychic connection where they can feel each other's emotions. This was shown early on with Will Riker but presumaby that connection faded over time. So it is actually possible she could have "felt" Thomas Riker even at the great distance.

Gonna agree with your Commander Riker slander -- I just don't think he's really that great of a first officer. He can be a dick, needlessly. When Picard is away, Riker just seems over his head (the Ferengi takeover in Rascals was a low point). But the character is great. And the actor is as well. Another reviewer, reviewing Frame of Mind, said "Riker is often at his best when he's either completely relaxed or being horribly abused." I didn't want to spoil stuff back then, but I remember when you watched Best of Both Worlds, Riker was REALLY GOOD then.. and then it seems like it's been downhill since then. Great character, but not a great first officer.

Josh can barely contain his excitement.

S6 Tier List is going to be absurdly stacked. And to think people were talking like S6 wasn't that good? Out of their minds.

i am expecting Alex to get a yellow TNG uniform now and occasionally wrestle as Thomas Riker lol

The proposal was Will Riker was killed, Data becomes the new First Officer and Tom Riker takes the helm. Frakes was advised of the plan and said he didn't care as long as there was a character named Riker on the bridge. After first rejecting the idea, Rick Berman thought about it over a weekend. He could see story ideas, but, ultimately said no, because they were so close to the end of TNG's run.

Definitely one of my favorite takes I've written, so thanks for reading it!

It's an interesting concept to shake things up with Tom replacing Will, but I agree with you guys - I don't think it would work. Or rather it wouldn't generate enough good stories to be worth ruining the character we've built in Will over the last 6 years. It'd be like bringing on a new cast member entirely for the last season.

Where do you think Thomas Riker’s career will go? Will he make captain before William Riker lol? Do you think we’ll ever see Thomas again?

I think Riker is still a First Officer/Commander because after BoBW and Wolf 359, Starfleet doesn't fully trust Picard as Captain on his own, so Will agrees to give up his promotion to keep an eye on Picard and essentially co-Captain the Enterprise until Picard is trusted again.

Loved your reaction and your joy for this one. On rewatch, after so many years, it surprised me how vulnerable Troi was and how good the acting of Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes!

My head canon has Beverley putting a command level lock on the exercise room as she leaves

I always think bad to Enemy Within and am glad they didnt go that route, and you're right there must be a crap load of doubles out there how much the thing screws up. A Good episode that thankfully didnt play it safe by killing thomas off, thou they teased you with it

1:21:04 That's not the point. It was a freak accident this time, but it's something that could be engineered to happen whenever.

The random transport operator you mentioned was I think the first actual astronaut on Trek - Dr. Mae Jemison, who was invited by LeVar.

I loved that they kept Thomas alive but still made you think they would kill him. Killing him off was the expectation of course, which made the peril feel real.

So much fun watching this episode with you guys 👍

I wonder why they didnt go with Thomas Riker clean-shaven? Would have been so cool and would have tied back to old Riker better. But I understand there were a host of practical reasons, but still, how cool would that have been?

This Riker/Troi backstory is still lifted from Phase II (Decker/Ilia), and the setup was heard in Motion Picture. Decker says he’s sorry, and Ilia replies “that you left or that you didn’t say goodbye?” Riker did tell Troi, but the story is still essentially the same as the original idea, that he left her.

The transporter chief was played by Dr Mae Jemison, a real-life NASA astronaut.

A while back I shared that “First Contact” from S4 is my favorite TNG episode. What I didn’t say, I couldn’t because of this episode. FC is my favorite episode that best exemplifies the spirit of TNG (exploration, mission, etc). “Second Chances” is my favorite episode on a character & emotional level. Before this episode, I wasn’t a huge Riker fan. He was my least favorite of the main cast. You guys were right, Thomas Riker is different. His mannerisms are different and he’s nicer. He isn’t burdened by the years of stress of being in a command / leadership position. I know this first hand from being in a leadership position in my career for twenty years and having people under me that I was responsible for and had to direct every day. I never got a break from it. Even on my days off, I was still “the boss” and had to deal with stuff. That wears on you a lot. I was on several Trek forums back in the 90s and early 2000s and my profile name was “Thomas Riker”. I really wanted to use that for TA but that of course would’ve been a spoiler so I used my real name until changing it recently to what I have now which is my DJ name from my MixCloud show. I do a monthly DJ set of independent electronic music.

This episode would have been MUCH better if Left-Behind Riker was beardless.

You know they could have won if Draymon didn't FUCK IT UP. 2016 still stings. :-D

I knew you’d both give this episode an “S”. It’s well deserved.

Regarding the discussion of Starfleet bringing in a new Captain if Picard retried to fuck over Riker - They kind of did with Jelico. Riker should get the memo.

Will Riker gives Tom Riker his trombone, but Tom already gave his trombone to Deanna

There's "The Captain's Summit" that you can't watch yet because spoilers, but they asked Nimoy and Shatner about directing in the TOS days, and Nimoy explained it was just flat "out of the question!" The demands of shooting a sci-fi show in the 60s were such that it wasn't even considered. When you think about how much screen time Kirk and Spock had, it's clear that they never would have had time to prep and episode and direct it.

Sorry for the multiple posts, but I totally agree that the idea they considered, of killing Commander Riker and leaving Lieutenant Riker on the show, would have been a big mistake. Like, it's an interesting idea, but when you start thinking in detail about what it would mean, it just doesn't work.

I feel like I can understand Riker's decision to turn down his own command and stay on the Enterprise. It's an issue of being a small fish in a big pond vs. a big fish in a small pond. My interpretation is that he's decided he's happy on the Enterprise and that just becoming a captain for the sake of being a captain is not what he's interested in. He'd rather be second banana on the Enterprise than first on a different ship.

This is the episode that made 10-year-old me make a solemn vow to myself that if I ever meet a duplicate of myself (time travel, clone, whatever), I'll make an effort to be nice to the duplicate. This was a major concern for me.

"Thomas" is the perfect name for the lieutenant. It means "twin." Trust me... I know.

Can't say I realized until now that you guys disliked/were frustrated with Riker as a character quite to the extent of "least favourite main character in Trek". I mean we're talking 3 casts now. Chekov and Uhura were criminally underdeveloped in the show and movies, Crusher went 2 whole seasons without being the focus of an episode, Geordi can't seem to get an episode where they don't make him either a creep or the victim of some misfortune, and Dax, Bashir and Jake are still basically blank slates, so that's quite an indictment. And yes Troi has been getting good stuff lately, but she was also Lt. Cmdr "I sense" for 5 seasons. Fair enough, Riker was a dick in this episode, and not very likeable because of it. I don't find that's the norm for the character though. He's got to maintain a certain degree of formality as first officer, but Dick Riker only really comes out on a few occasions like Barclay being a problem officer, his dad showing up, Shelby gunning for his job, or in this case a copy of himself showing him all the flaws he doesn't like to see in himself. Otherwise never really saw him as someone who would be hard to work for/get along with. I've had bosses that were way bigger pricks than Riker ever was. As for the character's stagnation career wise, yeah that's on the writers for giving him so many chances to have his own command. It's fake drama when he's not going to leave the show. BoBW was pretty perfect because it gave us, well, the best of both worlds. We had a scenario where Picard was taken off the board and starfleet had enough faith in Riker to give him command, and he would have kept it had the not managed to rescue Picard. There was speculation that summer that PS would not be returning. But of course when he did it was understandable Riker would go back to XO without making him seem indecisive. They could even have written that he accepted the captain's position on the Melbourne and say he'd be leaving in a month when the current captain retires, and then it gets destroyed. Still, if I'm putting together a crew using all the characters from especially the 1966-2005 shows, strictly as a first officer, I still think Riker is second to none. As for Tom, he did kind of get shafted not getting that Lt. Cmdr promotion at the end given he also did everything Will Riker did on the original mission. Still, Will's warning to Deanna did end up being justified. I mean he let their relationship fall apart because he was hungry for advancement back when he was 26 and had tons of time. Tom Riker has lost almost a decade of his life and in his own words feels set back. Even if Will Riker never made captain, being first officer of the Enterprise is farther than 99%+ of all starfleet officers will ever get in their careers. He's made it. As far as risk of being hurt again, Will Riker is the safer bet. And sure enough, as soon as a career opportunity pops up, Tom puts the relationship on the back burner, because he's got a lot of catching up to do. Bold choice keeping him alive when 9 times out of 10 the duplicate in these kind of eps(in sci fi in general) is taken out of the equation one way or another. Still, between this and Frame of Mind, it was nice to see Frakes get something to chew on as an actor. Would have been funny if we got a "Special Guest Star - Jonathan Frakes" in the credits. Speaking of guest stars, Dr. Mae Jemison played the transporter chief in this episode. She was the first black woman to go to space, and a big Trek fan. She cited Nichelle Nichols as an inspiration for becoming an astronaut, and got a chance to meet Nichols during the production of the episode as Burton invited her to visit the set. Great episode, solid directorial debut for Burton. A tier.

You are both so right, the show had matured by this point - like a fine wine. Everyone both in front of and behind the camera had grown to understand who these characters were, what they would and would not say and do, and where they could go with them. Season 6 is so damn good.

I love how Marina Sirtis has completely dropped her "Betazoid accent" by this point. Her voice is so sweet and more calming somehow.

How could they subtly hint that a switcharoo happened? End of the ep happens, we think Thomas is dead, and we're back in Ten Froward. Cuts to Troi and Beverly talking at the bar again about the experience, and in the background, you see Riker absolutely nailing the solo in Night Bird... did Will finally master it or.... perhaps.... Also I am pretty sure I saw Thomas sit down once WITHOUT doing the Riker Maneuver... which I never caught before watching this ep.

Josh and Alex, a couple of points worth clarifying. 1) the directors have NOTHING to do with the writing of the episodes. They didn’t collaborate at all with the writers. The writers were very much kept away from the rest of the crew and the directors were basically assigned scripts. More often than not, the directors were assigned to scripts randomly. 2). When these episodes aired in first run syndication, they aired in the order you’re watching. When they aired as reruns, they were still run in aired order. They didn’t shuffle up S1 eps with S6 eps, etc. We still see this today on networks that air classic TV (MeTV, Nickelodeon, etc)

“One Will Riker is unique, even special….” -season 2 Riker who has no idea what’s to come.

TNG The sex scoreboard Interesting scoreboard update. Troi gets a pop and a “guest star” Riker II gets a score. Yes I am sure the Crane block led to the Stork move. Riker 14 Troi 6 new Picard 4 Dr. Bev 3 Data 2 Geordi 2 Broccoli 2 i Ro 1 Worf 1 Chief/Keiko 1 Extra: Riker II 1 new Troi and Riker II getting’-it-on. Funny fact for the scoreboard. We have not given Troi and Riker a score because they have not done how-now-pound-town as part of an episode. So in some ways we finally do get a score for Troi and Riker but it is not Riker.

They did a good job, Tom’s hair and beard are different than Will’s. I was just wondering why he didn’t shave? Tom wouldn’t have had a beard back then until after he got stranded. Maybe it’s easier to cut between two beardos.

The Next Generation had an unofficial directing academy. Anyone on the show weather cast or crew could take a crack at directing if they wanted to. That tradition continues into DS9 and beyond.

The first time I watched this I was convinced that it was Will Riker that was going to get killed and that Thomas would take his place 🤔... But it's a great episode

Watching this season back - yeah S6 is probably the best of the show.

Worf - "This is impossible!! ONE RIKER!! ONE BRIDGE!!!!"

It's two Rikers! Double the beard! Double the attitude! ! Double the Rizz!

Ah LeVar Burton directorial debut and getting two Frakes for the price of one what’s not to love?