“Preemptive Strike” (7×24)
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The penultimate TNG story, and the last Ro Laren story for over a quarter of a century, feels more like a DS9 episode: The Cardassians are conniving and unlikable, but not outright antagonists. The Federation’s position is pragmatic but morally dubious. Instead of tying the plot up in a neat little bow, the characters are forced to live with the choices they’ve made.
This is also the last time Patrick Stewart has directed on a Star Trek show. The episode is relatively light on Picard, with Ro as the undeniable central character. But the scenes Picard does have are doozies, and the final shot is staggering: the camera pans around a Picard who is stiff as a statue, his British stoicism struggling to contain fury and heartbreak and betrayal. Picard had invested a lot personally and professionally in Ro’s redemption, and she has thrown it all away for reasons that he can understand intellectually but never empathize with emotionally.
From what I understand, there was quite a bit of antipathy between the Star Trek producers and Michelle Forbes, after they had designed DS9 in part around Ro Laren only for her to turn down a series regular role. I have mixed feelings about that; I think continuing her journey of redemption under Sisko while getting back to her Bajoran roots would have been a more interesting and organic place to take the character. On the other hand, Nana Visitor was great as Kira Nerys and there were things they could do with Kira and her backstory that they never would have been able to do with Ro.
This episode resulted more or less out of the producers’ desperation. The end of the series loomed, and they were an episode short. Because this was the only story idea developed enough to get before cameras by the deadline, it fell to Jeri Taylor to mend fences enough to get Forbes back one last time.
The episode continues Riker’s unfortunate track record when it comes to undercover assignments. I really liked how Riker was written in the scene where Ro sabotages the mission and defects to the Marquis, and I thought Frakes brought a wonderful kindness and understanding to his performance that felt like a 180 from how Riker first met her in “Ensign Ro”. They’re not on the same side in that moment, but Riker still cares about her as a person, understands why she’s making the choice she’s making, knows how hard it is, and doesn’t have any desire to make it any harder.
In terms of Ro’s choice: I’m on the fence about whether it tracks or not. Given her upbringing, her history with the Cardassians, and her outsider status within Starfleet, it probably does. But as an audience member, I’ve seen her develop this mentor-mentee relationship with Picard over three seasons. It’s hard to believe that one guest star in one episode can get her to betray him.
I also don’t know that I buy Picard planning to lure the Marquis into a trap so that they can be slaughtered, especially given the care taken to disable but not destroy the Marquis raiders at the beginning of the episode. The cold logic tracks in terms of realpolitik: It’s better to sacrifice hundreds to spare the hundreds of thousands who would die in an unnecessary war. But that’s just not the kind of moral calculus Picard usually makes. I think it would have worked better if Admiral Nechayev had come up with the plan and Picard — despite his reservations — obeyed orders and executed it.
But all in all, lots of meaty stuff and a story that felt like a real departure for this show.
Impacts on Star Trek Continuity:
This was the only TNG episode featuring Ro Laren made after DS9 had debuted. That resulted in a number of changes to better align with (and take advantage of) what DS9 had established, starting with the elimination of the ridges above Ro’s nose on the bottom edge of her frontal bone. The production reason for this change was to streamline the creature makeup now that a Bajoran character was a series regular. As some who has a strong desire for verisimilitude in my fictional worlds, I wish they’d provided an in-universe explanation. Perhaps the eyebrow ridges release hormones during adolescence, and dissipate at a certain point in adulthood. Or perhaps it could have been a racial difference, like how the Romulans from the northern continent have forehead ridges but the Romulans from the more southern regions do not.
I do like seeing the Cardassians in their proper fascist uniforms, though.
The most recent episode of “Picard” deals with the fallout of this episode, and the ways its consequences have rippled down through lives of both central characters involved. It’s some really beautiful work, at least as poignant but no more tidy in its resolution.
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