Unification II

DVD, TNG S5 (Unification II)

It is possible that this episode was a lot less than it should have been and didn't live up to the responsibility of bringing Spock into the 24th Century. It had worked in a small way with Dr. McCoy, but we didn't get to know him at his ancient stage of life, and when Scott came aboard he hadn't aged, so Spock was the first main character of 'TOS' to be fleshed out in his new life so long after the character we knew. He shows himself to have become a lot more human in manner, his emotions far less checked, and the same for his views. When Picard confronts him he is unapologetic for his behaviour, even defiant, and, like Kirk would later, pulls the old 'I was doing this before you were born, son' kind of attitude. His character was true to the way he changed between the series and the films. This was his final appearance in the Trek mythos, at least it was for almost twenty years until he became the cornerstone that made 'Star Trek XI' work, and the main reason for watching it - by then he was even more relaxed, and able to advise his younger self to use both sides of his heritage as he had learned to do through his long life.

Thanks to this, his involvement with the Romulans makes sense in that film, and you can understand, to a degree, why they felt it was his responsibility to help them. Perhaps the reunification movement had become much stronger by then, and Spock an open ally, though that isn't mentioned in the film. He begins the episode saying reunification has little chance of success, but by the end has resolved to stay and work at it, perhaps spurred on by Pardek's betrayal. I wondered why he felt able to move through the streets since he was clearly a Vulcan, and everyone must know the famous Spock. It must have been that he was among friendlies, and so felt secure to move about, or suspected the Romulans knew he was there.

Though the episode again feels a bit loose, the other Enterprise-based participants not having a worthwhile storyline, Spock's presence means things are never dull, and there are plenty of opportunities that are not missed between he and Picard, and more especially he and Data - their discussion of being human and Data's demonstration of a neck pinch on Sela being stand out moments. I don't see why they didn't take the unconscious Sela with them to be imprisoned, but then a lot of her side of the story didn't make a lot of sense. This time her plan is to lure Spock to Romulus, get him to read a speech advocating a peace delegation from the Romulans (even though she can fake up a holographic version - but apparently needed Spock so the display would be more interactive. Who would be asking the questions?), which are then supposed to arrive on three ships filled with troops to take over Vulcan by force.

And then what? They'll fight the entire might of the Federation to keep hold of that barren desert planet just so she can say "I own Vulcan"? She admitted she hated the Vulcans anyway, so what would this enforced unification provide, unless it was an opportunity to commit genocide. In any case the plan was flimsy, appeared not to have a realistic goal, and had zero percent chance of success, which makes me wonder if Sela simply enjoyed manipulating events and hoped to die in glorious battle against the Federation. In that case she could have come up with a much simpler plan, but we wouldn't have got to see Spock.

The episodes were promotionally motivated, as a cross-pollination for 'Star Trek VI'. Perhaps it would have been better to come up with something a bit simpler as the whole sub-story of the runaround after a missing Vulcan ship, a fat Ferengi and a four-armed piano player seemed to have very little point to it, aside from some silly, but fun scenes of Riker performing a jazz number on the ivories, and Worf having a singalong with the Klingon opera! Was there an Antican in the background of that seedy bar? One of the waitresses looked vaguely Andorian. Like 'Redemption' before it, the episode title continues the new tradition of leaving the 'part' out of 'part I' or 'part II,' but the crime is in Sela's name being shown in the opening credits: where's the surprise reveal? I recognised Vidal Peterson who went on to play Cardassian boy Rugal in 'DS9' ('Cardassians')

Despite the admitted flaws and the fact that the story isn't exactly sharp and flowing, preferring a stately pace full of political talk and the slow and steady march to the inevitable revelations, having Spock a part of Trek again, walking with Picard, a living legend with the current Captain of the Enterprise means it was all worth it. I would have liked the question of Vulcan and Romulus moving closer towards reconciliation to be addressed over the following years in the series or its spinoffs, but sadly, I'm not sure it was ever even mentioned again, probably because the Romulans were best left as untrustworthy adversaries. Similarly, I think this was the last we saw of Sela, shown to be less of an intelligent schemer than she first seemed, though of course it was not quite Denise Crosby's final appearance in the series.

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