After five seasons they finally unite the two Star Trek series. Even though DeForest Kelly was in the pilot episode, he was unnamed and under heavy makeup. I liked this two part episode a lot and I think it was great that they started doing more than one of them per season.
It opens with their original mission being halted so they can go back and meet privately with an admiral. You always know it's going to be serious when they won't discuss it over subspace. Admiral Brackett tells Picard that one of the most celebrated ambassadors had disappeared and they have intelligence that he was seen on Romulus. She shows him a grainy video from Romulus which when cleared up shows that Spock is there meeting with important looking people. Starfleet fears that he's defected. I mean... the audience is never worried for a moment, but it's a different century and although Picard has melded with Sarek, he doesn't know Spock as well as the first crew of the Enterprise did, so he has to take the matter seriously. Their trip to Vulcan has a two-fold purpose. First, there's the matter of investigating some debris from a crashed Ferengi cargo ship which appears to be Vulcan. The debris is at Vulcan and Picard puts Riker in charge of that while he goes to see Sarek personally to find out what he can about what Spock may be up to.
While Riker and Geordi are confirming that the debris is of Vulcan origin, Picard talks first to Perrin who can only tell him that Spock couldn't have been abducted since he wrapped up his affairs before leaving and then she leaves him with Sarek who is suffering from the last stages of Bendii Syndrome which causes him to lose control of his emotions and slowly his mind. He doesn't respond until Picard mentions Spock. Then he comes to his senses long enough to talk. He tells Picard that he may have been looking for a senator named Pardek who he'd met at the Khitomer Confrences. This episode is also a tie-in to the Star Trek VI movie which provides a visual bridging storyline from one generation of Star Trek to the next. Sarek complains of Spock's stubborn will, but Spock is really all he cares about anymore and before he sinks back into a haze of dementia, he wants Picard to let Spock know he loves him if he finds him.
Data and Picard confirm that Pardek was one of the other people in the grainy video that he'd seen at the beginning of the show. Picard needs a cloaked vessel to get into Romulan space but when he goes to ask the favor from Gowron, Worf explains that he's behaving as though he had no help in winning the civil war and ascending to power. So Picard politely threatens the bureaucrat assigned to talk to him with seeking others in the Empire for such a favor, knowing that Gowron would want to keep him as an ally. A Klingon ship is promptly dispatched, courtesy of Gowron. It's a great sequence of scenes... Picard doesn't need the final moment of a crisis to be cool. They're fitted for Romulan prosthetics and makeup instead of using surgical alteration and they are off with the cranky Klingon commander trying to persuade them to back out the entire time.
After determining that the debris belonged to a Vulcan called T'Pau which had been decommissioned and sent to a scrap yard, Riker takes the Enterprise to talk to the proprietor of the establishment. I love this guy. He's so funny. He's snotty and doesn't respond to direct orders to be helpful to them because, as Troi puts it, he's king of his own little hill. And he really had every reason for this conceit... you can tell he's meticulously organized and is utterly shocked when, after some flattery, he takes them to the coordinates where it should be, it's not there. And neither is the Tripoli, the ship on which the Vulcan deflector array had been stored. Since more activity is scheduled to happen with the Tripoli in two hours, they decided to cut the power and wait to see if anything will return to steal another vessel. On the Klingon ship the dialogue is funny and light for a while until Picard gets a communique that Sarek has died. Their mission is now also a personal mission to tell Spock this news which Picard isn't looking forward to.
A small combat vessel flies in and takes the place of the Tripoli to receive its shipment and Riker immediately powers up and confronts them. They don't answer but start firing. Riker only wants them disabled and tells Worf to fire on their weapons and not even at full power. But the vessel is so heavily laden with armaments, it explodes. Oops. The mystery will have to continue until the next episode. Data and Picard change into their Romulan garb and the cowardly Klingon commander tells them that he won't come to rescue them if they get in trouble. Then we see Pardek talking to the Romulan Proconsul, Neral. He ask Pardek if he knows of Picard and he says he doesn't. But Neral knows that he's on his way to Romulus and tells him to be on the lookout for him.
Picard and Data try to mingle quietly and get some food, their only plan being to wait for Pardek to show up in an area that he's likely to frequent. There are uniformed guards nearby and as Pardek comes down the street they take Picard and Data away at phaser point. The guards lead them to an underground chamber where Pardek meets with them explaining that the guards are his assistants in the first fake out of the episode - Pardek is not out to arrest them like the Proconsul wants. When Picard explains that he's there to find Spock, Spock emerges from the shadows and the rest of that mystery has to wait for the second part.
I suppose the episode had been somewhat slow, but it'd
been full of the little details that will come into play as the story
progresses in the second part and these details are delivered in a way
that is pleasing and interesting, so I have no complaints. They also use the time to wrap up Sarek's character for good and he's the first character to be permanently dead in Star Trek. They were getting much better at the two part episodes, making them nearly as separate as they are connected. Very nice writing in my point of view. I'll give it four and a half stars, knocking the last half off for a lack of intensity and because I wish they'd gone into just a little more detail in the first part for reasons I'll discuss in the second part.
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