Another five star episode; two in a row. It's another one of my personal favorites and, in my opinion, the best "Wesley" episode ever.
The Enterprise is headed to Earth for Picard to give the commencement speech for the graduating Starfleet Academy students. You know that's too good to last. Before they get to Earth, Admiral Brand contacts Picard to tell him that Wesley and his flight squad had been involved in an accident that has resulted in the death of one of their teammates. Picard is naturally very disturbed but he goes straight to Beverly to assure her, shaken as she is, that Wesley is fine.
Later, when they get to the academy, Brand is there to say that all the parents have been notified and that there will be an inquiry into the matter. The dead student's father, Lt. Commander Albert, wishes for commencement exercises to continue and everything seems on the level. Picard and Beverly visit Wesley and the scene is very somber. He doesn't seem to mind Picard's interest or his mother's mothering of him until he's visited by the Nova Squadron's flight commander, Nick Lorcano, and then he becomes suddenly distant with them... you can feel the wall come up between them. The actor that played Nick went on to play Tom Paris on Voyager. He was originally supposed to play Lorcano on Voyager, but due to legal issues they had to make him a different character, though similar. Not similar enough for me, as I've whined several times about how Lorcano should've been on Voyager, but it is what it is. Once they're alone, Wesley expresses his nerves about the inquiry but Nick assures him that everything will be fine as long as the team sticks together. There's no doubt that something is up now. Where was all this great peer pressure when Wesley was growing up and being perfect from sun up to sun down? And I admit this is a much bigger deal than setting Nanites loose on the ship by accident, but he'd never had any real challenges to his character development up until now and then it's like going from one extreme to the other. But this "other" is far more interesting.
Ray Walston makes an appearance as the groundskeeper Boothby who Picard had told Wesley about in his final episode as a regular. He would reprise it in Voyager as well. Then the hearing commences. Lorcano begins describing the maneuvers of the flight team in the story that the four of them had rehearsed to Wesley's discomfort earlier. His explanation sounds very straight forward, but Admiral Brand finds many holes in it. The flight plan was changed and Cadet Hajar's admission of this is forced and lacks any explanation. Ensign Sito claimed to be flying on sensors only and couldn't see the other ships which is not normal either. Lorcano rescues their interrogation by blaming the accident on Cadet Albert, claiming that he panicked as they were heading into their Yeager Loop maneuver and crashed into Hajar. Albert's father is heartbroken. Admiral Brand is still not satisfied and even more disturbed than before.
Picard orders Geordi to conduct an investigation into the accident of his own while the cadets are talking about the next round of questioning and getting their stories straight about the data on Wesley's flight recorder. It ends in static before any damaging evidence can be shown. And the pressure is three on one. The girls are scared and Nick is merciless as they attempt to believe the lie that they'd started about Albert having doubts and hesitations. They tell Wesley that he doesn't have to lie, but that he doesn't have to offer any additional information. He sticks to it even after a heart wrenching reminiscence with Albert's father about a trip to Calgary. He presents the data from his flight recorder and then, at the Admiral's requests, describes the Yeager Loop maneuver and the diamond shaped positions they should've been in to do this. The scenes from his flight recorder don't contradict this, but then the Admiral drops the bomb that a satellite orbiting Saturn had picked up a picture of the Nova Squadron in a circular formation. Wesley has no explanation and the rest of the team are visibly scared now.
Beverly is sure that Wesley is telling the truth and can't explain the satellite picture but is willing to go in with the other parents to have the hearings delayed and is bewildered when Wesley tells her not to protect him. Meanwhile, Picard first goes back to Boothby to size up the personalities of the flight squad. He tells him how Lorcano is a natural leader and the others would do absolutely anything for him. I love Ray Walston anyway, and this Boothby character is a tribute to all of the invisible but observant people out there who know much more than anyone really guesses like landscapers, housekeepers, bar keeps, etc. He then goes to Geordi and Data to see if they've found out anything of significance, but they haven't. The only thing Data noticed that was odd is that Wesley's plasma interlock was opened when it should've been closed during the flight, the danger being that it could ignite the plasma. Then a light goes off in Picard's head.
Picard calls Wesley to his ready room and tells him to identify a Kolvoord Starburst maneuver on his display screen. It is a flight maneuver that hasn't been preformed at the Academy in a hundred years since the last time it was attempted all five cadets died. Based on the situation of the ships in the satellite picture and the fact that Wesley's plasma interlock was opened, he proposes that the Nova Squadron were trying to do this very maneuver. Wesley doesn't answer but maintains that he's only told the truth up until now. Of course, Picard recognizes that it's only a partial truth and demands that if he doesn't tell the entire truth at the inquiry that he will. It's a fantastic scene as it always is when Wesley and Picard are paired together. The ethics are solid and it's great character development for a character that isn't even on the show regularly any more. Very gripping. When Wesley tells Nick that he intends to confess, Nick gets mad and tells him that he should resign his commission rather than get the rest of the team in trouble. He says that it's what he would do if he was in Wesley's place.
And it looks like they may get out of it anyway. Brand is sure that something funny is going on but there's no real evidence and she has no choice but to close the inquiry. She revokes everyone's flight privileges, and give them all formal reprimands which is harsh enough as it is. But after the bell tolls, Wesley stands and admits the truth. He wants to assure Albert's father that his son wasn't to blame for the accident. And then Nick, true to his word, claims full responsibility to protect the other cadets and keep them in Starfleet. He is the only one of the team expelled.
But it won't be a cake walk for the remaining cadets. They're set with the task of being essentially held back for a year, unable to graduate with the rest of their class and they'll have to endure living with soiled reputations on campus. If only Wesley was still a regular on the show, some follow up could've been done. But they wasted his time on the show by making him the perfect little hero all the time. It still drives me crazy. This is such a cool episode.
This episode is so powerful that they show it at the Air Force Academy as a part of teaching about duty and ethics. And Cadet Sito, the Bajoran, would be back for another one of my all time favorite episodes, Lower Decks, using the effects of this incident as part of her character make up which was another stroke of smooth brilliance that they were now very good at in the latter seasons. These are the kind of episodes that laid the real groundwork for the more complex stories of DS9 later on. Love it, love it. Like I already said, five stars.
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