Unification

Pre-Cast: The one thing I really remember about this ep when broadcast was how… annoyed I was as I remember in the run up being told that there would be a major tie-in and/or spoiler for Undiscovered Country, then just about ready to be released. Now, having watched this recently I have to say, I love the performances turned in by Spock and Sarek. Mark Lenard was heart breaking (And Picard’s reaction… wow) and Data and Spock… wanted to watch more of them. Romulan invasion force of ‘thousands’ of troops in three ships. Um… Vulcan HAS starships… and, I presume, a LOT of people. Wouldn’t the Romulans have to defeat/kill/administer a few million Vulcans each?? I loved the starship junkyard, but can’t imagine the sheer waste of such a thing. Wouldn’t you at least take the raw materials out of the ships? Dunno. I like the character moments throughout these two-parter… but, the plot makes my brain hurt. Anyhoo… another great podcast! Worf mentioned to Riker about the Picard gave his orders and you said Worf would never do that. I disagree, at this point Picard and Data are both off the ship and Worf is defacto first officer. It is Worf’s duty to point this out. I like that your said the Sarek/Spock relationship deserves its own episode…. But that is the point of this arc. We want this story to play out more, but we’ll never get that because Sarek is gone and that is so relatable. I think this helps make this episode great. Yep: Breaking the timeline a bit, but that’s exactly the way Worf behaves as Data’s first officer, to the point that he needs a reprimand, in a future two parter. Yes, learned that recently…we never get enough time to say all we want…. I agree with your final assessment of the episodes. The individual bits work well, and seeing Nimoy and Lenard (though not together) are fantastic. Sarek’s death is heart-wrenching. The comedy works and feels very natural unlike the episodes that purposely try to be funny. As a whole, however, the episode doesn’t work. It’s too long. The pacing is slipshod. Part 2 feels like a talking head episode. I still don’t like how Riker hid the Enterprise in the junkyard and the pirates didn’t immediately question why a four-year-old Galaxy-class starship was in the depot. In my opinion, the next season episode with Scotty and James Doohan is a lot better than this one. You hit a key word: wreckage. Salvage yards are filled with scarred, pitted, damaged, and all out destroyed vessels. I’m sure younger vessels that had been taken out at Wolf 359 would be there. However, the Enterprise is in near-pristine condition and would stand out like a sore thumb. Any pirate worth his weight in latinum would have done a quick scan upon arrival just to find out if there’s been a new addition to the yard. They also probably have hacked the yard’s computer system and would have a detailed inventory of every ship at every given moment. The Pirates were probably not looking that closely. I’m sure if they had they would have questioned it. I do like how “big” this makes the Star Trek universe feel though. Big and yet interconnected. It’s funny, but I really liked a lot of the stuff that you’d swear was jammed in there to pad things out – the cantina scene, the Klingon opera, the stuff with the quartermaster of the shipyard, all the verbal fencing with the Klingon captain, Gowron’s junior adjutant. I really admire Jeri Taylor’s Hour of Tap Dancing (which most folks refer to as “Unification Part I”), which had the unenviable task of keeping the plates spinning until Spock shows up. That it’s as much fun as it is… I’m not sure Jeri really got her due here. You mention Unification only working if you’re watching it from the vantage point of the True Fan…and there’s probably something to that. Of course, at the time, a lot of us did watch it and enjoy it from that perspective, didn’t we? TNG was riding high, and it was not uncommon for even the mainstream press to comment on how spectacularly well written