Star Trek: The Next Generation — 6x19 — Lessons

Aired 1993-04-05

SpaceOpera.com rating:7

Average reader rating:6.81

Synopsis

Picard sends the woman he loves on a deadly mission.

Remarkable scenes

Picard, frustrated that Stellar Cartography is consuming all of the ship's resources.
Picard's rather abrasive first meeting with Darren.
The Chopin performance.
Picard playing Frère Jacques with Darren.
Darren playing the Moonlight Sonata.
The scene with Data and Geordi where they hear Picard and Darren's music.

Review

This episode is delightful in that it presents the first convincing romance for Picard. I also like the continuity with TNG: The Inner Light regarding Picard's flute and the story concerning the probe. Finally, the music in this episode is great. The best scene in my opinion is when Darren plays the first part of the Moonlight Sonata in the Jeffrey's tube juncture for Picard. I have to take off points for the fact that we never see Darren again though. As moving as this episode is, its lack of consequences is extremely annoying.

3 reader comments

I loved this episode. At first I was afraid it would be a little dull, but it quickly turned around. I liked how you could tell from Picard and Daren's first conversation that they would become an item. Since I am a musician myself, I really like the musical connection the two of them have, especially since it refers to "The Inner Light," which is an excellent episode to be reminded of.
I find myself consistently enjoying Picard love-interest stories, mainly because they're not treated at all cavalierly, as with Riker (for the first few TNG seasons anyway) and Kirk. Picard takes love, like everything else, quite seriously, and he's not at all a skirt-chaser, and I identify with and appreciate that. I enjoyed Vash ("Captain's Holiday"), I enjoyed Kamala ("The Perfect Mate"), and I enjoyed Eline ("The Inner Light"), and I enjoy the continuing romantic tension between Picard and Crusher, though the producers have wisely toned it down since Season One. In the scene in sickbay between Daren and Crusher, you can see hints of jealousy on the part of the doctor (brilliantly acted by McFadden), which show that that's still a viable plot thread.
The one problem I have is Daren's hokey roll-up keyboard. They could have easily thought up something not only cooler, but more realistic; any pianist, seeing a keyboard just under three octaves, and scoff. Daren certainly manages to get a lot more than three octaves' worth out of it! Also, not being able to press keys that actually go down would be rather confusing to any pianist. Plus, the keys definitely look bigger than real piano keys. Fortunately, we don't see it too much after the love interest plot takes off.
The other problem, of course, is that due to the heavily episodic nature of the series, we never hear from Daren again. (Reminds me of "The Game".) I mean, we hear Picard say he's in love with her, and they wisely decide that it's a conflict of interest, but you'd think we'd see him keeping up some kind of communication with her! Oh well.
The scene between them toward the end is brilliantly written and acted.
An 8.
by DJB | 08/19/2008 at 2:03 am

Though I guess it's part of the remarkable scene with the Moonlight Sonata, I really loved it when Picard played that folk melody from "Inner Light" in the Jeffries Tube. It reminded me of just how amazing that episode was, and how amazing that little tune is.
by John DC | 09/04/2011 at 3:56 am

It's a small point, but in the Jeffries Tube scene, the tube behind Darren is very obviously a 2-D image of a tube. You can see shadows on the surface.
The "lesson" I learn in this episode is that Picard will use any possible excuse to avoid intimacy. I'm not sure why, but he's terrified of it. I mean, he has to make Darren transfer to a different ship because he can't bear to risk her life? How often is the head of stellar cartography going to be in that situation? And why would that happen less on whatever ship she's transferred to? He's just a coward.
I think both in the breakup scene as well as the "Picard apologizes for the turbolift incident" scene, you can see that Darren knows that Picard is unable to get into a real relationship. She's willing to play along with his rationalizations because she knows there's no point in fighting it. He is who he is, and she can't change him.
by tigertooth | 01/09/2017 at 4:14 am