Plot Synopsis: To the Federation’s surprise, Ambassador Spock has traveled to Romulus. Fearing he has defected, they send Captain Picard and Data on a covert mission to determine why. Riker and the Enterprise investigate a mystery of their own.
Plot A and B Analysis: Before the teaser, this episode begins with a title card memorializing Gene Roddenberry, due to his recent death. The teaser itself may be the briefest ever: a Starfleet admiral is in Picard’s ready room and informs him there is a possible defection, and shows him a photo of who is undeniably Spock on Romulus, in a Romulan uniform. Plot A is about Spock, plot B involves a junkyard. The Enterprise travels to Vulcan where Picard talks to Sarek, who is being ravaged by Bendii Syndrome, which we learned about back in Sarek. He gives Picard the name of a possible Romulan contact before succumbing to his disease. Picard maneuvers the Klingon Empire into giving him a cloaked ship (stupid Gowron!), and they arrive on Romulus. Plot B is interspersed throughout the episode, and it involves the crew investigating some hidden scraps of metal that were hidden on a Ferengi vessel that belonged to a Vulcan ship. They track it to a junkyard only to find two missing ships. The mystery deepens when an unknown ship arrives and the Enterprise accidentally destroys it. Whoops! The episode ends with Picard and Data getting picked up after being on Romulus for all of five minutes, but luckily it’s only to take them to the man everyone is looking for: Spock. Plot A and plot B of part one is really all about set up, and is moderately interesting.
Favorite Scenes: The scene with Picard and Sarek is great, I respect both actors so much. There is a funny moment where Picard is trying to get to sleep on a Klingon ship and Data is staring at him. When Picard mentions this Data apologizes and manages to make the way he turns away pretty funny. There are a couple of lines the Zakdorn says that I like. It occurs once he’s on board the bridge after Riker has told Troi to use her feminine wiles to get his help. She pleas for aid and introduces herself.
Zakdorn *pauses, looking at her*: He (Riker) probably figures that we don’t get to see a lot of handsome women out this way, and someone like you might get a little more cooperation from me. *pause* He’s probably right.
Use of Cast/Characters: Picard is front and center, and while there are several references to him in the Sarek episode there’s not much character development in this one. It is nice to see him and Sarek interact one last time, and he does outmaneuver the Klingons in a cool and subtle way. Riker follows the mystery of the Vulcan ship pieces, so he and Geordi have something to do. There is a quick, implied reference to The Icarus Factor when Picard and Riker and talking about fathers and sons which I liked. Worf has nothing to do, Beverly has one brief scene, Troi is basically eye candy for the Zakdorn. Data has several lines, and is generally useful. It seems that it’s the plot and not the characters that are being served, though. As far as the guest stars, what can I say? Mark Lenard is awesome, Leonard Nimoy is very, very briefly seen, and there are several others. The Klingon captain, K’Vada is the unrecognizable Stephen Root, who does a good job. Malachi Throne plays Pardek, who is also creditable as the Romulan senator. Graham Jarvis is enjoyable as the Zakdorn, Dokachin; he’s surprisingly fun to watch.
Blu Ray Version: Evidently the original footage of the Enterprise flying through the junk yard at around 29:44 could not be found, so the staff used a highly detailed CGI model. Same story with the ship ‘parking’ at 30:48.
Nitpicks: I do find it adorable that the Zakdorn guy calls Troi a “handsome woman.” Not sure how well that compliment goes over, ever. I’m not sure why they did the dedication plaque at the beginning of this episode instead of The Game, which aired four days after Roddenberry’s death. Maybe there wasn’t enough time?
Overall Impression: For some reason this episode isn’t particularly memorable for me. I remember the stuff with Spock and Romulus, but the details don’t come back to me like virtually every episode I’ve seen in the entire series up to this point. There is a lot of set-up in this episode and I don’t find a lot wrong with it, but the plot just doesn’t stick with me. It’s not boring–maybe bland is a better word–but it’s not memorable either. I suppose this is in part because nobody actually believes Spock would defect, so there’s no tension. It’s more about Leonard Nimoy being in a TNG episode than anything else. The entire focus here seems to be setting up part two, instead of making part one really interesting and memorable. I’ll rate this episode 2.5 out of 5 stars.
Behind the Scenes/Trivia: This two-parter had more people watch it than any previous episode except the pilot. This is the first two-parter in TNG history that is not also a season-ending cliffhanger. Unification II was shot before part one, which was due to Nimoy’s schedule. He didn’t get much above scale for pay, but was promoted to executive producer for Star Trek VI, so he was happy. The Zakdorn we see running the junkyard is of the same species as Kolrami from Peak Performance. The unknown ship is a re-use of the Husnock ship in The Survivors. This is the first time we get to see the surface of Romulus! Well, the matte painting anyway. This episode was nominated for an Emmy for achievement in Music Composition.
Talk about guest stars. Leonard Nimoy plays the legendary Spock from TOS, that’s the obvious one. Office Space/NewsRadio fans rejoice, Stephen Root is also present playing the Klingon captain! TOS fans may possibly recognize Malachi Throne, who was in The Menagerie and way back in The Cage as well. Jeri Taylor wrote part one, and accepted a job to write the novelization as well. The catch was she only had 30 days to do it! She ended up writing part one at the same time she was writing an entire novel–busy lady. She briefly shared this experience:
Yes, September 1991 was a month I’ll never forget. I was writing Part One, I was writing the novel–it was like an endless finals week. You live on coffee, you’re wired, you shut yourself off from family and friends; I had no other life but Unification!
Missable/Unmissable? If you care about Star Trek history this episode is unmissable. There is no man more associated with Star Trek than Leonard Nimoy, and he is reprising his most famous role.