“Coming of Age”
Written by Sandy Fries (uncredited rewrite by Hannah Louise Shearer)
Directed by Mike Vejar
Season 1, Episode 19
Original air date: March 14, 1988
Star date: 41461.2
Mission summary
Enterprise delivers acting ensign Wesley Crusher to Relva VII to participate in the planet’s annual Hunger Games Starfleet Academy entrance examination. He meets the other candidates: a girl named Oliana, a Vulcan girl named T’Shanik, and a Benzite named Mordock. They are all incredibly bright, but apparently only one of them will be offered a coveted spot at the Academy.
While the crew waits around for wunderkind Wesley to ace his test, Picard reunites with an old friend, Admiral Quinn. Alas, this isn’t a social call: The admiral assigns his obnoxious assistant Remmick to ferret out something “wrong” on the ship. It soon becomes obvious that the real focus of their investigation is Captain Picard himself, as Remmick interrogates the staff about his performance in the first season’s greatest hits, as well as several discrepancies in the log.
Wesley and Mordock prove themselves to be the best candidates through each phase of The Federation’s Next Top Cadet, and Wesley even helps the Benzite out with a tricky question—which gives his opponent a slight advantage. But Wesley is nervous about the psychological exam, which is supposed to force applicants to face their worst fears. He’s already made a fool of himself in front of Oliana, so what could it be?
Picard scores some points of his own with Remmick when Wesley’s friend Jake steals a shuttlecraft to run away and join a freighter, upset that he wasn’t chosen to take the Starfleet Academy admission test. The kid screws up and his shuttle ends up on a crash course for the planet, until Picard talks him through a maneuver that enables it to bounce off the atmosphere.
Finally fed up with Quinn and Remmick’s vague investigation, Picard demands an explanation. Remmick reports that there’s nothing wrong on Enterprise: “Except, perhaps, a casual familiarity among the Bridge crew, but mostly that comes from a sense of teamwork, and the feeling of family.” Then he asks Picard for a job, because that’s how networking works in the future. Quinn explains that he suspects people are trying to take down Starfleet from within and he needs people he can trust in positions of power. He offers Picard a promotion to commandant of Starfleet Academy, and Picard promises to give him an answer by that evening.
Wesley passes his psych test: a no-win scenario fabricated to force him to make the difficult choice of leaving a man behind after a devastating explosion in the environmental lab. But Wesley still doesn’t make the cut — Mordock will be going to the Academy, the first Benzite in Starfleet. Better luck next year, Wes!
A run in with Jake helps remind the captain that his place is still on Enterprise; he turns down the promotion, though he promises to support Quinn however he can. Then he consoles Wesley about being a failure:
PICARD: Did you do your best?
WESLEY: Yes.
PICARD: When you test next year, and you will test next year, do you think your performance will improve?
WESLEY: Yes.
PICARD: Good. The only person you’re truly competing against, Wesley, is yourself.
WESLEY: Then you’re not disappointed?
PICARD: Wesley, you have to measure your successes and your failures within, not by anything I or anyone else might think. But, if it helps you to know this, I failed the first time. And you may not tell anyone!
WESLEY: You? You failed?
PICARD: Yes. But not the second time.
So the ship will be stuck with Wesley for at least another year. Back on the Bridge, he takes his station at navigation and lays in a course for their next mission, business as usual.
Analysis
This is another disjointed story that tries to create tension and conflict from the smallest incidents. Part of the problem with “Coming of Age” is that the B-plot only exists to set up a later episode, “Conspiracy,” and it isn’t handled all that well. Only one step above a clip show, Remmick mentions the events of previous episodes in the course of your standard “interrogate a large group of people” montage. I would love to know what program or film first introduced the editing technique used to cut between different questions and responses. It’s effective, but clichéd.
The intrigue surrounding the vague investigation and Quinn’s ominous warnings of Starfleet’s imminent doom are compelling, especially considering the perfect future Roddenberry has created; however, the plotline doesn’t manage to satisfy viewers as it’s essentially a teaser for what’s to come—a lot of buildup for something that doesn’t really go anywhere interesting. Personally, I would have preferred Picard to evaluate his friendship with Quinn through these events and come to a stronger realization than, “I should be a starship captain! I can make a difference!” since he’s been doing that all along.
The A-plot of Wesley’s examination fares slightly better. Although we deal with many scenes of students answering technobabblish questions on computer screens, we also get to see just how competent the boy is, and how he behaves among other teens as talented as himself. Whether we believe Wesley or not, he insists that despite his natural ability, he still needs to study, and I felt my sympathy for him sway back in his direction. He handles the situation with the Zaldan remarkably well, and though his psych test might be transparent to viewers, it was interesting to see him deal with that sudden moment of self-awareness. It’s particularly interesting to see Wesley fail at something, and his nurturing relationship with Picard really starts to evolve in this episode.
Although the testing makes for decent enough drama, I had a hard time accepting that Starfleet’s application process is really so competitive. Why are they taking only one applicant from this random planet? What determines where you have to take the test? If the exam is really standardized and selective, why not compare their scores to those of every other exam taker everywhere in the galaxy? I also have to imagine that an acting ensign would have what some would consider an unfair advantage over other candidates, for all the good it does him; it also has to be somewhat embarrassing for a candidate from the Enterprise to not advance to the Academy. I half suspect Wesley lost the deciding points for his shirt.
I was also highly suspicious of the incident with the shuttlecraft. Was Enterprise really unable to move into transporter or tractor beam range in time to save the kid? The whole thing is crafted to give Picard a chance to shine and have a Meaningful Moment with a Troubled Young Man we’ve never seen before, nor will see again. Off to boarding school with him, I think. And I didn’t remember Riker being this pouty and unprofessional. I couldn’t believe it when he sulked, exclaimed “This is very frustrating!” and actually stormed off the Bridge. Well done, Number One.
This is weird, very uneven episode, but I can’t complain too much. It was overall engaging and focused on characters and their relationship more than most episodes have this season. It was, at the very least, an enjoyable diversion for forty-eight minutes; sometimes that’s all it takes, but it’s surprising how often the series fails to deliver even that much in its early seasons.
Eugene’s Rating: Warp 3 (on a scale of 1-6)
Thread Alert: I just have never been able to get behind the Starfleet dress uniforms. It’s not so much the length, as the fact that they are shapeless and unflattering, and Picard’s in particular looks like it was slapped together in a few minutes by a drunken seamstress.
Best Line: LA FORGE: “Commander, just having that guy around makes me feel guilty.”
Trivia/Other Notes: A deleted scene shows Wesley and the crew celebrating his sixteenth birthday. Big deal, when you’ve already been driving a starship.
This episode marks the first appearance of a shuttlecraft in the series.
Previous episode: Season 1, Episode 18 – “Home Soil.”
Next episode: Season 1, Episode 20 – “Heart of Glory.”
Such a weak episode. Warp 3 is rather generous. I think the thing that bothers me most is the establishment of the precedent that it is almost impossible to get into the Starfleet Academy. Of course, they had to do that so there was an excuse to keep Wesley around. (Yet another argument in favor of Mr. Midshipman Crusher over Acting Ensign.) But Starfleet needs thousands of people in a wide variety of fields, where are they going to get them if they only let in a handful of new students every year?
The B-plot seems to be the first attempt at creating an actual story arc, and they flubbed it completely. There’s no sense of anything other than these two guys being major jerks. The whole infiltration of Starfleet never really goes anywhere and gets resolved and forgotten so fast, it’s incredible. The topic would be handled much better by DS9, but then the Founders were also a little more credible infiltrators than than TNG’s stupid parasite thingies.
I am very amused by the Riker-flounce. Even if it is extremely obvious that he’s an insufferable douche throughout all of first season.
Agreed that the testing makes no sense… it’s like they’re sitting around taking the MCAT together and they’re allowed to talk. Also, duh, the boys are the only ones who really had a chance… but why wouldn’t Starfleet take everybody who passes an aptitude test?
Two issues:
1) I could’ve sworn that Mordock looked over at Wesley’s screen before he put in the 1:1 trick question answer. Doesn’t this bother anyone?
2) How has Wesley heard of Mordock before? Is he on the Future World equivalent of some kind of Center for Talented Youth newsletter talking about his overachieving peers? But isn’t the population so big by now you’d never get through the monthly editions??
Bonus: I would’ve liked the psych test even more if there weren’t the forced emergency; if he was just sent to sit in a room without instructions, until he realized he could just leave.
This was simultaneously a lot better and a lot worse than I had remembered.
I actually really enjoyed the Wesley plot. I liked that though he’s the obvious candidate aboard the Enterprise, that doesn’t mean he’s a shoo-in to be the best most special sparkliest there ever was. His tests were interesting, especially the encounter with the Zaldan. The way he approached them, with a mixture of fear and confidence, felt authentic to me.
There were also some character moments I really enjoyed, the encounter in the holodeck with Worf most of all. Worf has some great lines, and that he admitted not only that he has fears but that he continues to struggle with them constantly, is one of the more moving moments on the series thus far. It helped that Worf doesn’t explicitly tell us what his test was. There’s enough left to the imagination, for once. In the same vein, I actually liked Picard’s talks with Wesley about how in the end, the only person that needs to be satisfied is yourself. It’s a little cheesy but it’s a truism of life, and one that I learned as a teenager, too.
That said, the whole testing concept is exponentially more idiotic than I had remembered. Why wouldn’t Starfleet take every qualified, promising candidate? The whole point of academy admissions should be to identify potential, which these kids seem to have in spades. And why are they facing off against each other regionally? Why can only one of them advance to the academy? I was thinking about this issue earlier reading Martin Sutherland’s insightful post on the ways in which we measure success in the internet age. It’s no longer enough to be the best in your school, or your region, or your field–the internet has enabled us to compete against the whole world, meaning good isn’t good enough. I’m honestly surprised that TNG took this tack as well, by making success a cutthroat zero-sum game in which many may enter but only one may win. Where’s the sense that everyone has a place and a talent? Where’s the emphasis on teamwork and collaboration?
I also really didn’t like his “fear.” We’ve never once seen Wesley have any daddy issues (aside from his discomfort around Picard), so to have that come out of nowhere felt pretty forced to me. And the scenario just wasn’t scary. It didn’t ask him to confront anything about himself or make a difficult choice. He helps the guy who can’t help himself–it’s the obvious thing to do and you can’t be responsible for the actions of others too cowardly to save themselves. It just wasn’t a very big deal to me.
The less said about the “investigation” plot the better. I had entirely forgotten the surprise twist that Picard gets offered the Academy. This feels SO weird, the kind of shallow political machination that doesn’t really belong on the series at this stage, and Picard never gives the position any serious thought. I think it’s funny he decides to turn it down because he realizes his place is on the ship: successfully giving advice to teenagers. Hahaha.
Warp 3.
Frankly if you are going to go through the motions of having a up front credited character possibly leaving the show – which the viewers know will not happen because he is in the up front credits — then his failure to pass should be a bigger deal and evolve directly out of the character. Instead of ‘Sorry Wesley, the other kids scored better’ Wesley’s failure should have been because he blew something, like the psych test, and having him confront that failure would then represent a chance for character growth. oh that’s real writing with flawed characters not something they were big on in season 1.
Many of my points covered in a thorough review.
An episode with an A plot and a well developed B plot, a structure that will become a staple in later seasons, this installment feels like a hybrid cross between a clip show and Sequel Two of a three part series. It seems to be almost entirely a rehash / recap of the series so far as well as a set up for later events, all framed around the dramatic “unease” something is wrong. Wesley’s B story seems equally without direct purpose. Two halves of a bun with a nothingburger between.
The series as a whole begins to feel like it is dogpaddling without direction.
Let us again note—and not for the last time—Counselor Troi is singularly AWOL when she might have otherwise proven helpful in assisting the captain better understand this “inspection.” Her absolute uselessness has become institutionalized at this point.
It’s interesting that Picard is offered a promotion and a new assignment this early in the series, the only one IIRC he’s offered in the entire series run and three feature length films.* It is interesting to wonder, in light of the later Conspiracy, what benefit Adm. Quinn hoped to gain by placing Picard in charge of the Academy.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and presume this episode was actually written in tandem with Conspiracy, with that episode in mind, and not just plied with hooks that were later tied off and bookended. In which case one must consider whether Quinn and Remmick were under the influence of the blue gills at this point, or whether they were coopted later… perhaps in response to their awareness and activism (paranoia) here. IMO, the latter interpretation is strongly indicated, as we don’t see Picard (or others) sensing anything is hinky or out of place with Quinn, as he (again without Troi’s help) immediately will six episodes hence.
The question, though, is an interesting one. If these two were already conscripted here, then their purpose in promoting Picard and installing him at the Academy is sinister. If they were not at this point already “Pod People,” then one wonders whether their horrible deaths were caused or assisted by Picard’s refusal to take the assignment….
* Ignoring Picard’s own infrequent Dickensian wavering on whether to quit the Star Service.
Any questions about what it takes to enroll in Starfleet Academy were thankfully addressed by the Abrams Star Trek movie, in which (as it seems) Starfleet takes in anyone who bothers to show up at the shipyard, even if they’re openly drunk. You may hit me now.
My guess is in the OS era they must’ve allowed the entry more than one cadet each year, since Kirk alone averaged a death of one graduate per episode.
In “The Apple” Kirk eliminated about a tenth of the Star Force, doing the math on a policy of just one successful applicant per year.
One thing I found excruciating ridiculous about this episode is Wesley’s exchange with Rondon the Zaldan—that, for the cult of multiculturalism, dysfunctional, even dangerous social and personality quirks are to be accommodated.
What if the Zaldan response to the insult of courtesy was to deliver instant death to the offender? Would that be smiled upon by Starfleet’s happy multicultural accommodation? What if violent rape was an acceptable form of flirtation in a given society? What if a race, above all else, valued crass disobedience and mutiny as its highest expressions?
Oh, heck, we value ALL viewpoints here!
If Wesley’s imperative was to accommodate the Zaldan officer, who takes courtesy as an offense and an insult, why is the Zaldan—also presumably an Academy graduate—not required to buck up and shrug off the insult?
The whole conceit is framed in the same silly, schoolyard-logic way as the Prime Directive. For a society that prides itself for its homogeneous accommodation, the Federation approaches this in the most rigid fundamentalist way imaginable.
My thinking is that this test was not part of the general process for entrance to the Academy but rather a locally organized competition for the Star Fleet equivalent of Congressional Nominations to a service academy. It has to be something like that because otherwise, there’s no way Star Fleet could keep their ships manned – much less staff new ships – if so few are able to get into the Academy.
I also had the feeling that the real reason for the tests we saw was to evaluate how the candidate handles the stress of awkward situations. Accumulated scores and test results would have already been considered as part of the procedure for being accepted into this testing event.
On my first viewing, I didn’t care for the investigation plot at all. Viewing it again after knowing where this plot will go only made it less interesting for me.
Just thinking about this. If this test event was for a ‘Congressional Nomination’ then maybe there were political considerations involved in the decision. Mordock being the first Benzite in Star Fleet – or should that have been the first Benzite to enter the Academy? That talk between Wesley and Picard could have been the place for that possibility to have been suggested. “I suspected this might happen but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t say anything about it because I wanted you to do your best with the full belief that your best would make a difference.”
Not a great episode but it did have a few good moments for me – like knowing what Picard was after when he directed Jake to put the shuttlecraft into a dive – trading altitude for speed. It might have been nice to have had Jake show up again in one or two later episodes for brief conversations with Wesley during which we learn that part of Jake’s punishment was being placed in a work-study program that had him learning everything he could learn about shuttlecraft piloting and upkeep. This could have set the stage for this character to come back with a better part in a later season episode.
The whole thing about admitting only a few people into the academy at a time didn’t make any sense to me for the longest time either. Now, though, I think it’s a little less ridiculous (but only a little).
The thing is, there’s only one Starfleet Academy that we know of, in San Francisco on Earth. But the Federation is enormous. Someone out there probably knows how many planets were part of it at this point of the storyline but I don’t. There’s no way they can take everyone who can pass a standard test; I’d say it’s pretty likely that they can only accept a small percentage of those who apply. It’s certainly no easy trick to get into one of our (American) military academies either. I knew several people in high school who tried and not a single one of them succeeded.
That still doesn’t explain why these four people who are obviously already the best of the best are being whittled down to one admission. Unless there are a whole lot of excessively bright people out there.
It would have made more sense to me if all four of these kids were early admission potentials and they were only going to accept a very small number of early admissions. 16 is kind of young, after all.
All in all, I still find this one of the more palatable episodes from Season 1, even if it’s not all that great.
@Toryx #10
I still find this one of the more palatable episodes from Season 1
Me too. And, perhaps not coincidentally, it’s one of the few I remember showing up pretty often in syndication…
As for there being only one Academy, that’s an interesting point — on the scale of the number of people involved, getting into the Academy must be the equivalent of having, say, the entire world competing for spots at a particular college at Oxford.
It’s soft SF. Nobody really thought about the scale of the society that’s being described. Nobody ever addressed that you’d have to have a bunch of branch Academies even just to keep the ships crewed, let alone built. Or that the total population of this society would mean that there’s no way these kids would have heard of each other. Or that Starfleet is apparently a military over-junta across Federation colonies, since we almost never see any form of civilian government, and participatory democracy on a civilization-wide level would be incredibly impractical…
I think I’ve just accepted that I have to expect something different from Star Trek than I would from Vernor Vinge :)
Let us also note that not for the last time, Picard’s Enterprise will be noted as being more slack than other Starfleet officers are comfortable with. Jellicoe really can’t get here fast enough.
The scale of Starfleet still hasn’t been really set down yet. Even by the time we get to “Best of Both Worlds,” a 40-ship task force is a major effort for Starfleet to scrape together to do something as critical as defend Earth, but in DS9, they’re tossing around casual mention of multiple fleets hundreds-strong maneuvered around just on the Cardassian front.
The writers don’t know how big Starfleet is, and neither do we, unfortunately.
@2 DeepThought
Yeah, it looked like Mordock was cheating. But maybe Starfleet decided to reward him for his creative solution to the problem.
@6 etomlins
Starfleet always needs more redshirts.
@8 Lemnoc
Well, I figured the Zaldan scenario was staged by Starfleet as part of a test. In fact, at first I thought that might be the psych test, because Wesley looked really freaked. So the Zaldan was probably given permission to act like a jerk. We don’t know he would have beaten up Wesley–I imagine he would have gotten in trouble for maiming an applicant–but the test was to see if Wesley could avoid offending him. This is the heart of diplomacy!
@9 Ludon
maybe there were political considerations involved in the decision
Or maybe Starfleet practices affirmative action… They do gloss over the selection though, something along the lines of, “That isn’t the only reason” for bringing Mordock on. I think this is a great theory. If I were Wesley, I would have asked why I didn’t make the cut so I could do better next time. And what’s that exam going to be like? Does he get another psych test?
@10 Toryx
I think this setup runs the risk of other planets, businesses, and organizations trying to poach talent, so then you have a lot of geniuses running around who aren’t working for Starfleet.
@12 S. Hutson Blount
Let us also note that not for the last time, Picard’s Enterprise will be noted as being more slack than other Starfleet officers are comfortable with.
So true! They do seem fairly casual, and that doesn’t fit Picard’s style, really.
The last time I saw this episode was admittedly a long time ago, but I never understood why Chang said what he did when Mordock felt Wesley shouldn’t have lost points for helping him.
MORDOCK
Thank you, sir, but it’s not
right. It shouldn’t be me.
Wesley lost points because he
helped me. He shouldn’t be
punished for his generosity.
CHANG
He wasn’t. He lost time, but
it wasn’t only that…
Candidates, thank you and good
luck.
What did Chang really mean with: “it wasn’t only that…” ?
Wesley’s actions throughout the testing, including his psych evaluation (where he worked through his fear and made a choice and acted upon it) were all well done.
Did Chang’s words indicate that Wesley never actually had a snowball’s chance in Hell, and that Mordock’s selection was a done deal from the start?
That line always bothered me, because I could never spot a compelling reason (other than keeping him on the show) for Wesley not being the ‘winner’.
(dialogue courtesy http://www.st-minutiae.com/academy/literature329/119.txt)