3x23 Sarek

[9.7/10] One of the great tricks in storytelling is having a normally stoic character show emotion. From Spock himself to good old Ron Swanson, taking a character who’s stringy with showing affection or distress and having them express their feelings carries all the more weight from the contrast. When you’re not used to seeing someone cry, or shout, or offer small gestures of kindness, those rare moments when they do become all the more meaningful, in real life and on the television screen.

The added wrinkle of “Sarek” is taking the titular Vulcan ambassador, a paragon of Vulcan discipline, and pairing him with Captain Picard, a steady hand if there’s ever been one, and using the meeting as an opportunity for both to breach their emotional walls, albeit under different circumstances.

Those circumstances emerge when Sarek beams aboard the Enterprise to conduct treaty negotiations with the temperamental, goo-dwelling, oft-spoke of but never seen Legarans. Sarek’s traveling companions -- his wife, his Vulcan personal assistant, and his human attendant -- all seem apt to keep the ambassador from overexerting himself, much to Picard’s disappointment. Sarek’s arrival coincides with a strange uptick in angry and violent incidents around the ship, coupled with uncharacteristic, if subtle, displays of emotion from Sarek himself.

Eventually, Dr. Crusher pieces together that Sarek has Bendii syndrome, a rare Vulcan ailment afflicting people over two-hundred years old, causing them to lose emotional control and, thanks to Vulcan telepathy, causes their emotions to spill over into others. While Sarek’s seconds initially deny the diagnosis, Sarek himself eventually accepts the conclusion, which jeopardizes the fraught negotiations with the Legarans.

Like many Star Trek episodes, the metaphor isn’t exactly subtle, but it gains strength from the execution and power from the sci-fi twist. It’s not hard to draw a line from Bendii syndrome to dementia, or from the way that Perrin, Mendrossen, and Sakkath try to protect him and engage in denial themselves to the way it’s all too easy to turn away from when our own elderly relatives start to lose themselves.

What makes it work is the complexity and grace with which TNG handles these things. One of the great difficulties of dealing with an ailing loved one, particularly one suffering from the problems that come with advanced age, is how to approach someone whom you respect. It creates challenges, both to overcome your own humility and the hardship of seeing once proud, vigorous people succumb to the things that we all succumb to eventually if we’re lucky enough to live that long, and to risk embarrassing them or forcing them to face those harsh realities.

“Sarek” explores that through the different perspectives of people who want to help Sarek without stepping on his toes or keeping him from one of his greatest accomplishments. Perrin loves her husband, and that love comes with a desire not to hurt him. Mendrossen (the closest thing to a villain in an episode where the real enemy is the ravages of age) and Sakkath are subordinates, work associates, colleagues who want to ensure their boss’s professional success and manage him, while not wanting to be seen as overstepping their bounds. Then there’s Picard and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise, who are admirers that revere the man, but need to protect their ship.

And last but not least, there is Sarek himself, unable or unwilling for much of the runtime of the episode to face his own growing shortcomings and liabilities. His may be the hardest of all, to realize that you can no longer trust your faculties, to have to accept help when you’re used to being the rock, on the eve of something you’ve worked toward for much of your life.

It helps that the stakes are diplomatic, rather than trying to shoehorn in some explosion or threat to his life like “Journey to Babel”, this episode’s spiritual predecessor from The Original Series did. It allows for interesting moments, like the colloquy between Data and Sakkath, two stoic men themselves trying their best to support their superiors. And it also gives more space to put the emotional challenges front and center, to really dig into Sarek’s own struggles, but also of those around him trying to convince one another, and the man himself, that something must be done.

The solution to those struggles, a Vulcan mind meld between Sarek and Picard, is a bit contrived. (If nothing else, it seems like Sakkath would be a better candidate for this -- though perhaps Picard’s diplomatic skills were what made the difference.) But it’s easily handwaved given how it provides for great performance moments for both Sarek and Picard, together and apart.

Particular kudos are owed to Mark Lenard who, to my knowledge, is the only non-crewmember to play the same character in The Original Series, The Animated Series, the original cast’s films, and The Next Generation. He brings the right combinations of regality and fatigue to Sarek, betraying just enough frustration or unsteadiness to hint at the problem is before the climactic confrontation with Picard. He goes a little over the top with his yelps of “illogical” at the end of that powerful scene, but still conveys the sense of a man coming to terms with the difficult epiphany that he’s not what he once was.

And after the mind meld, he adds enough of Picard’s tics to make himself recognizable as someone with a piece of the Enterprise captain within him. Beyond just his calling Riker “Number One,” I could swear Sarek even matches Picard’s gait to subtly signal the effect this ritual has had on me.

But the MVP, as usual, belongs to Patrick Stewart. Even before his biggest scene in the episode, he communicates Picard as someone struggling to balance his great respect for Sarek and the delicacy of his concerns, with the urgency of the problem and his responsibility to his crew. It’s the sort of meat and potatoes acting that Stewart delivers all the time in the series that’s easy to miss but sets up the more dramatic stuff.

And drama is the name of the game for him in the end. Only a pro like Stewart could take a moment and a performance as big as the one where Picard is struggling with Sarek’s ever-changing emotions -- regret at lost chances, anger at the prospect of being at the end of his life, pain from the cultural expectations that kept him from expressing his affections for his family members -- and make it so affecting rather than cheesy. It’s one of those stand out moments on the show, that deliver so much on the strength of the story at play and the individuals at the center of it.

Part of the poignance and tragedy of it comes from Picard himself being so typically balanced. To see the Captain himself, usually the image of being calm and unflappable, so unmoored and pained to experience Sarek’s inner turmoil, conveys the powerful emotional resonance beneath the surface of both of these normally reserved men. It’s that juxtaposition, between both men’s stoic demeanor, and the sentiments they nevertheless can feel and express, that makes it so powerful.

It’s just as powerful when Picard deigns to perhaps overstep his bounds and tell Perrin that her husband loves her, particularly when she responds, “I know. I’ve always known.” “Sarek” spends a great deal of time focused on people having to convince one another of difficult truths, but shows how little time or effort it takes to persuade someone of beautiful truths. While the harsh realities of ourselves can be difficult to contend with, the kindnesses and yes, love from the people we care about it, especially from the people who cannot easily express it, lift us up through those difficult times.