The “Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker” trailer is out. Sadly, it looks to rely upon very predictable Star Wars themes of black and white morality, lightsabers, and humor.
But what happens when a science fiction series breaks the mold? What happens when it goes where none of its episodes have gone before?
Enter “The Wounded,” an episode from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Gene Roddenberry’s successor to the 1960s-era original series, “The Next Generation” followed Starfleet Capt. Jean-Luc Picard and the USS Enterprise-D crew as they explored the frontiers of Federation space. But the series was also about diplomacy, sociology, politics, and at times, conflict. Rewatching “The Wounded” this week, I was struck by how it truly marked the series’ transition to excellence. It took the show to the next level, breaking unstated protocols about the nature of the “Star Trek” universe and the reality of war.
Without ruining the episode, it centers around Starfleet Capt. Benjamin Maxwell, who has gone rogue against a former Federation enemy, the Cardassians. Although the thread of the episode is focused on a joint Starfleet-Cardassian hunt for Maxwell, its main theme is the horror of war and its lingering pain in peace. Colm Meaney’s character Chief Miles O’Brien and Patrick Stewart’s Picard play particularly impressive roles in this regard. We see personal experiences of a prior war complicating the concern of diplomacy in the present. Anger weaves an unpredictability throughout “The Wounded.” Referencing his service in an infamous wartime battle, O’Brien tells a Cardassian officer, “It’s not you I hate, Cardassian, it’s what I became.”
The episode ends darkly, but with hope, encapsulating the murky choices that sometimes separate war and peace. In the final scene, we see the ingredients for similar stories in the many hundreds of “Star Trek” episodes that followed. We also see the roots of a war that would come in another series, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”
Unlike “Star Wars,” “The Wounded” is science fiction at its best: original, compelling, and highly entertaining. We’re lucky that Picard will soon return to our screens.
