I've been aware
of a growing movement of people who seek to learn Vulcan philosophy.
It may be time for the first step toward reunification.
Reunification? After so many centuries?
Rick and Leonard were close, were good friends.
I think it was through that relationship...
Having Leonard appear in an episode was of enormous significance
for the love and respect that the fans held for that character.
Leonard Nimoy being on Next Generation
was kind of a validation for us.
Spock was giving us some kind of an approval.
I thought it showed great class that Leonard came
and decided to do our show, when he clearly didn't have to.
I think everyone was a little bit shy and nervous of Leonard.
He has a sort of gravitas about him.
There's a weight and seriousness.
I certainly know I very much wanted his approval for what we were doing.
He was terrific to work with.
Entertaining and fun, and so interesting and smart.
In a strange way, I'm connected,
by being the First Officer,
by directing the movies.
So I've always been aware of and appreciative of Nimoy and Spock
in relationship to Riker and Frakes.
Unification I was gratified to be invited to participate in.
Michael Piller and Rick Berman had talked with Leonard Nimoy about it.
Michael originally planned to write both episodes.
Time precluded that. He asked me to write the first episode.
That was very flattering. But it was the first episode,
and it was the long build-up to Spock,
who in my episode was on for about 14 seconds and said, "Here I am. "
I have come on an urgent mission from the Federation.
I'm looking for Ambassador Spock.
You have found him, Capt Picard.
So I thought, "Great, I do the tap dance until the big star arrives. "
But sometimes when you're challenged with trying to make an episode
out of what was basically a long build-up, you work a little harder.
I felt it worked well. It was exciting, entertaining, mysterious,
and a great introduction to Part 2.
I have mixed feelings about Unification.
There was great hesitation
at the start of Next Generation
to do anything that might look like we were depending on
or exploiting the original Star Trek.
We weren't turning our backs on it.
We just felt that we needed to establish ourselves.
By that time, we felt that we had reached a point in our development
that we had already proven that.
We had established that we were our own identity.
So when we had the opportunity to bring Spock onto our show,
it was a big, big deal.
I trust you've enjoyed your visit.
How could they know this location? Someone betrayed us.
Yes. You did.
Spock!
It is the only logical conclusion.
The great Spock.
I never thought that when I was a kid watching Star Trek
I was going to actually be working alongside Mr Spock.
It just didn't make sense.
So it was a great honour.
Part of the history of this show,
and part of, you know, the tradition of it.
I very much enjoyed getting to know Leonard Nimoy
and listening to him.
I really agree with his philosophy of Star Trek.
He once said to the writers,...
.. "It's about the ideas. "
It's not about, I say this myself,
it's not about the wormholes, the explosions in space
nor the space battles.
It's about the ideas and the ambitions of the ideas.
The moral and ethical dilemmas.
I'm a huge admirer of Leonard Nimoy.
He's a wonderful director, great comedic sense,
strong camera sense, wonderful with the actors.
But he's also Spock.
To see Spock come on set, you knew you were doing Star Trek.
If you had any illusions that you weren't, when he came aboard...
A consummate professional, exquisitely prepared,
so aware of the process.
It was a pleasure, behind the scenes,
to watch him work. But still wearing those goofy ears.
Leonard was on the show. That was exciting.
The first time I saw Leonard...
I used to get there very early in the morning
because of all the make-up I had.
I was usually first one in in the morning.
I passed his trailer and there he was having his ears put on.
Well, seeing Leonard have his ears put on was really incredible.
Yeah, it was great. I loved working with Leonard,
getting to know him. I've enjoyed knowing him ever since.
As you examine your life, do you find you have missed your humanity?
I have no regrets.
"No regrets"? That is a human expression.
Yes.
Fascinating.
I did like the scene that I wrote between Data and Spock,
which sort of compared their similarities and differences.
But at the end, Leonard said, "You know, I had more dialogue
in this show than I had in the last five Star Trek movies. "
It was quite interesting because I was playing Sela,
and of course was very... I was the enemy.
So I'm screaming these horrible things at him,
thinking, "My God, it's Mr Spock!"
"I'm being so bad to him. "
He was very nice and it was a treat.
Since it is logical to conclude you will kill us in any event,
I choose not to cooperate.
I hate Vulcans. I hate the logic.
I hate the arrogance. Very well.
Any experience with the actors from the original series has been great.
Our pilot episode, I worked with DeForest,
who was one of the great people of the Earth.
He was like a great, great guy.
Everyone who knew him loved him.
He was so generous when we were beginning,
did the pilot episode with us.
Have you got a reason you want my atoms
scattered over space?
No, sir. But at your age, why take the time and trouble of a shuttle?
Hold it right there, boy. What about my age?
Sorry, sir, if that subject troubles you.
Troubles me? What's so damn troublesome about not having died?
Having members of the original cast on the show
was, from the start, of real significance to us,
when DeForest had agreed to appear in our pilot episode.
That he did that and how he did it
was almost like a blessing on the show.
Well, this is a new ship
but she's got the right name.
- Now you remember that, you hear? - I will, sir.
You treat her like a lady...
.. and she'll always bring you home.
Darmok was a show
that was around an unsolvable premise, for two or three years.
Rick wanted to abandon it and I said, "No, no. "
I gave it to Joe over one summer, between Seasons Four and Five.
He wrote this remarkable memo
about the philosophy of language and communication.
I said to Rick, "Let's give it Joe, see what he can do with it. "
He created a whole language for that episode.
I think they use that
in communication classes all across America in colleges.
There is no better Star Trek episode, I think, than Darmok.
An army with fist open. To lure the enemy.
With fist closed to attack?
That's how you communicate, isn't it?
By citing example! By metaphor!
Uzani's army
with fist open!
Sokath! His eyes uncovered!
Talking of awards, that should have won awards.
It was a brilliantly written episode, based on the myth of Gilgamesh,
and with one of our most distinguished guest stars,
Paul Winfield, who played an alien with whom we could not communicate.
The whole story was about how to learn to communicate
with someone whose language is completely alien.
They communicate through narrative imagery,
a reference to people and places from their mytho-historical accounts.
It's as if I were to say to you, "Juliet on her balcony".
- An image of romance. - Exactly.
I had a letter from a college professor who is a fan of the show.
He asked me if I was aware that as a result of our episode
more people became aware of the myth of Gilgamesh
in the history of the world.
In one week, it became more famous than it had been before.
Enkidu, a wild man,
from the forest,
entered the city.
They fought in the temple.
They fought in the streets.
Gilgamesh defeated Enkidu.
They became great friends.
I want to be returned to my ship.
What ship is that?
Just tell me, what is this place? Where am I?
Inner Light was, I think, the most interesting acting challenge I had
throughout those seven years of episodes.
Partly because I was Picard,
and yet a Picard whose life had been changed by a changed environment,
by living in a world that wasn't the Federation,
by having a wife, children,
grandchildren, I think, too, if I remember.
And had lived a simple, modest, quiet existence on another world,
in which the Federation became like a half-remembered dream.
Inner Light was essentially the story
of a man, Picard, who lives 45 years of his life
in the passage of 25 minutes.
He has an opportunity to age,
to fall in love, to have children,
to get old, to die.
In the matter of an hour's episode, he plays the full gamut of emotions.
So there I had the chance to develop the man that Picard might have been
if his life had taken a different direction,
which was interesting.
Also, we saw him in his 80s, or 90s, too.
So there was some interesting character work,
age work, that we had to do there.
I'd like your permission to build something.
You've built your telescope, your laboratory.
- You don't need my permission. - In this case, I think I do.
What is it?
A nursery.
Really?
It was also a very emotionally intense episode, too.
It dealt with family and most particularly dealt with friendship.
What friendship means and how the bonds of friendship
can remain as strong in your life as anything.
Then at the end of Inner Light, you have this remarkable scene
where all the people he's known and loved in his life
explain to him what's going on.
And when he leaves that world,
the emotional impact that you feel,
that he has to separate from the true family, the true intimate connections
that he's never really allowed himself to know in his real life,
have fundamentally changed him for ever.
The rest of us have been gone a thousand years.
If you remember what we were
and how we lived, then we'll have found life again.
Eline.
Riker to Enterprise. We've found the wreckage of a small craft.
One survivor. It's a Borg. Male. Adolescent. He's badly hurt.
Something was interesting about a single Borg.
On a retreat that the writing staff took one year,
we kicked it around and came up with the story that became I, Borg.
I think it's dear to the hearts of everyone on staff at that point.
All I had to go on as an actor was
one of the best scripts I've ever read. It was so...
I read the script and it came to life. I heard the voice in my head.
What they were trying to accomplish was a character
that was coming from a suppressive brainwashing society, essentially,
that breaks out of that and starts questioning who he is,
by mere virtue of being separated from that collective.
I think that that was the upshot of turning the enemy on its head,
and then it thrusts it upon all these people
that had been affected by these horrible beings.
They have to deal with why they hate them so much.
Resistance is futile.
It isn't.
My people resisted when the Borg came to assimilate us.
Some of us survived.
- Resistance is not futile? - No.
But thanks to you, there are very few of us left.
It holds up the chalice of that highest moral
that Gene Roddenberry meant the show to do.
Like, question, question, question, every step of the way.
I loved I, Borg. Some people really felt
that I, Borg betrayed the vision of the Borg.
It humanised them more than they wanted to see.
But I just think that every time you can...
.. understand your enemy,
those stories have a huge impact.
I think I, Borg is a wonderful show.
It also allows us to give another side of Picard,
because Picard himself is biased, prejudiced.
He cannot forgive easily what happened to him
and he's willing not to believe in this character.
So it's Picard who has something to learn out of this experience.
A very special show.
If you are going to use this person to destroy his race,...
.. you should at least look him in the eye once before you do it.
Because I am not sure he is still a Borg.
One of the reasons people respond to it
is you can look at almost any great episode
and say something current about it is going on right now.
I think that's the genius of the man that created that world,
and the sort of principles he set up
that make for great conflict, great drama, a great hope.
I think it's a very optimistic hope for the future.
Right now, I can't think of a better time for that.