Star Trek: The Next Generation--"The Wounded"

“The Wounded” is often overlooked when fans list their favorite episodes. That is a shame. For me, it is one of the high marks that caused the series to rise above its parent show. There are so many aspects of it that cause it to rise above many of therest.

Seasoned war veteran Captain Maxwell appears to have gone rogue by attacking Cardassian science vessels he believes are actually transporting weapons. The federation has been in a bloody war with the Cardassians for years. Now there is an uneasy peace in which many who fought in the war on both sides are finding it difficult to live. Picard has to ally with the Cardassian leadership to stop Maxwell before he causes the war to erupt again.

The plot is very similar to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, a film which would be released eleven months after “The Wounded” aired. As much as I liked the film--it is my favorite one featuring the TOS crew--”The Wounded’ executes the plot of old enemies finding it difficult to live in a new world of peace. Granted, it may be my cynicism shining through.

The Undiscovered Country was an allegory of the Cold War ended with a lasting peace established. The untrustworthy Putin aside, that came to fruition. In “The wounded,’ Maxwell was right. The Cardassians were prepping for an invasion, but he has to suffer as a broken casualty of a peace that perhaps should not be maintained. Maxwell’s fate--and that of the federation, since the Cardassians do ignite more than one conflict--appeals to my sense of irony.

Keep in mind “The Wounded” aired the last week of January 1991, so it was just a few days after Operation Desert Storm had begun. That was the first war my fourteen year old eyes had ever seen. At the time, I was attending a Christian school administered by Bob Jones alumni who really did fit the stereotype of believing every Middle Eastern conflict would bring about the end times. I have long since developed a wariness about pre-millennial theology. I am a pan-millennialist now, as I think it will al pan out in the end. But for a long time there, any discussion about a potential war could bring about apocalyptic dread in my social circle. “the wounded” came at the height of it all.

In spite of all that, I did support the war--assuming anyone cares what a fourteen year old thinks about such things. It has long been the standard policy of the united states to defend the free flow of oil out the Middle East. The conflict would have happened under any president. It just happened, with poor luck, to occur with a former oilman in the white house. You may recall shortly after the Iranian embassy was taken hostage, Jimmy Carter ordered a military exercise to practice seizing the oil fields of iran should tensions escalate. The united states has always been ready to protect the oil flow. It is vital to world stability.

Any theories that Saddam Hussein was the reincarnated Nebakanezer out to fulfill his Old testament dream of each period in history coinciding with segments of a statue built from weaker material--we are in the feet of clay period, you know--is for the Bob Jones people to squeeze in as they see fit.

Regardless, the impact was there on my young mind. There were the gung ho types around me who either saw the logic of liberating Kuwait or wanted to bring about the End Times. They were eager for war. I also saw the other side of the coin, with protectors wanting to prevent the war at all costs.

Consider how that dichotomy played out in ’The Wounded.” Maxwell knows the Cardassiansare up to no good. A war with them now might prevent a bloodier conflict don the road. Besides, they have perpetrated enough atrocities to merit destroying their war machine. Picard is charged with keeping the peace regardless even if he agrees with Maxwell’ssuspicions. He does, by the way, but makes the choice keeping a lid on it is in both their people’s best interest.

Did Picard make a mistake? It is hard to say even after knowing the cardassiansattempt to invade Federation space two years later, a conflict in which Picard is captured and brutally tortured, and joins with the Dominion in a conflict worse than anything the Federation had ever suffered. There is no way to know how an earlier war would have played out in light of what actually occurred. Secondguessing history is not a precise science.

But I can say my sympathies were more with Maxwell. He ought not to have taken the aggressive actions he did, but he is on the right track. He is a war broken man, but those are the people we need to listen to the most when it comes to deciding whether a conflict is worth fighting. I have written much hereabout how the gulf War affected me. Those memories have long since been replaced by a new, post 9/11attitude, but I can still feel a lump in my throat over the last few scenes where Maxwell and O’Brien reminisce over comrades killed in the war and begin singing “The Minstrel Boy.” One of the most poignant Trek moments is when he looks at O’Brien says pitifully, ’I’m not going to win this one, am I?”

Now for or a few wrap up points. ’The Wounded” introduces the Cardassians to Trek. It took mea while to war up to them, but they turned out to be great villains after a start when there was not much to them other being warlike. Granted, Cardassians do not really come into their own until DS9, but their potential was evident in later episodes of TNG. Marc alaimo, who played Gul Macet here, would go on to play Gul Dukat, who is my favorite trek villain of all time. Non-canon sources says Macet and Dukat are cousins, which explains their similar appearance.

Maxwell was played by Bob Gunton. He has had a long career in television and movies, most recently on Nip/Tuck and 24. I remember him best as the corrupt warden from one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption. Oddly enough, the warden and Maxwell remind me of each other.

“The Minstrel Boy“ is a moving song. It was written by Thomas Moore in remembrance of friends he had met at Trinity College in Dublin who were killed in the Irish rebellion of 1798. This YouTube video is the haunting, traditional arrangement featured in Blackhawk Down.

I imagine very few fans consider ’The Wounded” to be one of the best TNG episodes, but I have to give it five stars. It is a series highlight and the best script Jeri Taylor ever produced for Trek.

Rating: ***** (out of 5)