Encounter at Farpoint (Mass Market Paperback)

"Encounter at Farpoint" introduces us to the new crew of the new starship "Enterprise" as they come together for the first time on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." One advantage of reading this adaptation of the script is that you miss out on seeing how dated the first episodes of the series looked (you can take pictures of Worf for each season and have little problem laying them out in chronological order). With the depth that Gerrold provides to the script in many ways this is a stronger story than what we saw on television, plus we can change the way they looked back then to the way they looked once they grew into their roles (none of this "Spock as he looked then" nonsense from when the original "Star Trek" took their original pilot and worked it into a new story with the new crew).

The "Enterprise" is visitng Cygnus IV to rendezbous with the ship's new first officer and other command personnel as Captain Jean-Luc Picard takes command. However the Farpoint Station, so named because it is on the edge of the known galaxy, has a deep dark secret that has to be discovered. But that pales into significance when Picard and the "Enterprise" have their first encounter with Q, who puts the crew and all humanity for crimes against ominipotent super beings. Of course, in the end this trial would provide both the beginning and the end for "STNG."

Gerrold provides an above average adaptation, arguably the best of those of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes. This is pretty impressive when you take into account that when Gerrold wrote this it was early on in the process when "STNG" epsidoes seemed to be going out of their way to be reminiscent of specific episodes of the original series. Yes, Gerrold tries out some things that do not pan out in terms of the rest of the series, but the attempts are interesting and so is noting these as you read merrily along.

David Gerrold took a generally weak episode and fleshed it out as best as anyone could do, but not even Shakespeare could have turned "Encounter at Farpoint" into a gripping read. There are, of course, a few problems with changed premises (for example, William "call me Bill" Riker and Picard's obsession with some woman named "Celeste"), but one can hardly blame Gerrold for that.