Things are at a quite, rather mundane, pace on the Enterprise. Early one morning/late one night an insomnia-inflect Picard goes to his Ready Room in order to catch-up on some work only to find that Stellar Cartography as monopolized much of the ship's resources preventing him from using the communications system, library computer or even the replicator.
He goes to investigate and by opening the door he ends up spoiling hours of work for the the new head of SC, who expresses great annoyance with this until she is shocked to learn it was Picard who opened the door.
The new head of Stellar Cartography is Nella Darren who came aboard with a recent crew rotation and almost immediately her and Picard seem to spark it off, sometime latter Picard attends a concert in Ten-Forward where Darren plays the piano and the two find more common interests as Picard talks music with her, noting that he plays a flute though bashfully says he's not any good.
Later, Darren seeks out Picard in his quarters bringing with her a portable device that emulates a grand piano and Picard shares in his flute-playing, the two struggle to play a complicated piece together at first so they learn to work together by playing around with simpler pieces and work their way up. Eventually they find the way to harmonize with one another and play a more complex piece in one of the Jefferies Tubes with perfect acoustics. Nella finds the piece Picard plays to be beautiful and notes the passion Picard plays it with, Picard states it's a piece that means a lot to him.
The two now seem to be in an official relationship, but Picard struggles at first to showcase this amongst the rest of the crew but after getting advice from Troi he decides that he can let this side of hims how more and he shouldn't be afraid to show the relationship in the more public areas of the ship. He confides in Darren what the piece is and what it means to him. It's the song he played living a lifetime inside of a few minutes after an encounter with an alien probe. (See: "The Inner Light") Darren is one of the few, if not the only, person Picard has confided this in. Nella is appreciative of Picard's openness with her and willingness to pursue their relationship.
It causes some hiccups with Riker as Riker feels uncomfortable having to deal with her as a department head and he being responsible for scheduling ship resources and crew allocation but after talking with Picard he feels confident that he can do his job without Picard over-ruling him. Darren also learns to expect something of type of reaction from the crew with the two of them in the relationship.
The ship is called to an emergency situation on a Federation outpost which is beginning to be threatened by planetside firestorms. It was thought the storms weren't expected for a couple more years but they've unpredictably come early and are more aggressive. The ship must workout a plan to evacuate those on the station as the buildings on the planet will not survive, only they will not have enough time to evacuate everyone before the storm hits the building.
Darren suggests a plan she's had some experience in where low-powered shields are set-up to deflect the storm around the building, this would give the ship more time to evacuate everyone before the shields can no longer be held-up. Picard agrees to the plan, even though Darren must go on the mission as she has the best experience with the set-up.
During the evacuation the interaction between the shield systems proves to be more delicate than originally thought meaning the crews have to stay with the emitters longer to keep them properly synced up so that the colonists can be evacuated. All of the colonists are safely evacuated, but the storm hits the perimeter before all of the shield crews could be recovered. Darren is one of the crew members left behind and is presumed dead.
Picard mourns for a time before it's discovered there were survivors, one of whom is Darren. She says her and the others found a way to create localized shields to protect themselves. Though many of those left behind are recovered, 8 personnel died in the mission.
Picard and Darren talk about the incident, and Picard says how he struggled to cope without Darren and how it even made him unable to play his music. He's unsure if he can ever put her in danger again. Darren points out he may have to.
Both are unwilling to resign the commissions, so Darren offers to transfer to a place where her presence would no longer conflict with Picard's command responsibilities. The two promise to keep in touch.
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This isn't an episode I rewatch very often, but it is a very nice and touching episode as it's yet another chance to see Picard with "his hair down" and see more of soul and humanity. Particularly nice in this case we get to see more of how the events in "The Inner Light" have impacted him and how much they mean to him. We've revisited him a couple times since that episode trying to play his flute but here we see how much playing it really means to him.
The interaction between him and Darren is well played as the two really seem to care for one another and bond, the two of them playing together in the Jefferies Tube is really, really great.
We also see over the course of the episode how Picard, and everyone else, is able to function while Picard is in this relationship. Picard says he won't undermine Riker's decisions, Picard is willing to be "relationship Picard" around the crew and it seems it can all work, until it's revealed that there is a limit to what Picard is willing to do and it comes down to putting Darren's life in danger. Having lost many under his command, Picard knows that Darren's life is pretty much always at risk and keeping her safe conflicts with not only his dedication to missions and duty, but hers. She even admits that she blamed Picard, somewhat, for ordering the perimeter teams to stay on the planet but it was the mission that had to be carried out.
If there's any complaint it's the ending. It just seems... awkward. I'm not sure how else it could have been resolved -narratively speaking- but Darren (the woman) damaging HER career seems like an odd direction to go in. (She is, after all, on the Enterprise.) Granted, it's not that Picard dropping his commission would make any more sense, but it seems to be a "common" trope in much of fiction that a woman's career is secondary to a man's.
I doubt this was the intent of the show's writers because, obviously, Darren had to leave the ship since she's a guest-star and a one-off character but I would think there's other ways it could have been handled. I dunno, have her say there's an opening in more lucrative place. A ship going to a especially interesting area of space, a starbase or outpost of notoriety needing a commander. Heading up a class at the Academy. Something other than, "Well, you're the man. Guess your job is more important. I'll just go somewhere else."
It also seems, to me, unlikely she'd be put in jeopardy to this level again. This seemed to be a unique set of circumstances that required her to go on a dangerous mission. She's head of Stellar Cartography, I'd think most of the time she'd be sitting in a lab or office studying scans and charts.
But, it's still a good episode and it's always interesting to see more of Picard's humanity.
NITPICKS and NOTES!
At one point Picard and Darren are playing in his quarters. The show creators must have wanted to go to some dedication to show that the close-ups of Picard playing the flute looked like he was playing the actual notes (though how anyone would know he's playing the wrong notes on an alien instrument is anyone's guess.) There's some really bad and obvious overlaying here. Patrick Stewart's "flute playing face" is behind an overlay of someone else's hands holding the flute presumably playing the notes correctly. (That or there was an awkward set-up where the flue player was on set, out of frame, holding the flute in Stewart's mouth playing the notes while Stewart blew into it.) However it was done.... It looks hokey as those are obviously not Stewart's hands and this looks much more obvious moments later as we see Stewart holding the flute with his actual hands as he stops playing it.
Darren shows up in Picard's quarters carrying a portable piano the unrolls and lays out on a table and produces a grand-piano like sound. It's a nifty little device and it's interesting the surprise and remarkabiliy Picard expresses over the device. Granted, it does produce a great sound from such a tiny device but... Doesn't he live in a world where ships the size of large buildings can move at 2000 times the speed of light and he's regularly deconstructed into an energy/matter slush and transmitted to another location? A nifty portable piano seems sort of benign.
There's an interesting scene where Darren gets some medical treatment from Beverly, maybe I'm reading too much into it but Beverly seems almost over-boiling with jealousy as Darren speaks of how Picard shares with her and how he's "wearing her out" (by playing too much piano, pervs!)
But, overall, a good episode. Not one I re-watch often but one I can enjoy.
