The Hunted by: Robin Bernheim and directed by: Cliff Bole

 

“The Hunted” is written by: Robin Bernheim and is directed by: Cliff Bole.  It was produced under production code 159, was the 11^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 59^th episode overall, and was broadcast on January 10, 1990.

 

Sometimes an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation will be a perfectly decent episode with a good enough premise that only elevates itself with its ending.  “The Hunted” is one such episode.  Robin Bernheim only wrote this episode, intentionally drawing on the end of the Vietnam War, though 15 years after it ended, making it become a generic reflection on soldiers returning from the field traumatized and excluded from society.  This is something especially apparent when looking at the actions of Republican politicians towards veterans, pulling support to welfare programs, expanding military spending, and embroiling the United States in more overseas conflict.  These ideas would very much be in the mind of the production team of Star Trek: The Next Generation when making “The Hunted” because the allegory is there, and the ending is what really seals it as a great episode.  The ending of the episode is Picard actively denying support to a regime that created a race of super soldiers and then left them in prisons for committing no crime.  It is an internal matter and their application to join the Federation in the future will be considered based on how they actually deal with the veterans.

 

The script is a cold knife and the point where it’s most biting in its commentary, all through a single dramatic monologue that was partially missing the gravitas in a lot of the previous episode.  This issue does largely come at the hands of television standards and practices, as well as the budget allocated to each episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  The script clearly wants to go to the darker places of what happens when a large portion of a society is used, abused, and then thrown away.  The climax in production would have originally involved an insurrection leading to massacre and not a peaceful, if uneasy, resolution.  That original climax would likely have pushed the episode further than what ended up on-screen.  This is a problem that pervades the entire episode, lowering the stakes and with that the tension creating a knock on effect that drags the pace of the episode down.  The pace reads as if sequences are missing and stretching the scenes that are there has created that lack of urgency that pulls the episode down.

 

The main soldier character in the episode representing the plight of the veterans is Danar, played by Jeff McCarthy, is doing his best with material that has clearly been cut down in rewrites.  The character on paper is clearly meant to be a representation of post-traumatic stress disorder, the physical enhancements influencing his emotions to become more agitated easily and making violence unavoidable.  “The Hunted” does want to dwell on the emotions of veterans, Danar being paired through much of the episode with Troi who is able to make an emotional connection, though integral for making the episode work not a romantic one.  It’s especially nice that this comes after “The Defector” which was just as strong for Troi, making it seem at least like there are multiple writers on this show who understand the need to move away from pinning her into a sexual role.  “The Hunted” builds on her compassion towards Danar and his situation, despite the fact that the Enterprise do still have to return him to his planet because they are not really able to interfere with a foreign power.  Again this helps make that Picard speech at the end actually work quite well for the episode despite toning down some of the power the original ending would have had.  The episode also treats Danar’s drive to escape his capture by the Enterprise as something justified, once again putting the morality of the Enterprise crew slightly into question despite making what should be the correct decision in the end.  They support the bloodless takeover of the Angosian in the end, but that’s the big turnaround in terms of morality because the threat is completely external to the Enterprise.

 

Overall, despite undergoing some severe rewrites that weaken it “The Hunted” is at the very least bold for telling a story where an insurrection is seen as the proper course of action because a government is oppressing a minority group (though that minority being veterans isn’t exactly commented on).  It is made by the final act and ending when we get to the Angosians as their bureaucracy does come across as the right amount of insufferable and the insurrection feels nothing but victorious.  Plus Marina Sirtis once again gets something to do in the plot that is ever so slightly more solid than the usual material for her character.  7/10.