Second Chances (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

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Star Trek: TNG episode
"Second Chances"
Will Riker confronts a double of himself in "Second Chances".
Episode no.	150
Prod. code	250
Airdate	May 24, 1993
Writer(s)	René Echevarria (teleplay) Michael A. Medlock (story)
Director	LeVar Burton
Guest star(s)	Mae Jemison
Year	2369
Stardate	46915.2
Episode chronology
Previous	"Rightful Heir"
Next	"Timescape"

"Second Chances" is the 150th episode of the science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the 23rd episode of the show's sixth season. It was first broadcast on May 24, 1993.

In this episode, Commander William Riker, the First officer of the Federation Starfleet starship USS Enterprise-D, comes face to face with an eerie duplicate of himself.

1 Plot
2 Notes
3 Cultural impact
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Plot

The Enterprise is assigned the mission of visiting planet Nervala IV to retrieve some important scientific data. The information had been lost when a previous research team was forced to abandon the post. A nearly impenetrable distortion field makes use of the transporter impossible most of the time and problematic at best.

Commander Riker heads the away team. When the previous research team was rescued, Riker was serving as a Lieutenant on the USS Potemkin, the ship which carried out the rescue; in fact Riker had been the last person to leave the science station.

Deep in the base, Riker and the away team confront Riker's double; a man who believes he had been left behind instead of being beamed up to the Potemkin so many years ago. He has been alone ever since.

Chief Medical officer Dr. Beverly Crusher, back in sickbay, verifies the obvious, the man is an exact double of Riker down to the cellular level, even genetically they are an exact match.

After examining the Potemkin’s transport logs, Chief Engineer Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge comes up with an explanation – years earlier as the transporter officer of the Potemkin struggled to beam Riker up through the distortion field, the novel approach of splitting the transport beam had been tried. Regrettably part of the transport beam was reflected by the distortion field back to the planet, materializing an exact living replica of Riker. Unaware of what had happened, and thinking they had successfully recovered Riker, the crew of the Potemkin went on to their next assignment leaving the duplicate trapped behind.

‘Lieutenant' Riker volunteers to accompany a second away mission attempting to recover the important research data. The attempt fails and the two Rikers clash as their philosophical styles differ greatly. Finally Commander Riker orders Lt. Riker to cooperate; having a double who is a superior officer makes Lt. Riker very resentful and angry.

Returning to the ship, Commander Riker struggles to rationalize his instinctive resentment of the Lieutenant, Data supposes that each man is unsettled and feels somewhat violated that the other has intruded upon his ‘uniqueness’ as a person. In addition, it appears that some of the Commander's dislike comes from dealing with another earlier version of his personality which he sees as less mature and settled; he doesn’t like being reminded that he was once much like Lt. Riker, a facet of himself which he had put aside years earlier.

Both men propose ideas to Captain Picard for a third attempt at the retrieval of the missing data, Picard causes further discord between them when he chooses to pursue Lt. Riker’s plan.

Meanwhile, Lt. Riker has set about the business of moving on with his life and catching up on the last several years. Unlike Commander Riker, he didn't choose to sacrifice his relationship with Counselor Deanna Troi to concentrate on his career in Starfleet, and he attempts to pick up their love affair right where it left off when he was stranded on Nervala. Troi realizes that she is still regretful that things didn’t work out with Commander Riker in the past, and with Crusher’s encouragement promotes Lt. Riker’s advances, seeing this as a second chance at a relationship that failed once before. However, as Lt. Riker continues to chafe at the frustration of having to deal with a senior officer who is a double of himself, he proposes taking Troi away with him to a new posting on the starship Gandhi. Deanna is ambivalent at the prospect of leaving her life aboard the Enterprise, and tells him she will have to think about it.

Another attempt to gain the information goes badly. A walkway breaks, endangering the life of Lt. Riker. Despite him telling the Commander to 'let go', Riker saves his double.

Back on the ship, both Rikers are more accepting of each other as Lt. Riker prepares to leave for his new posting. The commander gives his double a cherished trombone. Lt. Riker decides to take the name of Thomas to be unique, a name he likes - unlike his double. Deanna tells Thomas she has decided not to transfer with him.

[edit] Notes

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

Thomas, the name Lt. Riker takes at the end of the episode, is Greek for "twin."

[edit] Cultural impact

Mae Jemison, an African-American NASA astronaut, briefly appears in this episode. In making this appearance Jemison followed in the footsteps of one of her inspirations, Nichelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant Uhura in the original Star Trek, and inspired Dr. Jemison to become an astronaut.