Paramount/CBSWhile nostalgia for massive pop culture brands can feel like a burden in certain circles, and plenty of people are feeling nostalgia about Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard, it’s worth remembering that the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation was mostly because it forged new territory and rarely looked back. Yes, DeForest Kelley had a brief cameo in the pilot TNG episode in 1987, and yes, Spock’s father, Sarek (Mark Lenard), appeared prominently in the 1990 episode “Sarek.” But the idea that TNG would feature the full return of the most famous Star Trek character ever, Spock himself, felt very unlikely — that is, until it happened. Thirty-five years ago, on November 4, 1991, The Next Generation aired the first of the two-part episode “Unification,” in which Spock, as played by Leonard Nimoy, returned, only to reveal that he’d actually never gone away, just switched jobs. At the time, “Unification” was a major TV event and, in the lead-up to the release of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in December of the same year, served as a way to prime viewers for the idea that Spock’s most meaningful career might be that of an intergalactic peacemaker. Today, viewers are mixed on “Unification,” a two-parter with a lot of sideplots that makes you wonder if it really should have been a two-parter at all. But considering that Nimoy and Stewart are no longer with us, there’s something unique and tender about this story that feels more profound than ever. Mild spoilers ahead.Both in 1991 and now, The Next Generation has the distinct reputation of being the most talky of the Star Treks. What are the best scenes in TNG? Not action scenes. Not fight scenes. Usually, fans agree that the best scenes of Next Gen involve people talking in a conference room, or somebody (often Picard) giving a persuasive speech. Considering Spock was a classic series character who avoided violence most often and enjoyed having ethical debates about various issues, in a sense, he was tailor-made for a TNG guest spot. As Spock observes throughout the story, Captain Picard reminds him more of a Vulcan, specifically his own father, than he does of a human. Yes, Spock gives a little shout-out to Kirk and Picard’s overlapping qualities when he says: “In your own way, you are as stubborn as another captain of the Enterprise I once knew.” Picard’s reply is wonderful: “Then I’m in good company, sir,” reminding us that as buttoned-up as Jean-Luc feels in contrast with Kirk, he’s still a badass Starfleet captain who isn’t afraid of Spock just because Spock is Spock.Spock and Picard on Romulus, having tea, and spilling tea. | CBS/ParamountThe entire conflict of “Unification” is a complex one, at least for normies, which is why so many scenes in both episodes are just people sitting around and talking. The set-up in Part 1 lays out the basic idea: Starfleet thinks Spock might have defected to the Romulans because he was spotted on the planet Romulus. Considering that Spock once pretended to seduce a Romulan starship commander (Joanne Linville) in the TOS episode “The Enterprise Incident” in order to carry out hardcore espionage, Starfleet’s assumption that Spock is betraying the Federation just by visiting Romulus feels like a major paranoid leap in retrospect. In the second part of the episode, Spock makes references to the events of The Undiscovered Country (which had not yet been released), noting that he “committed Captain Kirk to that peace mission” and later “had to bear the responsibility” for what happened. He also reminds Picard that: “I was involved with cowboy diplomacy, as you describe it, long before you were born.”In other words, could Starfleet maybe have given Spock a break before assuming he was a traitor? No, of course not, because the episode was written in such a way that Picard and Data had to be rolling up on Spock’s secret peace mission, and trying to scold him into telling him what he’s doing. In this way, TNG, smartly, made Spock a renegade character by default, and Picard, the younger, slightly more boring generation of rule-followers. Spock isn’t telling Picard to get off his lawn because he’s old; Picard is telling Spock to come back to the correct lawn because Picard has been designated as the intergalactic hall monitor in this episode.Nothing about this should work or be satisfying, since both Picard and Spock are essentially authority figures with stoic and ultra-logical personalities. Data’s presence helps with the dynamic, since, as he points out to Spock, they’re basically on opposite paths: Spock rejected his humanity, while that very rejection is the one thing Data can’t have. Meanwhile, Spock was never able to reconcile with his father, but we get the sense that, perhaps, he can make peace with Picard, and by extension, the universe. But what we tend to forget about all of this is that Spock isn’t in the first part of this two-parter at all, until the very end, and he spends much of his screen time with Picard being cranky. This concept is made even weirder by the fact that in many scenes between Picard and Spock, Picard is disguised as a pointy-eared Romulan, which essentially scans as two Vulcans bickering.A (literal) meeting of the minds. | CBS/ParamountAgain, if all of this sounds like “Unification” is a deeply flawed, or, perhaps, unsatisfying episode, that’s only partly true. What’s nice, in retrospect, in light of the fact that neither Stewart nor Nimoy are with us anymore, is how real this episode attempts to portray their relationship. When Spock talks about Kirk, the music doesn’t stop and play the TOS theme in the background or something; Nimoy barrels through his rant, frustrated and living in the moment. Fans were aware of the novelty of the two men meeting, but the real connection occurred because Picard, a younger human, was behaving as Spock’s dad, in more ways than one.Essentially, the only scene where Picard and Spock team up happens in a conference room, and the biggest and most nostalgic scene happens at the very end of the episode, in which Picard mind-melds with Spock to give him the memories of his father, Sarek. By TNG Season 5, Picard already felt like the ultimate space dad, but what made “Unification” so incredible is that he somehow became paternal toward the most famous embodiment of the previous generation. Spock, in a sense, became Picard’s spiritual son in this episode. If you need further proof that The Next Generation did things that no other TV show has done before or since, this strange crossover is just more evidence for its singular greatness.Star Trek: The Next Generation streams on Paramount+.Phasers on Stun!: How the Making — and Remaking — of Star Trek Changed the WorldAmazon -