YMMV / Star Trek: The Next Generation S3E23 "Sarek"

• Common Knowledge: Many fans recall the bar fight in this episode being broken up by Guinan with a big-ass laser gun. In actual fact, however, that was from the following season's "Night Terrors."
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The producers themselves recognized the larger implications of the episode, as the applicability to similar real-world figures was painfully obvious. The episode was also made about the same time Gene Roddenberry's health really went into decline.
  • Picard argues with the emotionally compromised Sarek, who angrily denies his poor disposition, after his subordinates were unwilling to stand up to him. In Star Trek: First Contact, Picard would be the emotionally-compromised one as Lily Sloane argues with him when Picard's own subordinates weren't willing to stand up to him.
  • Watching Picard break down while bonded to Sarek is a bit more difficult to watch knowing that Picard may very well share the same fate in his future. Additionally, a year after his encounter with Sarek, Picard revealed in "Night Terrors" that his grandfather suffered from a degenerative mental disease and that the idea of losing his mind has always terrified him.
  • And then of course, Patrick Stewart playing a psychic whose degenerative brain disease causes problems for people around him...
  • Picard and Riker get into an argument on the bridge under the effects of Sarek's projected emotions, though they quickly realize what's happening and stop. In Star Trek: Picard, the two have a much more heated row on the Titan-A's bridge that results in Riker angrily ordering Picard off the bridge.
• Narm: The concert scene when Sarek begins crying is wordless and shot and cut beautifully. Except one very tight shot of Sarek's tears that's almost the definition of "on the nose".
• Stoic Woobie: Sarek dives headfirst into this, even as he lashes out at people.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Similarly to "Datalore," this episode features two examples of Wesley getting abused by other characters - firstly when Geordi calls him a loser who has no chance of getting anything out of his date, and then when Beverly hits him - that aren't his fault in any way, shape or form (they are influenced by the inadvertent effects of Sarek's illness, and therefore not genuine reactions to Wesley), but are considered satisfying moments by those fans who aren't overly fond of him. The latter incident in particular became one of the first animated GIFs to be widely circulated on the developing internet.

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