warpus
In pork I trust
Maybe I don't pay attention enough to the way Klingons usually talked, but the way they talk now is (again) "more alien" to my ears, which is maybe why I don't mind it. It's all Romulan to me anyway
All Things Star Trek
- Thread starter hobbsyoyo
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Can you imagine one of these Klingons playing a Wild West holoprogram with Deanna and Alexander? How many minutes would it take one of them to say, "I am NOT a Merry Man!"? Even "Nice hat" would be just bizarre.
warpus
In pork I trust
I presume that Klingon culture evolved over the years and such. Plus Worf grew up on Earth
I know he did. That's not what I asked. Can you picture these rebooted "Klingons" in Next Gen, DS9, and Voyager? Assuming everything else is the same.
I can't. TNG would have had only one season if this monstrosities had been regular characters.
I can't. TNG would have had only one season if this monstrosities had been regular characters.
GoodSarmatian
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I think more alien is better if you are depicting aliens, and Whorf rarely speaks Klingon (and probably speaks with an accent).
If they just speed it up a bit...
If they just speed it up a bit...
Somebody on TrekBBS said that their speech sounds like they're all trying to talk with 10 pieces of gum in their mouths.
I suddenly had a mental image of what happens right after the director says 'Cut' - every Klingon blows a great big pink bubble.
I suddenly had a mental image of what happens right after the director says 'Cut' - every Klingon blows a great big pink bubble.
warpus
In pork I trust
You're right, I can't, but I also can't picture some of the Discovery crew members there either, nor a lot of the devices or ships. It was my first issue with the show - it doesn't seem to fit in between Enterprise and TOS very well. But since then I've embraced their interpretation of the universe and have started to really enjoy the characters and the stories they have been involved in. It happens 100+ years before TNG as well, and the Klingons have been changing so much from show to show to movie, etc. that I can easily convince myself that Klingon society will evolve or whatever. I enjoy the alien feel of their society as well, something I thought was missing from the other shows, so for now I'm mainly enjoying the story and my initial concerns have withered away quite a bit.
warpus
In pork I trust
I disliked him at first and found him "morally questionable" but I've really warmed up to him
EgonSpengler
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I haven't seen Discovery, but Enterprise never felt like a prequel to TOS to me. To me, it was a spinoff, riffing on Star Trek but ultimately doing its own thing, just like TNG, DS9 and Voyager did before it. Once I put my proverbial thumb over where it supposedly sat chronologically with the other series, I liked it a lot more. Deep Space 9 had similar aesthetic issues, being so different in tone, atmosphere and setting form its predecessors, but because it didn't retroactively screw with established story, I was able to roll with it much more easily. Prequels innately violate the "Yes, and..." rule of collaborative story-telling and improv theater, and you really have to pull hard on the steering wheel to maintain a straight course. Sequels, otoh, are supposed to be exploring new ground; I get aggravated by a sequel that just repeats the established material (like The Force Awakens). By the time Enterprise ended, I felt like my opinion that it shouldn't have been a prequel was proved correct; there was nothing crucial about that series that couldn't have been a sequel (and there were a few things about that show that should have been in a sequel, like introducing important alien species that had never even been mentioned before).
warpus
In pork I trust
It would have been impossible to create a prequel that perfectly fit in before TOS IMO, but yeah I do think that Enterprise did a good job of making us feel like we were in that time period. It wasn't perfect but it was in my eyes good enough.
I agree it would have been much better and more credible as a spin-off/sequel.
"Polarize the hull plating!"
... Whatever just say "Raise Shields"... Oh I get it... shields haven't been "invented" yet so... *sigh* 
warpus
In pork I trust
What pre-shield technology would you have preferred?
You've got me all wrong here... I prefer that they just scrapped the idea of a prequel entirely and did it as a sequel. What I'm saying is that because they locked themselves in to a prequel (in large part, because prequels were all the rage) they had to invent meaningless contrivances to remind you that this or that hasn't been invented yet. There was a whole episode dedicated to reminding you that holodecks hadn't been invented yet and the running gag about Archer being spooked out by transporters...
I guess they could have just gone without any manner of "shielding" but then they would have no way to explain firefights without hull damage...
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I think that this episode was probably my favourite in Discovery so far. Especially after what I thought was a lackluster sixth episode, this was a real nice change of pace.
Spoiler DSC S1E6 :
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Spoiler DSC S1E6 :
EgonSpengler
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Variety, 23 Oct 2017 - Star Trek: Discovery renewed for season 2 by CBS All Access
I recall that one of the ideas for this series was that it would be an anthology series, but I don't know if they're sticking with that.
I recall that one of the ideas for this series was that it would be an anthology series, but I don't know if they're sticking with that.
Variety said:
CivCube
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oh hey guyz, what did i miss
TNG Season Four, 1990-91
The Best of Both Worlds, Part II – We waited the summer to see what happened after Riker ordered Worf to fire...and the Cube blocked the shot. Talk about a let-down. Oh well, we get a very intriguing fifteen minutes with Riker after that, a glimpse into what might have been if Patrick Stewart left the show. There's a timeline launching away from us of Riker the Arthurian captain, with Troi by his side as Guinevere, Shelby as Lancelot, as they protect their Camelot from cybernetic fey prowling in realms beyond. It's strange to have this kind of build-up when the episode itself mostly amounts to clean-up work, a tell-tale sign of revisions that don't quite flow. Picard is rescued and restored in rather perfunctory scenes that feel too easy after we're told for so long how unstoppable the Borg are, who collapse like a gag balloon. More of an interesting artifact than a good episode.
Family – Ronald Moore caught me off guard. This is an amazing character piece that structures by thematic paragraph as well as dramatic tension. Picard, Worf, and Wesley each get soulful, even emotional storylines that underline their pain and vulnerability. I'm not sure if Jean-Luc was quite as impassive as Moore argues here, but his journey with Robert gets to a pretty cool spot, one that leaves Picard just wrecked, a task that Stewart is happy to oblige. We're watching the show literally get in the mud and rebuild itself before our eyes, from a show going in one clear direction to a melancholy meditation that recognizes trauma and grief even in paradise. Robert is no-nonsense with Jean-Luc: "This will be with you for the rest of your life."
With "The Bonding", "Sins of the Father", and "Family", we see Moore's strengths as a writer about family relationships and sadness. What a treat to see this down-to-earth writing melded with Star Trek's humanism.
Brothers – TNG likes to chunk episodic dyads with similar themes, and "Brothers" is no different as a follow-up to "Family". Data gets a homing signal to return to his creator, Dr. Noonien Soong. In the middle of bonding (and repairing), Lore shows up unexpectedly. Brent Spiner gets to stretch his acting muscles a bit as he plays three different characters in the same room, especially with comedy caricature. Soong's old age make-up is kind of silly, but it's sorta supposed to be. The story is okay enough, although most of "The Offspring" is repeated unnecessarily here; Soong's speech about having children is redundant to Data's discoveries last season. The B-plot is also mostly a snore and too on the nose.
But Data does get a rather frightening reveal early in the episode with the homing signal, disappearing within an automaton that seizes control of the ship with inhuman speed. For all the humanity an AI can display, how much of that can be taken away? How much would an android hide from us? Is this discomforting reveal any different from when a biological human shows another side of themselves?
Suddenly Human – A teenage human is found unconscious with alien survivors of some crisis. In his attempt to reunite Jono with his human family, Jono's adoptive alien father pressures Picard to return the boy. It's a pretty cringeworthy episode, although there are several decent scenes showing Jono reacclimating to human culture and bonding with Picard. The central dilemma of self-determination is less complex than this episode thinks it is; in fact, it's so simple that the crew look like absolute jerks for forty-five minutes, ignoring many previous episodes where self-determination was immediately evident for them. The result is something that wants you to think it's earnest when it knows it's not trying hard enough, and there lies the beginning of cheese. I must hum the B'Nar of my people in mourning.
Remember Me – Beverly finally gets an episode that's halfway decent in this Twilight Zone story. In a slightly subtle scene, she's transported to an alternate reality where she loses everyone on the ship. It's a pretty important episode for showing how the crew members treat each other. Even with as grandiose a claim as what Dr. Crusher's going through, they take her word and go out of their way to help, turning the ship around to go back to starbase. By the end of the hour, she figures things out and is able to save herself. I would have preferred to devote the whole episode to her perspective; cutting to Wesley and the Traveler at the twenty minute mark is a bit of a cop-out. Still, it's an effectively creepy episode that recalls TOS's first season.
Legacy – This one starts on a dynamic foot, gets iffier, and then gets better again. The Enterprise visits Tasha Yar's home planet where the infamous "rape gangs" prowled fifteen years prior. The episode ironically does more for Tasha's development than she was alive, contrasting who she was as a person with her sister Ishara, who may or may not be acting on ulterior motives. The themes of grief and trust are essayed very well here, giving us the experience of betrayal through Data. Riker's speech to Data at the end is earned because of the narrative work on display and even generous to the audience. TNG doesn't blame anyone for getting bamboozled. That's on the bamboozler, not the bamboozlee. It's also an interesting thematic set-up for Troi's meltdown in "The Loss".
Reunion – This episode made me re-rank "Sins of the Father". Ronald Moore builds on the Shakespeare pastiche from that episode and K'Ehleyr's story from "The Emissary" to create true high drama. As a story that's pure plot, it runs circles around "The Undiscovered Country" for its parallel machinations and character moments where people show who they are by what they do. "Reunion" is far more meaty than "Sins", throwing reality into uncertainty. Who planted the bomb? Who poisoned K'mpec? Are Duras and Gowron plotting separate coups, or are they conspiring together? The play might be the thing, but we can't catch the conscience of a would-be king. In a ballsy move, Moore leaves these questions unanswered, with only Duras being K'Ehleyr's undeniable killer.
We've come a long way in a short time from those days where TNG characters didn't create conflict, and now the Klingon gets reprimanded for straight-up murder. This season's serialized emphasis also pops up again, giving Worf a son who will show up again in DS9. But it's to Moore's tremendous credit that while many of these plot threads will be picked up again, the way in which they're open-ended help this episode stand by itself.
Future Imperfect – I enjoy this trend of Twilight Zoning TNG characters. The writers were banned from writing time travel, so they came up with ways around it, like alternate timelines in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and possible severe memory loss in "Future Imperfect". The double bluff is a delightful twist that, while overplayed today, does a great job for showing how Riker can both roll with major changes in his life and jump on minor, yet deeply wrong details. The setting of the hypothetical Season Twenty is also entertaining: Riker is the grey-haired captain o' the D, Admiral Picard and Troi are on a starbase, Geordi has new eyes, there's a Ferengi ensign, the Romulans are signing a treaty with the Federation...or are they? More crazy alternate settings, please.
Final Mission – Wesley gets a great send-off in a story with shades of Indiana Jones, complete with an unreliable goofball who gets himself killed in Spielbergian fashion. Our space cadet has gotten a lot of crap for being too perfect, yet I find the guy to have been the opposite. With all his technical expertise, he has shown that he is no different than any other Academy recruit, barely outscoring his competition and even putting the ship at risk with a bungled experiment. Here he shows his to deal with a problem almost tailor-made for any San Francisco classroom, like a required test to pass to the next grade. Of course, Mr. Crusher passes, as would any Starfleet hopeful worth his or her salt, because most kids in the 24th century are like Wesley. He's the everyman protagonist.
There's also a lot to like about Wesley's relationship with Picard. While Picard has been decent about showing support for Wesley across four seasons, it's never better expressed than now. We rarely see big character moments like this, so it's nice to see Wesley act on his growth by telling Picard how much he's learned since "Samaritan Snare". We believe it because we've seen it. The episode is also brilliantly set and naturally shot and lit, which really establishes Wesley's story as a literal life threshold.
The Loss – The best TV illustration of borderline personality disorder I have seen, at the expense of nearly all of Troi's credibility as a therapist...at least, in this episode. Troi here is a deeply insecure person who uses her empathic ability as a crutch. She feeds off people's emotions as much as she reads them, so when she loses her ability, she flies into textbook disorder behaviors. The B-plot with the two-dimensional creatures ties in with Troi's frustration at seeing everyone else as flat creatures who are unable to give her the support she wants.
And it totally works for her character! Being half-Betazoid is a fantastic metaphor for this frame of mind that claims to be the only one that's empathetic. I would have leaned more into Troi as an antagonist, though, and escalate those themes in the way Star Trek can. Maybe that would have been too Dark Phoenix, but if Data can put the ship in danger because of personal failings, having Troi do the same thing would have helped to underline why her behaviors are toxic and unacceptable, instead of throwing the thread away once she gets her powers back. It's a great episode that came out of left field otherwise, even if not all of it may have been intentional by the writers.
Data's Day – Data simply goes through a day where he does Data things. I mean, why not? It's another serving of pizza, and I like pizza. There's not much here that hasn't been done before, but it's done well. In a memorable scene, Gates McFadden brings her real-life tapdancing skill in-universe. Notable for introducing Keiko as Miles O'Brien's new wife. It is worthwhile, though, because it makes us think for a moment about how Data approaches the world. It seems like he has to write a new program for every single type of social anticipation and interaction. Sounds exhausting, and I imagine many people with similar real-life social difficulties are often just as tired.
But for Data, it's not just that he has to learn these things, he's approaching all life skills with a completely different cognitive base. It would be like trying to speak a new language by using a series of pulleys. That we can even speculate about the kind of difficulty he has speaks to the popularity of the character with spec writers.
The Wounded – Well finally, here's a brink-of-war episode that remembers to be Star Trek. In this clear precursor to Deep Space Nine's grittier nature, the Cardassians are introduced as a very recently former enemy of the Federation. They are written here from Miles' perspective, who sees them with some emotional maturity. They might have attacked his people and his ship, but he has no anger with Cardassian individuals, only what they "made me become."
Captain Maxwell, who must be the last shoot-from-the-hip cowboy in the 24th century, does not share any subtlety. He tries to bully Picard with fast accusations and pressured changes of subject. It's a pretty simple challenge, so the episode fills in the gaps with smart character work, developing O'Brien more in one episode than many of the characters have managed in three seasons. With Picard's last warning to the Cardassians, we get a taste of modern-day geopolitics through a sci-fi lens, a very Star Trek finish that is a good companion to "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield". This episode ends up all the fuller, achieving the maturity-in-darkness other franchises fail to reach, which often settle merely for passing grimdark as maturity.
Devil's Due – Although this is a fun hour, I prefer the original Phase II treatment. Much of the original's legal proceedings are expanded from the third act here to encompass most of the episode. While this gives Picard a lot of huffing and puffing, it also removes the sheer insanity that pervaded the Phase II version, like Bones getting merged with a wall and the planet's leader actually being a 1,000 year old scientist who created the entity for his own ends. The themes were much more stark then: how do you deal with societal evil if it exists as a precedent in your own legal system? Compare that to TNG's version, where the crew merely bests a flamboyant con artist in a campy trial adjudicated by Data ("The defendant will withdraw from making the prosecutor disappear").
Clues – A mystery bottle episode where the crew has to uncover their lost memories, step by step? Sounds like fun until you have to go through it. Sadly, it's a pretty good premise, but there's not a lot of exciting stuff to go on. The crew mostly stays split up across the ship, which doesn't really give the characters anything interesting to do besides following the trail to an ending that was telegraphed half an hour prior. It doesn't help that the pacing is a sludge.
It might have been better if this story was merged with "Remember Me" and keep the POV on Beverly. She could have been alarmed by the plants and worked out half the mystery, then attempt to convince the crew. This could be more difficult if she was the only one besides Data to notice anything off, particularly if Data is suddenly more helpful than necessary in every scene she gets closer to the truth. Overall, not terrible, but not great, either.
First Contact – Pretty campy, pretty slow episode about the Enterprise going through first contact procedures, while Riker gets his cover blown and ends up in the hospital. The 1960s alien society is kinda cute, recalling those alternate Earth episodes from TOS, and it's a nice touch to try to have the POV be centered on the alien characters. It's just...it didn't really need to be even twenty minutes, much less forty-five. This needed a few more revisions to work, and going by the army of writers that was credited, they tried as hard as they could. Alas, a decent idea that the writer's room just couldn't break.
Galaxy's Child – Geordi sexually harasses a Starfleet engine designer and gets away with it. The episode starts off comedically enough, with a chance for our VISORed nerd to get his comeuppance for having a fantasy holodeck version of a colleague on public file. And indeed, the first half hour had me going, "Oh no...oh no..." Dr. Brahms is understandably put off by Geordi's creepy knowledge of nearly everything about her, save her relationship status (MARRIED, LA FORGE). She even calls his behavior out as inappropriate.
But then writer Maurice Hurley (who else) drops the anti-matter ball. In the ultimate humiliation, Brahms encounters her holodeck self, which is all gooey for Geordi. Any self-respecting person would immediately report Geordi to Picard but wait! Geordi somehow turns it around as being about her being rude to him when he was "just trying to reach out and make a connection"...and she apologizes. By trying to have his cake and eat it too, Hurley wrote the most sexist episode since TOS' "Turnabout Intruder" and easily the most infuriating since "Wolf in the Fold" and "Metamorphosis".
Night Terrors – A strange episode that almost succeeds in spite of its lack of ambition. The Enterprise encounters a rift where another Federation ship and an alien craft are trapped. In addition to siphoning energy from the ship, the entire crew begins to dream in waking life, with Troi the only one to get sleep. Even then, she has nightmares. There are a couple great scenes that show how much farther this hour could have gone. Crusher's morgue scene in particular stands out for its creepiness. Unfortunately, everything feels like it gets halfway there, then tiptoes away from making TNG too much of another "Outer Limits". If nothing else, though, it successfully shows that Star Trek can handle horror, and Troi has another interesting story angle.
And then I moved to another state and was too busy to do this for several months, boy howdy! And then Paul Manafort got indicted, and then I decided to finish the write-up for this season.
Identity Crisis – Another Geordi episode, another fairly silly monster story, albeit one with at least some intrigue. A species that can only propogate by infecting and mutating other species would make a decent Outer Limits narrative, but it doesn't really gel as a Star Trek story. I suppose there's some merit to be found in how the crews handles the situation relatively peacefully, but in the end, there's not much to write home about before I finish this paragraph.
The Nth Degree – Okay, I like Barclay. He's a good character to trot out every now and then when you need to inject a different dynamic. For all the criticism TNG gets for having too-perfect characters, Barclay works because he manages to be both a foil and reveals imperfections in the crew. And then you get a story like this one, which takes the best of "Flowers for Algernon" and amplifies it with classic weird Trek. A Barclay who's too smart for his own good (artificially) tries to ascend to a false kind of higher consciousness...only to actually grow as a human! It's a good episode that gives some of the undersocialized men at home something to chew on, unlike the monstrous "Galaxy's Child".
Qpid – You cannot not like "Qpid". A fun romp in Sherwood Forest, we get Vash being Vash, a Picard who manages to have a little bit of fun, and a Worf protesting that he is not, in fact, a merry man. Although this resembles more of a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" one-shot than TNG, it's exactly the kind of side story I can appreciate, working on the same lines where "Identity Crisis" missed the mark. It's different, and representative of the kind of story you can tell when you're not hemmed in by Netflix constraints.
The Drumhead – Jeri Taylor writes, and Jonathan Frakes directs, an episode that is up there with the TOS courtroom stories. Like the best Trek, the discussion of paranoia, witch-hunting, and forced loyalty remains relevant for our times. Legendary actress Jean Simmons stars as the prosecutor set on finding the guilty aboard the Enterprise. The episode itself structures the story very well, pitting Norah Satie's recklessness against Picard's firm resolve. Picard's warning at the episode's close still stings decades after airing.
Half a Life – A surprisingly effective Lwaxana episode as we explore common emotions related to seeing a loved one close to death. Would we allow their death to happen if we had the power, or would we respect that person's wishes? It is perhaps slightly disappointing, then, that Lwaxana's beau chooses to not follow through on his culture's demand that he voluntarily die at the appointed age—the latter part just suggests the tired TNG trope of inferior alien races instead of the strong first half's theme. Still, Majel Roddenberry uses her chance to prove her acting ability, as if we needed any more proof.
The Host – A brave episode, even today, that calls into question our motives for romance. Crusher finds herself unable to pursue a relationship with a Trill ambassador after it is forced to switch bodies. You don't see that kind of bluntness often on television, even in the supposedly realistic miniseries of today. It's the kind of the Star Trek that could only be TNG, taking relevant human issues and suffusing them with a kind of vulnerability you wouldn't see very much on TOS.
The Mind's Eye – No good deed goes unpunished for Geordi's saving a Romulan, so he ends up as a puppet for the forehead-ridged Empire. The show is mostly fun for watching the suspense go broad instead of more tense. We've seen this kind of Manchurian Candidate story before, so it's fun to see Burton give more a little more flex as a virtually evil character. Admittedly darker than most episodes prior, we see the host of Rainbow Rainbow murder O'Brien in cold blood. Worthwhile as a mustache-twirling adventure for the D-Crew (okay, I'll never use that term again).
In Theory – I really love the Uncanny Valley direction Data takes here. This must have been for the fans who wanted their own Brent Spiner boyfriend, so here's an opportunity to show the problems that would create. While the B-plot sometimes threatens to overwhelm with its shenanigans (the redshirt getting cut in half was probably not necessary). It's another episode that effectively casts a side-eye at why we go into relationships in the first place: is it because we like the person? Are we confusing sexual attraction with a real relationship? How aware are we of our own emotional vulnerabilities? And if we're Data, do we really know when we hurt somebody, stroking our cat while staring off into space—are we actually alive? ask Joe Menosky and Ronald Moore, in one last beat that twists like a knife for Dataphiles, an episode where the alienation is most welcome.
Redemption, Part I – In a word, whoa. Ronald Moore somehow ratchets up the tension and the drama to create something operatic in a way Trek had never been before. Worf's story ends with him leaving the Enterprise in a honest-to-god emotional line-up of the Federation crewmen, giving such a respectful goodbye that this nerd teared up. In the process, we've seen a Picard who's able to create an emotional loyalty out of a Klingon and believe it. We see a Qo'noS that is fully formed and wholly Moore's, a strange samurai culture that evinces Shakespeare more convincing than even "The Undiscovered Country". By the time the big reveal appears, you feel like you've just seen the curtain fall for one of the Bard's plays. A episode that completely delivers on the promise made way back in TOS' "The Conscience of the King".
A season that is ho-hum in some parts, outright B'Nar terrible in others, brilliant in yet more, it feels like TNG might have finally found its footing, after several years of showrunner drama, mostly because Michael Piller found his groove in his own second season.
Top Tier, ranked
Family
Redemption, Part I
Reunion
The Drumhead
The Loss
Final Mission
Qpid
The Nth Degree
Remember Me
Nope, I haven't seen Discovery yet! I continue with my...trek.
TNG Season Four, 1990-91
The Best of Both Worlds, Part II – We waited the summer to see what happened after Riker ordered Worf to fire...and the Cube blocked the shot. Talk about a let-down. Oh well, we get a very intriguing fifteen minutes with Riker after that, a glimpse into what might have been if Patrick Stewart left the show. There's a timeline launching away from us of Riker the Arthurian captain, with Troi by his side as Guinevere, Shelby as Lancelot, as they protect their Camelot from cybernetic fey prowling in realms beyond. It's strange to have this kind of build-up when the episode itself mostly amounts to clean-up work, a tell-tale sign of revisions that don't quite flow. Picard is rescued and restored in rather perfunctory scenes that feel too easy after we're told for so long how unstoppable the Borg are, who collapse like a gag balloon. More of an interesting artifact than a good episode.
Family – Ronald Moore caught me off guard. This is an amazing character piece that structures by thematic paragraph as well as dramatic tension. Picard, Worf, and Wesley each get soulful, even emotional storylines that underline their pain and vulnerability. I'm not sure if Jean-Luc was quite as impassive as Moore argues here, but his journey with Robert gets to a pretty cool spot, one that leaves Picard just wrecked, a task that Stewart is happy to oblige. We're watching the show literally get in the mud and rebuild itself before our eyes, from a show going in one clear direction to a melancholy meditation that recognizes trauma and grief even in paradise. Robert is no-nonsense with Jean-Luc: "This will be with you for the rest of your life."
With "The Bonding", "Sins of the Father", and "Family", we see Moore's strengths as a writer about family relationships and sadness. What a treat to see this down-to-earth writing melded with Star Trek's humanism.
Brothers – TNG likes to chunk episodic dyads with similar themes, and "Brothers" is no different as a follow-up to "Family". Data gets a homing signal to return to his creator, Dr. Noonien Soong. In the middle of bonding (and repairing), Lore shows up unexpectedly. Brent Spiner gets to stretch his acting muscles a bit as he plays three different characters in the same room, especially with comedy caricature. Soong's old age make-up is kind of silly, but it's sorta supposed to be. The story is okay enough, although most of "The Offspring" is repeated unnecessarily here; Soong's speech about having children is redundant to Data's discoveries last season. The B-plot is also mostly a snore and too on the nose.
But Data does get a rather frightening reveal early in the episode with the homing signal, disappearing within an automaton that seizes control of the ship with inhuman speed. For all the humanity an AI can display, how much of that can be taken away? How much would an android hide from us? Is this discomforting reveal any different from when a biological human shows another side of themselves?
Suddenly Human – A teenage human is found unconscious with alien survivors of some crisis. In his attempt to reunite Jono with his human family, Jono's adoptive alien father pressures Picard to return the boy. It's a pretty cringeworthy episode, although there are several decent scenes showing Jono reacclimating to human culture and bonding with Picard. The central dilemma of self-determination is less complex than this episode thinks it is; in fact, it's so simple that the crew look like absolute jerks for forty-five minutes, ignoring many previous episodes where self-determination was immediately evident for them. The result is something that wants you to think it's earnest when it knows it's not trying hard enough, and there lies the beginning of cheese. I must hum the B'Nar of my people in mourning.
Remember Me – Beverly finally gets an episode that's halfway decent in this Twilight Zone story. In a slightly subtle scene, she's transported to an alternate reality where she loses everyone on the ship. It's a pretty important episode for showing how the crew members treat each other. Even with as grandiose a claim as what Dr. Crusher's going through, they take her word and go out of their way to help, turning the ship around to go back to starbase. By the end of the hour, she figures things out and is able to save herself. I would have preferred to devote the whole episode to her perspective; cutting to Wesley and the Traveler at the twenty minute mark is a bit of a cop-out. Still, it's an effectively creepy episode that recalls TOS's first season.
Legacy – This one starts on a dynamic foot, gets iffier, and then gets better again. The Enterprise visits Tasha Yar's home planet where the infamous "rape gangs" prowled fifteen years prior. The episode ironically does more for Tasha's development than she was alive, contrasting who she was as a person with her sister Ishara, who may or may not be acting on ulterior motives. The themes of grief and trust are essayed very well here, giving us the experience of betrayal through Data. Riker's speech to Data at the end is earned because of the narrative work on display and even generous to the audience. TNG doesn't blame anyone for getting bamboozled. That's on the bamboozler, not the bamboozlee. It's also an interesting thematic set-up for Troi's meltdown in "The Loss".
Reunion – This episode made me re-rank "Sins of the Father". Ronald Moore builds on the Shakespeare pastiche from that episode and K'Ehleyr's story from "The Emissary" to create true high drama. As a story that's pure plot, it runs circles around "The Undiscovered Country" for its parallel machinations and character moments where people show who they are by what they do. "Reunion" is far more meaty than "Sins", throwing reality into uncertainty. Who planted the bomb? Who poisoned K'mpec? Are Duras and Gowron plotting separate coups, or are they conspiring together? The play might be the thing, but we can't catch the conscience of a would-be king. In a ballsy move, Moore leaves these questions unanswered, with only Duras being K'Ehleyr's undeniable killer.
We've come a long way in a short time from those days where TNG characters didn't create conflict, and now the Klingon gets reprimanded for straight-up murder. This season's serialized emphasis also pops up again, giving Worf a son who will show up again in DS9. But it's to Moore's tremendous credit that while many of these plot threads will be picked up again, the way in which they're open-ended help this episode stand by itself.
Future Imperfect – I enjoy this trend of Twilight Zoning TNG characters. The writers were banned from writing time travel, so they came up with ways around it, like alternate timelines in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and possible severe memory loss in "Future Imperfect". The double bluff is a delightful twist that, while overplayed today, does a great job for showing how Riker can both roll with major changes in his life and jump on minor, yet deeply wrong details. The setting of the hypothetical Season Twenty is also entertaining: Riker is the grey-haired captain o' the D, Admiral Picard and Troi are on a starbase, Geordi has new eyes, there's a Ferengi ensign, the Romulans are signing a treaty with the Federation...or are they? More crazy alternate settings, please.
Final Mission – Wesley gets a great send-off in a story with shades of Indiana Jones, complete with an unreliable goofball who gets himself killed in Spielbergian fashion. Our space cadet has gotten a lot of crap for being too perfect, yet I find the guy to have been the opposite. With all his technical expertise, he has shown that he is no different than any other Academy recruit, barely outscoring his competition and even putting the ship at risk with a bungled experiment. Here he shows his to deal with a problem almost tailor-made for any San Francisco classroom, like a required test to pass to the next grade. Of course, Mr. Crusher passes, as would any Starfleet hopeful worth his or her salt, because most kids in the 24th century are like Wesley. He's the everyman protagonist.
There's also a lot to like about Wesley's relationship with Picard. While Picard has been decent about showing support for Wesley across four seasons, it's never better expressed than now. We rarely see big character moments like this, so it's nice to see Wesley act on his growth by telling Picard how much he's learned since "Samaritan Snare". We believe it because we've seen it. The episode is also brilliantly set and naturally shot and lit, which really establishes Wesley's story as a literal life threshold.
The Loss – The best TV illustration of borderline personality disorder I have seen, at the expense of nearly all of Troi's credibility as a therapist...at least, in this episode. Troi here is a deeply insecure person who uses her empathic ability as a crutch. She feeds off people's emotions as much as she reads them, so when she loses her ability, she flies into textbook disorder behaviors. The B-plot with the two-dimensional creatures ties in with Troi's frustration at seeing everyone else as flat creatures who are unable to give her the support she wants.
And it totally works for her character! Being half-Betazoid is a fantastic metaphor for this frame of mind that claims to be the only one that's empathetic. I would have leaned more into Troi as an antagonist, though, and escalate those themes in the way Star Trek can. Maybe that would have been too Dark Phoenix, but if Data can put the ship in danger because of personal failings, having Troi do the same thing would have helped to underline why her behaviors are toxic and unacceptable, instead of throwing the thread away once she gets her powers back. It's a great episode that came out of left field otherwise, even if not all of it may have been intentional by the writers.
Data's Day – Data simply goes through a day where he does Data things. I mean, why not? It's another serving of pizza, and I like pizza. There's not much here that hasn't been done before, but it's done well. In a memorable scene, Gates McFadden brings her real-life tapdancing skill in-universe. Notable for introducing Keiko as Miles O'Brien's new wife. It is worthwhile, though, because it makes us think for a moment about how Data approaches the world. It seems like he has to write a new program for every single type of social anticipation and interaction. Sounds exhausting, and I imagine many people with similar real-life social difficulties are often just as tired.
But for Data, it's not just that he has to learn these things, he's approaching all life skills with a completely different cognitive base. It would be like trying to speak a new language by using a series of pulleys. That we can even speculate about the kind of difficulty he has speaks to the popularity of the character with spec writers.
The Wounded – Well finally, here's a brink-of-war episode that remembers to be Star Trek. In this clear precursor to Deep Space Nine's grittier nature, the Cardassians are introduced as a very recently former enemy of the Federation. They are written here from Miles' perspective, who sees them with some emotional maturity. They might have attacked his people and his ship, but he has no anger with Cardassian individuals, only what they "made me become."
Captain Maxwell, who must be the last shoot-from-the-hip cowboy in the 24th century, does not share any subtlety. He tries to bully Picard with fast accusations and pressured changes of subject. It's a pretty simple challenge, so the episode fills in the gaps with smart character work, developing O'Brien more in one episode than many of the characters have managed in three seasons. With Picard's last warning to the Cardassians, we get a taste of modern-day geopolitics through a sci-fi lens, a very Star Trek finish that is a good companion to "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield". This episode ends up all the fuller, achieving the maturity-in-darkness other franchises fail to reach, which often settle merely for passing grimdark as maturity.
Devil's Due – Although this is a fun hour, I prefer the original Phase II treatment. Much of the original's legal proceedings are expanded from the third act here to encompass most of the episode. While this gives Picard a lot of huffing and puffing, it also removes the sheer insanity that pervaded the Phase II version, like Bones getting merged with a wall and the planet's leader actually being a 1,000 year old scientist who created the entity for his own ends. The themes were much more stark then: how do you deal with societal evil if it exists as a precedent in your own legal system? Compare that to TNG's version, where the crew merely bests a flamboyant con artist in a campy trial adjudicated by Data ("The defendant will withdraw from making the prosecutor disappear").
Clues – A mystery bottle episode where the crew has to uncover their lost memories, step by step? Sounds like fun until you have to go through it. Sadly, it's a pretty good premise, but there's not a lot of exciting stuff to go on. The crew mostly stays split up across the ship, which doesn't really give the characters anything interesting to do besides following the trail to an ending that was telegraphed half an hour prior. It doesn't help that the pacing is a sludge.
It might have been better if this story was merged with "Remember Me" and keep the POV on Beverly. She could have been alarmed by the plants and worked out half the mystery, then attempt to convince the crew. This could be more difficult if she was the only one besides Data to notice anything off, particularly if Data is suddenly more helpful than necessary in every scene she gets closer to the truth. Overall, not terrible, but not great, either.
First Contact – Pretty campy, pretty slow episode about the Enterprise going through first contact procedures, while Riker gets his cover blown and ends up in the hospital. The 1960s alien society is kinda cute, recalling those alternate Earth episodes from TOS, and it's a nice touch to try to have the POV be centered on the alien characters. It's just...it didn't really need to be even twenty minutes, much less forty-five. This needed a few more revisions to work, and going by the army of writers that was credited, they tried as hard as they could. Alas, a decent idea that the writer's room just couldn't break.
Galaxy's Child – Geordi sexually harasses a Starfleet engine designer and gets away with it. The episode starts off comedically enough, with a chance for our VISORed nerd to get his comeuppance for having a fantasy holodeck version of a colleague on public file. And indeed, the first half hour had me going, "Oh no...oh no..." Dr. Brahms is understandably put off by Geordi's creepy knowledge of nearly everything about her, save her relationship status (MARRIED, LA FORGE). She even calls his behavior out as inappropriate.
But then writer Maurice Hurley (who else) drops the anti-matter ball. In the ultimate humiliation, Brahms encounters her holodeck self, which is all gooey for Geordi. Any self-respecting person would immediately report Geordi to Picard but wait! Geordi somehow turns it around as being about her being rude to him when he was "just trying to reach out and make a connection"...and she apologizes. By trying to have his cake and eat it too, Hurley wrote the most sexist episode since TOS' "Turnabout Intruder" and easily the most infuriating since "Wolf in the Fold" and "Metamorphosis".
Night Terrors – A strange episode that almost succeeds in spite of its lack of ambition. The Enterprise encounters a rift where another Federation ship and an alien craft are trapped. In addition to siphoning energy from the ship, the entire crew begins to dream in waking life, with Troi the only one to get sleep. Even then, she has nightmares. There are a couple great scenes that show how much farther this hour could have gone. Crusher's morgue scene in particular stands out for its creepiness. Unfortunately, everything feels like it gets halfway there, then tiptoes away from making TNG too much of another "Outer Limits". If nothing else, though, it successfully shows that Star Trek can handle horror, and Troi has another interesting story angle.
And then I moved to another state and was too busy to do this for several months, boy howdy! And then Paul Manafort got indicted, and then I decided to finish the write-up for this season.
Identity Crisis – Another Geordi episode, another fairly silly monster story, albeit one with at least some intrigue. A species that can only propogate by infecting and mutating other species would make a decent Outer Limits narrative, but it doesn't really gel as a Star Trek story. I suppose there's some merit to be found in how the crews handles the situation relatively peacefully, but in the end, there's not much to write home about before I finish this paragraph.
The Nth Degree – Okay, I like Barclay. He's a good character to trot out every now and then when you need to inject a different dynamic. For all the criticism TNG gets for having too-perfect characters, Barclay works because he manages to be both a foil and reveals imperfections in the crew. And then you get a story like this one, which takes the best of "Flowers for Algernon" and amplifies it with classic weird Trek. A Barclay who's too smart for his own good (artificially) tries to ascend to a false kind of higher consciousness...only to actually grow as a human! It's a good episode that gives some of the undersocialized men at home something to chew on, unlike the monstrous "Galaxy's Child".
Qpid – You cannot not like "Qpid". A fun romp in Sherwood Forest, we get Vash being Vash, a Picard who manages to have a little bit of fun, and a Worf protesting that he is not, in fact, a merry man. Although this resembles more of a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" one-shot than TNG, it's exactly the kind of side story I can appreciate, working on the same lines where "Identity Crisis" missed the mark. It's different, and representative of the kind of story you can tell when you're not hemmed in by Netflix constraints.
The Drumhead – Jeri Taylor writes, and Jonathan Frakes directs, an episode that is up there with the TOS courtroom stories. Like the best Trek, the discussion of paranoia, witch-hunting, and forced loyalty remains relevant for our times. Legendary actress Jean Simmons stars as the prosecutor set on finding the guilty aboard the Enterprise. The episode itself structures the story very well, pitting Norah Satie's recklessness against Picard's firm resolve. Picard's warning at the episode's close still stings decades after airing.
Half a Life – A surprisingly effective Lwaxana episode as we explore common emotions related to seeing a loved one close to death. Would we allow their death to happen if we had the power, or would we respect that person's wishes? It is perhaps slightly disappointing, then, that Lwaxana's beau chooses to not follow through on his culture's demand that he voluntarily die at the appointed age—the latter part just suggests the tired TNG trope of inferior alien races instead of the strong first half's theme. Still, Majel Roddenberry uses her chance to prove her acting ability, as if we needed any more proof.
The Host – A brave episode, even today, that calls into question our motives for romance. Crusher finds herself unable to pursue a relationship with a Trill ambassador after it is forced to switch bodies. You don't see that kind of bluntness often on television, even in the supposedly realistic miniseries of today. It's the kind of the Star Trek that could only be TNG, taking relevant human issues and suffusing them with a kind of vulnerability you wouldn't see very much on TOS.
The Mind's Eye – No good deed goes unpunished for Geordi's saving a Romulan, so he ends up as a puppet for the forehead-ridged Empire. The show is mostly fun for watching the suspense go broad instead of more tense. We've seen this kind of Manchurian Candidate story before, so it's fun to see Burton give more a little more flex as a virtually evil character. Admittedly darker than most episodes prior, we see the host of Rainbow Rainbow murder O'Brien in cold blood. Worthwhile as a mustache-twirling adventure for the D-Crew (okay, I'll never use that term again).
In Theory – I really love the Uncanny Valley direction Data takes here. This must have been for the fans who wanted their own Brent Spiner boyfriend, so here's an opportunity to show the problems that would create. While the B-plot sometimes threatens to overwhelm with its shenanigans (the redshirt getting cut in half was probably not necessary). It's another episode that effectively casts a side-eye at why we go into relationships in the first place: is it because we like the person? Are we confusing sexual attraction with a real relationship? How aware are we of our own emotional vulnerabilities? And if we're Data, do we really know when we hurt somebody, stroking our cat while staring off into space—are we actually alive? ask Joe Menosky and Ronald Moore, in one last beat that twists like a knife for Dataphiles, an episode where the alienation is most welcome.
Redemption, Part I – In a word, whoa. Ronald Moore somehow ratchets up the tension and the drama to create something operatic in a way Trek had never been before. Worf's story ends with him leaving the Enterprise in a honest-to-god emotional line-up of the Federation crewmen, giving such a respectful goodbye that this nerd teared up. In the process, we've seen a Picard who's able to create an emotional loyalty out of a Klingon and believe it. We see a Qo'noS that is fully formed and wholly Moore's, a strange samurai culture that evinces Shakespeare more convincing than even "The Undiscovered Country". By the time the big reveal appears, you feel like you've just seen the curtain fall for one of the Bard's plays. A episode that completely delivers on the promise made way back in TOS' "The Conscience of the King".
A season that is ho-hum in some parts, outright B'Nar terrible in others, brilliant in yet more, it feels like TNG might have finally found its footing, after several years of showrunner drama, mostly because Michael Piller found his groove in his own second season.
Top Tier, ranked
Family
Redemption, Part I
Reunion
The Drumhead
The Loss
Final Mission
Qpid
The Nth Degree
Remember Me
Nope, I haven't seen Discovery yet! I continue with my...trek.
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I've been catching up on ST: Enterprise. It's not great, but it's OK. I won't be paying more to see Discovery. So maybe I'll catch up on that some other time. One question comes to mind, on 3 of the series, ST:NG, ST:Voyager, and ST:Enterprise, for no apparent reason* they put one woman with an exceptional figure in clothes which highlight that figure for just about the whole series. And, of course, in the original series they did that with pretty much every woman that appeared on the show. Cast or guest. Did they do that with Discovery as well?
*Actually I know the reason: They start with the assumption that the core of their fan base is teenage boys and other nerds.
*Actually I know the reason: They start with the assumption that the core of their fan base is teenage boys and other nerds.
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