TV Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation (1993-1994)

~ Liam

In what should be a long-term project, I plan to watch and review every Star Trek television show and movie in the order that they were released.

Title: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Release Date: September 20, 1993 – May 23, 1994
Production Company: Paramount Domestic Television
Episodes:  26
Summary/Review:

After a month away with the crews of Deep Space Nine and Discovery, it’s nice to rejoin the Enterprise in their final season.  Nevertheless, I had some trepidation heading into season 7.  For one thing, I remember it not being all that good, at least before the finale “All Good Things…” The bigger thing is the nostalgia for 30 years ago when the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation was a bittersweet moment for me.  It will be sad to have no more TNG episodes left for me to watch for the first time.

Watching the season, it was indeed wildly uneven, with some of the biggest stinkers since the early years of the series.  But there were also some excellent episodes with a lasting legacy of what we think of The Next Generation crew 30 years later.

Top 5 Episodes:

 

And the biggest stinker:

Related Posts:

NOTE: The capsule reviews below the cut presume familiarity with the episodes and contain SPOILERS!

Episode #: 1
Title: Descent, Part II
Director: Alexander Singer
Writer: René Echevarria
Thoughts:

The conclusion of “Descent” is meh.  I just don’t buy that Data would turn against his friends so easily, especially Geordie.  And if he did, I don’t think the Federation could ever trust him again (the same issue I had with the last Data/Lore story “Brothers”). The concept of Hugh inspiring a rebel sect of Borg would’ve been more interesting without getting Lore involved. I did enjoy the subplot of Dr. Crusher commanding the Enterprise with previously unseen crew members stepping into their roles on the bridge and proving their mettle.

Grade: B-

Episode #: 2
Title: Liaisons
Director: Cliff Bole
Writer: Story by : Roger Eschbacher & Jaq Greenspon; Teleplay by : Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci & Lisa Rich
Thoughts:

Two Iyaaran ambassadors visit the Enterprise for a “cultural exchange,” one of whom is constantly hostile and trying provoke Worf.  The other just likes to eat a lot.  Meanwhile, Picard goes off on a shuttlecraft with another ambassador, but they crash on a desert planet.  Picard is seemingly injured and cared for by a marooned woman, Anna (Barbara Williams). Anna falls in love with Picard and her behavior turns destructive when he doesn’t return the feeling.  The episode felt rather corny and predictable, until a twist that I didn’t expect at all.  All three ambassadors were acting their parts to experience emotions – anger, gluttony, love – that they don’t have in order understand humans (and one Klingon) better.  I enjoyed that!

Grade: B+

Episode #: 3
Title: Interface
Director: Robert Wiemer
Writer: Joe Menosky
Thoughts:

Geordi tests out a virtual reality suit that allows him to control a probe to look for survivors on a trapped Federation ship.  He finds none, but believes he sees his mother, believed to have died in another ship disaster.  Geordi becomes obsessed with using the probe to connect with his “mother” even at the risk of destroying his brain.  Turns out the she is really a life form that lives in a gas giant that needs rescuing.  This episode kind of feels like a lost opportunity with the good premise of the new technology and the chance to learn more about Geordi’s family and background.

Grade: C+

Episode #: 4
Title: Gambit, Part I
Director: Peter Lauritson
Writer: Story by : Naren Shankar and Christopher Hatton; Teleplay by : Naren Shankar
Thoughts:

The proposal for this episode must’ve been “What if we do a big dumb 80s action flick, Star Trek style?” Surprisingly, this works better than expected, and it is entertaining if not among the best of what Star Trek can offer. Picard is believed to have been killed while on an archaeology mission.  Riker takes command and is obsessed with find who murdered Picard.  He is captured by a band of mercenaries under the command of Arctus Baran (Richard Lynch) who are searching for a ancient Romulan artifact with great powers.  And surprise, Picard is a member of the mercenaries operating under the name “Galen.”  Picard and Riker conspire on a plan to undermine Baran’s control by acting as adversaries.  Meanwhile, Data takes command of the Enterprise with Worf as his Number One.

Grade: B

Episode #: 5
Title: Gambit, Part II
Director: Alexander Singer
Writer: Story by : Naren Shankar; Teleplay by : Ronald D. Moore
Thoughts:

The fun doesn’t pay off in the conclusion which gets too silly.  There’s some good bits with Robin Curtis as the Romulan Tallera whose really an undercover Vulcan but who is REALLY a Vulcan isolationist who wants to use the magic neural device for her own purposes.  But the device is defeated to easily and there’s a not a let of tension or surprise leading up to the conclusion.  Data dealing with Worf’s dismissal of his command on the bridge (and their eventual reconciliation) is well done though.  I don’t think this needed to be a two-parter.

Grade: B-

Episode #: 6
Title: Phantasms
Director: Patrick Stewart
Writer: Brannon Braga
Thoughts:

Data is dreaming again, but this time it’s nightmares!  The dream sequences are pretty weird and fun.  But it does seem a stretch that the dreams are telling Data that he’s seeing interphasic creatures that have infected the Enterprise and are now attacking the crew.  While most of this episode is schlocky fun, Data stabs Troi (in reality to attack the “bugs” in her shoulder) but it once again brings up the issue that Data is much more dangerous than he’s treated by the crew.  I do love all the scenes of Data studying Spot sleeping and then passing him off to a reluctant Worf to care for, though.

Grade: B

Episode #: 7
Title: Dark Page
Director: Les Landau
Writer: Hilary J. Bader
Thoughts:

Lwaxana Troi makes her final visit to the Enterprise to aid a telepathic race known as  the Cairn learn to communicate by speaking (I do wonder what is Majel final on-screen appearance in all of Star Trek is). She’s not her usual buoyant self and seems fatigued by the work and the appearance of a Cairn child, Hedril (Kirsten Dunst).  Ultimately she falls into a coma for no clear reason and the Cairn help Deanna join Lwaxana’s mind.  It’s unfortunate that this episode comes right after “Phantasm” because it’s relying on dream imagery again.  It turns out that Lwaxana was surpressing the secret of an older daughter who died tragically when Deanna was a baby.  It’s a big plot twist to what we know of the Trois and a high-concept episode that like a lot of season 7 so far fails in execution.

Grade: B-

Episode #: 8
Title: Attached
Director: Jonathan Frakes
Writer: Nick Sagan
Thoughts:

The Enterprise visits the planet Kesprytt with two societies, the Kes who want to join the Federation and the Prytt who are hostile to any contact with outside societies.  Picard and Crusher beam to Kes for a diplomatic mission but are intercepted and imprisoned by the Prytt.  They are released by a Kes operative and have to navigate their way out of Prytt territory on their own.  They learn that the devices placed in their necks allow them to read one another’s minds revealing the hidden feelings that they have for one another.  Meanwhile, Riker is annoyed by the bickering leaders of both societies who show no interest in helping to returning Picard and Crusher.  This is another one of the season’s high concept episodes, but the acting talent of Stewart and McFadden elevates it and makes it a good story for character development.

Grade: B

Episode #: 9
Title: Force of Nature
Director: Robert Lederman
Writer: Naren Shankar
Thoughts:

Hekaran brother and sister Rabal (Michael Corbett) and Serova (Margaret Reed) come aboard the Enterprise to share their theory that warp engine space travel is causing damage to their planet.  Serova is more zealous about the threat and sacrifices herself to prove the point.  Then the Enterprise has to rescue another ship from the rift that forms.  Starfleet puts restrictions on warp speed into place as they examine the ramifications of this discovery.  This is something that is mentioned a couple of times later in the season, but for being a huge change to Star Trek lore, it seems to be forgotten in other series.  The story is obviously an environmental parable and once it again it’s not as well executed as its promising premise.  There is a lot of Spot content in the episode’s unrelated b-plot, though, which I’m always game for.

Grade: B-

Episode #: 10
Title: Inheritance
Director: Robert Scheerer
Writer: Story by : Dan Koeppel; Teleplay by : Dan Koeppel and René Echevarria
Thoughts:

Data meets a scientist Juliana Tainer (Fionnula Flanagan) who claims to be the former wife of Noonien Soong and thus his mother, but his memories of his earliest days were erased.  Data is able to verify her claims but still finds that she’s not everything she claims to be.  Eventually he discovers that she’s also an android, made by Soong to replace the real Julianna and given her memories with no knowledge that she isn’t human.  Data decides to allow her to go on with her life believing she’s human. This is one of many episodes this season in which we learn of never-before-heard-of relatives of the main cast.  In this case it’s an android more advanced than Data.  It’s a shame then that the character and this revelation have absolutely no bearing on Star Trek going forward.

Grade: C+

Episode #: 11
Title: Parallels
Director: Robert Wiemer
Writer: Brannon Braga
Thoughts:

Ah, yes a multiverse story!  That’s the ticket.  Worf returns from a bat’leth tournament to find subtle changes to the Enterprise and its crew which eventually become huge changes such as the ship being under Riker’s command because Picard was lost to the Borg, and Worf being married to Troi (the introduction of the Worf/Troi romance that would be built on over the season). Even Wil Wheaton makes a cameo as Lieutenant Crusher in some timelines. Worf is discovered to be from a different universe, and as a fissure in spacetime destabilizes over 285,000 Enterprises appear.  Worf has to use a shuttlecraft to seal the fissure and return to his own timeline.  It’s great fun and a good story for Worf.

Grade: A-

Episode #: 12
Title: The Pegasus
Director: LeVar Burton
Writer: Ronald D. Moore
Thoughts:

Admiral Erik Pressman (Terry O’Quinn), another asshole Starfleet admiral, arrives on a mission to find the remains of his former ship the Pegasus.  Riker served under Pressman as a young officer and is not pleased to see his old commander again.  In fact, they are hiding a secret.  Pressman was working on an illegal phasing/cloaking device on the Pegasus which he wants to reclaim. They search for it while playing cat & mouse with a Romulan ship who suspect something is up and eventually caused it to become embedded within an asteroid. The device was dangerous leading to a mutiny on the ship.  Riker sided with Pressman due to his youth and experience, a choice he now regrets.  Picard is outraged that Riker is keeping secrets and it turns out to be a black mark on his record once it’s revealed.  It’s a great dramatic piece and a character story that also builds on Star Trek‘s ongoing conflict between militaristic and diplomatic means of advancing the Federations goals. By the way, did Ronald D. Moore just go ahead and reuse the name Pegasus for a ship in Battlestar Galactica or was that a coincidence?

Grade: A-

Episode #: 13
Title: Homeward
Director: Alexander Singer
Writer: Story by Spike Steingasser, William N. Stape (idea), Teleplay by Naren Shankar
Thoughts:

We meet another previously unheard of relative, Worf’s brother from his adoptive family on earth, Nikolai Rozhenko (Paul Sorvino).  Nikolai was always the spoiled, irresponsible child and now as an adult he’s an anthropologist studying the Boraalan civilization.  As atmospheric conditions are going to destroy life on their planet, Nikolai violates the Prime Directive and begins protecting them (he also marries and impregnates a Boraalan woman). Picard and co. insist that they cannot interfere by saving the Boraalans and Worf is angry that Nikolai once acts without considering consequences.  But Nikolai pulls a ruse to have the entire village beamed to the holodeck with the plan to have them journey through the holodeck to a land resembling a new, safe planet for them to live on.  Worf joins Nikolai on the journey to keep an eye on him while Geordi struggles to maintain the holodeck.  Unfortunately, one of the Boraalans leaves the holodeck and overwhelmed by what he experiences, ends his life by suicide.  For the rest of the villagers, though, the plan works and Nikolai chooses to live with them as the brothers reconcile.  It’s an interesting take on the Prime Directive story which questions what is the right course of action without giving solid answers.  It’s also fun to see Michael Dorn “surgically altered to look like a Boraalan” getting to perform without all of his Klingon makeup.

Grade: A-

Episode #: 14
Title: Sub Rosa
Director: Jonathan Frakes
Writer: Story by Jeri Taylor, Jeanna F. Gallo (idea), Teleplay by Brannon Braga
Thoughts:

And now we reach the notorious episode in which Dr. Crusher has sex with a ghost who also had sex with her grandmother and all the women in her lineage.  This feels as if the premise was “Gothic Romance/Horror, Star Trek-style” and then the writers decided to find the weirdest way to make that happen.  Crusher attends the funeral of her grandmother on Caldos IV, a planet made to resemble ancient Scotland (so Scottish that it even has a comically-bad Scottish groundskeeper).  She meets the handsome, young man Ronin (Duncan Regehr) and they fall in love, with Crusher deciding to quit Starfleet and stay in her grandmother’s house. Turns out Ronin is an “anaphasic being” and he’s a danger to Crusher’s life even though her grandmother lived to 100 and was very happy.  As weird as this episode is, there is some camp fun to it, but I don’t buy Crusher leaving Starfleet and her friends and acting like she has a middle-school crush.  It’s insulting to her character.  By the way, if they got Wil Wheaton to return for “Parallels,” why don’t we see him here?  It would make sense for Wesley to appear for the opening funeral scene even if he had to return to Starfleet Academy right away.

Grade: D

Episode #: 15
Title: Lower Decks
Director: Gabrielle Beaumont
Writer: Story by Ronald Wilkerson, Jean Louise Matthias, Teleplay by René Echevarria
Thoughts:

From one of the worst to one of the best episodes of the season, this episode is seen from the perspective of the junior officers of the crew as they worry about their performance evaluations from the senior officers.  Two of the Lower Decks officers we’ve met before, Nurse Alyssa Ogawa (Patti Yasutake) who is Crusher’s able assistant, and Bajoran Sito Jaxa (Shannon Fill), last seen in “The First Duty” as one of the cadets in the Starfleet Academy scandal.  We also meet human Sam Lavelle (Dan Gauthier)  and Vulcan Taurik (Alexander Enberg).  Civilian Ben (Bruce Beatty), who works at Ten Forward, is also part of the friend group. Over the course of the episode they interact with the familiar main characters and talk about their careers.  Eventually they all end up involved in a secret mission involving a Cardassian double-agent. Picard asks Sito to participate in a dangerous undercover mission with the Cardassian, which tragically leads to her death.  The final scene where Worf joins the junior officers to mourn Sito is particularly moving.

Grade: A+

Episode #: 16
Title: Thine Own Self
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Writer: Story by Christopher Hatton, Teleplay by Ronald D. Moore
Thoughts:

Data is sent on a mission to Barkon IV to collect radioactive materials from a probe that crashed into the planet. And accident causes him to lose his memory and he wanders into a village inhabited by people who resemble the Renaissance Era in Europe.  He bonds with the village magistrate Garvin (Michael Rothhaar) and his young daughter Gia (Kimberly Cullum), who names him Jayden.  As the radioactive fragments begin to spread sickness throughout the community, other villagers naturally suspect Jayden is the one making them ill.  While Data can’t remember anything about himself, he does remember science and works on an antidote. In the story’s B-plot, Troi takes the exam to become a commander.  This story is fine and is great for Troi’s character but doesn’t fit well with the A-plot and would’ve worked better with another ship-based story that ties together in the conclusion.  Like “The Inner Light,” Data’s story would’ve been fine filling the entire episode with minimal scenes on the Enterprise.

Grade: B+

Episode #: 17
Title: Masks
Director: Robert Wiemer
Writer: Joe Menosky
Thoughts:

The Enterprise discovers a rogue comet that contains an “archive” of an ancient civilization.  It possesses Data with various personalities and begins to transform the ship.  It’s nonsensical and kind of offensive in relying on stereotypes of ancient civilizations on Earth.  Poor Brent Spiner has to portray five different characters in a ludicrous manner.  This is worse than “Sub Rosa.”

Grade: D

Episode #: 18
Title: Eye of the Beholder
Director: Cliff Bole
Writer: Story by: Brannon Braga; Teleplay by René Echevarria
Thoughts:

A crew member kills himself by jumping in the plasma stream of the warp nacelle.  Troi and Worf team up to investigate what went wrong and hook up with one another along the way (Brannon Braga is really invested in seeding the Worf/Troi romance).  This leads to Troi becoming paranoid and jealous much like the crew member at the beginning of the episode and the visions she’s seeing from the time of the Enterprise’s construction.  Turns out there’s some psychic residue from a love triangle murder-suicide behind all this and a good part of the episode happens in Troi’s mind, although I’m not really sure where it diverges from reality.  Kind of a mess of a story.

Even though the Worf/Troi hookup didn’t happen, the romance continues to the end of the series.  Having never watched Star Trek: Nemesis or the later seasons of DS9, I was surprised when I watched Picard that Troi married Riker since TNG ends with her and Worf together.  Funny, ha?

Grade: C

Episode #: 19
Title: Genesis
Director: Gates McFadden
Writer: Brannon Braga
Thoughts:

An absolutely bizarre episode.  Crusher’s treatment for Barclay’s genetic illness activates dormant genes that spread throughout the crew causing them “devolve” into other creatures.  Data and Picard return to find the ship in chaos and Data is able to deduce an antidote from amniotic fluid when he sees that Spot’s newborn kittens are unaffected.  Once again there’s some camp fun, but this late in the series it feels wasteful to be using the characters and possibilities of Star Trek adventures on this kind of story.

Grade: C-

Episode #: 20
Title: Journey’s End
Director: Corey Allen
Writer: Story by Ronald D. Moore, Shawn Piller (idea), Anatonia Napoli (idea), Teleplay by Ronald D. Moore
Thoughts:

A treaty with the Cardassians ends up with a number of planets with Federation citizens now in Cardassian space.  One of them is home to a settlement of Native Americans who do not want to be removed from their home.  Picard and co. openly acknowledge that they are repeating the dispossession of Native American people from their lands.  Meanwhile, Wesley returns for a vacation from Starfleet Academy and is depressed and surly.  He is uncertain that he wants to follow the life path chosen for him and one of the native people, Lakanta (Tom Jackson) leads him on a vision quest to find his real destiny.  At the climax of the episode, Lakanta is revealed to be The Traveler (Eric Menyuk) who invites Wesley to join him on a new path.

The Native American plot is an obvious “message” story and it’s handled poorly.  Even in the 1990s it’s hard to believe that 23rd century people would be using the term “Indians” instead of Native Americans, or the name of a tribe (even if it was a fictional one made up for the show). Wesley’s story is interesting but would’ve been better if not tied in with hackneyed tropes of Native American life.  Picard is shockingly willing to go along with the bureaucratic desires of Starfleet and is pretty much the antagonist of this episode.

Grade: B-

Episode #: 21
Title: Firstborn
Director: Jonathan West
Writer: Story by Mark Kalbfeld, Teleplay by René Echevarria
Thoughts:

Worf is once again trying to get Alexander to follow the path of a Klingon warrior.  After an assassination attempt, they are joined by K’mtar (James Sloyan), supposedly an advisor to Worf’s brother. He joins Worf in training Alexander to be a warrior with little result.  Finally it is revealed that K’mtar is Alexander time traveling from a future where he became a diplomat and feels guilt for not being able to stop his father’s assassination.  In a lot of ways, this story works as a good conclusion to the ongoing Alexander story, as Worf becomes more supportive of allowing him to follow his own desires.  But the time travel angle is a bit odd and hard to believe.

Grade: B

Episode #: 22
Title:
Director:
Writer:
Thoughts:

Ferengi Bok (Lee Arenberg) returns, threatening to exact his revenge by killing the son Picard didn’t know he had, Jason Vigo (Ken Olandt).  Picard’s attempts to bond with Vigo are awkward, and ultimately we learn that he isn’t even really Picard’s son.  The Season 7 trend of previously unknown relatives continues in a story that really has no long-term consequences, while also being kind of bland. By bringing back characters/plot lines from Season 1 again, Season 7 only seems to be as bad as Season 1.

Grade: C

Episode #: 23
Title:  Emergence
Director: Cliff Bole
Writer: Story by Brannon Braga, Teleplay by Joe Menosky
Thoughts:

Starting with the Holodeck, the Enterprise begins exhibiting strange behavior that indicates that the ship has gained a consciousness.  A lot of the episode takes place in an Orient Express program where various characters represent the different systems of the ship.  It ultimately creates a new lifeform which is released into the universe and then everything returns to normal.  It’s a fun, quirky episode but subpar compared with other Holodeck episodes.  Discovery actually did a much better job with the ship becoming sentient with Zora.

Grade: B

Episode #: 24
Title: Preemptive Strike
Director: Patrick Stewart
Writer: Story by Naren Shankar, Teleplay by René Echevarria
Thoughts:

Ro Laren returns from advanced tactical training, now a lieutenant.  She’s immediately assigned to a covert mission to infiltrate the Maquis.  The Maquis are a resistance group on the planets that have come under Cardassian control after the treaty with the Federation, and now the Federation considers them pests who might provoke a new war.  Ro bonds with the people in the Maquis cell she joins, and ultimately betrays the Federation to protect the Maquis and join them.  Picard once again comes across as a bureaucratic Starfleet villain.

It’s a curious decision to have the penultimate episode of the series focus not focus on the main cast, but like “Lower Decks” it ends up being one of the better episodes of Season 7.  The ambiguous and darker tone resembles DS9 more than TNG, and the Maquis are a major part of DS9 and Voyager so it’s kind of a backdoor pilot.  I actually learned that the Maquis are introduced in the second season of DS9 which ran concurrently with season 7 of TNG, and I will be watching it this coming month.  It makes me wonder if should watch concurrent seasons of DS9 and Voyager intertwined by when the individual episodes aired going forward.

Grade: A

Episode #: 25-26
Title: All Good Things…
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Writer:Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore
Thoughts:

The series finale sees Picard shifting in time from a point when he first took command of the Enterprise, to 25 years in the future, to the “present” day.  Not surprisingly, Q is behind this, and it is up to Picard to figure out a paradox that threatens the existence of life on Earth. The episode does a great job of revisiting the past of The Next Generation, allowing the return of Tasha Yar and Miles O’Brien while also showing a potential future.  Unlike the original series, the TNG cast knew that they actually had a future with a film already in production. The story ties together a lot of themes of the previous 7 years with a touching reflection on the friendship of the crew (and the actors behind it).  Perhaps one of the great TV finales of all time.

Grade: A+

Published by Liam

One thought on “TV Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation (1993-1994)”

  1. I forgot about a lot of these episodes. I feel like maybe TNG ended at around the right time. At the rate they were going, an 8th season might have been really rough.

    To answer two of your questions: the Battlestar Pegasus was also in the original Battlestar Galactica, back in the 1970’s. I don’t think there’s any other reason why it showed up again in the reboot Galactica series. Frankly, it would’ve been weird for the Pegasus not to show up in the reboot.

    As for intertwining episodes of DS9 and Voyager, I really don’t think that’s necessary. The two shows take place in completely different parts of the galaxy, and the events of one show rarely (if ever) have any effect on the other.

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