A Collection of Episode Reviews Originally Posted on the MI6 Forums Between September 14 and November 16, 2010
"Descent" Parts I & II
Now that's a cool cliffhanger! I love the sense of impending dread that moves through the whole episode. What has happened to the Borg? Who is leading them? And why is anger the only emotion Data can feel?
And then Lore pops out! And Crusher's stuck in command! And Data's gone evil! And Hugh must lead the resistence!
All in all its a fantastic, exciting, high production quality episode that still manages to be an excellent character growth show for Data.
One of the strengths of the episode is the way it builds on things from the show's past -- going into the final season you need to start recgonizing and embracing your past, tying up loose strands so that things feel culiminated. Hugh, the Borg, Lore, metaphasics, the emotion chip, etc. This episode is the first time I felt Lore really worked as a villain. It felt like he'd finally come into his own. Before he was just this sort've goofy, hackneyed, evil twin character.
All in all, I wish they'd let Data install the emotion chip in this episode. Just so we could expand and explore new facets of Data going into the final season. As is, he puts it in during the first movie, we have a few laughs, and then find out in the other movies that he can turn it on or off and remove it and then they barely deal with it and its implications ever.
I mean, what if Data fell in love? Developed a grudge? Became obsessed? All those cool emotions that could be discovered and examined anew through his eyes.
Season 7 of TNG is sort've insane. It was the first time a Trek show had ever known going in that this was its last season. So while some of the episodes are tying up storylines and loose ends, others are just plain batshit crazy. It's like the policy went from "Rick won't go for it" to "Rick doesn't care". All of the wacky ideas that would've been instantly rejected earlier get play. Space pirates for example were an automatic no in all previous seasons -- here they get a two-part episode. And let's not forget how utterly bizarre they allowed Joe Menosky and Brannon Braga to get this year.
Anyways,
"Liasions"
This is a fun, if pedestrian episode. If anything I had a better time with the B-plot of Worf and Troi escoring ambassadors on the ship than the A-plot of Picard trapped on the planet with psycho girl. Too bad I could predict every beat of the story before it happened.
"Interface"
This episode has a really neat concept -- which is the probe interface system and the logic of using Geordi for it. And the way it's shot is dramatically clever, giving us a chance to see LeVar Burton's eyes! And it's set up very smart too, with the teaser that gradually reveals it to us.
And the episode itself is great, giving us Geordi's parents, and a really sucessful effort at fleshing him out, showing how good Burton is when saying something other than technobabble.
Everything is going along great until the last few minutes when the entire episode resolves itself far too easily. It literally all wraps up in the last two or three minutes, with no consequences and everything turning out swimmingly.
It's a great episode ruined by a **** resolution.
"Phantasms"
A great follow-up to the "Data's dream" subplot last season. The episode is fun and quirky and off-beat for TNG and there's really not much else to say. Its a fun exploration of Data's "subconscious" and I like the jabs at Freud. Although, this isn't the first time we'll be visiting weirdo surreal imagery this season of TNG.
"Dark Page"
Like the very next episode! While it shares the same "surreal imagery from the subconscious" gag, its altogether a far better episode because it finally gives depth and dimension to the relationships of the Troi family. I was glad of the depth given Mrs Troi in last year's "The Forsaken" (DS9) but this episode finally gives her something really significant to play, and therefore gives Deanna a great scenario to play off of also. It almost justifies seven years of tortuous Lwaxana episodes! Majel Roddenberry is just great as Lwaxana here, it must be stressed. The only issue I have is that the resolution happens a little too quickly, and that we never see the traumatic event at the heart of the episode, which weakens it in my opinion.
"Attached"
It took them seven years to do this episode?? This episode is SO good! Stewart and McFadden have great chemistry, the scene around the campfire that finally airs the past between Picard, Beverly and Jack is great! This character growth was needed way before the last season, and then of course it's NEVER followed up on again! Is Star Trek, outside of DS9, just a big continuing case of lost opportunities? Damn.
"Force of Nature"
The "warp speed is causing the ozone hole" episode. Everything about it makes me angry. It's poorly written/plotted, its full of platitudes, its unsubtle, and all in all its just poorly executed. And of course the "warp 5 speed limit" was pretty much ignored after this season.
"Inheritance"
Just when you thought the "Data's family" stories couldn't be mined any further -- hey! Here's his mom! Actually this episode ends up being pretty well done, sometimes even moving, but its sort've a massive "so what?" at the end of it.
This is the final season of TNG? Yeesh. DS9 was doing "It's Only a Paper Moon" by this point in their final season.
"Parallels"
A great, fun episode, but I felt more could've been done with the alternate universes and infinite Enterprises. My favourite alt is the "Borg won BOTBB" one, with hobo-bearded Riker shouting "THE BORG IS EVERYWHERE!"
"The Pegasus"
Ron Moore has written a lot of good TNG episodes before this, but this is like BLAM! There's a lot of early, prototype BSG sort've scene sitting around here. I think this episode was strong enough to be a two-parter, actually, seeing more of the ramifications of this episode. But still! This is great.
"Homeward"
Aka "Insurrection: The Episode" -- only better because we get character development between Worf and his foster brother and Michael Dorn gets to have more expressions than "grumpy" thanks to the lack of forehead make-up. But this is a very well-done "Prime Directive" episode.
"Sub Rosa"
Maybe its just been a while, but I don't TNG has been this bad since Season 1. And Season 1 was even better than this most of the time, I think. This is just the worst episode I can even recall -- it's more than terrible, its practically unbearable. It's sort've "Wolf in the Fold" meets "Catspaw" meets Romance novel. Yes, it gives Gates McFadden more to do than she's had in a while, and I actually like Gates quite a bit when they give her material to play -- but this material here is just uninteresting drivel. AGGGH! (Apparently I hate it because I'm a guy. But seriously -- 19th century ghost stories and romances in Star Trek?)
"Lower Decks"
And then there's this episode, which is the best thing ever. I mean I would love to see more episodes like this. So cool. Too bad that we never see any of these people again, other than Ogawa. If O'Brien hadn't been transferred you know he would've been hardcore in this show. But this is probably the second best episode of the season behind "Pegasus".
"Thine Own Self"
Data as Frankenstein, and Troi's promoted over him. Kay.
"Masks"
WTF. WTF FTW, though. I loved it. I'm a Communications major and this plus "Darmok" are great episodes coming at it from that background. I like Joe Menosky weird high concepts way more than Brannon Braga weird high concepts.
"Eye of the Beholder"
Troi as the psychic detective I guess. Erm, okay I suppose. Best scene is Worf failing at asking Riker's permission to date Troi.
"Genesis"
A fun, creepy episode propelled by high concept near-plausible science and great make-up that is ultimately meaningless in the final analysis. As fun and well produced as it is, episodes like this add nothing to the show, the characters, or anything else -- and this is the final season, so what are we doing here?
"Journey's End"
Well, here we give Wesley Crusher a "fitting send-off". We pretend like we had a planned arc for him all along since first season, but really Ron Moore just wanted to **** everyone off, play against expectations, and get rid of the kid. Not that Nemesis payed any attention to that. Anyways, aside from closing the Wesley Crusher arc, this episode opens the Maquis arc -- a complicated and well-done cross-over storyline evolved through the final episodes of TNG and the developing episodes of DS9 simply so that the entire show of VOY could have a premise to ignore.
"Firstborn"
Speaking of closing character arcs, here we put a modicum of closure on the Worf/Alexander arc. This episode is particularly interesting when we consider where Worf and Alexander end up by the finale of DS9 (again, Nemesis **** it up). This episode is sort've like if "Yesteryear" [TAS] was told from kid Spock and Sarek's POV. I like it.
"Bloodlines"
The best thing to do in the final episodes of any show is dreg up old forgotten characters from the first season who haven't even been mentioned since and have them come back, while also introducing new characters who will disappear at the end of the episode and never return or be mentioned ever again.
"Emergence"
Basically this episode is a mish-mash of ideas from other episodes. The ship gaining sentience, the ship giving birth, the holodeck becoming independant of ship functions, etc etc etc. It's all done in a neato high concept way from the masters of tech weird (Brannon Braga) and symbolic weird (Joe Menosky) but is this really the third last episode of the show that resurrected Star Trek?
"Pre-emptive Strike"
This is a really good episode, and an important chapter in the ongoing Maquis saga that has been very skillfully weaved between TNG and DS9, but I feel that it would have altogether more meaning if
a) if weren't returning Ro to the show after a nearly two year absence just to lose her again and
b) if we were at least re-introducing her so that she could be a regular on VOY.
But with the way things pan out we're supposed to care about the betrayal of a cast member we haven't seen at all since early sixth season and then will never see again.
But the drama was well done and it helps us see things from the Maquis point of view more, countering the more villainous portrayal from DS9. It's important that we sympathize with them because some of the main VOY characters will be Maquis, and this conflict will of course figure heavily into the new show and not be dropped two or three episodes in.
"All Good Things..."
Having heard Ron Moore's original idea for this episode, I'm still convinced this is probably the best series finale TNG could've gotten. Tying Q back in with the pilot was exceptionally brilliant, and the time shifting enables us some great juxtapositions of where these characters were in Season 1 with where they are now, as well as the writers having fun extrapolating them into a future they already know is false. Even though the time travel doesn't make sense, I still enjoy it immensely because the stakes are so high, plus the idea of something done in the future adversely affecting the past is very cool. And I really like Q in this one. This episode makes me feel that it was a major mistake to bring Q back on VOY because it never had anything to do with the themes present here, it was always just for silly gags and inconsequential nothings. I love the omnipotent, omnipresent devilgod seen here, calling Picard an "obtuse piece of flotsam." Finally, I don't think TNG could've had a better final scene than this one, with Picard joining in on the poker game. Definitely ranks as a far better finale than TOS, TAS, VOY or ENT's.
But totally schooled by DS9's finale.
As for TNG, I have to admit that after seven seasons I actually did come to like the characters and their interactions and they became one of the reasons I kept watching the show. But even after seven years they still never connected with me like how the TOS cast or the DS9 cast connected with me after even one season. For the most part I still feel that the TNG characters were defined a lot by their job and their hobbies -- Riker is first officer and plays the trombone kinda stuff. It took a long time for them to become well rounded people, and even that was more of a side effect of just seeing them reacting to events for seven years rather than a conscious effort by the writers. I think of all of them I would say I had the best idea of who Picard and Worf really were as people -- Data was well explored but how far exactly along he was in understanding humanity would always fluctuate wildly depending on who was writing him.
Best Episodes.
The Measure of a Man 2x09
Q Who 2x16
The Defector 3x10
The Best of Both Worlds 3x26, 4x01
The Wounded 4x12
The Drumhead 4x21
Darmok 5x02
Unification 5x07, 5x08
The First Duty 5x19
I, Borg 5x23
Chain of Command 6x10, 6x11
Tapestry 6x15
The Pegasus 7x12
Lower Decks 7x15
All Good Things 7x25
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