"The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" -- Air date: 9/24/1990. Written by Michael Piller. Directed by Cliff Bole.

The Enterprise's plan to destroy the Borg ship with a specially directed frequency of energy from the ship's main deflector dish fails when it turns out Picard's knowledge of the clever plan has been passed to the Borg and has allowed them to prepare a defense against it. "Your resistance is hopeless, Number One," says Locutus. The Borg proceed on their course to Earth as the Enterprise sits helplessly awaiting repair.

The episode's biggest plot conceit, obviously, is that the Borg don't destroy the Enterprise or assimilate its crew right then and there. Not being a threat, the rationale is that the Borg decide to simply ignore the non-threat and proceed to Earth. But come on. Obviously, the real reason is that it's the only way to permit the story to move forward. Granting the constraint that Picard and the Borg and the Enterprise must all survive the legendary "Mr. Worf, fire" setup, part two proves surprisingly effective as the solution to what seemed like an unsolvable problem. It's not an exercise in rock-solid logic, but it is an exercise in compelling TV.

The tension that was evident in the first part of the story does not for an instant wane here. The Borg are still headed for Sector 001, Starfleet is still woefully unprepared for the battle, and Picard is still in the clutches of the Borg. In an intriguing scene with harrowing implications, we see Picard being further transformed into Locutus; a streaking tear reveals that beneath Locutus still exists Picard, in torment. Aboard the Enterprise, Picard's absence fuels a solid character story for Riker, who must assume the role of captain under the worst possible circumstances and simultaneously step into Picard's shoes (and out of his shadow) for his crew while squaring off against Picard as the enemy. Guinan, who offered words of wisdom to Picard in part one, now bluntly tells Riker that he must let Picard go in order to do his job.

Meanwhile, the Borg march toward Earth. Starfleet's desperate stand at Wolf 359 ups the ante on the foreboding, and when the Enterprise subsequently arrives upon the debris of the wiped-out fleet, it's a particularly striking scene.

The secret to this story's success is its careful balance of elements and that it never loses sight of the fact that this is a TNG show, even amid the chaos. In addition to showing how the crew reacts and plans for this looming threat, Michael Piller's script keeps the story humming along on all cylinders; the details follow on the Borg ship, at Starfleet's desperate stand, and as Riker must hatch a daring plan to retrieve Picard from the Borg. This leads to some of TNG's most memorable action, in which Picard is retrieved but not rescued (the crew has his body but has not freed his mind). The show then shuttles into pure TNG problem-solving mode, in which the crew must figure out how to save Picard and stop the Borg, which might be one and the same.

Given that the story must resolve itself and Picard must survive, the solution is a clever one that allows the Borg to be defeated but without the brute force that part one had assured us was not possible. I find it highly unlikely that the access to the Borg's "sleep" system would not be under higher security, and even more unlikely that a self-destruct fail-safe would automatically ensue after that. But what the hell -- the execution of the plot and the struggle and Picard's angst depicted in Data's hacking scenes bring it home as drama.

The show wisely keeps Ron Jones as the composer, bringing a musical continuity to this two-parter in a way that is more crucial than in virtually any other multi-part Trek on record.

Rating:

"Family" -- Air date: 10/1/1990. Written by Ronald D. Moore. Directed by Les Landau.

In the aftermath of the Borg incident, the Enterprise is docked for repairs in orbit around Earth, and members of the crew have the rare opportunity to deal with family matters. "Family" is unique in that it might be the only episode of TNG that is 100 percent character driven. This is an episode that has no plot whatsoever, and that's a rare and gutsy choice by the writing staff. A show like this would've been unheard of on the original series, but by TNG season four, a show like "Family" proves that Trek can be about characters as much as it can be about stories.

All that said, this is one of those episodes that I respect more for what it tries to be rather than for what it actually does. There are nice threads weaving throughout "Family," but that's the operative word: Nice. Not powerful or gripping or original or groundbreaking. Merely nice. Many fans rank this among TNG's finest hours. I cannot. It's a nice hour, but not a standout one.

Picard returns to the small French village where he grew up, where long-ago tensions with his older brother Robert (Jeremy Kemp) resume. The tension for years has been left to simmer on the back burner; Picard has not even met his sister-in-law (Samantha Eggar) or his nephew Rene (David Tristan Birkin). Robert is at first cold and standoffish, and later voices his displeasure over his long-held perception of Jean-Luc's arrogance. Meanwhile, Picard is offered a job on Earth, and even seriously considers taking it. The Borg incident has left him shaken, and he begins to take stock of his life as a starship captain, and the personal sacrifices it has imposed upon him.

Percolating tensions eventually boil over with a fight in the family vineyard where Picard and his brother come to blows before collapsing into laughter while covered in mud -- which unfortunately is a hoary old sibling-brawl cliche. Picard's subsequent confession about his feelings of helplessness in being assimilated by the Borg is the episode's psychological highlight -- but in the end this torment seems too simplistically depicted and the full weight of the matter is lost.

There are other palatable but lightweight threads here, including Crusher giving Wesley a long-ago recording of his father (Doug Wert) before he died, which again visits the subject of personal/family loss in the military. Also, Worf's adoptive parents -- Sergey and Helena Rozhenko (Theodore Bikel and Georgia Brown) -- come aboard the ship, revealing the cultural/emotional divide that has always existed between our resident Klingon and his adoptive parents. I found amusement in Sergey's enthusiasm for a tour of a real starship: "I have all the schematics at home," he brags. Even within Trek itself there are Trek nerds.

Rating:

"Brothers" -- Air date: 10/8/1990. Written by Rick Berman. Directed by Rob Bowman.

The Enterprise races to a starbase to save the life of a young boy who has inadvertently eaten poison for reasons that ... well, are perhaps a little more contrived than they need to be. (I've always found the initial premise of the sick boy to be the episode's most obvious weak link.) This emergency is halted, however, when a homing signal in Data's brain is triggered and he takes over the ship, diverting it to a nearby planet. Data's takeover of the Enterprise is depicted with some memorable opening-act action that proves just how dangerous Data can be when his human qualities are disabled and he becomes, simply, an unstoppable machine. (His multi-dozen-digit lockout code of the computer -- recorded in Picard's voice -- is classic.)

"Brothers" is like "Family" with a plot. Coming on the heels of "Family," the thematic similarities are interesting, even if the storytelling method is completely different. (For one, we're dealing with the family roles surrounding an android who has no emotions; for another, we have a more traditional Trek structure, with action and plot.) When Data's conscious mind is reactivated, he finds himself in the lab of his creator, Dr. Noonien Soong, long believed to be dead. Not too long afterward, Lore walks through the door, having also followed the signal home (and proving that "Datalore" was merely the beginning of their arc). With both Soong and Lore, we get two surprises where we might've expected only one; the story brings the entire Soong "family" to one household to tell a tale we didn't envision when the hour began. In that telling Soong reveals he's dying.

Brent Spiner is superb in three roles of characters who are very different and yet vitally connected by the intimate history they share. We see here that Lore is not simply "evil," but a tragic victim of his own existence gone awry. No one is more regretful of that error than Soong, who would've liked nothing more than to fix Lore, if only he'd known he'd been reassembled, and if only there were enough time. Rather, Soong has brought Data here to give him the gift of basic emotions.

In the final act the story pulls the ol' switcheroo -- which, I suppose, was inevitable -- with Lore disabling Data and taking his place so that Soong installs the emotion chip in Lore's positronic brain. This seems to have the effect of making him even more unstable. The way Lore lashes out at his father makes you wince with sympathy; here's a man who had good intentions but felt forced to shut down Lore like a failed project, and that project now resents him for it. And now the father's failure for his first child prevents him from realizing his dreams for his second. (Note: No comments about B-4 will be entertained.) It may be with a sci-fi twist, but human feelings are still the point here. The message of the final scene all but guarantees Data and Lore will meet again, and seems to ponder what they might ultimately mean to each other.

Rating:

"Suddenly Human" -- Air date: 10/15/1990. Teleplay by John Whelpley & Jeri Taylor. Story by Ralph Phillips. Directed by Gabrielle Beaumont.

An Enterprise rescue team beams aboard a damaged Talarian ship piloted by teenage crew members who have been injured in an accident. One of the boys, Jono (Chad Allen) turns out to be human, and a medical examination shows evidence of previous injuries that indicate possible long-term abuse. How did this human boy end up with the Talarians?

It turns out Jono is actually Jerimiah Rossa, a boy whose parents were killed at the hands of the Talarians in an attack a decade earlier. A Talarian captain named Endar (Sherman Howard) has raised the boy as his son ever since. Uh-oh -- here comes a 24th-century custody dispute. Should the boy remain with the father that raised him or be returned to his human grandmother?

"Suddenly Human" is the third family-themed story in a row, but by far the least effective. The story takes way too long to get moving, spending time on annoying "culture shock" scenes like where Jono refuses to talk and instead makes a high-pitched squeal of defiance. I say a vow of silence would've been preferable. I also find it a little off-putting that Crusher's evidence of broken bones would automatically be assumed (wrongly) to have been possible past abuse, even torture, at the hands of his father. She should work for DCFS.

Picard takes Jono under his wing and tries reconnecting the boy to his long-forgotten human past. Meanwhile, Endar sits and waits for a verdict on whether his son will be returned to him, and seems ready to go to war if he doesn't get the right answer. All of which plays as flat and obvious (not that I didn't understand Endar's feelings). The episode culminates with a torn Jono, in a moment of desperation, stabbing Picard in the chest as he sleeps. This prompts Picard to realize Jono should be reunited with the Talarian father who raised him. Fine, except Picard's unilateral decision seems hugely simplistic and hurriedly arrived at. What about the grandmother's custody rights? Does she have any? Considering she's a Starfleet admiral, don't you think she might have a few choice words for Picard?

Rating:

"Remember Me" -- Air date: 10/22/1990. Written by Lee Sheldon. Directed by Cliff Bole.

After Borg and family matters, TNG turns back to conceptual techie sci-fi when Wesley's experiments with a "warp bubble" have bizarre consequences for the ship and/or Wesley's mother. (Hint: "And/or" is a clue that this story is not what it seems.) There's a flash of light, and suddenly people start to go missing from Beverly Crusher's world. It starts with her visiting old friend, Dr. Quaice (Bill Erwin). He vanishes without a trace, along with all records pertaining to his visit and, for that matter, his entire life and career. There's nothing to suggest he ever existed, except Crusher's say-so. Before long, more go missing, including Crusher's medical staff and most the crew. No one but Crusher notices any difference; to them it has always been this way.

"Remember Me" is a clever and inventive depiction of how well-argued logic and personal conviction prove useless when the physical evidence doesn't support them. Crusher can talk and talk and make perfect sense from her point of view, but she comes across to everybody else as delusional because they can't see the proof of her assertions. As a mystery, the story is deftly structured: It gives you hints about the true nature of What's Wrong Here (is it Crusher, the universe, or the fact that Crusher is in another universe?) but it never completely tips its hand until we have completely identified with Crusher's state of mind -- which is one of increasing panic as the entire universe seems to be slipping away. Meanwhile, energy vortexes appear out of nowhere and threaten to suck her in.

To me, the absurd highlight of the episode is the scene on the bridge where Crusher and Picard are the only people left -- in the universe, it would seem. Crusher tries with pure logic to destroy the notion that the universe consists of two people cruising around in a starship. And yet Picard assures her that's exactly what the universe is. He completely believes it. If such a cosmic joke were happening to you, you would go mad.

The twist (nicely executed but not played for suspense or surprise, as that would be self-defeating) is that Crusher is trapped in a micro-universe created by her own mind as a side effect of Wesley's "warp bubble" experiment. The vortexes are actually the crew's attempts to retrieve her. When that fails, the story turns to more metaphysical matters involving the reappearance, in a nice bit of continuity, of the Traveler (see "Where No One Has Gone Before"), who helps Wesley bring his mother back to the real universe through methods that transcend space and time. "Remember Me" has no shortage of exposition or technobabble, but as these things go, it's one of the most purely intriguing.

Rating:

"Legacy" -- Air date: 10/29/1990. Written by Joe Menosky. Directed by Robert Scheerer.

When a Federation freighter goes down over the war-torn colony of Turkana IV, the Enterprise goes in to rescue the survivors. The survivors, however, are now being held hostage by the Alliance, one of the colony's warring factions. The other faction is the Coalition, and is led by Hayne (Don Mirault), who proposes to work with the Enterprise crew in order to rescue the hostages. Turkana, by the way, was the home colony of deceased Enterprise crewmember Tasha Yar.

Story linchpin: Among the Coalition's soldiers is Tasha's younger, hotter sister, Ishara (Beth Toussaint, who looks like the younger, hotter sister of Linda Hamilton). She volunteers to help the Enterprise crew in their rescue attempt. Obvious question of the hour: Can the crew trust her, or does she have her own agenda on behalf of the Coalition? Fortunately for "Legacy," the crew is smart enough to pose this question aloud up front. Picard decides to attempt cooperation with the Coalition in the absence of a better option.

"Legacy" is a competent but unremarkable affair: Nothing hugely wrong with it, but not a whole lot in its favor, either (unless you count Beth Toussaint in a one-piece). It's all but impossible to care about the random, overly simplistic sociopolitical conflict between the Turkanan factions. We've seen the "two warring factions" plot on Trek plenty of times, and "Legacy" gives us precious little political intrigue to make this remotely compelling. The action scenes consist of competent but unremarkable shootouts in underground tunnels.

Faring better, but still plenty shy of great, is the material surrounding whether the crew can trust Ishara. Some scenes depicting the developing friendship between Ishara and Data are palatable, but we spend much of the hour waiting for the other shoe to drop and Ishara's betrayal to be revealed. Ishara is at the mercy of an inevitable plot. And when she's not, her status as "Tasha's sister" is mined too heavy-handedly for my tastes.

Rating:

"Reunion" -- Air date: 11/5/1990. Teleplay by Thomas Perry & Jo Perry and Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga. Story by Drew Deighan and Thomas Perry & Jo Perry. Directed by Jonathan Frakes.

Klingon ambassador K'Ehleyr (Suzie Plakson; my, she's tall) comes aboard the Enterprise, and she brings along with her a surprise for Worf: a young Klingon boy, Alexander, Worf's until-now-unknown-to-him son. She's also here on official business. A power struggle is imminent in the Klingon Empire between two rivals, Duras (Patrick Massett) and Gowron (Robert O'Reilly, making an instantly memorable impression with those crazy eyes) vying to become the next chancellor of the Klingon High Council. Failure to resolve the dispute could result in a civil war that could eventually sprawl well outside Klingon borders. K'Mpec (Charles Cooper), the dying chancellor, puts Picard in charge of the mediation and reveals that he has been poisoned by either Duras or Gowron in a gutless assassination for the power grab.

Like "Legacy," this is another example of TNG's standby, "two warring factions with the Enterprise as mediators," except this time it's done well. Whenever you involve the Klingons, there's an elevated, juicier flavor to the political intrigue and the mediation proceedings. Some scenes play like grand melodrama. And, of course, the way this all ties in with Worf raises the personal stakes. Worf selflessly accepting discommendation to save the Empire in "Sins of the Father" plays into matters here, with not only the Klingons shunning him at every turn, but the very notion that he cannot acknowledge his own son because the dishonor would be extended to him.

Then there's K'Ehleyr, the non-traditionalist call-it-how-I-see-it when it comes to the Klingon Empire, which plays in stark contrast to Worf's traditional values. I love K'Ehleyr's impatience with Klingon politics. When asked, "War over what?" she responds dryly, "The usual excuses: tradition, duty, honor." After a bombing on board a Klingon ship, evidence reveals a link with the Romulans, which means someone is involved in a conspiracy (although I wasn't quite sure what the bombing's goal was). K'Ehleyr starts poking into files to find the truth, discovers Duras is the conspirator, and in a shocking turn of events, Duras kills her.

Equally adrenaline-worthy is Worf going into full Klingon mode and throwing aside his Starfleet badge to claim his right for vengeance and battle Duras to the death. The themes of culture clash are in full force here, whether it's the conflict between being a Starfleet officer and taking Klingon vengeance rights (Picard reprimands Worf in a good scene), or the gulf between K'Ehleyr's human sensibilities and Worf's Klingon ways, or how it all ties into how Worf interacts with a son he doesn't know.

Rating:

"Future Imperfect" -- Air date: 11/12/1990. Written by J. Larry Carroll & David Bennett Carren. Directed by Les Landau.

An away mission goes bad, and Riker finds himself waking up 16 years after the last thing he can remember -- which was that mission. An aged Crusher tells him that he contracted a virus on that mission which, after lying in wait for years, put him into a coma and wiped all memories dating back to the original incident. (Sort of like Memento, except just once instead of every few minutes.)

"Future Imperfect" paints an interesting "what if" premise. Riker awakens to a changed world. Not so changed, mind you, that he can't quickly (perhaps too quickly, and taking it awfully well) be brought back up to speed. He's now captain of the Enterprise, he had a wife (now dead), and he has a young son, named -- perhaps too ham-handedly -- Jean-Luc (Chris Demetral). And Riker is scheduled to complete treaty negotiations between the Romulans and the Federation. Like tomorrow.

In a show like this -- where a reset is inevitable and it's really hard to buy into the emotional arc of the story -- the truth is in the details, and I liked a lot of the details. The Enterprise sets have been modified just enough to seem like the future in a fanboy sort of way. Geordi no longer has the visor. A bearded Picard, now an admiral, is on hand for the negotiations. The ambassador in the Romulan negotiations is onetime enemy Tomalak, which puts a visceral chill into Riker.

And there are strange things going on here. The computer keeps lagging when Riker asks for personal information about himself. Is any of this real? That question is answered with a nice touch of continuity when video of Riker's wife reveals that she was ... Minuet. My favorite part of the episode is when Riker, having destroyed the illusion of the ruse, goes on a rampage to prove it -- demanding that Data make elaborate calculations and telling Picard: "Shut up! As in close your mouth and stop talking!" It's all a holodeck simulation by Tomalak trying to trick him into revealing classified information. (Although, how sad is it that Riker's most intimate recent connection with a woman, at least according to the mind-scanners, was with a hologram and took place in a matter of a few hours? Like I said: plot details, not emotional arc.)

But wait; the story even has a twist upon the twist. The Romulan prison is an illusion too, concocted by an alien boy who was playing the part of Riker's son. He's actually an orphan with no company but all this equipment that can make pretend stuff. Of course, I'm always amazed at how perfectly pretend stuff can be created based on a person's memories. "Future Imperfect" is an engaging illusion show with some nice hypothetical scenes, but it has a howler of a closing line: "To me you'll always be Jean-Luc."

Rating:

"Final Mission" -- Air date: 11/19/1990. Teleplay by Kasey Arnold-Ince and Jeri Taylor. Story by Kasey Arnold-Ince. Directed by Corey Allen.

Wesley is accepted to Starfleet Academy -- this time for real -- which means he's leaving the show and this episode should therefore automatically get four stars, right? Kidding, kidding; I don't hate Wesley. At least not always. In seasons three and four he was not nearly as annoying as in previous years. Always too smart, yes, but not as obliviously obnoxious about it. Wesley accompanies Picard for a routine mission, but that mission is interrupted when the broken-down shuttlecraft they're riding in with the pilot (who calls himself "captain") Dirgo (Nick Tate) has a system failure and crashes on a desert moon.

The Enterprise has its hands full on another emergency mission (a disposable procedure plot) and won't reach the crash site for some time, so Picard, Wesley, and Dirgo must in the meantime survive in the desert with no water or supplies.

One of the story's points of labor is that Dirgo is obviously too stupid to live. The first tip-off is that he argues when Picard suggests heading to the mountains, the only possible shelter in sight. The second is that he drinks alcohol in the desert sun. The third is that he fires his phaser into a force field when he very obviously should just wait. That last example comes when the stranded party finds a cave with a fountain of water protected by an automated energy field (a prize behind an obstacle that seems more like the end of a video-game level than something that has a plausibly legitimate reason for being there). This results in a cave-in that critically injures Picard. Wesley must then figure out how to get the water to save Picard's life. Dirgo (as I said, too stupid to live) ends up getting killed behind his own impatient plan that Wesley said was a bad idea -- which goes to show that you should never blow off the teenage genius.

The real point of the story is the relationship between Picard and Wesley, and their scenes while Picard appears to be dying. It's heavy on sentiment, gratitude, mutual respect, and the deep-down previously unsaid truth that Wesley considers Picard a surrogate father whom he just hopes will be proud of him. It's earnest, pleasant, intimate -- but in the end, "Final Mission" is a little too much like Wesley Crusher: a bit cloying.

Rating:

"The Loss" -- Air date: 12/31/1990. Teleplay by Hilary J. Bader and Alan J. Adler & Vanessa Greene. Story by Hilary J. Bader. Directed by Chip Chalmers.

The Enterprise becomes ensnared in a field that pulls the ship along like a boat in a current. It turns out the current is actually a swarm of two-dimensional life forms that exist in space on a flat plane (which, of course, is not unlike how space travel is often depicted in Trek anyway). The crew must figure out how to escape the current without hurting the 2D-beings. The sci-fi gobbledygook surrounding this storyline is not one of TNG's best examples of sci-fi gobbledygook.

Coinciding with this encounter, Counselor Troi's telepathic abilities suddenly vanish. Is there a connection? Gee, what do you think? Will Troi have her abilities back before the hour is up? I wonder. "The Loss" is a better title than "Two-Dimensional Life Forms" and it describes the more relatable of the story's equal-time-shared plot. I had sympathy for Troi's loss of her ability to sense other people's feelings, whom she aptly now describes as "surfaces without depth" and "projections." But the depiction of this just doesn't work. Troi has a meltdown where she snaps on Beverly, and I didn't buy it. And her almost immediately resigning her post borders on silly as knee-jerk overreactions go. Dramatically, the net effect of a helpless Troi feels more shrill than effective. Aren't TNG characters supposed to be more perfect than this?

The 2D-beings plot turns to tedium and forced jeopardy simultaneously. We've got the 2D-beings headed toward a cosmic-string fragment (with the gravity of 1,000 black holes, if I heard right, although one would've been sufficient) and the only way for the Enterprise to escape comes when Troi hits on the idea of "moths to a flame." Of course, creating another "flame" in this instance involves reams of cascading technobabble that … oh, never mind.

Rating:

"Data's Day" -- Air date: 1/7/1991. Teleplay by Harold Apter and Ronald D. Moore. Story by Harold Apter. Directed by Robert Wiemer.

In what proves to be a nice little device, "Data's Day" employs the conceit of Data writing a letter to Bruce Maddox (the guy who put Data's rights on trial in "The Measure of a Man") in order to supply us a first-person narration and a "day in the life" approach to observing everyone's favorite android. Data does not sleep, so the episode appropriately begins not with him waking up, but with him running the bridge's night shift just before everyone else clocks in.

The story's approach is structurally refreshing -- and because it involves Data's bafflement over human emotions, it has an amusing whimsy. Sure, we've seen most of this before, but this time we get to experience more of it from Data's point of view. The story thrusts him into the middle of the upcoming wedding of Keiko and Miles O'Brien, and when Keiko has cold feet, she unwisely uses Data as the conduit for communicating this information to Miles. Unaware of the emotional fallout of a wedding being called off, Data delivers the message to Miles as if it's good news. Not a hilarious joke, but a whimsically effective one. Data's bafflement is offset by those, like Geordi, who take human nature for granted; Geordi assures Data that the wedding, inevitably, will go forward.

Worth the price of admission is a scene where Crusher teaches Data how to tap dance, which reveals the disparity between his technical abilities and his social understanding. He can match step for step the most complicated tap-dancing moves, but is at a loss as to where to look and when to smile while slow-dancing.

Amid the lighter elements is a mysterious plot involving Vulcan Ambassador T'Pel (Sierra Pecheur) and a rendezvous with a Romulan warbird onto which she is to beam for negotiations. When T'Pel is apparently killed in a transporter accident, it's Data's natural ability for logic that is able to discover that she was not, and that she's actually a Romulan spy returning home with information. (The ensuing standoff, for once, ends with the Enterprise retreating with empty hands.) While this more meaty plot seems at odds with the story's lighter tone, in the context of Data's observations and narration, it works. "Data's Day" is not groundbreaking, but it is pleasant.

Rating:

"The Wounded" -- Air date: 1/28/1991. Teleplay by Jeri Taylor. Story by Stuart Charno & Sara Charno and Cy Chermak. Directed by Chip Chalmers.

The Enterprise is informed by a Cardassian warship captain, Gul Macet (Marc Alaimo doing the Gul Dukat performance without the Gul Dukat story baggage), that rogue Starfleet Captain Ben Maxwell (Bob Gunton) of the USS Phoenix is attacking unarmed civilian targets along their border. This is in defiance of a recently brokered treaty that ended a bloody war between the Federation and the Cardassians. (The Federation is apparently so vast that it was recently at war with another power that we'd never even heard of until now.) Picard must find and stop the Phoenix before the violence escalates and threatens to destroy the peace treaty.

"The Wounded" is a good story about the effects of war that I wish would've been even better -- either more tense, or less obvious. Best about it, and most crucially, is that it's the breakout story for O'Brien, who is treated like a full-fledged regular character rather than just "the transporter chief." It reveals him as having a history and opinions, and it even ventures briefly into his life as a newlywed. (I enjoyed the Miles/Keiko discussion over breakfast, which was about breakfast.) He served under Maxwell during the war and knows him best among anyone on board the Enterprise. O'Brien's coldness toward the Cardassians is explained in a solid scene where he talks to one of them about the day during the war when he was first forced to kill an enemy: "I don't hate you, Cardassian. I hate what I became because of you."

"The Wounded" is also a crucial establishing point for the Cardassians and thus an interesting step (in retrospect) in the direction of DS9. Rather than making the Cardassians simple villains, the story shows how Macet is genuinely interested in keeping the peace. Macet is about as even-tempered as aliens-of-the-week tend to be on Trek.

The same cannot be said for Maxwell, who suspects the Cardassians of secret arms smuggling along these supposedly innocent shipping lanes. On this hunch Maxwell has attacked two ships and killed 450 Cardassians. After being tracked down, debriefed, and ordered to stand down, Picard still lets him return to his bridge, which strikes me as unlikely bordering on reckless -- especially since Picard knows Maxwell's wife and children were killed by the Cardassians during the war. This leads to a standoff where Maxwell detains a Cardassian cargo vessel and pleads Picard to board it and find the weapons. When Picard refuses, Maxwell threatens to destroy it. O'Brien beams over to the Phoenix to talk Maxwell off his cliff, in what's a pretty good scene.

Overall, this is a good depiction of an embittered soldier who simply cannot give up the war, even after peace has been declared. But I think "The Wounded" might've been even better if Maxwell were not so clearly unhinged. I also think the twist at the end implying the Cardassians are actually guilty of Maxwell's charges is somewhat counterproductive to the point of the episode.

Rating:

"Devil's Due" -- Air date: 2/4/1991. Teleplay by Philip Lazebnik. Story by Philip Lazebnik and William Douglas Lansford. Directed by Tom Benko.

The Enterprise answers a distress call from the Ventaxians, whose world is besieged by its own panic because the terms for a legendary millennium-ago deal with the devil is set to expire -- like today. According to said legend, the devil, Ardra, will return to enslave the world (after having so benevolently granted it 1,000 years of peace). Ardra (Marta Dubois) does indeed appear and lay claim to the world, demonstrating powers that would seem magical if this weren't, you know, Star Trek, where technology can do anything. In response to Ardra's parlor tricks, spineless Ventaxian bureaucrat Jared (Marcelo Tubert) is prepared to hand over the keys to the planet.

Not if Picard has anything to say about it. Picard doesn't believe Ardra is really the devil because Picard, you know, has an IQ over 80, which apparently can't be said of any of the Ventaxians. (Is this someone's twisted allegory for the Second Coming? Naturally, any references to human religions are absent.) The Enterprise crew embarks on an investigation to debunk Ardra's assertion and her claim to the planet. Meanwhile, Ardra also lays claim to the Enterprise, since it's in orbit. This is clearly overreaching, because if there's one thing you don't screw with, it's the USS Enterprise.

"Devil's Due" is, in a word, weak. Or in two words, really weak. The plot is a true who-cares scenario: Who cares if the Ventaxians are exploited? (Frankly, given their stupidity, they deserve it.) And who cares about all the contrived tech details of investigating Ardra? And who cares about this woman lusting after Picard? And who cares if the Enterprise disappears (which plays like lame unintended comedy)? The narrative is a choppy exercise in tedium, revealing its utter desperation by finally just becoming a courtroom episode where Data is the judge. Picard turns the tables in utterly predictable fashion, leading to a boring payoff where Ardra is exposed as the con woman she is. I have my doubts that any combination of Neat-O Technology could so perfectly perform the illusions we get in this episode, or if they could, that anyone (okay, maybe Jared, but that's the problem) would be fooled into thinking they're supernatural in origin.

Rating:

"Clues" -- Air date: 2/11/1991. Teleplay by Bruce D. Arthurs and Joe Menosky. Story by Bruce D. Arthurs. Directed by Les Landau.

"Clues" is one of those bottle shows that works better the first time you see it. It's intriguing when you don't know what's going to happen. But it loses something the next time through. As mysteries go, "Clues" holds the attention reasonably for an hour. The questions are: What happened, and do we dare try to repeat history when we have no memory of the consequences?

As they approach a planet, the Enterprise crew is unexpectedly rendered unconscious. Upon awakening, Data, unaffected, says the crew has been out for 30 seconds. Gradually, however, clues are discovered that Data is probably lying, that the crew was unconscious for much longer, and that something serious happened that no one can remember.

What works best about this story is its pace. It's a slow burn that gradually reveals peculiar clues hinting at an inevitable truth: Data is covering something up. The evidence -- from Crusher's botany experiment to Worf's broken wrist to Troi's freak-out in the mirror -- all paints an odd picture surrounding the original mystery of the planet the crew never reached before blacking out. My favorite dialog scene is between Picard and Data, where a frustrated Picard grills Data on the facts and Data simply says that he cannot answer. (When Data stonewalls, he's never anything but calm, polite, and matter-of-fact; he can't answer simply because ... well, he can't.)

What doesn't quite work is the explanation for this whole charade. A group of isolationist aliens wiped the crew's memory because they didn't want to be found. Except Data's memory could not be wiped, so Picard swore Data to secrecy rather than allowing the aliens to destroy the Enterprise. But it didn't work and now we need a second chance, this time leaving no clues. I'm not sure how you leave no clues on a ship with 1,000 people.

The episode, which opened with Picard on the holodeck trying to solve a Dixon Hill murder, does not take the subtle road regarding its message, which is that we cannot resist a good mystery. One wonders if Picard's holodeck games and his speech at the end are both necessary. Show, don't tell.

Rating:

"First Contact" -- Air date: 2/18/1991. Teleplay by Dennis Russell Bailey & David Bischoff and Joe Menosky & Ronald D. Moore and Michael Piller. Story by Marc Scott Zicree. Directed by Cliff Bole.

While undercover on the alien world of the Malcorians, Riker is seriously injured and rushed to a hospital where the Malcorian doctors discover his anatomy is nothing like theirs. "What are you?" they ask in astonishment. Riker attempts to maintain his cover by claiming he was born with numerous birth defects, but the Malcorian doctors are not persuaded. Could he be an alien from another world? The Malcorians are on the brink of warp space travel, but do not yet know that life exists elsewhere in the universe. Indeed, many in their society believe the universe revolves around Malcorian life. That belief may be about to change.

"First Contact" is one of TNG's underrated gems. It is actually about the very core of the Star Trek ideology: seeking out new life and new civilizations while observing the Prime Directive. It pursues these Trekkian themes using an approach that feels completely fresh and original. The episode's wisest choice is to tell the story primarily from the Malcorians' point of view; we come into the story with scarcely more information than they do, which means we, like they, must play catch-up. Aside from Riker, we see none of the Enterprise crew until the moment when Picard and Troi beam into a room with Mirasta (Carolyn Seymour), the Malcorian minister of science, to announce "first contact." Watching this happen through Mirasta's eyes is a crucial part of the effect; we're allowed to feel the disbelief, then fear, then astonishment, that she feels. It's like Picard and Troi truly are aliens from another planet.

Another reason this story is fascinating is that it shows us the nuts and bolts of how the Federation actually handles these delicate new encounters. Riker is just one of several other (unseen) undercover Starfleet officers who have observed and listened to Malcorian society for years in order to decide when might be the best time to initiate first contact. Riker going missing necessitated the process to be accelerated.

Next the Enterprise crew contacts the leader of Malcorian society, Durken (George Coe). Picard carefully tries to explain his intentions while putting Durken at ease, and in these scenes we get intriguing material that subtly reveals the apprehension both men feel in stepping wrong in these discussions. Durken suddenly realizes that he is but a speck of insignificance in the universe, and both Picard and Durken know that the Malcorians' fear might be viral.

Through Durken and his political administration we see the complexity of first contact in how it affects the society being contacted. It's possible -- given the sociopolitical tendencies to maintain the status quo -- that the Malcorians are not even ready to join the galaxy's community. Early scenes show more conservative elements, like Durken's security minister, Krola (Michael Ensign), expressing reservations over even the proposed warp flight, which didn't even assume that other life was out there. And there's talk about how Malcorian society should be taking care of itself before it starts going to other worlds. It's not often that TNG shows political details in a society that feel like they could plausibly come from our own current world, but these do.

Another detail I felt was important was how Picard puts the first-contact mission first, and only gradually moves toward the issue of getting Riker returned. This feels right; a Starfleet officer would put the diplomatic mission ahead of the man, especially with the stakes so high. Meanwhile, the hospital administration tries to keep a lid on the fact that they have a space visitor lying in one of their beds; they debate among themselves the implications of what they've got on their hands. When the lid does come off, there's a violent reaction and then political maneuvering by Krola to try to keep Durken from moving forward. Krola's maneuvering fails, up to a point.

In the end, a larger universe can't trump the societal status quo, and Durken declines Picard invitation, saying that his people aren't ready. Essentially it's a debate of progress versus what society will reasonably accept. "First Contact" has a lot of imaginative details about how this sort of encounter would play out using the Trek rules, and, for the most part, all the details feel right.

Rating:

"Galaxy's Child" -- Air date: 3/11/1991. Teleplay by Maurice Hurley. Story by Thomas Kartozian. Directed by Winrich Kolbe.

Dr. Leah Brahms (Susan Gibney), the designer of the Enterprise's engines, comes aboard the Enterprise. Geordi is ecstatic, because he met -- and kissed -- a holographic version of her in last season's "Booby Trap." This can't end well. His boundless optimism only makes it that much more obvious when we learn that Brahms is, in reality, kind of a pain in the ass. Her first words to Geordi after stepping off the transporter pad: "So you're the one who's fouled up my engine designs." The payoff is so telegraphed that if "Galaxy's Child" were on cable, she would've used a different word starting with F.

Last season's "Booby Trap" was an engaging enough hour, so I guess it sort of made sense to do a follow-up on the whole Geordi/Leah thing. It's funny but also cringe-worthy to watch Geordi get so worked up over this woman whom he met on a holodeck (in a best-computer-guess simulation) and who doesn't actually know him. Reality. Fantasy. Two things. Watching Geordi confess to Guinan this 16-year-old-boy-like crush is embarrassing enough, but then Geordi arranges a date in his quarters where I'm just feeling bad for when Brahms walks out perplexed. Because Brahms is married. And Geordi doesn't know this because, what, he never bothered to find it in the computer? Uh-huh. Look at it this way: If you found someone on Facebook you wanted to date, don't you think the first thing you'd look at on their profile is whether they're, you know, MARRIED? Just wait until Leah finds herself in last year's holodeck program. (Her reaction was over the top, in my opinion, and when Geordi defended himself I was nodding in agreement.) This is either hilarious or sad; I'm not sure which.

The sci-fi plot, which is sort of an afterthought, involves the Enterprise studying a creature (sort of like a whale in space) that suddenly attacks the ship with deadly radiation. In defense, Picard fires phasers (minimum setting, of course). Priceless is Picard's devastated reaction when the phasers accidentally kill the creature. It's so wonderfully Picard: We came out here to study this wonderful creature and we have killed it; thus we have failed our mission. But then it turns out the creature was pregnant, and the baby survived in the womb, is born, and starts following the Enterprise around like its mother. How cute. Until it latches on and attempts to breast-feed all the ship's energy away.

Leah and Geordi must work together to figure out how to get the creature off the ship without harming it. In the process they reach an understanding and mutual respect (and make a natural technobabble tag-team) -- but, come on, did you really expect them not to?

Rating:

"Night Terrors" -- Air date: 3/18/1991. Teleplay by Pamela Douglas and Jeri Taylor. Story by Shari Goodhartz. Directed by Les Landau.

After finding the USS Brattain, a Starfleet vessel that had gone missing, the Enterprise away team beams aboard to discover everyone dead, after having apparently gone insane and killed each other. There is a sole survivor: a Betazoid man in a catatonic state. Troi attempts to communicate with him telepathically while the crew attempts to solve the mystery of what happened to the Brattain. But then the Enterprise becomes stuck and cannot move from its current position, while members of the crew start experiencing hallucinations and unease.

"Night Terrors" initially resembles a ghost story (or, in the Trek world, a weird-alien-presence story). The episode's depiction of a silent and ominous Brattain hints at a catastrophe that must have been initiated by some sort of outside influence. What I like best about "Night Terrors" is that it begins with the strange and surreal and slowly scales it back to more real-world symptoms. The reason the Enterprise is stuck is because of a known energy-draining phenomenon called a Tyken's Rift. And the reason people are hallucinating is because they haven't gotten any REM sleep for many days. The sleep deprivation is causing fatigue among the entire crew that, Crusher reports, will inevitably end in insanity and mass violence.

It's kind of fun seeing the crew so sleep deprived that they're like the walking dead, and the hallucinations make for at least one well-executed creepy image, where Crusher is in a room full of corpses that she suddenly hallucinates as sitting up on their slabs.

Overall, it's an average outing. The way the mystery is solved by Troi and Data requires so many assumptions that one hopes guessing and logic are the same thing. And then there are the lackluster scenes of Troi's dreams (she's the only one who can dream, because she's Betazoid) where she's floating in a green space cloud and yelling at two lights. These visuals look like they were conceived for a flying cartoon superhero. And why can't the aliens who are trying to communicate simply say, "We need hydrogen," rather than concocting riddles about "one moon circling the other"? I know; I'm being a nitpicker.

Rating:

"Identity Crisis" -- Air date: 3/25/1991. Teleplay by Brannon Braga. Story by Timothy De Haas. Directed by Winrich Kolbe.

Geordi's close friend -- sort of like his big sister -- Susanna Leijten (Maryann Plunkett) comes aboard to report that the other officers of an away mission they all had been on several years earlier have recently gone missing. The Enterprise tracks a shuttle from one of the missing crewmen to the original mission's planet. They find no trace of the missing crewman, but Susanna, and then Geordi, begin having strange medical symptoms that draw them to the planet. It turns out they were both afflicted, on that years-ago mission, by an alien influence that is now rewriting their DNA. When Susanna starts transforming into an alien, Crusher must race to find a way to stop it before Susanna and Geordi are both lost.

"Identity Crisis" is a tolerable hodgepodge of stories. It's a merging of various familiar devices including (1) Starfleet officers who have gone missing, (2) an old close friend we've never heard of before, (3) a medical mystery, (4) an alien parasite, (5) a holodeck investigation, and (6) Fun With DNA [TM]. Actually, this might be the best Fun With DNA episode on record, since Fun With DNA generally makes me want to retch. Brannon Braga apparently decided that if "Identity Crisis" was the starting point then "Threshold" was the logical extension, but I digress.

The most interesting scenes involve Geordi on the holodeck trying to put together clues from a video recording of the original mission. Hey, look! There's a shadow from someone who isn't there! What is that? Before long, Geordi has become an invisible alien himself, and goes careening through the ship with the aid of his own personal biological cloaking device, like the alien in Predator.

The first half of the story does a pretty good job of creating a sense of mystery about what's going on, as Susanna slowly, psychologically melts down. And the second half of the show -- which focuses on the close friendship between Geordi and Susanna as they try to save each other -- works emotionally, even as the science goes off the deep end (transforming people into aliens and back without killing them and in such a way that even their hair looks the same, etc.). I can't recommend "Identity Crisis," but there are things about it that work in spite of itself.

Rating:

"The Nth Degree" -- Air date: 4/1/1991. Written by Joe Menosky. Directed by Robert Legato.

The Enterprise is assigned to repair the Argus Array, a space telescope that has stopped working. (It's the 24th-century equivalent of the Hubble Space Telescope; was this story about a critical scientific tool in need of crucial repairs ripped from the headlines of the time?) A mysterious probe orbiting the array zaps Barclay while he's on a shuttle mission. After returning to the ship, Barclay has a newfound confidence and his brain activity increases exponentially. He becomes smarter and smarter, and that begins to worry some people.

The character outline is Flowers for Algernon, except instead of taking a mentally challenged man and turning him into a genius, it takes a man of average intelligence (for this crew) and turns him into an ultra-confident, cosmic super-genius. In the opening scene, regular-Barclay is playing Cyrano de Bergerac in a performance that, let's face it, is pathetic despite his best efforts. Later, watch how genius-Barclay's acting is so mesmerizing that it practically makes Crusher weep. Dwight Schultz's performance as Barclay is pitch perfect because it finds the right balance between earnest sincerity and dryly ironic narcissism. Schultz, and the episode, know that deep down this is all kinda funny because it's about Barclay, and they don't shy away from the comic notes of Barclay's growing ego and arrogance, even if he's always well intentioned.

Meanwhile, the imaginative sci-fi machinations proceed at warp speed. To fix the array, Barclay comes up with a brilliant plan that's impossible to execute by anyone except him, and requires a computer interface far faster than anything available, so he uses the holodeck to build a device that taps him directly into the ship's computer core (this device is both creepy and really cool; kudos to the production designers), where his brainpower expands and eventually takes over the entire computer and, thus, the ship. Barclay begins to develop a god complex, perhaps not unjustifiably, and claims he can understand the entire universe as a simple equation. He starts to scare the hell out of everybody.

The way the crew reacts to all this is absolutely honest human nature; they fear what they cannot predict or understand, and I don't blame them -- especially when Barclay puts an energy field off the starboard side of the ship and prepares to send the crew 30,000 light-years through it, while assuring everybody, "Please, you must trust me." The suspense of what waits at the other side is one of the true moments of unpredictable awe in the Trek canon.

What actually waits there, alas, cannot live up to that awe, but I did still enjoy the episode's sense of whimsical curiosity, in which it turns out that advanced aliens used Barclay as an implement to bring the Enterprise here in carrying out their own exploration of the galaxy. Barclay is of course returned to normal, which begs the question of whether it's a blessing or a tragedy to allow the blind man to see before taking it away again. "The Nth Degree" is a splendidly unique amalgam of tones and themes, plot and characterization, imagination and bemusement, and it ends up being one of the most fascinating hours in TNG's run.

Rating:

"Qpid" -- Air date: 4/22/1991. Teleplay by Ira Steven Behr. Story by Randee Russell and Ira Steven Behr. Directed by Cliff Bole.

The Enterprise plays host to an archeological conference, during which Vash (Jennifer Hetrick, in a particularly sub-par performance) boards the ship ostensibly to rekindle some heat with Picard (following up last year's "Captain's Holiday"), but maybe also because she has a scheme up her sleeve involving some illegal archeologizing (new word; I made it up), which drives Picard's stolid sense of duty up the wall even as he cannot fully squelch that voice in his head that says he's attracted to her.

Then Q shows up (in his most perfunctory appearance of all time) claiming that he simply wants to thank Picard for saving his life in "Deja Q." When Picard balks, Q decides to teach him a lesson about those pesky love feelings that Picard claims to eschew regarding Vash. So Q teleports the crew to a fantasy realm. But there clearly was never a story here. This is the sort of brain-dead production where someone said: "We need a Q story. What are we going to do?" And then someone else brilliantly offered up, "Robin Hood!"

"Qpid" is stupid (even dumber than that rhyme) -- amazingly even worse than "Captain's Holiday," featuring an even more transparent sense of going through the clunky motions of laborious action/comedy. About a minute after Q snapped his fingers and sent the entire crew into Sherwood Forest, I was ready to check out. This is one of those TNG fantasies where anything can happen, and nothing does. The plot is nonexistent. The production and costume designers and stunt coordinators spend all their money on period details and swordplay while those of us wanting this to have any purpose are left scratching our heads. It's a snooze fest. As Q comedies go, this doesn't have an ounce of the charm of "Deja Q." Everything feels forced.

Okay, it has a couple of marginally funny moments, like when the crew is so interested in this Vash woman that Picard is so tight-lipped about. Or where Worf purposely smashes Geordi's mandolin and then says, "Sorry." (I'm lukewarm to Worf's "I am NOT a merry man!" line.) But mostly it's an aimless, disjoined mess of lame Picard/Vash bickering and hackneyed action that has no purpose and little entertainment value.

Rating:

"The Drumhead" -- Air date: 4/29/1991. Written by Jeri Taylor. Directed by Jonathan Frakes.

The crew discovers that visiting Klingon officer D'Jan (Henry Woronicz) has been stealing technical secrets from the Enterprise and transmitting them via quiet and clever channels to the Romulans. There also has been an explosion on the ship's warp core, leading D'Jan to become the obvious suspect of sabotage. Admiral Norah Satie (Jean Simmons), a renowned Starfleet prosecutor, comes aboard the ship to aid in the investigation of the matter. "Aid in" quickly becomes "take over," and soon she's presiding over a sprawling paranoid inquiry involving unconfirmed speculation, serious allegations, and public hearings. Picard strenuously objects to what becomes a witch hunt.

It starts small and builds slowly: Just a few questions of a few people. Satie seems to be doing her job, and even I thought Picard was being overly naive when fussing over the fact that her second chair is a Betazoid. But soon the investigation has narrowed in on Crewman Tarses (Spencer Garrett), suspected merely because he worked in sickbay when D'Jan came in for routine procedures. Satie continues to press on, and ultimately presses Picard for not clamping down, despite the lack of incriminating evidence on Tarses and, further, with strong emerging evidence that the explosion in engineering was actually an accident. The details of the episode are solid, but it's the message that really works here. It's painful to watch Tarses destroyed over the mere fact that his grandfather was Romulan (rather than Vulcan, as he claimed). It's presumed guilt by national ancestry.

Ultimately, Picard is called to testify, in what raises the stakes to a witch hunt while, in narrative terms, serves to turn the story into a battle of wills between Satie and Picard. (Hint: Never bet against Picard.) The way Satie twists the facts is deplorable; I liked the story's invocation of continuity where she essentially attacks Picard for being abducted by the Borg.

There were numerous "courtroom episodes" on Trek throughout the years, and "The Drumhead" is one of the best. With the threat of terrorism and the ensuing questions of curtailed individual rights at the forefront of today's sociopolitical discussion, "The Drumhead," like DS9's "Homefront," is even more relevant in America today than when it originally aired. In a way it seems eerily prescient -- until you consider that these issues have repeated themselves in cycles as a result of whatever the paranoia of the moment may stem from, whether it was the Japanese during World War II, suspected communists during the Cold War, or terrorist "persons of interest" post-9/11.

"The Drumhead" is a bit theatrical at times; one wonders if Satie, supposedly such a seasoned professional, would so easily be baited into a meltdown at the end. Or that she'd so easily have been able to lull Worf into her camp. But perhaps that's the point: The law has been hijacked by an overzealous individual whose judgment is suspect. (You can insert your own current-day political commentary here.)

Rating:

"Half a Life" -- Air date: 5/6/1991. Teleplay by Peter Allan Fields. Story by Ted Roberts and Peter Allan Fields. Directed by Les Landau.

What is it about the Trois that, given the starring spotlight, ultimately make me want to crawl under my kitchen table and hide? Whether it's "The Child" or "Manhunt" or "Menage a Troi" or "The Loss" -- they just never seem to work. Bad stories? Bad characterization? My own anti-Troi bias that I don't want to admit? Maybe a little of all of it? I'm not sure, but good intentions misfire here.

In "Half a Life," we have Lwaxana Troi aboard the ship (rarely a good sign, although this episode ultimately tries to utilize her better than most) at the same time as Timicin (David Ogden Stiers), a scientist about to test an experimental procedure on a dying star that will hopefully allow his people to save their own dying sun. Lwaxana and Timicin meet and fall instantly in love, pursuant to every unrealistic timeline in every love story in every TV show and movie. This November-November romance isn't bad, but not compelling either. But then the other shoe drops: Timicin, in accordance with his people's longstanding culture, is scheduled to kill himself on his 60th birthday, mere days away.

To me, the episode was basically unsalvageable once Lwaxana came to her daughter wailing ("wailing" isn't a word I have reason to use very often) over the fact that Timicin must die "JUST BECAUSE HE'S SIXTY!" There's drama, and then there's melodrama. And then there's nails on a chalkboard. Lwaxana Troi wailing is maybe two steps beyond the chalkboard. I'm being mean, but when you have a story based on arbitrary alien customs, performances matter.

What can I say? Lwaxana is right. (Her message is fine, even if I still want to shoot the messenger.) Far be it for me to judge a fictional belief, but Timicin's society's custom is hopelessly silly, and based on all kinds of nonsensical logic and assumptions about the dignity of death in the face of aging, and avoiding getting so old you're soiling yourself, or whatever. The allegorical point here, somewhat rendered useless by stretching the story past the absurd point, seems to hint at our own society's general disregard for the elderly. But just as "The Loss" was an ineffective allegory for disability, "Half a Life" is a failed allegory for getting old. Do we blame the Trois? Well, maybe I shouldn't be that unfair.

Rating:

"The Host" -- Air date: 5/13/1991. Written by Michael Horvat. Directed by Marvin V. Rush.

Crusher falls head over heels in love with a visiting Trill ambassador named Odan (Franc Luz), who is assigned to negotiate a solution to an alien dispute that is threatening to escalate into war, pursuant to the Two Warring Factions standby oft employed by TNG. The Federation knows so little about Trill society at this point they don't even know they are a joined species.

So Crusher is shocked and saddened when Odan is critically injured in an attack on a shuttlecraft and it turns out the symbiont slug inside him (not even referred to as a symbiont here) is actually "Odan" and the external body is just a host. The symbiont is joined with Riker as an emergency to keep Odan alive until a replacement Trill host is sent. It's interesting to look back at "The Host" and realize how much the Trill backstory and rules evolved after DS9 came around. The host here is depicted as more of an empty shell rather than a fully participating half of a joined whole, which begs the question of where Riker's mind goes while Odan is joined with him.

Odan's negotiations with the Two Warring Factions are pure MacGuffin, and I frankly don't care. But as a romance, "The Host" works for all the reasons "Half a Life" fails. First of all, we have an actual spark of chemistry between the leads. "Half a Life" was labored and stolid, whereas "The Host" shows evidence of actual passion and emotional risk. Second, we have an alien element to the story that actually enhances the storyline rather than detracting from it. "Half a Life" was about people who kill themselves at 60, which is so arbitrary as to make it impossible to become emotionally invested in the premise. "The Host," on the other hand, asks an interesting question: What is it that defines us in the eyes of a lover? How important is the physical component of love, when you know someone by touch and by sight and by the sound of their voice? If the same person you knew had a different external package, would they be the same person?

These questions put "Doctor Beverly" through the ringer in fairly interesting fashion -- although I think the story would've worked better if a regular character had not been the emergency host. Riker's role as host merely complicates matters (is it ethical for Odan and Crusher to pursue the relationship while Odan is in Riker's body?) and provides a distraction from the true heart of the story, which is: How far does love transcend our physical presence?

Rating:

"The Mind's Eye" -- Air date: 5/27/1991. Teleplay by Rene Echevarria. Story by Ken Schafer and Rene Echevarria. Directed by David Livingston.

En route to Risa for a conference, Geordi is kidnapped by the Romulans and temporarily replaced with a doppelganger while the Romulans go to work torturing and brainwashing Geordi to turn him into an assassin. Let's start with the torture method: It's an ingenious story starting point. The Romulans use Geordi's visor inputs to tap directly into the visual centers of his brain; Geordi is forced to watch whatever horrifying images the Romulans feed him, and he's incapable of looking away. It's like A Clockwork Orange: The Romulans condition Geordi with images to psychologically break him. It's also like The Manchurian Candidate: Geordi is returned to the Enterprise with false memories, completely unaware he has been programmed as an unwitting sleeper agent.

Shortly thereafter, the Enterprise takes Klingon Ambassador Kell (Larry Dobkin) to a Klingon colony facing a rebellion. Vagh (Edward Wiley), the colony's garrison trying to quell the uprising, claims that the rebels are being armed with Federation weapons. Picard suspects Romulan involvement attempting to destabilize the region and drive a wedge between the Klingons and the Federation. That sounds about right for the Romulans. An investigation is launched. (TNG is always launching investigations.)

"The Mind's Eye" is more brawny, devious, and suspenseful than most TNG fare. It features a first-rate intrigue plot that grows from a general theme explored from "Sins of the Father" on to "Reunion," then here, and onward through "Redemption" -- the notion of ongoing corruption in the Klingon Empire by conspirators in bed with the Romulans. There's even the establishment of a future major player (to be revealed in "Redemption") in the form of a silhouetted Romulan agent pulling the strings. The revelation that the Klingon conspirator is actually Ambassador Kell is skillfully pulled off (and I had forgotten the twist from my long-ago viewing of the episode). For a time it looks like Kell is a target when in fact he is the one triggering Geordi's mind-control instructions.

The episode works so well because it raises the stakes by making the would-be assassin one of our regular characters. The suspense builds through the last act as it becomes a race for Data to put together the pieces of the puzzle before Geordi carries out his assignment to kill Vagh. "The Mind's Eye" is effective, well-oiled, thriller-genre Trek.

Rating:

"In Theory" -- Air date: 6/3/1991. Written by Joe Menosky & Ronald D. Moore. Directed by Patrick Stewart.

Some friendly conversation between coworkers leads to an unlikely dating situation when Lt. Jenna D'Sora (Michele Scarabelli) takes a liking to Data and makes a romantic move. Data in turn decides this may be a good learning experience about the human condition and considers entering into a relationship with Jenna. After a series of discussions with his friends, who provide varying advice (Troi: Be careful; Riker: Go for it; Picard: I don't have any answers regarding women), Data decides to give it a try. He writes a special program just for this experience. Jenna schools him on where his theory goes wrong and when contradiction must be embraced.

This is a pleasant enough storyline (and the title is perfect), but there's a problem that trumps everything here, which is that I never, for one second, understood what Jenna was thinking. Despite her early dialog, which establishes that she likes Data because he's polite, a great listener, etc., it's clear to her from the outset that he is completely emotionally unavailable. Love and romance by definition require someone who can return your feelings, and Data obviously can't do that. So I'm not sure what to make of Jenna's pursuit here, unless she, like Data, is also running an experiment in non-emotionally-based romantic relationships between humans and androids. The scene where Data attempts to manufacture forced "relationship behavior" scenarios based on anecdotal research is a perfect example of Data as a performance artist, aping human behavior without actually meaning or understanding it. This makes for an exercise in mildly curious behavior but painfully obvious inevitability. There's nothing at stake here -- and again, what does Jenna expect?

The "sci-fi plot" involving the hazardous spatial anomalies is pure perfunctory filler barely worthy of mention. It made no sense to me for Picard to personally pilot the shuttle in this emergency (wouldn't a shuttle pilot be both more skilled and expendable?), and his navigation through the invisible anomaly field (depicted on his control panel) plays like a 1980s video game.

Rating:

"Redemption, Part I" -- Air date: 6/17/1991. Written by Ronald D. Moore. Directed by Cliff Bole.

On the eve of Gowron's installment ceremony as chancellor of the Klingon High Council, Gowron himself contacts the Enterprise with urgent news that a Klingon civil war may be imminent. The High Council has been polarized into Two Warring Factions [TM]: those who follow Gowron and those who still support the powerful family of the late Duras, now being led by his feisty troublemaking sisters, Lursa (Barbara March) and B'Etor (Gwynyth Walsh). Worf finally reveals to Gowron that it was Duras' -- not Worf's -- father who conspired with the Romulans at Khitomer. He offers Gowron the support of his brother Kurn's battalions of fighters -- in exchange for setting the record straight and restoring his family name.

The percolating Klingon/Romulan conspiracy issues that have been popping up for more than a year finally come to a head with "Redemption," in which the lies and deceit threatening to turn the Klingon Empire into a kleptocracy finally begin to collapse under their own weight. Gowron is trying to hold it together, but the influence of Duras reaches beyond the grave. I for one would like to know what it is about the Klingon High Council that continues to see a point in following a family name when it obviously can do nothing but lead the Empire to ruin. Lursa and B'Etor reveal Duras' illegitimate son Toral (J.D. Cullum) as a challenger to Gowron. Why would any Klingon follow Toral, a bratty little shrimp with no useful warrior experience?

"Redemption" is good, but -- what can I say? -- it's no "Best of Both Worlds." It's heavy on exposition and long-winded Klingon posturing, which unfurls from the lips of the actors as if speeches are intended to move mountains. With all the setup, it takes quite some time for the story to get rolling.

But once it does, it pays off. Gowron restores Worf's family name, which is a satisfying vindication after Worf's lengthy burdens over the matter. And the story again puts Worf uncomfortably between cultures, where his attempts to bring down the Duras family are impeded by Starfleet's (and Picard's) vow not to interfere in internal Klingon affairs. Worf's personal conflict is the true heart of the story, despite all the political shenanigans (which are many). This culminates with him resigning his commission to join his brother in the fight. The show's highlight comes when Worf walks to the transporter room as the crew gives him a silent tribute in the corridor, standing at attention. Ending the season with Worf leaving the ship (even if we know he will be back) feels appropriate. This has been a season with no shortage of complicated Klingon matters.

The episode's final shot reveals Sela (Denise Crosby), the Romulan from the shadows, which is a bizarre WTF moment not unlike the final shot of Enterprise's "Zero Hour." I'll save discussion of that for part two.

Rating: