LizstarTrek - TNG Season 7

Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!

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Descent Part 2 - TNG 7/10

We start where we left off. Lore has once again attached himself to a bigger threat, all he’s good for, and taken over the Borg who kinda broke off and began individuals after the whole Hugh stuff. The Captain’s team is captured, and it’s looking bleak.

Back in orbit, Crusher is immediately thrown into disarray as the borg ship comes. They’re trying to bring as many back from the surface as they can, but they have to leave a few. And most of the people still on the Enterprise are like, Ensigns and not like, super experienced. One was there for a few weeks and is now ops. She’s anxious.

Lore is such a little shit, I love it.

While searching for the captain’s party, Riker and Worf are captured by Borg…. but not Lore’s borg. Hugh is here! He is NOT happy to see them. After his individuality spread to the Borg is kinda broke them, and they started to fight. And that gave Lore a chance to gain control of them. But he’s worried about his bestie, Geordi, and is willing to help them get into Lore’s base…. at the same time, Geordi is being used as a test guinea pig for some weird brain things, which is pretty scary and fucked up.

Geordi comes up with a plan that will allow them to restart Data’s processes and maybe restart his morality processes. A little fucked up Data HAS morality processes that can just be turned off but okay. They turn on right when Lore commands Data to kill Picard. Lore is about to kill Data, but Hugh jumps out of hiding to try and stop him, saving Data. In the ensuing fight, Data chases Lore as he’s about to run away (what he’s best at). This doesn’t end well. Data kills his own brother in order to save everyone.

It ends with Data THANKFUL that the emotion chip got damaged when he shot Lore. And Geordi is like “well… perhaps in the future, you can handle it”. Ahahahaha, laughs in future Trek knowledge.

Liasons - TNG 7/10

There’s a diplomatic cultural exchange between the Federation and the Lyaarans, some new aliens of the week. Worf is not happy to have anything to do with it but thankfully he only has to meet them and then move on with his life. Thre’s a good scene where Riker compliments his ass tho and says he looks good in a dress. This is not a joke. That is what happens.

The episode then splits into two. Picard goes to their homeworld, while everyone else on the Enterprise is assigned an Ambassador. Troi is with this pleasant jovial guy, while a rude crude dude demands to have Worf actually. Worf is totally gonna kill a man this episode.

The episode takes a sudden turn as Picard’s shuttle has complications and crashes on a planet. The pilot is killed, and he’s rescued by some woman who has been here for years. She’s… flighty, understandably, considering being alone on an alien planet for years. This moves VERY fast, as after she accidentally destroys their only ways of escaping, she pronounces her love for Picard. Picard is… NOT sure how to take this, understandably. He tries to let her down, gently. She’s projecting cause of the trauma, obviously.

Back on the Enterprise, they intend to get past the ambassador barriers with a friendly game on poker. This ends in Worf beating the shit out of his ambassador, who IMMEDIATELY thanks him and is super happy about it. I guess he’s got a kink.

Picard is growing a 5 o’clock shadow which is interesting. Picard begins to realize things are not all what they seem. Anna appears to be keeping him there intentionally, and is very VERY VERY forceful about her love. It is EXTREMELY uncomfortable. It’s supposed to be, obviously, but that doesn’t make it pleasant to watch. After she runs off, upset, Picard is rescued by the pilot, Voval, who turns out didn’t die after all! The woman either lied to Picard about his death, or mistook him for dead. Anyways Anna is uh, going to unlife herself in grief, unless he declares he loves her. And he begins piece it all together.

Anyways, turns out Voval IS Anna, transformed into gril. Turns out, years ago, a woman DID crash here, and another guy crashed here after 7 years, and they fell in love. His people didn’t understand what some of the things she wrote on were, and they were here to learn ALL of it. Pleasure, antagonism, and love. Picard is like “This… is not how it works”. Anyways apparently Worf fought the dickhead Ambassador in the holodeck for 11 hours, and Riker slaps Worf on his ass like “You scamp, you have that kind of stamina in you????”

This episode was okay. All the stuff in the Enterprise was funny but not like, super interesting,. All the stuff off the Enterprise was uncomfortable to watch but at least kinda interesting. It balances out.

Interface - TNG 8/10

Our episode starts with visorless Geordi doing fixes on the ship. Gosh I hope someone got fired for THAT blunder.

Wait no it’s a VR simulation. That makes sense.

He’s in a suit that gives him tactile sensations, and it allows him to like, directly control a probe. They’re gonna use it to explore a derelict ship that fell into the upper atmosphere of a gas giant. At the same time, Picard gets some bad news. Geordi’s mother’s ship has disappeared, and no one knows where it went. Riker, being the good boss he is, offers Goerdi a week off instead of working with the Interface, but he’s like “no, there might be people still alive on that ship, and it’d take you 10 hours to reconfigure it for yourself. I can do this.”

It’s dangerous work. There’s soemthing called “tolerance levels”, and they have to be higher to allow Geordi to inferace with the probe more. This causes feedback loops, which causes his hands to get burned by some fire after finding everyone dead.

Geordi is trying to show that he’s handling it well, his mother’s disappearance. He isn’t. He’s struggling, and everyone is willing to give up. “The search is just a formality.” But there’s no body, no wreckage, he can’t get over it. It’s really hitting him hard. And it gets worse when he goes back in the Interface, and sees his mom. She tells him her ship is on the surface, and she needs him to go down to help. Y’know, the surface of the gas giant. No sensor logs show her on there, and a feedback loop from this almost kills Geordi. He’s like “LEMME GO I GOTTA SAVE MY MOM” and everyone tells him no, it’ll kill him. It’s okay. He understands.

Anyway, so Geordi goes against orders and uses the interface again. Data helps him, also going against orders, to keep him safe. His mom begs him to take the ship down to save her and the others, and in order to go, Data has to push the Interface to harder levels.

Turns out its not his mom after all, it’s an alien made out of FIRE that can only interact with people by interfacing with their thoughts. They killed the crew by accident trying to chat with them, and then the ship went up and they got stuck there. Geordi IMMEDIATELY pivots to saving these aliens, and it almost kills them, only saved by Crusher rushing in and doing some Sci-Fi Fu to get him out of the Interface in time.

Picard tells Geordi off, then apologizes that they didn’t find his mom down there. Geordi says that it was still good, like he had a chance to say goodbye. He’s slowly healing. Good episode, I liked its themes of grief, and it actually did Geordi good by having a GOOD Geordi episode for once!

Gambit, Part 1 - TNG 7.5/10

Everyone is in what I can only describe as the Star Wars Cantina Bar, talking to seedy patrons, looking for the captain. They manage to get one to spill the beans, by pretending that he fucked Riker’s sister and got her pregnant before running off. Turns out the captain was here, got in an argument, and was vaporized by some kind of weapon. Uh oh.

Can’t believe Picard is dead. Very interesting they’d make an ENTIRE 3 season series about a guy who died 4 episodes into season 7 tho. When are we getting Star Trek: Yar?

With Riker now in charge of the Enterprise, Riker requests that they not go on any more missions until he can find who’s responsible. He is very, VERY angry about this. He yells at Troi (who yells back. I guess Berman is still distracted, cause she’s allowed to act). He roughs up the guy they met at the bar. They go down to investigate the planet, and Riker is captured by some mercenaries, or space pirates, or something.

Fun aside, here’s a side story about space pirates:

“The story broke one of Gene Roddenberry’s long-standing Star Trek taboos – specifically, that there would be no such thing as space pirates. Although initially skeptical, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor later returned to Hatton’s story as it provided an opportunity for a “less talky romp”. Rick Berman, aware of the taboo but willing to consider the proposal, tied a red bandana around the bust of Gene Roddenberry on his desk while discussing the story. He explained, “I just blindfolded it as a joke one day. Whenever they come up with a story I don’t think Gene would like I blindfold him when we discuss the story…I take it on and off, depending on who’s in here.” “

So apparently Rick Berman is insane and talks to a bust of Gene Roddenberry. Also, THERE’S A TABOO ON SPACE PIRATES? WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE ORIONS THEN??? THEY’VE BEEN HERE FOR SO LONG.

On the pirate’s ship, the captain wants to use Riker as a hostage, but one of his crewmates says kill him… that crewmate is Galen here. That’s the name of Picard’s archaeology professor. Good twist. Picard builds Riker up as a big badass who’s a loose cannon, and Riker saves their lives with some engineering screw up (that Picard set up), so he’s starting to get in with the mercenaries too. Turns out, these mercenaries have been fucking up Romulan archeological sites around the sector, and Picard went to give them a piece of his mind. When he realizes how deep this goes, he pretended to be a smuggler and joined them.

There’s a romulan on board as well, who seems to be the 2nd in command. She takes to Galen, and seems to be down for a mutiny. Cool. Eventually, this culminates on them attacking a Federation outpost. Riker and Picard walk a tightrope of wanting to not have them kill everyone but also like, not die, themselves. The Enterprise comes to help, and Riker appears on screen like “STAND DOWN.” so they do. And as Riker sends over his “command codes” to lower their shields (it’s actually a message explaining whats going on), Data lowers the shields, and Picard fires on the Enterprise…

TO BE CONTINUED.

Gambit, Part 1 - TNG 8/10

Right back where we left off, minimal damage hits the Enterprise. But the Enterprise still has guns, and they are WAY stronger, so the pirates flee. Adn they do INTERESTINGLY. The Romulan goes “We cannot win this, logic dictates that the best course of action is to flee.” Fascinating…. why would a Romulan care about logic? ;D

Anyways Riker is hired on by the captain, after betraying the Federation like that, and Picard finds out that one of the artifacts they just stole from the outpost is the one they’re looking for. Looks like a gun.

Back on the Enterprise, we get an amazing scene between Data and Worf. Worf has been doing his job as usual, by offering secondary suggestions and beign shut down, and being angry when told no. Data pulls him aside and goes “that was okay when you were sdecurity officer, but you are my second in command. It is not your job. Your job is to carry out my orders and keep unity in the crew, you are doing neither. Also I’m very sorry if this ruins our friendship ):”

And Worf goes “No, it is I who have put our friendship in jeopardy. I want to still be friends, if you do.”

Very sweet.

Anyways the romulan is actually a vulcan WOAH! She shows that she’s actually a Vulcan security officer who is trying to stop them from building the artifact, it can do GREAT damage to psychic peoples. It’s been searched for by some Vulcan Super Isolationists. VULCAN FASCISTS. What will they think of next? She and Picard agree to keep undercover.

The Enterprise detains a random Klingon under “medical checks”, which is technically legal, and I’m annoyed that it made us talk about if the Enterprise are cops. The Klingon has the 2nd part of the artifact, and they teleport on and take it. But not before Galen “kills” Riker, and deposits him back on the Enterprise, and starts a mutiny on the ship. They kill the old captain, and Picard becomes the new captain. Wow, Picard as captain? Can he handle it?

Back on the Enterprise, Riker contacts Vulcan like “hey, the Mercenaries are headed to Vulcan with your operative :D” and the Vulcan leader is like “….we don’t have an operative on a mercenary ship???” And Picard seems to put together the pieces when he mentions it to the Vulcan. Unfortunately, she betrays him first, and outs him as a Federation Officer. And then she complete the artifact and kills the other pirates.

The Resonator, the gun she built, amplifies emotions. And so, because Picard understood the artifact, he realized that and empties his mind of violent thoughts, and it could do nothing to him. The episode ends with Riker being escorted to the brig for being a renegade.

Fun episode. I love the idea of the fucking fascist Vulcans omfg. They literally believe that Vulcan’s problems are because of foreign influences, and want to kick all aliens off of Vulcan. Here’s a thing: “Naren Shankar based the Vulcan subplot here on Spock’s admission in TOS: “Journey to Babel” that a Vulcan could kill for a logical reason. He decided to take a different tone for the Vulcans: “We went for people who very logically felt that Vulcan’s problems were linked to contamination by illogical people, so in a logical sense you say ‘Get rid of them’…a very logical way to arrive at racism.””

LOGICAL RACISM. YEAH.

Phantasms - TNG 6.5/10

Our episode starts with Data finding men pickaxing and hammering into the Enterprise, as a phone rings. They get angry at him telling them to stop, and proceed to rip him apart violently. Data then wakes up in bed. Oh boy, it’s the DATA DREAM EPISODE!

This episode is also like, the ur-episode for the TNG Season 8 Twitter joke. Here’s the description of this episode.

“The crew helps Data investigate when his dream program suddenly begins generating nightmares which make him act strangely. Meanwhile, Captain Picard attempts to avoid attending a boring Starfleet banquet. “

I love it. There’s also a C plot about an ensign having a crush on Geordi. What an episode concept.

My observations have concluded that you are a cat.

We’ve got a new Data dream. He’s in the bar, and Worf is enjoying a nice “cellular peptide cake”, delicious. Crusher is sucking Riker’s brains out of his head with a straw, and again, there’s a ringing, and those same greasy men are there. They’re again angry at Picard making a lot of noise, and they stand aside to reveal what this episode is known for.

Troi was the cake, take a drink?

And then Data generates Sigmund Freud in the Holodeck to talk about his dreams. ???? Troi also brings him up. Why the shit is Freud even TALKED about in the 24th century. That’s like bringing up Elon Musk as a great scientific lead- oh. Oh no. Okay, well, Freud is represented as someone who is a complete waste of time, and Data turns him off, so that’s good at least. Dunno why he didn’t just…. go to Troi and tell her he saw her as some cake and then cut into her body.

And then the dreams start to… mix with reality. Data starts to jump into the dreams while awake.

Sigmund Freud is on the line, and he DEMANDS THAT data kill them all. When Data FINALLY goes to Troi, he’s almost EXCITED that she’s like “you appear to be gaining some kind of… neurosis.”. She tells him to turn off the dream program, and come to her next time instead of Frued. This ends poorly when his dream program happens again, and this occurs.

They confine Data to quarters, after he explains in his dream, he saw a mouth on Troi’s shoulder and felt a strong desire to stab it out of her. However, after they clear up her stab wound, they find… some kind of weird interphasic organisms that are feeding on everyone. And somehow, in Data’s dream, he’s seeing them subconsciously. So they’re going to watch his dream, I guess with his HDMI out port (it’s in his armpit!). Also Data asks Worf to take care of Spot so that he’s safe, and we get one of the best things from this episode.

He is a pretty cat. And a good cat.

Picard and Geordi explore Data’s dream. Sigmund freud summons them from the phone, and explains he’s Data’s unconscious mind, okay. But then the workers show up and shoot him (good), and Data makes a noise to scare them away, and Data and the others figure it out. The organisms are eating people, and the enterprise. And with a large noisy pulse, they can destroy them.

Troi determines turnabout is fair play, and makes a Data cake. This episode was…. goofy af, and very entertaining, but just okay.

Dark Page - TNG 7.5/10

TRASHY WOMAN IN SPACE TIME! Lwaxana Troi is here to help with some aliens who want to meet the Federation and get to know them better. These aliens, the Cairn, are telepaths, and only communicate in sending images to each other. So they find it difficult to speak, and have to use machines to allow them to cause they have no vocal cords. They’re very interesting! And Lwaxana is trying to match one up with Troi, oh what a suprise. Trashy woman in space time.

At the same time, Luwaxana is having some…. weird reactions. She’s… having weird flashes, crying suddenly. Uh oh. After she has an outburst, they determine some levels of… technobabbleonium are low, a thing used in psychic communications. So she’s ordered to rest. Good luck with that.

Also the Cairn guy, Maques, has a nice conversation with Troi, apologizing for her mom trying to shack them up, and they talk about her mom. He says a part of her is… dark. Hidden. She’s like “WHAT?” but then finds out it’s privacy. Cairn share everything about themselves and their thoughts, Betazoid and other humanoids don’t.

But after Luwaxana falls ill even further, he sends images directly to her to explain further, and she misunderstood. There’s something traumatic in her “metaconscious mind”, whatever that is. Y’know, technobabble. Some kind of trauma might have caused her to have some psychic shockback basically. She’s retreated back into her metaconscious.

Maques works as a bridge to link Troi with Lwaxana so that she can figure out what’s going on deep in her mind, cause he can’t make heads or tails of what’s wrong with her. And so Troi enters into a dream-like world, with MORE fisheye lens, as Lwaxana cries out for help. But she also sets up defenses to keep her out, sending a fake Picard to tell her to leave, having a pupper growl and threaten.

The most insidious one is Troi’s dad is there, trying to keep her to stay with him, just a bit longer (so she won’t find out what’s going on), and it’s tragic. And then Troi finds the other Cairn, a little girl, in Lwaxana’s Mind Palace, Lwaxana comes CHARGING, screaming “GET AWAY FROM HER”, in fish eye lens, and it’s WEIRDLY scary. It scares Troi right out of there. But after looking some more in the real world, and finding nothing except a suspicious 7 year gap of journals in her personal journal that she deleted, Troi goes back in her mind.

And we see what happened. Years ago, when Deanna was a babby, Troi had an older sister, Kestra, who’s represented as the Cairn girl. She makes Lwaxana relive the death of her first child, because not forgiving herself and locking it away psychically is KILLING her. And it’s REALLY, REALLY, heavy. Everyone is acting it VERY well. Genuinely made me tear up.

She apologizes to her daughter, and it’s very sad and sweet, and she wakes up, healed from her psychic psychosis, the trauma slowly healing. Now she can truly move on. The episode ends on Deanna asking to be told about her older sister she didn’t even know existed.

What an emotional rollercoaster. The first 2/3rds are just kinda okay, slow paced, but it REALLY ramps with that final bit and hits you in the fucking gut.

Attached - TNG 6/10

Crusher and Picard are having brekkie, and Picard is distracted by the coming peace talks. Apparently this planet has two sentient people on it, 3/4ths of it wants to join the Federation, 1/4th is xenophobic. They’re on their way to the discussion with the ambassador, when they’re teleported down, but never appear in the ambassador’s room.

They’re kidnapped, AND the episode is called Attached? I’m getting Human Centipede vibes and I hate it.

No, the xenophobes kidnapped them, keeping them as prisoners. These xenophobes, the Prytt, consider them working with “the enemy”, and are going to extract information from them with some brain thing plugged into their necks. Things look up though, when a guard brings them food, and it’s their tricorder! Mmmm, fried tricorder, just like mom used to make.

Back on the Enterprise, Riker plans to communicate with the Prytt, and the ambassador other peoples on the planet, the Kes, isn’t happy with that idea. He’s actually being a bit of a Sussy Baka, if I do say so myself. He’s VERY paranoid about…. everything. Though he IS right, the communications mean little when the lady who did the kidnapping is like “IF YOU KEEP ATTEMPTING TO TALK TO US WE WILL ATTACK YOU”, as if that means anything, they’re 1/4th of a planet and their weapon systems are sticks and stones compared to the Enterprise.

The route out of the prison is treacherous. Look, it even has an explosion effect from a That Guy With the Glasses video circa 2007!

The things in their brains are making it so they’re hearing each other’s thoughts. And when they move apart, they get sick. Uh oh! Picard has to constantly hear about how he has a nice ass! This makes for some cute moments where they get to know each other better. Like, there’s a cute scene where they learn that those elaborate breakfasts they set up, neither of them like it. They just assumed the other did. They also admit that they once felt feelings for each other.

Picard and Crusher have to go off the plan plotted for them by the Kes, which makes the Kes ambassador paranoid. He’s like “Ah, I see how it is! They were actually WORKING WITH THE PRYTT! YOU’RE HERE TO GO INTO A MILITARY ALLIANCE WITH THEM AND KILL US ALL! and Riker is like “what the fuck are you talking about” and kicks them off the Enterprise. So much for accepting them into the Federation.

He beams both leaders to the Observation lounge to talk. They refuse to. So he’s done playing. He tells the Kes he will fight them getting in, and the Enterprise will listen to him. And he tells the Prytt that if she’s annoyed NOW, imagine how annoyed she’ll be when they don’t give up, because they won’t, and they have a fleet. No threats, no “we can and will fucking nuke your planet”. Just “We will annoy you legally for the rest of your god damn life”, and it works. The Enterprise is good at that.

With them back on the Enterprise and the implants gone, they no longer hear each other’s thoughts and kinda miss it. They also wonder if they should push forward with a relationship now that they know the other’s feelings. They decide not to. Or well, Crusher decides not to.

This episode is fine.

Force of Nature - TNG 2.5/10

This episode starts with Geordi taking care of Spot, and Spot doesn’t approve. Also they keep using she/her pronouns with Spot. So I guess Spot is the first canon trans character in Trek.

A ship has disappeared nearby, and they’re trying to find out what’s going on. At the same time, Data and Geordi talk about training Spot. These A and B plots do not fit at all. Like, all the cat jokes really don’t… feel right. It feels like they’re written by someone who has never actually owned a cat. Dog people.

There’s also a C plot where Geordi is in a pissing contest about power conversion levels with some other engineer in the fleet. Data is like “that is not anything important?” but he’s SUPER focused on this.

Anyways, focusing on the ACTUAL plot, they’re exploring the region of space where the ship disappeared, and they find a Ferengi ship that seems to have some malfunctions. There’s some miscommunications, and they fire on the Enterprise, thinking that they were the ones who attacked. This goes nowhere, but then the Enterprise are hit by the same thing, and are boarded by some aliens from a nearby planet.

Turns out, warp drive stuff is damaging space, and hurting their planet. So they set up fake signal markers that would blow up engines of people who went up to them. And…. then they beam aboard to talk to them about the dangers of warp field technology??? This is the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard of. What’s even the point of terrorism, just SEND MESSAGES, LIKE “hey, in this region of space, we think warp fields are causing damage to our planets, please steer clear”, not TERRORISM that does NOTHING because then they need to fucking rebuild their engines and continue on their way, inconvenienced.

Picard is like “Yes you did a crime on us but I’ll do my best to help with your research on this” and the lady scientist is like “HOW FUCKING DARE YOU” and blows herself up to CAUSE the event that she wanted to stop, so that they’d… know it happens? Or I guess, to spite them???? This feels so stupid to me. This also puts one of the ships that they did a terrorism on in harms way. They can’t communicate out of this new rift, and they dunno if they’re alive. And then Geordi is being REALLY weird about this. I am very checked out.

I see what this episode is ATTEMPTING to do. It’s like, an environmentalism metaphor, yeah? And I have eco-terrorism sympathies, so I get it, but… Oh we’re hurting the environment! Oh hey, all that stuff is causing global warming! Oh, you don’t believe me? Well, as an eco terrorist, I could stop you all from doing the things that are causing global warming, but instead I’m going to set off a CO2 bomb in the ozone layer. Get fucked, nerds. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU ECO TERRORISM.

This plot ends with them changing some rules to counteract this “warp bad” thing. Areas that are hit by instability already are off limits except to essential personnel. And also there’s now a speed limit.

This episode kinda bites, and will literally be decanonized after Voyager, where they will completely handwave it and go “oh it’s fixed now.” This one kinda bites.

Inheritance - TNG 8.5/10

The Enterprise is called in to help a planet who’s core is cooling. One of the scientists on the planet is an old lady by the name of Juliana. She was Noonien Singh’s wife, and Data’s mom! Oh boy!! She is VERY friendly and sweet with her refound child, but Data seems distant, uncomfortable with it. He’s kind of finding a way to PROVE she’s not his mom.

She has big mom energy. Telling embarassing stories about how they had to write a modesty subroutine to get him to keep pants on. Data remembers none of this because they deleted his “childhood” memories. She wants to know everything about Data, and this ends with her learnign about Lal, and this opens up…. bad memories.

She’s scared of Data trying again, because she was always so anxious about the positronic matrix instability, like what happened with Lal, or with Lore. And it turns out, she was lying. She actually left Data on behind on purpose. She feels so much guilt for it, but she was like “if you had turned out like Lore, I couldn’t bare to deactivate you. It was hard enough once, I couldn’t do it again.”

At the same time, Data is observing her. She’s a super genius. She’s an expert at the fiddle. He has reason to believe… she’s not who she says she is. Eventually, during a cave in (remember, they’re trying to fix stuff in the mantle), she falls and is hurt. And we find out the truth.

So basically, she’s an android. They find a homogram chip in her brain. Inside, is a hologram of DR. LIGHT, X, I HAD EVER HOPE THE FUTURE WOULD BE ONE OF PEACE, BUT IN CASE YOU STILL MUST FIGHT FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS, TAKE THIS FUCKING GUN

Wait no sorry. She died escaping the Crystalline Entity, and Soong was distraught so he made a new wife, and put her memories in her. He demands they NOT tell her, because it doesn’t matter, she IS Julianna Soong. That’s true. Also he put in a subroutine that will shut her down if she finds out the truth, but they NEVER bring that back up for some reason. Data has to decide if he’s going to tell her, and no longer be alone, and have an android buddy, or cause her great anxiety because oh fuck I’m a robot oh god oh jesus

He decides not to tell her. They part on good terms. I liked this episode. It didn’t quite hit all the highs of many Data episodes, but still good!

Parallels - TNG 9.5/10

Worf is returning to the Enterprise from a vacation. He won best in murder at some awards show! But now he’s anxious. It’s… his BIRTHDAY, and he knows these fucking Humans are going to throw him a surprise party, and he’s carrying his batleth into his room, and he KNOWS he’s gonna stab one by accident. Riker is like “I hate surprise parties I’d never do that to you”. And then they wait for him to put the batleth away to show SURPRISE, HE ACTUALLY LOVED SURPRISE PARTIES!

Why are they doing this to poor Worf. I dunno but it’s fucking HILARIOUS. He’s wandering around, eating cake and chatting. They actually changed the cake in a serious continuity screw up, I hope someone got fired for that blunder. Picard was not going to make it , but then he shows up, not mising it for the world!

This episode is currently little Worf moments (him asking Troi to be his Soh-Chim, surrogate mother of Alexander), and also some issues with an array that has shut off. Simple stuff. And then Worf gets dizzy, and Data grabs him to make sure he’s okay.

Worf is now in 9th place at Murder. He suffered a concussion at the fights, and has been suffering from memory loss. Simple. But it’s causing issues, the logs they were reading earlier aren’t there now, and the Cardassian ship isn’t aggressive like before. This feels a bit like Gaslight the Klingon, but then he gets dizzy again… suddenly he’s on the bridge, fighting Cardassians. The console has been changed. DATA’S EYES ARE BLUE. THAT’S SO FUCKING WEIRD. Worf messes up and relieves himself of duty. Then we get this scene.

Troi is…. VERY intimate. Well, of course she is. They’ve been married for two years.

This is VERY interesting. Extremely entertaining to see Worf thrown about parallel universes and seeing what is different. And finally, wife Troi is like “I believe you, we’ll figure it out.” Blue Eyed Data helps too. The only thing common between all the switches is Geordi being there. Unfortunately, Geordi fucking died in the fight with the Cardassians. But they swap again, this time lots of new stuff.

Worf is 2nd in command. Riker is first in command, after Picard died in the Borg incident. There’s a Cardassian on the bridge, as the pilot. Wesley is here, as a Lt. Worf is still married. They have a DAUGHTER. They find out that Worf does not belong in this reality, and belongs in a different parallel universe, due to a quantum fissure reacting with his warp core of his shuttle. AGAIN WITH THE FUCKIN’ WARP CORES. WE’VE GOTTA STOP USING THOSE THINGS.

AND THEN THE BAJORAN EMPIRE COMES TO FIGHT. AND IT DESTABILIZES THE FISSURE.

The only way to fix this is to send Worf back through the fissure in his original shuttle he went in on. They transmit to all of the Enterprises, and find the shuttle, but not before gettin’ the mack on with Troi.

One last thing goes wrong. An Enterprise from the universe where the Borg won fires on Worf, because I WON’T GO BACK, I CAN’T GO BACK.

But Worf makes it in the end, not before an amazing scene with Too Many Worfs. It takes a lot to make a stew. And he returns home. He’s #1 at murder! :D Not all is EXACTLY the same…. no surprise party, Troi talked Riker out of a surprise party. And the story ends with Worf inviting Troi for dinner.

This episode… whoo boy. Like, it’s not TRANSCENDANT, it didn’t make me feel anything other than EXTREMELY entertained. I LOVED it. Also I would have NEVER shipped Troi and Worf before this…. now I get it??? I get it.

The Pegasus - TNG 10/10

This episode starts with everyone’s FAVORITE Trek Meme, Captain Picard Day!

But in actuality, this episode is about a mission. They go to meet someone to learn more about it, and it’s Riker’s first commanding officer, Admiral Pressman! Riker does… NOT seem happy to see him, even though he’s VERY friendly. Pressman was his commanding officer on the Pegasus, but they discover that it was found by the Romulans.

12 years ago, the Pegasus had an issue and sploded. Only 7 people made it out of there. They assume it was fully sploded, but the Romulans found parts of it, and are looking for more, because the Pegasus was a prototype and some of its systems are in the Enterprise. They go to search for it, and meet some Romulans! Picard has a VERY pleasant conversation with their captain, with words that are easily read as “I am here to search for the Pegasus and I can and will kill you” if you look at it. It’s great. Also the Romulan is black, the first black Romulan! That’s rad :D

Anyways, Riker and PRessman chat. Apparently, 12 years ago, there was an… experiment. It haunts Riker. It doesn’t haunt Pressman. And they’re going to restart the experiment! The Federation is adamant to restart it, and Riker is VERY not happy to hear that :D

There’s a very interesting scene with Pressman and Picard. Picard explains the reason he chose Riker is because of a small note in his record that he refused to follow a captain’s orders. Pressman is like “odd, that’s a BAD thing to me, because I am an admiral and they remove your brain when you’re made an admiral. And when he was with me, he followed my every order and was very loyal, the perfect 2nd officer I needed at the time!”

Riker is not allowed to talk to Picard or anyone about the truth. Luckily, Picard isn’t intellig- oh wait no he’s very smart. He’s looking into it, and finding things don’t match up. There was a mutiny on the Pegasus and it was classified and quietly buried. The themes of this episode are about loyalty, and trust. Riker, under orders, cannot talk about it… and it hurts him, a lot, because he knows it’s wrong. You really end up hating this admiral. Like EVERY admiral, he only cares about one thing and it’s fucking disgusting (the thing he’s hyper focused on).

They find the Pegasus by DRIVING into an asteroid chasm and beam into it, along with the experiment. And Riker calls him out on his bullshit.

This scene is AMAZING. “You are an UNETHICAL SHITSTAIN, and if I could do it again, I’d be dead with the rest of them here, trying to stop you.” - Riker. And then, OH NO, my petard! It turns out the Romulans were just…. doing some tests on the asteroid, and the asteroid’s entrance is now closed! Anyways turns out it’s a cloaking device, which the Federation agreed to never attempt to build at a treaty 60 years ago, and that treaty has kept the peace. The cloaking device allows you to phase through solid matter, and they go through the asteroid STRAIGHT to the Romulans and explain what happened, while putting the Admiral in the brig. (The Admiral attempts to command rank but NO ONE joins him this time, unlike 12 years ago when Riker did). Riker is arrested with him, and while he’s in trouble for breaking the treaty 12 years ago, he came forward and did the right thing.

I REALLY liked this episode. It was… powerful, and a very good Riker episode. Shows how far the character has come (he was only 5 years past this when he came aboard the Enterprise), and has a lot of heavy stuff about loyalty, ethics, and… very very Trekky.

Can we get LESS INSANE ADMIRALS though, please???? Like, what the fuck do they put in the water? Everyone in Star Fleet Command is doing the cinnamon challenge every hour with lead tainted cinnamon, I swear.

Homeward - TNG 6/10

The Enterprise comes across a distress signal from Worf’s brother on a planet where the atmosphere is completely falling apart. Nikolai, his brother, has disappeared from his research outpost studying the native peoples, a primative peoples, and they’re trying to find him. Worf beams down, surgically altered, and immediately finds his brother, with the natives, excited and like “OH YOU’RE HERE TO HELP US :D”. Uh oh. He refused to sit in the outpost and wanted to save these people, so he brought them to a cave and used a deflector shield to save them from the dying atmosphere.

Time for a PRIME DIRECTIVE EPISODE!

Everyone is PISSED at this guy for even SUGGESTING they save these people. He wants to build an artificial atmosphere for them so an entire civilization doesn’t just die overnight, but because they’re bronze aged, they MUST die. Tis the… will of god???? Look, this kind of shit is really stupid to me. The Prime Directive is not built for this. It was designed so that you don’t like, for example, recreate Nazi Germany, with yourself as the God Fuhrer. Not y’know, “oh this natural disaster HAS to kill all these people”. We can stop meteors from hitting planets, dog. That won’t cause issues and will save lives.

Anyways Nikolai is like “Okay Captain I’ll let these people die” and then does not, he beams them into the holodeck lol. Okay, that’s an even WORSE plan, though it’s not like they gave him any options. The plan is to sneak them through the Holodeck to another planet, then teleport them there.

Anyways unshockingly, the plan falls apart almost immediately. One of the aliens, Vorin, finds his way out of the Holodeck after some Holodeck malfunctions (as you do), and he freaks the fuck out. It does NOT end well for him.

The rest of them find their way to their new worlds, Nikolai mating with one of them, which is kiiiiind of fucked up. Nikolai stays behind on their new planet, as Worf wishes him well, and they share one last Bro Hug

This was fine. Kinda back and forth on what its trying to say, but it’s fine.

Sub Rosa - TNG 3/10

This is it. One of the Big Ones.

Crusher’s grandma dies, and they do a very Scottish funeral. Crusher is sad, but handling it well, though at the funeral some weird guy throws flowers on her grave and gives her a weird look.

While going through her grandma’s things in what is now her house, Crusher finds a diary and an old candle. A groundskeeper she’s never heard of comes and warns her to throw it out, giving an ominious warning before being thrown out of the house for being a creepy fucker.

Also there’s a B-plot about one of the leaders of the colony on the Enterprise using their tech to see how the terraform’d planets air conditioning is doing. Riveting.

Apparently according to her grandmother’s diaries, her grandma had an affair with a guy in his 30s. Hot damn grandma, you go get ‘em. His name is Ronin, and she assumes it’s who she saw at the funeral.

One night after reading a very detailed report of her grandma getting laid by Ronin, Crusher has some kind of dream of herself being touched and whispered to. It feels so REAL though, oh gosh what could be happening! The two of them talk about sex and how much they like it and want it. Gee why could nerdy men dislike this episode?

Ned, the Groundskeeper, comes back again and Crusher apologizes after she’s heard of him in her grandma’s diary. He still warns her to leave the house, because it’s HAAAUNTED, OOOOOH, She goes back in, while the weather grid is malfunctioning, and finds gifts left by Ronin, and also sees him in the mirror.

Turns out Ronin is A GHOST, OOOOH, and he’s been with Crusher’s family for generations. Each generation of Crusher woman, he falls in love with, and they have wild, passionate ghost sex. So, ghost sex is one thing, but this is kind of uncomfy at first. Like, she’s cryhing out to leave her alone and is like “WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME, NO” andh e’s like “we will wbecome one” and it’s really creepy and weird. That’s not how this should work? But then afterwards she’s like “Oh tee hee I met someone~” to Troi, as if she was 1000% down for it. I think they just did that scene a bit… wrong lol, made him way more menacing. If this was SUPPOSED to be a romance, that alone kinda killed THAT.

Also the beam they’re using to try and fix the weather on the planet is fucking up and causing the Enterprise to become eerily like Scotland. Lots of fog and cold and wet.

Ned the groundskeeper snuck onto the Enterprise and is trying to fuck with their systems, to “save them, he’s gonna kill us all!” and then he’s killed by green lightning, oh no. Crusher refuses to work on the autopsy because she has to go be with her ghost boyfriend (also she does actually assume he’s the cause of the death). He begs her to go light the candle on the Enterprise, so they can “be together”.

She does immediately and lights the candle, then they have wild ghost sex. So there’s something about this. It’s trying to do romance I think. She’s trying to give off the vibe of a woman intensely maddly in love, but instead it looks like she’s mind controlled and it’s actually rather creepy. I am REALLY into romance, I want to like romance, but it feels like a creepy energy vampire situation.

Crusher retires to go be with Ronin, everyone finds it sussy, and find that a weird energy transfer is happening through the beam. So they go down to her house to find out. Geordi and Data dig up a corpse while Picard walks in on Crusher having ghost sex. That is a sentence I had to write. Ronin attempts to murder Picard before running off after the grave robbers, because it mighjt stop his plans it seems. He’s trying to come off as worried and sweet, but he still is creeping me the fuck off.

Ronin possesses Nana’s fucking corpse and force shocks Data and Geordi because he thinks they’re gonna stop their fusion. Turns out he’s some kind of… Anaphasic Being or something, one that needs to possess a host or they will die. So he’s been living in her family for generations, She seems to have gotten over her love for him REAL fast as she blows away his candle, and then him, as he cries that he loves her. It’s…. a VERY weird scene.

Turns out none of it was like, mind control. She WAS trying to act as being someone in love. And Ronin wasn’t portrayed as neccesarily evil, he did make her nana happy. But wow, it was NOT conveyed well. I don’t think I liked this very much, at all. It made me very uncomfortable.

Lower Decks - TNG 10/10

Troi and Riker are in 10 Forward late at night going over crew evaluations and promotions, while the people they’re talking about are across the way, worrying about if they’ll be promoted or not. This is the episode about the other people on the ship. The people who AREN’T in command. The Ensigns. This is their story.

What a great idea for an episode. We have never met most of these people before. If this show continued, we might have seen em more even, who knows.

We’ve got five characters here. Sam Lavelle, a hot shotty-type anxious guy, Sito Jaxa, a friendly and optimistic Bajoran security officer (we actually HAVE seen her, she’s one of the ones who did the flight stunt with Wesley), Taurik, a hard-ass Vulcan who is also a bit of a kiss ass, Ben, a civilian working at ten forward, and Nurse Ogawa. We know Nurse Ogawa, she’s great. This episode is about these people, how life is as a lower ranking person on the ship, and their relationships with their officers, as well as their relationship with the general going ons of the ship. All the top secret shit that they’re like, in charge of taking care of but can’t actually know anything about.

We get this amazing scene jumping between the ensigns playing Poker talking about the upper management and the upper management playing poker talking about the ensigns. It’s great. Good editing.

Sito is yelled at by Picard, who tells her she should have been kicked out of the acadamy for what she did in that one episode. She’s TERRIFIED, but then we get an amazing scwene with Worf. So, Sito has been pushed to be promoted by Worf, who believes highly in her. I like that, every commanding officer has a different relationship with their ensign, and you’df think Worf would be a grumpy asshole, but he is a supportive, EXTREMELY good commanding officer. And he is like “You’re doing good in klingon kung fu but now I must give you a test to promote you to the next ring. I will blindfold you. Defend yourslef” then he bullies her relentlessly. She takes off the blindfold like “Fuck THIS, this is unfair!” and he’s like “Good job, you passed the test. It takes bravery to stand in the face of others and tell them their bullying you is unfair.”

holy shiiiiit he’s so good. Turns out it was all a huge cover up. They were testing her to see how she could handle stress liek this for a Top Secret Mission. She might not make it back, but she does what she can. Unfortunately, she does not make it back. They get a report that she was killed during the mission. Truly a sad end. Picard gives a heartfelt obituary over the PSA about her strength of character, and we see her friends, and the officers, react to it.

This DOES mean Lavelle gets the job instead of her! Yaaay! He is NOT happy about that. They mourn her loss at the bar, Worf mourning alone until Ben pushes him to join them. He feels it’s not right because he’s just her commanding officer, but no. She considered him a friend, he’s in.

I started crying, fuck shit.

This is one of the greats.

Thine Own Self - TNG 8/10

Data is on an alien planet and is suffering from some sort of amnesia. A local discovers him and tries to help him, which is very nice. He’s suffering from… SOMETHING, his systems making him make weird noises and unable to understand speech, He slowly becomes more cognizant, as the man tries to help him figure out who he is.

Uh oh. Neither of them know what radioactive means. That’s not good.

The B plot of this episode is that Troi wants to take the test to become a Commander, some upward momentum in her career for the first time in years. These don’t really seem to fit yet.

Back on the primative planet, Garvin, the man who found him, takes Data to the blacksmith to sell the radioactive material. Oh, good! THIS GUY IS FROM STAR TREK KLINGON. I CANNOT ESCAPE THIS FUCKING ACTOR.

Data shows off his super strength by saving a guy. Everyone is kinda in awe (and scared) of him, but like, he only wants to help!

Troi’s commanding tests are going well. Anyways back to the plot.

The predictableness of the plot has come to pass. Garvin has radioactive sickness. And it’s spreading. What a surprise. Data is trying to figure out what the issue is, going ful scientist, alongside a science lady of the village, Talur, (who is a quack but like, it’s understandable. She believes in humors-like stuff, y’know how it is). Everyone is blaming him, because like, no one got sick before he got here. It’s understandable, and he’s not offended. It IS possible he causes it, but Talur isn’t sick, so he rules it out.

Back in Test Town, Troi keeps failing. Riker tells her she’s not cut out for Command, but she pushes through and finds what she’s been missing, the one thing she never did. She orders Geordi to his death, to save the ship :) She doesn’t take it well but hey congrats you’re a commander now.

Data is attacked, and it’s discovered he’s “some sort of creature”. He sneaks around and finishes making a cure for radiation poisoning, and puts it in the well water so that everyone will get it, but he’s found by the mob and killed.

Crusher and Riker infiltrate the village, disguised, to find Data, and find him buried. They beam him from his grave back to the Enterprise, fixing him right up. Alls well that ends well.

I like this one. It’s very Frankensteiny.

Masks - TNG 7.5/10

This one is one that’s apparently pretty hated. We’ll find out what I think!

It starts with Troi teaching sculpting to the kids, which is cute. Data is also there doing sculpting and being goofy. Aww. Anyways in terms of an ACTUAL plot, the Enterprise found a rogue comet flying through a solar system and are scanning it. It causes a weird feedback that I’m sure won’t have any effects on anything at all. Troi also finds a weird clay artifact in her room, and suddenly Data is sculpting a mask that has the same symbols on it, AND the Enterprise computers are fuckin’ around! Wow, lots going on already.

They melt the ice around the comet and find some kind of vessel inside, which is causing the situations inside the Enterprise. They scan Data to figure out what’s going on, as more clay things keep appearing all over the Enterprise. Picard is going HYPER nerdy for this, they found a floating archeological dig site, and a bunch of artifacts, and it’s Picards’ playground. He’s noting symbols, the sun, which is a death god, they know that, and then a weird distant symbol that seems to be around sometime, but not always.

And then Data is like “I think I’m losing my mind” and becomes THIS.

His name is “Ihat”, and he is Brent Spiner at his most batshit acting. He’s very… Loki coded, to me. A kind of trickster entity who is a follower of some kind of God of Death, Masaka. Who, it turns out, he believes Troi is. Fascianting! And then more personalities emerge. Something is happening in Data’s positronic net, and he basically has the “android equivalent of multiple personalities”. He’s jumping between smug-ass Loki boi, some reverent bitch, and a scaredy cat.

Multiple personalities plots are usually…. pretty rough. I’m not getting nay Ick Vibes tho, not yet. Anyways they found out why shit is appearing randomly, as Ten Forward turns into a weird ceremonial room with living plants. Matter is being transformed into other matter, somehow, and more and more of the ship is transforming. Their photon torpedo isn’t working? Oh hey, it’s full of snakes. Well THERE’S your problem.

The fake mythology they made for this is actually extremely interesting. We’re seeing these gods and legends through Data, and through the clay appearing around the ship. I like mythologies and pantheons, and hearing all this stuff is cool. Like, hints of it. This trickster god, who ran from Masaka once. An old man, knowledgable but cold, Masaka’s father, who she chopped into bits and used to make the earth.

Using his knowledge he gains from Data’s personalities, and his general knowledge of cultures and archeology, he discovers that Korgano, a god in the culture, is the only person Masaka fears and listens to. And because they were very ritualistic, he decides to act it out… like a play. They make a Masaka mask by tapping into the archive’s databanks, and Picard acts out Korgano, the moon god, who chases Masaka and puts her to sleep. Thus, everything returns to normal.

Good episode, engaging and enjoyable. I dunno why anyone would dislike this. The writers apparently thought it was too heady and confusing, and even then explained too much at the same time. I disagree. I dunno, maybe I play too much like, Riven and shit, but it just made sense to me.

Eye of the Beholder - TNG 6/10

This episode starts off HEAVY AS FUCK. A crewmate, Dan, is having some kind of breakdown. He’s standing in front of a plasma coil as Riker is trying to talk him down, gently, but Riker fails, and the crewmember kills himself, throwing himself into the plasma coil. Riker is fucking DEVASTATED. This apparently isn’t a thing that happens very often in the future. I mean, I get it. You live in a socialist utopia where you can just press the Steak Button to eat a steak, and you’ll prolly not have as many suicides, no. But a topic this heavy really makes you think, god, fuck, there’s no way they can do this well. We will see.

Troi and Worf are doing detective work to determine why he’d do this. His logs make him seem… normal. His girlfriend says he seemed very happy, no depression, a very sweet man. It all seemed so sudden. I doubt this is the direction this episode is gonna go, but this is what suicide is. It’s what it’s like. As someone who is, in fact, suicidal, you DON’T let it show. You make yourself APPEAR normal, so you don’t bother anyone. But no, this is Star Trek. It won’t explore that, instead there will be some kind of magical science fictiony reason why he’d suddenly kill himself. And that is clear when Troi suddenly gets a telepathic feeling in the Nacelle Tube where he killed himself. Dan was ALSO empathic.

Anyways in the Nacelle with Worf, Troi has some weird reaction, and a telepathic dream-like situation, where she’s where the Enterprise was being built. She sees a woman seemingly being murdered, an angry man, and then she’s there physically, and she walks in on two people making out in a closet, who then laugh at her. It’s also worth noting that when Dan unalived himself, he said that they had laughed at him. Hmm.

Also this entire episode is a very big Worf x Troi thing. They kinda set this up several episodes ago, but it’s going HARD here. Worf almost asks Riker if he can be with her. He’s very supportive and caring for her the entire episode, though it seems MOSTLY like it’s Worf being interested in her and she’s just happy to have friend :) And then VERY SUDDENLY they start making out and fuck. I’m telling you, it’s VERY sudden that she’s into him, it feels weird. I do not dislike the worf x troi ship, and I feel if this series got to keep going for 2 more seasons, it would have prolly become the canon ship instead of riker x troi, but we didn’ get that. So it’s kinda just weird.

Troi seems pretty happy with it all at first. But then she’s feeling some jealousy, and other emotions about it. I dunno how happy she SHOULD be, the bed wasn’t even destroyed.

They find some remains in the bulkhead that Dan was working on, someone who was murdered and her remains stashed there years ago when the Enterprise was being made UH HELLO, THERE WAS A BARYON SWEEP THAT ERASED ALL ORGANIC MATTER ON THE ENTERPRISE UH HELLO I HOPE SOMEONE GOT FIRED FOR THAT BLUNDER. They determine who the murderer was, a man in Engineering. What follows happens VERY fast. Worf goes to talk to the murderer, while Troi is not feeling herself and goes to her quarters. She then finds out Worf is making out with someone in her quarters, and they laugh at her.

So she murders him. Then goes to throw herself into the plasma stream. Worf stops her, and then the entire episode is quickly explained. None of it happened, it was a psychic dream. The first time Troi gets to the plasma stream and has psychic visions, thats when the dream starts. It’s some psychic residue from the murder from years ago. No actual bones back there either, but there IS some Organic Psychic Residue or whatever. Troi make some flippant remark to Worf, and we again get a weird non resolution to a Worf x Troi episode.

Genesis - TNG 6.5/10

Reg has been up googling his conditions on WebMD and is bugging Crusher about how he has Teralyian Blood Sickness or whatever the fuck. She literally tells him to stay out of the medical database. Thats so funny that concept was around even back then, before you could just google symptoms. Anyways she’s like “there’s something weird about a dormant gene in your body but that’s it, here I’ll fix it” and injects him with a thing. Also, Spot is pregnant! How cat get pregante. It’s so funny that Spot has transed her gender, got preggers, and later on in the series, WILL GO BACK TO BEING A MALE CAT. Gender fluid Spot.

Data and Picard have to leave to go do some busy work, so Reg is taking care of Spot. Meanwhile, Worf is… being very, VERY, VERY WEIRD. He and Troi were supposed to have a date and he’s being weird and aggressive. Staring at women sexually, being animalistic at other men. I think Worf is in heat.

Worf goes full feral in his quarters, ripping up the ground and his bed and growling. I know I said there should be more furries and animal people on the Enterprise, but I did not mean it like that. I guess Worf got puppypilled sometime.

Troi is also weird, feeling real cold and wanting to be wet all the time. Worf BITES Troi in the bath, and then spits a fucking venoc spray all over Crusher, knocking her out of commission for the episode.

This was done cause Gates McFadden was the director, and wanted to focus on directing lol. Other characters are also having different reactions. Riker is slow and unable to think well. Reg is hyped up like he’s drank a million energy drinks.

Eventually, Picard and Data return to find the Enterprise adrift, all energy in emergency mode. This is now a horror episode. The two of them travel the powered down Enterprise, find weird things around. Discarded reptile skin. They continue to explore.

Troi was a frog, take a drink?

The makeup work is genuinely impressive. I love Troi’s design here.

So yeah, the crew is de-evolving. Riker is a caveman who attacks them. I guess Betazoids are amphibious? When I mentioned this, my chat went “Don’t tthink about it too much”. There’s some shit about “introns”, and DNA. Apparently everyone is de-evolving into something from their worlds, not neccesarily related to what they actually are. Picard is gonna become a Pigmy Marmoset. He’s taking it shockingly well. “Well before I start swinging around the bridge looking for breakfast, we should try to solve this issue”.

Spot is an Iguana. This is the funniest single shot in all of Star Trek. Thanks to Spot they find out that the cure is amneotic fluid. What the shit. They need to get amneotic fluid from a pregnant humanoid, thankfully Nurse Ogawa recently become pregante.

what the actual fuck is this episode

Also Barclay is a spider, which is the thing most people remember from this episode.

They hold up in sickbay to try and make a retrovirus, but Worf is trying to get in to save his “mate”, Troi. So they make a pheromone spray from her, and Picard goes out and sprays it around the ship to lure him away. Picard is becoming monke very quickly, and is getting spooked and scared easily, which is SO weird to watch. Picard outsmarts Worf, and Data releases the cure.

The episode then ends with Barclay having a nervous breakdown, getting the disease named after him, because the thing at the start is what caused it. Troi then says “He became a spider, and has a disease named after him. I’m going to have to empty my calendar for the next two weeks”, which is an EXTREMELY funny line.

This episode is fucking weird. It’s not BAD though. I think it’s the best it could be, the concept is so weird though and I really have to suspend my disbelief, there’s no science here it’s just goofy B-shlock horror. Also Worf TOTALLY killed and ate some people, that’s a literal plot point. But sometimes out there goofy nonsense that doesn’t need to matter or make sense is GOOD. It’s like Piece of the Action. But this isn’t NEARLY as good or fun as that.

Journey’s End - TNG 1/10

Wes is back! He’s back, on vacation from the Acadamy, and everyone is happy to see him! He seems REAL depressed tho. Looks like maybe that whole “contributing to the death of a classmate” thing has made the Acadamy life kinda hard on him.

Meanwhile, we meet Admiral Dickhead, i mean Admiral Nechayev, who just came back from a border agreement with the Cardassians. They’ve arbitrarily drawn borders, which always goes well, and some colonies are on the Cardassian side now, so they have to kick them out. Oh, this episode is Very Important. The biggest deal is with a planet that was colonized by some Native Americans, who left Earth to keep their culture intact 200 years ago, and were drifting in space until FINALLY they found this planet. And uh, now they need to be told to move. This is very, VERY heavy, and extremely on the nose. Picard is like “You’ve gotta be kidding me, THESE are the people we need to forcibly remove???”

I always hate these plots. I’ve made it VERY clear. I do not like it when it’s like “I’VE BEEN HERE 3 YEARS. THIS IS MY HOME, AND I WILL DIE RATHER THAN MOVE TO ANOTHER PLANET, WHICH YOU WILL HELP ME DO AND I CAN DO EASILY”. It’s a bit different here. Here, it’s not just like, a matter of this being their home. There’s religious, spiritual significance here too. And that makes it much, much harder.

Wesley is still being a dick. He’s very defensive and rude, his grades are dropping, he’s snapping at his mom. A native by the name of Lakanta makes his accquantence, and becoems his Spirit Guide. So this is where I need to talk about how this episode handles the Natives. It kinda reminds me of the Magical Black Man trope. It’s not a good trope. It is uncomfortable in a completely different way from racism but still also racism. I kind of fucking hate it.

Also there’s a plot point where the native american’s leader, Anthwara, is like “someone named Picard hurt one of my ancestors in the past, so you must pay for it”, and Picard is like “that’s ridiculous” and it feels like it’s openly mocking like, that kinda…. god I am checked out. I am SO checked out. I hate this.

Wesley has a vision of his dad or some shit. He finds the forced relocation repellent, and tells it to Picard, who is like “HOW DARE YOU, WE MUST OBEY RULES” which like, remember that episode recently with the Admiral giving commands that were unethical, and he was like “I am not following those orders”. I hate this. Anyways Wesley quits. This completely goes against what Roddenberry had planned for Wesley, his self insert. Wesley is like “I never WANTED to be in Starfleet, I’m just here cause you all wanted me to be. I want to do other things. I want to be who I want to be”. This is arguably the only good part of this episode. If this was JUST exploring how he didn’t actually wanna be in Starfleet, this’d be better, but instead it kinda feels like a college student who took a vacation to the Bahamas and comes home with dreads like “mom I’mma drop out and become a Rastafarian”, and it doesn’t really fit forced relocation.

Wesley stops time, and it turns out Lakanta is the Traveler, from many seasons ago. I guess he’s just been… cosplaying as a native american this entire time. He’s been… weirdly manipulating Wesley. Wesley is “ascending to a higher plane of existence”, somehow, for some fucking reason. None of this makes sense. They leave the planet just as a war breaks out between the Natives and the Cardassians. Both the Federation and the Cardassians flee, and the Natives give up their status as Federation citizens. Picard is like “are you ABSOLUTELY sure? If you ever ask for any help ever again, we will not help you” “Oh we absolutley understand.”

Um. I’ve already watched DS9. I’ve seen the god damn Maquis episode. I know how this ends. This is completely fucking stupid. Every single thing about this ending is unraveled, because once the Cardassians show up, they go crying to the Federation, who do kinda try to help but also can’t really due to legal reasons, and then they’re like “THE FEDERATION HAS ABANDONED US, TIME TO BECOME TERRORISTS”.

Wesley gets a tearful farewell and goes to Ascend, and we will literally only see him again once as a background actor in a movie. And Picard I guess.

Fuck this episode. I fucking hate this episode. Every single thing about this episode is utter dogshit. It has been a very, very long time since we’ve had an episode this bad. Maybe since season 1???

Firstborn - TNG 7/10

TIME FOR MORE WORF BEING A BAD DAD!! It is time for Alexander’s Rite of Ascension. Worf wants Alexander to go through with it and be a Warrior. Alexander doesn’t wanna do that. He wants to run around with his friend and throw water balloons.

To give Alexander a better connection to his roots, they go to a nearby planet and celebrate in a festival, and in the festival, they do some play street acting out the legend of Kahless. It’s cute, and Alexander gets into it. At night, however, they are attacked by assassins, but are saved by K’mtar, the House of Mogh’s gin’tak, basically their warrior butler, comes and saves them. Turns out they were assassins sent by the Duras sisters, and they must find them and repay the attempt back in blood.

Also there’s stuff about how Worfi s Soft, and Humanny, and how he needs to raise his son like a REAL Klingon. So like, abusively, I guess. There’s a scene where he’s gently talking to Alexander about how he has to be a warrior and stuff, and I dunno what the emotion I’m supposed to put to this is.

QUARK CROSSOVER! FUCK YEAH! I love him. This scene is amazing. Riker uses his charisma, and money that Quark owes him, to find out where the sisters are. Fuck yeah. K’mtar is kinda a dick to Riker, but he has to admit that Riker’s work here is impressive.

K’mtar acting like he’s Alexander’s other dad, and is like “we need to send him to school”, because his fighting skills are bad compared to other kids his aged. Y’know, 5. This is because in a training program, Alexander didn’t wanna murder someone after knocking them down. How… abnormal. Alexander doesn’t want to do any of this, he’s like “I’m human too?” and K’mtar is like “NO YOU ARE NOT HUMAN, YOU CAN NEVER BE WITH THESE HUMANS. THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOU. NOW JOIN ME AND DO SOME MURDERS”.

Alexander does not like this. Worf doesn’t either, which is good.

They find the sisters, and they’re VERY confused. An assassination of Worf sounds great, but they didn’t do any of that. And then they see the knife, and are confounded, because the sigil on it is wrong. It showcases a son that is not yet born, and that no one knows of yet, because she JUST found out she’s pregante.

So yeah, K’mtor is from the future. He attempts to assassinate Alexander, but is stopped by Worf, and he admits that he’s actually Alexander from 40 years in the future. In the future, Alexander became a peacemaker, a diplomat. His attempts to make peace and end great house feuding ended in Worf’s death, and it fucked him up. Hard. So he went back in time to try and make himself go down a warrior’s path instead, so his dad wouldn’t die. And when that failed, well, time to murder, because with him dead, his dad would never die.

This completely recontextualizes this story. I was kinda bothered by it, but it makes a lot of sense in the end. It makes TOTAL sense. And Worf and him have a heart to heart. Peace is good, and a good thing to die for. And they tell each other they love each other. It’s cute.

Then the episode ends suddenly, as Worf tells Alexander that training isn’t everything. It ended pretty well. And like, it does the “I’m a kid who doesn’t want to be what people expect” plot line WAY BETTER THAN THE FUCKING WESLEY EPISODE.

Bloodlines - TNG 7/10

The episode starts with a holographic imagining probe thing chasing down the Enterprise. Oh, it’s BOK! From a season 1 episode, The Battle, that was so long ago I barely remembered it. Anyways, Bok is here to avenge his son! And to avenge him, he’s going to kill PICARD’S son, Jason Vigo!

….Picard has a son???

They hunt down this Jason Vigo, unsure if he IS Picard’s son, but he’s clearly in danger. They find him on a planet spelunking, and teleport him away onto the ship. He’s kind of a brash young cocky type. Yet another attempt to put a Han Solo in Star Trek. God dammit. He’s not really eager to hear some Ferengi wants him fucking dead. If they do a test and he’s NOT Picard’s son, then it’ll all be fine!

Oh, no, he is. And Jason does NOT seem pleased about it. He and Picard don’t have ANYthing in common. Picard finds his rock climbing weird, and weird how he has no job (he lives in a socialist utopia, let the man rockclimb, god damn), and he find’s Picard’s archaeology weird. And clearly wants nothing to do with him.

Also I fucking hate this guy. He’s a creepy womanizer, and while thankfully everyone tells him off, it’s… not pleasant to watch. He’s also a criminal, nothing serious, but still. He’s kind of an unpleasant being, and by god, Picard is trying.

Meanwhile, Bok can just appear on the ship at will. He’s menacing and creepy, and DEMANDS being paid. And the payment is Jason’s life. He seemingly can just do it, but he’s really here to spread fear. They determine he’s using a Subspace Transporter, a technology that was abandoned by the Federation years ago, but clearly can teleport people several light years, and also through shields. Sure there’s a risk your atoms are stuck in quantum flux and you cease to be, but shit, the Borg wouldn’t care about that.

There’s a great scene where Picard joins Jason in the holodeck and rock climbs with him, and then they have a heart to heart about his mother, and fatherhood. It’s actually a great scene, real touching. I like how Jason is like “if you knew I was a criminal, you wouldn’t be trying so hard” “I do know.” “Oh. Huh. Well then.”

And then Jason is kidnapped by Bok. They teleport Picard over to Bok’s ship, alone, and he manages a hold em up, and mentions the twist. Jason’s DNA was twisted by Bok, which they never would have noticed without Jason developing some neurological disorder that gave them a hint at it. Also, the other Ferengi running the ship find out they’re not getting paid and IMMEDIATELY mutiny. Jason is sent off, they have a kind parting, and all’s well.

Emergence - TNG 7.5/10

Picard and Data are in a Holodeck, Data practicing some Shakespeare, when suddenly a train almost runs them the fuck over as the Holodeck starts malfunctioning. Whoops. Seems like a simple fix at first, but then the REST of the Enterprise starts to fuck up, going to warp for no reason and whatnot. Then it just… goes back to normal. Lookin’ fishy!

Then they find out that if they HADN’T gone to warp, they would have exploded due to some kinda particles they don’t usually scan for. Well maybe we should fucking scan for those.

They find some weird drinking straws inside of engineering that connects systems its not supposed to. While investigating, they also find that the Holodeck is going apeshit. It’s now the train, the Orient Express, and a bunch of other holodeck programs basically invading it. We’ve got a knight, some gangsters. They react poorly to the crew being there, and when the engineer tries to defend them, they’re shot and killed. Which ALSO blows out the navigational system IRL.

They go back into the Orient Express to try and investigate. This episode is hard to follow. Troi joins them. Everything inside has representions of the weird drinking straws, a puzzle they’re making, or playing cards. They leave the orient express… out of a subway. And now it’s day. It’s really absurdist. It’s literally a metaphoric daydream of the Enterprise, as it’s becoming a living thinking entity. Yes, the Enterprise is ALIVE, and it seems to be creating something, and any time they fuck with it, the Enterprise has a conniption and almost kills them.

They decide that if the Enterprise is a new life form, it’s their duty to HELP it. They go back into the holodeck to help it out. It seems to be getting Vertion particles (going to Vertiform City) and putting them into its little child its making. The Enterprise is pregante? Gregnant?

They work together and form some Vertiform particles, and the Enterprise “dies” after creating its child, the “emergent lifeform” just… apparently not there anymore. Data and Picard talk about Shakespeare again, and off they go.

This episode is so god damn weird, but I absolutely don’t hate it.

Preemptive Strike - TNG 2.5/10

Ro is back! She was off on training, and is now a lieutenant! She’s making it :D. How wonderful. Her party is cut short however (not that she seems to mind) as they find the Maquis attacking the Cardassians! Ruh roh. Yeah, the Maquis are here. I find it extremely interesting that this show doesn’t even EXPLAIN who they are really. Just watch DS9, dumby.

They need someone to go undercover and stop the Maquis. Who better than RO LAREN? Y’know, the person who spent her life fighting the Cardassians and doesn’t like them! Surely she’ll be down to stopping the people trying to fight them! Ha ha!

I mean, they literally say Picard chooses her because he likes her, and has faith in her abilities above others. I get it. But also this is foreshadowing it REALLY hard.

So she goes undercover, they stage a big thing about her being hunted by Data and Worf, and she’s kidnapped by the Maquis and taken in by them. She immediately y’know, takes to them. There’s an old guy who is very knowledgable about Bajoran culture, and she takes to him fast. Basically, as a surrogate father.

Okay, look. I don’t like the Maquis. I hate them. I do not agree with their reasonings for y’know, war crimes and killing people. And it sucks. Because I have anti-fascist leanings, and would get VERY behind rebels, but “they wanted me to move or they’d treat me bad and I said no then they didn’t rtreat me good ): Star Fleet said it’d happen I said I don’t care and then it happened. Star fleet abandoned me.” It just doesn’t fucking work, at all. It’s like spoiled brat baby shit, I fucking hate it. And while some of these people are likable, yes, that doesn’t help.

So yeah the episode goes EXACTLY how you’d expect it. Ro is supposed to lead them into a trap, and she feels bad, and during a fight with Cardassians, his surrogate father is shot and killed, and then it’s all over. She’s gone. She actually goes to Picard like “okay captain, I don’t think I can do this. But I don’t want to let you down” and Picard is like “Then you’ll have given up all you worked towards.” What.

That is not how this works. That’s not how Picard even would have done this. That’s like a complete character 180. Picard cares about Ro and her feelings, he wouldn’t be so far up his ass about this. That’s SO bad.

It ends in the most predictable way. She betrays them, and teleports off, joining the Maquis, and it ends on a shot of Picard angy that she betray him. He is fed up with this worl This episode kinda sucks. What an unfortunate send off to Ro’s character. God damn.

All Good Things… - TNG 10/10

This episode starts with Worf and Troi on a date. Well, that’s a thing. They’re about to smooch and are interrupted by Hobo Picard who is freaking out because he’s traveling through time and needs to know the date.

Apparently he feels like he’s been traveling through, but it could be… dreams. And then suddenly, bam. 25 years after Picard stopped being the captain of the Enterprise, he’s making the rounds on his winery as Geordi comes around to say hi. Geordi’s lookin’ good!

And then BAM, back into the past, it’s Tasha Yar. Glad she got in for the finale. But then bam, just as soon as she’s here, they’re back to where we started, with him talking to Troi about all this. He keeps bouncing, from one timeline to another. And all the while, every time, there’s people there that he’s seeing, laughing at him. This unfortunately makes everyone think he’s fucking insane. Also, things he does in the past do NOT effect the future timelines he’s sent to! He calls a red alert on the intro ceremony, confusing everyone. But no one remembers that happening in the present.

Future again. Damn, Riker has let himself go compared to everyone else. Frakes aged so much better irl holy moly. Apparently 25 years in the future, Beverly and Picard married each other (then divorced), Picard then conscripts Crusher for her help sneaking to Romulan space, because in the past, an anomoly has been seen in both other timelines.

Anyways we find out what’s going on. Hey Q. In that Q-way of his, he answers SOME questions at least, as to what’s going on. Q is causing the time hopping. But he’s NOT causing the anomaly. Also, humanity is about to go extinct. And Picard is going to cause it, and is in fact causing it now.

This episode feels like an amazing send off to TNG. We see a lot of great conclusions to TNG, and the characters. Also my chat kept yelling about how this is a much better send off than Generations. Dammit, we’re not there yet!

The future is not going so well. They get there and find that there’s no anomaly. Meanwhile, everyone thinks that it’s just in his mind, because he has an advanced neurological disease, but they care about him too much. Q appears tho. It’s PROBABLY not just in his mind. Probably.

Anyways apparently the anomaly is because of… anti-time. Which is like antimatter compared to matter. Y’know how it is. Anyways antitime caused an explosion which caused the rift. Sure. Still no anomaly in the future, though they ARE attacked by the Klingons (The Klingons own the Romulan empire in the future), and Riker decloaks in the Enterprise (which still exists don’t worry about it), and saves their ass. But they knock Picard out, cause CLEARLY he’s insane.

Q takes him all the way back to the start. No, not of TNG. Of LIFE. 3.5 billion years ago on Earth. Hey look, there’s some goo that’ll form the first proteins! But also the fucking anomaly is in the sky. The further in the past you go, the larger it gets, and it will cause life to not exist on Earth. And he’s causing it, somehow. In the present, they look at the center of the anomaly and find that seems to be three different enterprise beams that are feeding the anomaly, from three time periods I guess.

Now sure of what’s going on, and when it starts, Picard convinces the others (with Data’s help cause Data is a bro) of what’s happening. They shut down the Tachyon pulses that’re feeding it, but it’s not enough. So they need to act as a “static warp shell”, blocking the anti-time inside from the time outside so that it doesn’t cause a kaboom.

We watch all three of the Enterprises come in, and explode. Goodbye, Enterprise. But it works. They saved humanity. Q congratulates him, and Picard THANKS Q for helping him save humanity (even though the continuum got them into it). Q heads off. The trial of the Q over the humans never truly ends.

It all ends with a Poker game. The best kind of TNG scene. Picard joins them, and wistfully says “I should have done this a long time ago.” to which Troi responds “you were always welcome”. A sweet ending and sendoff.

The sky’s the limit.

THOUGHTS

TNG is a really good show. Season 7 is prolly my second least favorite but really, it’s still good. (FTR it’s 3=4>5>2=6>7>1)

…We’re not done with this cast though. We had a good sendoff but NO WE MUST DO MOVIES. GENERATIONS NEXT TIME.