While I’m not convinced by the legal procedure used by the JAG office, it gets us into a great situation: Picard facing off against Riker to prove that Data is sentient. OK, so that’s a setup for a bunch of lengthy courtroom scenes. But I kinda like courtroom scenes. They’re a good opportunity for actors to perform.

The moment, for instance, when Riker comes up with a brilliant ploy, and then realises what it means, is wonderfully played. It really shows the strength of the actors. Picard, Riker and Data all make what could very easily be dull scenes come alive.

Great Star Trek moment: The first poker game of the officers, a game that will show up again and again.

141 down, 596 to go.

It’s just about the most we’ve ever seen of Klingons to this point, and while the culture is a bit primitive (rargh, warriors) it’s drawn out quite nicely, and the dinner scene makes them feel more like a culture than a one-note villain factory.

The plot is a bit silly, with a fundamental math problem that bugged me once I thought about it. The microscopic bacteria doubles in size every fifteen minutes. We then hear that there’s a spot of it fifteen centimetres across on the Klingon ship. They say that it will take 8 hours to destroy the ship – but that would make the bacteria 644,000 km across.

Still, math nerd complaints aside, a good episode.

140 down, 597 to go.

Why not? Captain Picard never really has a breakthrough in understanding her, and he just shows the kind of concern he’d show for any member of his crew. And she still just seems mean and cranky, with too much regard for her own abilities. Oh, and a creepy fascination with eugenics.

It seems morally inconsistent to me that the Federation is cool with the kind of genetic modification being done here, but on the other hand has a Prime Directive.

Almost great moment: Dr Pulaski almost says “what is the nature of the medical emergency”. OK, that one won’t make sense until Voyager comes along, but still. There’s also the first TNG appearance of 3D Chess.

139 down, 598 to go.

At this point, you’d think they’d be considering some kind of “is this really Data” test to be deployed every day or so, to make sure Data hasn’t been replaced or taken over.

Once we’re past the slight dose of the idiot plot the episode picks up. It’s a great performance from Brent Spiner, as he subtly twists Data in different directions. And to be fair, the crew isn’t as stupid here as in some past episodes – they do work it out fairly quickly.

138 down, 599 to go. And I’ve half caught up on the latest mini-hiatus (4 episodes behind).

This is a really good example of that. The basic idea is an exploration of a common trope of SF, exploring some ideas of more alien lifestyles. It’s carried through well here, particularly through the relationship with Troi (the first time that I’ve actually liked her in the series).

Riva’s chorus is implemented well, with the concept settling in quickly without being beaten over the head with it. Although there is a slightly unsettling overtone with the caste-like system of the chorus – it would have been interesting to come back to this setting again.

137 down, 600 to go.

The first act (’oh, the charming rogue’) is then followed by the second act (’Data tries to find out what funny is’), and about the point that they were doing Jerry Lewis impressions I would have given up if this wasn’t part of the project.

As it turns out, I should have stopped while I was ahead. Because then we plunge into a bad retelling of Romeo & Juliet, written by someone who didn’t really understand the story. Soon there will be two good episodes in a row, but not now.

A side note: it’s nice to see that the first search result for a great comic wasn’t from the 20th century for a change.

This means I’ve got a bit more suspension of disbelief than usual to do. Alien species, faster than light, those are all easy. But the idea that computer security would be so lax on a military ship? Difficult.

With suspension of disbelief in hand, though, this is really a fantastic little episode. The growth of the Moriaty character on the Holodeck is great, and the episode is mercifully devoid of the idiot plot at all.

It’s a little strange, but the two best episodes so far of TNG are both set on the Holodeck. Gee, I hope the writers don’t run that into the ground later…

This episode also has pretty much the dirtiest Star Trek line ever: “Then I shall fill you with crumpets, Madam”.

135 down, 602 to go.

It’s a crutch for lazy writers, really. You can ignore logic, and don’t have to worry too much about the plot. So you end up with a universe that seems to be packed with super-powerful aliens around every other corner.

The episode does have some nice pieces: Worf and Riker on the Yamato, Picard and his conversation with the faux-Troi and Data. There’s also a good sense of menace in the episode. But things fall off the rails in the final third, with the resolution basically coming down to Picard sulking.

Oh, and Doctor Pulaski really needs to stop with the Data bashing. I think they were going for something more like Bones/Spock relationship, but it just comes across as mean.

134 down, 603 to go.

Some things haven’t changed – we’re in a conference room inside the first 10 minutes.

Overall I didn’t like the episode very much. The ‘Troi has a son’ thing is just weird, and never gets satisfactorily explained. And the emotional connection doesn’t come through either. So it’s just a case of ‘bleh’. And then there was the strange subplot involving the plague specimens or something, which I didn’t quite follow and had all the excitement of watching people count things.

133 down, 604 to go.

Why this one now? Because it was first shown on television on 4 October 1988, a month or so before the start of Season 2 of TNG. It had been around in other forms before then, but I’m going to go with TV release dates.

For those who don’t know, we’ve already seen most of this episode, as the flashbacks in The Menagerie parts 1 and 2.

Most of the comments that I had then still stand. It is too cerebral and talky (a little like the first season of The Next Generation in places). The standalone version is more coherent as a story, but it has significant weaknesses as a pilot. You don’t get a good sense of anyone except Captain Pike.

Better than almost anything that’s aired for Next Generation so far, though.

132 down, 605 to go.

There are some good moments. But not nearly enough. There’s really only one truly great episode (”The Big Goodbye”), and a an awful lot of just plain bad episodes. Some of the episodes are up there with the very worst ever.

The blame for this is mainly with the writing. It does take the actors a little bit to settle down, but some of the material they’re given is just woeful. Way too much preaching about how wonderful the 24th century is (and, by contrast, how awful things are now).

But if you had to compare this with the worst season of Original Star Trek, the third? No contest. This is far, far worse.

The rankings so far:

1. TOS Season 2
2. TOS Season 1
3. TAS Season 1
4. TOS Season 3
5. TAS Season 2
6. TNG Season 1

Next: Back to The Original Series for the original pilot (aired for the first time between Seasons 1 and 2 of Next Generation), and then Season 2 of The Next Generation.

Instead we get borderline-slapstick fun with the unfrozen humans, clearly meant to underline just how incredibly advanced and awesome the Federation is. I wouldn’t have been a fan of this kind of thing even if the episode title hadn’t raised the expectations in my mind.

Still, the one bright point is that the Romulans are back, and Star Trek is part of the way to having a decent recurring villain.

The moment when I saw the guitar I was pretty worried – I thought they might start singing. Fortunately saved from that one this time around.

131 down, 606 to go. 6,000 minutes watched.

You see, before Babylon 5 the idea of having a vast conspiracy just come up and be resolved in one episode was the norm. Babylon 5 started to do this kind of plot over whole seasons, which added to the impact. For instance, in a more modern era there would have been a member of the main crew acting strangely for several episodes before this one who then turns out to be infected, for instance.¹

So what might have been a great episode at the time is just a good one now. But it’s doing things that we’ve never seen Star Trek do before, and it has some fantastic action scenes. Oh, and an exploding head.

Great Star Trek moment: the first time in any of the TV shows that the crew has gone to the surface of 24th (or 23rd) century Earth.

130 down, 607 to go.

It doesn’t actually rise to the level of ‘good’ – Picard’s relationship with the Doctor’s wife never really feels real, and there’s too much technobabble in the main plot. But solid marks for effort all around.

129 down, 608 to go.

Fundamentally there’s the potential for something nice here. It’s so rare to just have the kind of random, meaningless death that is part of reality. Most TV shows will only kill characters to some purpose, or with some great villain. The need to write someone out because of a contract dispute had some potential. But it doesn’t add up.

Tasha Yar’s death here kind of proves Denise Crosby’s point: there isn’t a single other member of the main bridge crew whose death would be so unaffecting (except maybe Troi). She’s had no character development. She’s not very good at her job. And there isn’t much evidence that she got on well with anyone except Worf. Maybe the writers would have gone somewhere eventually, but she was getting less development than any other character. Heck, in her funeral scene the only thing they could think of to do was to have Tasha give compliments to the crew, because there wasn’t enough about her for them to say. The only crew member who really seems to react is Troi.

128 down, 609 to go.

The entire plot rests on the assumption that the planet is completely full of idiots. No one who has ever tried not taking the drug. No one who has even noticed that it looks a lot like someone on a drug high.

And then there’s the dreadful ‘Tasha explains to Wesley’ about drugs bit, which is about as convincing as an episode of Different Strokes.

Not much to like: there’s some awesome ‘cranky Dad’ stuff from Picard in the otherwise interminable rescue scene at the start, but that’s about it.

This seems like as good a point as any to do my rant about the Prime Directive. In this episode we hear that the results of violating it is “invariably disastrous”. But that simply doesn’t match up with several of the times when the prime directive was broken. It also doesn’t match up with the fact that Picard was breaking the Prime Directive himself in this episode (with the coils). But fundamentally the Prime Directive is an argument that we shouldn’t ever help developing countries, because it might go wrong. It’s a nice story telling trick, but I think it’s fundamentally an immoral rule. People with a capacity to help have an obligation to help. If there are side effects, then you need to fix those too.

127 down, 610 to go.

Half a good episode – the La Forge subplot on the Enterprise was pretty entertaining, with La Forge fending off a near mutiny from the Chief Engineer, fighting the ship, otherwise just being awesome.

But back on the planet we have an after-school special on why weapon merchants are evil. With a very bad case of the stupids with no one thinking to say “Please end the demonstration, we’d like to buy” until the last 5 minutes of the episode.

126 down, 611 to go.

There was some more superb security from Tasha Yar here: there’s a ship of unknown origin and status, and she doesn’t send anyone to accompany the first officer, second officer and navigator. And then she doesn’t have the prisoners searched for, say, the components of a weapon?

Oh, and the ‘Picard geeks out on new technology even though they’re on a time critical mission’ bit was funny, but seemed out of character. He may be fascinated by that stuff, but he also has a sense of place and priorities.

Great Star Trek moment: although it passes practically unheralded, this episode has the first on-screen use of the replicator.

125 down, 612 to go.

On paper, this would seem to be the dullest episode ever: Wesley takes a test, Picard has an inspection. To make things even duller, the outcomes of both are foregone conclusions: Picard won’t leave the Enterprise, and neither will Wesley (at least, not yet).

But despite that it works. The actors are really starting to have a good sense of the characters. But more importantly here the writing comes together. It made this one of the three or four best episodes of this season. For instance, there’s a lovely moment where Worf actually seems like a real live Starfleet officer. It’s the first time he’s done anything but snarl at people.

And there’s even a hook into a broader plot to be picked up in a later episode.

Quote of the episode; “It’s a good thing you’re cute Wesley, otherwise you’d be obnoxious”.

124 down, 613 to go.

It’s great to be exploring brave new worlds, discovering strange and beautiful alien species. But honestly, could we spend a little bit less of the time in the conference room?

123 down, 614 to go.