Episode 19: Star Trek Review

Episode 19: Star Trek Review

Topic: Star Trek Review

Last week we discuss the long lineage of Star Trek, how it's had a fixed rotation in syndication for decades after it went off air, it's dominance in the 90s, and it's revival over the last decade.  For our review, I had Mom watch some newer episodes of Next Generation.  It's an interesting conversation we had.

Review:

Offspring, Season 3, Episode, 16

Data creates an offspring called “Lal” and attempts to raise it as his own child.  Starfleet eventually learns of this and tries to take the project/android to be studied further, prompting Captain Picard to Step in.  Eventually, “Lal” is overwhelmed with emotions, causing a malfunction in its brain, which eventually causes her to shutdown forever.
(Directed by Jonathan Frakes)


The Pegasus, Season 7, Episode 12

Admiral Pressman is trying to find the Pegasus, a starship lost to an asteroid field, using the Enterprise to do so.  Pressman and Riker have history and the Riker is coy about what really happened during a mutiny on the Pegasus. Romulans are also looking for ship. Eventually discovered that Pressman was designing a cloaking device because he feels the Federation/Romulan treaty is a tactical disadvantage thanks to cloaking technology. Enterprise find the Cloaking Device, use to escape an asteroid, and Pressman is court-martialed.
(Directed by LeVar Burton)


The Drumhead, Season 4, Episode 21

Due to an explosion thought to be sabotage, Starfleet send an investigator to uncover the truth, Norah Satie.  Satie believes a Klingon delegate caused the explosion because he was trying to secretly steal starship plans.  Though the explosion is determined to not be sabotage, Satie presses on, trying to undercover more crimes, calling in an Admiral to overhear the tribunal. Eventually, Satie tries to blame Picard of breaking the prime directive and uses Worf to do so, calling Picard a traitor. Eventually the Admiral walks out, believing it to be a witch hunt.  Satie leaves in disgrace, and they carry on. 
(Directed by Jonathan Frakes)


Tapestry, Season 6, Episode 15

Picard seemingly dies of an unknown injury and meets Q in the afterlife.  Given a second Chance, Q offers Picard the chance to redo a portion of his life, a fight while just out of the academy, which is believed to be the point in his life where things changed for him. After redoing this point in his life, he returns to the Enterprise, not as the captain, but an ensign who never took chances and played it safe. Hating what he became, he begs Q to re-do his life once more, and this time he, gets involved in the fight and gets stabbed as a result. He wakes up in sickbay believing it to be a dream, or some crazy nightmare.


The Inner Light, Season 5, Episode 25

Picard is struck by a satellite’s beam and transported to a different world, where he is a different person all together. At first it takes him a long time to adjust to the fact that he is not in Starfleet, and that no such space force exists on this planet. He eventually resides to his life and lives out 40 years before the planet is overtaken by a supernova. Upon awaking, only a few minutes had passed in the real world, but the satellite was designed to keep the memories of the people of the planet alive.
(Considered best TNG Episode, Flute)