Tom Salinsky

TNG S03E01 Evolution (). Remarkably, Paramount kept the faith. After 48 fairly ropey installments, they could see promise and they re-upped for a second time. As with The Original Series the third season sees some wardrobe changes. Kirk swapped velour for nylon. Picard swaps spandex for wool. The new uniforms are two-piece affairs with a belt, a streamlined shoulder and a smarter collar. Like last time, the changes are minor, but still an upgrade in every way. (Some of the supporting artists are still stuck in the old ones for time being.) Dr Crusher is back (with shorter hair) and now this starts to look and feel like the show I grew up loving, complete with freshened-up opening titles beginning out in the galaxy instead of in our own solar system (shame about that awkward wipe from new titles to old as the Enterprise appears though).

Behind the scenes it’s all-change as well. Maurice Hurley has quit in disgust and an ailing Roddenberry has now handed control completely over to Rick Berman who in turn has put Michael Piller in charge of the writers room and it’s Piller who, more than anyone else, finally starts to figure out what this show is and how it works. He hires Ronald D Moore, Ira Steven Behr and René Echevarria, who all get their first scripts this year. As well as turning the writing function of the show into a collaborative, creative team, he instigates an open-door script policy which leads to several hires, including some of the names I just mentioned. From here on, the balance between high-stakes adventure stories, thought-provoking sci-fi concepts and character growth and development will be far better maintained.

The difference is made clear in an early scene in this episode between Crusher and Picard where she tries to understand who her son is through the eyes of her captain and her friend. The show is doing what it can to make sense of the imposed absence of Gates McFadden and to make story out of it. It leans into the history between these two characters, and when they talk, they sound like people. It will take a while for all of these changes to filter through, however. Evolution has Michael Piller’s name on it, but when the main plot takes over, it still feels more like Season 2 than Season 3. Computer glitches are plaguing the ship and this dull idea feels overfamiliar from shows like 10011100 and Contagion, and the climax is a replay of the end of Home Soil. On the plus side, guest star Ken Jenkins (Dr Kelso from Scrubs) livens the place up considerably, as well as doing what he can to make observing a rare stellar event seem extra-specially-super-important, but overall this doesn’t manage to place these stronger, clearer characters into a very interesting situation, and the humdrum conundrum resolves itself rather quickly and easily.

TNG S03E02 The Ensigns of Command (). The family feeling on board the Enterprise is maintained as Data receives a brief lesson in the dangers of radical honesty before a string recital in Ten Forward. The main plot revolves around a long-forgotten race called the Sheliak who have identified a human-colonised planet as one they want for themselves, but Federation records show the planet in question as uninhabitable. Despite this, there’s a thriving colony of 15,000 people who are not at all keen on leaving home at short notice. Data is required to negotiate with the colony leader, Geordi is trying to technobabble the transporters into action, while Picard is attempting brinksmanship with the Sheliak. Very, very good stuff from writer Melinda Snodgrass whose debut script was the amazing The Measure of a Man. I could probably do without the Data love story but the stakes are sky-high, the character work is excellent and the resolution very satisfying. Troi and Picard’s conversation about language is fascinating and heightens the tension as well as adding telling details. On the other hand, the colony leader’s voice is dubbed throughout, as if this was a 1960s James Bond film, and it strains credulity a little that the colonists could be so invincibly dumb for so long.

TNG S03E03 The Survivors () In what feels like quite a familiar trope, and not just because of last week’s episode, the Enterprise arrives at a colony planet to find it devastated with seemingly no survivors. In a more novel-feeling wrinkle, a small square patch has been left unaffected – and when we get down there it’s shot on location which is always nice to see. Federation tricorders can detect every detail of the dwelling except for some cartoonish Home Alone style booby traps left by someone called (checks notes) Kevin. Troi has swapped her catsuit for a more flowing ballgown-type affair which looks even more ridiculous on the bridge of a starship. She’s plagued by mysterious music-box tunes in her head, and Marina Sirtis clearly relishes having a bit more to do this week, but her plight is too intangible to really take seriously. It’s also a shame that Picard doesn’t give her condition more weight. If this was Season 4, he wouldn’t have dreamed of giving her the brush-off. When we cut back to Mr and Mrs Home Alone it seems dull. “Good tea. Nice house,” growls Worf, clearly as bored as I am. Picard solves the puzzle but bafflingly refuses to share his deductions with the bridge team, in what I assume is an attempt to wring extra drama out of a tepid storyline. Troi’s suffering seems designed to keep the Enterprise around despite what the cos-play colonist says, and ultimately this is yet another all-powerful being with mysterious godlike powers who doesn’t understand humans very well. Ho-hum.

TNG S03E04 Who Watches the Watchers (). This seems like it’s going to be one of those high-minded philosophical episodes but whereas in Season 1, this would be 45 minute of idle navel-gazing, here it’s considerably shored up with detailed character work and some proper jeopardy, added to which the ethical conundrum is genuinely fascinating. It’s also refreshing to come across a civilization whose progress closely matches Vulcan and not Earth (although it seems lots of planets have a Vasquez Rocks). The Mintakans’ transition from peaceful atheists to bloodthirsty zealots is a little hasty, but this is really just a function of storytelling in hour-long episodic television. Manning and Beimler, who wrote this one don’t survive Michael Piller’s new broom, but I could have done with more scripts like this in Season 2, which give an intellectual concept like the Prime Directive some guts and power. Dr Crusher’s mute nurse is still wearing the old-style uniform.

TNG S03E05 The Bonding (). Welcome to the show Ronald D Moore, one of Piller’s most significant discoveries, who brings with him a cracking teaser with an away team suddenly placed in mortal danger. But this isn’t an episode about thrilling escapes from death, because the focus now switches to Picard breaking the news to a young boy on board that his mother has been killed in the line of duty. I don’t love that we’re seeing this partly through Wesley’s eyes but it’s a better use of him than having him save the ship every week. And it’s also better than seeing this through Troi’s eyes – “I sense the weight of this responsibility on you,” she intones inanely to Picard’s grim-set face. Quickly it becomes, of all people, Worf’s duty to guide the now-orphaned Jeremy through his grief. So, this is a) Michael Piller’s it’s-about-our-family MO taken to its logical extremes and b) the beginning of Moore’s obsession with Klingons, which as noted I don’t share. But there’s a clarity and a precision to the storytelling, exemplified by the Data/Riker scene in which the loss of a never-before seen officer is compared to the death of Tasha Yar. In sum, this is very well done, if not quite what I’m really here for – plus this is our second all-powerful-alien-conjures-up-a-domestic-fantasy-to-cope-with-grief scenario in three episodes. It helps that the child isn’t too winsome, and Michael Dorn continues to do excellent work.

TNG S03E06 Booby Trap (). Michael Piller’s desire to flesh out the regulars extends to giving Geordi a second character trait. Now as well as being Data’s Best Friend, he’s also Hopeless Wiv Teh Laydeez. We join the action right when he’s being sent to the Neutral Friend Zone. Poor Geordi. The sight of him striking out on the Holodeck raises questions that some people had when we first Encountered Farpoint – namely is the Holodeck also “fully functional”? This episode gets as close to that sleazy issue as prime time television (even syndicated) will allow but doesn’t really provide any answers. Picard grumbles that nobody else ever built ships in bottles. I wonder if Geordi’s model ship-building hobby will be referred to again? JK, his character trait now is He Cant Get Dem Chicks. So, following an episode in which an all-powerful alien conjures up a fantasy dead parent for a grieving child, here we have a member of our own crew conjuring up a fantasy foxy colleague for his own frustrated libido. Yikes. Did Geordi learn nothing from his hijinks with Moriarty? The problem that Geordi and his sex doll are trying to solve is of scarcely any interest, and so – despite gamely centering the captain – the climax is somewhat limp (fnarr). Non-speaking extras are still in the old togs, although the new costumes have been refined yet again, with less obvious seams on the chest, at least for Picard. As usual, radiation causes zero ill-effects and then is instantaneously fatal once a stupidly precise time limit is up. Is the title a pun?