Tom Salinsky

TNG S04E15 First Contact () opens with a crackerjack teaser. Instead of the Enterprise languidly orbiting a planet while Patrick Stewart sonorously bleats on about stellar mapping, diplomatic missions or shore leave, we find ourselves in media res during an episode of Bumpy Forehead ER. But the patient the doctors are trying to save has a variety of anomalous physiological details. Because it’s Riker in disguise! This is a very interesting and exciting way of telling the story, showing us our people from an outsider’s perspective and exploring the limits of the Prime Directive, not for the first time, but it’s a rich seam which repays multiple investigations. It lowers the stakes a little that the society in question is right on the verge of becoming warp-capable but for once, an alien civilization feels even a little bit lived-in and it’s rather a treat to see Carolyn Seymour as Mirasta, not to mention Bebe Neuwirth as Lanel who’s thirsty for alien peen (hilariously, Frakes plays their encounter exactly as if he’s a con-man pretending to be an alien in order to get his end away). Riker’s predicament also helps to keep the inevitable conflict at bay. We don’t need it yet, because it’s fascinating to watch Picard tiptoe through this first encounter and not put a foot wrong, keeping everything on track until the episode is almost over. And for once, progressivism, diplomacy and optimism loses, at least for now. Very strong stuff, which only needed more character development for one of the regulars to tip it over into five star classic.

TNG S04E16 Galaxy’s Child (). One aspect of mid-period TNG I’d forgotten (or never noticed) is its willingness to revisit past episodes and try and make them work better or try and fit them more clearly into the show’s ongoing story. The Ferengi are the most obvious example of this, perhaps the most dogged insistence on never letting a bad idea drop I’ve ever seen, and it worked (perhaps not really until DS9 but still). The limp Samaritan Snare will be returned to as the excellent Tapestry. The passable Elementary Dear Data will be re-examined as the exemplary Ship in a Bottle. And here, Geordi is made to confront just what the consequences are of his skeezy actions in Booby Trap when the real Leah Brahms beams on board the Enterprise and won’t give him the time of day. They butt heads constantly and worse is to come when she inevitably finds his sex doll version of her on the Holodeck. But having brought these two characters to this fascinatingly awkward encounter, the episode can’t think of anything more interesting to do with the situation. Meanwhile, the rest of the bridge crew is dealing with a sort of space-mollusc which feels like a bit of a hand-me-down plot line with echoes of Farpoint, Tin Man and various others besides, so this is all a bit over-familiar, albeit with some grace notes, notably (as ever) Patrick Stewart’s detailed and compassionate rendering of Picard. The teleplay is credited to Season 2 show-runner and Beverly Crusher-hater Maurice Hurely, of all people. Once again, the matter/anti-matter ratio is a little more flexible than Wesley would have had us believe.

TNG S04E17 Night Terrors (). Another ship, drifting in space and littered with bodies (saves on supporting cast). It seems they all went nuts and killed each other, so this is a variant on The Naked Now / Time only with more lethality and seeing the crew at each other’s throats additionally brings back memories of the Ten Forward brawl in Sarek. As with the last episode, this all feels a bit reheated. It’s interesting that we skip ten whole days while the ship is adrift, but the conceit that they’re in such a remote location that a sub-space communication won’t receive a reply for days or weeks contradicts episodes in which they can have real-time conversations with Star Fleet at will, without seemingly having voyaged for many months in between. Some of the hallucinations are genuinely unsettling (Beverly in the morgue) and as usual Patrick Stewart gives everything such texture and grace. What did we do to deserve him as our lead? And what does freshen-up the recipe a bit is the pervading feel of doom in the last third, which is something we haven’t seen before. The crew also look satisfyingly disheveled as the crisis deepens.

TNG S04E18 Identity Crisis (). Geordi’s past (in which he’s seen in his Season 1 uniform) comes back to haunt him as members of an expedition he was a part of all seem to be deserting and/or suiciding. His claim to be enjoying the bachelor lifestyle is greeted with suitable incredulity by his big-sisterly old colleague, played with feeling by Maryann Plunkett. After joining the away team to investigate the stolen shuttles, inevitably, she starts to succumb to whatever malign influence is at work. Geordi’s patient investigation on the Holodeck is more interesting for being unhurried, and the switch from him being hunter to quarry is well-handled. This is an absorbing suspense thriller which works well, with good science-fiction elements, and it successfully creates a convincing earlier career for Geordi, if not really delivering much in the way of deeper character work.

TNG S04E19 The Nth Degree (). Barclay is back. And because the Enterprise is a cross between a community centre and a country club, he’s performing in a production of Cyrano de Bergerac for an audience of about 12, mainly the bridge crew. After being whammied in a shuttlecraft, he bounces back with a newfound and mysterious swagger. Dwight Schultz is better than ever, expertly connecting Barclay’s new confidence to his old anxiety. He still can’t prise himself away from the Holodeck, however, hobnobbing with Albert Einstein about grand unified theories. Jim Norton will reprise the role in Season 6. The bridge team wonder if they should try and return him back the way he was, but they need the eggs so he’s allowed to continue working in engineering and on the space telescope they’re trying to fix (when he isn’t becoming a brilliant actor or learning to play the violin overnight). When he uploads himself to the Enterprise computer to stop the telescope going critical, he discovers it’s a one-way trip. Making the enemy who has taken over the ship and is refusing to surrender control our beloved Lt Broccoli is a very neat moral dilemma and there’s a real sense of jeopardy and stakes here. Terrific stuff.

TNG S04E20 Qpid (). It’s yet another returning guest character, following close behind episodes featuring Barclay, Leah Brahms and a pretend old friend for La Forge. And not just Q, Jennifer Hetrick is back as Picard’s holiday fling Gash Vag Vash. But her moon-eyed bleating about how Picard hasn’t mentioned her to his friends feels more like a high school movie and less like genre-defining science fiction television. It’s something of a relief when John de Lancie shows up, on the slimmest of pretexts. Picard fretting over his speech to a room full of archeologists feels pathetic as well. It would have been about this time that Patrick Stewart starting telling anyone who would listen that the captain needed to do more fighting and fucking. Oh dear. Before long, the bridge crew is cos-playing Robin Hood and while it’s nice to be out on location, this all feels rather thin and inconsequential, and Jean-Luc and Vash’s sub-Moonlighting banter is pretty dreadful.

TNG S04E21 The Drumhead (). We begin with an investigation into a duplicitous Klingon exchange officer already underway. Classing up the joint considerably is Jean Simmons as the Witch-smeller Pursuivant up against whose kangaroo court, Picard rapidly stands. Court room dramas have worked on the series before, but their people-talking-in-rooms energy can make for languid episodes, and so it is here, with the captain’s clear-eyed righteous indignation leaving little room for moral complexity. I’m not sure what I want here. If Picard gets it wrong, it’s potentially a more interesting journey for him, but perhaps then we’ll be back where we were when he was busy trying to rip children away from the only home they’d ever known. As it is, his resolute certainty leaves little room for doubt as to the outcome. Maybe the episode was just misconceived, but centering Picard and giving him lots of big speeches is a good way to earn an extra star.