A hoot, but I feel like the only thing that really makes this a season finale is that it's a two-parter -- you can kinda find Data's head buried under San Francisco for half a millennium any day of the week, no?
Though maybe I'm saying that based on later shows I've already seen doing this kind of thing more frequently? #startrek #tng
every Barclay episode be like
* Barclay shits himself
* the crew gently tries to get him to at least aim at the bowl
* Barclay keeps shitting himself, just all over the place, it's a real problem
* wanting Barclay to stop shitting himself all over the place, the crew finally take Barclay seriously and start looking into it
* they get Barclay the help he needs
* turns out helping Barclay also resolves the B-plot. wow, convenient.
At my current pace, I'll hit DS9 very soon.
...Do I have a DS9 emojo? 
Yeah, that works.
* Would simply not have my entire life ruined by some Frenchman's Main Character Syndrome problems. Pitting Sisko so strongly opposite Picard is a smart choice.
* As is the conflict with the Bajorans -- hard not to feel like they're basically right about Starfleet setting up shop here.
* Have seen this one before, but I don't think I got very far into the season.
* That this show hasn't been remastered really makes TNG's remaster look incredible.
geordi
you're investigating a murder and though the structure of Trek means she didn't do it, /you're/ definitely not sure she didn't do it
geordi
this is unprofessional at best
(there's some unhealthy patterns in Geordi's romantic life that this 90s writers' room is just incapable of interrogating -- he was like this with Brahms, too, just instantly making himself part of a "we" with somebody who doesn't get consulted on whether she wants that)
I think this is a pretty great story, and a great display of exactly what makes the dynamic between Q and Picard tick. Great take on "Christmas Carol"/"Wonderful Life" only TNG could do.
But that whole friendship completely falling apart immediately just because Picard, given the chance, would strongly prefer not to get stabbed in the entire Hades-damned heart, woof, Johnny, make better friends.
On the one hand, lovely to see Worf connecting with his Klingon culture, finding not just value but beauty in those traditions.
On the other hand, frustrating that that means being racist to Romulans, that it means trying to force violent and outdated ways of doing things on a peaceful colony of people who are clearly fine without all that junk. #startrek #tng
Worf might be the only character on TNG you could do a sincere belief in the return of a prophesied messiah figure story with, but even then I don't think this really works. It's all a little too Jesus, and the conclusion it comes to to dodge the Jesus of it all feels like the writers room trying to please Gene's ghost.
Simply too compromised to work.
Lwaxana Troi has grown on me, and it's fun to watch her removed from the Enterprise, hassling DS9 — and poor old beset-upon Odo. She's so nice to him — the character is always at her best when she has to play vulnerable — when he has to revert to his puddle form.
You just know this evil computer A-plot will never come up again for even a sentence.
Fascinating choice to end this new show's first season on the conflict of a religious person trying to rigidly enforce their beliefs on a secular classroom, so much more solidly real than the Borg taking Picard. (Vedek Winn is such a piece of shit.)
I dunno if there /should/ be Roddenberrian balance to be found when one side literally does terrorism about it, but I suppose I respect where Sisko lands on it.
I enjoy when TNG interrogates what it means to be a person, but even if it wasn't clearly a scheme by Lore, we've /done/ Data's first emotion before, and any appearance of the Borg where they do anything less than killing somebody we care about is always just gonna be diminishing returns.
Liked the DS9 season finale, but this one's just kind of ploddy and dull. #startrek #tng
There's stuff I like here, but this is a deflating followup to an already poorly-inflated balloon.
None of this will change Data in a meaningful way, not really, because Lore hasn't convinced him, he's just controlling him. The rest of the crew get subplots of them running around that are on the level of an overstretched Doctor Who six-parter.
A shame to make this where Hugh goes next, too.
After the #TNG episode where Worf gets paralysed and goes, "well, I can't possibly live with a disability, better kill myself," though I do wish this one was a little more about her thriving than about her fighting the crew over accessibility — the crew frequently make utter asses of themselves — it's still nice to get an utterly unsubtle 90s-ass one about how a disability doesn't mean you're worthless.
(Hey, it's Daphne Ashbrook.)
Had to, of course. Forgot how fond I was of this crew. Maybe I /should/ rewatch Enterprise after Voyager.
Troi and Riker look notably older, with Troi's hairstyle (and accent) even totally different, but it's hard to care when all of this is clearly about how fond everyone is of them.
That, plus the main cast appearing not as themselves but as holographic projections of the official record, is kind of a problem.
In this one, Dr Crusher quits her job to move to Space Scotland and live with her grandmother's ex-boyfriend the Space Scottish Sex Ghost.
I don't dislike it as the show doing something different, but I do think the extent to which it relies on Dr Crusher just losing her mind to this sex ghost kinda sucks. Gates McFadden kinda crushes (ahem) it, though.
See, this is an amnesia episode that works. Still not a great hour of television — it transparently builds up to and then basically competently executes "what if Data was Frankenstein's monster" — but at this point we know Data well enough, and what's inherent to him even without his memory is clear enough, that throwing him at the Planet of the Undereducated is at least /something/.
Troi gets a promotion for being willing to kill Geordi.
Lt. Kwan's behaviour before he ends his own life is so transparently "this man is getting telepathic instructions from some psychic entity" that it's completely absurd that it takes 15 minutes for the episode to stop investigating it as a straightforward suicide.
Good Troi episode, though.
Great premise only DS9 can do, executed wonderfully. Fun to see these three TOS Klingons again as a trio of bickering old bitches, and I like that they're all basically supportive of Dax's transition. :)
The story could've stood to hang the final decision on the conflict a little more on Dax, maybe, instead of keeping her quite so clean, but this is still a great hour of DS9.
Finally, a TNG that feels like the show has realised it's about to end.
It's nice to see Wesley again, though to see him go all "I hate following rules!" after "The First Duty" is a little, hm, Wes, no, hold on, rules are how people don't get killed. (Ultimately he's right, though, obviously!!)
A stronger exit for the character might've rooted his disillusionment with Starfleet more directly in what happens in that story.
On the one hand, there's something rich to the idea of Future Alexander being in a lot of ways what Worf wants him to be and that clearly not being ideal for everyone involved, but on the other, I just don't really buy that the Alexander we know could become the man who would erase himself from time to save his nearly century-old dad.
I ado ppreciate that this one treats Alexander as a character instead of as a pile of stock kid clichés.
* There's a region between Federation and Cardassian space. In it, some planets have been settled by Federation populations, some by Cardassians.
* Until the Cardassian government gets a bug up its ass about border security.
* The Federation agrees to give up its planets, all but abandoning its people to Cardassian rule.
* Some of those people have a problem with that and a resistance movement forms.
That seems to me like a legitimate grievance?
Here I fully buy the core tension. Picard is married to Starfleet, and is bad with kids, but shags around slightly too much for it not to be totally plausible that he just has a kid or two out there somewhere.
Obviously it doesn't end up being true in the end, but I /like/ the way it fills in who Picard is, what we know about how he exists in the world.
(Bok's plan does seem a touch convoluted.)
Holodeck mayhem pile-up!
Maybe not the strongest hour of television, but still, love to get a big holodeck episode as the show is on the way out. Yeah, man, throw all the goofy holodeck ideas at me! Knights on the Orient Express! Sentient ship! The ol' New York backlot!
Eos, I'll miss TNG.
Interesting to make this so explicitly a sequel to "Mirror, Mirror," a world altered by its events so specifically that Other Kira recaps its events for audience stand-in Kira. Previous TOS connections were more like, oh, yeah, this guy /would/ still exist in the world.
Another rock solid hour of Star Trek.
Strong choice to dedicate the final hour before the end of the show to a chapter in the Maquis story that will ultimately be two other shows' responsibility to carry on with. TNG will end, but Deep Space Nine and Voyager still have twelve seasons left to come.
Ro Laren's defection here really works for me, and it all makes the Maquis even more sympathetic.
(Not that it really feels like TNG is actually working towards an ending, mind!!)
@Alexis I often say to people that while the best of TNG is better than anything Voyager did, the absolute depths TNG sink 2 are worse than Voyager ever did.
TNG had much higher highs and much lower lows in my opinion.
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