Alex Daily! 
At my current pace, I'll hit DS9 very soon.
...Do I have a DS9 emojo? 
Yeah, that works.
Funny how "the gang has to covertly sneak onto a planet" is a big two-parter here, but the kind of thing Strange New Worlds just casually does off-screen as a joke now, while "the new captain we're all gonna have to get used to" is here a sort of busywork B-plot, while it feels like it was half of Discovery's season arcs. #startrek #tng
* 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)
Works, but does so define itself in relationship to the TNG Q stories that it, perhaps inadvertently, really makes clear that the dynamic he has with Picard is something special, something that just doesn't really exist with Sisko, who simply takes none of the guff Picard so beleagueredly tolerates from Q. #startrek #ds9 #tng
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On the other hand, frustrating that that means being racist to Romulans, that it means trying to force violent and outdated ways of doing things on a peaceful colony of people who are clearly fine without all that junk.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
bashir is so cute
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!!)
Two more episodes left in DS9 season two, after which I'll take a break from Star Trek for a bit — not because I'm tired of it, but because I don't want to end up tired of it, and this seems like as good a place as any to take a break.
The "the Siskos and the Quarks go camping" comedy episode turns into a big season finale spectacular halfway through. Top 10 anime betrayals. Strong episode to introduce a bunch of big new stuff in. Armin Shimerman is really good in this one.
(Blowing up a Galaxy-class ship to show the Enterprise would've got fucked here, too, is maybe a little "did we learn nothing from how quickly the Borg became too strong to deal with.")
I miss Star Trek, and so I'm gonna watch Star Trek.
Rand al'Thor 🏳🌈 
@Alexis I remember all the hype leading up to that finale. TV specials, coverage in magazines like TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. (I remember Frakes hosted a "journey's end" type special looking back at TNG's run leading up to the finale) It was a huge event. And I remember when the finale premiered. I hated saying goodbye to those characters. Data was my favorite character on TNG. Both him and Geordi. I liked the finale, but it was rough for me.
@rand__althor I love that it got that much attention. And I would absolutely have felt the same way then and now... if I didn't know I still had four movies left to go and most of these characters show up again several more times after that.
Which takes something out of the finale feeling of it all, but I like that they just... continue to exist.
@Alexis I'm pretty sure we knew, when the finale aired, that a movie was in production that would feature the TNG crew.
(yeah, that released in '94 as well, so of course we knew)
@rand__althor Yeah, I think Memory Alpha says there were only ten days between the end of filming on "All Good Things..." and the start of filming on "Generations," there's no way you wouldn't have known.
I can't imagine liking any of those movies more than I do "All Good Things...", though. Genuinely one of the great finales.
@Alexis I remember watching these episodes when they were in first-run syndication. I thought it was a neat idea that the Enterprise were suddenly "alive".
Veronica Olsen@Alexis It is absolutely legitimate, and I think several of them argue this successfully, although not all.
Tom Rini
european handle 
🎏@Alexis Pretty prescient to have a Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover 14 years before Journey's End.
Tired Sponge@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.
meredith@Alexis imo genesis should have the bad rep that threshold has, it's about equally nonsense, more dull, and has far less excuse for being either.
@gladdecease Yeah, it /just/ stinks. They could've given the entire cast and crew an extra week off and it would've been an improvement.