Alex Daily! 
* 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On the other hand, frustrating that that means being racist to Romulans, that it means trying to force violent and outdated ways of doing things on a peaceful colony of people who are clearly fine without all that junk.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.
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.