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!!)
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.")
The vibe shift as the station prepares for war is palpable. Unlike anything TNG ever could have done.
Everyone gets good little moments here. A good little Sisko speech, how upset Odo is and everyone trying to help him, Quark knowing exactly where not to be but Sisko knowing exactly how to play him. Everyone talks each other into everything. Love these nerds.
RE: https://beepboop.one/@Alexis/116216501934688697
"a bit" turned out to be "three days"
Ahh, a fresh new Star Trek show.
This is the 90s Trek I'd seen the most of before this go-around — for a few years it was just on all the time right when I'd come home from school, which means I have a fondness for #Voyager specifically that no wider reputation will ever beat in combat.
It'll be interesting to see how well I remember it — this pilot matches my memories quite well, though only now do I realise it crosses over with #DS9.
This is a good second episode premise — it's not at all about the other ship, which just turns out to be themselves, so it has all the space it needs to be almost entirely about how these people have to learn to work together.
anyway, look what they did to my boy
"Lungs stolen, holographic lungs put in, the crew has to go get the lungs back" is such a funny horrible thing to do to Neelix specifically.
A fun bantery one.
(I also just find the Emergency Medical Hologram's ongoing plight, which really comes into the foreground here, really compelling.)
This is the first time since establishing the whole Gamma Quadrant situation they've really brought up that they're rationing, but by playing it for comedy — Neelix's better-than-coffee sludge, Janeway's coffee quest — it really fails to land as the serious predicament they're in.
I do like how this one establishes Janeway's captaining style — she /wants/ to be close with the crew in ways Kirk, Picard, Sisko never let themselves be.
Only six hours into the "lost, far away from home, in an unexplored quadrant of the known universe" show, and already we're doing "anyway, here's a Romulan"?
I liked it as an hour of Star Trek — the twist that he's in 2351 instead of 2371 is great, and also I obviously love all this stuff with the EMH figuring out how to be a person — but, hm, already, really?
The Grand Nagus moves in with Quark and devotes his life to non-capitalist benevolence, causing Quark and Rom to think him insane. Meanwhile, Bashir is up for an award they never give to people at his point in their careers, but then everyone around him gets his hopes up just because they like him.
Solid mid-season comedy episode, of the exact kind you lose in the 10-episode streaming model.
A Holmes story with sci-fi bits glued on happens to Tom Paris. Fine — though we don't quite know Tom Paris well enough yet to know what's atypical behaviour — but we're not exactly in the Delta Quadrant here, are we.
Knowing the EMH's ongoing quest for a name of his own ends at him being called "The Doctor" for the next 900 years and counting doesn't make his earnest desire for an identity any less endearing — but it does make it funnier.
Finally, an episode of #Voyager that actually really deals with the show's premise — barred from accessing technology that would get them most of the way home by another culture's prime directive, how far will the crew of Voyager go to achieve their own goals regardless of how the Sikarians feel about it? Or how the rest of Voyager feels about it?
Tuvok siding with the conspirators is where this really clicks.
Seska being a spy isn't /that/ surprising, in part because of her tone about Starfleet and its rules last episode, in part because in the past 31 years I've never once heard anyone say the name "Seska" without also shaking their fist at the very thought of her.
Do wonder what exactly her plan was, though, if it falls apart at the first sign of blood test.
An easy complaint to level at this one would be that it's set almost entirely inside Julian's head and tells us very little about him we don't already know.
And, look, I always want an episode like this to redeem itself for me in the back half, but unfortunately it's set almost entirely inside Julian's head and tells us very little about him we don't already know.
Love the reframing of the mirror universe's narrative role from "an accident that happens to them" to "something that actively comes to get them," and with that, making it a known danger zone that needs to be navigated.
Making it about his wife is, like, yeah, that's the exact button you push on ol' Benny Sisko to get him to do exactly what you want. But she's not /her/, Ben, come on, you know this.
The holodeck episode that dares to ask, what if we just did exactly this three to six times a year.
The EMH's first taste of a name, taken away by the same holonarrative that gave it to him, is a touching note in what is otherwise already fairly paint-by-numbers stuff. Fun hour of Voyager, mind.
Garak's torture of Odo is as harrowing as anything a #StarTrek lead has ever been through that didn't lead to either death or complete loss of identity. Awful.
Glad to get to spend so much time with Garak, though a little baffled he's allowed back on the station?
All of this really feels like another big step up for this show.
Always nice to go from an all-timer two-parter to a #Voyager medical crisis episode that's as braindead as the EMH says Chakotay is.
Okay, okay, it's not /that/ bad, the paranoia of it all does add up to something compelling in the end, but the second they go "Chakotay's brain is empty and also there's a ghost floating around the ship," they /should/ connect far more dots than they do.
Alex Daily! 