Set your faces to stunned! It’s Craggus’ Trek Trek Phase II Vol 5
Craggus’ Trek Trek Phase II Vol 5 brings you Star Trek The Next Generation Season 2 episodes 8 to 15…
Star Trek The Next Generation S2E08: A Matter of Honor
Riker participates in Starfleet’s school exchange programme and heads off to serve on a Klingon ship where he finds their regulations on management bullying are somewhat less stringent than Starfleet’s although their similarly lax attitude to workplace sexual harassment is more to his liking. It turns out the Federation/ Klingon peace treaty is pretty tenuous as the Klingon captain decides to attack the Enterprise at the drop of a bat’leth when some corrosive space mould is discovered.
Star Trek The Next Generation S2E09: The Measure Of A Man
Classic allegorical Star Trek as the crew is required to debate and determine the status and rights of Data. Is he a man or a machine? And how did this not get settled when he applied to join Starfleet? Probably the first truly great episode of The Next Generation as Data lends Riker a hand as he and Picard face off in court room to decide the fate of their friend. The only minor grumble is that this would have been the perfect episode in which to have Pulaski confront and explore her own prejudice when it comes to Data, but she barely appears.
Star Trek The Next Generation S2E10: The Dauphin
Thanks to some kind of space/ time inversion, the crew of the Enterprise finds itself dealing with a plot and characters which feel lifted straight from Space 1999. Wesley gets a crush on a young passenger who turns out to be able to crush him in her big hairy monster arms while Worf gets trolled by an old lady who’s desperate to beat him up.
Star Trek The Next Generation S2E11: Contagion
There are some really big things at stake in this episode but none of the characters ever really seem too stressed out by them. It’s a weirdly laid-back life and death cosmic archaeological adventure. A bit like Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, really. We see the Enterprise’s sister ship destroyed by mysterious malfunctions, the Romulans are lurking in the shadows and a significant historic alien culture, the Iconians, are introduced to Trek cannon. Given the huge stakes introduced, it’s almost brilliantly absurd that they manage to save the day by applying IT Helpdesk 101: switch everything off and then on again.
Star Trek The Next Generation S2E12: The Royale
Goofy and cheesy in the very best Star Trek ways, this holodeck-gone-wrong-by-another-name is daft as a brush, but the cast are having fun and the guest stars give it their all. It’s got a kitsch likeability that’s almost irresistible and I admit I’ve got a real soft spot for its sub-prime time soap opera Sydney Sheldon schtick. My favourite bit, though, is when Troi criticises the dialogue of the novel “The Royale”. People in glass season ones shouldn’t throw stones, counsellor.
Star Trek The Next Generation S2E13: Time Squared
When a shuttlecraft is recovered with an unconscious and unintelligible Picard on board, it introduces the second most significant mystery of the episode, the first being why the Hell does Riker not know the difference between an omelette and scrambled eggs? Sadly, the episode eschews answering either question leaving the characters and the audience to speculate as to why what happened happened.
Star Trek The Next Generation S2E14: The Icarus Factor
A grab bag of b-plots, rejected daytime soap opera dialogue and bad costumes which shows just how hard a time the production team were having during the writers strike which would eventually curtail the season four episodes early. The epitome of a filler episode, or at least it would be were it not for Shades Of Gray flying even closer to the sun.
Star Trek The Next Generation S2E15: Pen Pals
Another trademark combo episode stitching together two stories, only one of which is interesting and therefore feels underserved. Taking up valuable air time from the super cute tale of Data stumbling into a moral dilemma is yet another tedious rite of passage story for Wesley (how many times does one kid need to ‘come of age’ anyway?) as he leads a team of older, more experienced officers as part of his training. Meanwhile, Data and Pulaski, unusually, join forces to thwart Picard’s attempts to adhere to the Prime Directive and consign an adorable E.T.-fingered alien moppet to certain death.
