Geordi, Data…it’s your turn to post Craggus’ Trek Trek Phase II Vol 20
Craggus’ Trek Trek Phase II Vol 20 covers the start of The Next Generation Season Seven proper, and quickly reveals that the series was already running on reserve power.
Star Trek The Next Generation S7E02: Liaisons
First contact with the Iyaarans takes an unorthodox form as two ambassadors arrive on the Enterprise while Picard boards a shuttle for an exchange visit. While one of the visiting ambassadors is aggressive and rude and the other gloriously glutinous, Picard’s host turns out to be the worst of the three, crashing their shuttle and marooning them on an unidentified class-M planet. But just as things look bleakest for our redoubtable Captain, he discovers he’s not the only human marooned on the surface. It’s a muddled and unfocused script, which bears the scars of the constant rewrites the episode underwent. While it’s a mildly amusing premise, the final twist is little more than a redressed ‘it was all a dream’ fake-out and individually, each of the storylines basically boils down to the Star Trek cliche of ‘show me more of this Earth thing you call kissing’.
Star Trek The Next Generation S7E03: Interface
Season seven of The Next Generation marks the point at which the writing staff had started to run out of steam. With ideas short on the ground and the knowledge of the series coming to a (merciful) close, there was a marked increase of soap opera-style family dramas as long-lost relatives and revelations came to the fore to prop up the ailing sci-fi shenanigans. This time out, it’s LaForge who has mummy issues as he receives news that his mother’s ship has gone missing during but he remains focused on his current mission – using a unique interface to pilot a remote probe on a rescue mission of another vessel, one stuck in the atmosphere of Marijne VII. The only problem is that when in probe form on board the stricken ship, he encounters what appears to be his mother who claims she and her crew are trapped on the surface of the planet below. It’s an episode which combines dull family melodrama with a dull scientific procedural to inevitably dull effect. The whole thing is compounded by the plot point that it’s not remotely credible for even a second that the entity really is LaForge’s mother so it’s annoying that he’s fooled by it at all.
Star Trek The Next Generation S7E04: Gambit, Part I
The Next Generation does Blake’s 7 as Picard is missing, presumed dead and Riker leads the Enterprise crew in a galactic bounty hunt for a gang of criminals intent on gathering some seemingly harmless artefacts. Although TNG never really mastered the two-part format, Gambit is a fun diversion, which often feels very unlike Trek and somewhat refreshing because of that. Of course, Picard isn’t dead and it’s not long before Riker joins the pirates too, posing as a rebellious and renegade Starfleet officer with amusing ease. The villain of the piece, the dread pirate Arctus Baran is a David Lee Roth be-coiffed scenery-chewing villain who feels like he wandered in from a Buck Rogers reunion show or a Thundercats convention. It’s camp, ridiculous and full of a swashbuckling silliness that just about works, plus it’s nice to see Robin Curtis back in Star Trek – although how cool would it have been if she was playing Saavik?
Star Trek The Next Generation S7E05: Gambit Part II
Alas, the curse of the second part doesn’t spare Gambit and onboard the pirate ship, the number of secret alliances and double-crosses reaches a ludicrous number until the whole edifice falls down under the weight of its own complexity. Also, the galaxy-threatening weapon is eventually shown to be vulnerable to the kind of plot device that would normally be found in an episode of My Little Pony: think good thoughts. The Data and Worf friction aboard the Enterprise is fun, though, and it manages to fill its forty-four minutes even if it feels like it really runs out of steam and eventually has to crawl across the finish line.
Star Trek The Next Generation S7E06: Phantasms
In the undoubted highlight of Craggus’ Trek Trek Phase II Vol 20, Data has a literal Freudian nightmare – with mint frosting! On paper, this sounds like it should be one of the worst episodes of the entire run except it turns out to be a brilliantly surreal sci-fi psychodrama. Filled with vivid and suitably weird imagery, it’s a wonderfully off-kilter tale which, unusually for a Data story, gives the rest of the cast the opportunity to have fun with their characters (don’t worry though, Season 7 has *plenty* of multiple Brent Spiner episodes on the way). The Patrick Stewart-directed episode is terrifically creepy too, and he’s unafraid to lean into not just horror tropes, but borrow from slasher flicks too. The sci-fi elements of the plot concerning interphasic organisms is a good twist too, with Brannon Braga continuing to knock them out of the park at this point. Just three episodes ago the series seemed tired and out of energy but this episode proved that there was still some warp mileage left in the old dilithium crystals yet.
Star Trek The Next Generation S7E07: Dark Page
Kirsten Dunst stirs up some buried memories for Lwaxana as season 7 starts its slide into soap operatics in earnest. During a taxing mission working with the Cairn, a race who communicate telepathically but are learning verbal communication, Lwaxana Troi’s behaviour becomes increasingly erratic (moreso than usual) until she falls into a mysterious coma. With no alternative, the Cairn help create a telepathic link and Deanna enters her own mother’s mind in order to save her. Mawkish, melodramatic and decidedly un-Star Trek, this tale of a sudden coma and the revelation of a tragic secret is straight out of the daytime soap playbook and it’s a wonder Dr Crusher didn’t bring in Dr Drake Ramoray for a consult. Although there’s an interesting sci-fi idea in the aliens who communicate purely with telepathic imagery, it’s sidelined in favour of an embarrassingly flimsy domestic drama. After her many highs and lows, it’s a shame that this was Majel Barrett’s last appearance on TNG (although the character – like many others – would find redemption on DS9) and her last appearance with her on-screen daughter Deanna.
Star Trek The Next Generation S7E08: Attached
With an allegorical subtlety that honours Let That Be Your Last Battlefiel, Picard and Crusher find themselves caught up in a dispute between the two nation-states of the planet Kesprytt III, one of whom, the Kes, want to join the Federation while the xenophobic and isolationist Prytt want nothing to do with anyone. Convinced the Enterprise is there to help the Kes spy on them, the Prytt intercept the Enterprise‘s transporter beam and implant both Picard and Crusher with a neural link which gradually lets them sense and share each others’ thoughts for reasons which are never really explained. It’s another case of an episode which sets up an intriguing alien premise then pushes it into the background to concentrate on character-driven emotional drama, this time bringing the Picard/ Crusher will they won’t they into clearer focus, although it never actually resolves the situation (and All Good Things further muddies those waters anyway) one way or the other. It’s less maudlin that the previous episode, though, and buoyed by a lovely rapport between Patrick Stewart and Gates McFadden. It also sees the end of Picard’s never-explained Captain’s velour jacket which is discarded in a Prytt cave and never seen again.
Star Trek The Next Generation S7E09: Force Of Nature
Having changed breed a few times, Spot has now changed gender and is apparently female. It’s time to acknowledge one of the darkest of TNG’s secrets: Data is evidently a serial cat killer who repeatedly fails to keep his pets alive and simply replaces them each time while the crew turn a blind eye. Have none of them watched #dontfuckwithcats?! It’s a dark revelation that would have added a macabre edge to this overwrought but disturbingly accurate environmental allegory. It brings us a literal extinction rebellion which hammers home its message of ecoterrorism and environmental impact as two dedicated scientists use extreme measures, including suicide, to show the galactic impact of warp travel. In many ways, it’s an uncannily prescient look into the real world climate change debate of 2019 from over a quarter-century ago. It’s just a shame that it’s wrapped up in a narrative solution that has all the skill and foresight of a Disney Star Wars script supervisor.
