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Series Overview
Jean-Luc Picard - Patrick Stewart Will Riker - Jonathan Frakes Data - Brent Spiner Beverley Crusher - Gates McFadden Deanna Troi - Marina Sirtis Geordi LaForge - LeVar Burton Worf - Michael Dorn 
OTHER SEASONS Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 Season 5 Season 7 OTHER STAR TREK SHOWS Star Trek Deep Space Nine Voyager Enterprise OTHER TREKS THROUGH SPACE Babylon 5 The new Battlestar Galactica 
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Series OverviewSeason six is a season looking for an identity. With DEEP SPACE NINE being worked on, the team behind the camera was split and new ideas didn't necessarily gel together. That said there are more good episodes than poor and in Tapestry and Frame of Mind there are two all time classic episodes. Who are we and what makes us that? That's the question underpinning the season. Even the frivolity of Ship in a Bottle is about our right to freedom of action whilst Chain of Command-Part 2 takes the tack of how who we are can be undermined and destroyed. It's hard to find a single episode that isn't looking at identity in some fashion or other, but the production and entertainment values remain high. TopTime's Arrow - Part 2Captain Picard and the bridge crew are all back in 19th century San Francisco where they must try to find Data and contact Guinan in order to tackle the aliens that are feasting on human energy. This is a thin start to the new series, wrapping up the time paradoxes neatly enough, but not really engaging and never breaking the problem of aliens in another part of the universe travelling through time and space to earth to eat human energy. How did they find us in the first place? Their technology is like magic and nothing is explained. Let’s hope the season gets better. TopRealm of FearReg Barclay is back and the least impressive starfleet officer ever this time faces one of his greatest fears – the transporter. Fighting against a perfectly rational fear of being broken down into component molecules and transformed into energy before being reassembled somewhere else, he beams to a damaged ship and encounters an alien presence in the transporter beam. Whilst there is no evidence, an investigation is mounted and a strange glow manifests itself on Barclay’s arm where the alien touched him. What is the nature of courage? Having no fear is not courage, courage is being scared to death of something and facing up to it all the same. That’s what happens here and it is Dwight Schultz’s delightful performance as Reg that lifts an otherwise pretty banal story up into one the of the better comedy episodes. TopMan of the PeopleWhen a diplomat’s mother dies on board the Enterprise, he invites Counsellor Troi to join him in a meditation ceremony. Shortly thereafter, she starts to age rapidly and become very jealous of the diplomat’s behaviour with other women, behaviour that had been observed in the dead woman. Counsellor Troi seems to function mainly as the ship’s victim. Aliens have raped her, violated her mind, sent her mad with songs and who knows what else. Now we’ve got one flooding her with his own negative emotions and prematurely ageing her. I think that she ought to get herself a new assignment. In the end, this is a pretty average episode. TopRelicsWhilst investigating a Dyson sphere (a hollow sphere big enough to hold a sun at its centre), the Enterprise finds a lost Federation shuttle and Geordi discovers the transporter locked in a diagnostic loop. Ending the loop, he releases Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer on the original Enterprise with Captain Kirk. When the Enterprise gets locked inside the sphere, it is up to Geordi and Scotty, the future and past of the show, to work together to free them. Following on from appearances by Dr McCoy, Sarek and Spock (with Captain Kirk appearing in the film STAR TREK:GENERATIONS this must be just about the last of the original crew that they can find an excuse for keeping alive. It works within scope of the show and Scotty’s difficulty in integrating into a society that has advanced so far beyond him is believable and acted well by James Doohan. The time he spends in the holodeck in a drunken nostalgia trip smacks of truth and there is one delightful moment when he realises that LaForge tells his Captain how long things will actually take to fix. TopSchismsPeople are having trouble sleeping and then start turning up with injuries. Riker, for example, has his arm severed and then reattached. Deanna Troi takes the victims into the holodeck and together they recreate their fragmented memories into a torture chair. Geordi postulates that people are being taken into another universe and tortured there. Riker has to submit one more time in the hope of getting back the other victims and ending the torture. This is Jonathan Frakes’ episode and his best work on the show so far. He is mainly used as the strong authority figure in situations where the captain is not. This is one of the few times when we get a glimpse of him as vulnerable, irritable and, eventually, afraid. That makes it all the more interesting. The resolution, though, is bog standard. TopTrue QQ’s back, let’s all cheer. This time, though, he has no interest in Picard but rather in a young woman who is manifesting Q powers. It seems that she is the daughter of two exiled Q who were assassinated when they proved unable to resist using their powers. Now he must persuade the girl to come with him to the continuum before she suffers the same fate. She, too, says she can resist using her power, but fails miserably at the first hurdle. We like the Q episodes and this is no exception. John De Lancie is as sharp and satirical as ever, undermining Picard’s undoubted pompousness at every turn, whilst his instruction of the girl in her powers is actually quite involving. The result is never in any doubt, but the journey to it is fun enough. TopRascalsA transporter malfunction reduces Picard, Ensign Ro and Guinan to their childhood states. When the ship is then overrun by enemy forces, it is left to the ship’s children to save the day. Whenever the show does a kiddie episode, putting children at the centre of the story, the result is never satisfactory and this one, whilst having more going for it than most of the others, is no exception. Seeing the Captain trying to function in his position despite appearing to everyone else as a twelve year old is fun and seeing him have to abandon his dignity and act his (new) age is also great character stuff, but the rest of the plot is just an excuse to have crewmembers as kids and the child actors aren’t really up to the task. It also doesn’t help that Ro’s reaction to being a child again and Guinan’s advice to her is pretty awful stuff. TopA Fistful of DatasWorf is forced to take part in Alexander’s wild west holodeck programme and finds that he is actually enjoying it. Then Data starts showing up as all the bad characters and all of the safety protocols have been cancelled. Worf and Troi are left facing real bullets in the hands of villains with all of Data’s capabilities. As well as being the best ever title ever dreamed up for the show, this is the most fun episode for a long time. Frivolity hasn’t been much in evidence in recent seasons of THE NEXT GENERATION and so it is to be embraced when it does appear and this episode is frivolous. The actors, though, are having such a good time (especially Marina Sirtis playing Deanna playing a gunslinging stranger) that you can’t help be caught up in their fun and enjoy the silliness immensely. TopThe Quality of LifeA researcher with a mining project that is falling behind schedule and whose funding is up for review has invented some machines to help with the maintenance work by doing all the dangerous jobs. When one of them malfunctions, Data believes that it is simply refusing to do the work because of the danger and that this is a sign of intelligence. He blocks attempts to force the machines to carry out a rescue mission that will endanger them and puts his career and the lives of his friends on the line. What is the nature of life? How do you define it? What is the nature of intelligence and how do you define that? These are the metaphysical questions being examined again by the series. They were all asked before, and much better, in The Measure of a Man when Data’s status was considered, but questions like this are always interesting and the resolution to the problem is, at least, an original one. TopChain of Command - Part 1Captain Picard, Worf and Dr Crusher are sent on a secret mission deep into Cardassian space where it is believed that a new weapon is being created. A new Captain, Jellico, is placed in charge of the ship and sets about upsetting all the crew and taking the Cardassian authorities in the area to the very brink of war. The secret mission, meanwhile, turns out to be a Cardassian plot and the Captain is taken prisoner. Once again we see the Federation outsmarted by a less honourable foe. It’s not the Romulans this time, but the Cardassians. Most of the fun of this episode, though, lies in the reactions of the crew to their new commanding officer. His style is different indeed and they all find themselves whining about it in a most unstarfleet manner. TopChain of Command - Part2Whilst the Enterprise looks for a way to mount a rescue of their captain, against the new commander’s wishes, Picard is tortured by a master of his craft. 1984 is a masterwork of literature and most science fiction shows get around to referencing it at some point. This is the episode for THE NEXT GENERATION. David Warner is the actor that takes up the torturer role to Patrick Stewart’s Winston Smith. Their battle for Picard’s soul is a great joust of acting talent and makes this a fine episode, but the unoriginality of the concept is consistently grating. How many lights are there? TopShip in a BottleReg Barclay accidentally frees Professor Moriarty back into the Holodeck and he sets about trying to take over the ship. Picard and Data go in to try and persuade him to stop his actions, but he captures them and uses them as hostages to get Riker and Geordi to find a way to link the transporters and holodeck together to make him and his new companion real so that they can leave. The creation of Professor Moriarty in Elementary, Dear Data was a frivolity from the early days and this episode continues in the same light, frothy and totally silly fashion. As a result, it is downright wonderful entertainment. Daniel Davis is, once again, on fine form as the camp villain Moriarty and the manner in which the ship is save is a surprisingly satisfying one. TopAquielA crewmember on a remote listening post is found to have been killed, probably by local klingons. Geordi tries to access her logs to learn about her and falls for her. Then the klingon commander brings her back alive and so the identity of the remains is thrown into doubt and she is the prime suspect. Geordi LaForge’s lovelife is something of a disaster. First he fell for a hologram of a ship designer who turned out to be married and now he falls for someone who might be a killer. The man needs a good dating agency. Sadly, this isn’t a good episode with very little happening and even less of that proving to be of interest. TopFace of the EnemyCounsellor Troi wakes up to find herself with a Romulan face, dressed up in a Romulan uniform and aboard a Romulan ship. Spock’s resistance movement of Romulus is trying a new way of getting refugees out and needs a Starfleet officer in case things go wrong, which they inevitably do. Now she is left alone, trying to carry out a charade that could cost her life. Someone clearly came up with the opening image of Troi waking up to find her face not her own and then built a whole plot around that image. True, the image is very effective and provides a fine opening to the show, but everything else about the plot is downright stupid. This has to be the most complex escape plan ever attempted and clearly couldn’t work more than once. The need for a Starfleet officer rather than a romulan one is tenuous at best as to be of use she would have to be recognisable as a Starfleet officer and hence be open to capture. There is some tension in whether the captain of the Romulan ship will unmask her, but it is all just too stupid to work. TopTapestryPicard’s artificial heart is damaged in firefight and he is on Dr Crusher’s operating table when he dies and finds that the afterlife is run by Q. Q offers him a chance to put right the mistake that led to him having an artificial heart in the first place and then shows him what his life would be like. This is the NEXT GENERATION equivalent of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and it works wonderfully. It’s a Q episode and so we’re predisposed to liking it anyway, but the rumination on the fact that we are a tapestry of all the threads of our past and to pull one is to unravel the whole thing works on almost every level. It is intellectually stimulating, has interest in how Picard will avoid his fate, shock in seeing the man that makes him and even emotionally satisfying in the final outcome. There are some good jokes in there as well. Episodes that come together as well as this are few and far between and should be cherished. This goes straight into the top drawer. TopBirthright - Part 1Worf discovers that his father might still be alive and held in a Romulan internment camp. He infiltrates Romulan space and discovers that the camp exists, but that his father is dead. Meanwhile, an energy overload causes Data to dream for the first time and he spends the rest of the episode trying to discover the meaning of the images in his dream. He decides that the only way to find out is to recreate the dangerous overload. The Data’s dream strand of this first episode of a two-parter is the less successful, which is a shame as it takes up most of the screen time. If we really wanted to know about the finer points of dream analysis, we’d watch a documentary. Worf’s strand is underdeveloped whilst looking like it ought to be the main story so the chances are that this will dominate in part 2. TopBirthright - Part 2Worf has been captured by the Romulans and learns that the Klingons are living there as willing prisoners, unable to go home because of the dishonour their not dying will cause their families. Unable to conform, Worf teaches the young about their heritage and is sentenced to death by the camp commandant. This Worf is clearly a persuasive chap. In just a few days he tells a couple of stories, teaches the kids a new game and suddenly they all want to be Klingons again, despite their years of previously peaceful life. To call this unrealistic would be to understate the case. At least the situation that the elder klingons find themselves in throws interesting light on the Klingon code of honour. If, through no fault of your own, you don't die battle then you are a disgrace. It's a wonder that there's any of them left at all. TopStarship MineThe Enterprise is to undergo a radiation sweep that is deadly to all living matter. Avoiding a tedious social engagement, Picard finds himself locked on the ship with a bunch of terrorists out to siphon weapons grade sludge from the engines. Meanwhile, Riker and the others are being held incommunicado on the planet below. Captain Picard goes all DIE HARD on the Enterprise. It's a simple premise and it works well. The early situation on the surface is full of fun as Data learns the finer arts of smalltalk. That then deteriorates as it becomes a hostage situation, but Picard's story takes over and remains lively and active. It makes no sense at all (with all those sensors nobody notices a whole bunch of people running around a soon to be lethal environment?), but the best shows of this season have been when there's just a story, not a point and this is one of those. And isn't that Picard a resourceful chap? TopLessonsLt Commander Daren comes on board and shares her love of music with the Captain, teasing out his own interest. Very soon they are romantically linked. Problems arise, though when they rush to the rescue of colonists at risk from firestorms. This is a sweet episode. Normally, that might be an insult, but not here. It's nicely played, but more importantly it's sincerely played. Taking its lead from the events of The Inner Light where Picard first learned to play his flute, this is about his personal, inner life. The reasons why he so rarely gets close to his crew are all here. It is, however, rather unnerving to see him smile so much. The good doctor's response to the relationship is also quite entertaining. TopThe ChasePicard's old teacher fails to tempt him away from the ship in search of a great secret. That secret kills him and wipes out a whole planet. The truth is important enough to destry worlds for, but could also unite the quadrant. A mystery and action plot that ranges across the quadrant and comes to a surprising end (and one that explains why all the aliens are just actors with funny foreheads to boot), but a satisfying one. The season is really starting to look up. TopFrame of MindCommander Riker is taking part in one of Beverly Crusher's plays, this one centring on a man losing his mind in the asylum. Understandably affected by the part, he starts to hallucinate badly until it becomes clear that he is really an inmate of an asylum and it is his life on the Enterprise that is a hallucination. We've had a few good episodes of late that have lifted the season up from a shaky start, but nothing to prepare us for this. True, we've had the 'your old life is an illusion' scenario a few times before in THE NEXT GENERATION, but this episode in extremely powerful. This is in part because of the structure that really keeps you guessing right to the end as to what is real and what is fantasy and what is truth. It's a gift that the director makes the most of, conjuring up images and sudden changes of reality that Riker's disorientation is beautifully communicated. The second vital ingredient in this episode's success is Jonathan Frakes. This is a one man show and he grabs the opportunity with both hands, giving a performance that is easily the best that he has done on the show and probably beyond anything we had thought him capable of. His depiction of a man unravelling at the mental seams is riveting. This is one of best episodes the show has ever produced. TopSuspicionsDoctor Crusher aids a Ferengi scientist(!) demonstrate his metaphasic shield, but the experiment goes wrong and one of the visiting scientists is killed. Shortly thereafter, the Ferengi dies. Crusher doesn't believe it was suicide and carries out an autopsy against orders and is suspended pending court martial. Due out on the next shuttle, she has 24 hours to solve the murder and she may have to risk her life to do it. Dr Crusher gets another episode to herself and it turns out to be another duffer. The murder mystery isn't very fascinating, the characters she is investigating turn out to be as dull as ditchwater, the flashback with voiceover structure is bad and there are story issues such as why Worf, as head of security, takes so little interest in the case and Picard also seems disinterested. TopRightful HeirWorf is searching for spiritual guidance when the God Kahless appears in front of him. Emperor Gowron comes out to challenge the returned God and a DNA test on a holy relic proves that he is Kahless, but if that is the case, how can he be bested in mortal combat by the Emperor? Another interesting insight into Klingon society looks at the collision between faith and government and what happens when they have different agendas. There's more talking than action, but what is being talked about is important stuff. Still, even THE NEXT GENERATION took a couple of seasons to get it right. TopSecond ChancesBeaming down to retrieve a research station's data that is only accessible every 8 years, the crew discover Will Riker. A transporter mishap created a double for the Commander who was stranded on the surface until they came back. He is a very different man from Commander Riker and they clash over just about everything, including Deanna Troi, for whom Lt Riker's feelings haven't changed. Our uniqueness is key. How would we react to a double? That's what happens here and it really is fascinating character stuff. The retrieval of the database subplot is a waste of time and actually distracts from the real stuff. Jonathan Frakes does a good job of playing two different, but essentially the same, men and Marina Sirtis gets some meaty drama to deal with for a change. TopTimescapeCaptain Picard, Counsellor Troi, Data and LaForge are all returning from a conference trip when they discover time anomalies that have rendered the Enterprise locked in time in the middle of a battle with a Romulan warbird that the Enterprise was losing. Geordi finds a way for them to go aboard the ships and move around, but there are psychological problems. There are also some figures that are no so frozen in time. This is an episode that proves to be fascinating whilst it is running, but curiously throwaway after it's all over. The early section where the crew of the shuttle first encounter the time distortions is fairly creepy, a dinner interrupted, the Captain's hand ageing instantly, and finding the Enterprise on the brink of destruction and Dr Crusher being disintegrated are real kickers that raise the stakes. In the end, it's all resolved in fairly ordinary fashion, but the early section makes this one memorable. TopDescent - Part 1The Borg are attacking Federation outposts, but in a ship that isn't a cube and with tactics that are unusual. They show concern for fallen comrades, leave their dead and have names. They're not the only ones behaving differently either. Data kills a Borg in a flash of anger and then enjoys the sensation. When he cannot replicate the feeling, he frees a Borg prisoner and they escape through an artificial wormhole. The Enterprise follows and finds that Data has joined his brother Lore in charge of the Borg. The last episode needs a cliffhanger, so you know that this is not going to be a whole story, but it brings back the Borg and contains both action and intrigue. There is also Picard wrestling with his conscience over his decision not to destroy the Borg through Hugh in I, Borg. Data also wrestles with the new feelings that he has experienced and what they mean. Not a classic series end, but one that will guarantee that we're all back for the next series. Top |
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