A boring Sunday review for Star Trek TNG, season 2:

[Deja Q]

I recall the first season of TNG being unsure of itself, and frequently resorting to sex (Naked Now, Justice, et al) to sell itself. Even despite its better episodes, things had to change.

So Worf became chief of security, Geordi becomes chief engineer, Dr Crusher is nixed in favor of Dr Pulaski (the first ripoff of Dr McCoy in the history of TNG/DS9/Voyager and the most hated despite being somewhat interesting) but do(n't) worry as Wesley remains.

So, how did the actual episodes perform?

The Child -- an episode taken from the dropped "Star Trek Phase 2" (1978) and revamped for TNG, it's a corny but otherwise enjoyable tale, centered around Troi for the social subplot, combined with transporting some strains of bacteria to round out the technobabble subplot. 7/10

Where Silence Has Lease -- an episode that starts creepy, while reminiscent of "The Immunity Syndrome" from the original series, but with some nice twists... But then they find Naggilum, who wants to experiment with the crew; including killing half of them and is rather interested when figuring out Pulaski is a female. The ending proves it could be cheesier than Naggilum and its motives. 6/10

Elementary, Dear Data -- now THIS is the stuff Trek should wear as a badge. Holodeck mystery, a creation devised to beat Cmdr Data ends up with the stuff of life. The Geordi/Data/Pulaski scenes are a treat, and Daniel Davis was perfectly cast. A must-see. 10/10

The Outrageous Okona -- gobble gobble, we have a turkey. The Enterprise picks up some space hippie who's impregnating half the galaxy. The only thing missing is Troi chanting "Jerry! Jerry!" in the background. 1/10

Loud as a Whisper -- an interesting take on a mediation plot, especially when the mediator has 3 assistants, who end up getting massacred. A good foil for Troi. 7/10

The Schizoid Man -- another Data plot; a brilliant scientists kidnaps Data and puts his soul into Data's circuitry. Confusion ensues, but there are rather a few terrific character moments. 7/10

Unnatural Selection -- let's rip off "The Deadly Years", but make Pulaski the victim. I'm not sure why, but trite as the story clearly is, I still found it very entertaining. We get development for Pulaski's character too. 6/10

A Matter of Honor -- Riker serves on a Klingon ship while a representative from another alien culture comes on the Enterprise and almost starts a war due to ineptitude. This one is immensely well written, especially as the war almost started would have been between the Federation and a neurotic Klingon. The ideas behind the story are well meaning, but to give either Riker or the other alien such high ranks is daft. It's still highly enjoyable, so I'm giving it 7/10.

The Measure of a Man -- Woohoo! Another classic! Reminiscent of "Court Martial" from TOS, albeit only superficially. This story also sets a trend for future season stories such as "The Offspring", "The Quality of Life", et al, but none of those even comes close to matching "Measure". Having Riker put up a terrific offense against his fellow officer, under duress, ups the ante, and performances are universally sublime. Oh, Data is qualified as a life form, and not a toaster. 10/10

The Dauphin -- not entirely memorable, it involves Wesley's hormones and a girl who is rather more than what she appears to be. 3/10

Contagion -- Yes! Another gem of a story that defines Trek at its best. While computer viruses were starting to become commonplace, they weren't so common that this story could not only use a viral concept as a novelty, but as a threat. It's also great to see the Romulans back, a shame we don't get to know more of the civilization that made the probes that infect passing ships, and so on, but this is another season 2 high point. 9/10

The Royale - When half the sets are empty space and black curtains, it's either got no money or has no point. It's about Riker, a hotel in space, an astronaut from another time, and a big dream sequence. I couldn't swallow the storyline because it doesn't feel like Trek material. 2/10

Time Squared - the classics don't stop! While fairly straightforward, this play on time is terrific. A shuttle from Picard's personal future arrives. With only garbled information to go on (great use of technobabble, I must say), Picard has to make some tough decisions without breaking down. This story is a great Troi/Picard double act. 9/10

The Icarus Factor -- another not-so-memorable piece, it's about Riker and his father. 4/10

Pen Pals - a young Nicki Cox stars in a story that wants to mean well, but why Data as the foil for her? He of all people knows the prime directive. And despite Pulaski's hard work at erasing the girl's memory, Data leaves a memento anyway. It's got the emotional quotient, but the plot is so asinine, disbelief cannot be suspended. Even in the early days, Picard having a big stick up his keyster about the prime directive was so important and later stories have Picard pondering if he should have let the civilization die instead (the season 5 anti-classic, "Masterpiece Society").

Q Who? -- Q is back, and dares Picard and his hubris by plunging the Enterprise far into the future. Until now, we've had hints of a massive enemy scooping up outposts from the neutral zone. Here they are. The Borg. (indeed, trek's universe retcons itself with each subsequent Borg story, so when people say Q introduced the Federation to the Borg, they are wrong. The Borg already existed, and Q was pushing Picard along for the sake of humanity's survival.) Q rocks in this episode too, but the highlight is the Borg. 10/10

Samaritan Snare -- Appearingly dumb aliens kidnap Geordi. He has to outdumb the dumber. The aliens are half-annoying in this episode, but everyone keeps a straight face and the result is remarkably watchable. 6/10

Up The Long Ladder -- two planets were once colonized by the same species. One developed technology; the other kept a simple life. I don't recall WHY they separated as such, but this story manages to cram in "The Simple Life" and humor therein with a creepy subplot about cloning. Definitely worthy. 8/10

Manhunt -- Troi's horny mommy is back and Picard ducks for cover. 3/10

The Emissary -- Worf's turn to let us all know he needs to get some jiggy too. His ex comes on board. Some nice drama and sets up a multi-season story arc around his character and the Klingon empire. 7/10

Peak Performance -- war games commence! What starts as a game, in which Wesley cheats, turns deadly by a sneak attack from some unsuspecting adversaries. 8/10

Shades of Gray -- Clip show featuring Riker's more memorable moments (think getting sunk in an oil slick and hitting on about 50 women from the shows first two seasons.) Nix the clips and the basic plot where Geordi and Riker beam down to collect some samples and Riker gets infected is good, but to shoehorn in a clipshow is pretty paltry; especially when the alien planet they beamed to looked pretty good! 2/10

Well, season 2 has some clunkers, but the show feels far more solid, risks to be sci-fi as often as it brings in drama, and is a very competent season. A must-have!

[samsingh]

1. i think 'yesterday's enterprise' was one of the truly good new episodes

[Deja Q]

2. Ah, season 3...

:D

[samsingh]

6. Ryker taking over the Klingon ship

i don't remember the name of the episode

was one of the first good episodes of the next gen. i think this one was season 2.

[Deja Q]

7. 'A Matter of Honor'

It had some good moments, and for sake of drama and being able to relate, it had to be Riker and someone else to do the job on the Bridge. So it is forgivable. :D

[Orsino]

8. "They wish to know how you would...endure."

Riker's comeback is a classic, and the heart of the entire episode.

[samsingh]

9. fantastic episode

the logic on how he took over and had the support of his second in command because the Klingon Captain was acting irrationally.

[From The Ashes]

3. If I remember correctly...

'Shades of Gray' was a clip show because of a writer's strike. Still sucked though.

[Zavulon]

4. I loved Matter of Honor, really loved Q Who? and Contagion, and LOATHED Shades of Gray.

Even one iota of suspense would have made Shades of Gray watchable, but there was none.

I loved your review and really enjoyed reading it, thanks for writing it. My only disagreements:

I think you underrated Matter of Honor by a point, underrated The Royale by two (the comic relief in it gives it at 4 to me) and overrated Shades of Gray by one. The Okona episode sucked, you're right, but there's no way that it was worse than Shades of Gray. At least there was some (not a lot, but SOME) suspense in the Okona episode.

My favorite single moment of the season: seeing Data "bust up" that pompous asshole Stratagema champ in "Peak Performance." I spent 44 minutes hating that prick and loved seeing him go down in the 45th.

[Deja Q]

5. Thx!

(Just wait for my slamming season 1...) :)

I'll rewatch "The Royale". It's been a few years, and as I recall, Tracy Torme wrote it. He did the best episodes of "Sliders", so maybe I was a bit harsh... :)

[edbermac]

10. I liked the Pakleds in Samaritan Snare. Morans of the 24th Century.

We are Pakleds...we look for things...things that make us go. Can you make us go? :rofl:

[Akoto]

11. I feel bad for Pulaski.

So many of the fans seem to have rabidly rejected the character. I always thought that she was interesting and well-acted. :shrug:

[Orrex]

13. And she had history behind her

Having appeared, of course, in two separate and very cool roles in TOS.

[Orrex]

12. A very nice summary, you geek!

I'd like to add a few thoughts, if you don't mind...

Where Silence Has Lease: The death of the anonymous crewman, apparently due to a brain hemorrhage or the like and ending with him curled in the fetal position, is IMO one of the most chilling deaths in the Star Trek franchise, on par with the two transporter deaths in ST:TMP.

Loud as a Whisper: Although the cheesy line-drawings by which Data learned sign language were hokey and dated even when the episode first aired, it still demonstrated an intriguing possibility for Data as "protocol droid." Heck, he could have learned humpback whale, for that matter. But the coolest part of the episode was when Reva's chorus was vaporized, followed by their killer's own disintegration. This was, I believe, the first cascading disintegration of a human to be shown in a Star Trek series, rather than the standard glow-then-vanish of ST:TOS. Season One's Conspiracy featured something similar but on a smaller scale.

The Schizoid Man: Also great because it established the long-running Tin Man metaphor for Data, in particular the notion that "he was human all along." Also, Data's greatly superior hearing is shown for the first (and, I believe, the last) time.

Unnatural Selection: I don't see it as a rip-off, because the cause of, the impact of, and the cure for the rapid aging are all considerably different from those shown in The Deadly Years. A nice touch was when the bio-filter registered "no living organisms" as Data materialized back on Enterprise. However, Pulaski's restoration opened an ugly can of worms re: transporter-resurrections that Star Trek has never really dealt with since then.

The Measure of a Man: Excellent. One of the very few instances of a s/f courtroom drama playing out effectively. Excellent as a showcase for Data's abilities, and also featuring the most believable IMO of Picard's love interests.

The Royale: This or Shades of Gray or Okana is IMO the worst of the series, even worse than Skin of Evil, and I swear that they ran The Royale in syndication more than any other episode, god damn it! Utterly fails from start to finish, except on one point: We see that Data can read a book by thumbing through it. A neat trick.

Time Squared: One of the most interesting explorations of time travel in the entire Star Trek franchise. On a real-world technical note, this episode also demonstrated real advances in compositing by which Picard interacts with his doppelganger without a clear boundary separating one shot from the other (compare Marty interacting with Seumas McFly in Back to The Future III, and you'll see what I mean). In one scene, Picard and his double walk down a hall toward the camera, then veer off to their left; both Picards cross the same physical point without a visible edit or jump-cut. Very cool, and a pioneering example of a technique that has become almost as ubiquitous as Agent Smith.

Up The Long Ladder: I dislike this episode because it's one of too many attempts to shoehorn a folksy pop-Irish culture where it doesn't really fit. Further, Riker's quickness to leap into bed with that bonny lass seems forced and contrived. Also, anyone who gives the problem of replicative fading even a moment's thought will realize that you can solve it completely by either cryo-storing your early DNA samples or else establishing a database of them, by which future degraded DNA lines can be checked. If that society is sufficiently savvy to whip up a cloning operation like they did, they would clearly have the know-how to archive the original strains. One greatly interesting point is that Riker commits multiple abortions on-screen, with little mention of it beyond the outrage of the clone-leader.


Thanks for inspiring me to take my own trip down geeky memory lane!