My Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation
SEASON FOUR

Reviewed by Matt Brown
September 3rd, 2002

The summer of 1990 was the longest of my life. From June 25th to September 29th, I waited dilligently to learn the answer to the big question: how the hell was Picard going to get out of this?

The producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation faced an unenviable task when the time came to begin work on the series' fourth season: they had to conclude one of television's most memorable cliffhangers, the Borgization of Captain Picard in "The Best of Both Worlds." They would also face the challenge of following up on what had been the defining season for a series that had been, until that point, still considered experimental at best.

Not surprisingly, given the success of Season Three, the staff was more than up to the task, and Season Four begins with a roll-out of some of the entire saga's best episodes. The year, taken on the whole, is probably my favourite - this is Star Trek storytelling at its slickest and most controlled. Some episodes in later years would reach higher artistic peaks, but for great science fiction drama and aventure, Season Four is where it's at.

Even Michael Piller, who penned the first part of "Best of Both Worlds," had no idea how the storyline could be resolved; he was intending to leave the series at the end of Season Three, and figured it would be someone else's problem.

No problem: "Best II" is a magnificent piece of sequelizing. It picks up so perfectly where its predecessor left off that, aside from the couple of extra inches on Beverly's hair, I am still hard-pressed to recall from memory which moments occur in which half of the overall story. The Wolf 359 starship graveyard is a truly chilling sight, and the consequences of that great battle would be mined to great effect in later episodes of TNG, before providing Captain Sisko's showstopping raison d'être in the pilot episode of Deep Space Nine.

Amazingly, however, "Best II" is topped only one week later, with "Family," which serves as a kind of unofficial third part for the storyline. A three-pronged discovery of the family lives of Picard, Worf, and Wesley, this action-free character piece is far and away one of my favourite episodes of the whole Trek canon, and a truly audacious direction for the series to go. Filling in Picard's backstory by introducing his vintner brother humanizes the good captain in ways never imagined in the first three seasons of the show. Picard's "benevolent ambassador" days are over from here on out, as the writing staff continues their ongoing effort to bring Picard back to what he was originally intended to be: the ultimate Renaissance Man.

"Family" also serves as a kind of spiritual halfway point for the show. With the fourth season launching, TNG had officially exceeded the run of the Original Series. Everything up until this point had, in a way, been a process of proving that The Next Generation could work. Everything from hereafter would be showing what the series could do with itself.

The "family" theme is carried over in the following episode, when Data meets up with Lore and their creator, Dr. Noonien Soong. "Brothers" is Rob Bowman's only post-second-season TNG episode, and it's a masterpiece of both style and character. Brent Spiner's three-pronged performance as the entire trio of lead characters is nothing short of astonishing - he crafts three completely different beings, and they interact seemlessly. We forget we are watching the same actor, dancing around the edges of split-screens.

We have no sooner finished that episode, however, that we are granted another all-time classic, "Remember Me," which puts Dr. Crusher front and center in an ingenious little puzzle box of a plot. And then there's "Legacy," where we meet Tasha's sister, and "Reunion," where Duras butchers K'Eyhleyr.

So all in all, good start to the season!

Things tame out from there, and some of the middle episodes begin to lose their lustre. "Devil's Due," another holdover from the script development phase of Star Trek: Phase II, is pretty silly, "Clues," one of many attempts at an amnesia episode on Trek, doesn't work too well, and Geordi's "Identity Crisis" is just weird and ill-conceived. And let's not forget "Night Terrors," with its endless shots of Troi floating around in a green abyss, screaming about hydrogen. Scary indeed.

Still, some solid work filters through mid-season. "The Wounded" is a particular standout, not only because it introduces the Cardassians (including a laughable line where we learn that the Federation has been at war with them for 85 years... who knew?), but because it gives the centre of the story to an increasingly-popular recurring character: Chief O'Brien. Colm Meaney's extraordinary performance as a sorrowful latter-day bigot gives all the justification you'd need to want to include him on Deep Space Nine two years later.

The introduction of the Cardassians, too, is one of the major cornerstones of Deep Space Nine - particularly with the delectable Marc Alaimo in the lead role. Boasting strong makeup design and an even stronger "species nature," it's rare and unique to watch the birth of what would become such a Trek mainstay.

At Wil Wheaton's behest, Wesley Crusher is written out of the series in "Final Mission." This was a great loss to me. I don't think it was narratively necessary, as Wesley had successfully skipped the Academy altogether, and his absence opened a hole in the bridge crew that was never entirely filled. (The producers would try admirably, but ultimately fail, the following season, with Ensign Ro.)

Season Four is noted among fans for being the "sequel season," because more than a quarter of the episodes from the year centre around the return of popular guest-stars: Lore, K'Ehleyr, Duras, Kurn, the Traveller, Leah Brahms, Lwaxana Troi, Q, Vash, and Barclay all have follow-up episodes this year... not to mention the series' truly inspired attempt to out-cliffhanger "The Best of Both Worlds," by having the final episode of the season conclude with a fantastic reveal of the one blonde babe you would least expect to see wearing Romulan ears.

More memorable work this year includes "Future Imperfect," an elaborate fantasy where Riker is convinced that he is the captain of the Enterprise, twenty years hence; "First Contact" (the episode, not the movie), which casts the crew in the "invaders from space" role as first contact is seen from the point of view of the aliens; "The Drumhead," a neat courtroom drama where a Starfleet witch-hunt gets out of hand; and "The Host," an effective love story for Dr. Crusher which was filmed, amazingly, while Gates McFadden was seven months pregnant.

TNG's storytelling style was in fine form this year, and the result is a strong year, with story after story mining the depths of what the Star Trek narrative structure is capable of delivering.

The season ends strongly with "Redemption," the third major cornerstone in the ongoing Klingon mytharc, plotted by Ronald D. Moore. The promise of continuing the storyline excited and energized the character of Worf, and the issues that are spawned here - the election of Gowron, the revenge of Duras' family - would inform the rest of TNG, and Generations, and the final four seasons of Deep Space Nine.

Highlighted by a strong production design and a good feel for the mythology, "Redemption" is a great conclusion to a great season.

"My Generation" was my ongoing review of all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The complete series is now available on DVD. You can access each season's review on the left.