Tag: TNG Season Five
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Ethics”
“You take shortcuts. Right through living tissue.” After a fairly amazing year in Season Four (“Remember Me” and “The Host” being the highlights), Dr. Crusher gets the hell shafted out of her in Season Five. She’s basically been a day player in every single episode up to now, with the partial exception of “Disaster.” Now,…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Power Play”
“Lunchtime, Miles!” Once a year or so, Star Trek: The Next Generation gets it into its head to do a ghost story of one kind or another, of which “Power Play” qualifies – though thankfully, it moves away from any attempt to frighten us, settling instead for a hostage negotiation drama. O’Brien, Troi and Data…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Conundrum”
I’m glad for rare opportunities like these: the episodes I don’t really remember. It took me a while to suss out that “Conundrum” was the one where Riker sleeps with Ensign Ro, and then backtrack that to its status as Star Trek: The Next Generation’s amnesia story – so maybe I could remember it, but…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “The Masterpiece Society”
“What about the rights of the ones who will stay behind?” In which we once again spin the age-old science fiction trope of the eugenics society. The Enterprise comes upon a colony under threat by a passing stellar fragment – the crises-of-the-week in Season Five seem to lean on planetary annihilation more often than not…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Hero Worship”
“I would gladly risk feeling bad at times if it also meant I could taste my desert.” And speaking of episodes built around kids (“Disaster” and “New Ground” down, “Imaginary Friend” to come), the unofficial running theme of Season Five continues with “Hero Worship,” where Data gets his own pubescent sidekick. This time, it’s a…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Violations”
“It’s Obachan! My grandmother! We arrive at the notorious “mind rape” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Credit where it’s due, at least Next Gen was willing to do an episode about rape, which (in 1991) was still relatively rare – although, in a post-The Accused Hollywood, various television dramas were becoming more willing…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “New Ground”
“You don’t care about me! All you care about is your honour!” In 1980s and 1990s television, there was perhaps no greater death knell for a show’s creativity than the introduction in the later seasons of a new child or dog. Yes, Worf’s son Alexander (who qualifies as a child, not a dog, but it’s…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “A Matter of Time”
“LaForge remained below…!” I’m writing this on November 25th, two days after the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, so it’s perhaps inevitable that the Doctor Who parallels that passed by completely unnoticed when I saw “A Matter of Perspective” back in ’91 now ring clear as a cloister bell. Not that “Perspective” is much of…
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Blogging The Next Generation: “Unification II”
“It was I who committed Captain Kirk to that peace mission, and I who had to bear the responsibility for the consequences to him and to his crew.”
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Unification I”
“Indeed, you have found him, Captain Picard!” Ah, this whole thing. Yes, it was a really big deal that someone as central to the original Star Trek franchise as Leonard Nimoy / Spock was finally going to bridge the gap from TOS to TNG; and yes, as an (ultimately, entirely trivial) teaser for Star Trek…