And you're skipping over her recurring role on STNG, why? Got something against Bajoran females who have a problem with authority figures?

I have no idea what you are talking about, so I obviously forgot something.

He'll get to that in a few episodes, don't worry.

Forbes was in 8 episodes as Ensign Ro Laren starting Season 5. The producers wanted the character to be a regular for the rest of the show's run, but she turned down the offer.

Not to mention her roles in other shows, like The Killing, True Blood and Berlin Station, to name a few.

I remembered her as Sydney Bristow's mother in Alias, but looked it up, and found I'd got that wrong.

Yeah that was Lena Olin.

There have been a couple of courtroom drama episodes, and this is by far my favorite. The tension ratchets up nicely, eventually broiling into full-blown accusations of treason leading to a Cpt. Queeg-style meltdown at the end. This episode was loosely based on the story It Can't Happen Here, and was written to be a budget-saver that relied only on pre-existing sets.



We're almost at episode 5 and I think this is the first time the show has ever really thought about the implications of extra-sensory empathy, which is sort of a testament to how underwritten Troi was. Here it's used in an Orwellian fashion to pry into the private lives of crew members. Picard refuses to rely on empathic evidence at the hearing, but admits that he would make use of that kind of information in an emergency situation.

Also, I think this may be the first time anyone's caught any blowback for violating the Prime Directive, which both Kirk and Picard seem to routinely blow off without any consequence.

My favorite courtroom drama was over whether Data had rights, very compelling w a classic Guinan sidebard.

I too was also really impressed with the performance by guest actor David Ogden Stiers, who gives us a character that is restrained and dignified, and yet also very tender and sweet. It's a classic Roddenberry sort of episode that looks at how we might get along with aliens that have different cultural values and philosophies. Timicin's people ritually sacrifice the elderly to keep them from becoming a burden; an idea that is abhorrent to us, but does have a certain logic to it.

After the tension and drama of the last two episodes, I enjoyed seeing a more mellow, cerebral episode. I also liked seeing the normally comical Lwaxana character get a chance get a chance to play a more serious part.

Solid A. I think a lot of fans will find it too corny, but I liked it.

ST TNG S4E23: The Host

This one tackles some big issues about the possibility of symbiont life-forms and how they interact with single-being life forms, through the lens of Dr Crusher falling for an ambassador who is actually a giant blue-ish slug inside some guy. It's better than in sounds, in that they address it respectfully, and we see Crusher get more confused about her feelings towards the slug-thing once Riker takes over. It's fun and weird to see Riker and Crusher having a near love scene. However, they skirt the issue a little in the end by making it even weirder, the slug gets put into a female form - a step too far for Doctor Beverley.

Nice to see Crusher get a bit of happiness, even fleeting, but the quite big issues raised in this are handled in an okay-ish way, not a great way.

Middle tier

5/10

My annoyance with this episode stems from the fact that in the STNG world, Starfleet seems in the dark about the nature of the Trill, yet in DS9, Sisko has been aware of that nature since well before this.

Just my rant about how there's no collective memory in the writing of the show.

It's one of those things they decided to change after its introduction, annoying but it happens. In DS9 it's a true symbiotic relationship, as opposed to the symbiote controlling the host. And all symbiotes reside in Trill hosts, not random species. And of course they changed the physical look of a Trill host, but that was due to the DS9 showrunners wanting to change Terry Farrell's face as little as possible.

True. Also in this ep, they make it seem like all trills are joined and the humanoid one is not fully sentient until joined, whereas in DS9, only a small subset of humanoid Trill qualify to be joined (hence the train wreck that was Ezri Dax).

So when do we rate DS9, and the Star Trek movies? Loved First Contact.

Didn't someone watch all the Trek movies and rate them a few pages back? Might be worth a quick search.

Found it. Page #67. Cliffs, everyone likes the "Blow up the damn ship!" scene, and agrees KAAAHN is the GOAT or a runner up to First Contact.

USS Enterprise with the 51st Star Trek Day tribute:

ST TNG S4E24: The Mind's Eye

A Romulan subterfuge episode - a kind of Star Trek Manchurian Candidate - where they try and drive a wedge between the Klingon Empire and the Federation by brainwashing Geordie using something like the rig Alex had to put up with in Clockwork Orange. Suffers quite a bit from the 'technowizards did it' and 'technowizards solved it' syndrome, but is genuinely tense and exciting at the end.

We also hear Denise Crosby (but don't see her) as Commander Sela.

6/10

Nice reference to "Clorkwork Orange" and comparison about torture device.

I thought this was a solid episode, at least 7/10. It borrows heavily from The Manchurian Candidate and Clockwork Orange, but the execution is well done, plus Geordi tends to be an under-utilized character, so it's good to see him with a leading role.

ST TNG S4E25: In Theory

A weak episode, centering around a woman who falls for Data, and Data's attempt to understand and engage romantically. It's also Patrick Stewart's first attempt at directing an episode.

There's a goofy sideplot about dark matter distorting spacetime or something like that which gives Picard something to do, which isn't very engaging at all. I did like the whole Data observing human interactions and working out how to be romantic, but it was a slow ponderous effort. Data treating it as an interesting experiment really meant any emotional involvement we had as a viewer was with the actress, and the writing and her performance didn't really engage in that way.

I did like the writing in the final scenes though, where the woman, Jenna D'Sora, realises though he is trying, he can never be emotionally engaged truly, and lack of emotion from the man was the thing that lead to her last relationship falling apart.

I also like the Spot the Cat stuff.

3/10

I assume everyone saw this, but in case not, it's pretty cool. Some guy made a movie style poster for every TNG episode.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/relive-star-t...for-1801868199

ST TNG S4E26 Redemption Part 1

Very entertaining episode, picking up previous episode strands dealing with Worf and the Klingon home world, and running with it. We get Klingon intrigue, and Worf desperate to regain honour for his family, ending with him deciding on a different path to what we'd expect from him (I'm trying not to be too spoilery). We also see Denise Crosby's Commander Sela right at the end.

It's not a great a season end as the one where Picard becomes a Borg ('best of both worlds'), it was still pretty damn good, and a great piece of writing and scene-setting on a large political canvas.


Favourite line: Picard talking to the Klingon sisters of Duras, and congratulates them on manipulating the circumstances with the 'skill of a Romulan'.

8/10

2 Diebitter reviews in one day! Keep 'em coming, do so enjoy them when they do land.