Yes, the mirror episodes were kind'a cool. It seemed like the writers let loose knowing it was the final season.

Mirror episode of Enterprise was great but that wasn't the second to last episode. Forget what it was exactly, something something birth of federation, blah blah meow chow. Just remember it was much better than the finale, which was terrible. FU fat Riker.

Couldn't disagree more about bringing back Riker and Troi for finale.

you mean bringing back Fat Riker and Old Troi

I'm not as shallow as you are apparently. I appreciated the depth of the plot, and how it was executed.

ST TNG S4E15: First Contact

A very good episode, with nuanced writing and drama, delivering a first contact scenario that feels real, if a little cerebral/clinical. I also really dug the insertion of what I felt was a dig at Kirk's antics, where the alien lady played by Bebe Neuwirth (Lilith from Cheers and Frasier) insist Riker make love to her before she helps him to escape...

This one really felt like they'd polished and polished this one, and came up with a very fine script indeed.

8/10

I like how right from the get-go Riker has somehow managed to blow his cover and get knocked unconscious.

This episode had a very different feel from almost any other ST episode --it tells the story of a first contact largely from the alien perspective rather than from the perspective of the ST crew. Overall, I was disappointed, though. Too many meetings and no real tension to it. Basically this was a chill-out, ST for ST fans sort of episode.

I know this is a little OT, but Andromeda was pretty sweet.

ST TNG S4E16: Galaxy's Child

A two story episode - the first is the Enterprise accidentally killing a large creature that exists in space only to find it's pregnant, and having to assist the newborn. That was a bit hippy-dippy and the CGI was ropey. It kind of revelled in the less interesting aspects of Next Gen and its hippy treehugging blah-dom.

The second strand was Geordie having to deal with the real-life version of a person he'd recreated in the holodeck - Dr. Leah Brahms (season 3, episode 6: Booby Trap). She's colder and less personable than he'd expected, and he tries to win her around, and indeed woo her, until he realises she's married.

Yeah, Geordie does come across at points like a creepy stalker - the point when she finds the holodeck recreation in particular, and it's not handled that well in the writing - but I really enjoyed LeVar Burton in this episode. He's rather excellent dealing with decent to middling writing and selling it well, and the actress playing against him is fine in the role, and sells herself as a different character from before.

It's nice to see LaForge have some game for once

The Enterprise doesn't need two sex pests aboard - Rapey Riker is enough for any large ship - and LaForge gets out of this one nicely


7/10

The subplot was more interesting than the plot, though they do twine together at the end. It had the LETS WORK TOGETHER AS A TEAM moment with the touching intergalactic baby.

The subplot is where Geordi is entirely hopeless at women. Which, you know, makes us all feel a little better about ourselves.

I'd give it a 5.5/10, because holo-porn is Barclay's forte.

Poor Geordi. I think the only play he got over 7 years was with that woman being investigated for murder, the one with the dog that ended up being a shape-shifting parasite or something. It was a bad episode in S6 or S7.

There was also the time he thought he got laid on Risa but actually got kidnapped by Romulans en route to Risa, brainwashed, programmed to murder a la The Manchurian Candidate, and had memories of getting laid implanted in his brain as part of the cover story.

Yup, that's a great episode that's coming up soon for diebitter.

I like the Barclay episode where he gets to walk Troy through the arboretum. That was pretty epic.

oh hahaha, I forgot about creepy Barclay!

The Enterprise is kind of a freaky place deep down, innit.

If holodecks were real, we'd all be getting our freak on.

What's incredible to me about this episode is how it seems to anticipate the idea of cyberstalking. Geordi checks out this girl's online profile so he can creep out on her IRL, but gets caught when she sees his search history. Should have deleted his browser cache! It's a story you could tell in a modern sitcom.

Geordi is always such a one-dimensional boyscout, it's hilarious to see him get caught up in an embarrassing web of deception. Thought both lead actors did a solid performance, and maybe even had a little chemistry together. Then of course, there's the sideplot in which the Enterprise adopts a baby space ravioli. It's the most adorable space monster yet! I'm not sure if this is objectively one of the better TNG episodes, but it hit me right in the sweet spot. A-.

Nice analogy with cyberstalking

I agree, this wasn't a strong episode, but both lead actors sold the story well and this is definitely one of Burton's better performances.

Next episode?

Always look forward to Cranberry's take.

A couple of interesting developments on Discovery of late.

First: Jonathan Frakes has been signed up on directorial duty.

Second: Roddenberry's rule of no inter personal conflict has been scraped. Hoping this doesn't make way for a weekly cat fight, periodic hissy fit's or gratuitous punch up every so often.

While we're waiting for diebitter, you can get your sci-fi fix and some of my hot takes over in The Prisoner thread!

That ship sort of set sail already back in DS9.

ST TNG S4E17: Night Terrors

This one stank on ice. It could have been great - lack of REM slowly driving the crew insane - had the same potential drama as The Naked Now, but this was fluffed at almost every step. Troi floating around unconvincingly in bad-effects clouds doesn't help, and the cast come off as lethargic, tetchy and frankly underperforming rather than fighting sleep deprivation and madness. And the resolution seemed very, very contrived and goofy.

2/10

Oh that episode. Aren't you glad you ended your 1 month hiatus for... that?

I thought they basically have been ignoring the "no fighting" rule for a while now.

I've been keeping up with the Discovery news and have no idea if it will be any good or not. It will be such a huge disappointment if it sucks though. This is basically the golden age of TV and CBS would let one of the classic TV series of all time wither and die.

The insane "no conflict among the crew" rule was only a thing for the first two seasons of TNG. Obviously it wasn't in effect in TOS, it was just something Roddenberry made up in his old age.