Star Trek Continues Episode 10+11: To Boldly Go I+II
Superb top-tier Trek, and an excellent coda to the original series (a million times better than Turnabout Intruder at least), that links the start of the original series in a great way, and shows how the voyages have had an impact on the three main leads, Kirk, Spock and McCoy. I am very pleased I watched this series, but this is the jewel in the crown.

I can't recommend this enough to any trekkie.

Judge for yourself:

I thought the "passing the torch" from TNG to DS9 would be on TNG but I guess it happened on the DS9 pilot. Just saw "Birthright" where the Enterprise makes a stop on DS9 and Bashir shows up but that's it. I remember as a kid when DS9 was on that it was dark, talky and they didn't go on any space adventures. But I really like those episodes of TNG so I'll probably check it out at some point. Though after watching TNG I'm going to Picard and then maybe Discovery next so it's pretty far on the back burner at this point. Other than that season 6 of TNG continues where season 5 was in terms of quality.

Yep, on to TNG season 6 for me now

So far I would rank the seasons 5, 3, 6, 4, 2, 1.

It sucks that Ensign Ro is basically done after season 5. She features in one episode in season 6, but Michelle Forbes' role is essentially a cameo. Then they finish her story arc with an episode in season 7. After Q, she was my favorite recurring character and more interesting than about half of the main cast.

I believe they offered her a regular role, but she turned them down.

I thought it was DS9 that she turned down.

You're both right, it was a regular role on DS9 (it was supposed to be Ro not Kira).

Ro feels like Tasha Yar done right. I honestly think Yar would've ended up being an okay character if Denise Crosby stuck around. Troi was the worst character by far in season 1 and she ended up getting a lot better. They don't even bother to do her perfunctory "Captain, I'm sensing deceit" type of lines like she could've done in Chain of Command when she was negotiating with the Cardassians. Thought it did end up being useful when she got turned into a Romulan in "Face of the Enemy."

Getting rid of Yar allowed Worf to get into a more senior position and develop as a character. It was the right move.

I finished season 6. I'm actually a bit sad now that I'm almost at the end of the journey, especially when season 7 is supposed to be a step down in quality from the last few seasons. I've always been a Star Trek fan but mostly was only familiar with the movies and some of TOS. Now I can safely say that TNG is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. I'm almost afraid of doing a TOS watch-through because I'm sure I will be disappointed by it.

But I'm looking forward to finally getting to Picard. I've heard complaints about how it doesn't feel like the old Star Trek and I guess I will be able to see directly, coming right from TNG.

I don't think you will be disappointed with TOS at all.

Season 7 still has some very good episodes.

Top Tier:
Lower Decks
Thine Own Self
All Good Things

Very good:
The Pegasus
Parellels
Preemptive Strike

good:
Gambit
Force of Nature
Attached
Homeward
Firstborn

meh:
Interface
Phantasms
Inheritance
Journey's End

lol/OK we're out of ideas:
Dark Page
Masks
Eye of the Beholder
Genesis
Bloodlines
Emergence

Omg Dr. Crusher ****s a ghost:
Sub Rosa

I miss Ron Jones' music. It really gave the show a dynamic, cinematic feel, rather than the bland and soap opera-y feeling of the scoring of later episodes.

It's been a while since there has been a great, memorable TNG episode but Lower Decks did it. Sub Rosa was campy and silly but fun. Pegasus was good but I seem to be in the minority that doesn't think it's a great episode. I was expecting more out of an episode that they went out of their way to create a midquel to for the finale of Enterprise.

Lower Decks belongs in a category of it's own in S7 - it's such an original take on the format and has been copied many times since.

Patrick Stewart has never been better in TNG than his monologue at the end. Probably the most emotional ST moment since Kirk and Spock in TWoK.

It had an original format, they introduced 4 great characters (and fleshed out Ogawa) in a single 45 minute episode, great story and acting and a touching ending. Definitely top 10 episode, maybe even top 5.

I haven't seen Lower Decks but several TNG characters have made appearances, and apparently they're planning on bringing back every TNG character in Picard season 2 that didn't appear in season 1.

So why not just take this idea to its logical conclusion and do an episode or even a short season of "TNG: The Animated Series?" Flash animation is cheap to produce and they could even use the animated style of Lower Decks to save more money. From the episode I saw, it captures the look and feel of TNG pretty well already.

ST TNG S6E01: Times Arrow Part 2
Boy they flubbed this. What started off an an intriguing mystery across time and space addressing mortality and temporality boils down into the whole crew in costume hanging around with Mark Twain and beating life-force-sucking aliens with a magic wand.

At least Patrick Stewart does a bit of Shakespeare.

Very, very disappointing

3/10

Agreed 100% that they dropped the ball with part 2 on this. Part 1 had a cool story about time travelling snake aliens. Data and the others have to deal with his mortality and the scenes of Data integrating himself in 19th century San Francisco were a lot of fun.

Part 2 followed up on almost none of this. They simply screw Data's head back on and so all the stuff about dealing with mortality is rendered moot. When the episode opens up, the rest of the crew are already settled in in the past, so the fun "fish out of water" stuff is skipped. We never learn anything about the aliens, they just use some technobabble to defeat them and that's that.

A lot of it is due to the fact that the apparent policy of the writers of TNG 2 parters is that they would write part 1 without any consideration of part 2 and so just like how JJ Abrams' "mystery box" style of storytelling often results in huge disappointments, so does this style of writing.

All good things have come to an end. I finished my watchthrough of TNG. Great finale of an otherwise mediocre season. I guess they were running out of ideas and got stretched thin between working on: TNG season 7, DS9 season 2, Star Trek Generations, and pre-production on Voyager all at the same time.

Probably gonna take a break from Star Trek for a bit but will watch Nemesis and then Picard.

ST TNG S6E02: Realm of Fear
A Barclay adventure with the usual stumbling nerdy Barclay being forced to confront some fear or other - this time fear of the transporter. Not great, it's all about him thinking he's going insane for the first 80% then a quick and summary explanation and resolution.

4/10

ST TNG S6E03: Man of the People
Interesting one which is apparently considered in the bottom 10 of all TNG episodes, but I thought it was just fine. The idea of a being transferring his negative emotions to another being so he can be a good and useful citizen, whilst leaving the other in a bad state is really an allegory of abuse or bullying, but it works well, and Sirtis actually delivers a character going through wild mood changes and appearances. Picard has too short a scene where he holds the bad guy (who thinks he's the good guy) to account, and the resolution is truncated and very convenient to wind up the story, but overall decent episode, definitely not in the bottom 10 imo.


6/10

ST TNG S6E04: Relics

So Scotty turns up, and it's good to see James Doohan, still very solid and some interesting dynamics going on - how everyone hasn't got time for his stories, how he visits the holodeck to go back to the old enterprise bridge, and a lot of drinking. There's even an easter egg about the episode 'By Any Other Name' where he got an alien drunk. 'What is it?' 'It's.....green'.

There was also some meta stuff where Scotty explains you never tell anyone the real time it takes to do something, you always pad it, lol. Scotty is a contractor at heart.

There's also stuff about a Dyson sphere and Scotty and Geordie come to the rescue with engineering skillz.

Okay episode

6/10

First rule of sales & customer service: Under promise, over deliver.

ST TNG S6E05: Schisms

I has bored at first, as it seemed to be drummed-up drama about insomnia, though the whole bit about Data's poetry reading was fun - especially his poem about Spot the Cat, but it definitely improved as it became a mystery, then a bizarre Star Trek on alien abduction, and got effective and creepy. Pretty solid


7/10




Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defences.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilised to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behaviour you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.