Data rocked it for sure.

ST TNG S3E10 The Defector

Very solid episode that explores the balance between loyalty and doing what you think is right, told via the story of a Romulan defector who is trying to stop a galactic war between Romulus and the Federation, but being a traitor in order to do this. Well written, acted and executred, it just lacks a few standout scenes to stop it being a classic - it's nonetheless exciting and effective.

8/10

I watched several episodes of Season 5:
Darmok was awesome. Great premise and execution.
Ensign Ro was good but not great. It was fun to learn more about Bajora. It's getting me excited about DS9.
I didn't like the Spock episodes (Unification-Reunification) too much. It seems that the rating of the episodes is inflated by his presence.
Cause and Effect was awesome. Possibly my favorite in the series.
I Borg was outstanding.
I skipped Inner Light since I saw it last month.
Time's Arrow Part 1 was not great. It reminded me a lot of the famous TOS episode where Kirk and Spock go back in time (City on the Edge of Forever).

Time's Arrow Part 2 I only watched one half of it. Haven't been motivated to finish it.

I think this is one of the best eps we've seen in some time. Stewart and Spiner have a great sort of chemistry together; it seems that Picard can open up to Data in ways that he can't with the humans on the ship. The Romulan defector also has a few stand-out scenes.

The plot has a couple of fun twists and turns, including an ending where Picard goes full Henry V on some Romulans like a boss. A+

Yeah, I liked the opening scene of Data as Henry, and that face off. Picard is so confident and doesn't even care what will happen - he surely can't be French...

I've always liked this episode.

"Klingon warships, armed and ready." and the look on Tomaluk's face.

ST TNG S3E11 The Hunted

Decent episode covering an interesting conundrum, what 'civilised' societies do when they create soldiers to fight their wars, and how they handle those same soldiers when they return to that society. We get an appearance form James Cromwell in this as senior minister of the planet (him that was rather good as Zefram Cochrane in the movie 'First Contact'). If it has a flaw is that it all works out a little pat, but there's some interesting scenes between the altered soldier and Data. If the soldier had been played by a better actor and been given better lines this could have been a classic, but as it is, it's pretty good.

7/10

This episode had a fun cat-and-mouse suspense vibe to it that I don't think I've seen in a ST episode before, except perhaps that one in TOS where the crew has to chase down a shapeshifter hiding in the ship. It's also good fun to watch the altered soldier dude manages to outwit the crew, but unfortunately his character isn't interesting enough to be memorable. There's also a fun and totally unexpected ending where Picard sarcastically invokes the Prime Directive as an excuse to avoid dealing with everyone's bull****.

I also loved the fact that there's an alien planet where everyone dresses like Carl Sagan.

Interesting personal fact about this episode - I had seen every other episode several times in daily re-runs, but somehow never encountered this one. The time I did, I actually thought it was some deleted episode or some ****, I was not accepting it as a normally aired episode, because I was so sure I had seen them all. I was actually angry, I was like wtf is this episode????? Color me surprised. It was the last TNG episode I saw for the first time. I saw S4-S7 first run and this was maybe 2002 (sorta making up the year but in that ballpark) when I finally caught this episode.

Watched Relics, the one with Scotty in TNG. It was a fun episode. I thought it was better than the Spock episode. The Dyson sphere concept was cool too.

ST TNG S3E12 The High Ground

Whilst it tackles weighty issues indeed (terrorism to those in charge is freedom fighting for those on the other side), the script is leaden and its final resolution is way too pat to work for the relatively complex scenario. There's the odd good character moment, but Picard seems way more fascist and close minded than we're used to.

Interestingly, the script references instances were terrorism ultimately works, and cites the unification of Ireland. For this reason, this episode wasn't aired in either the UK or Ireland until 2006.

5/10

That is interesting, didn't know that.

I think Picard is super cheesed off here because people tried to blow up his ship and also he's jealous of the dude with 90's hair moving in on Dr. Crusher. This isn't a great episode, but it does feature the underutilized Beverly Crusher, and there's one or two scenes with her and Picard that work. The writers have hinted at a Picard/Crusher romantic angle since episode 1, but it's never really been more than just a suggestion at this point.


Misc: They also reference the fact that the ship can separate during emergencies. That's another idea that never really got much use by the writers.

It became increasingly clear that the saucer separation gimmick was simply a propaganda device to make the horror of small children aboard a heavily armed warship more palatable to the casual observer. But time after time the Enterprise went into harms way packed full of young children. And the only time we saw the saucer section separate was for a tactical advantage in battle! It was used as a decoy! I mean the even the Klingons didn't indoctrinate their children aboard warships from birth.

They separated it twice in season 1, both times to keep the families out of harms way. The only other time they do it is in BOBW which is what you're referencing.

and of course ST:Generations. But yeah, it was a pretty meh gimmick that on the occasions it was used just drained any dramatic tension from the moment.

Plus, the Enterprise-D was ugly enough in one piece....

double post

Great post. Agree on all counts.

Watched True Q. It was better than I expected (it has a 7.5 rating on IMDB). I liked it. However, it seems weird to want to stay human when given the powers of the Q, but I guess a story needs a dilemma.

ST TNG S3E13 Deja Q

There's always two aliens that I never fail to enjoy on Star Trek The Next Generation - one is the Borg, and the other is Q. This is the one where he's stripped of his powers by the rest of the Q, and is forced to suffer human feelings and conditions - like getting tired and sleeping, and eating. Data talks him through his troubles, but he eventually does help somewhat (he was an IQ of over 2000...so he says), and eventually his Q-dom is returned.

A fun episode, with De Lancie as Q in good form.

8/10

I love the scene between him and Guinan.

Worf Email
Worf Email – ‏@WorfEmail

Guinan,

I have been meaning to ask you, how do your claws repel Q? And can you teach others to do that?

Worf

Agreed. One thing that I always wanted to see was something about Guinan's species and why she freaked out Q so much.

RAWR!

When people tell me they don't know anything about Star Trek, but also think it's lame, I tell them about this episode-- it's just got a great dilemma and an easily understandable story. Do you believe the enemy or not?