Onward...
- More holodeck hijinks in "Ship in a Bottle". Moriarty is back--he leaves holo-London and walks on the ship. Barclay let him out--has anyone in the 24th century ever heard of passwords? The whole episode becomes a matrushka doll of holodecks within holodecks.
- We get a weird film noir / creepy alien hybrid in "Aquiel". There's been a murder on a remote station, and Geordi gets romantically involved with the main suspect (Renee Jones). The actual murderer is a blobby alien that takes the form is whatever it touches. Geordi--will you ever learn?
- Troi is in a tough spot in "Face of the Enemy"--she's been kidnapped, altered to look Romulan, and is acting as an intelligence officer on a Romulan ship. She doesn't know whom to trust. Then the Enterprise gets involved. We learn a bit more about Romulan society in the episode, but it seems to end very abruptly.
- Picard plays Quantum Leap in "Tapestry". He get a chance (via Q) to relive the event that gave him an artificial heart. The critical event surrounds a 24th century bumper pool game--I love how the designers come up with concepts like this. Picard keeps his heart, but is now a lieutenant--he ended up playing it too safe. Q lets him do a reset.
- We complete the Klingon saga with the two-part "Birthright". As always, Klingon stories are very complicated, so I won't go into detail. Basically, Worf learns that his father may be alive on a prison planet and goes there to find out. Blah-blah-blah, honor, duty, family, repeat. The more interesting story involves the first crossover with DS9 (apart from the other show's pilot). Data, Geordi, and Dr. Bashir run an experiment that accidentally causes Data to "dream", so he goes in search of its meaning. It gets really trippy--Spiner get a chance to do some real ACTING. We also get some pretty shots of the Enterprise inside and out during his "dreams'.
- Picard has quite the adventure during otherwise routine maintenance of the ship in "Starship Mine". The Enterprise is evacuated during a radiation sweep, but there's terrorists, and he's on his own. It's very much like a standard action movie--Die Hard with Earl Grey Hot! There's also a great B-story with Data outdoing an annoying official at a reception--Spiner really milks the part.
Star Trek: The Next Generation is available on Netflix--more to come!