Let's go...
- In "Lessons", Picard falls in love with the ship's new stellar cartographer (Wendy Hughes). Most of the episode is "slice of life" until he's forced to put her in danger as part of an away mission. It's strange that we never heard of stellar cartography or who worked there until this episode--and I doubt we'll hear of it (or her) again. "No beach to walk on..."
- Picard's archaeology "hobby" is put to the test in "The Chase". His old professor shows up and is then murdered, so the Enterprise continues his mysterious mission. They find a message from an ancient civilization, including a sci-fi audition scene for young actors.
- In "Frame of Mind", Riker is in a play about being an insane murderer, then he is an insane murderer in an alien asylum, then he's back on the ship. It's like TNG meets Inception. Frakes really gets a chance to do some ACTING in this episode. Doesn't Crusher have some medical stuff to do, instead of directing plays?
- Speaking of Crusher, she gets a chance to lead an episode in "Suspicions". It's all a flashback to a murder mystery that strips her of her medical career--of course, it all turns out OK in the end. There's a lot of voiceover from McFadden in the episode. It seemed like an old fashioned TV drama--not a very modern writing technique.
- More Klingon mumbo-jumbo in "Rightful Heir". Worf has a crisis of faith in Kahless, until he meets him in person. Alan Oppenheimer plays one of the Klingons--his resume goes back to 1961, and has guested on too many series to list. He's also prolific in voiceovers--you know him as Skeletor on He-Man.
- "Because they're Rikers...identical Rikers all the way...". We've made it to the inevitable "twin" episode "Second Chances"--in this case, a transporter technobabble accident creates two Rikers, one of which was trapped on a planet for 8 years. Lt. Riker is still in love with Troi (as if Cmdr. Riker isn't). I love how the producers showed off how the RIkers could interact--no more obvious line in the background.
- Things get what The Doctor would call "timey-wimey" for Picard, LaForge, Data, and Troi in "Timescape". Time freezes, goes backward, slows down, and there's technobabble aplenty. The ship's shuttle appears to be infected by the TARDIS--it's a lot bigger on the inside than the exterior would indicate.
Star Trek: The Next Generation is available on Netflix--more to come!