Let's "make it so"...
- Season 6 ends with another cliffhanger--"Descent". The Borg are back, but now they're not a collective--they are acting alone. Also, Data is exhibiting emotions--in this case, anger. The nexus for both of these events? Lore's back, and running his own Borg army. The situation is desperate enough to put Crusher in the big chair. It's a psychological drama more than a war story, with Data being swayed by the Borg and allying himself with Lore. There was also some audio problems with the episode on Netflix--sounded like a warped record.
- The cliffhanger is completed in the Season 7 premiere. Riker and Worf run into Hugh, the Borg Picard let go in an earlier episode--he's started a resistance movement against Lore. Crusher has her hands full with a Borg ship, and Data (under Lore's control) is about to experiment on LaForge. Of course, it's all resolved in the end, and Data gets the emotion chip--but doesn't want it (at least until we get to the TNG films). The two-parter includes an interesting cameo--Stephen Hawking as a hologram of himself playing poker.
- Picard on a shuttle? That never goes well. In "Liasions", the Enterprise is running an exchange program with an alien race. The shuttle taking Picard to the alien's world crashes, and a mysterious woman (Barbara Williams) saves him. Unfortunately, it turns into the TNG equivalent of "Misery", but ends up being an alien experiment. There's also a wacky B-story about how Troi and Worf handle their exchange partners on the ship. They must have needed a cheaper episode after the two parter--the planet surface is "Planet Hell", a set they rarely used in later seasons since it looks like paper-mache and styrofoam.
- Geordi is experimenting with a teleprescence probe to be used in dangerous situations, and ends up in an "Interface" with his missing mother. Is he seeing her or not? Of course, it ends up being an alien trying to return to their home. Lots of technobabble in this episode. Ben Vereen cameos as Geordi's father.
We'll continue with the final season of TNG next time. Star Trek: The Next Generation is available on Netflix.