The final season rolls on...
- Ugh--another two-parter. In "Gambit", Picard is kidnapped (the Federation think he's dead), so Riker asks Starfleet to take the ship on a vendetta--and they OK it(?!?) He gets captured too, of course. It turns out that members of an 80's hair band are looking for a Romulan artifact, and Picard has their confidence--Riker plays up a Starfleet guy gone bad. There really isn't enough plot here for two episodes--perhaps they had to amortize the cost of the extra sets and location shoots. Robin Curtis (Saavik in ST III) played a Vulcan separatist, and NBA star James Worthy played a big Klingon.
- It's more of Data's trippy dreams in "Phantasms". Now he's having android nightmares--Troi as a cake, Crusher sipping out of Riker's head, an old fashioned telephone in his own chest. When he goes to "sleep", he gets under the covers on his bed (approximating human actions), but still wears his uniform--why? Wouldn't he gets his jammies on first? The real problem turns out to be technobabble thingies hooked up to the crew, so they bring up Data's dreams on the holodeck in order to fix things. In the B-stories, LaForge has to deal with a junior officer with a crush, and Picard manages to get out of a boring Admirals' dinner.
- "Dark Page" brings back Lwaxana Troi, who's become a more dramatic character--in fact, she's in a coma, caused by her interaction with a telepathic race. There's a lot of Betazed mumbo-jumbo about "metaconscience" and telepathic-babble. We end up Lwaxana' s mind which is like a darker version of Data's dream Enterprise--lots of fish eye lenses and a wolf chasing her doc n the hallway, followed by a cameo by Deanna's father (Amick Byram). There's also a small telepathic girl involved, who happens to be Kirsten Dunst in an early role. Finally, we learn that Deanna had a sister Kestra who accidentally died when Deanna was a baby--Lwaxana had tried to block it out.
- In the next episode, we learn how Picard and Crusher are "Attached". They get transporter-napped (why is Worf running the transporters anyway?), and get chipped by aliens. Speaking of them, the aliens (dressed like Mummenschanz) show up, give some exposition, then leave for no apperent reason. Our heroes escape, then begin to read each other's thoughts. The aliens set up shop on the ship and apparently ransack a Sharper Image of security gadgetry. Picard and Crusher have some telepathically intimate moments before Riker is able to work out a deal.
- "Force of Nature" seems like an attempt to reign in the show--literally. It's also a "message" story referencing global warming. The Enterprise has to go through a technobabble corridor--kind of a space Bermuda Triangle--in order to find a missing ship. There's a long sequence about training Data's cat--seems like "episode helper" to me. Alien scientists shut down their ship and come on board--they are there to get the Federation to listen to them: warp drive tech is destroying the fabric of space. They're like Greenpeace--IN SPACE! There's technobabble aplenty throughout the episode. They save the other ship, doing some space "surfing" while doing so. The Federation decides to be better safe than sorry--all ships are now limited to Warp 5 unless there's an emergency.
- Now Data has a mother? Who's next, his nephew? "Inheritence" brings us Juliana Tainer (Fionnula Flanagan), who says she worked with Dr. Soong--and was his wife. She plays the stereotypical mother--embarrassing him in front of his friends, endless stories about his "childhood"--while Data plays the dutiful son. This is a very talky and schmaltzy episode. We keep seeing the Enterprise crew at concerts on the show--don't they have work to do? Of course, "Mom" turns out to be an android as well--Soong wanted a wife, so he made one. Even she doesn't know she's an android. Soong included a hologram chip in her so we meet him (Brent Spiner, of course) again.
Star Trek: The Next Generation is available on Netflix--more to come!
