The Next Generation 7x25/7x26 "All Good Things..."

rating: ****

the story: Q offers Picard a chance in the past, present, and future to prove that humanity has evolved.

what it's all about: It's hard to conceive of a better way to end Next Generation than with Q, returning to the same trial begun in the very first episode, "Encounter at Farpoint," and exploring three separate timelines along the way. 

This was a series that had a rough start.  Providing new material set in the tumultuous first season is kind of the best gift "All Good Things..." could've given fans.  I mean, you could interpret the title of the episode a number of ways because of it: 1) as the incomplete phrase that concludes "must come to an end," and 2) this is the best version of the series, as in, all the good things about it.  (Heh.)

Those who later thought the four movies that followed misrepresented the series will no doubt agree, even though there has been plenty of debate over the years about the science of the way the spatial phenomenon works backwards through time (the argument being, if it starts in the past, the future characters should always have seen it, for instance).  Putting that aside, because if you worry about such things in fictional storytelling you have too much time on your hand, it's kind of hard to view the final episode as anything but what it is, which is the most satisfying and accessible final episode of the franchise.  (You really have to be a Deep Space Nine fans to appreciate "What You Leave Behind.") 

The camaraderie of this crew, whether the timelines agree as to how it functions, if it functions, is in full effect, right down to the classic final scene, in which Picard finally sits down at the poker table with his senior staff.  There's classic Data ("to ignite the midnight petroleum"), the Riker/Troi/Worf triangle, and old friends popping up (Yar, O'Brien). 

Oh, and Q!  Since he didn't appear in the movies, there are conceivably fans who have no idea what this character is all about.  In truth, sometimes he could be too silly for his own good, and there might be an argument that he was hard to take seriously as a result.  But the cleverness of his role in "All Good Things..." proves beyond all doubt that Q was always more than he seemed. 

The point of putting humanity on trial for being too barbaric is a clever way of suggesting that the work of reaching its full potential doesn't end by perfecting life on Earth, that in fact the whole idea behind Star Trek was to push our definition of the possible to its limits ("to seek out new life" and all that).  Too often the franchise, and its fans, lose sight of that goal.  To have a character like Q embody this challenge, in the first and last episodes of the series, is a way of keeping everyone honest. 

So in some ways, how you regard "All Good Things...," and its science, is a kind of litmus test for how you view Star Trek in general.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Good for this.
• series - Good for this.
• character - Good for this.
• essential - Yeah, four for four.

notable guest-stars:
John de Lancie (Q)
Denise Crosby (Yar)
Colm Meaney (O'Brien)
Patti Yasutake (Ogawa)
Andreas Katsulas (Tomalak)

The Next Generation 4x8 "Future Imperfect"

rating: **

the story: Riker wakes up sixteen years in the future, but discovers all may not be as it seems.

similar to: "The Corbomite Maneuver" (Original Series), "All Good Things..." (Next Generation), "Child's Play" (Voyager)

my thoughts: This is a fun episode that plays with the viewer's knowledge of the series, bringing back characters like Minuet ("11001001") and the Romulan Tomalak while presenting a possible future.  It's most fun as a Riker episode, of course, and possibly the most fun Riker episode of the series (for such a fun character in general, it's odd to admit that so few of his episodes were fun).

By the time you realize what's really going on, it's the end of the episode, and it's a kid who's been abandoned by his parents and forced to make up his own reality.  There are countless episodes like that throughout franchise history.  It's one of the better examples, to be sure, because at least most of it is spent with everyone being able to enjoy the experience, because the alternative can be grim on all scores, or sometimes just for the characters (in a very roundabout way, Icheb's experiences in "Child's Play," where we discover how a different set of parents basically made their own child's life a living hell to escape a bad situation...). 

Alternate futures and/or timelines have an equal mixed bag in franchise history.  "Future Imperfect" has better footing for happiness than most of those, too, except maybe Worf's odd adventures in "Parallels," where he explores dozens of different versions of how things might have turned out differently for himself and the crew.

The somewhat more hackneyed part of it is the Romulan subplot.  The series pressed the Romulans so much and yet only occasionally got something good out of them.  Their presence here is more of a red herring than anything, which is a good thing. 

In the end, relish the good in this "Imperfect" episode, and never mind the rest.

criteria analysis: franchise - series - character - essential

notable guest-stars:
Andreas Katsulas (Tomalak)
Carolyn McCormick (Minuet)
Patti Yasutake (Nurse Ogawa)

The Next Generation 3x10 "The Defector"

****

This is the best Romulan episode of The Next Generation.  Where the earlier third season effort "The Enemy" seemed to go out of its way to avoid real comparisons to the classic original series episode "Balance of Terror," "The Defector" tells its own story, which is very much of a common Next Generation theme, and emerges as a new classic.

There are many episodes that successfully mine some of the same territory, whether "Chain of Command, Part II" from Next Generation or "Duet" and "Defiant" from Deep Space Nine, but none diminish the impact of "The Defector."  The title character, naturally, is a Romulan, who stumbles onto some plans and rushes to Starfleet in order to prevent a costly war.  At first he pretends to be a minor figure, believing that he'll have a better chance at being believed, but the truth is eventually revealed, his bad reputation known, and his credibility once again tossed around by Picard and his crew.  The whole episode is about these characters mulling over the situation, an even more pure version of the stalemate from "Balance of Terror," this time set entirely aboard the Enterprise.  There's no place to hide.  This is Next Generation diplomacy at its finest.

James Sloyan makes the first of many Star Trek guest appearances as the Romulan in question, which is just one of many further elements to relish about the episode.  There's also one of the series' classic teasers to kick things off, Data performing Shakespeare's Henry V on the Holodeck (with Patrick Stewart nearly unrecognizable in support, allowing him to flex his considerable acting muscles), and a return from Andreas Katsulas's character from "The Enemy" (thereby completing the redemption of that episode).

When you think of the dramatic rise in quality of the series in its third season, "The Defector" is at least as responsible as any other episode that may spring to mind, and yet I think it can be easy to overlook. It's a Romulan episode, and Romulans aren't new in Star Trek, certainly by this point in the franchise.  Sometimes it can be easy to assume that you need fresh aliens to remain relevant, but "The Defector" is also a reminder that established continuity can provide for relevant and engaging material, which is a concept DS9 ran with for seven seasons.  Could this story have been told with aliens we'd never seen before?  Sure, but it probably wouldn't have been as memorable.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
James Sloyan
Andreas Katsulas

Memory Alpha summary.

The Next Generation 3x7 "The Enemy"

**

"The Enemy" is incredibly similar to a number of episodes in franchise lore, all of them basically inspired by the movie Enemy Mine.  One of ours ended up having to survive on a planet with one of theirs, a "good guy" and "bad guy" working together.  It has another subplot that's also been used multiple times, a medical dilemma concerning one character not willing to help as another is dying simply because their species are or have been blood enemies.  Also, it's basically "Balance of Terror" from the original series as well.

So there's a lot going on, and most of it ends up with Three Stooges Syndrome, stuck in the doorway because none of the three wants to give way to the others.

But what you may take as a unifying element is that it's a Romulan episode, and Next Generation is generally good for these.  This one's just disturbingly generic about it.  The franchise itself probably realized that when it kept trying to redo some of its elements in later series.  Sometimes it's because a story is good.  Sometimes it's because the story could be better.

The hero of the first element is La Forge, and this is mostly relevant because the Romulan he's trapped with ends up noting that his kind would have ended La Forge's life after it was discovered that he was blind.  Being blind tends to dominate La Forge's character, when necessary.  It's seen as a handicap, except when it isn't.  In this same episode his VISOR is an asset, a great piece of technology that allows innovative solutions to problems.

Worf is the subject of the next element.  His parents were murdered by Romulans.  He refuses to donate blood that would save one in the present.  It's Worf being controversial, much as he would be in the Deep Space Nine episode "Change of Heart," making a decision that could adversely affect his career.  This time he gets off much easier.  Next time he's told he will never advance in rank again.  Half of this is Worf being Worf, but you can't help feeling that it's because he's Klingon and the writers think it's easier for an alien to get away with this and not seem like a monster (although in DS9 he's saving his wife Jadzia), regardless of Klingon honor.  I don't know.  It's an odd episode to reconcile on that score alone.

"The Enemy" also features the debut of Tomalak, a faintly recurring Romulan played by Andreas Katsulas, later to become famous as G'Kar in Babylon 5.  Part of me wishes that the episode had downplayed the other elements and played more like an updated "Balance of Terror," a duel between Tomalak and Picard.  Would fans have been upset?  I doubt it.  Well, probably.  Star Trek fans are rabid.  (Though I personally don't bite.)

All of this means that "The Enemy" is an episode well worth watching, but how much you care to remember it depends on how much you care about these particular characters having these moments that happen again to others.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Andreas Katsulas
Colm Meaney

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x22 "Cogenitor"

****

Characters in Star Trek have certainly screwed up before.  In Enterprise alone half the premise is pretty much predicated on everyone screwing up at one point or another as they try to figure out how to set the standards established as a matter of course in other incarnations.

But "Cogenitor" is probably the be-all-and-end-all of screw-ups.  Naturally it features second-half-of-the-second-season-all-star Trip Tucker, in the episode that solidifies that role.  It's the last time in the series, actually, where one of Trip's spotlights does not focus on something about him other than his personality and apparent bad instincts, probably because the writers no longer have any doubt after it that he's the breakout star of the series.

Before we get to that, let's just get out of the way another of Enterprise's efforts to make a franchise reprise of some of its most notable actors.  This time it's Andreas Katsulas, who famously played Picard's Romulan counterpart Tomalak (although he's better known as G'Kar in Babylon 5).  He gets to spend a lot of genial time with Archer in a first contact situation that's one of the best this crew has experienced.

Except for Trip's actions.

Several times in the course of the series alien species truly get to be alien, meaning that they have noticeable characteristics other than their appearance that makes them alien.  While it's happened in other incarnations, there's a more pronounced effort in Enterprise, even if it happens in an alien-of-the-week context most of the time.  Here it's a species that has three distinct genders.  Trip gets his knickers in a bind when he decides for himself that the third one is being unfairly exploited and limited in its potential.  He meets a couple who are trying to conceive, and so they have one of the eponymous members of this gender accompanying them. He becomes intrigued by this individual.

And he screws up big time.  You can imagine what happens next.  Riker did basically the same thing in "The Outcast," but where that episode used Riker in a fairly uncomfortable representation of his latent Kirk ladies man mode, Trip is Trip in "Cogenitor," a fallible human who probably thinks too much for his own good, the version of Archer who would've made the Vulcans even more uncomfortable (but who is ironically revealed to help the future captain get his father's engine working in "First Flight" two episodes later).  He's everything that Enterprise was supposed to be, and gets to be it for four seasons, warts and all.

Whereas most episodes like this end up being about the issues they were engineered to explore, "Cogenitor" is best viewed for its featured character, and that's the true strength of Trip, that he could make something like that happen.  That's how he gets one of his bona fide Star Trek classic episodes.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Andreas Katsulas
F.J. Rio

Memory Alpha summary.