The final season of Star Trek, the Next Generation gave us some splendid episodes and also a fair share of stinkers. Everyone knew by this stage that they would not be renewed and attempts were made to wrap up various story lines before they said their final goodbyes. There is still a great deal to be enjoyed.
This episode opens with Troi preparing Jean Luc for Captain Picard Day, an event regularly celebrated by the children of the Enterprise. Apparently the artwork was commissioned from a group of real schoolchildren and was so highly thought of that it surfaced twenty five years later in the first episode of Star Trek Picard. It was my favourite part of this one, I'm afraid.
This was a straightforward espionage thriller with yet another rogue Admiral and some troubling secrets emerging from Commander Perfect.....I mean Riker's.....past on the Starship Pegasus. In another flash forward we now know that Riker's dilemma about how much to reveal to Picard forms the basis of another story altogether. This is the Enterprise episode: These are the Voyages, which will be broadcast ten years after this one to almost universal opprobrium.
This Pegasus, however, cannot be blamed for what may later be done in its name. It's not a bad story. Terry O'Quinn makes that much more convincing a villain because he really believes that what he is doing is right. I never understood why the Federation lagged so far behind on cloaking technology either. It seems that this was an end-of-series attempt to finally answer that question but I'm not sure it was particularly convincing. Well, it was nice to see Commander Stuffed Shirt get knocked off his pedestal for once, even though we all know he'll be back up on it by the next episode.
Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5.
This episode opens with Troi preparing Jean Luc for Captain Picard Day, an event regularly celebrated by the children of the Enterprise. Apparently the artwork was commissioned from a group of real schoolchildren and was so highly thought of that it surfaced twenty five years later in the first episode of Star Trek Picard. It was my favourite part of this one, I'm afraid.
This was a straightforward espionage thriller with yet another rogue Admiral and some troubling secrets emerging from Commander Perfect.....I mean Riker's.....past on the Starship Pegasus. In another flash forward we now know that Riker's dilemma about how much to reveal to Picard forms the basis of another story altogether. This is the Enterprise episode: These are the Voyages, which will be broadcast ten years after this one to almost universal opprobrium.
This Pegasus, however, cannot be blamed for what may later be done in its name. It's not a bad story. Terry O'Quinn makes that much more convincing a villain because he really believes that what he is doing is right. I never understood why the Federation lagged so far behind on cloaking technology either. It seems that this was an end-of-series attempt to finally answer that question but I'm not sure it was particularly convincing. Well, it was nice to see Commander Stuffed Shirt get knocked off his pedestal for once, even though we all know he'll be back up on it by the next episode.
Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5.