Brothers by: Rick Berman and directed by: Rob Bowman

 

“Brothers” is written by: Rick Berman and is directed by: Rob Bowman.  It was produced under production code 177, was the 3^rd episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, the 77^th episode overall, and was broadcast on October 8, 1990.

 

Star Trek: The Next Generation is Brent Spiner’s world and we are just observing it from the outside.  “Brothers” is Season 4’s first Data focused episode and the first episode written by Rick Berman, the executive producer who would be responsible for Star Trek as a franchise after Gene Roddenberry until the end of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005.  Berman is a controversial figure, believing Star Trek needed to be fully adherent to the vision of Gene Roddenberry, that is through the lens of the things that Gene Roddenberry put on-screen during the original series and the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation when he was alive, not necessarily the philosophy behind many of those decisions.  That is largely a discussion for other episodes when he is more in charge fully, but “Brothers” is an episode that shows Berman isn’t incompetent when it comes to telling a story.  “Brothers” is an episode that asks Brent Spiner to play a triple role: Data is taken over by a signal bringing him to the hideaway of his creator, Dr. Noonian Soong with his brother Lore following soon after, all to explore essentially a family dynamic between two brothers at odds while an oblivious and almost selfish father who sees his creations as objects.

 

Soong fits the stereotypical mad scientist: he’s an old man with frizzy white hair stuck in a home that is also a laboratory.  He’s been hiding on this planet for years and the episode very much positions him as this absent father who does not really care for his creations.  He cannot see either Data or Lore’s perspectives on life: early on in their conversations he expected Data to follow in his own footsteps and become a scientist instead of entering Starfleet and wasn’t even aware Lore was “active”.  By the end of the episode, Soong doesn’t actually learn the error of his ways or anything, he brought Data back to give him emotions and essentially complete his life’s work which is thwarted by Lore taking the emotion chip for himself.  That twist is particularly fantastic because narratively it is Lore acting out, almost rightfully, to trick a father who does not actually care about him.  He cares about Data, even asks Data to reconcile with Lore on his own deathbed seeing an error at the very last minute of his life, not properly, and the episode is aware of this because Spiner as Data gets the final shot contemplating his brother silently which is genuinely fantastic.  Spiner as Soong, really playing up the madness of a man who cares about one of his children and almost nothing else.  Spiner as Lore is also picking up right where the performance in “Datalore” left off, and because there isn’t actually a big scheme to take over the Enterprise or anything here, just eventually get that chip.  Berman’s script is one that is reliant on dialogue to communicate the story and obviously the performance of one actor.  Rob Bowman is in the director’s chair and his dynamic sense of blocking guides the heavy dialogue sequences while juggling the triple role.  There is a tendency in drama to employ a technique called backacting where you will have two actors having a dialogue scene with their faces towards the camera.  Because of the triple role, Bowman cannot rely on that, instead often times we’ll keep Data or Lore in shadows while the focus is on Soong before setting up reverse shots with Soong completely out of frame.  This is likely because of the different makeup job on Soong being more difficult to recreate with a stand in since it’s a new makeup, while the Data makeup is for the team been distilled down to a science.  Visually this does make the episode surprisingly dynamic, especially with Bowman also having the camera move through scenes with several walk and talks to keep the dialogue moving even on a smaller set.

 

The important plot point here is that both Data and Lore were summoned by Soong against their wills, the first act of the story is this horrific sequence of Data outside of his control performing a mutiny on the Enterprise.  This mutiny is quiet, starting by making life support fail with the pretense of an accident so the rest of the crew abandons the bridge and then locks the rest of the crew out of the controls.  He does this silently, Spiner not being allowed to change his face enough but the minute expressions just add to the uncanny valley of the character and the danger of the situation.  The script also adds this secondary tension of a child on the Enterprise in quarantine because of a prank of his brother’s, an obvious parallel to the Data/Lore relationship, This is the B-plot of the episode and the real shame is that these brothers are dropped largely after the first act, only to come back at the very end, because there isn’t actually a whole lot of drama there, but it really should be resolved before we get into the meat of the Soong plot.  It’s actually quite nice to see Dr. Crusher be a doctor and it once again allows Gates McFadden material to be a full character, even if the role of doctor bleeds slightly into role of mother as well.  The tension is that the sick child could die if the Enterprise doesn’t get to the nearest Starbase because of a parasite acquired from eating a plant cultivated on the ship after a prank gone wrong.  It’s an effective B-plot, made more so by Michael Piller’s inclusion of Lore in the plot as that wasn’t in Berman’s original script, reflecting that Berman is a producer over a writer.

 

Overall, “Brothers” is less an examination of brothers, but of the issues a father can create in their children from the viewpoint of being absent, an added layer that writer Rick Berman likely wasn’t entirely intending to be there.  What’s elevating a good script is Brent Spiner’s ability to play three parts at once and carry the entire episode on his back.  8/10.

The Satan Pit by: Matt Jones

 

The Satan Pit was written by: Matt Jones, based on his episodes “The Impossible Planet” and the episode of the same name.  It was the 202^nd story to be novelized by BBC Books.

 

It’s no secret that the BBC decision to continue novelizations of the revival is one mainly aimed at the fans of Doctor Who.  The home media market already started to make the novelizations at least partially obsolete in the late 1980s, and by the time of the revival in 2005 and streaming video being just around the corner, there was no reason to really continue them.  That means that often the best of these revival novelizations do something to set themselves apart from just a standard retelling of the original episode.  Matt Jones’ The Satan Pit takes the approach of not centering the Doctor and Rose, instead telling the story near exclusively after the fact from the perspective of the three survivors with one interlude, placed just after the adaptation of “The Impossible Planet” from the perspectives of the detective and corporate representative interrogating our protagonists, and one scene from the perspective of the Doctor for the actual confrontation with the Beast.  That latter scene is the closest the novel gets to Jones just taking the script and translating it into straight prose, though he is very much interested in exploring the Doctor’s love of Rose Tyler through subtle amendments to the dialogue tags, channeling David Tennant’s performance into the prose.  This should annoy me, the Doctor in my mind should be an asexual character, however, Jones sells it particularly well because it’s one of those romances where “I love you” isn’t actually said.  There’s also the insecurity that the Doctor isn’t able to get Rose back home, he did promise her mother and it is eating him up from the inside.  Jones makes it explicit that the Beast is psychically enhancing everybody’s fears and trauma’s on the base, including the Doctor emphasizing the Doctor as fallable but not human.  His mind may work differently, but he is against something far bigger than him.

 

Jones is also careful about when he gives the Doctor his scene, instead of putting it in chronological order, it’s moved towards the end.  Ida, Danny, and Zach have actually finished their individual interrogations and we as the audience see a portion of their trial.  For the reader this has the effect of a mysterious resolution, theoretically we don’t know exactly how they got out, especially Ida who was unconscious for the climax of the story.  There was a possibility of ending it before the trial, and letting the audience not know the fate of the three, even if Big Finish Productions have brought them all back in their Torchwood range.  The trial sequence does make up for it in general.  Jones brings in ideas from “Planet of the Ood”, that the Ood are actually freed by the Doctor and Donna in between the end of “The Satan Pit” and the survivors making it back to Earth, and The End of Time, with the psychic link of the Ood to the Doctor specifically near the end of his life and the visit to people the Tenth Doctor had previously met included as an epilogue.

 

The Satan Pit’s worldbuilding is its biggest success.  Because we are in the heads of the supporting characters, many of the scenes that are just the Doctor and Rose that couldn’t be overheard are either omitted completely or are trimmed down to what could theoretically be on security cameras.  This makes the pair more distant and the supporting characters, especially Ida and Danny, as our real humans here.  Their traumas are always just below the surface of the mind, the Beast bringing them there for as long as they’ve been on the base, even before the beginning of the story.  It also adds this pressure of a society not so much on the brink of collapse, but one built on a capitalistic empire.  The interrogations take the events of the story as ridiculous, something cooked up between the three survivors for some unknown and frankly impossible game.  Jones uses it to reflect the current system of capitalism, stretched quite thin while being under the thumb of corporations who only care about the capital and not the human life.  Jones also posits an almost religious like fanaticism forming around the Doctor because of the destruction of property which while slightly silly feels almost like a commentary on certain aspects of internet culture.

 

Overall, The Satan Pit is a riveting read.  There is a sense that Jones isn’t actually writing for Doctor Who fans, which makes sense as he has written books that are meant to be for the general public even if they were technically spin-offs.  Swapping out the protagonists means the novel is a fundamentally different experience, with the focus on different aspects of the story and the society in which it is set and reflecting upon.  It changes much of the horror to work in the prose setting over two episodes of television.  10/10.

The Road to Oz by: L. Frank Baum

 

L. Frank Baum is clearly bored with the Land of Oz in The Road to Oz. Children once again demanded more Oz stories and he wrote this one within a year of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz.  It follows the same formula: Dorothy finds herself on the way to Oz with a young male companion, an older mentor figure, and a wildcard character through magical circumstances.  After several misadventures with several different people, Ozma eventually gets involved to get our characters to the Emerald City before the mentor decides to stay in Oz and Dorothy makes it back home again.  The going back home again is literally the final line of the book, Dorothy and Toto going to sleep in Oz with the promise of waking back up in Kansas.  The Road to Oz lacks stakes, the goal to get to Oz is for Ozma’s birthday party and nothing more.  This is after the journey is well underway, until it is mentioned by one of the people met along the way the aimless nature of the wanderings is what dominates the book.

 

This time the inciting incident is one with surrealist potential but it gets dropped pretty early on.  The mentor figure is the Shaggy Man, an early example of the kindly hobo, who just asks Dorothy for directions to Butterfield, so he can avoid it, before they both slip out of reality down a trail of several roads.  The Shaggy Man is a character who fees distinctly early 20^th century, reflecting this attitude that is arguably kinder to a certain type of homeless person.  There is a distinction between hobo, a tramp, and a bum is this: a hobo being an almost respectable drifter who works while a tramp is a simple non-working traveler unless they must, and a bum neither travels nor works.  The Shaggy Man is not a bum, he is largely respectable with a proto-communist view on money and takes Dorothy’s kindness as given for being a good, American girl.  Baum’s economic philosophies coming out is nothing new with how previous books have characterized Oz as at this utopian monarchy, though The Road to Oz claiming there is no money in Oz should be fascinating.  Baum plays it off as just a normal thing, but does not actually explore it beyond that.  It’s also not just Oz, it seems the lands surrounding Oz also function without money.  When I discussed Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz there was a general sense that the thematic resonance of the previous Oz books was gone, and The Road to Oz does not actually improve matters.  This lack of money is a hint at some thematic relevance, there are a few lines that at least make the reader think what life might be like if people just helped each other instead of relying on the exchange of money for goods and services, but it’s a background detail.

 

The other two characters joining Dorothy, the Shaggy Man, and Toto are Polychrome, daughter of the Rainbow, and Button-Bright, a fool.  Polychrome is a perfectly fine character, fitting in well with the fantastical vibe that Baum hangs these novels on, but Button-Bright is one of those characters meant to be annoying and succeeds in being annoying.  The character is a commentary on the idea of the psychological blank slate, taking the world at face value and not really having his own sense of identity.  The individual adventures are also quite rapid here, Baum just stopping them whenever he gets bored and despite tributing A Midsummer Night’s Dream for a portion of the book, none of them particularly stick out when everything is said and done.  The final adventure is essentially a list of cameos from previous Oz characters, almost preternaturally quoting The Wizard of Oz 30 years too early.  That and including characters from other books Baum has written, a marketing stunt to increase sales of the books Baum clearly enjoyed writing more.  At least Jack Pumpkinhead’s cameo has this darkly comic edge of having several heads that have rotten and having his own graveyard.  The Road to Oz reads as a once great author falling because his readers are almost too demanding.

Overall, The Road to Oz is a book that at the very least might be enjoyable to young children who want more Oz stories, but there really isn’t much for even the slightly older children to really latch onto.  Devoting parts of the book to an advertisement for other work by Baum while including a surface level analysis of communism is at least a funny choice, Baum financially wasn’t doing as well at selling non-Oz books so the need to market is sadly there.  The road to Oz is a long one and one that is about as generic as the series has gotten, reminding readers of better stories instead of telling a story of its own.  4/10.

Invaders from Gantac! by: Alan Grant with art by: Martin Griffiths and Cam Smith and letters by: Gordon Robson

 

“Invaders from Gantac!” is written by: Alan Grant with art by: Martin Griffiths and Cam Smith, and lettering by: Gordon Robson.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issue 148-150 (April-June 1989) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

While Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle were writing and drawing Detective Comics for DC, the former was also closely linked with John Wagner, writer of early Doctor Who Weekly comics.  “Invaders from Gantac!” is Alan Grant being poached by the Doctor Who Magazine team for three issues.  Grant doesn’t actually have some big connection to Doctor Who, but Grant was one of the earliest writers for 2000AD making it odd that it took this long to actually get him onto Doctor Who.  The same can be said for artists Martin Griffiths and Cam Smith who provide the visuals for “Invaders from Gantac!”.  “Invaders from Gantac!” is also notable for being like “Culture Shock!”, “Planet of the Dead”, and “Echoes of the Mogor!” that it is interested in being a Doctor Who story and not a backdoor pilot for a different series.  Alan Grant had a job to do and he was going to do it.  He wanted to write a story about an alien invasion, so he wrote a story about an alien invasion.  It’s a relief to get a story that is just trying to be Doctor Who because the sense of the early Seventh Doctor comic run is that there’s almost a shame in telling Doctor Who stories, possibly because the magazine’s sales were down and the costs to produce the magazine were quite high.  There were even talks of cancelling the comic feature of the magazine while the Seventh Doctor was still in his television tenure.  “Invaders from Gantac!” released during the gap between Season 25 and 26, the show was still in production with Ghost Light, the final serial in production order.  It’s the last comic released while the original run was in production, production would finish when the strip picked back up in issue #152 production on Ghost Light would have completed.

 

“Invaders from Gantac!” does have a problem, however.  While it’s a story that’s not ashamed to be a Doctor Who story, it’s a standard Doctor Who story.  The Gantacians are invading Earth to find a treasure for their great leader, implementing a bureaucratic martial law that’s played largely for comedy but at least is something to define them.  The twist of the story is that the treasure they want is on the other side of the galaxy which is quite the funny twist, but it doesn’t actually add anything.  The Doctor still beats them anyways with the help of new friend Leapy, a tramp who has been caught in the situation of martial law.  Grant does try making Leapy a slight commentary on how the homeless are overlooked by society so that’s something, but he’s also defined by his many fleas for comedy.  Grant is also largely familiar with the Doctor as the character in Season 24, making jokes and mixing metaphors which while slightly annoying is again at least a characterization of the Seventh Doctor.  The plot also makes use of being slightly longer than recent stories, having three issues so there’s actually some development to the Gantacians as a society even if they are a basic parody of bureaucracy, them getting the planet wrong is technically a joke about how things slip through the cracks when things are gone over too many times.

 

Overall, “Invaders from Gantac!” is at the very least fine, it’s better than a lot of what the strip had been doing by being an actual Doctor Who story, but it’s not going to live on as one of the greats or anything.  The Doctor is fine and the Gantacians are at least fun enough for a joke, but this is a story that’s fairly easy to forget in a sea of at best forgettable stories.  5/10.

Aliens of London by: Joseph Lidster

 

Aliens of London was written by: Joseph Lidster, based on the episode of the same name and “World War Three” by Russell T. Davies.  It was the 201^st story to be novelized by BBC Books.

 

The farting comedy of “Aliens of London” and “World War Three” is something that largely pulls the first half of the story down due to the tonal dissonance of commentary on the Iraq War and the search for weapons of mass destruction.  When it was announced as one in a batch of novelizations for 2026 there was ever so slight apprehension that Aliens of London would lean further into this comedy.  Joseph Lidster taking the helm, however, is one of relief because Lidster’s style is exclusively dramatic.  If Lidster was to write a comedy, it would be a black comedy.  Aliens of London is a story that does not actually change much to story, like many of the Target novelizations for the revival it’s far easier to add to the story than take away.  Tonally, however, much of the fart jokes are outright removed.  They are still a part of the story, the Slitheen still fart because of the compression into the human suits, but Lidster aims this as unsettling.  It happens at largely bad times and Lidster keeps these scenes in the perspective of stressed characters, emphasizing the general disrespect that politicians can have for their underlings which adds quite a bit to the commentary against the government that Davies included in the television story.  There’s still the issues of the fart jokes happening, the over the top camp lines are still there, but they are underplayed in the prose and added with a purpose.  Sure it’s enough to stop this from being one of the best novelizations, but it certainly goes a long way to make the half adapting “Aliens of London” more bearable.

Joseph Lidster is also a writer who understands how to make the reader see how dark the Slitheen are.  One of the additions is a prologue scene from the perspective of the pig who the Slitheen use to fake their crash landing.  The pig is named Barry and was just living his life on a farm before he was plucked by the Slitheen for their plans, with Lidster also having the Doctor tribute him in the epilogue.  The Slitheen themselves are also positioned far more as dangerous hunters, Lidster’s darker tendencies being added as the individual Slitheen spending a year on Earth means victims of people who would be overlooked by society.  They have a need to hunt and kill, it adds this extra sinister layer to the aliens.  It’s more in line with what Davies would do with “Boom Town” but with Lidster’s prose it’s explicitly dark with carefully placed descriptors of the adrenaline and the blood.  There’s also this added layer of hedonism to the Slitheen, the one being Oliver Charles had several affairs with men and women, killing Oliver’s wife and his liaisons when the plan is put in motion because he is found at the last minute.  It’s presented as one of the first moments of alien activity in the novel, creating a gruesome yet callous first impression that just works.  The high emotions is something Lidster chases, letting Jackie Tyler get room to break down silently in an added scene because she was in fact ready to give up after a year of Rose being missing.

 

There is a little bit of expanded fan references, however, that are focused on to various degrees in the telling of this novelization.  The most obvious is the use of Toshiko Sato, given some scenes at both Torchwood Three and Torchwood One.  Lidster cannot help but include Jack Harkness and Yvonne Hartman in various capacities.  Jack’s scenes do work to expand that little continuity snafu in Torchwood with Owen as the medic, but more importantly it actually helps Tosh be a bit of a better character.  The Yvonne scenes are just a touch too indulgent, it’s filling in things that are made issues by future stories.  In the televised story there is a minor character credited as Muriel Frost, a character from the Doctor Who Magazine comics that is confirmed to indeed be that character by Lidster, referencing meeting the Seventh Doctor explicitly which is slightly better than the Yvonne appearances.  It at least is just expanding a character on television slightly and making the reader care just a little bit because the Doctor actually remembers and acknowledges her, something that makes sense to avoid on television since this is a story from the first series of the revival.

 

Overall, Aliens of London is a novelization that reads more like a political thriller while maintaining the integrity of the original scripts.  The couple of trims are in aid of creating a less comedic tone, emphasizing the drama and anguish of even the regulars.  There is an emphasis on humanity even if Lidster occasionally lets the fan brain take over and add in a couple of cameos, though mostly cameos with some substance to them.  There are still some weaknesses inherent in the story being told, but it is a great little read.  8/10.

Family by: Ronald D. Moore and directed by: Les Landau

 

“Family” is written by: Ronald D. Moore, based in part on a premise by: Susanne Lambdin and Bryan Stewart, and is directed by: Les Landau.  It was produced under production code 178, was the 2^nd episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, the 76^th episode overall, and was broadcast on October 1, 1990.

 

“The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” has a final shot that by all conventions of television is the ending of that arc.  Picard has been saved, changed by the experience, and looks out upon the world below with uncertainty about where to continue.  The next episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation should be business as usual, that is how television works.  The writing room would have the awareness of how the characters have changed by the events of the previous episodes, but they are not continuing.  Showrunner Michael Piller decided, however, that there should actually be a follow up.  We shouldn’t go back to the status quo, The Best of Both Worlds was hell for our characters and they need to heal from a lot of that.  “Family” is the result of healing: not written under Piller’s pen but to Ronald D. Moore, though some material is adapted from an unused script from Susanne Lambdin and Bryan Stewart.  As an episode, this is a different beast for Star Trek as a franchise, playing out as a straightforward drama exploring three characters’ relationships with their families in the aftermath of “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”.  There is no big alien threat, the Enterprise is not malfunctioning, and the rest of the crew has shore leave.  There are some repairs occurring, but that is Moore’s excuse to keep the Enterprise on Earth for an extended period of time.  The conflict of the episode is entirely interpersonal tension, something that Gene Roddenberry would have absolutely hated as he fully believed that people would not have interpersonal conflict in the future.  Roddenberry by this point has been proven wrong, his outlook while utopian is not conductive to good drama.  Moore attempted to create a science fiction conflict in the episode, but was unsatisfied so kept it as 45 minutes of drama over anything else.

 

This is the third episode in a row where Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard is given the central and technically impressive performance of the episode.  Picard goes to his family’s vineyard to visit his brother Robert and his family, played by Jeremy Kemp, Samantha Eggar, and David Tristan Birkin.  Robert is the younger brother who never really managed to match up to Jean-Luc’s lofty ambitions, but he is also a man of the world, maintaining the vineyard and having a conservative attitude towards technological progress at odds with his brother.  Kemp and Stewart immediately read as brothers, the former caring for the latter though being unable to see exactly the trauma that Picard has gone through.  Stewart plays Picard in every scene as a broken man putting on a brave face, ready to run away from the Enterprise so he doesn’t have to face the unknown of space.  It’s mirrored with the potential unknown under the Earth, but Moore’s script is adamant that that isn’t actually the unknown.  There aren’t new civilizations under the ground, but the Borg aren’t there.  He would be safe, he wouldn’t have to face it.  “Family” is a masterclass in writing that implication, there’s only one line where Picard actually acknowledges he is broken at the climax of his arc in the episode.  It’s all in Stewart’s performance of a man who sees his nephew adore him and the idea of going into Starfleet while not being able to encourage him because of how broken he is.  “Family” also does not posit that Picard is fixed by the end, but he is on a road to healing.  Setting his arc at his family’s vineyard also gives the episode a distinct look, director Les Landau making full advantage of the location shooting.  The California vineyards being used to double for France is a visual representation of what the Borg took away from Picard, turning him into a sterile member of the collective.  It also just makes “Family” a gorgeous episode to watch after what’s been a series of largely studio bound episodes.

 

Picard’s story is only one family being explored here.  While it is the heaviest, Moore parallel’s Picard’s trauma with Worf’s ostracization from the Klingons in “Sins of the Father”, brining in his adoptive parents played by Theodore Bikel and Georgia Brown.  Michael Dorn as Worf has always been one of those layered performances in the show, and this episode is no exception.  Worf’s parents love him deeply.  Sure, they have a tendency to be a bit embarrassing and a little overbearing, Bikel and Brown give performances of doting parents.  They understand their son isn’t a human, respect whatever path he was going to take to embrace Klingon culture, and are deeply proud.  Worf doesn’t have to face his problems alone.  It’s this plotline that hits me in a very personal place because Moore’s script clearly understands the importance of independence from one’s parents but also keeping that support.  Worf didn’t want his parents to visit the Enterprise, but in the end he’s happy they are there because he doesn’t have to face his dishonor alone.  The conflict here is also coming with this slight wall that Worf puts up throughout his parents’ visit, though it’s not one where it comes to blows.  It’s there to explore a relationship and Moore’s script also acknowledges where Sergey and Helena, that is Worf’s parents, can actually be overbearing quite a bit and also need to take a step back.  The added nuance is nice for a show from the 1990s.

 

The third plot is the smallest, it’s Crusher finding possessions she left on Earth including a message from Wesley’s father for him made when he was a baby.  Gates McFadden and Wil Wheaton in this episode are given perhaps the smallest subplot, but it’s also one with the biggest impact.  Wheaton in particular has gone down in history as playing one of the most annoying characters on television, but that’s just not true.  Wesley here is allowed to be a full person, struggling with the decision to view the message and so much of Wheaton’s body language in his final scene is perfect.  McFadden for her part is clearly relishing the material for the third episode in a row allowing Crusher a more proactive role, even if this proactive role is as a concerned mother.  The show is finally allowing Wesley to have his own development and come to his own independence as a parallel to both Worf and Picard’s plots.  These three plots work because they are fully parallel, there is no crossover here.  This is an episode of television that could not be made in today’s production landscape, taking 45 minutes just to look at where our characters are after the last two episodes changed the status quo.

 

Overall, “Family” is the third episode in a row to really take a risk, going against every rule that Gene Roddenberry would set out for Star Trek.  It should be unsurprising that this is a risk that paid off completely, because “Family” is one of those episodes that works because it sits with its emotions.  Were it made today it would be decried as woke propaganda, emasculating our male characters, and that’s why it works so well.  It examines the idea of family and returning to family after experiencing a trauma that you can never truly share with them.  10/10.

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by: L. Frank Baum

 

L. Frank Baum introduces Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz with a message lamenting the fact that children want to hear of more adventures in Oz despite the fact that he has several other stories to tell.  This book at its core was a response to all his readers and he clearly does not want to be writing yet another Oz book.  Like Ozma of Oz before it, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz is a book where Oz is the destination and not the journey.  This structure is a double-edged sword for Baum, obviously it falls into the problem of being a formula and sticking so heavily to it making these books seem repetitive structurally.  Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz does feel like this, the structure is episodic with Dorothy, the Wizard of Oz, her cousin Zeb, her cat Eureka, and Zeb’s horse Jim going from danger to danger until Baum decides it’s time to have Ozma bring them all to the Emerald City in Oz for one last adventure involving the justice system and a missing, presumably eaten, piglet before sending Dorothy and Zeb back home.  On the other edge of the sword, it does mean Baum can explore different worlds and things that wouldn’t necessarily fit right within the bounds of Oz that have been set.  The first adventure of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz especially doesn’t quite fit in the idea of Oz, instead being more a subversion for the audience, Baum playing with when the Wizard comes back into the narrative.  It’s notable that this is the strongest sequence in the book as well.  It’s where Baum ties into recent American history, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was fresh in his mind.

 

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz is one of those books that fits well into literature at the time.  The earthquake influence has Dorothy and company sent underneath the Earth following clear inspiration from the work of Jules Verne and Lewis Carroll, under the Earth lying the Mangaboos.  Stylistically the falling is A Journey to the Centre of the Earth while it follows the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass logic of talking vegetable people ruling their own society.  Baum does some self-parody here as well with the Sorcerer of the Mangaboos being a humbug like the Wizard, only for the Wizard to appear to live up to the philosophy of being a very good man, but a very bad wizard.  Obviously, there is that retcon of him not having overthrown the original government of Oz and given Ozma to Mombi.  This portrayal of the Wizard is far more jolly, he is kind and does get rewarded in the end for helping Dorothy through her many perils with the chance to be an official court wizard for Ozma.  That is jolly except for when the slices the Sorcerer in half for the reveal that the Mangaboos are vegetable people, a particularly dark twist again coming from the Carroll influence but in a very Baum way.  Baum does not do the typical picking up new companions throughout the novel, instead introducing Dorothy’s cousin Zeb as almost a proto-Eustace Clarence Scrubb.  While I do not know if C.S. Lewis ever read Baum as a child, you can trace a direct line between the characters (Jim the horse also feels like a proto-Strawberry from The Magician’s Nephew).  Zeb isn’t annoying or in need of his eyes being open to the world of magic around him, but he is the normal foil to Dorothy and the Wizard.  The disappointment is that Baum does often forget about him, he is the least interesting character however.  Baum also is excellent at writing a cat.  While the sequence in Oz where Eureka is put on trial could be described as tacked on to make this an Oz book, it is incredibly funny with how Eureka isn’t so much evil, but indifferent, selfish, and caring all at the same time.  Sadly the ending just kind of runs to a word count and Baum wraps things up.

 

Overall, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz sadly lacks a lot of the thematic depth that the three previous Oz books really had.  The middle sequences with the gargoyles, the dragonettes, and the invisible people are all good but they are often just standard children’s adventures.  The most interesting parts of the book are that potential direct line between Verne and Carroll to Lewis, though there isn’t quite enough to say of a direct inspiration.  It’s an easy read and continues the general fairy tale nature of the Oz books, but there is a clear sense of Baum rushing to get things on the page because readers demanded it without quite enough ideas to sustain the novel as well as he could.  7/10.

Follow That TARDIS! by: John Carnell with art by: Andy Lanning, John Higgins, Kev Hopgood, Dougie Braithwaite, and Dave Elliott and lettering by: Bambos

 

“Follow That TARDIS!” is written by: John Carnell with art by: Andy Lanning, John Higgins, Kev Hopgood, Dougie Braithwaite, and Dave Elliott, and lettering by: Bambos.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issue 147 (March 1989) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

“Follow That TARDIS!” is best described as giving readers absolutely nothing.  John Carnell brings back the Meddling Monk and he runs through time while the Doctor follows with the Sleeze Brothers in tow.  The Sleeze Brothers are meant to spin-off into their own miniseries later in 1998.  To put it in fanfiction lingo, they are John Carnell’s OCs.  This story exists for spin-off potential by grabbing the readers of Doctor Who Magazine, and reflecting that there is no story here.  Sure, it’s only seven pages long, but there have been seven page stories that could at least do something with a premise.  Instead we catapult through time and space for wacky hijinks wrapped around historical tragedies which makes it feel quite mean-spirited.  On the strip are five very good artists bringing at the very least in brief panels a vivid future to life.  Carnell does establish this satirical future that is clearly in line with the ethos of where comics and Doctor Who at the time were going.  It’s cyberpunk by way of tacky consumerism which would be a fantastic setting to slap the Meddling Monk of all characters in.  We just don’t do it, instead this thing has the tone of a farce: the Monk’s TARDIS is a toilet which is self-parody of the lowest common denominator.  The Doctor is barely a presence in the story itself, while the Sleeze Brothers get to do wacky comedy.

 

Overall, “Follow That TARDIS!” is nothing.  It’s barely even a story, and it feels like John Carnell was told you need to fill seven pages with anything.  We aren’t going to check.  Lanning, Higgins, Hopgood, Braithwaite, and Elliott are all underused because these are talented artists drawing to a nothing script.  2/10.

Time and Tide by: Richard Alan and John Carnell with art by: Dougie Braithwaite and Dave Elliott and letters by: Tom Orzechowski

 

“Time and Tide” is written by: Richard Alan (a pseudonym for Richard Starkings) and John Carnell with art by: Dougie Braithwaite and Dave Elliott, and lettering by: Tom Orzechowski.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 145-146 (January-February 1989) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

Richard Starkings’ voice has been the main constant on the Seventh Doctor Doctor Who Magazine comic strip.  He had been the primary editor on the strip and is responsible for the rotating of writers which while successful for the Sixth Doctor has been less so for the Seventh.  “Time and Tide” is the first time Starkings tried his hand at writing the strip for two issues under the pseudonym Richard Alan with John Carnell.  Carnell for his part is not a writer of note.  He gets a co-writer credit for this story and writes the following story, the one issue “Follow that TARDIS!” on his own.  Outside of Doctor Who Magazine Carnell seems to be a staff writer for Marvel UK during this period, but biographical information is scarce.  He shares his name with a science fiction writer and editor who passed away in 1972 and seems to be of less note, now working in his own independent sphere overshadowed by the editor.  In terms of the art, “Time and Tide” is odd not for its artists, Dougie Braithwaite and Dave Elliott are no slouches of course the former doing the art for Garth Ennis’s Punisher MAX issues #13-18 and the latter having his own career with Marvel and DC, but this story has a guest letterer.  Tom Orzechowski is a letterer about as notable for his lettering as Starkings was, only taking these two issues because he was a fan of Doctor Who.  The lettering in this story is different, it’s clearly not the house style in terms of formatting and how Orzechowski portrays dialogue coming from far away which is a very nice touch.

 

It's a shame then, that despite the massive talent behind this story, “Time and Tide” does not really work.  The plot is the Doctor once again stumbling into a situation which is essentially the standard for this period, though this one has the nice little drama of being separated from the TARDIS as it’s swept away in the tide.  This is the planet Tojana which is having all of its land swept away in the tide, the natives don’t have a solution and are resigned to their fate.  That is except one, the Worrier, who at least is willing to entertain the Doctor’s idea to build a boat.  Sadly, that’s where the story ends, with the Doctor allowing this one last person hope on a raft in the ocean.  It’s an ending that Starkings and Carnell want the reader to believe is hopeful, but the art gives something different.  The reader has seen an extinction event and the Doctor just shrugs.  Add that to the natives being aliens while not visually but in terms of characterization are indigenous savages: they want to eat the Doctor and don’t have any technology of necessity while just not looking as the tide is encroaching.  It’s the major event for much of the two parts of the story, outside of some gorgeous art of space and that’s really a problem here.  This race of aliens is very much rooted in colonialist stereotypes of savagery.  It takes up so much of the story that the more interesting idea of a society already past the point of collapse due to a changing climate is just ignored.

 

Overall, at the very least “Time and Tide” has some very pretty art and the talent behind it is genuinely great.  Richard Starkings and John Carnell have at least an idea for a story here, even if what’s on the page doesn’t really work.  We’re leaving the period where they did not have much for the Seventh Doctor and moments have that peak through, though we’re still a few months away from where the Seventh Doctor’s Season 25 characterization can really make it over into the strip.  There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re still in the darkness of a directionless strip.  4/10.

The Best of Both Worlds Part II by: Michael Piller and directed by: Cliff Bole

 

“The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” is written by: Michael Piller and is directed by: Cliff Bole.  It was produced under production code 175, was the 1^st episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, the 75^th episode overall, and was broadcast on September 24, 1990.

 

The Best of Both Worlds was a gamble.  American television generally only became a serialized affair with the rise of services like HBO.  Star Trek is a franchise that thrived particularly on a different type of science fiction, speculative and working around ideas, but Star Trek: The Next Generation only began to work when it embraced the television conventions of the late 1980s.  Still, ending a season on a cliffhanger, only to resolve it in the next season’s premiere episode, is a gamble.  The show was already renewed for a fourth season when “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” entered production, but there was no guarantee that the audience would take to the cliffhanger ending and come back for the thrilling conclusion.  Though from a production standpoint, there was an understanding that a recap would be necessary, that’s how “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” opens.  Ultimately, it’s a gamble that paid off: more people tuned into this episode than the previous one.  Despite the obvious tension and frustration of having to wait between episodes, people were willing to let a cliffhanger hang for far longer than other audiences would wait.  “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is groundbreaking.  So where does that leave “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”?

 

“The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” has a script that is structured entirely as the falling action and resolution to the rising action and climax of “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I”.  In writing television, two-part episodes are at their best when this structure is followed.  It’s a specifically American way of structuring television, the cut was at the point of highest tension and the cliffhanger resolution is a failure on the side of the Enterprise.  It’s enough to get the ship away, of course, but it does not change the direction of the story.  Michael Piller ended the first part with the big, jaw dropping twist, so “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” is an episode that is the second half to everything that the setup established.  Emotionally this means the episode is a release, which can feel just a little odd after the extreme tension of the previous episode.  This also has a knock on effect that it is the conclusions to the character arcs that have begun.  The climax being the cliffhanger means that essentially Riker’s character arc is concluded immediately: his decision to fire on Picard and the Borg is the man taking proper command of the Enterprise and putting the Federation above the captain he cares for.  There is an argument to be made that this episode then leaves nothing for Riker to grow, but that’s largely untrue.  This is more an example of people expecting further twists with “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” when there aren’t any.

 

Piller sticks to his guns and keeps the episode on a track as the Enterprise works directly to stop the Borg, still wishing to save Picard but being understanding of the necessity to sacrifice him if the Borg make it to Earth.  The tension is still there, the chase to Earth and the destruction at the Battle of Wolf 359 continue to escalate the threat of the Borg.  The model work of the destroyed starships is particularly chilling, probably the most impressive model work of the show so far outside of reuse of models used for the films.  Jonathan Frakes as Riker may be leading the episode as captain, he is promoted, but Piller keeps Shelby, played by Elizabeth Dennehy, as part of the action.  She’s the one taking Riker’s role in this episode and Piller keeps writing her as her own character, Riker’s subordinate but not a love interest as a lesser writer might be tempted to do.  Frakes can play the Captain well, Riker deciding to stay on the ship on the end is almost a renewed life, though it’s also clearly signaling the end of his character arc in general.  He has reached a place of satisfaction.  While there are less moments in this episode for the rest of the crew as we are focusing on the falling action, Piller doesn’t neglect them.  The dialogue still is the strongest the supporting cast has been.  This extends beyond the dialogue, there are moments where in particular Michael Dorn and Gates McFadden are giving particularly physical performances that understand how to convey exactly where their characters are going despite Worf and Crusher staying squarely in the support role.  Colm Meany as O’Brien is also given a slightly larger role here, continuing the trend of pulling him slightly out of the background.

 

The performance on which “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” hinges is actually Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan.  In the previous episode while she had a scene with Picard on the eve of battle, she is given a parallel scene with Riker about how far he must be willing to go to win.  It’s one of the episode’s few quiet moments as this is an episode where everything is constantly moving towards the obvious conclusion: separate Picard from Locutus of Borg first by getting him off the cube, and then by disconnecting his mind from the Borg.  There is a small scene early in the episode where we see part of the assimilation process, likely because they hadn’t quite designed the full costume when filming the first episode, but it’s a nice addition to show how little is actually needed from the Borg to assimilate someone.  The updates to the design also highlight subtly more of the body horror and Patrick Stewart’s performance in the episode as Locutus is far more sinister than the taste of the first episode.  Locutus is not a raving and ranting villain, it is instead an incredibly measured performance of this subtle confidence.  The Borg as a collective are an unstoppable force, “Q Who” already established that they are from incredibly far away and work as a collective.  This is cosmic horror and Stewart knows exactly how to play that horror.  Piller’s script is also excellent at knowing when Locutus needs to be quiet: after the kidnapping there’s very little dialogue from Stewart, instead giving his all to a physical performance.  It’s especially difficult as Stewart has to play opposite Brent Spiner who has mastered this type of physical performance.  The way Stewart cracks ever so slightly in the performance is fantastic.  Jean-Luc Picard as a character is hardly defined by his warmth and humanity before this point, but “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” works because in taking away Picard’s humanity it reveals just how much was there underneath.  The few things Locutus says on the Enterprise cuts deep, especially towards Data as a lesser synthetic life form in the eyes of the Borg.

 

While it is impossible to watch this episode without knowing that Picard is going to be fine.  On broadcast, in a time without the Internet leaking plot developments during production, it is presented as a real possibility that Stewart is leaving the show and Frakes is taking over the role with Riker as captain.  What further elevates it is the decision in the end to keep some of the Borg implants for the final scene, adding this commitment from Star Trek: The Next Generation to having lasting consequences for plot developments like this.  The final scene of the episode keeps some of the Borg implants on Picard.  It is almost certain that the next episode will have them removed, but the rhetorical choice is there to not fully remove them.  Cliff Bole’s blocking of this final scene is all building to a final shot that does not read as victory.  The Enterprise crew got lucky, it was Data’s quick thinking and Picard’s humanity that took advantage of a loophole in Borg programming to cause the cube to self-destruct.  Picard is still suffering from his ordeal, that final shot communicates that he was just as much on the precipice as the planet Earth was.  Bole’s direction continues to be excellent as it was in “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I”, but it really is that final shot that is a perfect capstone to the episode.

 

Overall, Star Trek: The Next Generation’s fourth season does not open with a surprise, but it does open with a perfect example of how to resolve a cliffhanger.  There is a tendency to think that not attempting to one-up twists is somehow a failing, because with “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” you can see where the episode is going.  That’s the point of where the episode has been going and is why the episode works so well.  Michael Piller has crafted a perfect two-part story that ends a season with a bang while understanding that the next season needs to open with the resolution to that bang, despite an ending that indicates that things are not over in more ways than one.  It’s also the best that Star Trek: The Next Generation has looked, Cliff Bole cementing himself as one of the show’s best directors, keeping much of the blocking tight to keep the tension and disguise just how the episode is restricted to the Enterprise.  “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” takes it’s place as one of the best season openers of the entire franchise and makes The Best of Both Worlds an instant classic piece of television.  10/10.

The Best of Both Worlds Part I by: Michael Piller and directed by: Cliff Bole

 

“The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is written by: Michael Piller and is directed by: Cliff Bole.  It was produced under production code 174, was the 26^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 74^th episode overall, and was broadcast on June 18, 1990.

 

The pre-credits sequence for “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is fascinating.  Rhetorically it is there to put the viewer in a state of anxiety.  While it introduces the first intrigue of the episode: what happened to the colony of New Providence to turn it into a crater, the speed at which this happens is incredibly quick.  It only lasts one minute and 20 seconds.  The impact barely has enough time to process a colony being wiped out as the camera pans over the crater before an immediate cut to the opening credits.  That’s the point, of course.  The sense of dread as the first episode builds to the suspicion of and then confirmation that it is in fact the Borg responsible for the destruction of New Providence.  Much like the pre-credits sequence, this is done relatively quickly, the confirmation coming at about the one-third mark of the episode so the second and third acts can be the Enterprise actively chasing the Borg in a reversal of “Q Who”, a decision that by the end of the episode has grave consequences.  Michael Piller’s script is clear that the Enterprise (and by extension the Federation) choosing to go after the Borg is simultaneously an ignorant decision, but the correct decision.  Nobody else is going to save them and people are already dying.  The Enterprise is going into danger and it is reiterated that there is not enough time before they will find the Borg to upgrade even their defenses properly, much less the weapons.  People are dying.  Any possible advantage against the Borg is necessary.

 

Seeking any possible advantage is Lt. Cmdr. Shelby, played by Elizabeth Dennehy.  Shelby is introduced with Admiral Hanson, played by George Murdock, as one of two experts on the Borg, investigating since the reports back to Starfleet in “Q Who”.  She is introduced as cool, confident, and competent.  A candidate to take the position of first officer as Riker for the third time has been offered a commission as captain of a different ship.  He refuses to take it, his entire arc in this episode is grappling with that decision, but Shelby fully believes the position on the Enteprise is hers.  Despite her qualifications, she is the woman to run into danger, investigating the ruins with Data before the rest of the away team and against Riker’s orders.  This is the wrong decision, she is lucky to not have negative consequences outside of further tension with Riker (she outright tells him she is taking his position).  She still gets invited to the poker game, a game of bluff thematically furthering the idea that Riker is a man who knows exactly how to bluff.  Hanson, on the other hand, is the latest in a long line of Starfleet officials.  He is a representative of the authority behind the Enterprise’s actions.  Physically, he is only present on the Enterprise in the opening act, but his real impact is these periodic updates on where the rest of Starfleet is.  These are further used to build the tension and Murdock plays the roles with this little hint of humanity that the audience believes him to be a real person that cares about the people being sent into battle.  “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is still an episode of a television show and does not have the budget to actually show many of the updates, so Hanson as a character is integral for creating those stakes.  Murdock keeps the tone intense, the episode slowly spiraling out of the Enterprise’s control.

 

The tone is not only these details, but also the actual production.  Cliff Bole is not a director unfamiliar to Star Trek: The Next Generation.  His work is some that I have praised and with “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” there is an intense tightness to the shots and the blocking.  Some of this is the smallness of the sets, when the action shifts to the Borg Cube it is clear there is a limited number of sets, but simple redresses disguise this and enhance the conformity aspect of the Borg.  Much of the action is on the Enterprise, but the real money shots from Bole is that opening crater and the model work of the Enterprise and Borg Cube is excellent.  There’s also clearly been so much work that has gone into remastering the series for high definition.  But Bole is also continuing the trend of moving the camera with the action, even if it’s a simple dialogue scene.  There’s also little character touches like Geordi La Forge evacuating engineering and staying behind ever so slightly, having to roll under the door to get out.  It’s small touches like these and Wesley learning how to play poker (and losing) that help bring a lot of this episode together.

 

Michael Piller’s script is also notable for being quite progressive.  “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” may be an episode at its core that centers two male characters in Riker and Picard, but it is not one to forget other characters exist.  Through the first two seasons the female characters especially on Star Trek: The Next Generation had the tendency to be written with the same brush, often a sexual one even in scenarios where sexualization is not necessary.  What Piller has done here with Troi, Crusher, and Guinan is give each of them an individual scene, not so much to stand on their own, but at the very least make them people who are written as colleagues, and importantly, friends.  They are not carrying the invisible baggage of telling the two men what is wrong, they are there for advice and Troi and Guinan especially.  Whoopi Goldberg is clearly playing Guinan in conversation with her role in “Q Who”, though here there isn’t the antagonistic force of Q so she is opposite Picard.  Troi is opposite Riker, explicitly being a counselor so he can get to the bottom of his own needs and desires.

 

Riker is the centerpiece of the episode.  His plot, which has been alluded to already, is one of a man coming to terms with who he wants and needs to be.  There is such love and passion for the Enterprise that despite the blood, sweat, and tears shed to become first officer, specifically on this ship.  His ambitions are to become captain, but they have stalled.  This is not in a bad way, to reiterate William Riker is a man who loves the Enterprise and her crew.  He butts heads with Shelby because of that love and is willing to sacrifice himself to the Borg if necessary.  The tragedy of “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is that the situation has held him back.  That’s the big twist.  The Borg themselves, a collective that erases individuality to just become another cog in a machine that is ever expanding, but this time they need an individual.  They specifically want Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and after being unable to outrun or trick the Borg into a defeat, Picard is abducted.  Now, I do think discussing the Borg in depth should wait for next week and “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” because the commentary of a collective needing an individual feels like post-Cold War commentary on the Soviet Union needing to accept capitalism in the context of a 1990 episode of television (though ironically could also very easily be a metaphor for the unsustainable nature of capitalism that was becoming rapidly apparent after Reagan and Thatcher).  This is because the Borg while ever present a threat and terrifying, they actually aren’t on-screen all that much.  When they are it becomes clear more budget has gone into the designs of the individual bodies of the borg, taking specific inspiration in places from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, but this is a story about people.  Picard is given nearly as much time as Riker, representing a diplomat going into war and that slowly tearing him apart as it really is against his values.  Both Jonathan Frakes and Patrick Stewart play their characters as parallels to one another.

 

The episode builds their individual arcs to a climax, culminating in that ending.  The dread, tension, and suspense all boil until we get to the big twist: after being captured Captain Jean-Luc Picard has been assimilated into the Borg as Locutus.  This is a twist that somehow I was unaware of.  I knew about the Borg, I even knew that they were the villains of The Best of Both Worlds, but I did not know about the twist.  It is a twist a genre savvy viewer can see coming, the Borg are clearly inspired by Doctor Who’s Cybermen, a relationship that has become symbiotic.  It’s also a slight lie to say that this boils over, it’s just at a rolling boil after the away team where basically every main character who hasn’t had a moment to shine yet does so, including Crusher with a phaser, discovers this.  They are only saved by a perfectly timed transporter.  You would think that’s the end.  But no, that’s a twist.  The cliffhanger has to be the inflection point, the point where everything the episode builds to has to change.  There has been one plot thread I have left out.  The Borg continually advance their technology whenever attacked, so the Enterprise has been developing a Hail Mary weapon, something they hope not to use.  The inflection point is acting Captain William Riker deciding, after being begged not to because there’s still a slim chance for Crusher to save Picard if retrieved, to fire.  The music quotes Holst’s “Mars, Bringer of War”, and the episode cuts to a To Be Continued caption.  It physically dropped my jaw.  It is a brilliant climax that is the culmination of Riker needing to listen to himself and choose.  Did he choose correctly? That’s discussion for when I actually see “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”.

 

Overall, “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” at its core is a gamble.  It’s a season finale that ends on a cliffhanger and while CBS and Paramount Pictures had already started work on the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, there still was that chance that it would not work.  It’s also currently riding this tightrope, as setup it’s brilliant.  Every aspect of the production slots into place to tell a story driven by where the characters have been going over the course of this entire season, and for Riker and Picard even earlier.  The script and direction both are building tension and every performance is on the top of their game, but it could all come crashing down with the potential for a poor second half.  Yet, it’s also the statement of a show that has fully found its identity and voice after the first two very rocky seasons and a third season that is very strong, but arguably lacking a mission statement as to its identity.  This is that mission statement and it is a perfect one.  10/10.

Bottom 5 Episodes of Season 3:

5. Booby Trap

4. A Matter of Perspective

3. Transfigurations

2. The High Ground

1. The Price

Bottom 10 Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation So Far:

10. The Price

9. The Schizoid Man

8. Too Short a Season

7. Shades of Gray

6. Home Soil

5. Justice

4. Up the Long Ladder

3. Angel One

2. The Child

1. Code of Honor

Top 5 Episodes of Season 3:

5. Deja Q

4. The Offspring

3. Yesterday's Enterprise

2. The Best of Both Worlds, Part I

1. Sarek

Top 10 Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation So Far...

10. The Survivors

9. The Enemy

8. Deja Q

7. Q Who

6. Elementary Dear Data

5.The Offspring

4. Yesterday's Enterprise

3. The Best of Both Worlds, Part I

2. Sarek

1. The Measure of a Man