Dale's Video Backlog Blog: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Five

-Greetings and thanks for joining me for my semi-annual coverage of marching through Star Trek: The Next Generation. Today I am covering season five (trailer) of the BluRay collection that I continue to ever-so-slowly progress through at one or two episodes a week. I started season five off in February and wrapped it up a couple days ago by watching at this rate. Part of the side effect of that was taking advantage of extended free trials of CBS All Access and binging through all of Picard and the first two seasons of Discovery within two months while keeping up with an episode or two a week of season five of TNG. There happens to be a couple episodes of this season of TNG that play a notable role in Picard, so the timing of it all gelling together was a lucky coincidence. I gave brief recaps of both Picard and Discovery in my annual TV season recap blog that can be found by click or pressing here. I apologize in advance for the questionable-in-quality pics in this entry from my ancient Samsung Galaxy S7 which makes it worth it to grab so many subtitle moments from this season!

-The only notable cast change this season is the addition of Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes). She becomes a recurring character this season as someone who is essentially introduced as coming off work release after a court martial and working her way back into Starfleet in the lowest rack of Ensign and serves primarily at the helm of the bridge. Forbes is fantastic as Ro and she has a few landmark episodes this season with my favorite of hers being “The Next Phase” where Ro and Geordi (LeVar Burton) are de-moleculed and appear as ghosts to the rest of the ship who responds by throwing a funeral for them in the form of a Mardi Gras-esque party at Ten Forward. Forbes is absolutely sublime here in Ro’s pining curiosity at how Riker (Jonathon Frakes) will eulogize her.

-This was a big episode for other recurring characters this season too. That is kind of a big deal considering season five is the only season of the series without a Q (John de Lancie) episode. I like how they find new ways to bring back Denise Crosby, who was shown as a mysterious cliffhanger to the end of the two-part arc of “Redemption” that finished off season four. It picks up in a big way with how Denise Crosby’s new character is connected to Tasha, and how the Romulans get involved in the never-ending civil war of the Klingons that eventually has the gratifying conclusion of Worf winning back his honor among Klingons. Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) has her biggest role yet in the series this season in the two-parter “Time’s Arrow” that has the first part wrap-up season five where we discover the origin of Guinan in the 1890s as the Enterprise crew time travels back then and also encounters an antagonistic Mark Twain in an intriguing episode.

Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) returns for two episodes this season. One is an oddball episode where all on the Enterprise but Wesley and Ensign Lefler (Ashley Judd) are mind controlled by a mysterious augmented reality game. The other episode is much better as Wesley and a few of his squad mates deliver prepared depositions as they are ruthlessly interrogated on the death of one of their peers. The annual Lwaxana (Majel Barrett) episode is about the expected chore to get through in her continued struggles to find a partner where she sets up an arranged marriage that is doomed from the beginning. Props to Chief O’Brien (Colm Meaney) having a kid this season!

-Season five marks the addition of two major personal belongings to one Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). One is the iconic jacket he dons throughout most of the season. I have no idea yet if he wears it in the remaining seasons, but it is a slick jacket and gives him a space cowboy type of vibe to him! I bet it sold boatloads in merchandise! The other item is a special flute that is gifted to him in “The Inner Light” when Picard’s mind engages in a Inception-like lifetime of memories in the span of under a half hour where he experiences an all new culture and life. It is a delight of an episode I appreciate the more I reflect upon it. I later learned in the bonus interviews that this flute melody became a common occurrence at weddings.

-I want to make sure to give kudos to some of my other favorite episodes this season. I loved seeing Spock (Leonard Nimoy) finally make an appearance on TNG. At this point of the show, appearances from the core Original Series crew has been extremely rare and limited, but TNG gets the most out of Nimoy with him playing a major role in another two-part arc where Spock tries to reunite the Romulans back into the Federation of Planets. One of the top episodes this season is “Ethics” where an accident leaves Worf (Michael Dorn) paralyzed and according Klingon ritual must self-sacrifice himself for the greater good. This results in some of the best speeches of the season where Riker and Picard implore Worf to reconsider before Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) impresses with her surprisingly improving doctor skillset to resolve Worf’s paralysis.

An episode that initially appears to have a silly premise, but I outright loved by the end is “Darmok.” Picard winds up stuck on an island with an individual of an undiscovered species that only speaks in metaphors. Picard is as baffled as me trying to decipher the metaphors at first, but gradually picks up on it and by the episode’s end forms a kindship with him as the duo team up against a new threat. “I, Borg” is an episode that plays into Picard later on that sees the Enterprise take in an injured Borg and give it the ability to have independent thought again.

A guilty pleasure TV theme of mine in recent years is the time loop episode theme in the form of Groundhog’s Day. Discovery had a terrific rendition of it in its second season. I was thrilled to see TNG do their version of a time loop episode in “Cause and Effect.” It has a banger of an opening that sees that Enterprise exploding and eventually the scenes start to repeat that sees the crew start to recognize their situation and attempt to find a way out of the time loop. I came to discover in the bonus interviews that this episode preceded Groundhog’s Day by nearly two years, and unlike that film and all the TV shows that have pay homage to it over the years, TNG plays it in a serious manner and not as a comedy, but the writing for it is so well done that it works and is pulled off in a way that had me invested until the end!

-While there were a fair amount of standout episodes this season, I would be remiss if I were not to go this far and fail to mention there were several clunkers. Some of the ones I recommend skipping is where Riker falls for an androgynous being that has a non-committal ending and the episode plays out totally differently today than it was intended then. Another dud is where them dang Ferangi are up to no good again in failing to kidnap a seductive being that has a strong desire for Picard. The biggest abnormality this season is where according to my notes I surmised the episode as ‘imaginary friend comes to life, blargh!’ Trust me on that being all you need to know on the astutely titled episode, “Imaginary Friend.”

-I want to once again give a shoutout to the podcast, Star Trek: The Next Conversation. Hosts Andrew Secunda and Matt Mira breakdown every episode of TNG and help provide ample background, facts and insight with their analysis of each episode. Because of re-watching TNG and combined with their podcast I have been able to better pickup on countless TNG references in other TV shows and podcasts over these past couple years. Click or press here to give them a listen if you have not already.

-There are nearly four and a half hours of extra features that are nicely spread out across all six discs. In addition, there are also four episodes that have commentary from cast and crew with one noteworthy highlight being Orville creator, Seth McFarlane guesting on the commentary for “Cause and Effect.” A lot of the bonus extra are carried over from the original DVDs, but like previous seasons there are a couple of new HD bonuses for the BluRay. Mission Overview deep dives into the production of a couple of my favorite episodes of the season, “Darmok” and Spok’s return in “Unification.” Tribute to Gene Roddenbury has clips of speeches from various Star Trek luminaries at a building dedication to Gene and has fond memories from the cast and crew of Gene. Intergalactic Guest Stars interviews many of the aforementioned recurring characters on why they keep coming back on.

These next two are new HD bonuses for the BluRay. The Music of TNG is an in-depth 75 minute discussion with three composers from the series that I truly appreciated hearing the composers dissect some of the most memorable scores and melodies of TNG history. Finally, Requiem is a two part, hour long look about writing the controversial conflicts that have been touched on throughout the run of TNG, and also has additional tributes and testimonials on Gene Roddenbury. Both are excellent thorough takes on both subject matters, and if you dig bonus features as much as I do, then I highly recommend both of them!

-Season five of The Next Generation continues the success of seasons three and four. I would only mark it a notch under those two strong seasons because there seems to be a few weaker episodes this season than in the previous two. I gathered from the bonus interviews that it seemed that this season tried to go all out exploring new conflicts and themes, and sometimes it worked exceptionally well in the cause of “Cause and Effect” but other times it worked against them a few more times than usual this season. Overall though I would still rank this in the upper tier of TNG season and hope to see the final two season keep up this high bar of quality.