Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Seven

-Finally, after three years of watching mostly one episode a week, I have finished my re-watch of all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation (season seven trailer)! I am thrilled to present my final entry here chronicling my adventures with the crew of the Enterprise! For the final season I was able to slightly bump up my viewing habits and mostly stuck to watching two episodes a week, and thus I was able to make faster progress on this final season! Somehow, my horrendously outdated Samsung Galaxy S7 phone has managed to barely limp along this entire journey with me, and the gloriously awful pics featured throughout this article are courtesy of that wonderful device.

-Season six wrapped with an enticing cliffhanger to “Descent” where Lore managed to work some sinister sorcery to recruit a squadron of Borg and hack into the code banks of Data (Brent Spiner) in order to recruit him to join his cause. Season seven had a great kickoff to resolve this new threat, and had a satisfying conclusion at putting an end to Lore once and for all. I would rank “Descent” on the higher end of TNG two-part arcs, as the Lore/Borg/Data combination proved to be an intriguing antagonist to see how they would be dealt with.

Picard is ready for combat on the left, while falling ill on the Enterprise leads to crew members tripping with some wild illusions on the right!

-I was a little bummed to see a complete lack of appearances from Whoopi Goldberg in her role as Guinan in the final season. I am presuming it must have been scheduling conflicts as she has always been in high demand, especially around this time just a couple years after her Oscar win for Best Supporting Actress in Ghost. Whoopi would return as Guinan in two of the four Star Trek movies based on TNG cast.

-A pair of recurring characters that did return for their final episodes this season are Michelle Forbes as Ensign Lt. Ro Lauren and Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher. Ro is fresh off tactical training for an important undercover mission that conclusively decides her fate with Starfleet as she would never appear in another Star Trek series or film again after this. According to my research I was surprised to learn it took a last minute agreement with Forbes within a week before filming to get her to reprise her role as she was starting to distance herself from the brand after initial plans to make her a mainstay on Deep Space Nine fizzled. Wesley Crusher’s final appearance had a better payoff in “Journey’s End” where during a vision quest he finally is deemed ready by a previous guest character, The Traveler (Eric Menyuk), to join him on a mystical journey to see Wesley fulfill his supernatural potential. I had no idea they were going to payoff these vague promises The Traveler alluded to in Wesley way back in season two, so big props to the cast and crew making that happen!

-Other past recurring characters returned, but only to see them casted in middling-to-disappointing episodes. This is the case for Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz) in the head-scratching “Genesis” episode that has the Enterprise staff fall victim to a virus that de-evolves them into various primates. The love-or-hate mother of Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), Lwaxana (Majel Barrett), has a major sendoff in her final episode where we learn all about her tragic backstory.

-Speaking of mediocre episodes, season seven has a bit more than previous seasons. A two-parter sees Riker and Picard go undercover to form a fake mutiny to sniff out a Vulcan double agent, and while it is not terrible by any means, the whole arc seems bloated and the second episode feels unnecessary. “Phantasms” is as bizarre as the dreams Data (Brent Spiner) has in the episode, but Data later has a redeeming character episode in “Inheritance” where he meets his mother…..then later hits another stumble in “Thine Own Self” where his radioactive experiments causes a planet’s population to become seriously ill. I will give season seven the benefit of the doubt for the noticeable bump up in lackluster episodes because several of the bonus interviews own up to this and attribute it to the cast and crew being spread thin with the final season of TNG, the second season of Deep Space Nine and being in pre-production of the first season of Voyager and the upcoming movie with the TNG crew, Generations.

-The holodeck’s sendoff in TNG, “Emergence” is a decent affair that sees the crew go aboard the Orient Express to solve the mystery of how the holodeck becomes self-aware. The episode had a few promising moments, but could have been better. While I enjoyed the quality of holodeck episodes overall in TNG, from what I understand the holodeck episodes greatly suffer going forward and falls victim to holodeck malfunctions and sexual fantasy tropes.

Worf once again has a strong set of character-focused episodes this season. You have not lived until witnessing Worf adopt a cat for an episode, and experience a birthday party time-loop.

-Worf (Michael Dorn) has one of the strongest slate of character episodes this season. Seeing Worf being a curmudgeon at his birthday party was pulled off to perfection! “Homeward” is a feel-good family episode where Worf resolves his rocky relationship with his foster brother, Nikolai (Paul Sorvino). The best Worf-centered episode is saved for last where he trains Alexander (James Sloyan) in the arts of becoming a Klingon warrior with the help of a mysterious Klingon friend.

-A couple other episodes that made strong impressions on me this season are “The Pegasus” and “Lower Decks.” In the former, Terry O’ Quinn of Lost fame, appears here as a higher-up from Starfleet to track down the lost USS Pegasus, but Picard (Patrick Stewart) eventually discovers a grand cover-up that has an enticing way of finding the truth of what Quinn’s character is hiding. “Lower Decks” is entirely focused on the background Ensigns and ancillary characters like Nurse Ogawa (Patti Yasutake). The last couple years saw the streaming service, Paramount+ (formerly CBS All Access) launch a Star Trek: Lower Decks animated series with the very same premise, and if you are a fan of the cartoon, you owe it to yourself to track down this episode as its source material.

“Interface” and “Bloodlines” are both strong episodes dealing with long forgotten family members. The former has Geordi (LeVar Burton) risking his life with prototype tech to save his mother (Madge Sinclair), and the latter deals with Picard’s surprise of finding out he had a son (Ken Olandt) from a decades-prior relationship.

-Now to the moment of truth, it is time to cover the final two-part episode, “All Good Things…” The series finale naturally focuses on Jean-Luc as he finds himself constantly time-warping between three different time periods to solve a new challenge bestowed onto him by none other than Q (John de Lancie). I loved how they brought it back full-circle with one of the time periods emanating from the same setting as the original pilot episode of TNG where Q puts the then-newly assembled Enterprise crew on trial. The cast and crew hold nothing back for the final episode with an enthralling narrative as Picard pieces together Q’s final challenge, and has an emotional final scene where after seven seasons, Picard finally joins his crew for a round of poker.

-Here is the paragraph with my obligatory kudos to the countless hours spent remastering TNG in HD for the BluRay set. I am not a video-phile and cannot immaculately explain with the proper tech verbiage on how they did it. All I can say is the staff painstakingly made it look like they shot it today, and it does not have any of the old fuzzy standard definition effects that would happen when forcing an SD resolution onto an HD set. Just watch this indicative video that overlays the remastered HD transfer over the SD version to see for yourself. I will also give yearly props to the podcast, Star Trek: The Next Conversation which chronicles every individual episode of TNG and has served as the best supplementary listening material to get the most out of every episode for me. The podcast took a hiatus during the pandemic, and only recently picked up again and are only a couple episodes into season seven as of this writing, so I will pat myself on the back at catching up to them when I was nearly a season and a half behind them when I started from the beginning of TNG.

-You guys know I love covering the bonus features, and season seven of the BluRay is absolutely jacked with them with previous bonus interviews and specials, and all new HD extras. According to my notes, it all added up for just over five hours of bonus materials, and that is not including a handful of commentary tracks on selected episodes. Going over each and every piece of bonus content will kill me, so instead I will highlight the handful that I got the most out of:

-----Captain’s Tribute (16 min) – Stewart gives loving testimonials to the cast and crew. A lesson he learned from a dialog with Michael Dorn and LeVar Burton was a key takeaway here.

-----In Conversation: Lensing ST: TNG (42 min) - This one is a new HD extra aimed at special effects enthusiasts where a roundtable discussion with camera operators and directors of photography reunite to talk shop of the many highs and lows of on the set production. While a fair amount of trade vernacular went right over my head, they provided ample context and their enthusiasm for their craft is irresistible!

I know it is asking a lot to dive into the many hours of bonus interviews, but nearly most of it is incredibly insightful and well worth your time!

-----Starfleet Moments & Memories (30 min) – Awesome feature showcasing the camaraderie and humor between takes that indicates a true sense of friendship among the cast and crew.

-----Closed Set: Tour of Real Enterprise (11 min) – The Okundas give a private, narrated, tour of the Enterprise filled with fun facts like how the set for sickbay gained a reputation among cast and crew as “nap-bay.” Every person should have their own nap-bay!

-----Journeys End: The Saga of TNG (45 min) – Original 1994 TV special hosted by Jonathan Frakes celebrating the end of an era.

----Sky’s the Limit: Eclipse of TNG (89 min) – Three part special with part one primarily focused on the cast and crew having a lot of projects on their plate the final year and lovingly throwing shade at Picket Fences for stealing their Emmy award! Part two interviews various directors of episodes about their process, and Seth McFarlane shares a special moment he had with a fan on how the show saved their life. The third part interviews a lot of the cast on how they felt the show wrapped, with a couple highlights being Sirtis not being fond of the Worf/Deanna courtship, and Patrick Stewart remarking when asked about future projects that he would consider them, but thought they would ultimately be unnecessary. This was obviously recorded several years before Stewart would return as Picard in the current Paramount+ series, Picard.

-Suffice it to say, the extra features do not disappoint! As I foreshadowed above, there is an apparent dip in quality this season overall compared to the high bar set from seasons three through six, but I will cut the cast and crew some slack since they were seriously overworked during the 1993-94 season. There are still many excellent episodes though as I dissected above, and a terrific series finale that puts the best damn bow they possibly could on the TV series. Thank you so much for joining me on this ride over the past three years and bearing with me on my never-ending entries covering the series. If you missed out on previous entries, click here to see all my previous season recaps of The Next Generation, or click here to continue my journey with TNG crew with my reviews of all the Star Trek motion pictures.



Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
2018-19 TV Season Recap
2019-20 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections
Cobra Kai – Seasons 1-2
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld - Final Season
Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

Mallrats

Last year I was alerted that Arrow Video was releasing a special 25th Anniversary BluRay of the 1995 Kevin Smith cult classic, Mallrats (trailer). I was not familiar with Arrow Video before, but after browsing their catalog, it appears they specialize in Criterion-esque special editions and restorations for films that may not receive the prestige critical acclaim the average Criterion release does. I remember seeing the “spot the sailboat” comic book ads for the film around its release but missed it during its brief theatrical run. It was not until catching the TV cut of Mallrats off ABC around 1997/98 that I was first introduced to Kevin Smith’s works.

I already elaborated on my history with Smith’s films in my review for Jay and Silent Bob Reboot last year, so I will not drone on about that again except to say that both Clerks and Mallrats are my two favorite Kevin Smith films. I believe this will be my third time buying it on video. The original collector’s edition DVD received a lot of early buzz from DVD review outlets on how to nail a suite of special features and for having one of the best early DVD commentary tracks. I then upgraded to the 10th Anniversary edition DVD with a bonus extended cut and new anniversary interviews and other bonus content. This BluRay keeps most of the early bonus feature content and adds in a bunch more I will be detailing soon, but for now, I imagine you want to hear about the actual Mallrats movie.

The succinct way to explain it is how Kevin Smith does it in his four-word elevator pitch, “Clerks in a mall.” Essentially it boils down to the film’s two leads, TS (Jeremy London) and Brodie (Jason Lee), getting dumped by their girlfriends Rene (Shannen Doherty) and Brandi (Claire Forlani) in the opening scenes. The duo decides to recover from their sorrows by hitting up their favorite spots in the local mall, where they run into their exes and attempt to win them over with some help from fellow mallrats Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith). Naturally, TS and Brodie have some opposition to overcome to win back their loves in the form of Brandi’s father and local bigshot, Svenning (Michael Rooker), and head mall security guard La Fours (Sven Thorsen).

When I first saw this film on TV around 1997/98, it hit at the perfect time when I was in ninth grade, and I was likely within a few years of the last wave of kids where going to the mall was THE thing to do with friends when you asked: “Hey, want to go and hang out somewhere!?” Mallrats captures the spirit of killing time in the mall with nice little asides debating which food stands are really part of the food court, whining over the latest exhibit clogging up the showcase area of the mall, standing in line for celebrity autographs and gleefully beating up eagerly anticipating the Easter bunny.

When I first experienced the film around age 14, I had no idea what Jay and Silent Bob were talking about with their gratuitous weed jokes. Still, they had a hilarious demeanor about them as they delivered their lines, and they instantly won over 14-year-old Dale. Brodie seemed like the coolest cat with his countless wisecracks throughout the film. Jason Lee and Kevin Smith both went on to say in the bonus interviews that despite the film’s initial theatrical failure, Jason Lee’s performance caught a lot of eyes and opened the door for him to bigger and better roles.

It would behoove me to acknowledge Mallrats has the best of the dozens of Stan Lee movie cameos. It is more of an extended cameo where Lee says more than his usual five-to-ten words of dialog and instead has a full scene with Brodie when he bestows his wisdom of true love to Brodie to motivate him to win over Rene. Lee is legitimately good in the scene, so much so that Marvel Studios had his Mallrats cameo referenced during Lee’s cameo in Captain Marvel.

Arrow Video did a bang-up job packing in a ton of extras in this two-disc BluRay set. There are now three cuts of the film included. The first disc has the original theatrical cut, while the second disc has the extended cut that released with the 10th-anniversary edition and now also includes the TV cut, which is full of a ton of awesomely bad overdubs of expletives. Smith recorded a new introduction to the TV cut highlighted with a fun story of why Mewes’s dubs are so godawful. I would recommend passing on watching the Extended Cut, as it mostly restores the film's original opening, which features a series of longer opening scenes where it takes a while for Brodie and TS to get dumped, and for the movie to eventually find its way into the mall. Instead, I would recommend watching the hour-long archival bonus of the deleted scenes that has Smith and Vincent Pereira explaining why the scenes did not work and have a good time on why they remained on the cutting room floor.

I did make sure to re-watch the original DVD commentary track again with Kevin Smith, Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, Jason Mewes, and Scott Mosier. They are all nonstop entertaining throughout, remembering their time with the film while Fargo was also filming down the street and how Team La Fours fought to get credited in the movie. It is probably up there with UHF being my favorite commentary track, so make sure not to skip over it! New extras for this BluRay are highlighted by a new 12-minute intro from Kevin Smith retelling his highs and lows of the production. My Mallrats Memories is a new 30-minute interview with Smith recollecting his time on the film and how he assembled the cast and crew, and what lead to landing Stan Lee in the movie.

Mr. Mallrats: Tribute to Jim Jacks is Smith’s eulogy to his recently deceased producer on this film, and he gives a loving history of how Jacks went from movie fan to having a successful career in the business. Blunt Talk is a new ten-minute interview with Mewes recounting his early acting career and how he did not consider himself an actor until people started recognizing him from Mallrats. Hollywood of the North is a new ten-minute animated doc with periphery crew members who have many production stories about shooting in the Eden Prairie Center Mall and dealing with complaints from the mall owner. There is a physical blueprint insert which is a perfect recreation of Jay’s blueprints shown in the film of how he plans to take out La Fours. Also new are two hours of raw dailies compiled together. I did not watch it in its entirety because the quality is very raw, like worse than VHS SLP raw, but it was still fun to jump around in bits throughout it and see the cast and crew chatter before and after filming. I didn’t mean to deep dive this much into the bonus materials, but I believe I have covered almost all of the new content, but trust me, there is a lot more bonus archival content from previous DVD releases, so rest assured View Askew fans that there are several hours of extras to sink your teeth into.

Every time I watch Mallrats every several years, I cannot help but get clued in better to some of the jokes and dialog that went right over my initial viewing as a teenager. Thankfully, the film has aged well, and I enjoyed it as much as I initially did in the 90s. I have a good feeling if you’re a View Askew fan or mostly a fan of Smith’s earlier works, then you probably already have this Arrow Video BluRay in your collection. However, for others on the fence wondering if this edition is worth upgrading to, I can safely vouch that Smith and Arrow Video spared no expense to ensure this BluRay is packed to the gills with new (and archival) content to make sure you get your money’s worth!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Avengers: Endgame
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Dark Knight Rises
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
The Clapper
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed I & II
Deck the Halls
Detroit Rock City
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Grunt: The Wrestling Movie
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
I Like to Hurt People
Indiana Jones 1-4
Inglourious Basterds
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Justice League (2017 Whedon Cut)
Last Action Hero
Major League
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Man vs Snake
Marine 3-6
Merry Friggin Christmas
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Nintendo Quest
Not for Resale
Payback (Director’s Cut)
Pulp Fiction
The Punisher (1989)
The Ref
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VIII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Scott Pilgrim vs the World
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Slacker
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Sully
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
Trauma Center
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
The Wizard
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Days of Future Past