Star Trek - TNG - Reviews

The Measure of a Man - Plot: When Data is to be dismatled a hearing is convened to determine if he is a legal citizen or property of the Federation. Review: A highly rated episode that I found boring and obvious. Mediocre. 

Q Who Plot: Q flings the Enterprise 7,000 light years beyond Federation space and introduces them to the deadly Borg. Review: One of the best TNG episodes I've seen so far. The first encounter with the Borg. The only drawback is Whoopie Goldberg's awful wooden acting. 

Hide and Q Plot: Q tempts Commander Riker into joining the Q Continuum. Review: Another mediocre episode. Another obvious episode. Who ever thought Riker would join Q? And the awfulness of suporting characters/actors Denise Crosby, Wesley, and LaForge is truly depressing.

A Matter of Honor - Riker gets a chance to shine when he becomes the first human "exchange Officer" on board a Klingon ship. This episode is well done, but the Klingons (especially the Captain) are shown in almost cartoonish way, compared to the TOS Klingons. Evidently, in 20 years the screenwriters forgot how to portray a warrior, honor based culture without resorting to Macho Stupidity. 
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The Neutral Zone - While the Romulans are portrayed well at the end, this is another missed TNG opportunity. The interesting plot - the Enterprise finds and revives 3 survivors from the 1980s who were cryonicly frozen is wasted. The 3 survivors are an obnoxious money-mad businessman, a good-time drunkard, and a dull young mother. The guest stars can't breathe much life into these dull stereotypes and a chance to address issues of life/death/advance of civilization in a meaningful way is lost. 

Conspiracy I'm beginning to detect a pattern. Like the previous two episodes, this one has an interesting story that fails in the execution. An old time friend suspects Star Fleet has been infiltrated by outsiders and asks Picard for help. The first half is gripping until the outsiders start beating people up for no reason and the whole thing turns into a bad ripoff of the movie Alien.

Drumbeat - Pretty good episode guest staring Jean Simmons (of all people) as an Admiral who's out of find a spy whether there is one or not. Simmons does an excellent job of being likable and feminine at the start before turning into a rather nasty character. Flaw: Too many pompous speeches by Picard. 

Inner Light - This is pretty much a one man show as Picard awakens to find he is on a planet, with a wife and a new identity. A touching show. A showcase for Stewart to show he can do something more than say "make it so". 

Best of Both Worlds, Parts 1&2 - The first encounter with "The Borg". An exciting episode that is suspenseful and well written. Sadly, this in episode that makes me miss Spock, McCoy, and Scotty. Riker and his new subordinate (a manly, uber-ambitious female) don't have the charisma and likability to handle the subplot. Whoppi Goldberg shows up and wastes at least 10 minutes of film.

Elementary My Dear Data (Season 2). One of the better Season 2 episodes. During Sherlock Holmes holodeck RPG scenario the Prof. Moriarty character accidentally becomes self-aware. This episode starts out slow but becomes more and more interesting as we find Moriarty character wants to live outside the game. Like most time travel and holodeck episodes this doesn’t really make a lot of sense but it’s a fun episode and somewhat thoughtful That Moriarty isn’t made into a monster or destroyed in a fist-fight ala TOS is a plus.

Star Trek - First Contact (1994) A dull Star trek movie with the charisma free TNG cast. Feels like a mediocre 2 hour TV episode. When Captain Picard runs into a sassy machine gun toting black women you know you’re not in a quality movie.