TO BOLDLY REVIEW #9 – STAR TREK: NEXT GENERATION (1990 – 1991)– SEASON 4
Based on Star Trek & Created by: Gene Roddenberry
Season 4 writers (selected): Michael Piller, Michael Wagner, Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor, Lee Sheldon, Melinda Snodgrass, Richard Manning, Ronald D. Moore, David Bischoff, , Joe Menosky, Drew Deighan, Brannon Braga, J. Larry Carroll, Hilary J. Bader, Harold Apter, Stuart Charno, Sara Charno, Maurice Hurley, Shari Goodhartz, Timothy DeHaas, Randee Russell, Ira Steven Behr, Rene Echevarria etc.
Season 4 directors (selected): Jonathan Frakes, Winrich Kolbe, Rob Bowman, Robert Weimer, Les Landau, Robert Scheerer, Cliff Bole, Robert Legato, Tom Benko, Chip Chalmers, Timothy Bond, David Carson, Gabrielle Beaumont, Patrick Stewart, David Livingston, Marvin V. Rush, Chip Chalmers etc.
Main Cast: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Whoopi Goldberg, Colm Meaney, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, Gates McFadden, John De Lancie, Dwight Schultz, Majel Barrett, Rosalind Chao etc.
Music/Composers: Alexander Courage, Jerry Goldsmith, Dennis McCarthy, Ron Jones, Jay Chattaway
Production Company(s): Paramount Television, CBS Television
**** CONTAINS SPOILERS ****
My simultaneous retrospective and futuristic journey into space and time continues, and I have finally finished watching Season 4 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s commonly admitted to being one of the most consistently excellent seasons of TNG. I very much enjoyed the mixture of sci-fi concepts, drama, humour and tragedy within the well established formula of the Starship Enterprise boldly exploring various galaxies.
Major themes of the season related to family, honour, love, espionage, war and divided loyalties. While the Wesley Crusher character left for the Starfleet Academy (Wil Wheaton left the show), the majority of our favourite characters remained. Indeed, Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) was given more airtime and a marriage subplot. More dramatically the Klingons and Romulans featured heavily as pillars of conflict, with many of the best episodes featuring Romulan deceptions and Klingon brutalism.
Star Trek: The Next Generation continues to be a compelling show to watch and look back on with respect and nostalgia. While I continually enjoyed pretty much all the episodes, here are six of the best ones featuring Picard and his devoted crew.
THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS – PART II – EPISODE 1
A continuation of Season 3’s cliff-hanger episode found Picard in the grips of the Borg. Even more thrilling was Riker, Data, La Forge and the rest of the crew have to stop the evil machines from launching a deadly assault on Earth. With dual battles of the mind and in space occurring simultaneously, this episode is memorable in so many ways. Patrick Stewart as Picard gives a fantastically intense performance as he battles the evil within.
FAMILY – EPISODE 2
Gentler in approach than the opening episode, Family, has a brilliantly written script with three very emotionally charged storylines. Wesley Crusher must decide whether to watch a video recorded by his deceased father. Worf is met by his adoptive human parents who seek to console him following his Klingon discommendation. Lastly, a still shaken Picard returns to Earth and reconnects with his brother. The trio of narratives combine to forge a highly satisfying and emotionally charged episode.
REUNION – EPISODE 7
While Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard often garners the acting acclaim with his fine performances, I think Michael Dorn as Lt. Worf always gives great portrayals too. Worf’s conflicted cultural identity – between Klingon and Starfleet – always provides constant moments of explosive and introspective drama. In this episode his former love, K’Ehleyr (Suzie Plakson) returns to oversee, with Picard, the fight for the Klingon leadership. It is revealed that Worf also has a son by K’Ehleyr as the episode delivers excitement, intrigue and tragedy.
THE DRUMHEAD – EPISODE 21
This brilliant episode is unlike many others as the Enterprise crew are not faced with a divisive alien enemy. Instead, Picard and his crew come under Starfleet suspicion from the formidable Admiral Satie. Jean Simmons as Satie gives a memorable acting masterclass, as her over-zealous paranoia causes a witch-hunt culture to poison the court proceedings. I’m a big fan of the courtroom drama and this expertly paced and written episode reminded me of a reverse-engineered version of, The Caine Mutiny (1954).
THE MIND’S EYE – EPISODE 24
Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge is a very under-rated character within the TNG crew. He’s a brilliant engineer with a likable personality, so when he is “brainwashed” by the Romulans to commit an assassination it was intriguing to see his character go over to the dark side as it were. I especially liked the suspense and plot twists of this episode which paid homage to films such as: A Clockwork Orange (1971) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
REDEMPTION – PART I – EPISODE 26
This brilliant season culminated with a superlative episode which brought together all of the plots and subplots involving the battles with the Romulans and Klingons. Lt. Worf has a particularly difficult choice between his Starfleet commission and family honour. Ultimately, he chooses to fight for honour and in a wonderful conclusion to the episode joins the Klingon fleet to fight alongside his brother, Kurn (Tony Todd), against the Duras hordes. Despite the out-of-the-box temporally strained twist involving, Sela (Denise Crosby), a Tasha Yar Romulan lookalike, the episode was full of dramatic moments and provided a compelling cliff-hanger for the next season.
The Cinema Fix presents 