First-Time Watch – Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 4, Episodes 13-15

This week on The To Baldly Go Podcast, we continue our first-time, release-order journey through Star Trek with three episodes from the fourth season of The Next Generation.

This week, we get:

• Feeling like a TOS episode
• Ron Swanson’s favorite Star Trek episode
• What happens when a society learns they are not alone in the universe?

We covered:

• Devil’s Due
• Clues
• First Contact

In “Devil’s Due,” the Enterprise arrives at Ventax II just as the planet’s people prepare to surrender themselves to Ardra, a supposedly supernatural figure returning to collect on a thousand-year-old contract. The episode feels like a lost TOS story performed by the TNG cast, leading us into discussions about Q, religion, explanations, knowledge problems, Troi’s empathic range, and whether Ardra would make a good Dungeons & Dragons villain.

“Clues” gives us a tightly constructed mystery after the Enterprise crew apparently loses only thirty seconds while passing through a wormhole. The evidence says otherwise, but Data refuses to explain what really happened. We discuss the episode’s handling of time, warp speed, relativity, the one explanation that might have improved everything, and plant reconciliation studies.

In “First Contact”—not the movie—Riker is injured while secretly observing a civilization approaching warp capability. Picard must decide how and when to reveal that the people of Malcor III are not alone in the universe. We discuss fear, uncertainty and doubt, the Prime Directive, Bebe Neuwirth’s unmistakable voice, and the discovery that Riker is apparently a freak.

Join us as we discuss Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 4, Episodes 13-15: “Devil’s Due,” “Clues,” and “First Contact.”