Star Trek, The Next Generation First-Time Watch – Season 4, Episodes 22-24

In this episode of To Baldly Go, we continue our first-time watch of Star Trek: The Next Generation with three episodes that take us from questions about aging and societal rituals, to the nature of identity, to some good old-fashioned Romulan manipulation.

This week, we get:

• Rituals and societal structure
• A story we've seen before
• Romulans

We covered:

• Half a Life
• The Host
• The Mind’s Eye

In Half a Life, Lwaxana Troi unexpectedly finds herself at the center of one of an uncomfortable moral dilemma. We talk about different cultural approaches to aging, euthanasia, finding nuance in what initially feels like a black-and-white decision, and the difference between knowing your days are numbered and actually knowing the number of your days. Along the way, Aaron develops a newfound appreciation for Lwaxana, and we establish that it’s Worf, not Woof.

In The Host, the Trill make their first appearance, giving us a story with some genuinely interesting questions about identity, relationships, and how much of our essence is tied to our physical bodies. Unfortunately, the execution doesn’t always live up to the premise. We discuss some questionable character decisions, what exactly happened to Riker’s personality while he was serving as the host, bottle episodes, missing Dr. Pulaski, Men in Black, and, naturally, The Amazing Race Season 7.

Finally, The Mind’s Eye brings the Romulans back into the picture with a Geordi-centered take on The Manchurian Candidate. We talk about why the Romulans work so well as villains, the value of recurring adversaries, episode Easter eggs, who actually benefits from the Klingon conflict, and one of the reasons TNG’s developing continuity works better for us than the largely standalone nature of TOS.

Join us as we discuss Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 4, Episodes 22-24: “Half a Life,” “The Host” and “The Mind’s Eye.”

First-Time Watch

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

We begin with Barclay suddenly becoming the smartest person on the Enterprise in The Nth Degree. Then Q returns to teach Picard a lesson about love by dropping the crew into his own version of Robin Hood in Qpid. Finally, an investigation into sabotage aboard the Enterprise grows into something much larger in The Drumhead.

This week, we get:

• The next stage of human evolution
• Q and his Merry Men
• Conspiracies

We covered:

The Nth Degree

• Broccoli
• Another trip to the center of the galaxy
• Data's IQ
• Life 3.0
• Becoming one with the computer
• A strong ending
• Barclay's redemption

Qpid

• Was this a fun episode to make?
• Q is back
• A disjointed, forced plot
• Nate sounds like Gregg
• Weird and disappointing
• What did Q actually add to the episode?
• The Princess Bride
• Swearing
• Robin Hood vs. Camelot themes

The Drumhead

• Sabotage and treason?
• An ambitious episode
• Was the ending deliberately unsatisfying?
• Did they try to do too much?
• Not all conspiracy theories are real—but conspiracies exist
• The difference between asking questions and drawing conclusions
• When our discussion is more compelling than the episode
• Picard's pronunciation of "Aaron"
• Parallels to McCarthyism

Final Thoughts

Three very different episodes give us plenty to talk about this week. Barclay gets an unexpected chance at redemption, Q returns for an adventure that doesn't quite work for us, and The Drumhead takes a swing at paranoia, conspiracy, and the dangers of reaching conclusions before the evidence supports them.

Next time, we continue Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4 with:

• Half a Life
• The Host
• The Mind’s Eye

Never give up. Never surrender.

First-Time Watch – Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 4, Episodes 16-18

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:

• World building for the fans
• A potentially interesting, but possibly underdeveloped idea
• Incomplete victories

We covered:

• Galaxy’s Child
• Night Terrors
• Identity Crisis

In “Galaxy’s Child,” the real Dr. Leah Brahms visits the Enterprise and discovers the holodeck simulation Geordi created in her image. Meanwhile, the crew accidentally kills a massive space-dwelling life-form and must save the newborn creature left behind. We discuss creepy Geordi, the differences between Geordi and Barclay, Easter eggs for longtime fans, speed and distance in Star Trek, radiation measurements, Picard’s speech about destroying a life-form, Guinan messing with Geordi and whether the creature looks more like an empanada or a calzone.

“Night Terrors” begins with the Enterprise discovering the USS Brattain adrift, its crew dead except for a single traumatized survivor. The Enterprise soon becomes trapped in the same region of space as its crew gradually loses the ability to dream. We discuss whether the episode’s central idea received enough development, its similarities to other episodes, Starfleet ship classes and crew complements, real-life lessons from Star Trek and old Star Trek DVDs from China.

In “Identity Crisis,” Geordi reunites with Susanna Leijten, a former member of an away team whose surviving officers have begun disappearing five years after visiting Tarchannen III. As Geordi and Leijten undergo a mysterious transformation, the Enterprise attempts to reconstruct what happened during their original mission. We discuss why Geordi could seemingly have done everything from Sickbay, another round of Enterprise security problems, shuttlepods versus shuttlecraft, How I Met Your Mother, Earth: Final Conflict and a resolution that only feels partially successful.

Join us as we discuss Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 4, Episodes 16-18: “Galaxy’s Child,” “Night Terrors” and “Identity Crisis.”