TNG Emergence Well. We couldn't end the series without the holodeck trying to kill people one last time, could we? Dude! It's The Big Lebowski! An entertaining enough episode.
DS9 - Crossover OK, I still adore Julian, but Kira's going to kill him. I think even when I wasn't watching DS9 on the regular that I heard that they were doing Mirror Universe stories. So I can only imagine what this must have been like coming out of nowhere. Terak Nor (in both universes) always looks like a laser tag establishment. Or maybe Babylon 5. Isn't there a meme or whatever they were called back then? "I'm much hotter in the Mirror Universe". Except O'Brian. Poor Miles. Mirror Odo. So... What WERE the Dominion doing in the MU? Do we find out in later episodes? Excuse me, Nana. You have some scenery stuck between your teeth. Rather a lot of it. KIRK!!! SPOCK!!!! I mean, I know. I know now. But wow, what that must have been like then?!? Wait... Spock rises to power, presumably using the Tantalus device (good grief I didn't have to look that up) to eliminate any and all who stand in his way (I mean, it's not exactly something you can bluff with) and he TELLS people about Mirror (from their point of view) Kirk? Really? It's an interesting conceit that there is an entire reality where everything MUST be terrible. Spock "fixes" the Terran Empire (where they say "Ter-ran" like Vulcan children apparently) and it leads to their nearly immediate downfall and subsequent oppression. "Captain Kirk, I shall consider it." And DS9 tells us "Man, you are so screwed." Annnd the MU is part of Academy Training. That's... Interesting. And it's common knowledge to the lowliest workers in the MU a century later that there was a mirror swap transporter accident? (Did our side do anything to the transporters as well?) "I don't stick my neck out for anyone!" As I was thinking about Casablanca he actually SAID it. Colm Meaney and Armin Shimerman are really great here. OK, the Terran Earth badge from freaking WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE is NICE. "Five year old daughter"? This was 1994. That would have Molly being born in 1989. But the episode where she was born was in 1991. Why does TV hate babies so much? YES. They're babies for a LONG TIME. Avery is nuts. We all know this, right? Oh! Kira is Princess Ardala! Anyone else notice that both Kira's have this conciliatory smile they have right when they're going to kill you? (Go watch her face off with Dukat in the pilot.) "I do admire a well tailored gown." OK, that was really good. Squishy Odo! Splat! Ewwwwww. "Starfleet would probably have a big problem with that." So, does Starfleet EVER side with the poor and oppressed? Didn't they just show the MU where the wormhole is? I find the MU exhausting. Glad this was a one and done. Wait, what?
DS9 The Collaborator The shade thrown by Bareil, Winn, and Kira could cover a small country. Bareil and Winn are up for election as Kai. A collaborator is captured on the station and he tells Winn that Bareil turned in the location of a rebel base during the occupation, leading to a massacre. Winn voluntolds Kira to investigate. Kira finds enough to confront Bareil and he drops out of the race, leaving Winn to be Kai. But he was just covering for the previous Kai, who sacrificed the cell, including her son, to save the rest of the area's people. I never bought into the Kira/Bareil romance for some reason. I just never saw any chemistry there. So, I didn't mind it getting torpedoed here. I will say that Philip Anglim did a nice job here, especially during the sequences where he's getting visions from the Orb. Winn goes to see Sisko at one point and their dislike of one another is palpable. I loved Sisko refusing to play politics with his role as The Emissary. The scene where Odo and Kira go see Quark to get him to help them break into some files is wonderful. The 3 of them played off each other really well. But the VIP of this ep is Louise Fletcher. She is so very very good at being a scheming manipulator. The ending scene between Kira and Bareil is excellent. He thinks they can influence Winn positively. Kira... is far less sure. This sets up (IIRC) quite a lot of stories down the road.
TNG - Preemptive Strike From The Naked Now to here. The last regular length episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Cardassians: "We will have to take matters into our own hands." Does Starfleet ever say it will have to take the incursions from Cardassian dissidents into ITS own hands? (The Cardassians don't have a name as cool as The Maquis.) 7:41 -- Wow. One of the original Farpoint shots of the Enterprise and the Excels- er, the Hood. Goodbye, TNG. 9:21 -- Ahhhh, Andy Probert's painting of the 1701-D. Picard will have it at his house so either it's recovered from the D or he has a copy made. "We both want peace in the demilitarized zone." What did James Kirk say once? "Don't believe them! Don't trust them!" "That's to validate your faith in me." -- Ohhhhh. There's a lot of TNG episodes I don't even remember exist. This one will never stop punching me in the gut. Who let the DS9 people in here? How does Star Trek get seedy? Why, it looks like Star Wars, of course. They could have made the Maquis and the settlers less sympathetic if there had been equivalent stories of Cardassians in Fed space being beaten and driven from their homes. Even in fiction they couldn't bring themselves to make that happen. "Palm beacons"? Whoa. They call those flashlight things palm beacons? I'm just learning this NOW? "Now we know what they mean by advanced tactical training." Awww. Will is impressed. Picard about the Cardassians being up to no good: "Frankly I find that hard to believe." WHY? Why does he find that hard to believe? Remember when Beverly decided that Jean Luc Picard was so well known and such a risk that she decided to have a kid with him and never tell him? Well now here he is sitting in a bar where Maquis (you know, the rogue Starfleet folks?) hang out thinking nobody will recognize him and then goes and chats with his undercover operative who a) has already been recognized and b) is already associated with the U.S.S. Enterprise. Between this and being rather easily duped by Cardassians and Romulans on a galactically significant basis, is.... is Jean Luc Picard an idiot? Watching the rest of the scene? Yep. He's an idiot. (It IS heartbreaking when he calls her Laren. Nobody in the opening scenes on the Enterprise even calls her that.) If he was even half as distrustful of the Cardassians as he is of Ro this would be different episode. I almost think this episode needed a Picard Troi scene where she tells him he is handling this all wrong. Not that you need to be a ship's councilor OR a Betazed to know that! Wow. I did NOT remember how well Frakes played that last scene with Ro. So, Good Will Riker seems very conflicted at the end of this. He obviously has great respect for Ro (something I'd forgotten - this was at least as much of an arc as Ro and Picard!) and at least has doubts about her decision. A year from now he will get word that his brother has joined the Maquis and has gone to a Cardassian prison for his troubles. (Mr. Paris got off easy. Oh, you haven't heard of him? Wait a few months.) What's he got to be thinking at this point? Too bad they weren't able to pursue this. I'm hating Ro's scene in Picard even more. "Hey let's bring back Ro so she can apologize and then die." Apologize for WHAT? Screw you, Picard writers. I really think Picard is the villain of this episode! Amazing to think that last shot of Picard sulking at his desk would be the last regular episode shot of TNG. Ahhh well, all good things...
Well. Here we are. 30 years ago All Good Things aired. May 23rd, 1994 was apparently a Monday. I don't know how that worked with syndication. I know I watched it live with friends, but I don't know if I saw it on the 23rd. Anyway, one more episode before I get to the end of TNG. DS9 - The Collaborator I actually always liked Vedek Barell. Maybe because he wasn't as operatic as many of the Bajoran "good guys". Certainly because he wasn't Vedek Winn. Er, Kai Winn. The reason why the relationship worked for me is that Visitor sells the hell out of it. It's like Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder: Whatever you might think of Margot's Lois, Chris' Superman CLEARLY adored her. Of all of the gobbledy-gook lore societies in Star Trek, Bajor was the only that even pretended to make any sense to me. Or at least the only one that actually engaged me. I don't think I know the show history as well as I should. This is when Piller is still running the show, yes? Behr will start next season. OMG WINN! A lazier show would have just had Winn and not Barell. Or Kai Opaka. Or Kira for that matter. Winn never manages to discredit the Bajoran faith. She just discredits Winn. "I'm sure Major Kira meant no disrespect." Kira's look says "OH YES I DID!" Oh wow, they brought back Opaka. She was so great. 17:31 "Why wait, Emissary?" Ohhhh, the look Ben gives her. I can never decide if Louise Fletcher is cheese with a side of ham or is giving a performance of unparalleled subtlety and complexity. Probably both. "Poor Winn." - Barell. Ha! I just figured out why the Bajoran stories engage me more than, say, Klingon or Ferengi stories. Because you never know who Bajorans are going to be. All the other Star Trek races played as pretty much one note. The Bajorans were more varied. Awwwww. Odo. They actually managed to stretch Kira / Odo out for six or seven seasons with a pretty high degree of success. I don't know if DS9 just flat out had the most talented cast or if the show was just better at giving them things to do. I hate dream sequences. The perfect DS9 ending. Sad but not hopeless. Damn this show rocks.
I wince every time she says it. The scene where she says to Kira something like "Do not EVER talk to me like that again" is one of the only times in the whole series when she drops any hint of an act. (I mean, maybe some of the last scenes with Dukat.)
Happy Anniversary All Good Things. It still feels like yesterday we had the Viewers Choice Marathon and then AGT that Monday Night. It was a special time.
Star Trek: The Next Generation - All Good Things (May 23rd, 1994) Here we are. Thirty years (and a few days) since the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Seven years after everyone thought they were crazy for trying to make a new Star Trek, with a new crew that had so little to do with the TOS crew or even with the successful movie series that they were making. Can you believe that in just under 10 years we went from The Search For Spock to having three more TOS films, two new Star Trek TV shows, with a TNG movie and a third show on the way?!? Yikes! Let's go. Come watch All Good Things with me. tl;dr: It's pretty damn good. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* They're trying SO hard to make Worf and Deanna happen. And in terms of motivating this story, it's not bad. (Poor Worf.) Picard: "What's today, my fine fellow?" What the Dickens is going on? I'll spoil the game, but this is not only the best finale, this is one of the best Star Treks. Certainly one of the best TNGs. I love seeing Deanna doing her job. I wish they had figured out how to do this earlier. And of course her main job is actually taking care of the Captain. 5:31. And this is where we get the series Picard. Dammit. I'm sure everyone has heard Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige say that this story structure in part inspired Endgame. Ending the story by visiting its beginnings. 25 years. So we're actually father from 1994 as The Future is from The Present. "How is Leah?" and all the fans SWOON. The two actors reportedly hadn't really met yet at this time, hadn't become besties at this point. But Patrick figured the best way to sound old would be to do his best Ian McKellen impersonation! Before I saw this episode all of the ads and interviews and the whole circus told us we would be seeing the past, and Tasha, and Q, and the Farpoint court. So I wonder what I would have thought seeing the Post Atomic Horror rabble in these early scenes, unspoiled? Ohhh, you know they wanted at least another minute (or three) of that "first" shot of the Enterprise. "I was just with Tasha in the shuttle." And that is the sound of a million Trekkies' hearts going "Snap!" "Something tells me that you're going to have to put up with me for a long time to come." Nope. In less than 10 years I'm going to take our baby and disappear for decades. The transitions between times are really terrific. And very effective. O'Brian! Yaaaay! Wow. Did anyone ever dream that the poor fellow at ops in Farpoint would become... This? And they got Marina into that terrible Farpoint costume and hair! They don't have any dudes in the skants do they? (Nope.) To this day I don't understand why they ever got rid of the Wall of Enterprises in the briefing room. That wall was pretty much the last line of defense in convincing Berman to keep the Enterprise B an Excelsior class for Generations. "I'm only aware of the crew and the families on board the ship." Ohhh, that's right. families. That was going to be a big deal seven years ago. Worf's first season sash! No idea if it's the same one as first season, but supposedly that sash was worn by John Colicos himself! OK, Brent does a WONDERFUL job of doing first season Data. I don't know if it's just the first season costumes or the hair or what, but they really do look a little a bit younger. Ahhh, Will, when he sees Deanna and Worf. The face of a man who has really screwed up. OK, why isn't Future Picard saying "Hey, they did this scan thing on me in my present and figured out that I was building up days worth of memories in a few minutes and then everyone believed me. Why don't we do that?" 40 minutes to introduce Q. I have to admit that even having seen this who knows how many times I got a chills when I saw the courtroom. "Time to put an end to your Trek through the Stars." Berman apparently had quite the yen to get someone to say Star Trek on the show. He finally managed it in First Contact. The Bozeman. Hi Brandon! Gotta shout out the Home Town! Didn't they JUST say that there is no Neutral Zone? Warp 13! Awwww, you're just MESSING with us now. What's next? A starship with THREE engines? Andreas! Nice of you to stop off from Babylon 5. Look at all of the sweet sweet ILM footage they're using in this episode. Sorry, but the 6 foot Enterprise-D beats the pants off of the 4. Beverly gets more to do in this episode than in the next four movies! The Enterprise slices though a Klingon like butter. "The Enterprise is drawing their fire!" Is THAT what we call that? Primordial Earth. Look, there's Scaroth's space ship about to blow up, right over there! Life begins in France? Well, I'm sure the French probably think that's true. Majel! Deanna Troi - The Lois Lane of the Star Trek Elseworlds. Want a vaguely or not so vaguely dystopian future? Kill off Deanna / Lois. Old Will looks like Charles Foster Kane. I wonder if they were just using what they had, business as usual? Or did they make choices like shooting Picard not knowing his way around the ship by using the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture hallways, just like when Kirk didn't know where turboshaft eight was? Worf in the future is always the coolest. Even in Picard. The pacing of this is amazing. Switching from timeline to timeline has such momentum. As bland as Berman tried to keep the music I have to say that McCarthy is doing a goodly amount of work here. "I know you have your doubts about me. About each other. About this ship." Awww. Jean-Luc is reading 1987 Starlog! "Equidistant. So grown up!" "I suppose you're worried about your fish!" Well, about Livingston, six months from now... de Lancie managed to take Q from Encounter at Farpoint to being a fan favorite. Well done. We love you. Gotta say, Q's last speech sounded remarkably Roddenberrian. In the best way. That last scene with Q, in the courtroom of all places, is astounding. What a great way to end the show. And the actual emotion that de Lancie plays? Yay! Hey, Will and Worf are heartfelt that they will never let anything come between them. But we're less concerned that Deanna will be DEAD, Oh well, Peter David will get a good book out of it. "The sky's the limit." McCarthy called this last music cue "I Have a Gun." i.e. "Don't mess with this, Berman!" An ending so perfect they would do it again 29 years later. Well. This episode totally stands the test of time. Star Trek has had a few good finales. This is the best by a goodly margin. Including Star Trek VI. Two more episodes of DS9. I'll finish those up here. June 5th: DS9 Tribunal
OK, I finally sat down and watched "All Good Things." If real life hadn't been so weird the last few weeks, I'd almost think I was avoiding The End. To sum up, not only top notch TNG, but top notch Star Trek and top notch TV, period. Ridiculously good. Almost perfect. The pacing, the acting, the writing, the little (not overwhelming) Easter Eggs... all A+. I don't think I was spoiled, so I remember it really confusing me at first and then the light dawned when I realized he was traveling to just before Encounter at Farpoint. Still trying to make Worf & Deanna work. It's essential to the character beats here, but I never really bought it. Like Riker, I always thought he and Deanna would end up together. Picard is distressed. Moving through time will do that to ya. Q was here at the beginning and end. Nice bookend. Ron Moore & Brannon Braga wrote this at the same time they were writing Generations. No pressure! Old Picard in a vineyard and it's 25 years later. The makeup is quite good and surprisingly close to how Stewart actually looks. Picard has been an Ambassador. Geordi has no visor and is a novelist, married to Leah, and has 3 kids, one of whom is named Sydney, which is an egg I didn't realize PIC did. Irimodic syndrome! I hadn't seen this ep in so long, I didn't realize how much PIC played with things from it. Angry peasants in a vineyard? Some kind of time bleed over? Tasha! Shuttlecrafts are always Galileo. The transitions between the time periods are done very well. No medical cause, no signs of temporal energy, and no Irimodic Syndrome, but Bev finds a defect that could be a precursor. Yeah, JL & Bev were together here. Romulan warbirds headed for TNZ. 15 starships + Enterprise to go there but no incursions. Picard isn't holding on to a lot of memories when slips between time periods, but that changes later. Data at Cambridge is cool and it's a really nice matte. I adored all the cats everywhere! Arriving at the Enterprise. Name checked Rear Admiral Nora Satie. So weird to see Worf in red! Deanna’s mini looks like a uniform. I wonder if I thought that in 1987? Picard is trying not to mess up the future, but he can’t help making mistakes, like referring to O'Brien as Chief. Ding! Spatial anomaly same as in the present. Starfleet tells them to cancel Farpoint, but Jean-Luc says no. I forgot how fricking literal Data was back then. Love Picard’s face! "Ignite the midnight petroleum." Scans indicate 2 days of memories in minutes. Picard checks Deanna’s memories of his arrival and there are no changes. Curious. After Worf stressed about telling Riker about them, Deanna just says, "We have plans." Riker looks like he's been hit by a baseball bat. Bev and Jean-Luc being very intimate and they kiss! Seriously Geordie? Just because it’s in 2 timelines doesn't mean it's in the third? No NZ in the future because the Klingons took over the Romulans. Interesting. Frakes looks better IRL now. This is the only makeup job I felt was lacking. Awkward! Beverly married him and divorced him but “kept the name.” Good makeup on Gates. Looking for Q but he ain’t there... Oh, there he is! The trial never ended. Of course not. “Trek thru the stars” So Jean-Luc will cause/has caused/is causing the destruction of humanity. “A master and his beloved pet.” Future Worf is a governor and no longer on the high council. His fortunes appear diminished. There's beef between Worf & Riker. "Because it always works Worf!" Warp 13! Tease those Trekkies! Agh! Beardless Riker! Tomalak! Loved Andreas here. The McGuffin is larger in the past and not there in the future. Bev chews Picard out! Possibly all a hallucination. Q gives a clue that the time shifting is of use and Picard uses info from the future. Geordi has a headache and his eyes are regenerating. Old scars are healing all over the ship. "Anti-Time" - like Anti-Matter but chewier! Saved by the Enterprise and Riker! Oh! I bet the warp core breach in the Pasteur causes the anomaly. [I was wrong.] Alyssa lost her baby. Q takes Picard to the beginning of life on earth and the anomaly is there and bigger than ever. Humanity stopped before it begins - nice paradox there. I love how John says "goo." Past speculation to present usage. Wait, don't I remember the Enterprise blowing up? Maybe that caused the McGuffin. [Nope.] Over 20 years since Troi died. Ouch! Riker always thought they’d get back together & Worf blames Will for blocking them. How Cyclops and Wolverine of them. 3 tachyon beams at the same target in 3 time periods. Everyone thinks Jean-Luc's lost it. Only Data speculates then everyone on board. Take ship into the anomaly in all 3 times & create a static warp shell/barrier. Tasha questions the orders. Good tension! Tasha’s hair moved! 3 Enterprises go boom! I remember being really surprised and shocked. A directive from the Continuum & a helping hand from Q. “Charting the unknown possibilities of existence.” Very Gene! Circles back around to the beginning of the episode. Deanna's & Worf's faces are priceless! Poker! Picard joins and says he should've done this long ago. I love his face as he looks around at his family. The future has already been changed. (Setting up for PIC.) PIC used the same overhead shot. Very nice. One of my few nitpicks with this episode. It kept it from being perfect. The other nitpick. I understand the narrative reason, but I still didn't like it. Overall though, a beautiful send off for the show.