TNG - "Haven"

Deanna's mother comes on board, informing her that it is time for Deanna to be married to Wyatt, a young man she's been betrothed to. As it turns out, Wyatt is a pretty nice guy, and a brilliant doctor. When the Enterprise comes across a plague ship carrying a woman who Wyatt recognizes as someone he's had romantic psychic visions of for his entire life, he beams over to the plague ship in the hopes that he can save them and be with the woman he now loves. Deanna's mom goes "oh, well" and leaves.

Lwaxana Troi, played by Majel Barrett, AKA Captain Pike's "Number One," AKA Mrs. Gene Roddenberry, is one of the most fun and eccentric characters in the entire history of TNG. She adds a much-needed element of looseness and personality, breaking up the stodgy stiffness of the Enterprise crew.

The actual plot of this episode is pretty decent, if a little silly. At the very least, it's nice that Wyatt isn't the stereotypical "douchebag betrothed to female protagonist" character.

There's actually not a lot to say about this one. It's okay.

TNG - "Hide and Q"

Q returns, offering to give Riker the powers of the Q. After Riker realizes that the powers only make him more arrogant and stupid, Riker rejects them, and Q is forced to leave humanity alone forever.

It's nice to have Q back. He's certainly one of the best Trek villains(?) of all time, and he's portrayed just as well here as he was before. But there's too many other problems with the episode for it to be all that great in the end.

For one thing, the overall production value here is just too low. The mysterious planet Q transports the bridge crew to is the old generic, cheap "random planet" set that's more distracting than anything else. Why didn't they just film out in the desert or something?

Riker gets a little creepy-arrogant when he starts using his Q powers. Why? Do the Q powers literally corrupt, or was it just a case of human psychology taken to a horrible extreme? It's never really explained.

Despite a good effort from the cast and an intriguing plot, this is not a very well-made episode.

TNG - "The Battle"

Picard is given back his old ship, the Stargazer, which he had lost in battle years ago. Unbeknownst to Picard, however, a Ferengi captain is using mind-control technology to influence Picard's mind, making him mentally relive the old battle and pilot the Stargazer against the Enterprise.

Getting more information about Picard's backstory is nice. It's particularly cool to see a new (old?) class of starship. And it's also great to see some reference to battle strategy in TNG, something that's been pretty absent thus far.

Wesley is still treated badly, both by the writers and by the rest of the Enterprise crew. The bridge crew's tendency to completely ignore everything Wesley says simply because he's a child—forgetting the fact that he's both an acting Ensign and an apparent prodigy—is stereotypical TV writing at its worst, as is the fact that Wesley—being the prodigy he is—is able to discern and solve the problem simply by glancing at it. It all just feels forced.

Having the Ferengi crew turn against their captain once they realize what he's doing was a nice touch. It helps to humanize the Ferengi, who were previously little more than evil little gerbils.

It's a decent episode. Not super-well-handled, but decent.

TNG - "Justice"

The Enterprise crew beams down to a planet of mostly-naked supermodels who run and bounce around all day. They also execute people for stepping on the wrong kinds of plants. Weird.

So in this episode, we get what I assume is Gene Roddenberry's ideal version of society. That is to say, a society made of people as bizarrely sex-focused as he is. It's really weird, and kinda uncomfortable.

If there's any real depth to be found here, it's in the way that this story examines the Prime Directive. Picard essentially chooses to ignore it, stating that the Directive wasn't created for situations like this. Considering how absolutely the Prime Directive is applied, both in the past and future of Star Trek, I wonder if this was a misstep with the writing or if this was meant to be a special case. After all, merely taking Wesley away from the planet is likely not something that will "interfere with the development" of the Edo. Hell, the Edo are the ones who first suggest just beaming Wesley away. In any case, I really did appreciate Picard standing up to the Prime Directive, choosing common sense and moral good over blind legalism.

There's also a subplot about the Edo and their "god"—who they actually refer to as "God." If it's actually meant as any kind of societal commentary, it didn't work. I'm not sure why, but something about the way it was handled makes me feel a bit insulted, like someone angrily trying to force an opinion on you when you don't even know what that opinion is or what they're trying to say.

All in all, this is just a weird episode. It's got a few bright spots, but mostly just bizarre ones.

TNG - "Lonely Among Us"

This is certainly a weird one. Captain Picard gets possessed by/merged with a non-corporeal life form, beamed into space as pure energy, then floats his way back and crawls into the Enterprise computer, only to be re-materialized and remember nothing. Well that's certainly ridiculous.

What's more bothersome about this episode is that it starts out focusing on a conflict between two alien races, but that conflict is never shown to be resolved. The conflict even turns lethal at the end, but, in light of the apparently-greater threat posed by the non-corporeal being, is treated like a joke.

Here's the thing: stories in TNG follow the "A Plot / B Plot" system. You have the more important A plot which the main story focuses on, and the B plot which is usually rather insignificant. The B plot is often character-focused and/or humorous (such as Data learning some new human trait in a slightly comical fashion). The problem with the way "Lonely Among Us" handles the A and B plots is that it switches them without telling us. We're led to believe at the beginning that the conflict between the Antica and the Selay is the A plot, and the unusual electrical phenomena are the B plot. Because the electrical phenomena are the real physical threat to the crew, however, one would logically assume that it can only be so important if it is in fact somehow related to the main story of the episode, which we have been led to believe is the alien plot. It's not as if you need to be trained in the intricate art of story analysis to realize this; it's something you pick up subconsciously. We're told initially that the Selay/Antica plot is very important, but later that plot is dumped, and we're left with a feeling of unresolved tension. As with much of early TNG, even the most casual of TV viewers could tell that the writers and directors had no bloody idea what they were doing.

As for the actual sci-fi plot, it's just stupid. We've seen the "strange phenomena is actually a life form that just wants to get home" story over and over again in Star Trek. The way it's handled here is just stupid. The idea that Picard can retain sentience in energy form, possess locomotive ability, and be able to travel through the Enterprise computer at will is simply ludicrous. Despite the fact that both Trek fans and haters poke fun at the "technobabble" the show uses to solve complex problems, it does in fact have a kind of internal logic that works. However, this episode ignores that logic.

We do get Data as Sherlock Holmes, which is cool. But that can't save this one.