Summary

An engineer and his alien boyfriend come aboard to improve the Enterprise’s engines. Something goes wrong and the ship is hurtled across the universe, eventually to its very edges. It becomes clear that the engineer’s partner is the one that makes things happen. He is some kind of inter-dimensional being that can move the ship with thought. He is weakened by the trip, but can get them home if everyone just thinks happy thoughts. He also tells Picard that Wesley is special and that he should nurture his growth. With the happy thoughts the Enterprise makes it back to where they were before things started, but the mysterious inter-dimensional traveler has disappeared.

Summary

The Enterprise is chasing a Ferengi vessel that’s stolen something. Once they get close the Enterprise is disabled. They assume it’s some Ferengi weapon, but the attack is actually coming from the planet. They both agree to go down together, but the Ferengi ambush the away team and admit they will say they were attacked first, thus nullifying their agreement. A hologram, or apparition, or something, of a long dead member of an alien empire appears and tests Riker by attacking him. Riker refuses. This pleases the alien and he releases both ships and sends them on their way.

Oh boy. It’s this one.

Summary

Human-like aliens have a vaccine to some horrible disease that the Federation needs. Picard and crew must entertain them, earn their trust, and get the vaccine. The alien leader is interested in Tasha and kidnap her. Picard jumps through hoops to honor their kidnapping customs, but the evil alien refuses to give Tasha back and wants to make her his #1 wife. His existing #1 wife is not happy about this and challenges Tasha to a duel. Tasha defeats her and immediately beams her up where Crusher revives her. Since she technically died the duel is complete. She chooses a new husband and that husband agrees to give over the vaccine.

I had the least to say about this episode. Notes from E03 forward get more detailed.

Summary

The Enterprise receives a strange message from a science ship studying a dying star. The message ends with the sound of a hatch being blown. Away team heads over to find everyone dead, most blown out into space, others frozen solid. Geordi makes physical contact with a frozen corpse and starts acting funny aboard ship. He is infected with some space sickness that makes you act drunk and spreads it to the whole ship… just like in the TOS Episode “The Naked Time”. Wesley takes over engineering and locks them out of control. The star explodes and is about to destroy the Enterprise when Wesley buys them enough time with his reverse tractor beam tech to let Data fix the engineering computer so they can fly away. Crusher develops a cure and all is well. Also Tasha has sex with Data. And Crusher comes on to Picard, but he doesn’t come onto her… that we see.

I’ve been watching a web series from the YouTuber TriAngulum Audio Studios about the production of Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s first series. He mentions how it’s not very well received and goes into the problems with the production. Having not seen any of these episodes in at least two decades I decided to start the series over and start watching. I’m keeping notes as I go. No idea if I’ll keep this up, but I’d rather share my idiocy than keep it all in my head.

These notes aren’t overly coherent, it’s just a lot of comments I’m making as I watch. For this and the next episode the notes aren’t as frequent or as detailed because I wrote things down after the episode ended.

Summary

The new Enterprise D is on the way to Farpoint station on the edge of “the great unknown”. They are accosted by a mysterious god-like entity, known as Q. Q taunts Picard and tells him that humanity is barbaric and not worthy. Picard demands that he test if humans are still barbaric and Q agrees and tells him the puzzle of Farpoint station will be a good test. They pick up the rest of the crew at Farpoint, which is a weird place that manifests whatever someone desires out of thin air. Turns out it’s an alien entity that the native inhabitants trapped there with their abundance of geothermal energy. The entity created the base and created things for the native people. Another of the alien entities shows up and attacks. The Enterprise realize what’s going on and free the one that was trapped on the planet. Happily ever after.