diplomacy Archive

19

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Transfigurations”

transfigurations189“Transfigurations”
Written by René Echevarria
Directed by Tom Benko

Season 3, Episode 25
Original air date: June 4, 1990
Star date: 43957.2

Mission summary

Worf encourages La Forge to hit on a woman in Ten Forward, in the only way a Klingon can, but the awkward engineer crashes and burns. And he’s not the only one: In the course of a routine charting assignment, Enterprise has detected a crashed vessel on a planet. They investigate and discover a lone survivor in the wreckage of an escape pod. He’s in pretty bad shape, too unstable to transport, so Dr. Crusher whips out a thingey that links La Forge’s nervous system to help regulate the patient’s heart. The interface delivers a weird little shock to La Forge, but he seems fine, and it works. They bring the injured man aboard.

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22

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Sarek”

sarek042“Sarek”
Written by Peter S. Beagle
Story by Mark Cushman and Jake Jacobs
Directed by Les Landau

Season 3, Episode 23
Original air date: May 14, 1990
Star date: 43917.4

Mission summary

Picard and Riker are giddy to be hosting a very special guest: Ambassador Sarek from Vulcan, who will be presiding over the first meeting and negotiations between the Federation and a race called the Legarans. Word is, the 202-year-old Vulcan will be retiring soon after, leaving this as the crowning achievement to an illustrious career.

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7

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Sins of the Father”

sinsofthefather113“Sins of the Father”
Written by Ronald D. Moore & W. Reed Moran (story by Drew Deighan)
Directed by Les Landau

Season 3, Episode 17
Original air date: March 19, 1990
Star date: 43685.2

Mission summary

The Enterprise crew welcomes a new Klingon officer, Commander Kurn, who will be filling in for Commander Riker temporarily as part of the Federation-Klingon Exchange Program. Kern has no sooner beamed aboard than he requests to begin his duties, and he ingratiates himself to the Bridge crew by demanding that they actually perform their jobs with efficiency and professionalism. The crew is stunned to have such a competent disciplinarian serving as first officer.

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28

Star Trek Into Dimness

Star Trek Into DarknessAfter several busy weeks I finally got around to seeing the new AbramsTrek. I didn’t like the first one because it felt like a lame action movie with a Trek skin grafted over it. This is much, much worse. Warning: this will be a spoiler post, so do not proceed if you have not seen the movie and wish to remain unspoiled.

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6

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “The Hunted”

thehunted137“The Hunted”
Written by Robin Bernheim
Directed by Cliff Bole

Season 3, Episode 11
Original air date: January 8, 1990
Star date: 43489.2

Mission summary

Picard and company pay a visit to Angosia III to evaluate its people for exclusive membership in the Federation. Things seem to be going swimmingly; Picard and Zefram Cochrane Prime Minister Nayrok are bonding over their moral superiority, and it’s all but a done deal when they receive word that a prisoner has escaped from a maximum security penal colony on Lunar V and stolen a transport vessel. The Angosians are strangely ill-equipped to take care of their own, so Picard offers the services of Enterprise to recapture the escapee. It should be a simple matter, but the pilot is devious and somehow they lose track of him around an asteroid, to Picard’s utter shock and dismay.

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9

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “The Defector”

The Defector“The Defector”
Written by Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Robert Sheerer

Season 3, Episode 10
Original air date: January 1, 1990
Star date: 43462.5

Mission summary

Picard is giving Data lessons in humanity by way of Henry V on the holodeck, but their epiphanies are interrupted by a Romulan scout ship asking for help. Suddenly a warbird decloaks, fires some shots at the scout ship, and turns away as the Enterprise extends its deflector shields around the scout ship to protect it. As life support there fails, Picard has the ship’s only occupant beamed over: Romulan Sublieutenant Setal, bearing warnings that the Romulans are planning to start a war, beginning at Nelvana III.

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11

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “The Vengeance Factor”

thevengeancefactor191“The Vengeance Factor”
Written by Sam Rolfe
Directed by Timothy Bond

Season 3, Episode 9
Original air date: November 20, 1989
Star date: 43421.9

Mission summary

After discovering a ransacked Starfleet research facility–evidence of encroaching raids from a group of Acamarians called the Gatherers–Picard decides to do something about this problem once and for all. Enterprise sets out for Acamar III, where he meets with the leader of the ruling group of Acamarians, Sovereign  Marouk.

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20

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “The Enemy”

theenemy185“The Enemy”
Written by David Kemper and Michael Piller
Directed by David Carson

Season 3, Episode 7
Original air date: November 6, 1989
Star date: 43349.2

Mission summary

A distress signal leads Enterprise to a crappier-than-usual planet, Galorndon Core, where a small away team discovers the remnants of a Romulan shuttle–which was apparently destroyed after it crash-landed. Worf stumbles across an injured Romulan and promptly injures him some more to make him easier to rescue. Meanwhile, the hapless La Forge becomes the proverbial “boy in the well” when the ground crumbles beneath him and he plummets into a crevasse. Because of magnetic interference in the atmosphere that disrupts transporter beams, communications, and tricorders, Riker and Worf have to leave their friend behind, but no one really considers a surly Romulan on the verge of death a fair trade for their engineer.

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20

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Loud as a Whisper”

“Loud as a Whisper”
Written by Jacqueline Zambrano
Directed by Larry Shaw

Season 2, Episode 5
Original air date: January 9, 1989
Star date: 42477.2

Mission summary

Enterprise has been tasked with delivering a famous mediator to a planet torn by centuries of war, with strict orders not to interfere directly. When they arrive at the mediator’s planet a long distance away, Riker interrupts Picard’s re-watch of The Planets so the captain can make a “simple ceremonial greeting,” though he urges Picard to be careful. There doesn’t seem to be anything to worry about because when Picard, an exceptionally grumpy Worf, and Troi beam down, no one is there.

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41

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “When the Bough Breaks”

“When the Bough Breaks”
Written by Hannah Louise Shearer
Directed by Kim Manners

Season 1, Episode 17
Original air date: February 15, 1988
Star date: 41509.1

Mission summary

Enterprise follows a trail of energy readings to the Epsilon Mynos system, the legendary location of the hidden world Aldea, which turns out to be more than a myth. The planet drops its sophisticated cloaking shield and they are welcomed by a young woman, Rashella, who soon transports to the ship’s bridge with a much older man, Radue, First Appointee to Aldea. They have an intriguing, but ambiguous deal to offer the Federation crew.

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