After a slight drop in quality in Season 5, The Next Generation recovers almost immediately with what is one of its best and most consistent seasons yet.
Similarly to Season 5, this season doesn't have any major running storylines like the Klingon Civil War. The only unifying factor this season for me was the fact that it seems like Trek as a whole has been getting a lot darker. Episodes like Chain Of Command, Starship Mine, and Face Of The Enemy have the characters go on these really brutal espionage missions, Riker goes through the ringer multiple times, and we even get a crossover with some characters from Deep Space Nine, which is known as one of the darker Trek series. Despite this, TNG does a good job of balancing its tone and not straying too far from its roots, with plenty of funny and lighthearted episodes to balance things out. As for the characters, I actually think the biggest highlight is Troi, who gets to spend a lot more time on the field. I don't want to claim that her job as a counselor isn't important, but it feels like she's more active this season, as shown by the fact that she finally got a Starfleet uniform. I also really liked that Picard gets a few moments to show that the events of The Inner Light changed him given how it wasn't really brought up in the Season 5 finale. And while most of the season is fairly lacking in plot, the finale brings together the Borg and Lore plot threads for a season ender that, while a bit clumsy at points, is dramatic and feels like a much bigger finale than Time's Arrow was.
So Season 6 isn't all that plot heavy, but that's perfectly fine. The real reason why I thought it was such a great season was that it somehow managed to toe the line between experimental and consistent. While there were still a few weak episodes, the general level of quality was stunning for how inventive this season ended up being. We have an action movie (Starship Mine), a "It's A Wonderful Life" homage (Tapestry), multiple mind screw episodes (Ship In A Bottle, Frame Of Mind), a fun time travel romp (Time's Arrow), a nostalgic callback (Relics), and a horror episode (Schisms), and all of them are great! The genre-bending this season is fantastic, and the fact that nearly every episode can feel entirely different from one another is fantastic. My only issue this season is something that had been worsening for a while now, where it feels like the "exploring the unknown" aspect of Trek just hasn't been as prevalent. Instead we got a lot of episodes where the characters have to grapple with some random anomaly. Although, I did like how we started to get more crossovers between the different species, with one episode (The Chase) managing to include Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans all in the same location. I also feel like the music has gotten a lot worse lately, but it's especially lackluster in this season. As a whole, the production values just feel more television-ish these past two seasons compared to the visually and audibly stunning Season 3.
There were so many fantastic episodes this season, but these were the highlights:
Relics: This is how you do a nostalgic callback! Scotty's reappearance here could have been hollow fanservice, but his character arc of being a relic of the past was not only emotional and affecting, but it gave him more depth than any episode in the Original Series. I cared about Scotty and his struggles, more than I ever cared about him before, and that scene where he generates the original Enterprise in the holodeck absolutely punched me in the gut.
Chain Of Command: While The Next Generation has had a pretty good track record with its double-length episodes so far, I think Chain Of Command might be the best one. Yes, even better than The Best Of Both Worlds, which had a fantastic first half but a slightly weaker second half. There are two separate storylines here, and both of them are fantastic. First, there's the Picard storyline, which starts off as a fun spy movie only for Picard to get the captured. The ensuing torture scene could have been too much, but the acting and banter from Stewart and Warner is just so fantastic, and the brutality on show from the Cardassians solidifies them as my favorite Trek villain to date. Then there's the Jellico storyline which is also fantastic, and probably the best execution of the "replacement captain" trope since The Doomsday Machine. It all leads to an intense and gripping that earns it length.
Ship In The Bottle: This is easily the best Holodeck episode in the series to date, bringing back Moriarty from Season 2's Elementary Dear Data as he attempts to manipulate the crew into freeing him. Similarly to The Matrix and Inception, this episode deals with the fascinating and terrifying question of "what if you were living in a simulation?", and the constant layering of Holodeck simulation over Holodeck simulation pretty much broke my brain by the end of the episode. I loved it!
Tapestry: I feel like homages to It's A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol pretty much just copy the storyline verbatim, and while Tapestry kinda borrows the main premise, it feels like it tells an entirely new story with an entirely new message. I like the concept of "what if you can change a defining moment in your past?", and the theme that those moments are ultimately what make you who you are. Q and Picard's dynamic throughout the episode is fantastic, and getting to finally see Picard's past after all that foreshadowing was so worth it.
Starship Mine: It's Die Hard on the Enterprise! I loved how the first ten to fifteen minutes of this episode would lead you to believe it's a comedy episode about the Enterprise crew dealing with (*gasp*) small talk, only for Picard to get trapped in the Enterprise with a bunch of space pirates. It was a lot of fun to see Picard kick some ass, and his rapport with the villain was incredibly good. You can tell the writers of this episode loved Die Hard and knew exactly what makes it such a fantastic movie.
Frame Of Mind: Remember that episode of Buffy that posed the possibility that of vampires aren't real and Buffy's just hallucinating? Frame Of Mind does a similar thing, as Riker jumps between the Enterprise and an alien mental asylum in a way that leaves you wondering whether or not he's hallucinating or in captivity. Turns out it's neither... and both! The cinematography and acting from Jonathan Frakes is great, and the psychological horror elements in Frame Of Mind are fantastic. I especially loved the glass effects for whenever Riker escapes a hallucination.
However, this season also had two pretty weak episodes:
Rascals: This episode just annoyed me. There was no way for me to like an episode where most of the crew gets turned into babies, but the fact that they managed to stop a group of Ferengi in that state solidified it as one of my least favorite TNG episodes.
Aquiel: This was just Galaxy's Child again. It's the exact same episode, Geordi made the exact same mistake!
Overall, Season 6 is definitely one of the best seasons in the series with a strong collection of creative and genre-bending episodes, even if it's held back from being the absolute best due to some rough production values, minimal story, and a general lack of exploration.
5/5 Stars
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