Star Trek The Next Generation - season 1

This is the season with people showering wearing clothes and Data being fully functional, the season we learn the Picard Maneuver and all of Luaxana Troi’s titles. The year we meet Lore and the Romulans.

I admit that I loved Q when I was a teenager, but now I find the character rather boring, and talking too much.

Intro: Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no on has gone before.

Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Jonathan Frakes as Commander William Riker

LeVar Burton as Lt. Geordi La Forge

Denise Crosby as Lt Tasha Yar

Michael Dorn as Lt Worf

Gates McFadden as Doctor Beverly Crusher

Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi

Brent Spiner as Lt Commander Data

Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher

1 - Encounter at Fairpoint
41153.7 The new Galaxy-class UssEnterprise. Captain Picard is going to Fairpoint to meet his new first officer and solve the place's mystery. While on route they meet Q. They try to run, but unable to do so Picard orders the separation of the ship. Worf remains to command the saucer section while higher officers go to battle bridge.
They separate at warp 9.5 or something similar. They stay behind and Picard: "we surrender" to avoid a battle with such a powerful being.
Mid 21st century, post atomic horrors: in such a 2079 court, Q plays the judge. They're on trial accused of being a savage race. Tasha defends them saying that Starfleet saved her, so she gets frozen. After Picard's protests, Q cures her.
Can we spare a second to consider that of the four people on trial, only one is human? Why are the others there? Data has no race at all, and to call Betazoids savage?? Anyway.
We see that Data can repeat what he heard in the same voice he heard it in. Forced to plead guilty, Picard desperately resorts to "test us!" and Q allows it. The Fairpoint Station will be their test.
At Fairpoint we meet Ryker and we start seeing that there's a mystery concerning the station. What's it made of, what's its power source, and how come people immediately get what they asked for?
Ryker talks about it to Doctor Crusher and her son Wesley. She's known Picard for many years; well, not just because he brought back her husband's body as Wesley says, I know that they already knew each other before.
Ryker also meets Lt LaForge. Ryker is beamed on board and watches on tv what has happened :lol I know, a record of it.
Then Ryker must "conduct a manual docking" to unite the two parts of the ship.
Basically we are introduced to everyone. Picard's not comfortable with having children around, LaForge has been blind since birth and needs a visor to see, Tasha is chief of security, Admiral McCoy doesn't like transporters :lol: we know that :-)
Actually Bones has no part in the story at all, but they put him in to make a connection to TOS and it was nice.
We understand there's a romantic history between Troi and  Ryker. I always liked the word Imzadi.
I love the holosuites, always loved them. Here Ryker meets Data and they talk. Lt Cmdr Data is trying to whistle and Ryker does it better: "how easily humans can do that" well, not all humans Data, I can't....
"prejudice is very human" unfortunately you're right, Data..
"do you consider yourself superior to us?"
"I am superior sir, in many ways, but I would gladly give it up to be human" ..don't...
"Nice to meet you Pinocchio" :-)
(Can I also comment on that Lt girl helping Ryker find Data? After he goes on his way she checks out Ryker's b-side... :lol
They start investigating this strange construction. Wesley wants to see the bridge, and usually Picard wouldn't allow children in, but he's Beverly's son so he lets him in. Wesley already knows a lot about the ship - we know he's a little genius - A strange ship approaches, very big. It scans the Enterprise then leaves them be and fires on the planet but carefully avoiding the station, because the big mystery here was that the ship and the Fairpoint Station were both living creatures, one enslaved and the other angry.
Q very stupidly tries to sabotage their mission - very very stupidly, basically all Picard had to do was to do the opposite of what Q told him...
They feed the 'station' energy so it can free itself and fly away.
They were beautiful, weren't they? when I was little I loved them very much :-)

2- The naked now

ITA Contaminazione
41209.2 The Enterprise goes to help a ship in trouble, but opening a channel you can hear them partying, until there’s like an explosion. Data: “I believe that last sound was an emergency hatch being blown”. Picard: “Are you certain? Yes, of course you are”. On that ship, that had 80 people, everyone’s dead now, either blown out into space or frozen… Geordi touches a body when it falls on him after opening a door, and he starts acting weird despite being decontaminated. He should stay in sickbay but he wanders around.  To visit Wesley, whose science project is a tractor beam. Tasha finds him.

Riker remembers another case of someone showering with their clothes on, and realise they all feel like intoxicated, drunk. Tasha touches Deanna. Wesley takes control of the engine room, where they’re all drunk now. Worf shares Data’s confusion about human behaviour. When Data visits Tasha se tells him her story: abandoned when she was five, learned to survive, and at 15 she escaped. So now she wants love, and Data is “fully functional”, “programmed in multiple techniques, a broad variety of pleasuring”… she’s quite happy about that. For now. At the end, she’ll be upset and tell him : “it never happened!”

The old cure doesn’t work now, it’s changed. Beverly knows she’s been contaminated and is trying to work quickly. Even Riker and Picard get it, and Data too; a star is collapsing, Data needs time to put all the isolinear chips back where they should be, and Wesley saves the day. Chief engineer: “it would take week of laying out new circuits” and Wesley: “why not just see it in your head?” He gains the Enterprise that minute Data needed by reversing the ship’s tractor beam.

Beverly is quite smug that Wesley saved the day. 

3- Code of honor

ITA Codice d’onore

41235.25 On Ligon II. Negotiations to get some medicine. Lutan seems to be their leader. He acts all friendly and then ‘kidnaps’ Tasha. It’s a bold act, and they can only “ask” that he returns her. Picard and Troi go down to their planet to do so, but Lutan has secret plans: he’s all “I cannot part with her” and calls it an act of love, he even says that he wants her “to become my first one”; this causes his first one Yareena to “challenge your right to supersedence”, whatever that is. It hasn’t been done in 200 years but it is her right, and it’s a challenge to the death; they need the vaccine, and Yar was rather flattered, and also sure she can win. She’d be less flattered if she heard him saying that women “are highly pleasant things but after all unimportant except for the land they own”. Now Picard sees his game, because on this planet, women own the lands, and men are to govern and protect. When Tasha wins, Lutan thinks he’s a very rich man indeed. So Picard takes the vaccine first, and then brings Lutan and his second Hagon on his ship. Lutan is quite upset to see Yareena alive: she did die, but Beverly brought her back, and since death dissolves every “mating agreement”, she takes the necklace from his neck, ‘leaving him’. She told Tasha that every woman loves Lutan and how can you not love him, but now she thinks differently because during the battle she heard Hagon’s worried cry for her, so now she chooses him to rule over what’s hers. Now Lutan’s lost everything and Yareena asks Tasha: “do you want him?” - “No, there would be complications” and because she does like him, she regrets this a little bit but is also sure of her life path. So Yareena keepshim as her number two. Hagon tells Picard that “you may excel in technology but not in civilized behaviour” because of how they acted, but I’ve always loved how he caressed her hair after saying that, because deep down he’s very happy they did it, and very happy with the outcome because not only he’s a very important man now, but he does care for Yareena.

4- 

ITA L’ultimo avamposto

41386.4  They’re “in pursuit of a starship of Ferengi design” because they stole an energy converter. Data says Ferengi are like the worst kind of Yankee traders, and Picard explains how the Us and France had the same three colours, but the French used them “more properly” inthe order blu white and red. Both ships are immobilized near a planet, and both Tasha and Worf suggest attacking first *rollingeyes*

Daimon Tarr thinks humans are overpowering them, but it’s the planet. It’s the last outpost of a long gone race. The Ferengi’s weapons are like whips that throw electric charges. Worf calls them “pigmy cretins” and the Ferengi are sickened by the sight of Tasha, a woman working, armed and ‘forced to wear clothing’. Riker wins over the planet’s defence portal, a man who likes his Sun Tsu references. The ships are released not a moment too soon, they were all dying because there was no power at all.

5-Where no one has gone before

ITA Dove nessuno è mai giunto prima

41263.1 A “Starfleet propulsion expert” comes aboard with his assistant from Tau Alpha C for some tests on the ship’s warp drive engines. Riker and Data think Kosinski’s datas are nonsense. During these tests, the Enterprise’s speed goes accidentally off scale. Picard: “reverse engines” - Data: “Captain, no one has ever reversed engines at this velocity” - “that’s because no one has gone this fast. Reverse engines” :-)

They’ve left their galaxy, and also passed two others and now they are “on the far side of Triangulum, the galaxy known as M-33”, 300 years at maximum speed to get home. Wesley is the only one who noticed the assistant fading out, he’s exhausted. Kosinski is incredibly arrogant, but it’s the assistant who does the real stuff. Still, Kosinski “has sensed some small part of it”. Wesley: “that space and time and thought aren’t the separate things they appear to be?” because Wesley understood what he was doing. Kosinski is sure of himself, he truly believes he did it all. Wesley tries to explain to Riker but of course nobody listens to him because he’s just a boy, so when they try to go back, they fail because the assistant is too tired. They simply stop “where none have gone before” : very pretty blu surroundings with balls of white lights floating around. They’re a billion light years away. People start seeing things, like Worf’s pet as a child - a small boar - or ancient musicians, or Picard’s maman, or Tasha’s red cat… because what they think here can become real. At least Riker is honest enough to admit that Wesley is the only one who noticed and did try to explain. Now the assistant is unconscious. Maybe dying. He’s so different from us that Beverly doesn’t know what to do. The assistant is a traveler, he travels out of curiosity, he has “a knowledge of propulsion” that he’s been trading for passage. “Thought” brought them here. He can also travel through time, others like him do it too, and Riker wonders why there is’t any trace of them in our history: simply because they never came here, nothing interesting to see. 

In private, the assistant tells Picard that it’s for the few people like Wesley that he travels because Wesley is a genius like Mozart, only not in music but in propulsion, time and energy, and he must be encouraged. 

To keep the crew’s thought away from anything that might materialize, and also away from fear, Picar orders that they focus no their duty “or on the welfare of the one called the Traveler: think of giving him some of your strength”, he adds to think of his well-being as if someone you care about. So now he becomes stronger, enough to bring them back. The traveler disappears and Picard calls Wesley on the bridge, and makes him “active Ensign” so he has rank enough to be on the bridge.

6- Lonely among us

ITA Solo in mezzo a noi

41249.3 They “have orbited the two major planets of the Beta Renner system, taking aboard delegates from those two worlds”. The Anticans and the Selay are enemies but both want to join the Federation. The Selay look a lot like Snakes on two feet, their heads are like cobra heads. They encounter something like a cloud of energy moving at warp speed. An electric charge enters Worf, then moves to Beverly, then to the ship and to Mr Singh, only he dies. It makes me go mad seeing things like: Beverly finds herself on the bridge with no idea on how she got there and doesn’t say a word about it to anyone… I mean, after all they’ve seen and done, weird things like this do not merit any mention to anyone?

Picard names Sherlock Holmes to Data regarding mystery solving, so he starts smoking a pipe and talking like him. 

This ‘being’ now enters Picard, and it can finally do what it wants, go back home. It didn’t come aboard voluntarily, it was taken accidentally, trying and failing to ask for help, and then it found Picard. Now it says they’ll both live as energy together, and they do try but they can’t stay fused once in the cloud so Picard comes back and is ‘transported’ back as he was. Of course he’s confused now, so he uses it as a great excuse to leave Riker to deal with the Anticans trying to eat the Selays.

7- Justice

ITA Il giudizio

41255.6 They find a new, beautiful planet and Beverly wants a shore leave for everyone. The place is beautiful and the Edo are too, all fit and with barely any clothes on, both males and females. They greet people with a warm hug and they run instead of walk. They excercise, dance, make love, all the time. Wesley is sent to play with three other youngsters.

A sort of space-station only half-here appears, and a voice warns them not to leave people on this planet. Worf doesn’t have fun like Riker because he says that human females are too fragile for him…

Long long go there were things like crime, but not anymore, and the reason shocks them: there’s only one punishment, whatever the crime: death. But nobody has thought of warning visitors about this. Wesley was playing ball and running, and he falls over some new plants, and because he broke the law two men want his death. Riker and the others stop it, of course. When they beam Rivan aboard the ship, that thing that the Edo call God gets very angry and they hurry to give her back. As one of its children. That “God” is actually many advanced beings, watching over the Edos. They live in many dimensions at once. Picard takes his people and Wesley away, and promises ‘God’ to take the colonists back from the planet near this, that they just went to.

8- The battle

ITA La battaglia

41723.9  The Ferengi asked for a meeting so they’re to meet Daimon Bok. Picard keeps having terrible headaches, and Beverly can’t help much. Daimon Bok says he wishes to “honor the hero of Maxia” and wants to gift Picard with an old Starfleet ship. Picard doesn’t even remember it, at first, and then explains: his ship met a vessel, they refused to identify themselves and attacked instead so Picard destroyed the ship in self-defence. The Stargazer is Picard’s old ship. He explains to his officers what happened, it was his ideaand it got names the Picard maneuver, “what any good helmsman would have done”. Moving at maximun warp speed, stopping abruptly and firing, and for a moment the ship appeared to be in two places at once. And the Ferengi “fired on the wrong one”. The ship was on fire, a wreck, and they had to abandon it using shuttlecrafts and it was weeks before they “were picked up”. Nobody worders how is it possible that the Stargazer is perfectly ok and still in working order? With nothing more than a bit of dust? They had to abandon it! And now it’s here, as good as new after a good cleaning…

On the Stargazer Data finds Picard’s log “confessing” that there was no justifiable attack by the Ferengi, and he destroyed that ship without good cause. Picard can’t sleep or res, his head aches so much there’s nothing more the doctor can do, he spends nights hearing in his head what happened in that battle. It’s all because of a thing used by Bok, a pink sphere with a metallin line across, and it’s once again Wesley to give crucial information, finding that there’s a transmission influencing Picard’s brain. Picard beams aboard the Stargazer, and Bok explains that 9 years ago his son was at his first command when Picard killed him, and Bok has used the profits of his entire life to buy two “thought makers”, to make him relive what happened and die. Riker asks the Ferengi first officer, who calls it “a forbidden device”. Picard relives it all, hears his old crew, smells the fire. The Ferengi first officer confines his Daimon with the excuse that this whole “adventure” is totally “unprofitable” so now the Enterprise stops the Picard maneuver with the tractor beam, and then Riker tells Picard to find and destroy a silver sphere, and Picard sese it and destroys it. 

9- Hide and Q

ITA Il ritorno di Q

41590.5 Without Troi in this episode. Hurrying towards a colony where lots of people got hurt, they’re stopped by Q, who says he wants to talk about the future of humans and transports Picard, Geordi,Data, Worf and Tasha on a planet with two moons to play at Napoleon’s army - apparently an army marshal “outranks even an Admiral”, I didn’t know that. Last time Q was interested in Picard, now he is interested in Riker, and Picard is totally sure that Riker will defeat him too, while Q is sure of the contrary because he’ll give Riker something impossible to refuse. He gives Riker the powers of a Q, so Riker sends the others back on the ship, and then he brings more people here, and this time unarmed. This time there’s also Picard and Wesley, and when Worf and Wesley get killed, Riker uses his powers to get everyone back on the ship, safe and sound. Then Riker gives Picard his word that he won’t use his powers again. When they reach the colony, most people are dead, and even a little girl, but Riker does not use his powers because he promised. But then he acts strange, calls Picard by his first name and speaks as Q does, but then Q comes with his weird speeches and Riker gives everyone gifts: Wesley is 10 years older - I wish this world would stop with the age-shaming, where everyone is either too young or too old, unless they’re between 20 and 35, and let children be happy to be children (although Wesley is not exactly a child, still, a minor) - Data stops him before he can make him human, because it would not be the true him. He gives Geordi real eyes, so now he can see how beautiful Tasha is, but Geordi wants his visor back because he doesn’t want to have to thank Q. Riker then tries giving Worf a Klingon mate, that has no place in his life now, and Wesley says that he’s not ready yet, and doesn’t want it this way (of course, you stole ten years of his life, give them back!). Just as Picard predicted. Riker says: “I feel like such an idiot” and Picard: “Quite right. So you should”. I love him.

So Q’s people take him away because after all, he promised.

10- Haven

41294.5 The Miller family was friends with Deanna’s father, and there’s an arranged marriage between her and their son Wyatt. Her mother Luaxana Troi is here too. Deanna calls her “eccentric”. Luaxana has Picard carry her heavy bag until Deanna puts her foot down and insists her valet do his work, good!

Wyatt has seen a woman’s face in his mind since he was young, and he thought it was Deanna, but it’s nnot. He’s a doctor, a fine young man. Deanna doesn’t like the situation, but she’s a Betazoid and she’ll honor it. 

A ship is slowly following them, Tarellians. They were believed to be all dead after a war with bio-weapons, but some of them escaped to other worlds, only to die together with the people they infected. The Millers want an Earth wedding but Luaxana insists on her traditions because she’s Luaxana Troi, Daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed”. The ‘engagement party’ is of the upmost interest to Data who listens to Lwaxana and the Millers with rapt attention, while Riker oes away because he can’t bear the whole engagement, and Deanna storms out finally fed up with their ‘petty bickering’. Wyatt admires her for it, and they laugh together and share a kiss: they could make it work if they had to, but Deanna should leave the Enterprise. When the Tarellians finally show their faces, we see that this Ariana is the woman of Wyatt’s portraits, and she calls him by name. She also has made many portraits of him during the years, and now Wyatt takes his medicine and beams himself on her ship. He will find a cure for them, so now the Millers and Lwaxana go back down to Haven, and Mr Homm speaks (!!!) to thank Picard for all the drinks (he had a lot!) 

11- The big goodbye

ITA Il grande addio

41997.7 Picardd is nervous because he’ll have to make contact with the “Jarada, a reclusive, insect-like race” and speak the greeting with perfect pronunciation. Picard has studied it a lot with Deanna’s help and now she insists he takes a rest from it, so he goes to the holodeck. The program is about Dixon Hill, San Francisco 1941, a private investigator. He’s loved this character since he was a child, and he’s very thrilled of how great the holodeck is. When he asks Beverly to join him, for a second she might have thought of a sort-of date, but then he wants to invite Mr Whalen too, as a “20th century historian”; Data is curious, so he reads all about it and joins Picard on the holodeck. They’re all dressed appropriately. 

The Jarada arrive early, and their scan of the Enterprise damages something, and the holodeck is now isolated. Wesley and Geordi have a look at it.

Picard and co. only learn of the problem when Whalen is shot and he’s hurt for real, bleeding. It shouldn’t be possible, so Picard and the others want the exit, and learn of the malfunction. A weird thing is that one second Picard warns Data of not talking about planets -  so he reverts to saying he’s from South America - and then the next second he starts talking about not being Dixon Hill…

Anyway, of course they don’t believe it…but then Wesley manages to open the door. Data carries Whalen to sickbay while Picard says goodbye to hos cop friend and then he hurries to the bridge, still in his Earth suit and coat, and greets the Jarada in their language. He does it well and they’re satisfied. 

12 - Datalore

41242.4 They’re in “the remote Omicron Theta Star System, home of our android crew member Lieutenant Commander Data”. The planet is now without any sort of life of any kind. Data was found 26 years before and the colonists put all their memort logs into him. They go down to look at the lab and when they see some drawings, Riker says “posted by proud parents?” … now, I don’t know why the colonists decided to display such drawings, but I sure think Riker should look at them since he’s right in front of them, and realize they’re not drawings of families and dogs, but of people dying and runnig away terrified… and he will, later.

Data remembers which one is “Dr Soong’s work area”, Dr Noonien Soong, “Earth’s foremost robotics scientist”, “until he tried to make Asimov’s dream of a positronic brain come true” and then he failed and disappeared, came to this planet.

They find a storage room full of fog-smoke-whatever-the-effect-is-the-same and without hesitation they open it and they find all the parts of another ‘Data’, and he wants to assemble him.
Now Riker does show Picard the drawings: he does not sound convinced but he probably thinks he has to since they are all of the same thing scaring the hell out of people. 

Data tells ony Beverly where his off-switch is, and after studying him they succeed in putting the other one together, who wants to be called Lore. His speech and attitude is more human-like, more sly; thanks to him they learn of the “great crystalline entiry which feeds on life”, capable of destroying entire worlds. Riker seems to believe Lore, since he erpeats it later, when he says that he was made too human, so the colonists got jealous and asked Soong to make another, less perfect android.

Lore gives Data a glass of champagne with some powder inside that blocks him totally. Lore also has human “needs and ambitions”, and he learned to communicate with the “crystal entity” and told it where the colonists were, and now Lore plans to “give it the life on this vessel”. Of course he exchanges clothes with Data and takes his place. Once again, Wesley is the only one who shows some sense, to have noticeds something, but nobody pays him any mind. At least his mom finally believes him and reactivates the real Data; together, Data and Wesley beam Lore outside and he goes away with the crystal entity.

13- Angel One

ITA Missione di soccorso

41636.9 They’re on Angel One, where women are in command. The Enterprise is looking for survivors of a dead ship. They are on this planet: four males, but they’re considered fugitives and dangerous. Wesley and some other kids got sick after a ski lesson on the holodeck, and Picard too. Soon lots of people gett sick and Geordi is in command. Beverly will find a cure of course, how lucky that only she didn’t get infected and could keep working on it…

The survivors do not think they need to be ‘rescued’ because they’ve been here seven years and have lives here, wives and families. They don’t want to leave. Still, following a member of her council, the Elected Beata found them and wants them all dead, because they go against the system, where men can’t vote or anything, just like women here once. Riker makes a speech about change and evolution, and the death pealty is changed into exile.

14 - 11001001

41365.9 At a starbase for a “routine maintenance check of all systems”. A “unified pair” of Bynars comes aboard to do the work, they are ‘One Zero’ and ‘Zero One’. The ship is empty now, with only Picard and Riker. Another pair joins them. Riker spends time on the holodeck with holo-Minuet, playing the trombone and dancing. When Picard comes in, she speaks French to him and entertains both of them. There were still people on the ship, but when there’s a sudden antimatter release problem Data orders to abandon the ship and it’s automatic departure from the station. After that the problem corrects itself…

Minuet tries her best to keep both Picard and Riker with her, and finally they notice and go out. 

They find out they’re heading towards the Bynars world: Bynaus. Picard is determined, he sets the autodestruction unless he and Riker stop it, they only have 5 minutes, they stop it in 3. So, their wordl was in trouble, their main computer at risk, so they stored it all on the Enterprise, filling every bite available, and then Picard and Riker transfer it back because they’re out dying. After that, they get up safe and smiling, saying they’re ready to face punishment but didn’t ask before because “you might have said no”. 

They go back to Starbase 74 and all is well. Only, Minuet doesn’t exist anymore.

15- Too short a season

ITA Guerra privata

41309.5 Orbiting Persephone V to meet Admiral Mark Jameson because Karnas, governor of Mordan IV, sent a message that a Federation ambassador and his staff have been taken hostage and he asked for Jameson’s help. The place has been at peace for a few years now. James comes on board with his wife Anne, taking full control of the mission. Jameson is 85 and suffering from Iverson’s disease which affects his body, but it turns out that Jameson went to Cerberus II where they say there’s a process that can give one his youth back. It’s dangerous and painful, and he tried it first, intending to give Anne the second dose if it worked, but when he heard of this mission he couldn’t wait for the slow process and took not only the full dose, but both of them. Too much for his body. He gets young again, sure, but won’t have long to live. 

Now, Karnas took those people hostage to lure him there, for revenge, because many years ago when Mordan was at war and Karnas took some prisoners, Jameson went to negotiate, but he got the people freed only because he gave Karnas the weapons he wanted, and as his own interpretation of the Prime Directive, he gave the same weapons to his rivals. It lead to 40 years of civil war. Jameson feels guilty and tells Picard everything. Jameson dies in front of Karnas after explaining everything, and the hostages are released. 

16- When the bough breaks

ITA Il pianeta sterile

They come in contact with Aldea, a myth like Antartide, a planet that can cloak itself… and indeed it appears out of nowhere in front of them.

41509.1 There haven’t been newborns in more than 20 years since Rashella waas the last one, so now they’re ready to give the Federation valuable informations, lots and lots of it, because they “need some of your children”…

When they receive the obvious no, they just take the children. Wesley and other six children, all much smaller than him. They were chosen because they’re considered ‘special’, because they have special talents in something: music, art, sculpting… The old man Radue sees no problem since humans can make other children…

Wesley leads the children to go on strike. Beverly discovers that on Aldea they’re all dying because the shields are hurting them, because of radiations, so they take down the shields, and the children go home.

17- Home soil

ITA Progetto terraforming

41463.9 A group of scientists was carrying on a terraforming project but then one of them dies and Data and the others discover a form of life: not organic, but an intelligent life form nonetheless. They can reproduce and now succeed in communicating. Both parties understand the situation now - the men were killing them with their work - so the life forms are left in their own environment and the scientists are taken away.

18- Coming of age

ITA L’età della ragione

41416.2 Wesley goes down on Relva 7 to be tested for entrance into Starfleet academy. Picard’s old friend Admiral Queen and LtCmdr Dexter Remmick come up instead. 

There are three other candidates other than Wesley, and only one place at the Academy. Wesley’s psych test is to make a choice between two people to save, because someone - captain Picard, I think - had to make that choice and Wesley’s father died.

Mordock is the first Benzite to enter the Academy, Wesley came second. he tells Picard that he failed, but Picard is not disappointed and confesses that he too failed the first time, but not the second! :-p

Remmick is tasked to inspect everything on the ship, without a real explanation. Once he starts questioning the officers, it’s clear that all the questions are about Picard. Jake,  a kid who didn’t get his chance at the Academy, suddenly takes a shuttlecraft to go away and when it has trouble, Picard helps him get control again and come back. So, Remmick finds nothing wrong, and finally the Admiral tells Picard that he needs people he can trust, and wants to promote him to Admiral, and wants him to become the new Commandant of Starfleet Academy.

Of course Picard refuses the new position, so he can stay on the Enterprise.

18- Heart of glory

ITA Cuore di Klingon

41503.7 They enter the Neutral zone to rescue a Talarian freighter, and they see through Geordi’s visor. They find three Klingons, one is badly injured; when he dies, the other two and Worf give a sort of animalistic cry, head back and raaaaaaar. Worf tells the he’s the only Klingon in Starfleet, when the Khitomer outpost was attacked by Romulans, he survived, and a human Starfleet officer found him and raised him like a son. He was young, before “the age of inclusion”. His foster brother hated the Academy and left, Worf stayed. These two Klingons now tell him that they can’t bear this ‘peace’ and took the ship they were in and battled other Klingons. Of course other Klingons came to arrest them.

The two Klingons try to escape: one dies along with an officer. Worf stops the other one and does the Klingon Death Ritual alone. The Klingon captain that came for them offers Worf a job in their fleet and he politely replies that it’s an honor, but he has no desire of leaving the Enterprise :-)

20- The arsenal of freedom

ITA L’arsenale della libertà

41798.2 The planet “Minos, the arsenal of freedom” has no more life, only a recorded message. Riker, Yar and Data go down and have to deal with a weapon that learns and adapts; Picard finds the main computer and Beverly is badly injured. Another part of that weapon attacks the Enterprise: Geordi is in command and separates the ship. Beverly suggests shutting it off, and to do that Picard tells the automatic salesma that he’s seen enough and wants to buy it, so the “demonstration” ends. The Enterprise destroys its attacker and beams everyone up. The ship they were looking for, the Drake, was probably a victim of this ultimate weapon, as were everyone on the planet. Riker had been offered the Drake, as captain, but refused choosing to go on the Enterprise.

I loved it that after so many deaths, and after they struggle so much against it, it is the doctor that finds a solution :-) the obvious one, since the weapon is controlled by a computer, but still, they only tried to destroy it.

21 - Symbiosis

ITA Simbiosi

The Enterprise rescues a ship. The only way is to beam them on the Enterprise and those people give priority to their cargo. Tasha manages to save four people out of six after that. Two from Brekka and two from Ornara. These two planets are in total symbiosis because on Brekka there are no other industries, they perfected the productin of what they call ‘medicine’, the Felicium. Everyone on Ornara thinks they’er ill and will die without the medicine, and a dose only lasts 72 hours tops. Beverly realises that it’s not a medicine but a narcotic, the Ornarans are all addict. They don’t know, but the people from Brekka do. Picard can’t tell the Ornarans, can’t cure them, because of the Prime Directive. But now Picard refuses to repair their only ships left, because it’s the only thing he can do. Then the Enterprise goes away, it doesn’t matter where as long as it’s away from here, and Geordi chooses to head to the Opperline System, because “we’ve never been there”. Good.

22 - Skin of evil

ITA La pelle del male

41601.3 Deanna was at a conference and is coming back, but their shuttle has trouble. It’s captured by a planet, so a team beams down to help. Some kind of black ‘slick’ blocks their paths, it can move, grow and talk, it’s called Armus apparently. It attacks Tasha, one shot and she’s dead, there’s nothing they can do. This thing talks to Deanna, tells her that some creatures, now dazzingly beautiful, brought to the surface all that was evil and negative in them, it became like a second skin that they discarded and left here.

Riker is enveloped in the black goo and given back later. This will come up many times in future episodes.

Since talking about what happened in the past seems to weaken it, Picard comes down and talks to it, waiting for his crew to bring them all up. The thing remains there while they go away.  Worf is now the new Chief of security, so he remained on the ship to lead the rescue.

Picard of course didn’t mean it when he told that thing that he’d take it away from that planet, and he says as much when he knows he’s about to be beamed up “I’m not taking you anywhere”, and then they destroy the shuttlecraft that crashed there to “prevent any possibility of Armus leaving the planet. Vagra II will be declared off-limits but the damage has been done”. They go to the holodeck for Tasha’s funeral. Riker has his arm around Deanna’s shoulder, Wesley is with Beverly, there’s also Geordi, Data and Worf. Tasha left a holographic recorded message for them: Riker is the best because he trusted her, encouraged her and made her laugh. Deanna is “capable of so much love, you taught me without ever having to say a word, I realized I could be feminine without losing anything”; Worf “we are so much alike, you and I, both warriors, orphans who found ourselves this family”; Beverly “from you I have learned to strive for excellence no matter what the personal cost”; Wesley “I’m sorry I won’t be able to see you grow into the exceptional man you’ll become, but your kindness and innocence are ageless”; Geordi “in those moments I felt the most despair you took my hand and helped me to see things differently, you taught me to look beyond the moment” and then “my friend Data, you see things with the wonder fo a child and that makes you more human than any of us”. “Captain Jean-Luc Picard, I wish I could say you’ve been like a father to me but I’ve never had one so I don’t know what it feels like. But if there were someone in this universe I could choose to be like, someone I would want to make proud of me, it’s you. You who have the heart of an explorer and the soul of a poet. So, you’ll understand when I say ‘death is that state in which one exists only in the memory of others, which is why it is not an end’. No goodbyes. Just good memories. Hailing frequencies closed, sir” - “Au revoir, Natasha”

Data is confused: “my thoughts are not for Tasha but for myself, I keep thinking how empty it will be without her presence. Did I miss the point?” And a moved Picard replies “No you didn’t Data, you got it”

23 - We’ll always have Paris

ITA Ricordare Parigi

41697.9 To Sarona VIII for some rest. Picard practices fencing with some lieutenant, when there is “some kind of loop where everything repeats itself”. Then they get a message from a Dr Manheim asking for help. Picard says that 15 years ago h left to “work on experiments relating to non-linear time”.

22 years ago Picard had to meet a girl at a café in Paris but it was him who didn’t show. That girl is now mrs Manheim, Jenice. He didn’t show up for fear of staying there for her and losing himself, so he “shipped out” instead.

Beverly thinks she “can’t compete with a ghost from his past, no one could” because “she may be in the here and now but it’s the ghost he sees”

Paul Manheim and his team opened a “window into another dimension”. They see themselves into the turbolift and understand that the Manheim’s effectt may be dangerous, also because Paul is trapped through dimensions or something, so Data goes down to the lab and closes it, even though when the time came to add the antimatter into something, there were suddenly three Data in a line, and the second said he was the right one, but its seems to me like all three went forward with it, but it worked, Paul is now alright and he will go back to his lab with Jenice.

This time Jenice and Picard have a proper goodbye, on the holodeck where he recreated the café des artistes, she thanks him for Paris and exits, and they resume their previous course to Sarona for their shore-leave.

24 - Conspiracy

ITA Cospirazione

41775.5 Worf doesn’t lilke swimming because it’s too similar to bathing. A code 47 is a Starfleet message reserved for the captain, a protected channel, and yet this other captain won’t tell Picard what it’s all about, simply gives him an appointment on Dytallix B, saying “don’t trust anyone”. It’sa deserted mine, and there are now four Starfleet ships around it. Picard’s, Tryla Scott’s ‘frigate’ Renegade, Captain Rixx’s frigate Thomas Paine, and this Walker Keel’s ambassador-class heavy cruiser Uss Horatio.

The four captains meet alone, Tryla Scott made captain faster than anyone in Starfleet history, all of them included. These three tell Picard to be careful and watch his back because there’s something wrong in Starfleet, strange orders, weird accidental deaths… and shortly after that they find so many debris that it could only be the Horatio. Even if there’s no proof, Picard remembers that Admiral Quinn also warned him of some subversion within the Federation. Data is quite happy when he finds himself talking to himself, he found the “abnormal patterns in Starfleet Directives” that suggests an attempt to control the Federation, maybe to facilitate an invasion. So they go to Starfleet headquarters, to Earth. On the Enterprise, not-really-admiral-Quinn-anymore knocks out Riker, Geordi and Worf before Beverly can finally come and shoot him unconscious. This bug-things, rather scorpion-like, nasty purple buggers, had taken control of all three admirals at Headquarters, and also captain Scott, and when shot they now exit those bodies and they all go inside Remmick, entering his mouth, so Picard and Riker shoot him to destroy him because inside him there’s the usual mother-bug that once destroyed causes all the little scorpion things to disappear. We’re simply told that there’s no more trace of the parasite in Admiral Quinn. So I guess all the others will be ok too. Well, not Remmick, no, but all the others, that is. Data finds out that Remmick was sending a message, towards “an unexplored sector of our galaxy”, and it was a homing beacon. Sent from Earth. Quite ominous indeed, but nothing will come of it that I know of…

25 - The Neutral Zone

ITA La zona neutrale

41986 While waiting for Picard to come back from a conference, they see an ancient little ship and Data wants to inspect it out of curiosity. With Worf, they find three frozen bodies. Clare is 35, Ralph is 55 and was/is a financier, and the third is Sonny; Picard orders Riker to take care of them and to ‘keep them out of his way’. 

Picard has a sensible mission, two Federation outposts have been destroyed, maybe by Romulans, after 50 years of silence. Picard’s mission is actually to establish peaceful relations with them.

Now it’s 2364, but they were all dead when they were frozen. The woman thinks of her children, and all the people she’s lost. Sonny only thinks of music, women and having a good time. The other man of course is different,full of himself because he had lots of money, treating the Enterprise like a cruise ship, even going unwanted on the bridge - and two men can’t get him out simply because he doesn’t want to… really?come on… 

Worf has a grudge against Romulans because they destroyed the Khitomer outpost, but they didn’t do it here, their outposts were attacked too. They agree to share information on this, but then the Romulans say that they’ve been away too long and this is the result, and “we’re back!”, they say. 

The Enterprise will transfer the three humans onto another ship, or maybe directly to a Starbase, until they can be taken to Earth. And once again Picard remarks how on Earth people have defeated greed and don’t live to gain money anymore… all nice and good, but they could never explain how do they live, then. There’s no rent to pay for anyone? I know food replicators are a thing on ships, but everyone has them at home? For free? Maintenance is also free? Mah.

End of season 1.

Q - John DeLancie

A Ferengi - Armin Shimerman

Lwaxana - Majel Barrett

Ariana - Danitza Kingsley

Karnas - Michael Pataki