Star Trek Attack Wing Wave 16: All Sides But Starfleet?

The dust from trials of the Wave 15 ships has barely settled and Wave 16 is upon us.

These releases are suddenly coming thick and fast with waves 17 to 21 confirmed and arrival dates pinned until January 2016. One thing you do notice with the latest trio is the lack of a Federation vessel. Well...sort of.

Out of the box first is one of my favourite starships of all time, the USS Dauntless. Indeed a Starfleet ship that turned out not to be a Starfleet ship in a great Voyager episode. It's also the first expansion where you can get away with not applying a captain and instead using the Auto-Navigation option. 

As with the episode, Hope and Fear, your only captain option otherwise is sneaky vengeance-seeking Arthuris. Should you stick him on the Dauntless then you get a captain skill of eight but if you drop him onto any other ship he's a three. While the Doctor on the Prometheus relied on your die rolling to up his captain skill, this one sticks at that figure for the game duration making the Dauntless one to watch. Also Arturis allows you to target a ship within ranges two to three and disable either their captain card or two crew upgrades. Definitely one to have packed if you're going up against a Federation fleet.

Big point to note with the Dauntless is that it only has tech upgrade slots. Four if you're playing the unique class ship and three if you're playing the generic "class" ship and they are pretty cool in fact I'm looking at combining her with the Krenim Timeship as part of an independent fleet. She's also quick with a forward of five and some nice tight turns which might help you out in the pack's scenario.  

Those tech upgrades kick off with the unusual Auto-Navigation. It does bottom your captain skill out at two but once you reveal your maneuver you can change it over to one of the four green maneuvers available. Beyond that there are another five in this pack. The four point Navigational Deflector isn't new, being used in the game before most notably with the USS Equinox and works exactly the same, allowing you to discard the card to cancel a damage result or be disabled to roll a defence against obstacles and minefields. Costly for a discard but useful if you get someone who likes to drop a few surprises if you're in pursuit. Power Distribution is a turn on Arturis' skill allowing you to change your maneuver and perform a hard right or left turn (speed of three only) which are of course red and will incur an auxiliary power token. Being a speedy little thing I'm not sure if you'll need this however with very little defence it might allow you to get out of trouble quickly - although not as quickly as Quantum Slipstream Drive. 

As the most cost heavy upgrade with the Dauntless you know it's a serious piece of kit and certainly keeps with the theme of the Hope and Fear episode. If you're in danger of heavy damage this tech allows you to step out of the game and then go back onto the board out of range of any other ship. It is a discard and doesn't rid you of auxiliary power tokens but might allow you to regroup especially if coupled with Particle Synthesis which allows one hull damage or up to two shields to be repaired if you disable the card and discard one of your tech upgrades.Probably an essential for the ship and one that can only be used on a Dauntless Class vessel. I'll certainly be sticking that in my selection. 

Rounding out the tech options is Force Field giving players the chance to defend against an enemy attempting to disable or discard one of your upgrades. It can be used at the cost of additional five SP on another vessel type but most players will keep it on the Dauntless and avoid that waste. 

Just so you don't feel short changed on the options here you do get two new Elite Actions. Emergency Shutdown is neat for a discard to allow you to ignore your chosen maneuver and stay still at the cost of your round. It's OK but Lure is pure genius and one that I've heard a lot of players out there wanting to use in various combinations as it lets you change an enemy ship out of your range and change their chosen maneuver. It will backfire on you if that move takes them off the board or into a collision. In a one-on-one scenario you'll be lucky to get the chance to use this unless your opponent is super-slow but it means you could drag that ship into range and then hit it with an attack from yourself or another ship in your fleet or push it away to buy some regeneration time. Combine it with Quantum Slipstream Drive and Particle Synthesis and you could be back to full strength pretty quick.

The season four finale also provides the scenario for the pack named Revenge which I have actually played (yay!). A straight-up chase to Borg space the Federation player must save two crew from the Dauntless before it's too late. I chose Voyager and stuck Janeway, Seven and Harry Kim onboard. You do need a quick ship to keep up with the Dauntless but nothing that has a hull value higher than a four - hence my choice which it kinda indicates you should use since you also can't have any upgrades of five SP or higher. A nice introductory mission where you can play about with upgrade combos and also change the distance you have to cover to Borg space which will increase or decrease the difficulty of the game. 

You can also see this ship reviewed over on our YouTube channel now.

This ship has made me consider switching my fleet plans from Federation (good starter for anyone) over to the Independents. While they are last on the initiative scale, there is some serious hardware available and much less leaning on the crew upgrades bag which has made me think a little more about how to create an effective fleet. Think it's also pushing me to purchase either the Borg Soong, Vidiian Fina Prime or the Hirogen Hunter.

Second into the line of fire is the Ferengi Marauder, the Kreechta. Whoopy! For those of us who can't get to competitions it's the first retail release for the big-eared latinum lovers and will soon be followed by the Quark's Treasure which I suspect will include Quark, Rom, Nog and Odo as your crew and captain options. It also looks damn tiny. Anyway, drifting here. 

The Kreechta unique named ship costs a few points less than the Dauntless (26 versus 22) but not having a huge number of ships to pick from does mean it may be sitting in your storage box for a few months waiting for some friends if you're a Faction Pure kinda player. If not then it's a low cost option that's certainly a little cheeky. If you choose the generic Marauder you will lose a shield and a tech upgrade as well as the unique action as always.

Foregoing Battle Stations, you only get three options with the ship - Evade, Target Lock and Scan and it does give a slight nod to the Ferengi's less than combative nature. She also lets you re-roll the number of dice up to the amount of damaged shields (if applicable) on your opponent's vessel during the Modify Attack Dice step. Seeing as the Kreechta only has one defence die, knocking the opposition down quickly is going to be a good option here.

The Marauder does have four hull and three shields to remove before she's eliminated with a steady three for attack and your options aren't quite as limiting as the tech-heavy Dauntless we've already looked over. She's also no slouch with the reverse maneuver giving you the chance for a sly escape and hard turns at both speeds two and three giving you good opportunity to evade any hard action. 

For one there's also three captain options; one being the generic zero SP-er and then too low skill choices of Bractor who lets you add an extra attack die if you're attacking a ship with an auxiliary power token and Tarr who gives you a better chance to survive an attack from a ship coming at you in your forward firing arc by popping on a Battle Stations token and not using your Action. Tarr is certainly a useful defensive option but Bractor is a little too situational for me and not something you're going to see very often I suspect. Nice cock-up by WizKids in using a picture of Letek from The Last Outpost rather than Tarr for his card. Probably just so they could have Armin Shimerman show up twice.

There are two weapon upgrades available to your Ferengi brethren in the form of the almost always present Photon Torpedoes which work in exactly the same way as they always do but here they do mean you are gaining an extra two attack die which is a big jump for such a vessel. Missile Launchers is perhaps more useful letting your ship punch out two attacks from its forward firing arc  with critical results going straight to the hull. A big upgrade this one even though it costs less than the torpedoes there's something a lot more agile about it.

Your one crew upgrade comes in the form of a rather slimy little weasel of a Tactical Officer  whose ability lets you perform a three or four forward maneuver at the end of the Activation Phase. Certainly a benefit to either put you close to a target and pound them with a target lock and Missile Launcher or get the hell out of there before you end up as a debris field. Slimy yes, arse saving; absolutely.

Three tech upgrades have your interests covered and let's take Maximum Shields first. I reckon this could be good alongside that Tactical Officer as you can add two more shields onto your ship which will soak up damage but are only available for one round as they have to be removed in the End Phase and this is a discard not a disable. Ferengi Probe offers a "jackpot"-esque double bubble on your combat range bonuses if you chose to scan as your Action so that could - as I understand it - mean more dice at range one and less at range three? If I'm wrong here, please let me know but I think that sounds about right...?!

Both that and EM Pulse come with their own reminder tokens for your game with the latter letting you drop an auxiliary power token onto a ship within range one/two that's not in your forward arc and also forces it to use two less attack die in the round. Further proof right there that the Marauder is a ship worth dropping into a fleet just to mess up the opposition tactics and play around with their attack and defence rolls if nothing else.

Closing out the options with the Kreechta we have two Elite Actions. The less expensive is Marauder giving you Battle Stations as a free action only for a Ferengi ship with a Ferengi Captain. Very generic and I'm sure I've seen something very familiar in other expansions. The one which is more useful is Acquisition which allows you to discard the card and steal a non-Borg or weapons upgrade from an uncloaked and un-shielded ship at range 1-2. Nice because you can have anything even if it exceeds ship restrictions and there's no specification that it has to be an enemy ship so you could effectively trade upgrades between your fleet (Ferengi only ships can carry the card though).

The mission included in the pack follows the overall theme of The Next Generation's second season episode Peak Performance in that your Ferengi Marauder takes on two Federation ships which are unprepared for its attack. As the Ferengi commander you have twelve rounds before the Federation ships' weapons come back on line to take the opposition out. Should be a synch. Not tried this one yet but I think it'll be a lot of fun to try the odds. You can check out the vid on the Kreechta here.

Finally there's the USS Pasteur - a Starfleet ship! Yep - but here that's totally ignored and she's firmly added to the ranks of the Mirror/Alternative Universe faction. Why this couldn't have had a dual faction option as with the Soong Borg ship or the Krenim Time Ship I'm a bit puzzled because a lot of fans will want to play this as part of their Starfleet squad.

If you're a fan of mix-and-match it won't matter too much as you're going to be more interested what the benefits of using her will be. Tactically the Pasteur is a nippy little thing with a forward of six and a reverse of one plus some hard right and left turns at speed three. While the Marauder has a fair spread of stats across attack as well as hull and shields, the Olympic Class medical ship is limited in its offensive capabilities out of the box with some sturdy basics to keep her in the action for some time. Unusually she also loses Target Lock as an Action, has no weapon upgrade slots and has just two crew and two tech slots available for personalisation.

So to the pack and once we discount Captain Generic there are three new options. First you have Beverly Crusher. In All Good Things... she is referred to as Beverly Picard but I can understand that keeping the Crusher surname will stop players from having two versions of her. Although, with this being the mirror version that might not even be a consideration as you can field a Prime and Mirror version of the same character in the same fleet.

Beverly takes advantage of your green maneuvers in that if you use one you can convert a Battle Stations into an Evade should you need to defend - and you'll be doing a lot of that given your fairly decent hull and shield values versus your poor number of die for repressing attacks.

The only actual captain in the pack, Crusher comes with the lowest skill of five with Worf fielding a six and Riker a seven. Why we get Worf as a captain I'm still wondering but he does make your attack and defence a little more impressive for the sake of an auxiliary power token and he doesn't need discarding or disabling to use.

However, he does cost the same as William T Riker who gives you one more Captain Skill point. The future Riker gives you a Scan token and then either Evade or Battle Stations as a free action. This captain can also be flipped to act as your fleet Admiral allowing other ships on your team to benefit from his action.

Two new crew join your ranks here with the Parallels version of Alyssa Ogawa letting you remove a disabled upgrade token and then perform the Scan or Evade actions for free. Nor does she need to be disabled to do so which means this card could be invaluable. Cleverly you can't re-enable any weapons upgrades with this one. Secondly there's Nell Chilton who was the helm officer for the Pasteur in All Good Things... . Her action gives you the chance to escape with a green maneuver if you suffer one hull damage. This does recognise the rather fragile nature of the Pasteur and the likelihood that she'll be an opponent's first target.

One option for tech upgrades here is the Impulse Drive. At first it seems a bit "meh" however on closer inspection it does mean you can perform those red right and left moves and not receive an auxiliary power token and if you choose a white maneuver at speeds one, two or three they act as a green maneuver. Good choice to make this a disable rather than a discard so you can keep on using it making the Pasteur super-nimble.

The other tech choice comes directly from The Next Generation's finale in the form of the Inverse Tachyon Pulse which forces your opponent to defend with one less die should you have the Scan token active. Not too bad and probably more effective against smaller ships than your 30 or 40 pointers which will still have a chance to cancel out your minimal hits.

The Pasteur does seem a bit of a lame duck if I'm honest with low costs and fairly low return. Potentially this is going to be your first ship to go boom given her light armament and low to medium defensive capability. Her saving grace is the movement but I wouldn't want to rely on that too much if you last to the later stages of a game. Continuing this sense of avoiding doom is the Elite Action, Yellow Alert. While not important enough for a Red Alert, the Pasteur can discard this card and drop an Evade or Battle Stations token next to the ship even if there's one already there. Effectively it's a free action but one that might help cover your retreat. Starfleet Intelligence allows you to re-roll either any number of attacking or defending die at the cost of the card and it just doesn't get me away from the sense that this pack is all about covering yourself from damage.

Not a bad thing as there are ships which will provide you with ample attacking ability and it's nice for a switch to one which isn't weapons reliant but I still have that nagging feeling this is cannon fodder from the first move.

Finally, if you're looking to test out your medical ship before taking her into a more competitive situation, try out the Anti-Time Eruption scenario. Using the Pasteur and A. N. Other ship you get to take on two Klingon ships in a 70 point squadron with your second ship slightly delayed on arrival a la USS Enterprise-D from the finale. The overall idea is for your Mirror/Federation fleet to establish a tricky static warp shell while repelling those grumpy future Klingons with the whole game timed to six rounds. A dangerous mission? Given the stats on the Pasteur absolutely and one that will get players thinking about best tactics.

OK, an interesting trio of lighter ships this month. No 30+ pointers and certainly each with its own specific theme be it  tech, defence or evasion in the case of the Marauder. Would I play them? Yes to the Dauntless without question and would use a lot of the upgrades she comes with. Just need to add a ship or two to my independents! The Pasteur is a possible if I went Mirror Universe but I wouldn't be jumping to select her. With the Ferengi it's going to be a wait and see what comes with the Quark's Treasure and beyond. My biggest disappointment is that with the arrival of future Riker and future Worf we may not see the triple-engined Enterprise-D in this series. However...we still have Picard, Data and Geordi to mine if it does happen.

Wave 16 is available right now from numerous retailers but what's your take on these new ships? Are they worth adding into your fleet?

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The Ship of Future Past and Fluid Flights: The Official Starships Collection Issues 42 and 43

It's a lot longer than I thought.

No euphemism here, merely an observation on the shape of the USS Pasteur from All Good Things... which marks the first of this month's Eaglemoss starships.

Built and devised by ILM's Bill George, the Pasteur was notorious for being a homage to Matt Jeffries' original design for the USS Enterprise in The Original Series but was partially modified from a sphere to a saucer along the way to the now-iconic ship design.

With Issue 42 we get one of Starfleet's more diverse concepts with the Olympic Class hospital ship which, as I've already said, is a lot longer than I recalled. In fact on screen it looked a lot more squat. In reality the Pasteur seems a bit spindly with that oversized golf-ball primary hull, thin secondary hull and dwarfed warp nacelles capable of the miraculous warp 13.

On this occasion the lower half of the sphere and the secondary hull as a whole are in metal while everything above the top deck line of that secondary hull are in plastic. The detail - and for once the windows - are all in alignment; even my nacelles point in the same direction so no complaints on build quality from that side. Nor are any of the joint lines evident here between the two build materials. 

There are a couple of discrepancies between the plan views and the model in that there's a red stripe near the deuterium fuel port which is missing on the pics and there are also two black circles on the bottom of the sphere which don't appear on the very same image on pages eight and nine of the magazine. Those details missing in the pictures do turn up on the original studio model a few pages later however so we'll take that as the best source material!

That aside, even the number of lifeboat hatches mirrors the views and while it's only a small thing, I am impressed with the recessed deflector strip which I'd always thought was a phaser emitter. A couple of the hull details such as a "greyed" panel at the front of the sphere and the dashed line around it's centre aren't absolutely perfect but they're so tiny it's easy to forgive.The only thing that the pictures or studio model don't really give you a good comparison for however is the colour of the Pasteur which looks a lot more duck-egg blue than white.

The thin nacelles do feature our favourite red translucent plastic bussard collectors as well as the ship's registration. Notably the NCC-58925 emblazoned on the nacelles at four points is in The Next Generation title font rather than Starfleet ship standard you might have expected. Taking a glance at the model images in the magazine though you can see that this was how she was seen on the TV episode.

This is one of the models that I was pressing to see in the series and it's come earlier than I thought it might. I like the end result but perhaps I was hoping for something a bit more weighty and maybe just a slight bit larger. Just me probably but as  an end result the USS Pasteur passes muster for accuracy and will be one of the key ships fans will have been waiting to tick off their lists in 2015.

Issue 42 of the magazine does provide us with a superb CGI rendering of the ship on the opening profile section which concisely retells the story of The Next Generation's finale to the point where the Pasteur ends up in small pieces thanks to the attacking Klingons. As we've said, there's some nice plan views in here followed by a six page overview of the seventh season from The Next Generation and not a single picture from Gambit, Phantasms, Parallels or The Pegasus; oh the shame - but at least they are covered in the text. 

Why this takes over six pages when we get six paragraphs on Bill George's studio model is anyone's guess because I would have liked to see more of this vessel in detail. No other ship in Star Trek history looks like her and a few close-up shots of the hull would have been great as well as something on how they filmed her since there's a degree of 3D flying in that final episode. Maybe we could have even had some bits on the refitting of the "D" as well? We know that Doug Drexler turned up the third nacelle recently as part of a clean-up but what about the reasons all the bits were added for the finale? Perhaps for another issue...

Jumping from 1994 through to 1997 and the leap in technology is made very evident with the Species 8472 bioship which only ever existed within the framework of a computer. It's also the first organic ship we've had in the collection and there's every possibility that Gomtuu from Tin Man will be along at some point as suggested in a recent Twitter Q&A held by collection guru Ben Robinson.

This one's 80% plastic with the three fins cast in metal but this in no way detracts from the simple, slender design of the bioship which may also be one of the smallest and lightest models produced. Each panel bears the samel grey/brown "living" pattern surrounding the weaponised core  Eaglemoss have nailed the markings but the lack of lighting evident on the magazine cover does take something from the presence of the ship.

It's design is perfectly symmetrical along each fin which does remind me of the (later realised) Xindi Insectoid ship we had a while back but carries it off a little better (and that wasn't precisely symmetrical). Given it's small size - and a similar criticism I levelled at the Pasteur - this could have done with being just a little bigger to pick out some of the smaller detail on the tips of the forward prongs or in the centre module detail. It's nice but in comparison to the Starfleet ship from the previous issue there's not a lot to look at or investigate. 

In fact it's not been that easy to review given the repeated nature of the design. We can say that it's of a good build quality without question and that the precision taken to make each of the panels is very precise with no poor edges or, fortunately, sharp points on those fins. It's also incredibly sturdy but then the stabilising fins are metal so they will take a decent battering if the floor makes an attack. It's also mounted by those very fins in a stand which isn't the best of fits if I'm honest and on a couple of occasions the bioship has easily popped out of the grips which I've done a close up shot of here.

In the magazine the bioship looks a heck of a lot more exciting and way more cool than the model even if the pic on the profile page is a bit grainy. There's a good level of background on the ships and their most significant appearance in the two-part Scorpion story from Voyager. Split into two sections, this is comprehensive when it comes to the creation of the bioship which does make up a little for the disappointment of the model. The story of the craft is just as much a departure from the norm as the first Star Trek CGI aliens were when they took to the screen against the Borg. Certainly the text reflects the individual and instantly recognisable nature of the bioship at least making it one of Voyager's most impressive and notable enemies.

As with the Pasteur, the key moments for the bioship are limited to the one story it featured in and we round off the issue with the upcoming Intrepid in all it's blank-hulled glory.

In other related Collection news, Ben Robinson took part in a Twitter Q&A, revealing that there are some great plans ahead for the collection which suggest there's a ton of ships waiting to get their own issue.

Definite models include the NX-01 refit (never seen onscreen however) which is destined for the sixth special after the Klingon D-4 and the USS Kelvin. Ben also suggested that we'd get to see the K-7 space station, the glimpsed USS Enterprise-J and the Scimitar at some point although the latter is causing some headaches due to all those fins (note that he was even discussing this or a large scale Enterprise-E for a special release). The Romulan shuttle from In the Pale Moonlight was also alluded to and talking of shuttles, that set of four currently available in Europe will be heading to the UK but marketed differently.

Two of Ben's dream ships for the collection were mentioned. One being the Fesarius from The Corbomite Maneuver (which was listed on the back on the Issue Two promo pack) and the Breen warship from Deep Space Nine's final season. Apparently we'll be seeing the Breen ship first. Pushed further on upcoming issues Ben confirmed that there will be a mirror version of the Enterprise from Mirror, Mirror too. If that is the case I'd like to think we'll see the Avenger and the NX-01 mirror version at some stage. We will get to see the Enterprise-A dressed in an aztec paint scheme that was tragically missing from the refit right at the start of the collection.

Little additions of information did drop that Ben would think of adding the smuggler ship from Unification as well as Gomtuu from Tin Man, the Tamarian cruiser from The Next Generation's Suddenly Human as well as the Batris from Heart of Glory, the Merchantman from The Search for Spock and various Borg cubes.

And finally....Ben is now on Twitter and dropped a stunning pic last week that showed off some of the yet-to-be-released ships. I could four here - personal favourite the Steamrunner Class, the Sabre Class, the Romulan Bird-of-Prey from The Original Series' Balance of Terror and in the background a pair of nacelles that might well be attached to the NCC-1701. Then today we got an additional shot of the USS Appalachia close up which kinda made my weekend of Star Trek complete. Note with this one the rear stand - must not be a lot of weight in the front of the Steamrunner Class model to make that work.

And that's it for March's editions. Good but we've had better double selections and the teases we're getting indicate some stellar models to come - and even the possibility of USS Defiant and USS Voyager dedication plaques. One last point, apparently those annoying back issues we're missing will be resolved in the near future and seeing as it came from Ben Robinson I tend to believe it's true.

Liked this month's ships? Enjoyed Ben's Twitter Q&A? Let's discuss below!

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178 and Out: Saying Goodbye to The Next Generation

Seven seasons and 176 episodes of exploration, incident with the Borg, alien conspiracies, Romulan revelations, civil wars, comedic sidesteps and an occasional misfire later and there is only one thing left - All Good Things... 

One of the finest stories produced and without question the best of the series finales from any generation, All Good Things... is often cited as bringing us full circle, rounding off the series by returning to the beginning as well as showing how the characters might evolve in a possible future. But what does this episode tell us about the journey that we started back in Encounter at Farpoint? What ultimately do we realise about this show? 

The one thing that usually sticks in your mind is that final scene; Picard joins the senior staff poker game after seven years. It's the family feeling in a sense. For so long these characters have lived and occasionally died on our screens together. We have watched them develop and grow not only as single people but as a group, a crew - a family that watches out for each other. Picard realises there what he has missed and how these people have been an intricate part of his life for such a long time. You suspect this was the same for the actors when they filmed this which was, also, the final scene shot of the show. Indeed, the Picard story that pervades the whole 88 minutes of the feature length conclusion strongly emphasises this in whatever time line you choose. In the present his orders and situation are unchallenged. There is no doubt that what he is describing is happening and the crew are behind his resulting actions 100%. No-one questions that they are in danger, especially when Q is revealed to be involved at the halfway point.

In the past timeline, these focal relationships have yet to be forged and we can see the hesitancy, the uncertainty of what is being asked by their captain from the second he steps off the shuttlecraft and launches the Enterprise into a red alert due to his visions. Here his explanation, which he cannot give, is necessary to settle their doubts when going against Starfleet orders or calling out for Q to reveal himself for the first time. The final speech that Picard gives as they are about to take the new flagship into the anomaly is one of the best of the series. It is the realisation of the whole series as he knows what they can and will become as the mission continues. In fact the key to the enjoyment of the scenes in the past is very much around the "insight" we have into these characters futures and their development especially the more simplistic Data. 

The future is a reflection on the relationships of 25 years past. They have developed but not in the best of ways in all cases. It shows that these familiar characters are indeed flawed in ways that we may never have imagined, particularly where Worf and Riker are concerned following Troi's off-screen death. While this was a recent addition to the series (only rising from the page in Parallels) it plays a major part here especially in the future storyline. Also the cute touch with Data worth noting is his throwaway line that his housekeeper makes him laugh. Emotions have finally become a piece of his personality as are contractions.

In regards to Picard however their belief in him is perhaps more motivated by sympathy than anything else. They follow his requests but do it to humour initially rather than because it is of vital importance and crucial to the existence of humanity. The future is almost a Scrooge-like vision where nothing has worked out for the best and several of the crew have taken knocks through their lives. What remains throughout is that dedication to a solution. No matter the experience of the crews from the three timelines, they all seek a solution and without fully being aware, work together to collapse the anomaly. While the future isn't as dark as one of the lighter moments of Deep Space Nine, it's not the perfect, conflict-free world that Roddenberry envisaged. The Klingons have conquered the Romulans, not everyone gets on, the Picard's have divorced, Jean-Luc has a serious mental illness; it all seems like it's been for nothing and the utopia is not everlasting - and add a third nacelle onto that for good measure. Yes, it's all done for "fun" because this is a timeline that won't occur (also see Star Trek: Generations) and that's made perfectly clear in the final scene. 

The family that was created back in Encounter at Farpoint is ultimately more than one time period could handle and one that will endure for a long time to come no matter where they end up in the big scheme of things. Their link back to this period on the Enterprise is key to who these people are, were and will become. Perhaps in a way the finale is reminding us that while The Next Generation would cease to make any new TV episodes it too, like its characters would continue whether it would be in reruns, comics, novels or the four movies that would follow. It is a legacy that has prospered more inspite of Insurrection and Nemesis rather than because of them. Ironic that the more popular series of the two that became movies was not as successful on the big screen as The Original Series.

But while this is the key to the whole, what else do we see in All Good Things... that ensure its a fitting conclusion? What brings the show back to its origins and also shows how far it's come? 

Onscreen the acting has come on in leaps and bounds. Time has been kind to Troi for one. In Encounter at Farpoint, Sirtis was almost unwatchable and over time she certainly got a lot better as the writers understood the character and established stricter guidelines especially around those Betazoid telepathic abilities. Sadly on the rewatch though I felt my original and younger eyes were probably a little over-kind as Sirtis only occasionally shone and often took a secluded background role. At least All Good Things... made us realise that her attire had been seriously upgraded over the seven seasons from the skant uniform that is pulled from the wardrobe here. Lucky for Troi they didn't choose to put this past installment within the first season or there would have been a serious clothing disaster. The acting advances are certainly the most notable with everyone a lot more relaxed after growing within these roles. Picard is a lot less shouty and maybe a trick was missed in the past scenes to let him revert to that characterisation. 

Makeup-wise though I'm glad we get to see how the pilot might have looked with seven years more experience. Worf for one is a serious difference. While the gold sash returns we don't get his original Klingon look. The beard is a little less full, the hair trimmed, the moustache a little shorter and the skin tone lighter. The forehead is distinctly refined and the character much more than a growling background crewman that he was at the beginning. Hard to comprehend that eventually Worf would rack up more hours on Star Trek than anyone else. Second place on that list goes to Chief O'Brien who also appeared in Encounter at Farpoint but listed as "Conn" rather than the character we would come to know over time and Deep Space Nine. 

Now the character of Q is central to the episode but it depends which version you watch as to how you view his return for the finale. If you watch the two part edition (which was the first one released in the UK), then you get the feeling that Q is meddling in the timestream and playing Picard along at some sort of game to find out what is happening but in the feature length version it becomes clearer that the omnipotent being is actually helping the Enterprise captain to work out the puzzle without letting the Continuum know. It's impressive that a series of such small cuts to the final version could change the perception of one character so dramatically. Q in that two part snip is much closer to the meddling, arrogant individual that we saw back in Encounter at Farpoint with his more playful elements swept aside. Yet he still has some love for humanity as shown through his assistance in Picard's temporal shifting to realise the paradox. This only really shines in the full version which restores not only the correct portrayal of Q but also some clips which just help flesh out the story - Geordi is married to Leah (Brahms) and has three kids; Picard chastises Worf about honour to get passage into Klingon space and in the past Troi reveals that she and Riker had a past relationship. The editing of the show makes  such a difference to the story and our viewpoint of Q. Indeed the full version rounds off the character nicely while the cut version just makes it look like he's been reset to 1987.

While All Good Things... tracks back to the trial that kicked off the series it also shows that Q has become a splintered limb of The Next Generation family and wants them to succeed and not be erased from history even though the Continuum have decided otherwise. His transfer across to Voyager seemed to have worked a treat in Death Wish but after that the stories didn't do De Launcie credit. Over the course of the series Q has helped, hindered and played with the crew but always with their "best interests" at heart. While it is Picard who is moving through the three time periods Q is ultimately the one who controls whether they win or lose. In reality is it Q deciding the fate of humanity rather than Picard?

There's only so much however that you can show has developed and really you would have to sit and analyse the pilot and the finale beside each other. Yes, the acting is a light year better in all respects, Riker is a little greyer and more beardy; Data less wooden and Troi a lot less emotional, but there's more as well. Notably Picard doesn't insist on communicating to all decks via print out as he does in Encounter at Farpoint when being chased by the Q barrier. Respectfully some of the set changes that have occurred over the years are reflected as well although because (I believe) the chair went walkies, we don't get to see Picard's flip-arm captain's seat back in action. The observation lounge does get it's wall of Enterprise's back for a guest appearance as are the original style bridge wall panels back in place for the past timeline. In its way, the finale is both a warm hug of nostalgia just as much as it is a grandiose finale to wrap up Star Trek's successful sequel series.

Now I'm not super-picky but there are a couple of things that do bug me about All Good Things... timelines - Data's rank pips for one are incorrect in the past and how come there are three inverse tachyon pulses apparently emanating from the Enterprise's when one of them was fired by the Pasteur? Why can't they see the anomaly when they arrive in the future if it's travelling back through time? It would just be really really small - or would it paradoxically not appear still or...Brannon Braga has a lot to answer for..as does whoever chose the cuts to get it into two parts. Nevertheless it's a top slice of The Next Generation from start to finish and it not only covers the theme of family, the passage of time but also that things aren't constant. Times change, things won't be the same for both the cast and the audience watching. This stage of the voyage is complete.

So this also marks the last small screen meeting I'll be having with this crew for some time and it's crammed with great moments that turn a great finale into a classic. While the Enterprise conversion is questionable, it's good to see it's arrival and not on a "2D" plane as you would expect - space is after all three dimensional (see also Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).  Picard ordering Earl grey on the replicator only to find that it's not programmed is also a great nod to one of the series' "trademarks" and character nuances - and if we're listing nods of the hat, how about the design of the Pasteur as a homage to the original design plans for the NCC-1701. Colm Meaney's return is a nice turn too and ensures that the character he played back in Encounter at Farpoint was O'Brien after all and not just an unnamed officer as he was back then. 

Anyway, while we get to comprehend how much these guys have been part of our lives for so long we realise how far they've come from that first season, from Patrick Stewart living out of a suitcase for six months, from Tasha getting splatted by Armus or how synthezised the music was back in the late 80's against the orchestral maneuvers of the later episodes. All Good Things... is a celebration of their achievements because there was no way they would make it to 80 episodes, or 100 - ever. It was doomed to fail because it couldn't be like the original and for that precise reason it probably succeeded. The background, morals and beliefs that dripped through every pore of The Original Series was there but updated and appropriate for the decade. The Next Generation allowed Star Trek to grow and by providing it with the opportunity to sign off in style (unless you were robbed with the two part version) as they deserved. It would be an achievement that none of the series to date would manage. No other show has hit 178 episodes (Deep Space Nine came close) or has such love from the whole of the Star Trek fanbase.

So thank you, Star Trek: The Next Generation. It's been a pleasure. For the first time ever I've managed to go through every episode in order from start to finish. Time to get the Deep Space Nine DVDs lined up for the next stage...