Barbara Scarfe (March)

Long-time associate of Star Trek, Barbara Scarfe aka Barbara March has lost her battle with cancer at the age of 65.

First appearing in 1991's Redemption two-parter, March took on the role of older sister and acting head of the House, Lursa. The sisters were attempting to place their illegitimate nephew as the new Chancellor throwing the Empire into a brief but bloody civil war which would have benefited another Alpha Quadrant power if successful.

With their distinctive outfits (which both March and B'Etor actress Gwyneth Walsh have worn at conventions over the years), the Sisters of Duras became an instant hit with fans and easily the most reknowned female Klingons ever to walk on Q'onoS. 

Indeed, Lursa and B'Etor would prove to be so memorable and in demand from the Star Trek fanbase that they would reappear not just in Bloodlines as The Next Generation's seventh season drew to a close but also across in Deep Space Nine's first season Past Prologue (the first regular length episode aired after Emissary) and ultimately would prove to be the downfall of the Enterprise-D over Veridian III in the seventh feature film, Generations.

I found March's Lursa to be the more dominant of the pair, more calculating and the one behind the master plan while B'Etor would be close by to get her hands dirty. Of the five appearances (Redemption being two parts), it would be that cliffhanger from the fourth and fifth seasons that will remain as my favourite moments. It's a rare event to see a Klingon female taking command at this point in the history of the franchise and would perhaps set a precedent that would be evoked through Grilka in Deep Space Nine's Looking for Par'mach in All the Wrong Places and later with L'Rell in Discovery as she takes command of the Empire.

However their was a more devious streak to the duo with their family connections to the Romulans dating back to the Khitomer incident which was explored in Sins of the Father and Reunion before being glaringly exposed in Redemption II. A Klingon family perhaps but one that did not concern itself with honour in the pursuit of control of the entire Empire.

While Generations would also provide the undoing/overconfidence of the sisters, their mark on the Star Trek universe was secure, leading to more Duras' in Enterprise some years later. For appearing in approximately six hours of the franchise, Lursa and her sister were well recognised and certainly the sci-fi world is a little emptier.

RIP.

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Out of Time: Starships Collection Issues 22 and 23: Krenim Temporal Weapon Ship and Nebula Class

At first glance you might have been mistaken for thinking Eaglemoss had sent through a novelty pen as part of this month's releases.

Luckily it's not and instead we're treated to one of the best replicas so far - the Krenim Temporal Weapon Ship from Voyager's seminal Year of Hell. Certainly one of the more unique designs we're going to see, the long, thin vessel has been meticulously reproduced from the CGI models originally created for the two-part fourth season story and no fan will be disappointed, even if you're not a huge Voyager fan. 

Rocking in at a touch under 15cm in length, the Temporal Weapon Ship is fractionally shorter than the first issue's Galaxy Class but crafty diagonal box positioning makes you think otherwise. Aside from the rear section featuring the aft momentum conditioners and stabilizer fins, the ship is crafted in plastic and is simply excellent. Notably there is some painting detail missing from the rear section in comparison to the plan views in the magazine (shame) but the remainder of the ship bears a distinctive pixellated scheme which covers every inch of the surface. That does give it a minus point but the rest of the ship makes up for this omission very easily. That back section does carry some detailing in blue around the ion dispersal vent and find which just picks it out of being a solid lump of grey/paperweight however there is only so much you can do with a ship that is fundementally two shades of that colour.

The detailing on the forward momentum conditioners and the temporal shockwave ring is also particularly good with some of the more intricate hull markings highlighted. What does strike you when you look closer is the accurate placing of the blue transparent plastic sections within the forward section.

Given that on previous occasions this has been of varying accuracy (and quality fitting), Eaglemoss should be applauded for this continued improvement in the delivery of the end product. Make a note too that if you're eagle-eyed, this is actually one half-mould twice as both sides are identical. 

Nor are the seams that noticable. In fact I had to remind myself to take a look at them, again with the benefit of 21 previous issues worth of experience.  It really does look good - when you get it to sit straight that is.

The Temporal Weapon Ship employs a totally unique stand design but while the Borg Sphere just slotted onto its base in a second and stayed there, be prepared for a few moments of "erm..." as you try and understand exactly what the magazine guidelines for display are telling you.

Being very back-end heavy, the Krenim's near-indestructible vessel sits with best with the stand angled forward and not as shown on the Eaglemoss site. Try it that way and you might see it perform a triple somersault out of the cradle or at the least, point skywards with it's rear resting on the base.

Opening up the magazine brings us into the story of Year of Hell with a good choice of photos from the two-parter followed by the usual plan views of the ship. I'd love to see more notes on these diagrams as they only touch on the very basics when fans who are collecting will want to have more features pointed out. Twelve notes over three decent size images does seem less than there should. 

What marks this issue out as different to every one previous is the choice to discuss the two versions of the Krenim Imperium's craft from alternative universes. Guess this means we won't be seeing a warship or a patrol craft from these guys in the range anytime soon - or just anytime. The overview on both ships is brief but the CGI images are very clean and clear, showing the distinctive changes in the fleet that came about through the interference of the Temporal Weapon Ship commanded by the impressively named Annorax.

Neatly this sedge-ways well into the Designing the Year of Hell feature. Rather than focusing just on the Krenim super-weapon we get the inside scoop on the challenge to create not only a new ship for a new race but also on breaking apart Voyager herself as the story evolves through the two episodes. The images and sketches alone are worth flicking through the pages and I'd recommend taking a closer look at the detail shown in the battered Intrepid Class ship as you can see corridors, hatchways and even part of the exposed bridge on Deck One. The intricate nature of the finished, crumbling starship is extraordinary and I don't think its kind has been seen anywhere else in the franchise. Being able to compare it to Rick Sternbach's original and equally beautiful drawings is a massive bonus.

Even the final battle and destruction sequence is broken down, telling us why it was filmed in the manner we see in Year of Hell. Rounding it off is a slightly predicable Key Moments page since the Temporal Weapon Ship only appeared in one story but the trivia covering some background information is the bigger draw here. 

Probably one of the best accompanying magazines so far in the collection. In fact I know I said this last month, but this is already one of my absolute favourites and I didn't expect it to be. Eaglemoss knocked it out of the park here and I'm now more confident than ever that their issues have been addressed and the results going forward will prove they aren't sitting on their laurels. Clearly fan reaction has been important to them and this release is sure to secure their place as the best producers of Star Trek ships EVER.

Lending herself to The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and two movies, the Nebula Class is a Star Trek starship superstar.

Revealed for the first time in The Wounded, the Nebula Class answered the call for a new ship that wasn't just a reuse of the aging Excelsior, Miranda or Oberth models from the movies.

We could all tell that she was just a reworking of the Galaxy Class due to budget constraints but the introduction of a new type of starship was very, very exciting. Over the years the model and the subsequent CGI reconstruction would receive updates and changes as she became one ship then another. Her arrival in the Official Starships Collection therefore is more than welcome.

Welcome and impressive. More compact as a design than the Galaxy Class, the Nebula Class really lends itself to the restrictions on box size, being more square in form. The metal saucer is 100% identical to that of the larger Enterprise-D although the colour is distinctly duck-egg blue. The sad part is that whoever was responsible for imprinting all the windows did it at an angle so the markings don't all match up with the recesses. Annoying since they got it right for issue one!

However, the secondary hull and nacelles are well made and fit together well. As with the Krenim Temporal Weapon ship on the same delivery, the joint lines are becoming less intrusive with each passing edition. 

For some utterly random reason Eaglemoss have branded up the Nebula Class as the USS Honshu from Deep Space Nine's Waltz. It's a curve ball to say the least as you might have expected USS Sutherland or USS Prometheus (perhaps) - I had to have a quick memory refresh when I opened the box as to where I'd seen her before.

The secondary hull and nacelles are a good, close fit with the latter, once more having the transparent blue and red sections to highlight the warp grilles and bussard collectors. Those nacelles look spookily like they could be found on a Galaxy Class(!). The aztec paint job is a lot more subtle than usual across the primary and secondary hulls while a single shade of grey covers the rear pod, nacelle supports and nacelles themselves.  The issue with the Nebula Class however comes when you turn her around. 

OK, I get that there is a cost implication and that there are restraints on the models and that these are still the best and most affordable range of starships ever produced BUT the rear of the equipment pod support is terrible. In the magazine there is clear depiction of the detail at the back and all of this is missing - the hangar door, the registry, everything - and it's not a small omission however it seems to have been sacrificed due to the location of the seam between two sections of hull. At the top of the support the pod has a little bit of excessive glue which also ruins the effect. I guess I'll have to make sure I look at her from the front at all times because it just looks awful. 

That said, the detail on the top of the pod is excellent, very crisp and clean with all the grills and markings very clearly laid out.

The stand configuration attaches to the warp engine supports and is pretty stable, giving the Honshu that more favourable "suspended in air" display look. Not sure how it'll weather given all the weight is in the saucer section as mine already has a tendancy to lean forward.

The magazine is one that will have the fans raging on Facebook in the next few weeks since there are a couple of questionable points. On the opening stats we have "Shelby" noted as a captain of a Nebula Class ship (USS Sutherland) - a single throwaway line from Deep Space Nine's You Are Cordially Invited which was originally intended to be the same Shelby from The Best of Both Worlds. However it might not be if we step outside canon and refer to Peter David since Shelby features in the New Frontier series. We never actually saw this captain so I'm not totally cool with the mention here anyway as there should be others that could have been named that we have seen. It is a nice little trivia tidbit, almost as good as the naming of the model itself.

Which brings me to another point - was this originally going to be the USS Bonchune? The plan views contain the registry and name of two ships. The only reference to the Honshu is emblazoned across the top of the primary hull (and the cover) while all other markings relate to the Bonchune. In fact all the "new" CGI images here including the one on pages three and four name check the latter. Bit messy there and I'd have hoped that would have been caught before publication.

Moving away from these two points, it's back to more of the same after the diverting contents of Issue 22. Just to emphasise the lack of detail on the rear of the pod support the main CGI image on pages three and four is from the rear. This section also manages to avoid being an episode synopsis, focusing more on the design brief and comparison to the Galaxy Class as well as some key moments from notable Nebulas. No new pics here but I had forgotten that the rear pod on the first Nebula we saw, the USS Phoenix, was a unique, elliptical design with twin support struts.

Six pages get taken over by the Designing... feature this time but there is a lot to cover since the class was probably one of the most developed in the history of the fleet. Considering it's inexpensive origins it's not that much of a surprise that it went through a few permutations both as a physical model and as a CGI construct. Did you know for instance that the window spacing on the saucer was supposed to be wider to indicate that it was smaller than the Enterprise-D? However that didn't happen so it ended up with a saucer the same size. The detailed shots of the miniature in this expanded section are better than the plan views, showing that the rear pod and the saucer here are superbly and accurately detailed. The problem is that one of the images backs up the CGI image to show how much is missing from the rear of the pod support.

Trying to guess the following pages would have proved a challenge this time and so we get a double spread on Introducing the Cardassians who also made their first appearance in The Wounded alongside the Nebula Class. Brought in as a new, recurring baddie since the Borg were never meant to be back often, they certainly have evolved since these early days and you wouldn't have thought that under two years later they would be a major player in Deep Space Nine.

Rounding out the issue are two key appearances from The Wounded and Deep Space Nine's Second Sight although I would have thought Redemption II would have managed a look in here.

Overall and aside from the detail devoid support, this is another step in the right direction for The Official Star Trek Starships Collection.  Each month now is maintaining a good standard but those occasional niggles do keep reappearing and stopping them from being absolutely perfect. That said, I'm more than happy with the final item and the USS Honshu will look awesome among the other Starfleet ships.

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The Big 100 and What Might Have Been

Reaching a post of significance is something to be proud of. I never thought Some Kind of Star Trek would last 50 posts let alone 100.

So how to mark the occasion? What could we do? How about this...

Let's talk 100 - the 100th episode to be exact and it's role within the Star Trek franchise. Of course there have only been three Episode 100's in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager which different success. But what has made them special? Unique perhaps?

Let's examine the facts starting with Redemption. Probably in the big picture this is the most memorable 100th being the last episode of The Next Generation's fourth season and also the first time Star Trek had reached that landmark. 

The Next Generation: Redemption

There would never be a hope in Sto'Vo'Kor that they could live up to the hype of The Best of Both Worlds from a year earlier but that really didn't matter. This was number 100. There was cake, celebration and the end of a landmark fourth season that had not only clicked the 79th but also the 80th episode. Did we also mention that this was the year of the 25th Anniversary? Probably not - so as you can see this was one Star Trek packed year where all eyes were on the franchise and a series that was going from strength to strength.

Now rated as one of the best seasons in the show's run and more recently launched on blu-ray as the feature-length remastered movie it's first half is a damn good episode and paved the way for a lot more "part one's" that were far superior to their conclusions. 

For me it's a wonderful episode and Worf's resignation is a great move although it does feel a little like we're short-changed after Picard getting assimilated the previous year. BUT on the flip-side it puts the Klingons back in the warrior-race frame and shows they haven't all gone soft and cuddly. In retrospect now though Deep Space Nine really threw everything into the air with our favourite culture by having them withdraw from the Khitomer Accords in The Way of the Warrior. That was a show that restored the Klingons to their The Original Series origins and nature.

Nicely though, episode 100 was also a rare example of a continuing story within The Next Generation. Effectively this whole scenario of Worf/Gowron/Duras had started way back with the introduction of K'Ehleyr back in season two's The Emissary, continued through into Sins of the Father and Reunion as well as suggestions of Romulan subterfuge in The Mind's Eye and the shadowy figure of Sela as revealed in the dying seconds of the finale.

While it was the first time that a series made it to this point, it wouldn't be the last by any means however in true Deep Space Nine style you might have missed just which story was their centennial....

Deep Space Nine: The Ship

WAS IT?!

Yep. It was. Now I love this episode as a show but there's nothing that screams "100th Episode" here at all. Why? Probably because their budget was being diverted elsewhere.

You have to remember that this story aired in 1996; the 30th Anniversary and also two episodes removed from Trials and Tribble-ations which sucked a lot of resource. Something had to give I guess and this was it. Remember we've only just noted that Redemption was aired during the 25th Anniversary.

Maybe it's something to do with the style of Deep Space Nine even that such a landmark was just carried as if it were a regular episode. The show's superiority on occasions was its ability to remain under the radar and produce some mammoth episodes - who can honestly say they knew In the Pale Moonlight was going to be THAT good or that the Galaxy Class Odyssey would get totalled in The Jem'Hadar only a few weeks after The Next Generation had concluded?!

Nevertheless it was a great start to the season following the conclusion of the Gowron/Changeling cliffhanger of Broken Link in Apocalypse Rising. Building an upside-down Jem-Hadar ship can't be all that inexpensive and neither can a lot of outdoor filming. The twist as to what the Dominion footsoldiers and their Vorta overseer are looking for is brilliant and did keep me guessing on the first watch. Subsequent viewings highlight the futility of the whole operation and the lack of trust that exists between the two parties - just how a little bit of honesty would have made a difference is searingly obvious by the conclusion.

As you might expect with Deep Space Nine, the ending itself is far from uplifting. Everyone appears to lose something and whether or not the "prize" of a Jem'Hadar vessel is worth it becomes the ultimate question. Fortunately this was one of the strongest things going for the show - in life we can't just hit the warp drive and skip to the next planet; actions have consequences and Deep Space Nine never feared to stick them right in the spotlight. 

Maybe the way that The Ship slips past is also more in line with the Deep Space Nine ethos. Essentially it was business as usual, little ceremony and gritty realism.

Voyager: Timeless

Nothing makes a landmark episode stand out more than being directed by LeVar Burton, guest starring LeVar Burton as Captain Geordi La Forge, crashing the ship, burying her under ice and using time travel. It also shows up how poorly treated the 100th installment of Deep Space Nine was in comparison.

Featured early in the fifth season of Voyager, Timeless is one of the high points of the show full stop. What isn't there to like about an episode that has evidently been made to stand out. Perhaps they should have tried some of the ideas in Flashback to make that a more memorable event than it was in the second/third season.

Beltran and Wang are at their best here playing older but not necessarily wiser versions of themselves as they attempt to save the Voyager of the past from the deep freeze. Want a great effects sequence? Try the crash-land here. It easily beats Generations for impact (pun intended) and looks a darn sight better even on a small screen. Want a jaw-dropper moment? How about the teaser shot of the ship buried under the ice pack?

Adding in La Forge for a cameo isn't the unexpected pleasure it should have been due to the fact his name is emblazoned across the onscreen titles in the first five minutes of the show. Oh - was that a Galaxy Class starship he's commanding? Yep, it is. As an episode goes there are some great nods and more than one boat being pushed out to turn in something both memorable and special.

Timeless is a feel good TV 45 minute movie that flips the reset switch that Voyager was so good at doing. At times the series really pushed those cliched boundaries to the limit and dared to be different and prove itself not just a poor man's The Next Generation. It also proved that the show didn't have to rely on the Janeway and Seven relationship; there were other cast members after Scorpion, Part II that could be well utilised. I for one think Chakotay was woefully underused in later years after his heritage was laid on thick in the first two seasons. 

So those are the three that made it to the ton. However, let's just theorise for a second. What would have happened if The Original Series or Enterprise had made it to the 100 mark?

The Original Series: Episode 100

Guessing the title is probably significantly harder than working out potential stories but as a starter it's worth looking into the past future of the show and Phase II. While this would have been produced almost a decade later, there are a lot of similarities between the two series aside from the characters and it's the nearest thing we have to seeing how another year might have panned out in the live-action world. (Just for note, I'm not including the animated series within the five year framework.)

The Phase II book is one of my favourite reference pieces because it deals with a might-have-been; a series that almost but never was and is definitely in the spirit of the original 79 episodes. Now on a piece of guess work I reckon that episode 100 would have fallen into the last few stories of season four. The preceding three years had inconsistent numbers of episodes but adding another 21 on gets us to the magic number so it SHOULD fall in the never-made '69-'70 season.

I would hazard that budget might also have been a constraint given that the third year under Freiberger was more tightly funded than a staff outing from Quark's Bar so a lot of the shows might have even been bottled (on ship) or using very minimal/reused sets. It's more than likely Freiberger would have had a second chance to kill the show if it hadn't in season three.

The Kirk/Spock/McCoy triumvirate would probably end up in some sort of sticky away mission scenario involving a love interest for the captain and one or two logical scenarios for Spock to master. Computer for Kirk to defeat? More than likely and if not a computer surely a man to man fist fight before the closing titles. Maybe we could have even hoped for a return from one of the three Klingons or even a fourth to terrorize the Enterprise and her crew. Redshirt death? Think we can probably add that one to the checklist as well. I'd hanker for that taking place pre-titles, just before the long drawn out fade to black from Kirk's shocked, overacted expression.

Worry not though that the even more budget trimmed episode was made though, it'll get remastered by Mike Okuda about 40 years later!

But hey, we have no idea what would have happened if Star Trek had made it into a fourth year as it only just scraped the third and that was certainly below par to the preceding two years on a number of levels...Spock's Brain anyone...? Another path could even have meant that if Star Trek had made it into 1970 that the style might have had to change with the times. Roddenberry would have been totally out of the picture by this point but how might another set of live action stories have changed the future of the franchise? Would it have just disappeared into the vaults? Would Phase II have been made and The Next Generation never have existed? Might it even have happened a few years earlier - imagine how that might have changed the nature of the show and characters.

Enterprise: Episode 100

Perhaps this is something we could more easily work out. Given that if the show had made it to the fifth season we would have lost the terrible These Are The Voyages... and maybe even managed a cliffhanger to ensure that we knew year five was on the cards.

By my reckoning the 100th episode would have fallen two episodes into the season as with Deep Space Nine but probably would have received a greater fanfare. My thoughts are that there would have been three likely scenarios for the landmark story.

First - that we would get the reveal of just who Future Guy was. Hopefully it wouldn't just turn out to be James Horan. Brannon Braga famously stated that Future Guy was going to be revealed as Archer but I'm not sure if that was just to stir the waters a bit. Could it have been, as was thrown around the internet a while back, Kirk? What about one of the crew from Voyager for instance for a bit of spice? If Netflix does pick up the show then maybe we'll actually find out - although it might be under the budget restraints that we were familiar with back in The Original Series' third season...and we all know what happened there.

Second option - how about kicking off that Romulan War that we've heard so much about over the history of the franchise? A cool cliffhanger introducing the threat would have worked and then to really start the season, episode 100 could have shown the spark that started it all off in style. Would that have perhaps been a better occasion to kill off one of the main cast?

Third option - some kind of cross over episode with The Original Series or even one of the later shows but NOT a holodeck story as with THAT episode. The fear is that These Are The Voyages... would have ended up here and not as the final episode made. There's a chilling thought. Thinking back to that Netflix possibility though, a severe cost cut might even see the entire episode and most of the (shorter) season entirely set on the Enterprise and standing sets.

So where would The Original Series or Enterprise have journeyed for that 100th episode and do you think our thoughts are anywhere near? The 79th, 80th and 100th episodes are probably the ones we all looked out for. Would the series make it to one of these points? How would it be memorable and what unique storyline would they attempt? Would there be homages to Kirk and co? Deep Space Nine managed to hit both 100 and within two more episodes they bagged an utter classic with the 30th Anniversary episode Trials and Tribble-ations which did precisely that. In the pages of Star Trek history though it will surely be The Next Generation that is remembered most strongly because they were the first crew to set all the records and film the most episodes at 178. 

Personal favourite? I'm a sucker for saying Deep Space Nine but I have a stronger yearning for Timeless. It has everything going for it in a single-length story. Once again a Voyager conceptual triumph that I always place alongside Living Witness and Blink of an Eye. While that later series wasn't my top choice overall it had some sparks of absolute scriptwriter genius (see noted examples) which ensured that it wasn't a copy of The Next Generation in nature and might even have been the most innovative of the shows created. 

Timeless is a classic time-travel story and while it might not have the heart of Deep Space Nine's The Visitor it does reinforce the loyalty of the Voyager family and the desire to do good/correct the errors of the past which crop up on more than one occasion in the show's near-50 year history. Good story, Mr Berman, even though we all know it'll be fine at the end in true Voyager style. Luckily the finger was kept off the Reset Button - at least for a fair few years within the structure of the narrative!

Here's to the next 100 pieces from Some Kind of Star Trek. Thanks for reading, commenting and joining us in every aspect of the franchise and we hope you'll stick with us and even subscribe!

All Grown Up: Star Trek: The Next Generation Season Five

I've always considered there to be two eras to The Next Generation - the pre-Piller years of '87 to '89 and the remaining five seasons from '89 to '94.  Of the latter, season five is the one I approach with the most trepidation and following my re-watch over the last couple of months I still hold the same view.  

Of the "later" Piller years I find this to be the most uneven batch of episodes.  There are some out and out classics in here that would make it onto everyone and anyone's top list of TNG episodes and possible even a few that would challenge for some of the best installments ever but they are slightly tarnished by those they sit alongside and more-so than other seasons. 

So what's this season about? Originally I was going to call this blog Mortality and Morality as Sarek dies ("Unification"), Worf dies ("Ethics"), Geordi and Ro "die" ("The Next Phase"), Data 'dies' ("Time's Arrow"), everyone dies over and over again in "Cause and Effect" and that's just the main cast! You're hard pressed to find an episode where someone isn't on the verge of death or ending up on the slab during this year - and then there's the morality bit. The dangers of addictive gaming ("The Game"), homosexuality and conformity ("The Outcast"), mental rape ("Violations"), euthanasia ("Ethics"), enforced parenthood ("New Ground"), slavery ("The Perfect Mate") and dealing with horrific trauma ("Hero Worship") all get an airing this season but there seem to be chunks of these more serious and personal stories through the season providing that uneven keel and perhaps making it quite a hard series to access in some respects.

So what did I actually like about Season Five?  Quite a lot if I'm honest.  While it is uneven in places, it's still a cut above TNG's first two seasons. More importantly the fact that it's willing and able to tackle such difficult subjects through the year shows that TNG had really come of age. The first two years of the child learning to walk were distant memories, seasons three and four marked the show making itself stable, polishing the finish and then embarking on season five as a grown up; well experienced and prepared. However the placing of the more thought provoking episodes to the action-orientated installments could have done with a little bit more planning but on the whole it's a good effort.

The opening conclusion to "Redemption" was never going to live up to the hype of the previous season's cliffhanger but it's still an enjoyable start to the year. Commander Sela arrived and returned Denise Crosby to the Trek fold, popped up again in "Unification" - and then was promptly never seen again. It's OK but there was much better to come - virtually from the next episode when we encountered Picard in his trendy new captain's jacket and Darmok, at Tenagra of course. For me this was the real sign that TNG had grown up, as was the introduction of the semi-regular character, Ensign Ro in the eponymous episode. Semi-regular is perhaps a bit strong for Ro as she only made a series of fleeting appearances from here to "Preemptive Strike" right at the end of TNG's seventh year (mental note that I should do something about her in the future). The promised conflict wasn't to the levels that we would see from Major Kira in DS9 but her arrival did add a different edge that the Enterprise hadn't seen since its inception in 1987. It also introduced us to the Bajorans - a race whose actions and involvement with the fish-like Cardassians would affect the back stories of the two series that followed.

Indeed, as a year for "big" events such as the creation of the Bajoran back-story  they were pretty massive - and all I need to say here is Spock and probably "The Inner Light". The latter of which is, of course, rated as one of the great TNG moments. No question can be made of Patrick Stewart's performance here and no matter how many times I've watched it I still get a bit of a lump in my throat at the end. The story has everything that Picard can't have and all in less than 25 minutes. In the case of the former, what can we say - the return of a legend and finally a point where TNG became comfortable with its past. For more on this one, I would refer you to my recent blog on the seminal two-parter.

It was quite a season for returns in fact. The Crystalline Entity came back (and shattered), Sarek came (and went), Sela turned up (and went twice), Wesley came back (twice), Lwaxana appeared for her customary story and wouldn't be back until season seven (luckily); all that was missing was Q - but he would receive two installments the following year to make up for his notable absence. Another returnee who would be sticking around in the same "recurring" vain as Ensign Ro was Worf's son, Alexander. He would pop in and out over the course of the next two seasons and a few occasions on DS9. Alexander had the enviable ability to age at a phenomenal rate and also sadly gets lumbered with a heavy weight family stories this season. While they aren't my favourite installments by several country miles they do provide a lot of development for Worf as he becomes more comfortable with parenthood. Out of the whole cast he's probably the most used character this year however the shame is that the stories he is provided with are either Alexander related or honour related which is a shame because in other seasons we see much more to the character than these two facets which he becomes bogged down with in season five.

Brannon Braga is definitely one of the heroes of this season from a writing perspective. While "The Game" is a fair segment his real highlight is the mind-bending repetitive "Cause and Effect". Jonathan Frakes also deserves a fair amount of praise here for the direction here. It can't have been the easiest to work on especially as the whole episode effectively happens over and over again. Somehow Frakes comes up with something slightly different for each cycle to keep the audience attention and keep the story fresh each time. This is probably one of my favourites along with the classic "Darmok", Ronald D Moore's "The Next Phase" (which we would see a twist on in season seven) and "Conundrum" - if I'm not mistaken this was a few years before Buffy dropped Dawn into its fold without any explanation. It's also a wonderful occasion for the cast to play out of character and add a new "regular" for 30 minutes. Worf decides he's captain, Data mans Ten Forward and the mismatched Riker and Ro take their relationship to another level. If it had been made in the first two seasons it would have been an instant classic but dropping as it does in the middle of the fifth, it's overshadowed by others mentioned here. Still, one that is certainly on my "To Watch Again" list for the future.

I've mentioned it already but there are some highly moralistic episodes in season five, perhaps more than any other year of TNG. While this gets a bit of a drag later on, it's not the lowlight of the year. That honour has to be shared between two installments later in the year. First, "Cost of Living" , for the amusement park and mud bath sequences as well as the double hit of Lwaxana Troi and Alexander in the same 45 minutes. Way too much for me to deal with as I'm not a flag waver when it comes to Deanna's mother. I will watch them but it's against preference. I find this a particularly grating story that does damage to the character of Worf in some respects and is another Alexander/Worf family story where they have some issues to resolve in their father/son relationship. Writing this now I think this is why I'm not a great fan of this year. There's a lot of schmaltz and that goes for another story too.

Then there's the misfire that is "Imaginary Friend". While the story is solid enough I think the tragedy is that it is built around a young girl, Clara, who is not one of the cast and as such the emotional bond that has been built over years isn't there. In essence what happens to her isn't going to have much effect on the series on the whole. A nice little space filler but a shame when compared to some of the shows surrounding it. Kids are great; I'm happy to admit that, but the writers of TNG never really got to grips with them and in these two pieces it is very evident. Honestly, I feel a little sorry for Brian Bonsall getting lumbered with some of the scripts here in season five. Luckily he got "Rascals" and "A Fistful of Datas" in the following year which made up for it.

These are probably the only two episodes I could point to as being disappointing in the 91 - 92 season. My re-watch has discovered that "Unification" is a lot better than I remembered and "The Masterpiece Society" is a far better story than I thought aged 15. While we're mentioning that, it's also worth dropping in "Violations" - what a great story and so well played out. It's something a little edgy for TNG and the whole cast do a superb job with a great script from  Pamela Gray and Jeri Taylor. Not a bad result I would say considering this was a season I was not overly enthused to start watching again.

Getting later into the season the final four episodes are back-to-back brilliance; fast paced and jaw dropping sci-fi. The Borg are back; Geordi and Ro get to walk through everything in the budget-smashing "The Next Phase" and then there's the oft mentioned Picard-fest of "The Inner Light". However I must reserve my favourite moment of the entire year for the pre-credits sequence in the season finale, "Time's Arrow". While you just know it will be a cliffhanger and that there is absolutely no hope that the conclusion is going to do the first part any justice it contains one image that has stayed with me for many years and totally shocked me when I first saw a picture of it in the Star Trek Chronology (blast from the past!). It is of course Data's head on the ground in a cave under San Francisco. Apart from the face of Locutus on the Enterprise viewscreen at the end of season three I don't think that there's another image in TNG history that is burned into my mind as well as this one. I still get a chill seeing it now!

So what's next? Well, season six and the conclusion to Data's time-travelling predicament. Now I enjoyed season five but I have quite fond memories of its successor as all fans do. Will they be the same this time around and what episodes will cause a change of heart?

Oh - and what the HELL is going on with Riker's hair in Season Five?!

A Pivotal "Unification"?

Spock: In your own way you are as stubborn as another captain of the Enterprise I once knew.

Picard: Then I am in good company, sir

I remember the first time I saw "Unification" was rented from a local Ritz video shop of the TV movie version during a school summer holiday in 1992.

At the time I found it boring, drawn out and a little confusing; but then I hadn't seen much of the fourth season and it wasn't the most action-packed installment I had seen.  I managed to watch it all the way through and in conclusion it was OK; nothing particularly special considering this was the seminal 25th Anniversary moment where The Next Generation finally shook hands with its predecessor and acknowledged its past openly.

The second time I saw it was in two-part format over two weeks on BBC 2 probably a few years later after it had been rerun on SKY One and I'd missed it.  Still I didn't see anything special but now, as I relive the seven seasons of TNG in order I have found a new understanding of the story and would argue that now "Unification" is probably one of the most important moments in Star Trek history.

I'm not a big fan of plot summarising as there are plenty of sites and books out there that do it brilliantly but here it is in a nutshell for those of you who might need a refresh. Starfleet believes that Ambassador Spock has defected to Romulus and get Picard and Data to go undercover on the Romulan homeworld to investigate.  They make contact and discover that Spock is actually looking to work on reunifying the Vulcan and Romulan peoples after many centuries of separation. Meanwhile Riker and the Enterprise are following a lead on some debris that leads them to a Federation salvage yard and a missing Vulcan ship. Ultimately it becomes apparent that the two incidents are linked and with the reappearance of Commander Sela we learn that it's all to do with the Romulans using Spock's reunification plan to cover up an invasion attempt.  Needless to say it's foiled by Picard, Data and Spock and all is well in the universe once more.

So why has my opinion of this story changed in the 22 years since it aired?  I think "Unification" is a cornerstone firstly because of the arrival of Leonard Nimoy as Spock.  While we had a fleeting meeting with McCoy in the pilot and Sarek in the eponymous third season episode, this marked the true acknowledgement of the original series and their part in the history of the franchise.  Of course this came at the time around the promotion of Star Trek VI and the story references Spock's part in the Khitomer Conference on several occasions which acts as a nice tie-in to "historical" Star Trek events.

Symbolically "Unification" is a torch-passing moment not only for this appearance but also because it was dedicated to the Great Bird of the Galaxy, Gene Roddenberry, who passed away shortly before it aired. His influence on the series would be no more and his legacy would be firmly in the hands of those he had worked with since the first thoughts of Trek's return in the 80's. As within the episode we lose the father-figure role of Sarek to his long-term debilitating illness so the man who had brought the series to light back in the 1960's also took his final bow.

What I do think is fitting here is that we have almost every major race up to this point in Trek history making an appearance (except the Borg of course) - the Klingons help deliver Picard and Data to Romulus, the Vulcans are here (which is not a common  occurrence;the Romulans play host of course; we have a Ferengi mercenary who rubs Riker up the wrong way and there's even a Zakdorn thrown in for good measure.  The Klingons even manage to get one of their older K'Tinga class cruisers a cameo part at the salvage yard if you keep your eyes peeled. Oh yes - while we're mentioning links to TOS, the name of that Vulcan transport that Riker and the Enterprise are so keen to find? The T'Pau - a freighter and also the name of a certain priestess who presided over proceedings during the TOS second season classic, "Amok Time". 


Unless I'm mistaken the next time we would get major races together in one episode would be "The Chase" in season six however the Cardassians would taken the place of the Vulcans.  In Trek terms that's probably more in line with the way the series was progressing and the franchise would develop particularly with note to Deep Space Nine.

In fact, "Unification" is very much about pulling the two series of TOS and TNG together through Spock's addition but there are also a couple of other notable guest stars here with at least one getting majorly overlooked.  which draw on Trek history even more closely than you may appreciate.

Commander Sela makes her second and final appearance in TNG and returns Denise Crosby for the third of her four post-death roles (the next is "All Good Things...") ensuring that all of the original crew from TNG are represented in some form but it is Spock's Romulan friend, Senator Pardek who intrigues me the most here. Played by Malachi Throne, Pardek turns out to be in league with Sela and part of the conspiracy to invade Vulcan but Throne's history with Trek is just as interesting and he has crossed paths with Spock before providing the two-parter with another link to its acclaimed past. Throne's voice was used for the lead Talosian in the original pilot "The Cage" and then he featured as Commodore Mendez in the reworking of that very episode, "The Menagerie" which was, of course, the only two part installment of the classic Star Trek series. Rather fitting then that he should be here, in a two part TNG story with Spock!

For a show that was never great on ongoing storylines/recurring characters and back-referencing, "Unification" is full of it whether its just to Sela's previous "meeting" with Data in "Redemption II", the recent Klingon civil war itself or Sarek's time on the Enterprise-D with Picard or his relationship with his half-human son, this tale has it all. Even Kirk gets a sideways nudge-nudge-wink-wink mention (see quote at the start) as well as a direct reference as to how Kirk was involved in the Khitomer peace mission by his Vulcan first officer. Perhaps this is given even more resonance through the fact that The Undiscovered Country had the original crew officially signing off and here we have an epilogue to that tale - almost a what happened next that would oddly carry on into an alternative universe....

"Unification" also acts as something of a precursor to the events of Deep Space Nine and Nemesis in the way that there is hope of the Romulans being accepted as an ally rather than an enemy which they have been since "Balance of Terror" in Kirk's era.  The very possibility that there is hope here may turn out to be a ruse but the seed is planted for future developments; the twist eventually being that they have to join with the Federation to defeat the Dominion and then in the final Prime Universe film the concept of peace initially would be a ruse to tempt Picard to cross the Neutral Zone. For years we have seen the Romulans as hostile and indeed that is how they were introduced back in Season One's "The Neutral Zone" but here we get the hint that not all Romulans are the same and there are some that would welcome a more peaceful future. Lest we also forget that this is the first time since Trek records began that we have seen Romulus AND get to set foot on it too. 

Of course the best example of both the torch-passing and the notion that this is a symbolic moment in Trek history was the meeting of Spock and Data - specifically the conversation they have aboard the Klingon Bird of Prey in the concluding part.  I have recreated it here because it is one of the most interesting few lines of dialogue in the season maybe the series.  I love it for the way in which we realise how similar yet how different these two "windows into humanity" characters are:

Spock: Fascinating. You have an efficient intellect, superior physical skills, no emotional impediments. There are Vulcans who aspire all their lives to achieve what you have been given by design.

Data: You are half-human?

Spock: Yes

Data: Yet you have chosen a Vulcan way of life?

Spock: I have

Data: In effect, you have abandoned what I have sought all my life.

It's the realisation that while they are both exploring the human condition they are hitting it from quite opposing angles and coming to massively different conclusions. Logic has dictated both their paths yet they are truly unique characters who allowed us to see humanity for the flawed species we are!

In essence this is TNG saying that while it recognised it's history it was very much its own series with its own views, direction and beliefs.  This truly is an occasion where the new generation is finally at ease with its past. Indeed it's well known that the writers had to fight to get a reference to Spock into the script of "Sarek". McCoy was unnamed in "Encounter at Farpoint" and "The Naked Now" retrod ground perhaps a little too familiar too early. Here we are in the presence of celebration and acknowledgement for the 25th Anniversary as was.

So 22 years has made a lot of difference. Once an episode that I had little love for is now one I would treasure to watch again. "Unification" is a moment captured and an occasion for TNG to be proud of and at such a maturing stage of its life. While it's not the most action-packed Trek of all time I do think it can hold its head high as one of the best installments in it's lengthy history if only for its unifying factor not only potentially between Romulans and Vulcans but also Star Trek generations.