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| Oh Bill, y u photobomb this selfie!? |
So many really great episodes too. This really was a quality show. And as I said in the previous post, that's a rare thing for a sci-fi series.
Like many fans, I really thought "Inner Light" was the best. It had me literally full-out bawling with emotion. This is the one where Picard is zapped by some beam from a mysterious alien probe that the Enterprise encounters and for the next 25 minutes (in show time and setting time) he lies in a coma-like state on the floor of the bridge but his mind experiences a day-by-day recreation of the majority of some alien's adult life from newly married to an old grandfather. And a simple flute and the haunting music he makes during this, linger lovingly in the hearts of many a viewer like myself.
I was surprised to find that the episodes where Picard has been captured and assimilated by the Borg (becoming Locutus of Borg) only span a single two-parter episode. And the experience is referenced only lightly in subsequent episodes. I always thought he was Locutus for far more than just those two hours and that his re-assimilation into humanity was much more difficult. Like going through tough physical and mental therapy after a bad accident. It may have been the film "First Contact" that gave me that impression since he really played up the PTSD-like mania about seeking revenge on the Borg (the whole Moby Dick analogy) in the movie.
Of course there were the inevitable rubbish episodes as well. Some of which really had me scratching my head thinking..."What were they thinking?"
The perennial favorite "worst episode" accolade seems to mostly be applied on internet forums and articles about the series to the episode "Masks" which aired in the 7th season. Yes, this was pretty messy, in my opinion, but not the worst. In fact, I think that the creative visuals of the Aztec-like set decorations were interesting and intriguing and Brent Spiner, I thought, did a great job in the multiple voices and mannerisms he had to do in his role as a "possessed" Data.
The worst episodes were any that featured any prominent screen time for Dr. Pulaski in season two. She was horrible. Talk about resting bitch face, she just looked like the actress playing her (Diana Muldaur) was visibly disgusted that her career had slumped so low as to have her playing in a cheap science fiction television show. She's never said that from what I could gather but it is noted that she didn't quite mesh well with the other players and thus she was fired at the end of her only season on the show. Thank goodness!
So now that my binge of this series is over, I wonder where I'll go next? Not another Star Trek show, I think, for a while. Gotta realign my warp core coils so to speak. In the meantime, I think I'll do a bit of star trekking myself in Elite: Dangerous.