[One man. One exercise bike. One surgery. 160/178 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.]

Hey, Star Trek, way to feebly address the possibility of affection between Picard and Dr. Crusher only in the absolute last season you can…and then make sure nobody ever thinks or talks about it again.

(Yes, yes, they mention a marriage in the fake Q alternate universe in “All Good Things…” but that doesn’t count.)

Here, Picard and Crusher are captured by one of the factions on an alien planet and they’re connected to some psychic doohickey that can read their thoughts. When they escape, they somehow can hear each other’s thoughts…and certain confessions ensue. Being Star Trek, those confessions have no import beyond this episode.

This episode is absolute crap, all too similar to the original series with a silly warring faction storyline and a room full of dumb-looking props. The whole concept of them being stuck together seems too much like a screwball comedy about prisoners chained together during an escape attempt, too.

But then, the performances of Patrick Stewart and Gates McFadden have a real tenderness that is far more sensitively portrayed than the rest of this episode deserves.

My grade: D-, saved ONLY by that brief scene of confession…for all the good it does them.

[Time on bike: 30 minutes.]

[One man. One exercise bike. One surgery. 159/178 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.]

Kirsten Dunst in her best role to date: a psychic girl with a weirdly robotic voice who drives Lwaxana Troi into a coma. How curiously predictive of her later career.

Oh, I kid, I kid.

I’ll admit, this episode certainly has all the personal character development I’ve been bitching about now for seven seasons, and we learn about Troi’s childhood and the tragedy her mother has refused to face all these years. I’m a bit disappointed that this revelation has only individual interest for the characters; it doesn’t really matter to anybody except for Troi and her mother, and Lwaxana’s incapacitation is only an inconvenience to the delegation of psychic diplomats she’s coaching for entrance to the Federation.

Part of Lwaxana’s charm is her Auntie Mame persona, refusing to deal with reality. She does that here in a much darker fashion, and I think the writers missed a great opportunity to explain how her flamboyant personality is a response to that early tragedy. One of my mentors at Stonecoast says that dialogue is about what’s not being said, and another says that emotion is best expressed by its absence — by a deliberate attempt to suppress it. It might have been interesting to see more of the shape of her pain by its better-drawn absence.

My grade: C-.

[Time on bike: 40 minutes.]

[One man. One exercise bike. One surgery. 158/178 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.]

You know that guy you work with, the smart one, the one who sometimes hijacks the company or betrays it to a race of cyborgs or turns the CTO’s brain to jelly or stabs the HR lady in the shoulder?

Yeah. Commander Data is just like that guy.

It’s a wonder that people don’t jump when he enters the room. Or, better still, it’s a wonder that nobody has severed his legs and welded his spine to the Ops chair.

Here, Data’s new dream program seems to encounter a glitch, causing him to react to dream imagery in his waking state, mostly by stabbing Counselor Troi. (Hey, it happens to all of us sometimes.) Luckily, those weird symbols are actually a means of communication and it all works out in the end.

I actually love this episode, partly for the deliciously strange performances of the characters in Data’s dream-state and partly for the wonderful idea that his dreaming is actually useful. This story is an adventure in metaphors, a sort of psychological “Darmok.”

It makes you wonder just what our dreams are about…and who is sending them.

My grade: A.

[Time on bike: 30 minutes.]

[One man. One exercise bike. One surgery. 157/178 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.]

In this semi-exciting conclusion to the two-part story, Picard and Riker discover that the artifact for which the mercenaries are searching is a psionic weapon, and the Romulan onboard is really a Vulcan separatist. Picard takes command of the ship from Baran the Cowardly Lion with the New York Accent, but things unravel and a final confrontation on the surface of Vulcan is necessary. Of course, the solution to the Vulcan psionic weapon is love…er, peace…and everyone just has to close their eyes and think happy thoughts to be immune from it.

Huh.

The corny ending and special effects essentially drive this episode into the ground. The writers did a good job complicating the story with interesting tricks and schemes, but then the conclusion is just another silly Star Trek trope, the weapon/device/creature that can be foiled with total control of one’s mind.

(And come on: wouldn’t the Imp of the Perverse compel you to think of something tiny and awful when you were told to clear your mind of violent thoughts? I mean, we’ve got a LOT of thoughts going on at once. Even Riker and Worf.)

My grade: D.

[Time on bike: 30 minutes.]

[One man. One exercise bike. One surgery. 156/178 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.]

Ooh! A mystery involving archaeology!

Here, Picard goes undercover with a band of mercenaries who are searching for artifacts, and the Enterprise investigates his apparent “murder.” Riker is captured and weasels his way into the confidence of the mercenaries, too, and he proves his loyalty by seeming to betray the Enterprise in a battle. Just as the disrupters hit the warp nacelle, the episode ends. Gasp!

This is a nicely done story (at least so far), though that may have something to do with how much it feels to me like those old science fiction role-playing games like Traveller and Star Frontiers — a band of largely amoral player characters ranges around the galaxy, picking up jobs and performing petty crimes. It reminds me of afternoons spent around the dining room table in my early teens.

It is interesting, too, how Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision is fraying at the edges here a few years after his death. There are definitely people afoot in Federation space who are in it for the money, people who aren’t living comfortable lives dedicated to science and knowledge.

My grade: B.

[Time on bike: 27 minutes.]