“New Ground” is a bit like “Ensign Ro” in the sense it’s a rather middling, though functional, effort that exists primarily to introduce a new reoccurring character, or in this case reintroduce one. “New Ground” comes across a bit better than “Ensign Ro”, or at least more forgettable (in a good way) because it doesn’t have the retroactive weight of Bajor, the Cardassian occupation and Ro Laren hanging over it and because Alexander is quite frankly nobody’s favourite character (with the exception of Michael Piller’s mother, which is apparently the reason he sticks around as long as he does).

Any problems this story has can be purely chalked up as conceptual ones it inherits by virtue of digging up Alexander rather then issues with its localized narrative structure. Simply put, Alexander was never a good idea, or at least the way they introduced him wasn’t a good idea. The stink of “Reunion” is going to hang over the poor kid forever no matter what he does (and he does do some good stuff). Actually, the most annoying thing about “New Ground” is that like 80% of it works as a perfectly standalone introduction to Alexander before Deanna Troi has to come in and talk about how K’Ehleyr hurt both of them by not telling Worf about her pregnancy and not telling Alexander anything about his father or his Klingon heritage and how they both have to heal each other together. Of course, it’s all K’Ehleyr’s fault-The girlfriend and mother conveniently cut out of the picture who also conveniently can’t come back to defend herself.

The plot, such as it is, fairly clearly is designed with a form-follows-function approach in mind. Kid shows up to live with his single parent, has trouble adjusting, gets into problems, situation arises where they’re forced to work together and reconcile. The acting is good on everyone’s part, but it always is, isn’t it? That’s barely worth mentioning now. There’s a subplot involving something science fictiony and technobabley going on that crosses over with the A-plot, which is another device Star Trek: The Next Generation can use as a comfortable fallback. It’s not as well put-together as it sometimes is (the idea that the sci-fi plot and the human plot could be the same and metaphors for each other was ossified way back in “We’ll Always Have Paris”), but it works and it’s cool, which always helps. I do remember the major setpieces here fairly well: That oscillating electric blue wave surging towards the main viewer, the explosive backdraft in the science lab with Worf and Commander Riker on either side.

But while “New Ground” may be constructed out of pre-built narrative devices that have become tropes, much as one might with Duplo blocks, it’s telling that this time I’m not meaning it as a criticism. There’s nothing blatantly ill-advised or backwards-thinking here, though trying to graft this kind of stock bad children’s television plot onto Star Trek: The Next Generation isn’t the most elegant thing the show has ever done.…

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There’s an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that has always been imprinted on me. In my mind, I see an image of Data and somebody else slowly moving about inside what appears to be some kind of alien spacecraft. The walls are all odd, geometric shapes coloured silver blue. There’s a cool, yet dark, lighting to the scene. I think the episode is “A Matter of Time”, but I can’t know for sure.

So now you’ve heard their story. It’s time to tell the other side.

“A Matter of Time” is another of Rick Berman’s rare solo contributions, and marks his first stab at a topic that seems to fascinate him and inspire a lot of his future creative work on Start Trek: The ramifications of time travel. In particular, what kinds of social norms and mores would crop up in a universe where time travel technology is commonplace. As it pertains to this story, Berman cites the “Mark Twain” feeling” of “what Leonardo da Vinci could have done with a calculator or Alexander the Great with a shotgun”. But while Professor Berlinghoff Rasmussen may not technically be a historian, this doesn’t mean he’s just a simple con-man with a time machine either.

Yeah, Rasmussen was one of ours. Bad seed; went rogue. More or less harmless in the scheme of things, mostly because he was also terrible at his job. We found the time pod adrift in space, probably crippled during one of their skirmishes. We brought it to him for analysis and to keep it safe, hopefully so we could finally get some answers about this damn war. The agents found out, of course. They came to us and told us we had to return it because it would endanger the future-Their future, naturally. Our thinking was that they’d spent so much time meddling in our present, it’d only be fair if we poked around in theirs for a bit to see for ourselves what all this was about. Of course, Rasmussen thought it would be an easy way to make some extra coin.

The thing that struck me the most about “A Matter of Time” is how aware of its own structure it is. For 97% of its running time, it’s very straightforwardly one kind of story: Rasmussen’s presence prompts the Enterprise crew to realise that Penthara IV is not going to be a run-of-the-mill mission; that something genuinely historic is going to happen. And the knowledge that it will, and they aren’t allowed to know anything more about it than that, forces the crew (most notably Captain Picard, but Commander Riker, Geordi, Doctor Crusher and Deanna as well) to consciously think about their own decision making processes and ethical standpoints. It’s not shoehorning conflict into Star Trek: The Next Generation for the sake of conflict, it’s another manifestation of what travelling on the Enterprise means: That you get to know yourself better and grow as a person because of that.…

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Last time on Star Trek: The Next Generation…

“It’s almost facile, trivial, in fact, to read “Unification”. The fandom narrative is both obvious and trite: The unification of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, or to be more precise, their fans. Collectively the first and second parts of a three-part 25th Anniversary gala celebration that will heal once and for all the acrimonious rift in Star Trek fandom that has existed since 1986, or so the story goes. In truth, this is all merely comforting platitudes designed to hide a reality deeply uncomfortable to Trekkers; that there is no such thing as a Star Trek fan. There are only fans of specific incarnations and philosophies of the meta-work, something that the looming premier of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is only going to highlight all the more starkly.” 

“And sure, Sarek has an incredibly memorable scene with Captain Picard, but all that does is reinforce the Captain’s position in the narrative: It sets up that Jean-Luc is someone Sarek has a history with and is close enough with that he’ll have him near while his mental faculties are slipping away from him. Indeed, we even learn that Sarek and Jean-Luc had mind-melded at one point, a fact that is left, like the rest of their relationship (and so much about the new show’s backstory) to our imaginations in the negative space of the narrative ether. 

(The scene itself, I might add, really is a triumph. It’s a lot more brightly lit than I remember, though: My memories of this exchange always cast it in very stark shadow, something very much akin to “Lonely Among Us”, or even “The Empath” from the Original Series. I guess it’s the combined effect of the detail revealed by the Blu-ray restoration and the fact I no longer watch Star Trek: The Next Generation on a hulking 1980s CRT TV. I think I’ll still remember it that way though.)  

With all that said, perhaps you’ll forgive me that in a two-part story that explicitly invokes the Original Series with guest appearances from two prominent characters from that show that the most memorable part of this episode for me personally is actually the B-plot involving staking out a space junkyard.”

And now, the conclusion…

Of the two “Unification” halves, this is the one my memory tends to shortchange the most. Pretty much all of the moments from this story that are personally iconic and resonant for me hail from part 1, while this one I always seem to remember as being an extended runaround to make Spock look awesome. That turns out to not be the case at all, however: “Unification II” is one of the most sophisticated and nuanced stories Star Trek: The Next Generation has done in a very long time and certainly earns the classic status is accrues along with its predecessor.…

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It’s almost facile, trivial, in fact, to read “Unification”. The fandom narrative is both obvious and trite: The unification of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, or to be more precise, their fans. Collectively the first and second parts of a three-part 25th Anniversary gala celebration that will heal once and for all the acrimonious rift in Star Trek fandom that has existed since 1986, or so the story goes. In truth, this is all merely comforting platitudes designed to hide a reality deeply uncomfortable to Trekkers; that there is no such thing as a Star Trek fan. There are only fans of specific incarnations and philosophies of the meta-work, something that the looming premier of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is only going to highlight all the more starkly.

Those classical Star Trek fans, who knew everything about everything and everybody, are now so small a minority as to be statistically irrelevant. Perhaps things are beginning to swing back to the other pole these days in the age of Netflix and binge watching, but this was most certainly the state of affairs in 1991. I know this as well as I can know anything because I was there. I was fully present and entirely swept up in the Star Trek 25th Anniversary fervor. A deeply strange celebration for me personally, I should add, as I knew next to nothing about the thing that was actually turning 25, and, to be honest, I didn’t much care to learn. All I knew was that the show I sat in front of the TV set transfixed by late at night was now suddenly everywhere and everyone I knew was talking about it.

We’ve of course established that Star Trek: The Next Generation was never a cult show, but even by its admittedly lofty standards things had definitely been kicked into high gear. Some of this is on me, as I never really talked about this sort of thing with other people (for the simple fact that I had nobody else to talk about it with: I don’t mean the show was unpopular, I mean I had no neighbours and my only friends were the people I was related to). But even so, I do seem to recall that this was the first time I started to become aware of Star Trek: The Next Generation existing as kind of large-scale media phenomenon-As if from nothing, there were suddenly Star Trek: The Next Generation toys showing up on the shelves of the local five-and-dime, which filled me with equal parts delight and astonishment. This was also around the time I started to get entertainment industry magazines like Starlog, and Star Trek: The Next Generation was the only thing on anybody’s mind. It felt exciting and affirmational to be a part of something that so many people clearly had so much affection for.…

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