Star Trek TNG: Episode 118 - The Outcast

"Riker falls in love with an androgynous person after rescuing some others trapped in "null space."

This was a great episode, it had solid acting by Frakes and Melinda Culea as well as a very interesting plot. Riker falls in love with a man/women ... or neither?? I actually have no idea what an androgynous person is. Although this episode was a sort of brave, attempt at bringing attention to LGBT issues and all, it does strike out in many ways. For one, I'm pretty sure Melinda Culea was a model at one time, so trying to play her off as a sexless Soren is just dumb ... obviously a female. The did try to make her look like Marcy Darcy but I for one have always been attracted to Marcy so yet again, fail. AND we find out that even though her race is androgynous, she is in fact female. So basically Riker falls in love with a female and this female falls for a man. Hardly groundbreaking stuff right there. The climax of the episode (rapidly raising and lowering eyebrows) is in the end (rapidly raising and lowering eyebrows) when this race finds out that Soren considers herself a woman, they send her to get some sort of lobotomy or something. An excellent scene is when Soren is in front of court and gives a speech about human rights ... and her right to be straight?? I guess. Anyway Riker risks his career to save her but it's too late, she has been "fixed". If I remember correctly, at this point Riker smothers her with a pillow and then tosses a gigantic sink through a window.

117 down 62 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 117 - Ethics

What a weird ass episode. Worf gets paralyzed, asks Riker to assist in his suicide, then has a heart attack, then is brain dead ... and then pretty much back to normal by the end of the day. WTF? It wasn't a terrible episode, just sort of weird. The episode ends with Worf learning how to walk, ... I bet that by episode 118 he's doing the fucking electric slide.

116 down 63 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 116 - Power Play

"Troi, O'Brien, and Data are possessed by entities who want control of the ship."

All this starts out with a good old fashion malfunction of those piece of shit shuttlecrafts. These things suck. Troi, O'Brien and Data crash on a planet and end up in a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This episode sucks.

115 down 64 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 115 - Conundrum

The premise of this one is that an alien plans to take over the Enterprise by erasing everyone's memory on board. It seems like it would work, except for one thing ... the alien SUCKS at erasing memories. The crew seems to remember who they are and how to run the ship ... the only thing that they forget is what rank they are.

So the crew needs to figure this mild annoyance out and get on their merry way. All of the major  crew members are there; Picard, Worf, Troi, Riker, Data (who thinks he is a waiter??), Ro, Crusher, LaForge and um ... MacDuff??  Well, guess who the fucking alien was the entire time.

114 down 65 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 114 - The Masterpiece Society

"The Enterprise helps a far-flung eugenic human colony avoid destruction but upsets its delicate balance by ending 200 years of isolation"

This colony is comprised of "perfect" people, they have zero flaws. In fact, if someone is born with a flaw they eliminate them. The Enterprise discovers that this planet is in danger from a projectile and Picard persuades them to begin evacuation. Soon everyone starts to see how sheltered they really are. Key issue being Geordi's VISOR. They are enthralled by it's capabilities and soon they realize that in their society something like this would have never been created. blah blah blah whatever. So basically nearly everybody decides to leave this "perfect" colony because they see how much it sucks.

And, of course, Troi has a romantic encounter with some guy. So as Donald pointed out, they have no idea what to do with the Deanna Troi character.

This episodes was good. I like how by "saving" the colony from destruction, Picard actually ends up "destroying" the colony just by issuing contact.

113 down 66 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 113 - Violations

Strange episode, but I enjoyed it. Sort of. Not really. Maybe a little bit. I'm just miserable. The premise is that, this alien race can recall people's lost memories. So this one guy takes advantage of that and starts manipulating the memories of the Enterprise crew. Once he does this, the "host" goes into a coma. Long story short, he rapes Deanna Troi.

112 down 67 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 112 - Hero Worship

"Data saves the life of an orphaned boy who begins to emulate him."

Don't we all want to be Data? Wouldn't a race of Data's be the perfect society? I think so. No emotions, brilliant, rational....yet for some reason fully functional. While it's always fun to delve into the life of Data, I found this episode a bit boring. This kid was a giant pussy.

111 down 68 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 111 - New Ground

"Worf tries to be a father to his son, Alexander, while the Enterprise helps to test a new propulsion technology. "

Here's the thing. I hate Alexander. Worst character ever. This episode sucks. Brian Bonsall was a cute kid as Andy from Family Ties but his looks really hit the wall. Worf is a such a big Klingon phony, he acts like he is so into being a Klingon ... you were raised by humans dude, give it a fucking rest.

110 down 69 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 110 - A Matter of Time

"An apparent historian from the 26th century visits the Enterprise while they help a planet prevent a nuclear winter"

So here's the thing. This guy is not actually a historian from the future but a thief from the past who happened to steal the time machine from a historian from the future so now he has used the future historians time machine to go from the past to the future in order to steal artifacts from the Enterprise and bring them back to the past so he can reverse engineer them and become rich in the future. Sound kind of stupid? It is. At least it had Max Headroom in it.

109 down 70 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 109 - Unification II

Spock is on a mission of "cowboy diplomacy" to reunify Vulcan and Romulus. There are a good amount of Romulans that are working towards this goal as well, but there are others that are bent on destroying Vulcan ... Denise Crosby I'm looking at you. Spock, Data and Picard try to thwart these plans.

Meanwhile Riker and crew are tracking down the disappearance of old Vulcan ships. They discover that Ferengi's have sold them to Romulans. So basically the plot is all coming together. In conclusion, just watch this shit. It's good. Nimoy is awesome. Also, It has the greatest ending scene in all of TNG. Spock mind melds with Picard to catch a glimpse of Sarek revealing his love for Spock. Fan-fucking-tastic

108 down 71 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 108 - Unification I

I wish I wasn't such an idiot. Unification deserves to be reviewed correctly and I just can't do it. These episodes are just that good. They could have made a movie out of this two-parter, no question about it. Great plot, great acting, great effects.

Ambassador Spock is missing. Picard goes to see Sarek (who is in the process of dying). Sarek suggests that Spock is on Romulus. Just before Sarek dies, he tells Picard that he loves his son. So, Piacrd and Data head to Romulus disguised as Romulans. They are onboard a cloaked Klingon ship in order to sneak through the neutral zone. Would any of this actually work? I doubt it. But who cares.

Of course once on Romulus Picard and Data are easily detected. Why? Well because one of them is a fucking robot and the other has a British accent. They are taken to a cave where they discover .... Spock.

So in the beginning credits it said that Stephen Root was in this episode. So I paid close attention to see if I could find him. And I couldn't. I figured he would play the same crazy Texan that he always plays, Jimmy James, Bill from King of the Hill etc. I had to look it up when the episode ended, and come to find out that he played the Klingon Commander! .... and a damn good one too. This had to be his greatest role ever. Bravo Stephen Root.

107 down 72 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 107 - The Game

I guess you would consider this a "cute" episode. Wesley returns from the Academy only to find everybody getting high from a video game. Only him and his love interest Robin are unaffected, they must find a way to make everything back to normal. This Robin girl is sooooo friggin cute. I could not stop staring at her like a total creep. No wonder, it's a young Ashley Judd. This episode was stupid, but I liked it.

106 down 74 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 106 - Disaster

This was a great episode. Well constructed and well acted. Basically, The Enterprise loses power and everyone is trapped in different locations, completely cut off from each other. The genius behind this episode is that everyone is paired off in very unlikely combinations. Picard is trapped in a turbo-lift with three young children and as always Jean-Luc is completely out of his element around kids. Troi, Miles O'Brien and Ro end up on the bridge, with Troi being in command. Riker and Data are in the Jefferies Tube. Crusher and LaForge are in the cargo bay and meanwhile in Ten Forward Worf is delivering Keiko's baby ... which is hilarious.

105 down 74 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 105 - Silicon Avatar

"The crew, with the help of a scientist whose son lived on Data's home world, attempt to communicate with the Crystalline Entity. "

I'm not a big fan of the Crystalline Entity. I can't really get into a villain that is ... well a Crystal. Except maybe the villain to all country music Crystal Gayle. Anyway, the Enterprise is close to communicating with the Entity when this scientist lady (distraught over the death of her son at the hands of this entity) destroys the being. She basically presses two buttons on the console and takes total control of the ship. I hate when that happens ... why is it always so easy! "Oh no we have no way to stop her, she locked the computers" Come on now.

104 down 75 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 104 - Ensign Ro

"After an attack on a Federation outpost, Picard is sent to locate a Bajoran terrorist, with the help of Ensign Ro Laren."

This is the first episode with Ro Laren. She is so hot ... and so bitchy ... which is so hot. This was a solid episode. It had a great dynamic between Ro and Picard, as well as an appearance by the Cardassians, whom I do like as a character.

Yet. I could not stop thinking about the first scene of the episode. It has Picard getting a hair cut from a barber. OK. First of all. Picard is bald. Secondly, a barber? Really? I mean, the invented the Flobee in like the 1980's, they can replicate food ... why do the physically need a person to cut hair? Also, Riker comments that he is considered the best barber in Starfleet ... fucking really?!?!?

One more comment. I noticed that many times other alien races give the Enterprise "One Hour" to surrender or whatever. Wouldn't one hour be different for every race. One hour to people from Earth wouldn't be the same amount of time to someone from a different planet.

ST TNG: 103 down 76 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 103 - Darmuk

"Picard must learn to communicate with an alien captain who speaks in metaphors before a dangerous beast kills them both"

This was a very interesting and creative episode. The Enterprise meets up with a new race. The Universal Translator can't understand them.  For some reason the Captain of the ship takes Picard to a planet with him to fight a beast .... I guess the reason for this was for them to bond or something. Picard must understand him in order to survive. The race speaks in metaphor based on their own mythology. There is an awesome scene in which Picard tells the captain the story of Gilgamesh. Excellent acting by the great Paul Winfield and also an appearance by Ashley Judd as an ensign.

ST TNG: 102 down 77 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 102 - Redemption II

SEASON 5

So yes indeed this is the episode in which Tasha Yar's half Romulan daughter from the future comes back to annoy Picard. Also, it literally IS Tasha Yar because they use the same actress. Do I even have to say anymore. I stopped caring about the entire Klingon plot because I couldn't stop obsessing over how ludicrous and pointless this Yar plot twist was.

The only saving grace was the minor plot in which a developer tries to bulldoze a community recreation center and the local breakdancers try to stop it.

ST TNG: 101 down 78 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 101 - Redemption

While it wasn't a bad episode (in fact I found it enjoyable), I would say that this was a weird one to end Season 4 on. It hardly ends with a cliff hanger. Worf leaves Starfleet to join Gowron in order to prevent a Klingon Civil War. He regains his family's honor. ,,,and also there are these two Female Klingon prostitutes that I actually found very sexy. Picard was awesome (as always) in his role as bipartisan negotiator. But, I don't know, it just didn't have that season finale feel to it.

So anyway, I saw this thing on Yahoo ... a list of the greatest TV theme songs of all time. These are my top 5. I think only one made it on that list.

5. Hawaii 5-0
4. F-Troop
3. Night Court
2. Simon and Simon
1. The Fall Guy

ST TNG: 100 down 79 to go

Star Trek TNG: Episode 100 - In Theory

Data seeks a romantic relationship with a female crew member. This episode was Directed by Patrick Stewart and the reviews on it are generally mixed, but I really enjoyed it. I loved when Data was trying to seek romance tips from various crew members and Riker was like "Just show up to her room naked from the waist down, that's what I do".

Really though, what's wrong with this lady. She is not bad looking, why the hell would she want a relationship with a robot? Maybe just for sex, because obviously she knows Data doesn't have emotions. A great scene is when she is trying to explain that sometimes when she says not to do something, she really means to do it. That shit will even confuse an android

ST TNG: 99 down 80 to go .

Star Trek TNG: Episode 99 - The Mind's Eye

Geordi is brainwashed by the Romulans with the aid of a Klingon traitor. His goal is to assassinate a Klingon Governor in order to prevent the Federation from interfering in a war ... or something. Anyway, this all occurs while Geordi is taking a shuttlecraft ... alone ... through space ... going to Risa for vacation... why would this happen??? He gets abducted by Romulans and brainwashed, they send signals through Geordi's visor in order to give him orders. A Geordi imposter is then sent to Risa. Because most Romulan ships have a black guy on hand for just this occasion.

The Romulans then implant fake memories of his vacation into his mind. Very "Total Recall". LaForge seems normal while back onboard the Enterprise until the brainwashing beam is sent to his visor ... then he turns into Reggie Jackson in Naked Gun. This episode has actor John Fleck in it, who according to his Wikipedia page "also appears in Howard The Duck, Waterworld and the ZZ Top music video Legs" ... what a resume.

I actually enjoyed this episode. Picture "National Lampoons Vacation meets Total Recall meets Naked Gun meets Roots meets Ray Charles meets 2001 A Space Odessey meets Dorf On Golf"

ST TNG: 98 down 81 to go