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| Season Six sees Picard and company having a little more fun... |
Readers of my reviews may recall my relative disappointment with Season Five of TNG. It had too many episodes centered around either issues of the week or children (or both). It indulged too much in having life-altering events happen to main characters, only for those events never to be referenced again. It wasn't a bad season, per se, and there were enough good and even great episodes that it remained worth watching - but it was a big step down from the highs of Seasons Three and Four.
Season Six is not quite a return to those heights. However, for me at least, it represents a substantial step in the right direction, and a big improvement over the previous year.
BACK TO BASICS - IN A GOOD WAY
Though there are some ambitious episodes in TNG's Sixth Season, the season as a whole could be best summed up as "bread-and-butter Trek." The focus seems to have been on turning out entertaining stories, with more mystery, action, and espionage-centered episodes than generally seen in previous seasons.
There are only a couple of great episodes this season, with only Chain of Command and Tapestry up there with the best of the series. But there are also only a few stinkers. The hit rate is fairly stable, the episode quality the most consistent of the entire series' run. In its sixth year, TNG's writing and production staff have gotten the process of turning out solid television down to almost factory levels.
Which carries dangers of its own...
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| Aquiel: One of the season's few stinkers, but also a warning that the series risks growing a little stale. |
RELIABILITY VS. STALENESS
Though Season Six is engaging and enjoyable, there is a sense that by this point we've seen what TNG has to offer. I don't think the show is going stale just yet - but staleness doesn't feel very far away.
Aside from the two standouts, few episodes this season took any storytelling risks. There is something to be said for reliability, and I've already mentioned that I preferred this season to the more ideas-driven Season Five. But while the previous year's big fault was in continually putting characters into life-changing situations that would never be shown to particularly affect them afterwards, this season's fault is that few stories bother to push the characters out of their comfort zones at all. It's the most consistent season to date - but it's also the "safest" one, something that becomes especially apparent if you look only at the 23 episodes not titled Chain of Command or Tapestry.
It's also worth noting that the worst episode of this season is Aquiel, a murder mystery involving Klingons. In short, it's a standard, "safe" episode that falls completely flat... a reminder that sometimes, episodes that play it safe can fail just as badly as those that overreach. In a way, that makes it all the worse - Better to try to do something interesting and fail than to fail to try at all.
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| Picard turns action hero - and perhaps takes the lead in a few too many episodes. |
CHARACTERS
I have my reservations about the character balance in Season Six. This is the season where Picard and Data become the "spotlight characters," often at the expense of the rest of the cast. This is particularly true of the midseason, which sees a sustained run of stories focusing heavily on Picard and/or Data. Even when there's a break in this run for the two-part Worf story Birthright, Part One is as concerned with a Data-centric "B" plot as it is with Worf's search for his father.
It's hard to complain that a season gives Patrick Stewart's Picard too much to do, though, particularly when episodes like Chain of Command and Tapestry really push him to show his full range as an actor. But until the very last part of the season, starting with Frame of Mind, Picard and Data often feel like they've become the only characters who still matter to the producers.
The final run does pull back and give the full ensemble more to do, with strong episodes for Worf, Troi, and Crusher (sorry, Geordi; you got stuck with Aquiel). Riker gets some particularly strong material in Chain of Command, Frame of Mind, and Second Chances, which makes up for him being little more than a spare part in the first half of the season. Still, the ensemble is generally less balanced than in past years, and I do feel that something is lost in the process.
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| Riker gets some good episodes late in the season, such as when he comes face-to-face with himself in Second Chances. |
SEASON SEVEN WISHLIST
I genuinely enjoyed Season Six, but I would like to see a few minor course corrections going into the show's last year.
First and foremost, I would like Season Seven to be less "safe." The two best episodes of Season Six were Chain of Command and Tapestry - both of which stand out by their willingness to push their narratives in directions that are uncomfortable for both characters and viewers. With only one year to go, I'd like to see more of that kind of ambition, even if it means that some episodes fail. I also think this might stave off the hints of staleness starting to show.
Second, I would like to see a more balanced approach to the ensemble again. Yes, Patrick Stewart is a great actor and Brent Spiner a very good one. But the rest of the cast is also quite capable. Too many Picard/Data episodes in a row during the middle of this season made me hungry for stories about the other characters - and when they finally did come at the end of the year, some of those episodes were pretty good.
Finally, I just hope that Season Seven remains enjoyable television. Star Trek: The Next Generation had the worst first season of any Trek series, and yet it steadily retooled itself into a very good science fiction series. It would be nice to see it end that way.
Previous: Season Five
Next: Season Seven
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