Here we are with the first two episodes of season seven! My plan is to finish this season before two years have passed, but with a new baby due in November who knows. This time I’ve reviewed Descent, Part II and Liaisons. Both episodes are decent, but could have been better.
After leaving the crew in dire straits at the end of season six, we pick up with Lore and his rogue Borg on a remote planet while Beverly Crusher has to deal with a Borg ship up in space. Beverly takes out the Borg using a star and the metaphasic shield from Suspicions without a problem. Lore’s plan is to make the Borg into fully synthetic life forms like himself, and to accomplish this he has been experimenting on them like Dr. Moreau. Geordi tells us Lore is transmitting emotions from his stolen emotion chip to Data–only allowing him to feel anger and hatred–and has also deactivated his ethical program. Picard, Geordi and Deanna turn the tables in time, with some help from Riker and Worf who recruit some rebellious Borg led by Hugh. It’s a decent episode, but the best two-parters are behind us now.
Data does get the emotion chip back but it’s damaged, we won’t see it until the Generations film. You may not know that this episode was meant to include a cult-like quality because of the recent confrontation with David Koresh and his Branch Davidians in a big showdown in Waco, Texas. It involved the ATF and FBI and let’s say it went sideways. Check this out along with lots more cool stuff in my full review.
The next episode is Liaisons, which again seems to have more plot than its 45 minutes will allow. Some ambassadors from the newly-discovered Iyaaran civilation. One is assigned to Worf, another to Deanna, while Picard takes a shuttle to their home world. Deanna’s ambassador gets really into the pleasure of eating, Worf’s is a huge jerk, and Picard crash-lands onto a planet. Picard is trapped in a Misery scenario with a crazy girl who is just crazy about him. Unfortunately by spreading themselves a bit too thin, the depth that could have been achieved suffers. The only part of the episode I really enjoy are the Worf scenes with his ambassador.
You may not know that in the original script there was supposed to be a subplot about Deanna earning the full Commander rank, but it didn’t fit with the story. As we know, this would be later used in the episode Thine Own Self. Also, this is one of only three episodes in all of TNG in which there is not a single scene that takes place on the bridge. Want to know what the other two are? Take a look at my full review for this and a lot more.