I told you it would be soon. This time around, at long last, I have completed my reviews for the last two episodes of season six! I’ve been working on season six for just over two years now, so it’s been a long haul.
Timescape is an outstanding episode where Picard, Geordi, Troi and Data are returning to the Enterprise in a runabout only to experience some weird stuff. People start freezing in time, the runabout spins out of control, Picard grows a claw! Finally reaching their ship they find it trapped in time, in a battle with a Romulan warbird. What starts out looking like a Romulan attack turns into something else entirely in this beautifully written episode that turns our expectations on its ear.
You may not know that this episode was directed by Adam Nimoy, Leonard’s own son. There are tons of references to previous episodes, if you want to catch them all (including stuff going back to early season two) check out my full review.
Descent is the final episode of season six, and man it’s been a long time coming! After maybe the coolest poker game ever we run into some old friends. A surprise battle with the Borg leads to Data getting angry and killing the crap out of one with his bare hands! The Borg are back, but they’re different than we’ve seen them before–individualistic, aggressive. Data starts to change after capturing a Borg later on, and then breaks him out of the brig, and the Enterprise chases them through a transwarp conduit right into a trap…
Remember that final scene, with about 50 Borg in it? They only had 11 suits, everything else was done with split-screen trickery. This episode, while the season cliffhanger, is still a definite step down from the previous one. Still, Data fans will run into quite a bit to like. This is the episode where Stephen Hawking guest stars, which is completely awesome. Have you heard the two stories of how he came to guest star? I know them. Check out my full review to learn a lot more, as this one has a ton of stuff in it.
That’s it for season six! You won’t have to wait long for season seven, the concluding season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’ve been writing the season summary on the sly now and then between reviewing episodes, so it will come soon. After that we’ll plunge into the last season of my favorite TV show of all time.