5 Reasons to Love TNG Season 2

5 Reasons to Love TNG Season 2

Continuing with our critical analysis of Next Generation, let’s jump into the OTHER black sheep season of the series. Easily the worst of the two seasons, season 2 has a lot working against it in terms of being good. On the other hand though, the episodes that ARE good, tend to be REALLY good so this particular season winds up being kind of a mixed bag. That said, it was still terribly difficult to find solid entries for this particular list. I’m sure I don’t need to list them here since we’re looking for the good in things, but to name a few blunders, we have space polygamists, a cliche casino and shapeshifting bugbears. Also, to get it out of the way, Gates McFadden took this season off. Although explanations vary widely, the one that I hear about the most is that the production staff (read: Roddenberry) got tired of her challenging his creative process in dealing with the Crusher character so he told her to take some time off. She was replaced with Diana Muldaur who played Dr. Pulaski. I like a few things about Pulaski and there are a number of things that I don’t. For one, she was pretty much a Bones McCoy rip off, which is an odd direction to take considering how emphatic Roddenberry had been about giving this new series its own identity. Diana Muldaur was quite the looker back in her day, but the makeup department managed to make her look like an ancient grandmother with that hair. I’m sure a lot of Trekkies of the time were haunted by guilty and confused boners. But she did bring a few great things to the show and we’re going to discuss a number of those things at length so let’s get to it.

1) Sherlock Data: Data went through some interesting character development during the first couple of seasons of TNG and it shows. He bounced back and forth between totally devoid of emotion to subtle, but noticeable emoting. It was a bit confused and it took a while before the character finally hit its stride. All of his emoting at least made a bit of sense when he took on the facade of holodeck characters and nowhere does it pay off better than his adventures as Sherlock Holmes! The episode “Elementary, Dear Data” has some fantastic stuff going on throughout. There’s mystery, obviously, a struggle between two great minds in true Holmesian style and the Data character goes through some significant and poignant development. This is also one of those good things that Muldaur brought to the show. Her insistence that Data is incapable of original creative thought is the catalyst that puts the whole story in motion. From a technical aspect, this episode is great. For such a small budget, the 1800s London scenery is both believable and engrossing. The lighting keeps the mood mysterious and the performances are great! From the story perspective, things are structured well. There’s a sense that terrible things could happen as a result of actions taken by a handful of the crew. The ship gets hijacked by a hologram and Data eventually learns that he is greater than the sum of his parts. This episode really reinforces the holodeck adventures model that was begun in season 1.

2) Klingons!: So this may seem to be a weaker entry for this type of list, but “Matter of Honor” definitely earns its spot! It was the initial catalyst for so much more that was to come during the various shows and their thorough exploration of Klingon culture. Although some lore had been created here and there in the past, this episode really began to lay a cohesive foundation for lore that would come later.

3) Android Rights: This entry also gets a nod to Pulaski as it plays very heavily into her belief that Data is just a thing and I’ll give it a pass for telling an unnecessary story since it is mentioned several episodes earlier that Starfleet has already deemed Data personnel and not property, but the episode in question, “Measure of a Man” is such a great social commentary vehicle that I couldn’t fathom leaving it off this list! Sure the notion of slavery in a first world country may seem a little dated and perhaps this episode would have been better suited for the 60s, but basic rights never go out of style and truly great science fiction challenges our preconceived notions of the world in which we live and for that, this episode deserves our humble recognition.

4) The BORG!: I can’t tell you guys how excited this entry gets me! The Borg ended up being one of the most intriguing and unsettling nemeses in all of Trek. “Q Wno?”, the episode that introduces the Borg picks right up where “Conspiracy” had laid all the ground work and just does it in a great way. All of that dread and uncertainty that was the hallmark of the season 1 jewel is carried over and skinned brilliantly onto this new threat. The idea that a race of creatures exist that do so only to bring more into their fold with no room for reasoning, or negotiation makes the Borg a menacing threat. They would go on to be featured in every other series thereafter and none of those subsequent episodes would ever disappoint.

5) Peak Performance: I’ve been trying to use pretty broad strokes with these entries so far, even though they all pertain to particular episodes, I’ve attempted to demonstrate how these individual moments helped to shape the mythology that we all have come to love. However, the effects of this particular episode couldn’t fit my method more. What can I say about “Peak Performance”? This is a seminal entry in the TNG mythology. It’s this episode where I felt like all of the ingredients were finally coming together to make the show great. The acting seemed familiar and relaxed between all of the actors. But it’s really the story that makes the episode. Having grown up on TNG, I can tell you that I learned a lot of pivotal life lessons from that show and it all began here. Data takes on a master of Stratagema and loses. This, to him, calls to question his ability to lead as he’s temporarily promoted to XO. He deals with the heavy burden of self doubt as he struggles to understand how he could possibly have lost the game. The wisdom that sometimes we fail even after doing everything correctly is wisdom that so many can benefit from. And further, we’re taught that how we react to failure is potentially more important than the initial failure. The moderately heavy substance is presented in a fairly light manner. It all makes for a phenomenal episode!

There you go. Season 2 may have had a bunch of less than stellar episodes, but for all the bad, there was a lot of good and a lot of lasting good came out of it as the actors and the staff attempted to find their collective identity and make TNG something truly great. It show. Many contend that TNG hit its stride with season 3, but none of that happened overnight and it couldn’t have happened except through the efforts of everyone involved during season 2. So grab a drone, strap on your Stratagema finger… thingies… and enjoy yourself some season 2!