In the 24th century, Captain Jean-Luc Picard is commanding the Federation spaceship Enterprise, with the goal of exploring space and seeking out new civilizations, and containing the Borg aliens. He is assisted by Commander William Riker, android Data, Klingon Lt. Worf, Dr. Beverly Crusher, Counsellor Deanna Troi, engineer La Forge, and others. They have to be careful of not to interfere into the development of other, less advanced alien cultures, while they also have to keep up the fragile peace between the Federation and the antagonistic Klingon and Romulan Empires.
The 4th season of the "Next Generation" edition of "Star Trek" continues the high impression established in the previous season, offering an impressive row of inspired episodes, though also several bland fillers hidden in-between. What is surprising is how sophisticated and wise some of these characters are, in order to give an appearance of different, more advanced type of people in the 24th century, most notably the protagonist Jean-Luc Picard (a great Patrick Stewart) who has patience in a lot of situations that would otherwise cause someone else to simply "snap", all adding to the theme where everyone is trying to build a form of grand multicultururalism of all these alien civilizations, in order to leave behind the biased, narrow worldviews of each planet (and their ideologies). The final episode of season 3, "The Best of Both Worlds", was great, but it seemed it left the writers cornered, so they had to resort to cheating in episode 4.1 in order to resolve everything—the Borg cube spaceship easily destroys dozens of Federation spaceships, yet Enterprise is able to somehow manoeuvre itself out of its grasp and even teleport a rescue team to save Picard, turned into a half-Borg, with no major problem. Considering that the Borg were able to teleport themselves on the main bridge and take Picard with them in previous episode, this seems like a classic cliche of writers artificially making the villains incompetent in order for the protagonists to prevail. The next three episodes after that are bland and routine, all until episode 4.5, which starts an interesting trend of an Agatha Christie-like mystery in this season. Episode 4.5 has a delicious restructuring of "The Lady Vanishes" done to the tenth of power: Dr. Crusher notices that more and more crew members are disappearing, yet nobody remembers that they ever were on the ship in the first place. This goes so far that people do not even remember that Worf was ever on board, until in the end only Picard and Dr. Crusher are left, whereas even he does not find anything suspicious in the fact that only two people are on a spaceship. When even the Universe starts disappearing, Dr. Crusher at one point asks the Computer to define "Universe", and gets the anwser: "The universe is a spheroid region 705 meters in diameter." The story is gripping and has a very good conclusion.
Episode 4.7 has an ordinary story, but done in a very well way. Episode 4.8 also offers a delicious mystery that reminds of "36 Hours": in it, Riker falls unconscious on an unknown planet and wakes up—but Dr. Crusher informs him that 16 years have passed in the meantime, after a strange virus allegedly wiped his memory. However, Riker starts suspecting that he might, in fact, still be in the present, and that this is all an illusion. The first plot twist in the episode works, but the second one is unconvincing—they should have stopped at the first one. The next two episodes are routine, but then comes another good one, 4.11, "Data's Day", which gives a wonderful spotlight to Data. It is a rare treat to hear the thoughts of an android, who here narrates his events as if writing a diary, and giving an outsider's perspective on human emotions, in this case the wedding between O'Brien and Keiko. 4.13 is another great episode, an allegory and a thought experiment on the claims of religions: a woman claims that she is goddess Andra and demands that the entire planet Ventax II serves her due to a myth from a thousand years ago. She can cause earthquakes, teleport and transform into a monster, so Picard brings her on trial to find out the truth, with Data serving as the neutral judge. The way Picard dismantles the woman's confidence trick is delicious, culminating in him using technology to repeat every trick she did, including teleporting himself from place to place, which gives food for thought.
Episode 4.14, "Clues", is another fine mystery: the Enterprise crew falls unconscious after encountering a wormhole, and when they wake up, Data claims only 30 seconds have passed. However, Dr. Crusher finds out the spores in the lab grew to such an extent that days must have passed, so Picard suspects Data is lying and hidding something. The episode has suspense and stimulates the brain like a good puzzle, until the disappointing resolution, which feels contrived and unworthy to the previous set-up. 4.15, "First Contact" offers a fascinating upside-down perspective on planet Malcor III, 2,000 light years away from Earth, where humans are trying to initiate first contact, and are thus aliens on that planet. At the same time, Riker is disguised as one of the aliens, acting as a "scout" to pave the way for the contact. Curiously, the leader of Malcor III concludes that the culture clash would be too much of a shock for his nation, and thus asks for Picard to leave and give them more time to grow out of nationalism, when they will be ready for the encounter. Honourable mention: episode 4.19, where the clumsy, coiled Barcley is suddenly transformed into a super-intelligent, confident hot-shot, delivering a smashing Cyrano de Bergerac performance: "I would not have you weep any less for that charming, good and handsome Christian. I only ask this: that as the great cold surrounds my bones, you allow a double meaning for your mourning veil. And when you let fall your tears for him, some few will be... for me". The rest of the episodes are solid, though pale at times, feeling isolated since there is no grand plan that connects them all and leads towards a final purpose. Another good one is 4.21, "The Drumhead", which is somewhat overrated, but still a quality story presented as a courtroom drama: after an explosion of the Enterprise engine, the Federation Security team led by Norah Satie tries to find a spy at any cost, which leads to fanaticism and persecution of anyone suspicious on board, causing Picard to give one of the greatest quotes in the series, demonstrating how even the smallest form of repression leads to a decline: "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably". He acts almost as a corrector of atavism in the series, advocating reason and enlightenment, which gives the series spark. Finally, episode 4.25, where officer Jenna falls in love with Data, so he tries to act as if they are in a relationship even though he does not understand human reactions or expectations, could have been a much better episode than we got. It has a fan's dream concept, and yet is unable to ignite it to the fullest, almost as if it feels forced. However, the argument between them at the end is amusing, since Data only mimics quotes he heard from movies of couples arguing: "You don't tell me how to behave, you are not my mother!" Brent Spiner is again fascinating as Data, and one almost wishes the writers would lead him to something more than what he always does.
Grade:++
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