Phasers Set To Stun: Top 10 Episodes from Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5

0:05 Space the Final Frontier. Join us for a bold conversation our prime directive to recap our favorite Star Trek shows, both new and old, to engage in debate about all things Trek. Prepare to energize with Phasers Set to Stun. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Phasers Set to Stun, where we continue to show our love for everything Star Trek in this ongoing series from a film by podcast which focuses on every quadrant of the expanding universe of Trek by covering television, animation, movies, directors, and more. Plotting the course, as always is your Core Trek crew. I'm David Burns, I'm Skot Hoffmann, and I'm Wayne White. In this episode, we continue our discussion and what we like to call Starter Trek. A curated episode list for the first time of yours. This spoiler free list focuses on the top ten episodes for each season. After listening to this episode, you can find the course we're plumbing for you with our list in the description. Hello, gentlemen, I cannot believe we are on season five of the Next Generation already. Yeah, it's hard to believe it's flying by, but it is. It's it's getting so much better. Yeah. Yeah, we're getting to relive these episodes.

1:36 Man, it's just it's so exciting to do it and get to talk about them as well. But you know, we'll get moving on along here our top ten list, But first let's talk about the continuing story. Where Season four left us off with Redemption Part two. I felt this second part was a letdown. I now I agree with you. I mean, it's not a bad episode, but after last season's best of both the worlds, it just didn't quite have the flash and bang like that episode did. But it's still worth watching. I mean, it's a very important episode, not just to the Next Generation, but to like Deep Space nine. If you're just starting watching Star Trek with this series and want to continue on, you need to see this episode. I completely agree. And you know, with today's budgets and the way they make shows, this episode probably would have been a whole lot better. I'm sure there were some budget constraints that they had to worry about. Of course, we know that plagued the Next Generation a lot as it was going through the years, even though we got great scripts because of it. Yeah, I feel like it just the letdown that we got with. We were expecting this big build up and then it just never really happened. I agree that it's not as big as previous Cliff Hangar resolutions have been. I found it still satisfying. I wouldn't say it's one of the best ever. All right, well, gentlemen, if you guys are read, let's go ahead and start talking about our top ten. And I want to also point out too before we do start our top ten is this aired

3:07 during the twenty fifth anniversary of Star Trek. So oh, yeah, you know, this was an important season. A lot of great stuff and some bad stuff happened this year. And I know during this and I'm sure we'll be talking about a little bit later, but I know the Undiscovered Country came out during this season. Yes, sure, right, yeah, so we'll be talking about that, but I'm sure. All right, so we're going to start talking about our top ten. Of course, these are not in order as our favorites. These are in order as they were released. And what we think we feel are the top ten episodes of season five that you should watch. Wayne, Why don't you get a started with number one and our first one is the second episode of the season Darmock, written by Joe Minowski and Philip Lezebnik, directed by Winrich Colby. This originally aired on September thirtieth, nineteen ninety one. The Enterprise mixed contact with the Tamerian ship, a race that the Federation previously had been unable to successfully communicate with due to their strange and almost poetic like language. Out of their frustration to understand one another, the Tamerian captain transports himself and Captain Picard to the planet's surface, hoping that a combined struggle and shared danger will help the two races learn this.

4:17 This This is a great episode. This is one of the most memorable episodes of the entire series. You'll hear a lot of people quote this episode. It comes back later in like Lower Decks. It's just absolutely phenomenal, and it's amazing because it took two years to get this episode made. This is the writer of Philip le Zebnik. He wrote an original script. You know, he's a great writer. He went on to write Pocahontas and Mulan for Disney. But it was a struggle behind the scenes to get this made because Michael Pillar liked it, but Rick Berman hated it. Fortunately they were able to do some rewriting, get to everybody on board, and you know, they got around finally making it and it's it's no uh, there's no question that they took some inspiration from dancers with wolves on this one, and in my opinion, it's it's that's pretty obvious. Yeah, that's interesting.

5:15 Yeah, and I will say uh, and I'm gonna say this now, and I know our producer Jeff Johnson is going to agree with me. This is when Picard gets the best look of Star Track at all times. He has the coolest coat in this episode, the coolest. I always wanted this coat, guys, I did definitely. I was like, man, I wanted to go find this and wear this because it's just a cooler and they like the whole season, he just like this laid back that the shirt. All the coat's always opened with the great shirt like all right, card is a badass, now come on Velvety. And Patrick Stewart asked for that to be designed for him. He wanted to be He wanted to stand out from the rest of the cast and it definitely did that. Oh yeah, it did. This episode of this episode is such a it demands a rewatch.

6:01 Yes, so first timers, you're gonna want to go back and see it again because it's as soon as you start to understand where that language is going and what these different phrases mean, it's so cool. It's so cool to dissect. On the surface, it seems like something that should not work. It should be just absolutely baffling and confusing and frustrating. But wow, the dramatic places that they go with it. Paul Winfield, Oh gosh, yes, Oh he's incredible. Oh he's so good, so good. Of course he you know, was previously Captain Terrell in Start Trek to rethecon but the performance he gives here is just so you can see the frustration through all the makeup, you can see the range of emotions he's going through, and I just think it's spectacular. This is one of the things where when you when you recognize somebody else that's a Star Trek fan and you say some of these phrases, it's a whole other level, a whole other level. And an interesting thing about this episode two is this the beginning career of Ashley Judd.

7:09 She plays infinant Robin Leffler in this episode. Right never been in film or TV before this. No, Yeah, very interesting and I thought she did a really good job. I believed, I believe what she was going. She was a crew member, Yeah, no doubt about it. Yeah, and there's another first for this episode two. This is the first appearance of the Text six shuttle craft, the new shuttle that was designed for the next generation. They took the shuttle that was built for Star Trek five and remodeled or redid it so that they could use it because the one that they had built during the first season just didn't work for them. It was a beautiful model, one of the incredible models, designed by the same guy that did the enterprise, but when they went to build it full size, they just found out they couldn't match it. And we could match the design the angles, and it looked like it was like the difference between a Ferrari and a minivan between the two. So they this and it's used quite excessively for the rest of the series. Interesting and in doing the research with this episode too, I learned linguistic and linguistic teachers have used this episode to aid students in understanding how languages work and evolve. I guess that, yeah, yeah, I mean it makes sense when you watch this. It's like when you realize what's going on. By the end of this episode, you're like, oh, holy crap, that makes sense. Yep, yep, so cool.

8:28 All right, well, we are going to move on to the second episode, which is Insign Row. This is directed by Leslandal written by Michael Pillar. A Solarian four colony sends out an emergency call, which happens to be near the Cardassian Federation border. It seems that a Bajorian ship under the command of a terrorist named Orta claims responsibility of destroying it before the Enterprise even arrives. The ship advises this was done in order to reclaim their civilization from their fight and struggle with the Cardassians. In order to help try to peacefully bring an end to this, the card and the Enterprise are sent in with a Majoritan officer assigned to them to help Instant row Laren, who comes with heavy baggage and isn't welcome by many on the ship. The card and the crew do their best to bring a stop to this terrorism, but is there more to this situation than anyone realizes? Gentlemen, I know we talked about Michelle Forbes's last season. Last episode, we said that she was going to come back as a new character. Here she is. Yes, clearly she got this role because she did such a fantastic job last season, and I'm glad she came back because her performance as insignt Row is just incredible. She fits in with this crew so easily, and the friction that she brings to these crew members right away when she's beamed on board, immediately, Rikers like, look, you know, come on now. I don't want to say what

10:01 it is because I want you everybody to be surprised by it. But it's like Wrikers write in her face about it. And then that really tense meeting between her, Wriker and Icard in the ready room. Fantastic scene. Good stuff. Yeah, this one lays so much groundwork I think for the Card the entire follow up series of Picard and Deep Space. Not exactly, but tonally, I think this one it's the first time that I can think of when you had a contentious crew member who is not you know, automatically, you know, respectful and falling into line too. For what you think that I start how a start fleet officer should behave very much to the contrast contrary and willing to bring new perspective in that way is really really interesting. Aside from the fact that Wayne, like you mentioned, this has so much importance for understanding what's going on behind the scenes of Deep Space nine, seeing hearing about the struggle of Beajor, hearing about a culture that's not necessarily being served well by involvement with the Federation to be fairer, that it doesn't always happen in ideal fashion, but you see a lot of growth, a lot of learning, a lot of digging into that culture, and just also so fascinating

11:37 that Davey mentioned a great point that although she integrates with the crew really well at a certain point, all the friction that is felt in different places from her and from the crew, we haven't seen that yet. No, this serious and that's a great thing to see. Yeah, and we needed that. I think I think the writers felt that too. We needed some kind of friction with the crew and to bring this character in. It did it extremely well. You know, for people haven't seen this episode, you're going to realize why that friction is there. You know, like I said, she has she brought some heavy baggage with her and a lot of people don't respect her, and she's going to have to earn that with the people she's with, and that's not gonna be an easy job. And I do have one little nitpick with this episode, although I love it. It's one of the best of the season as well. This season started off fantastic, but the scene between Riker and ensign Row when he tells her she has to take off her earing I never understood that, because you know, they let Warf wear his sash, and they let they let Troy walk around the ship wearing anything she wants. But Roe had to take off her earring, which is part of the whole the Joran religious with the prophets, and that always bothered and I felt that kind of hypocritical of Riker. I agree, I think I think. I don't want to say it is, but it felt like Riker was picking on her. I agree, Yeah, I that's how I felt. I think that's because of her background and what she did and how

13:07 everyone felt against her. He was he was specifically targeting her, making her go strict by the book. Yeah, yeah, I mean it does set up a great dramatic moment toward the end of the episode, but totally agree. It seemed like, m that's of all the things to pick on, it's not going to functionally get in the way or cause any kind of problems. I wouldn't think, yeah, but I don't know, but yeah, but what about that cling on us is walking around here? She didn't go on, right, I know I would have. All right, So let's go on with our third pick, our third episode, Scott, what do you got? So this one's called disaster, a catastrophe on the Enterprise, but everyone to the test in various uncomfortable and critical situations. Picard has to lead a mini crew of children that are stuck in a falling turbo lift, while Warf is in of helping Keiko deliver her first child in ten forward.

14:03 Meanwhile, Jordy and Beverly are stuck in a cargo bay with a wildfire surrounded by explosive cargo. Riker and Data raced through Jeffrey's tubes to get the ship back online without losing their heads and finally on the bridge. Troy is thrust into a leadership role as a ranking officer, where she Miles, O'Brien and rolerin struggle to decide how to keep the entire ship out of danger. In some ways, it feels like several mini episodes in one, but I think it's one of the best crew moments as we see more of them, seeing more of their own potential. This is written by Ronald D. Moore and Ron Jarvis, directed by GABRIELLEL. Beaumont. I've heard some comparisons of this to something like the Poseidon Adventure YEP. In comparison, I think it's so cool to see different aspects of the ship. Will you talk a lot on lower decks about where else would you explore? We get to see the inside of the turbolift, the elevator shaft of the turbolift. We get to see Picard I would say successfully struggle with children, because that's never been his drunk suit. Does it beautifully though, So brilliant, and it just feels like so many self contained things that are just so cool to watch, and they all seem to kind of standalone. They're all brought together. Of all of these things, I would say Troy in command on the bridge was phenomenal.

15:39 It's very interesting. We just talked about data having a certain, you know, similar kind of situation in the premiere. I love those situations where they put an unlikely character in charge on the bridge and they just find a way to take command and say, this is how I'm going to lead, and this is what we're going to do. And it took her a little bit too to find her legs, you know, to realize, you know, what she was doing, because I mean, when she realized, oh crap, you're the highest thing, You're a you're it, You're in charge, you know, oh crap of all people. But hey, I thought she did a fantastic job. It's also worth noting this is the last episode that aired before Gene Ruddenberry's death, so we'll see a credit come up in a future episode, uh, to commemorate that event. And one thing that we didn't touch the last episode that was really the development of Chief O'Brien, which he I mean, this is a big episode for him, but last season we just saw him. He got he got his name, he was married in the episode Data Bay, he was married in the episode Data's Day, and now you know, we got the backstory with his participation with the Pardassian fights. Now we get the birth of his child, Mollie, who becomes another character and moves with him to Deep Space nine. It's it's great that they're giving these backstories to these these smaller characters. I mean, he's he's a great actor who's been with the show since day one. Yeah, and it's it's it's neat through the seasons to watch his characters develop. Yeah,

17:12 we have to say that the greatest line in this episode is from Worf, congratulations, you're fully dilated to ten centimeters. You may now give birth. And then later on in d Space nine when they have their second child, Worf says that he's going to make sure that he's not on the station at that time. That's great, Probably a good call. Yeah, the really really good episode. I loved how they paired people off. I thought that was a unique idea and it was able to keep the the episode flowing extremely well. I think everybody they paired off did did wonderful with each other. And I loved especially Crusher on the Fords too. You know some of their thenes together having to get rid of the barrels because of an explosion that could happen and stuff like that. I just thought all that was really really neat and well done. So no, isn't it interesting too. The song that Picard has the kids singing as they're climbing up from the turble lift comes into play in a later episode in this season. Guys, Oh yes, that's right. Yep, Na falls, Frankie Angela fall, Niagara falls. That's right. All right. Well we're gonna take a break here and we've come back. We will continue with our top ten. All right, welcome back everybody. Our next episode is our fourth pick, Wayne. What do we have? Oh, it's a big one unification. This is written by Rick Berman, Jerry Taylor, and Michael Pillar, directed by Les Landau for part one and Cliff Bowl for part two. Originally aired on November fourth and November

18:48 eleventh, nineteen ninety one. Hey My Birthday. Starfleet Intelligence discovered Ambassador's Spock's presence on Romulus, and Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise are ordered to find out why. After a brief detour to the planet Vulcan and a visit to Spock's father, Sark, the Card and Data go undercover in a cloaked Klingon cruiser to the Romulin home world. They find Spock, only to discover his personal mission to reunite the worlds of Romulus and Vulcan and in the centuries old conflict between the two races. As you had mentioned earlier with the episode that aired before Jean Rodenberry passed away. This episode is the first, well, actually both episodes were this was done with, but at part one begun with a dedication to Geene Rawdaberry, he you know, died just a week a couple of weeks before this. But this, this is this two part it's a two part episode is really known for one thing, and that's the return of the Leonard nimoy As far. This came out just a few weeks before the release of Star Trek six, The Undiscovered Country and Litterard Nimoyl.

19:52 He accepted the offer to appear in this as a way of publicizing the film, because, I mean the film is strong referenced to both these episodes. Oh yeah, heavily. It's it's an it's an extremely important episode, not just the next generation, but to Star Trek altogether. I talked before about, you know, things that are important when you're thinking about the Picard ongoing series. I feel like this one definitely has beats that lead into that. Right with Picard's involvement with Romulus later, very powerful episode, very interesting look into Romulan culture. I think that we haven't been privy to before.

20:38 Yeah, I think this is the first time we visited their planet. Yes, it is. It is. Yeah, yeah, I know that. We've heard from some listeners say that they kind of struggled with Sarah the episode Sarah this watch this one for a payoff of that very powerful before, very powerful performance there by Sarah in particular, and great to see Letardy boy. I think he was just fantastic in this. It was that was a pleasant surprise to see. I mean, you know, they advertised it that way, so he knew it was coming. But to see him again and especially with this, you know, get to see him at the card sharing screen time together was just so wonderful to see and so warming to the heart, you know, especially some of the comments that Spock had made to the card about was a cowboyboy diplomacy, howboy diplomacy? You know, of course clearly he was talking about Kirk, you know, so I thought that was very humorous. But another thing I love that Star Trek does so well, especially this is you know, even though you get a lot of powerful dramatic moments.

21:42 You get those comedic beats too that they do so well. You know, one of those scenes that I found Sue humorous in this is when Data in the card were on the Klingon ship and they were heading toward Romulus as the Card's trying to go to sleep, and of course Data is being the nice guy that he has, giving it to his captain the one bed that's in that room, and then Data just basically goes to sleep standing there. The card can't go to sleep, because you just Dave. I love that you mentioned that so much, because oh god, I think about that scenes so often when I can't go to sleep, just like and then Brent Spider's acting in particular in that when he's like okay, I'll turn around and kind of gives them this look like okay, weirdo. Like here I go by the same token, like, come on, Data, You've been around other beings for a long time, probably not in the same room where they're sleeping, m hm. But take the social queue and sit man, I pretend to sleep. Here's something you guys might not know. But are you going to have to because we're going to soon talk about discovery during the third season of Star Trek Discovery, there's an episode called Unification three, and it's a sequel to this story. It shows that the Romulens and the Balkans do eventually finally come together and live as one. Well, you're right, I forgot about that, all right, So we will move on with our fifth pick.

23:12 And that is Cause an Effect. Directed by Jonathan Frakes, who clearly is falling in love with directing, which we love. Written by Brandon Braga, the Enterprise finds itself caught in a time loop where the crew relive the same day over and over. During this day, they discover another ship coming out of a temporal distortion, which, when trying to avoid it, destroys the ship, killing everyone on board. It isn't long until crew members start to get a sense that they have been doing the same thing before. Feelings of deja vu are running rampant, leading them to try and solve a mystery before it becomes too late. Now there is a surprise guest that we can't talk about, so I don't want to ruin that for anybody who hasn't seen this before, because it is a pleasant surprise. I do know. They try to get somebody else as well, but I guess it was too expensive to get her. It was a scheduling conflict with there a scheduling conflict, okay, okay, which is a shame because if they had gotten both of those, that would just been wow. Oh yeah. But we can't really talk about it. I don't want to ruin any but I thought this was a really unique episode. I mean, it is a groundhog Day episode.

24:21 Come on, it is that. It is so you know, when when you see it, you're gonna get that feelings all over again. But it is still a really cool episode because one of the things that I love that Jonathan Frakes did is because he wanted to make sure when he reshot the scenes over and over, because you're reliving it like the characters are reliving it. He made sure to change camera angles. He made sure to mix that up so you would not get bored with seeing the same thing over again. You're right, and there are no res in this Everything is newly shot. Yeah, So when he goes back to like the card scene, you see a completely different angle, you know, behind somebody or on the other side of the table, and he us that all the time. Many shoots the scenes, it's a different camera but in some of them really cool shots, like but the camera way up high in the ceiling, like looking down slowly moving man Jonathan Rei Thalth did himself in this episode. Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned the poker scenes because I never expected the kind of dramatic device that could become, and it's used to with such great effect like this one, especially what you were talking about with like the different camera angles. Yeah, you're watching the same thing over and over again, but it's something new every time.

25:33 Yep. It's it's such a cool thing to watch unravel. There are aspects of this that have to do with using knowledge to influence future events and whether or not to do this. This has a great dive into that kind of dynamic and what you should or shouldn't do, And I don't know, it's it's for an episode that kind of repeats the same things over and over again. It's one of my favorites to rewatch. There was one thing also that it always bothered me with about the enterprise, and they finally corrected that with this episode. Is you know, if you ever if you look at the model, if you look at the ship on screen, we've seen it so many times now. The Enterprise has three shuttle bays, and we've seen the shuttlebay many times, but we've always seen only Shuttleby two and Shuttleby three, the ones that are on the cobra head the bottom star drive section.

26:26 This is the first episode to ever show the actual main hangar bay, which is right underneath the bridge. It's a main plot point in this episode. Yeah, you know. They of course the set was just too big for them to build. That's why we never actually saw it in live action. But they use it to great effect in this episode. And I was glad that they finally acknowledge there is a shuttle bay there about time. But yeah, this is one where I can't wait to We kind of use Jeff as the template to say, like, you know, this is our first time watchers. I cannot wait until he sees this episode and hear his reaction. Yeah, same here, I can't wait. All right, Well, let's move on with our sixth Pick our sixth episode, Scott, what do we have? This one is called the First Duty. This is a critical moment in the life of Cadet and former acting ends in Wesley Crusher at Starfleet Academy.

27:18 Wesley is part of an elite squad that's getting ready for graduation. What should have been a spectacular start to their careers is struck by tragedy as one of Wesley's friends is accidentally killed in a flight exercise. His crew answers questions about the circumstances of that accident, which quickly becomes a mystery. Wesley is put to the test in several ways, and we see some essential growth and unexpected changes that will reverberate throughout the franchise. Fans of Lower Decks will remember us talking about this landmark episode, and anyone who wants to watch that series should pay special attention to this one. Written by Ronald D. Moore and Narn Shinkar, directed by Paul Lynch. This is the first appearance I believe of Robert Duncan McNeil, who would eventually play Voyager's Tom Harris. I was interested to learn that Nick lcarno was supposed to come back in Voyager, but I guess there were royalty issues because every time they would have a Voyager episode, they'd have to pay royalties to the people who created to the writers yep, who created this episode. Rightly so, but I can imagine that looking like a check book right over ending checks. But I'm glad they were able to use Robert Duncan McNeil. He has such a great performance. The entire crew that Wesley is is with does such a great job in this, and it's such a fascinating look at Wesley's character. He goes in places that I

28:48 would never have expected. The scene between Wesley and Picard on the Enterprise when basicallyly Picard brought him before to let him know he knows what's going on, he knows what happen happens and tells him this is what you have to do. You have to make it right. Basically that scene right there, Man, I tell you that was rough to watch because everything those two characters have been through together. And then let's remember the scene that the last thing they had together last season that we talked about in the last podcast. You know, when you think about all that and exactly what Wesley Crusher is protecting here and should not be, man, that was a powerful scene. Yeah. Well, and thinking about you know, Picard's relationship with Beverly and Beverly's reaction to this, like there were what was it five shuttlecraft. Yeah, that they had for this exercise. Yep, one of them could have easily been Wesley. That's got to be terrifying for Beverly and Picard feeling that sense of responsibility, that that need to protect Wesley and knowing how dangerous, how how close danger it is to him. Yeah, that had to shake him to the core. That that brings up a point that I wanted to make.

30:03 The scene when the cards sits down with with Beverly, you guys, remember that and he's telling her, you know, basically everything's okay, you know, Wes, it was in an accident. Her performance there, Gates McFadden was outstanding because you could see her as a worried mother right there. And this episode also has the first appearance of Boothby. We see him a lot more. He appears well, he appears twice more both in Voyager and the episode is in the Flesh and the Fight. But he's such He's already been mentioned once before last season and she he just he's a very important part of Starfleet Academy. Yeah, good old Ray Walston stars. I used to watch the old Black and White, my favorite Martians in the syndication and then when I then after that I had seen him in the Next Generation, and I was like, oh, I automatically love this character. Automatic, yep.

31:00 Absolutely. I want to throw out there for Shannon phil To who play Fido. Oh yes, I thought she did a really good job too. Man. Yeah, yeah, all right, Well, let's move on to our seventh episode, Wayne and it Is I Borg. Written by Renee at Javaria, directed by Robert Liederman. Originally aired on May tenth, nineteen ninety two. The Enterprise crew find a crashed board scout ship and within it an injured board drone. Seeing it as an opportunity to examine the board most more closely, they bring it on board the Enterprise Starfleet wants the car to use it as a weapon of mass destruction against the Boorg, but the drone begins to develop free will and forces the crew to debate the moral and ethical ramifications of what they are doing to it. Now, this is a season of fantastic episodes, and here's another one. It is at a great start, and now we're down to the final episodes of this of the fifth season, and we're we're ending on a high note. They just keep getting better and better, and this is this is gosh, this was such a shock but such an important episode. It's the first appearance of Jonathan del Arcos Hugh before return again. Oh yeah, he did a fantastic job. You know, he'll return later in the season and then he'll also have a major role on Star Trek with Card season one. Yeah. This this is another episode that everyone

32:32 talks about. This is the better episodes, one of the higher voted episodes of the season. This changed the way we looked at the board at this point. You know, before they were unstoppable, they they did not have a personality, they did not have an individual individualism, and now we see that they can have that, and we had to reevaluate our thoughts on the board. And that's the whole point of the episode, to read evaluate your enemy, because you know, not everyone it can be can be the enemy. And it's also I gotta point this suck because this is probably the reason why I love this episode is because of the very strong performances between Whoopi Goldbergen and Patrick Stewart. It's so incredible. I mean, they're incredible in every scene they do. But you know, you can tell that they love this script. You know, and this is a favorite of all of them, and the scenes between the two are just so powerful. It's another one of those episodes too, because we got to the point now in this season where you know, you feel like Picard has kind of forgotten about Locutus, He's forgotten about what happened with the borg. He's moving on. Bam, here we go again. He gets thrush right into his face again and they want to bring this on board? Are you kidding me? And then I mean a lot of the crew members are fighting that where Beverly isn't because you know, she she sees someone injured, she wants to take care of them, and of course Picard is like, hell, no you're not. And then

34:07 obviously you know, he gives in. But the scene where him and Hugh are together, in that scene where he has to become La Cutis, you know, he's talking to him as Lucutas, forcing him, you know, to talk to him and you to get the reactions from him, and that scene was just so well done. Believe so wait, you are right about when you say what the Goldbrigg is guy and Patrick Stewart as Piccarda, their performances are just out of this world in this episode because it is. And that scene that you just mentioned between Patrick Stewart and Jonathan del Arco where he becomes lucutist is another incredible scene. I love when Captain Picard realizes you know what Hugh said, Yeah, look on Stuart's face. It's you can see the whole thing just changes. You know, his preconceptions of above board changed that moment, right then. Yep, yeah, you read my mind.

35:07 Wagh And oh god, it was chilling, and it's it's a very breathy delivery. It's just like what did you say? Yeah, like, oh my god, it gives me goose bumps right now, Like yeah. The beginning of that scene too, is was I remember the first watch of that that it was fairly chilling. It was like, wait a second, is he making a is this a performance that he's delivering mirror or is this like you can see how you know, obviously it's not like nanit's re activating or something like that, but you can see how much that's very much still with him. Oh, it's not something he left behind when the implants were removed. It's very much there. Uh, And you know, a crisp memory that he can pull up very easily, Jonathan de Larco does. There's so much applause for this. It's beautifully written, but his performance and I'll tell you a very last scene. Now there's a very subtle look that Jonathan gives and oh my god, god, it is so amazing. Yeah, we're talking about emotional range from a borg. All right, we never thought we would get but wow. Yeah. What What I love what the writers did here is you can you can kind of think like, oh, we're gonna see the borg again, here we go, but then they take it a completely opposite direction of what you expect to happen, and then they make you feel for that character that you want to keep them around, and they're like,

36:39 uh no, we're not gonna let you do that, and then they go to another direction. You're like, god, dang you writers. This episode was fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, all right, Well we are going to take another break and when we come back, we will finish our top ten. All right, welcome back, everybody. We're going to continue with our top ten with our eighth pick, and that is the next Base. Directed by David Carson, written by Ronald D. Moore. A Romulin vessel is in distress, and the Enterprise races to help. The Way Team beams on board with the Romulins to assess and see the damage to its engine. Jordi advises he can fix it, but must beam back to the Enterprise with Ensign Row, and doing so, a transporter malfunction occurs, making it look like the two of them are dead. As the crew of the Enterprise do their best to assist the Romulins repair their ship, they also must make plans to honor those they lost. Meanwhile, it is uncovered that the Romulins are up to something I know shocker and could be the reason the Enterprise crew members disappeared. This is another episode that kind of caught me by surprise because you know, we've seen the Romulins quite a bit. We've dealt with them, you know, with the Klingons, we've dealt them. You know, we did the two parter we just had recently, so you really could have almost rolled your eyes with like, here we go with another Romulin episode. But you know what, they took this a different direction too that I found very interesting, especially when we get to see the stuff with Geordy in inciant Row and you know the other romuland if you know what I'm talking about, happens

38:13 later line the secret one. You know, they're like, oh wait a minute, what what there's one of them two? That was that was really cool. Yea. So much happened in this episode that I love. For one thing is getting the Jordie LaForge in the insiant Row back and forth between the two of them, because instant Row obviously was wanting to give up, and Geordie was like, no, no, we're not We're not giving up. We're gonna We're gonna keep pushing forward and figure this out. And of course, you know, we see what happens, but again you're getting some more inciant Row that I loved. We almost didn't get that this was originally written to be a Jordi and Troy episode. Oh yeah, Brendan Braga decided that Troy, you know, she had too much to do this season already, so and they wanted to highlight insint Row, a new character they wanted to turn around, and that was that was the best decision they made right there. I agree. I agree. The one scene that I really really loved too is the when Jordy and Roe are on the Shadow cruiser with Data and Wharf and they're they're planning the funeral. You know I'm talking about that.

39:14 I loved that scene so much because right there you saw, even though he can't give emotions, you saw that love that Data has. He is and he even says it right there. You know, Jordie is my best friend, you know, so you know I want to make sure this is this is right. And just the scene between the two of them and those the other two overhearing this, Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah, they're able to. There's so much emotional weight to so many little moments throughout this series, but you can see how much more we're getting of those in every episode. Yeah, there were I forgot, how I mean, like what I remembered most about this episode from when I had watched it before. It was just kind of the general premise, right and the resolution kind of the danger that they had to resolve. But I had forgotten about those emotional beats and man they hit like a hammer. Well yeah, yeah, I remembered very little of this episode other than people running through walls and then rewatching it, Yeah, rewatching it. It's it really is a powerful and a fantastic episode. I mean said, the end of the season is just incredible episodes one after another. You know, this was going to be their bottle show too, This is going to be their their cheap episode of the season.

40:37 But this actually ended up being the most expensive episode of the entire year because of all the blue screen They had a film two days of just blue screen work. It was so much. You know, it's not easy or cheap running through walls, No, it's not well, and all the money they had to spend on that party too, so that let's not let's call out Susannah Thompson too, who plays for real. She will be the boar Cooen in some episodes coming up, so we can't forget about that. One thing I mentioned earlier about the comedic beats again, I want to laugh with when Instant Road did the phase with Riker, Yeah, yeah, I was like, wait, that's okay, that's okay, all right, let it go, let it go. Well, let's move on to our ninth pick, Scott. What do we have? I don't know if I'm worthy to talk about this one there. Oh my god. This is one of the most poignant, self contained episodes in the franchise, and a very important moment in Picard's life, the Enterprise encounters a ceramic probe. It begins to match their flight pattern and speed exactly just enough to connect with Captain Picard through a particle.

41:45 Beat Knocked unconscious, he finds himself in a strange and non threatening environment, surrounded by people who care for him, although they believe he's someone else. What it unravels is a fascinating look at another life and a mystery for the crew solve without risking Piccard's life. Written by Morgan Gindel and Peter Allen Fields, directed by Peter Laurenson. I'm on the fence about whether or not to mention this, but I'll just go ahead and say it. Fans of Superman will see similarities for the man who has everything, although this doesn't have the same Sinister's tone. There's no black mercy in this one. But oh, it's so powerful. It takes a minute, I'll say to when I first watched this, it took me a while to figure out what was going on. It's important to look at makeup application and what everyone conveys. Yes, so well done, and it goes into places where I had never expected Picard's character to be able to go. But such an evolution for Picard and one of the you know, it's another goosebump ending that is so subtle and so simple, but oh so powerful. This's a big one when when you think about, yeah, this is a very powerful episode. And I think even the writers admit they didn't realize how powerful this episode was going to be until it happened. And you know, people look back at this as thing.

43:15 How it's a turning point really for for Card. You know, if you think about what happened to him, was what twenty minutes and and and in the crew's time on the ship. Yeah, for him, a lifetime, He lived a lifetime. He got to experience life and be married and have kids and just and then all that be taken away from you. Can you imagine just like wake up from a dream and not realize, you know, that's it's so powerful. I mean, that's I can't understand how the Card could separate, you know, reality from right fantasy. It's yeah, it's understandable that this would have consequences. Consequence is later on throughout his career, throughout the character's life. Yeah, and this this poor character of me, come on, he's been through so much. I mean, I know a lot of these characters have, but come on, man, you turn him into a boorg. He got to come back and now you gotta do this to him. Come on. Mentally, the you know, it points out how important counselor Troy's role really is. Yeah, because the number of mind games that happen with these characters in these episodes is staggering. It's occurring to me that this, this episode is has got to be such a gift for Picard as a character because of his love of archaeology. Oh yeah, this seems like could be an archaeologist's dream, it would be. Yeah.

44:45 He had Patrick Stewart had said that this is one of the greatest acting challenges he's ever faced in the seven years of Next Generation, which I believe to see why. Yeah. Also very interesting that his son Daniels plays a role in this movie, in this movie, in this episode, although I can't say which, Yeah, but that was a really cool revelation. Yeah. I think the two Winriker hands him the box at the end. We can't say what's in it or anything like that because I don't want to ruin it for anybody, but just my goodness, Scott, you mentioned the ending of it. Just yeah, nigrifall if Man, Yeah, well, yes, and there's a lot of there's thinking about the non verbal acting in that scene, in particular, in a lot of these scenes, and it's just done so quietly and so perfectly. Oh boy. I have to point out music is very important to this episode. Yes, not just the background incidental music, but the music that is incorporated in the story. It's a beautiful piece of music that's written by Jay Chataway. It comes back many times, comes back later in the season. And also not the main piece, not the flute piece that we hear most through the episode, but one of the one of the side pieces that the card or came in as he's being called on the planet his son plays is actually the theme that was used for Star Trek.

46:17 The card Yeah, that's right. Wow, Oh my god. Yeah, just credited for every episode because they use that. It's such a that's a great little callback that people didn't even realize. I love this episode. I would even go as to say this is probably my favorite episode of Star Trek the Next Generation. Wow, because the ending. This is the only episode of Star Trek throughout all the series The ending makes me cry every time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I always am in tears at the end of this episode. And and it rightfully so won the nineteen ninety three Huro Award. It disturbed it. It's the first Star Trek to win since the original series. And you got to watch this episode. It's so powerful and so fantastic. All right, Well, we are going to be moving on to our last pick, Number ten, Wayne, What do we have?

47:10 Yeah? Number ten is the season finale. Times Arrow, written by Joe Minowski, Michael Pillar, and Jerry Taylor, and directed by Les Landau. Is originally aired on June fifteenth, nineteen ninety two, for part one, and opened up the sixth season with September twenty first, nineteen ninety two for part two. On Earth, evidence of alien interference from five hundred years ago is discovered in an old cavern near Starfleet headquarters. Within it, among the nineteenth century relics, is discovered Data's head. The Enterprise investigations bring them to the planet Davidia two, where they find a race of time traveling aliens.

47:51 Data is accidentally pulled into the time portal with the aliens and Guynan convinces Picard and the others that they must go back in time as well to rescue him or history may be disastrously altered. They originally hadn't planned this to to end that they hadn't planned it in the season with a cliffhanger. But at the time, there were a lot of rumors going around that the Next Generation was ending. They were unfounded. But I think it all came the fact that Deep Space nine was in pre production at this time. They were they were starting to film and with a new Star Trek series coming on, you know, we we couldn't fathom the idea of two Star Trek series on at the same time. It's that wouldn't happen. And that's why, you know that we thought, you know, that the series might be coming to an end.

48:39 So this is the reason why we got this cliffhanger. I'm glad we did because it's a really good cliffhanger, but they just wanted to make sure everyone know that that, hey, the show's coming back next year. Yeah. And I also I got a point. I like this episode. I love time travel episodes and I'm a huge time travel fee No, no, wait a second, but I want to point out there are some great guest stars in this this episode, Mark Alamo, he plays the poker player. He would go on and play gold to cott on these space on a very very important character. And then of course there's Jerry Harden as Samuel Clemens. I love his performance. You know, he'd been on the show before, back during the first season, and then he of course I'll appeared later.

49:27 I mean, you know, he's been on everything pretty much every show, Golden Girls, Lewis and Clark. I know, David, you're familiar with him as Deep Throat Next Files. That's he's He's a great actor, and his his performances as Samuel Clemens is just it's it's funny. And every time he's on screen, his his mannerisms, his facial expressions. I laugh every time I see him. I just I love this episode. Didn't he create a one man touring show yes with Mark Wayne because of this, Yeah, which you can see and God bless him for doing it. I would go to see that in a hard feat If you're if you're a first time watcher that becomes a fan of this episode, go watch Lower Decks. We talked about a certain episode you'll howl. If you're a fan of lower decks.

50:15 And you've seen the Mark Twain episode, come see this episode because Oh Jeremy hard and God bless you. I love that delivery. It's so fantastic. Every single scene he just divevours, he doesn't just chew it. It's a it's a fascinating premise. I will say that my youngest son, Jude, when he saw the he saw the effects that they use for the phase, he was like, oh my god, that's cool. And then I showed him the big the artifact that's revealed that causes a lot of the dramatic tension. He was like what and automatically wanted to see more. And I was like, that's exactly what these things should do. It's it's so it's so interesting. There's it's kind of a blend of you know, time periods, but just seeing how certain characters adapt to that so well. It's got some great comedic beats, some amazing comedic beats yep, yep. And going back to Whoopi Goldberg as g and I love her performance in this. It's it's very interesting. And this is another like there are so many that bear you know, a second watch, this is one of them. Once you see both parts, then you go back to this when you understand you know,

51:49 uh where certain characters were coming from. But she has some great scenes in this. I love it. And we we've been speaking about Gene Roddenberry. This is the last time he's credited as executive producer. This episode also won the nineteen ninety two Emmy Award for Hair Styling Costumes. It was because of Mark Twain. Oh yeah, yeah, all right. It's got a great cliffhanger too. It's not quite never comparing anything the best of both worlds because you can't, you can't. But great cliffhanger and a great period of time to think back on, like this is VCR days when it was like we had to wait several months and then couldn't rewatch it unless you had you know, you were mindful enough to record it. But yeah, it's a great cliffhanger for the for the next season and you got to see how it resolves.

52:37 There was a questions, Oh yeah, there was no binging for us back then. We had to wait. We had to wait. It was. It was terrible, It was terrible, hard, it was it was really hard, all right. So that was our top ten for season five. So, of course, we as we've been doing in the past with the other seasons, we have some episodes that our favorites. We love every episode that we have a Star Trek and Next duration, but there are some of them out there that we don't like as much as we do in our top ten. So we're gonna talk about our least favorite episode of season five, Wayne, what is yours? Oh? There were so many fantastic episodes this season, but I'm gonna say my least favorite is probably a conundrum just because it's so mediocre. Another season of great episodes and this is stuck right in the middle. You know, they spend half the episode wondering around and asking the question, you know, who am I really? And then there's a new character just suddenly appears in the episode, a Commander McDuff, and it's so obvious that he's all behind it all, but you know you have to sit there for a half hour, you know, letting them play around and say, oh, you know, is he is? And he, of course he is. The only redeeming factor is It's a little trivia fact I'll give our listeners. The robot from Lost in Space appears in this episode.

53:53 So go and watch it. See if you can hunt for to find it, that is, if you can keep yourself awake for forty five minutes. That reminds me. There's another artifact and I forget which episode, but apparently Picard has a Shakespeare bust in his already room or of his quarters in his ready room. M it's in Blake and you'll miss it, but it's kind of on the back wall. And I'm like his Picard batman because it's the same one. I bet there's like a button where he presses the you know, press the button in the neck. For me, I totally agree Wayne there it's It's a lot of strong episodes in this season. The one that I don't believe I would ever watch again is Violations. Not that it wasn't well done, but the the situations that you have to observe and endure are are really unsettling, and I find it very hard to rewatch. There were times when I was like, should they have gone here? And I I really detest what it what it does to Troy. I just feel so yeah, it's done it in such a horrible way. And I don't mean that it was produced poorly or written poorly or anything else like that, but just disturbing. So just watch that one with caution. I would say I

55:29 hate the alien costumes of the episode. I think they're so ugly with all the whole Yeah, absolutely well for me. For me, gentlemen, I'm going I really feel bad about picking on the Loxano Troy. I feel like I'm always picking on episodes that she's in that I don't like. And Mozielle Barrett's awesome, but It's Cost of Living for me is the least favorite episode that I have. The enterprise basically destroys an asteroid, then gets threatened with some kind of like what ship rot that is killing the ship and then we once again walks on of Troy's falling in love and can this woman just stop falling in love for crying out loud? But seeing the antics of Whorf Sun just it's too much. But we get to see them in mud baths.

56:16 I mean, no, no, no, no, no, I don't. And again I want to reiterate I'm not picking on her because it seems like my least favorite episodes are once she's in. She's a great actress and I love her on Troy, but just these episodes. I'm sorry, it just doesn't do it for me. Man. Yeah, I remember when I was first watching this series, they were they were I just have a memory of saying like, Ugh, if it's a La Waxana Troy episode, I'll skip it. If it's an Alexander episode, I'll skip it. And then I see a screenshot for this one on Paramount plus Whorts both of them share on the screen and I'm like, but to their credit, you know, the the characters that they portrayed, the you know, the role that they play in the franchise, certain characters cannot be denied how important they are and how well done it's by those characters. But then Wayne reminds me of the Mudbeth thing, and I'm like, I'm not gonna I'm probably not gonna do it. Yeah, no, thank you. I don't want to see that things all right. So, as again as the other seasons, we have chosen one of the crew members who we pick for the season to be what favorite moment we have for them for the season, and this one is good old Jordie LaForge. Scott, what is your favorite moment from LaForge? It's the next phase the episode, the next phase you mentioned before, the scene of the turbolift, where I think he he already knows certain things about his

57:47 friendship with Data, but that moment of realization is just so impactful, and knowing where their friendship goes throughout the franchise, not to mention and in Pickhard, it's just so powerful. Aside from that, in the same episode, just his decision not to accept what seems to be his fate and say, well, now I'm going to take a stand until it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. I am going to stand up against this and I'm going to do what I have to do. And that shows such resilience in his character and what you absolutely need in an engineer, and the reason that he comes through in so many circumstances is exactly that, And I love that. What about you? That's a good pick? What about you? Well, I was originally going to choose I've seen from the next phase two, but just earlier this week I saw an episode on a Pluto TV and I've changed my mind. This isn't one of our choices, but it would be seen from the Masterpiece Society. The episode the Planet's in danger of being destroyed and there's a society on it that's genetically engineered to make sure each and every one of the people on it are perfect. And there's a scene where Jordie is talking to the scientist Hannah Bates from the colony and they're devising a way of saving the planet, and they come up with a solution using the technology of his

59:20 visor, which is a piece of equipment that he would need if he was perfect. LaForge has a line that says, who gave them the right to decide whether or not I should be here, whether or not I have something to contribute it. It was such a small but very touching and great performance by LeVar Burton that I have to choose that one really makes that character stand down. Good pick. I would didn't even think about that one. That's a good choice for me. I have to go with Iborg the moment he realizes, Hugh says, I and his turn to really caring about him as a character, as not just borg but as an actual human being. And then the whole ending thing. I don't want to say what it is, but you know that look that he gets at the end, and how much he cares that because complete turnaround he had That's that's my favorite Jordy Leforage moment for sure. All Right, Wayne Scott, thank you so much for joining me on the bridge. It's always a pleasure to talk star Trek with you.

1:00:23 Two lots of it otherwise. Yeah, I also want to thank the listeners. Hopefully you are enjoying what we have to say about Star Trek and our deep dive into the next generation right now, and I hope you continue to keep joining us. We have a lot on the horizon to talk about. Hailing frequencies are always open for you to share your thoughts and questions on social Email us at a film by Podcast at gmail dot com. Find us online at a film by podcast dot com. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you are looking for more exclusive content and swag, send some latinumar away through a Patreon Make now always the most precious time. Now we'll never come again. See you next time for another episode of Phasers set this time