Lower Decks - Riker and Troi are discussing which young officer to promote to Ops. We then cut to those younng officers(!) and get to hear how they feel about it. They're not even main characters! We have Ensign Sito Jaxa (the cute Bajoran from 'The First Duty') and Sam Leville, who are both up for the job, and Engisng Taurik (a Vulcan) and Nurse Ogawa (Nurse Ogawa.) Riker tells Leville "one aye will be sufficient" when he says "aye aye." Taurik tries to impress Geordi with a new warp technique. Crusher tells Ogawa she's promoting her and asks about her new boyfriend. Sito talks to Worf about the challenge of working Ops (she's a security officer) and he tells her he recommended her. There's a fifth younger character in the episode two, Ben the bartender who moves freely between the younger officers and the likes of Riker. I'm guessing Whoopi just wasn't available for the episode but it works well having a younger character in her place. He tells Leville to try to make friends with Riker but it goes really badly with Leville mistakenly thinking Will is Canadian instead of Alaskan ("they both get a lot of snow.") Something secret is happening on the Enterprise but because we're watching the junior officers we don't know what it is either. This is clever. Picard chews out Sito over what happened in the Academy and she defends herself. He tells her she doesn't belong on the Enterprise. Picard is scary! Goerdi has Taurik fire a phaser at a shuttle, for reasons he won't disclose but Taurik quickly figures out. Ogawa finds out that a Cardassian has been brought to Sickbay. THe Junior officers (and Ben) have a poker game and speculate on what's going on (they each know something that they can't share.) We cut between this and the senior stuff also playing poker. Troi tells Riker that she thinks he and Leville are a lot alike. He admits maybe he's been hard on Leville. Riker wins his game but Ben beats Leville. Ben then goes to the senior game and offers to beat them too. He's a one!
Worf teaches his Klingon defense class and has Sito stay behind for special lessons (but not in a pervy way.) He blindfolds her and tells her to anticipate his attack. She isn't able to and takes off the blindfold and says it was an unfair test. Worf has taught her a lesson about standing up for herself when someone is unfair so she goes back to Picard and tells him she doesn't deserve continued punishment for what happened at the Academy. Picard is pleased because this is what he wanted to happen and tells her he has a special mission for her and that he was the one who requested she be sent to the Enterprise in the first place. Ogawa tells Crusher she's gotten engaged and Crusher is relieved because she thought the guy was cheating. Picard introduces Sito to a Cardassian who is working with the Federation. Her mission is to get him back to Cardassian space by posing as a Bajoran prisoner in a stolen Enterprise shuttle while the Cardassian poses as a bounty hunter. Picard won't order her to take the mission but she volunteers. Sito says goodbye to Word and thanks him for all he's done for her. Sito asks the Cardassian why he's doing this and he says he's sick of pointless wars. They have a nice Cardassian/Bajoran bonding moment. Leville and the others wonder what's happened to Sito and he's hurt that they know stuff they can't tell him. The Enterprise goes looking for Sito as she's late for their meeting. Data finds the remains of a Federation escape pod and they intercept a report from the Cardassian stating that a Bajoran was killed on it. Picard has to announce Sito's death to the crew. He friends have a drink in Ten Forward. Leville got promoted but is sad because Sito might have gotten it if she hadn't died. Ben gets Worf to join them as Sito considered her a friend too.
Although TNG remained a strong show in seasons 5 and 6 (and some of 7!) I think it's fair to say that they stopped innovating back in season 4. It's all been a bit samey since then, so this episode is a welcome change of the format. It's the first episode of any Star Trek not focused on the main characters and it totally works because the writing and the younger characters (especially Sito) are so strong. In one episode they managed to make me care more about Sito and her death then all of season one managed to do with Tasha. It's just a shame it came so late in the series run and we didn't get more episodes like this. It's great.
SCORE: 10/10
Thine Own Self - Troi returns from a class reunion (she seems to get more time off than everyone) and talks to Crusher on the Bridge. Crusher is in command of the nightshift and enjoys Bridge duty. Troi feels bad that she is hopeless at this kind of stuff. Data is on mission on a planet but a man and his daughter find him looking frazzled and carrying a box with "radioactive" written on it. Data can't remember how to speak at first and repeats everything the man says. Amnesiac Data can read the word "radioactive" but doesn't know what it means, despite knowing the meaning of every other word. Riker talks to Troi through his trombone. She tells him she wants to take the test to become a Bridge Officer as she enjoyed being in command two years ago during 'Disaster' (you know, that time she didn't know that a warp core breach would cause the ship to explode.) Data is taken to the village doctor who tries to act like she's a clever scientist who understands what Data is...and says she's an ICE MAN. The little girl decides to call him Jaden. Data takes his radioactive metal to the village blacksmith (played by the guy who played Treeger in Friends!) who buys some of it from him. Data effortlessly picks up an anvil that fell on someone's leg and everyone is a bit scared. Troi takes her final test, the Engineering component, on the Holodeck (she passed everything else) but fails when the ship explodes. The doctor gives a bad science lesson in the village but Data droidsplains how she's wrong about everything. She says they shouldn't listen to him because he's lost his memory. The alien father takes ill and the doctor doesn't know what's wrong with him.
The blacksmith blames Data for people getting sick because no one was ill before he arrived. He's kind of right but he's a jerk. Data tries to find a cure for the illness witht he doctor, who is in over her head. Troi keeps studying for her exam but Riker tells her he's cancelling the test as she's failed three times now. She's angry and asks if it's just a no win situation (SOUNDS FAMILIAR) but he says there is a solution. Something Riker said makes Troi run back to the Holodeck and take the test again. This time she orders Geordi to his death and saves the ship. Riker congratulates her and says she's a full Commander now. After blowing up the ship three times. Data invents new scientific techniques to determine that the metal is giving off invisible particles (it's radioactive.) A mob shows up and hits Data in the face, exposing his circuits. Jaden/Data comes to see the little girl in a hood because he doesn't want to frighted her. He has a cure for the illness and has to put it in the town well. Treeger impales him with a big pole after he dumps the cure in the well. Picard (he's in this episode!), Riker and Bev go to the planet in disguise looking for Data (why did they wait so long?) and the little girl tells them where Data is buried. They beam Data up and repair him. He can't remember aything that happened. Troi tells Data, who is just recovering from a brain injury, to call her sir.
I have to admit, I always quite liked the Data story in this episode. I liked how the blacksmith always called him "ICE MAN" and how he made a fool of the local doctor with his superior knowledge. The Frankenstein like scene with the angry villagers is fun too. Watching it again it's still a fairly fun subplot...but it's kind of pointless? Data doesn't remember anything about it in the end. Everyone in the village thinks he's dead. They don't learn a lesson about not killing strangers and Data doesn't learn anything either. But hey, it's still fine. The Troi plot is the controversial part of the episode. In theory it's a good plot, I like the idea of Troi trying to better herself. But it should have been a season long plot, not something that happens all in one episode. It seems ridiculous that she gets four attempts at the final test and then OUTRANKS DATA at the end of the episode. Even though he's been a senior bridge officer for seven seasons and she's been one for five minutes. Is she third in command now? Can anyone just go on the Holodeck and kill Geordi and get to be a full Commander? It's silly, though the scenes between Riker and Troi are good as always. So yeah it's a pretty average episode.
SCORE: 6.5/10
Masks - Troi is teaching art to some children (one of her new important Bridge Officer duties?) Data's there too and she tells him to sculpt "music" for her. Something weird happens to the Enterprise when it scans a comet. A sculpture appears in Troi's quarters. Data makes a sculpture of a mask that his a similar symbol on it as Troi's sculpture and symbols start appearing on the computer too. Data somehow knows what the symbols mean. The Enterprise finds an alien object in the middle of the comet and Data thinks it's an archive of an alien civilisation. Data says "I do not know" a lot and asks Geordi what it feels like to lose your mind. One of the symbols appears on his forehead and he starts talking in a different voice. He says "Musaka is waking" but won't really explain what that means. More personalities appear and Picard tries to question them to find out what's going on. The archive starts to somehow transform the Enterprise into an alien city, which means a lot of aliens bricks and vines lying about the place and some snakes in Engineering.
Picard thinks Musaka is the key and questions Data's multiple personalities again. They're all scared of Musaka. Brent Spiner does a good job making them all seem different but man is it boring. One of them is killed (I guess) but tells Picard important infromation about a symbol first. They create Musaka's temple to draw her out. They try to figure out what more symbols mean. Picard realises it's all about the sun and the moon. They talk about more stuff and make another mask appear. Data sits in Musaka's throne wearing a mask and Picard arrives in the other mask, posing as the moon or the sun or whatever I don't care. Everything goes back to normal for reasons. Data asks if he's been dreaming again. Data keeps his mask and Patrick Stewart tries hard to convince the viewere there was a point to all this.
It's funny how the set up for this episode is pretty similar to 'The Innner Light': alien artifiact somehow transfers the history of its people to a main cast member. The difference is that 'The Inner Light' was great in all ways and actually used its sci fi premise to say something about the human condition whereas this is BORING AS FUCK. Like you'd think Brent Spiner playing a whole load of characters would be fun, but they're all just saying vague things about Musaka rather than doing anything interesting. Then Picard just randomly puts a mask on and everything goes back to normal. It's completely lifeless and just as bad as 'Sub Rosa' and I'm struggling to type this because I'm so tired.
SCORE: 0.5/10