First Contact: The Next Generation Introcast

Riker can’t sleep. You can tell because his hair looks messed up. Even worse, he’s late for meetings, probably the worst thing you can do on board the Enterprise. He could end up on Voyager for that kind of performance. But he’s not the only one. Multiple crew members are experiencing lost time, including Data, and they’re also getting feelings of dread when they see scissors and shiny surfaces. Deanna puts all her training to work and brings together all affected on the holodeck to recreate their experience. Turns out they all remember was a table with some arms, a light and some unpleasant noises. It seems like they’ve all been to the dentist. Could they all be the victims of alien abductions? And they’ve been doing weird experiments, maybe with probes. Look, it was in the air, The X-Files came out the next year. Noticing that other crew members are missing, apparently that’s not automated, Riker takes a stimulant to stay awake so he can face his captors next time he’s kidnapped. Oh, there’s also a weird wobbly space hole showing up in one of the cargo bays. They’re probably related. I’m not sure, I fell asleep. 

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The Enterprise is answering a distress call when they encounter a Dyson Sphere, not a hand dryer but a gargantuan ball built around a sun designed to house a vast population. They find the source of distress, it’s a transport vessel, the Jenolan, that crashed 75 years earlier. An away team investigates and discovers that the transporter has been rigged to store a pattern over the long term. They dematerialise and it’s Captain Montgomery Scott. You know Scotty? He was in Star Trek. The original Star Trek. No, not Simon Pegg. After the ship crashed, he worked one of his miracles to try and survive, but his friend Franklin didn’t make it. On board the Enterprise, he wants to help in engineering, but his knowledge is out of date and his lack of professionalism annoys everyone. So he gets drunk and visits the holodeck, which is what most people in the 24th century are probably doing at any one time. Speaking to Picard, he confesses that he feels obsolete, so the captain asks Geordi to take him down to his old ship and try and fix it to get the scans. Look, it’s busy work but it’s better than nothing. While they’re down there, the Enterprise then gets sucked into the sphere and is propelled towards the sun? Can Scotty prove his worth once again and save the Enterprise-D? 

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The Enterprise transports Ambassador Alkar and his elderly mother to a mediation on a warring planet. The man is clearly a bit sinister and so Troi is obviously drawn to him so he can do something nefarious to her. That’s really just her role in this show. After his mother dies, he performs a ceremony with Troi and after that, she just camps it up and puts on some fabulous outfits. But she’s also ageing rapidly and sleeping with younger crew members like she’s Riker. It turns out that he’s such a good negotiator because he channels all his negative emotions into women and that makes them age for some reason. The best way to stop him is to kill Troi and everyone seems fine with that. And before he can perform the ritual on a new woman, Troi is resuscitated and he starts to age like he drank from the wrong grail cup but much cheaper. And then Troi gets young again and everyone is relieved because older women don’t belong in the workplace. 

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The Enterprise investigates a missing ship, the USS Yosemite, which is stuck in a plasma streamer with the crew unaccounted for. With weird space rays making a shuttle trip or use of the transporter impossible, Barclay suggests tying the two transporter systems together so that they can get through. But the trouble is, that will make the process take double the time and Reg has a fear of transporters this week. While in the beam, he sees some unconvincing special effects and starts to question his sanity. But when he starts glowing all blue, the crew work out that there are lifeforms in the plasma (aren’t there always) and that they’ve been caught in the transporter. Going back in and being terribly brave, Reg cuddles the giant transporter worm and beams back a missing crew member. And we all learned something about facing our fears. 

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The Enterprise is called back to Earth after someone finds Data’s head in a cave while doing an archaeological dig along with evidence of aliens on Earth some 500 years ago. Some cellular fossils lead them to Devidia II (the best Devidia) where Data gets sucked through a time hole and arrives in San Francisco in 1893. There, he tries to track down the aliens, claiming to be a Frenchman and winning money playing poker. And what’s a trip to the past without encountering a famous person? Look everyone, it’s Samuel Clemens and he’s friends with young Guinan. Back on the Enterprise, the crew plan a holiday to the past and Guinan tells Picard he better go or they might never meet. So Worf gets sent packing and everyone else goes back in time for a fun romp, but will they catch the aliens? Will they find Data? Will something interesting happen with Guinan? And can Data get his head back on? Yes, yes, no, yes.

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After doing some space stuff to bulk out the Captain’s log, the Enterprise encounters a probe of unknown origin. It emits a pulse which hits Captain Picard. He awakens on an unfamiliar world and is told his name is Kamin, an iron weaver recovering from a fever on a pre-warp planet called Kataan, and he’s married to Eline. Picard is initially is reluctant to accept this as truth but finds the people to be peaceful and friendly. As the years pass, he comes to accept his new life, has children with his wife and finds solace in playing his flute, but he has concerns about the future of the planet due to the ongoing drought. Over the years, he investigates the cause all while losing friends and family. He eventually discovers that the planet is dying due to the changes in its sun. A probe is launched… the probe the Enterprise encountered right at the beginning of the episode. Picard wakes up back on the Enterprise with a lifetime of memories, forever a changed man… until next week.

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Geordi and Ro are killed in a transporter accident as the Enterprise tries to help a stranded Romulan vessel. But are they really dead? They’re both still around but no one can see them. Ro thinks she’s a ghost but Geordi thinks it would be weird to be dead and have a VISOR and clothes. However, he decides to keep them on anyway. Due to some weird Romulan science, it turns out they’re actually cloaked, but a new kind which means they can pass through matter. Meanwhile the Romulans are plotting to blow up the Enterprise for some reason, and only the ghost people know. And it’ll blow as soon as they go to warp. Can they get solidified again before the Enterprise gets there? Or at least before Riker has to deliver a eulogy?

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While scouting a system for colonisation, the Enterprise here’s a distress call. Upon answering, they find a lone surviving Borg, Third of Five. Against protests, Crusher insists on trying to help him, eventually bringing him on board the Enterprise. Troi thinks Picard may experience trauma with a Borg on board but he insists that he’s fine, but decides to use the Borg to send a virus into the collective and wipe them out for good. However, while studying him, Geordi bonds with him, even naming him Hugh, and he begins to show signs of becoming an individual and understanding life beyond being a Borg. Even established Borg hater Guinan starts to think he’s a fairly decent dude. Can they really send him back to his demise? Or even worse, to return in a disappointing season six episode? 

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The Enterprise is exploring a nebula when it runs into a plot from an 80s children’s show.

Starfleet brat Clara has trouble making friends as her father moves around so much so she mostly plays with her imaginary friend Isabella. But when a glowy ball from the nebula comes on board, Isabella suddenly becomes real and makes Clara go to places she doesn’t want to go and starts harassing anyone who gets in her way. Troi’s hot chocolate gets horribly spilled, so she has some chocolate cake as comfort and contemplates her depth of character. Anyway, the nebula starts to damage the Enterprise and the creatures suck the energy from it because they see them as a threat or something, until Picard has a heartfelt conversation with the child and sorts out the misunderstanding.

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The Enterprise is transporting a Kriosian ambassador and his cargo to negotiate peace with their distant relatives, the Valtians. But before they can get there, they have to answer a distress call from a Ferengi shuttle, to remind viewers that they exist before Deep Space Nine premieres next season. Their accident was a ruse and they were really interested in the precious cargo – a woman! It is revealed Kamala is a metamorph who empathically senses what men around her want and becomes their perfect partner. She’s been promised to the Valtian ambassador and her personality will become fixed as she matures. Following an accident, the ambassador is seriously injured leaving Picard to carry out negotiations but he must work closely with Kamala to learn the traditions and rituals vital to the negotiation, but can he resist her charms? If only Troi was around to help with all this empath stuff.

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