This week, we learn a valuable lesson about Johnny Foreigner: he’s just not to be trusted. (God knows how we’re going to get a Federation together.) Still, we manage to enjoy ourselves for a bit.

Star Trek: The Next Generation makes another ill-judged attempt at romance this week, as Beverly Crusher has an eventful two-week relationship with an alien ambassador, Commander Riker, and an attractive young woman, who are all somehow the same person. It all goes as well as you would expect in a series where every episode returns reliably to the status quo before the credits roll.

(Warning: after the closing credits, there are some incidental spoilers for Strange New Worlds Series 2, Episode 7, Those Old Scientists.)

It’s a low-effort week here at Untitled Star Trek Project, as we pour dozens of crisp American dollars into animating a hilarious encounter between Kirk, Spock, some lizard men in nappies, and an alien who can detach his bits at will, and then spend some time wondering why on earth we bothered.

After the Breen attack Starfleet Headquarters on Earth, Ben Sisko (Alan Dale), fearing for the safety of his new wife Kasidy (Lisa Armytage), gets all of her upcoming missions cancelled, with predictable results. Elsewhere on the station, Ezri (Annie Jones) and Worf (Guy Pearce) bicker about her budding relationship to Julian (Peter O’Brien). On Bajor, Kai Winn (Vivean Gray) and her new lodger Anjohl (Ian Smith) are planning to unleash the pah-wraiths on an unsuspecting galaxy. Which puts into perspective the plans of Legate Damar (Stefan Dennis), who merely wants to kick the Dominion out of Lassiter’s so that he can look at himself in the mirror without cringing.

When a Voyager crewmember is killed in a Kazon attack, and his colleagues are forced to sit through the most butt-clenchingly clichéd eulogy in television history, a few of them declare that it’s time to forge an alliance with the Kazon, which seems unwise. What seems even more unwise is Janeway’s decision to ignore everything that history has taught us about white people, as she forges an alliance with the Trabe, who talk nicely and know which knife and fork to use. It all turns out pretty much how you would expect.

Well, everyone hates Genesis obviously, but why? It’s silly, of course, it doesn’t attempt to get the science right, and everyone recovers beautifully during the last ad break. But that’s just Star Trek, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

In the Neutral Zone, the USS Protostar faces off against the USS Dauntless, unable to leave and unable to contact them to explain their friendly intentions. And so they stop for a moment and tell each other sad, funny and beautiful stories from their pasts. Meanwhile, on the Dauntless, we hear a different story, a story of war and revenge, and a plot whose aim is the destruction of the Federation itself.

This week, Enterprise Chief Engineer Charles Tucker III is pregnant, and Nathan and Joe expect to be embarrassed and offended by the result. Instead, they are delighted to find themselves merely bored. (In fact, Nathan thinks the first half of the episode is rather sweet and charming, but he’s an incurable romantic where lizard people are concerned.)

In one episode’s time, Star Trek: Picard will become, for the first time, a television event, but for now, we’ve got some plot to wrap up, some sad farewells to make and a new relationship to start. And a point, however muted, about living an extraordinary life.

It’s a soap-opera extravaganza on Deep Space Nine this week, as Garak reconciles with his long-lost father, Dukat abandons his long-lost daughter, and Julian discovers a scheming lookalike that he never knew he had. Meanwhile, there is a shift in the balance of power in the Quadrant, as the show rewrites its own premise in the way that we have come to admire and enjoy.