This batch of episodes definitely made up for some of the stinkers in the last batch.

"The Drumhead" has always been one of my favorite episodes and it is even more relevant in the wake of September 11th. All you need is one evident to trigger everyone's paranoia and mistrust. The desire to prevent tragedies from occurring can sometimes lead to overreactions (I'm looking at you Patriot Act) that can cause more harm than good. Our friend at sfdebris made the point in his review that no external force can destroy the foundations of a society: we do that all by ourselves and this episode showed that. The spy was caught in the very first scene but his actions triggered such fear and suspicion that it ruined one crew member's career and almost took down Picard. Though this was a bottle episode the both Satie and Picard were forces of nature and played off of each other very well.

"Half a Life" I know that I have dissed Lwaxana Troi from the get-go but in this episode she was really good. If the writer's just treated her like a regular person and not a cartoon character maybe she would have been more effective. This episode highlighted the fear of growing old and how society's deal with their elderly populations. Forcing everyone to commit ritual suicide at age 60 certainly wouldn't be my advice but Timicin's critiques of nursing homes and family burdens were poignant.

"The Mind's Eye" is there a single character on this show that hasn't been tortured at one time or another? This would be why there's a counselor on board. This time Geordi is tortured and in true Manchurian Candidate fashion, he is brainwashed by the Romulans to assassinate a Klingon diplomat. The sequence were Geordi kills O'Brien is quite chilling and a cool homage to Candidate.

"In Theory" Data tries to have a romantic relationship. It's always nice to see Michele Scarabelli with hair. You can really understand each character based on the advice they gave Data regarding his relationship. On the plus side, Spot finally got a name and Patrick Stewart makes his directorial debut here. The episode has an interesting premise - we know Data is fully functional thanks to season one and we know that Data doesn't have feelings so there's no way a romantic relationship will end well. Watching the train wreck as it happens is no less interesting.

I wanted to do a separate post on "The Host" cause there's a lot going on and a lot of problems. To be fair to the writers, most of my issues with the episode have to do with cultural issues and unforeseen circumstances.

So Crusher is all twitterpatted with a Trill named Odan and he's in love with her too. Once he's injured in an accident we learn that Trills are a joined species and that the person Crusher's in love with is merely a host. When "Odan" is transferred into Riker, things get complicated. Riker becomes Odan and all of those feelings are still there. Here's my first problem. We know that Riker is only a temporary host so Crusher's should I or shouldn't I tap that confusion seems out of place. Crusher even tells Troi that she thinks of Riker as a brother and we assume he feels the same, any attempt to resume a romantic relationship with Odan while he is in Riker's body just seems wrong on so many different levels. What happens when Riker is fully in control of his body again and has the memories of his relationship with Crusher? Crusher's actions were unfair and selfish on so many different levels. All she had to do was hold her water for nine days until the host arrived.

This brings me to my second issue. So Odan's new host arrives and *gasp* *horror* it's a female! Crusher is so taken aback that she breaks off the relationship. Trek was so forward thinking in terms of race and gender but Trek stayed far, far away from sexual identity. That is one thing that has always disappointed me - every show has its blind spots.

My last issue could not have been foreseen by the writers so I don't blame them. My problem is with continuity. Thanks to DS9 we know more about the Trill and wow are there massive differences that in retrospect make no sense at all. Why didn't the DS9 writers use this episode as a basis for the Trill species? Granted, I prefer the DS9 Trills but now when I see this episode I can't help but think about all the continuity errors it brings up.

It's still a good episode but in retrospect, it's a dated episode.

They actually tested Terry Farrell in the TNG Trill makeup but changed to the spots when they realized they were covering up a beautiful woman's face with ugly prosthetics.

Yeah, Terry Farrell was too cute to cover up with a bumpy latex forehead.

The Trills sort of remind me of the Ferengi, where they introduced an alien species that nobody knew much about, only to carry the species over to DS9, and retcon away the TNG origins.

In DS9, we are told that Dax goes back almost a century with the Federation, and that Ben Sisko has known Curzon Dax for a long time. Yet in TNG, nobody knew that the Trills were symbiotic species. We're also shown in TNG that the slug is the dominant personality, yet DS9 treats them differently in this regard.

Likewise, in TNG, nobody had seen what a Ferengi looked like, but in DS9 one has been a bartender for decades in space where the Federation was active. Also, it's difficult to imagine that nobody in the Federation could know what they looked like when they're scavengers and salesmen. Sort of hard to be reclusive when you travel around selling shit.

This was my problem (I had forgotten about the spots until Defiant1 mentioned them). Curzon had been a Federation diplomat for crying out loud but apparently nobody knew about Trill physiology? You think it would have come up with Curzon applied for the job. Hell Sisko would have mentioned it in a log entry somewhere.

Odan claims a transporter will kill him and yet, this issue wasn't mentioned by either Curzon or Jadzia (who at the very least would have been finishing up at Starfleet Academy at this point in the timeline).

I can almost forgive the who is the dominant personality: the host or the symbiont switch. Ont he other hand, it might have made a way more interesting plot point in "The Host" to see Riker grapple with his feelings for Beverly vs. Odan's feelings. This would have been a cool way to end the episode with Riker left with both sets of feelings and then we could have avoided the "I refuse to be in love with a girl" ending we got instead.

All this is hindsight so it's not really fair to jump all over the TNG writers for issues DS9 caused. It's just one of those things fanboys and fangirls can get our underwear in the bunch about.

So this post won't be a total rant, I watched "Redemption" Pts 1 and 2. We finish off our Season 4 family theme. Worf is reunited with his brother (hello again Tony Todd, we missed you) and Tasha Yar has a Romulan daughter (yikes), and the Duras sisters and their cleavage bring an heir to the throne. We continue to learn that even though the Federation bills itself as a progressive organization that seem to have an unusually large number of bigots in their ranks (seriously, you don't want to take orders from the android whose service record probably runs rings around yours). I love that Data asked Picard point blank about why he wasn't assigned a ship for the mission. Just because Data doesn't have feelings to be hurt doesn't mean you get to discriminate against him Jean-Luc. Thankfully Worf regained his family's honor and the Klingons can get their crap together.

I'm headed to a conference so no episodes until Sunday or Monday. Then I return to "Darmok" (I love Paul Winfield).

I don't remember if they explicitly said why he accepted it, but probably because it was a promotion. He went from transporter operator/part time engineer to chief of operations which was basically the station equivalent of chief engineer.
Plus maybe he thought helping bajor recover and maintaining the peace treaty would help him overcome any lingering emotional issues

In any case making an enlisted person a primary character was a big step for Trek. Although "crewmen" had been mentioned here and there they always made it seem like starfleet was all about the officers and was really officer heavy

I'm back and I missed watching Star Trek. I probably wouldn't feel that way if it was an actual vacation though.

"Darmok" I love this episode and I loved Paul Winfield. How do you communicate with someone when the language structures are completely different? Speaking in metaphors and allusion could not have been easy for Winfield (how does an actor deal with the fact that he/she does not quite know what the hell they're talking about).

"Ensign Ro" welcome back Cardassians and hey, hello Bajorans! Another really cool episode that is a great lead-in for DS9. It was cool to see a character that wasn't in the same Starfleet cookie cutter mold as most of the other characters. I was a bit surprised that Riker made Ro Laren remove her earring since we learn that it is a religious symbol. Way to be inclusive TNG.

"Silicon Avatar" welcome back Crystalline Entity. This was an odd episode. On the one hand, once again you have someone being really rude to Data for dumb reasons (just because Lore is an ass doesn't mean Data is). On the other hand, you feel bad for Marr in the scenes where Data tells her about her dead son. Even with that sympathy, the fact that she had an emotional breakdown and kills the Entity makes me shake my head. I love that Data set her straight at the end.

"Disaster" why, why, why do the writers insist on pairing Picard with children? It was cute the first time but it hasn't been cute since then. We also learn what I'm sure most viewers knew all along: Troi shouldn't be on the bridge because she is incapable of making command decisions. She knows nothing about the ship or its functions despite her Lt. Cmdr. rank. We did have a nifty jump between O'Brien and Keiko getting married and their baby being delivered in this episode (that pregnancy came out of nowhere). Worf and Keiko's interactions were the most interesting of the episode.

"Congratulations, you are fully dilated to ten centimeters. You may now give birth."

Worf was an awesome straight man.

"The Game" oh the return of Wesley Crusher which I'm sure made folks groan. Though I've never had any problems with Wesley, this episode was still pretty awful. The entire ship save Wesley and Ashley Judd get addicted to a game which turns them into traitorous addicts? Not buying it, sorry.

"Unification Pts 1 & 2" and the return of Sarek, Spock, and Sela. I was always fond of this two-parter. Watching Sarek suffer from the equivalent of Alzheimer's was sad to watch but very well played. The final scene of the episode where Picard lets Spock share a mind-meld to learn Sarek's feelings was beautiful and well-played. Seeing Stewart and Spiner in their Romulan makeup was amusing.

"A Matter of Time" wasn't a bad episode but it wasn't a good episode. After "Unification" it just sort of fell flat. I can understand why someone from the 22nd century would want to steal Data and other random equipment but the Enterprise crew just seemed to take Mosely's word for it. This was the same problem I had with "Captain's Holiday:" someone claims they're from the future and you just accept it? Come on, show me a bit more skepticism.

"New Ground" welcome back Alexander. We saw Worf deliver a baby in "Disaster" and here we get to watch him struggle to be a single-parent. The writers really didn't need the B story of the Wave experiment to put Alexander's life in danger. It would have been more interesting to watch Worf and Alexander struggle to build a relationship without the melodrama. I get the feeling sometimes that the writers just didn't think that some of the characters were interesting enough to carry an entire episode.

Continuing with our traumatized child theme of the evening we have "Hero Worship" where the kid tried to become Data to keep from dealing with the loss of his parents. This reminds me of the Season 3 episode "The Bonding" where the kid clings to Worf instead of dealing with the loss. Watching the young actor mimic Data's quirks was interesting.

Moving from traumatized children to traumatized adults in "Violations." Troi, Riker, and Crusher in up in comas after having disturbing memories implanted into the subconscious. Watching a memory of Crusher and Picard viewing her husband's body was an interesting piece of backstory. You would think the culprit would have known better than to choose three senior officers for his mental assaults: that just invited unwanted attention but the writers have to choose known characters so the audience can sympathize. I know the writers originally thought Ro or O'Brien would make good victims and I think background on their characters would have been more interesting than Troi or Riker here.

Finally a little less trauma! "The Masterpiece Society" gives us another side of genetic engineering (Khan can't be the final word on the matter). Now we get a look at a functional genetically engineered society which raises all sorts of questions that got side-stepped in "Space Seed." The really interesting questions posed in this episode deal with ending though. So the Enterprise notices that a star fragment is going to destroy this colony and they offer to help. Because this colony has shunned contact with the outside world, the Enterprise's presence causes folks to question their lives and they want to leave. If folks start leaving the colony, the colony may not be able to sustain itself. Picard rightly questions whether or not their arrival helped or harmed the colony.

Now this doesn't seem to me to be a Prime Directive situation. It was my understanding that the Prime Directive applied primarily to pre-warp drive societies. Do I have that right? Clearly this is a human colony and while they are a bit behind technologically, they aren't a pre-warp society. Even though Picard seems torn about this issue the fact of the matter is, the colony would have been destroyed if the Enterprise hadn't helped. That would have sucked. They are genetically engineered semi-super humans so I'm sure they can adapt to some missing pieces. You can't really adapt to extinction. Picard could have ignored the requests for asylum (he's certainly condemned folks to worse fates in the previous seasons). I guess this boils down to the ST 2 mantra of whether or not the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few.

If so, I agree with them. I never enjoyed the Alexander episodes.

I wasn't referring to Alexander, I meant Worf. The episode itself wasn't really about Jr., it was about Worf adjusting to being a working single parent and connecting with his son. I think Worf is interesting enough to carry an entire episode.

For some reason "Conundrum" isn't available on Amazon so I had to skip it. I'll come back to it later.

"Power Play" so Troi, Data, and O'Brien are possessed by criminals and try to take over the ship. I'm sure those actors enjoyed getting out of character for an episode but otherwise, it wasn't particularly interesting. When you have five names on the writing credits, that's usually not a good sign.

"Ethics" see, this is what I mean about Worf being able to carry an episode. Add to that the discussion surrounding the ethics of assisted suicide and you have a really interesting episode. Riker's almost irrational reaction against helping Worf vs Picard's acceptance of Worf's cultural ideas made for an interesting dynamic. I wonder if this episode was written today, would it have the same visceral reaction toward Worf's decision. It was thoughtful to have Picard point out that Worf must really trust and respect Riker to have asked him to help with the ritual and Riker found a creative way of getting out of it.

"The Outcast" I go back and forth on my interpretation of this episode but at the moment, I see it as Trek batting 0-2 when it comes to sexual identity ("The Host" being the first disappointment). On the one hand the writers did show the fear and prejudice that sexual minorities face. On the other hand, the whole episode seems to be such a cop-out. Forget the ending where sexual identity can be "cured" which is problematic in an of itself, we go back to one of the big problems with "The Host." We get an entire episode where Beverly is in love with this person until that person becomes a woman. Riker knows the J'naii is an androgynous race and you can tell throughout the episode that they are attracted to each other but they only act on that attraction after Soren goes on this long soliloquy about how she is female. It was also really interesting that when Riker is talking about gender and sexuality in humans, the entire notion of same-sex relationships is nowhere to be found.

I didn't really buy the relationship between Riker and the k.d. lang-looking alien. She was just not his type at all. It might have worked better with someone like Geordi.

the sfdebris episode for "the Outcast" mentioned Geordi as a more appropriate love-interest for the J-naii. making that change wouldn't have helped the homosexuality analogy the writers were going for (because that was dead in the water for a whole host of other reasons) but it may have made for a more believable story.

"Cause and Effect" it was so much fun to watch the Enterprise blow up over and over again. A cool time-travel episode without the paradoxes. It was fun to watch the same scenes over and over again but with the new twists each time.

"The First Duty" Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, you shouldn't let Tom Paris, I mean Nicholas Locarno talk you into doing stupid crap. it was cool to finally see Starfleet Academy and to finally meet Boothby. It was all noble for Wesley to tell the truth but Locarno was right, there was no evidence to prove what they'd done, hell, the Admiral had already delivered her ruling before Wesley grew a conscious. On the other hand, Locarno showed what a real tool he was by asking Wesley to resign from Starfleet rather than tell the truth. It was a cool performance though, I can see why Robert Duncan McNeill was offered a role on VOY.

"Cost of Living" Oh goodness, a Lwaxana Troi episode. Pairing her with Alexander did not make her likable.

"The Perfect Mate" hey Famke Janssen playing a mutant before X-Men! Another interesting case of we can't impose our values on other cultures episode. Beverly frames Kamala as a glorified prostitute and Picard falls in love with her but doesn't interfere. I think making her mate an ass was a bit of a cop-out. Riker did bring the funny by basically announcing to the bridge he was going to the holodeck for some alone time after being aroused by Kamala - "if you need me, I'll be in holodeck four!"

"I Borg" gets its on entry because there's a lot to say.

iIn some ways I am really disappointed in this episode. I think the writers took a completely badass villain and basically neutered them. The fact that the Borg were a collective that couldn't be negotiated with, didn't care about individuality, and basically where every being was hellbent on a single goal, made them a perfect antithesis to the Federation. Now we have Hugh.

The writers were going for some passive-aggressive commentary on prejudice but it just doesn't work in this instance. I think back to "Silicon Avatar" where the scientist treated Data like a pariah because Lore collaborated with the crystalline entity. That's prejudice: basing your assumptions about an entire group of people based on your experiences with an individual from that group. Because the Borg ARE NOT INDIVIDUALS, the prejudice argument isn't applicable here, at least not at the beginning of the episode. What we has was Beverly imposing her values of individuality onto a group that didn't believe in it. Granted, once Hugh was no longer a Borg, then both Guinan and Picard had to stop treating him as if he were a Borg. That's not prejudice, that's transference. It would be like me hating cats because I once got bitten by a dog. Don't get me wrong though, the scenes between Guinan and Hugh and between Picard and Hugh are really well done and the discussion about whether to use Hugh to destroy the Borg posed an interesting moral dilemma.

Even the moral dilemma had some issues. Beverly and Geordi kept framing Hugh as an innocent which wasn't exactly accurate. Hugh was young but they had no idea how long he had been a Borg or how many people he had assimilated and/or killed. So they end up sending Hugh back to the collective hoping that when they download the individuality lessons Hugh learned, the Borg will be what, infected with individuality and suddenly grow a conscious? They assimilate individuals, who have all sorts of individuality, by the thousands. If individuality were somehow contagious, I think the Borg would have caught that cold already. Why didn't they ask Hugh about infecting the collective with the original virus they came up with? By the end of the episode Hugh recognized the danger the Enterprise was in by helping him, why not give him the option of stopping the Borg from assimilating anyone else? Hell, why not implant the virus in the eyepiece of one of the dead Borg? The senior staff was so focused on the individuality issue that they let the "do we have the right to kill the Borg" issue just lay there.

The how far are you willing to go to stop an enemy is an interesting question. Since this isn't the last we see of the Borg, you gotta wonder if Picard regrets this decision. I think about the DS9 episode "By The Pale Moonlight" which asked a very similar question (and was also a much better episode).

Paris is Locarno
and not just due to the same actor and both being pilots.
there is also this
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tom_Paris

they should have simply kept him as locarno and had him be chakotay's pilot or something as the means to bring him onboard

Rumor has that Locarno (from The First Duty) was supposed to have been the character that Robert Duncan McNeil played, but they created a new character instead because they would have had to pay royalties on the character to the writers of "The First Duty."

It's also been said that the Enterprise character T'Pol was supposed to be a young T'Pau (from Amok Time), but they created a new character for the same reason.

There is some validty to these theories because on one of the commentary tracks on the "Angel" DVDs, the writers are joking about royalties on the character Dennis the Ghost who haunts Cordelia's apartment and "appears" in several episodes.

When I get to VOY I'll check the Companion to see if there's an official story about why they changed the name. The backstory of Paris and Locarno is way too similar and I certainly don't doubt that money was the issue.

"Imaginary Friend" I actually watched this yesterday but forgot to write about it. As you can tell, it made quite an impression. Star Trek meets The Bad Seed in a nutshell. This episode also highlights the script by committee problem: way too many writers do not make a better story.

"The Next Phase" you can't go killing Geordi and Ro! Well they weren't dead just cloaked and Data threw them a really cool funeral. One random plot point that's bugging me. In this episode Picard mentions that Riker has known Geordi longer than any other person on the Enterprise but if I remember correctly, Riker treated Geordi rather rudely in "Encounter at Farpoint." Just because they have a long relationship doesn't mean it's always been a pleasant one I suppose.

"The Inner Light" right up there with "Measure of a Man" and "Best of Both Worlds" as one of the best TNGepisodes. Wonderfully touching story, decent aging makeup, and a powerful ending. My only complaint, and it isn't a big one, was mentioned by someone earlier in the thread. Living out Kamin's life had a profound effect on Picard but they never mentioned it again. When DS9 went a similar route with "Far Beyond the Stars," the writers referenced what Sisko experienced multiple times throughout the remainder of the series. Seeing Kamin's flute from time to time just doesn't do the experience justice.

"Realm of Fear" hello Barclay, nice to see you and your transporter phobia again. I'm glad Barclay ended up being the hero though I could have done without O'Brien's spider at the end of the episode (like O'Brien, I'm not a fan of arachnids).

"Man of the People" wow I'm not sure what to say about this episode. It seems like an out of control, supernatural remake of Fatal Attraction. Troi dismissing her ensign when Riker arrived was kinda bold but otherwise, it was Troi chewing scenery.

Maybe they didn't like the name 'Locarno' as a series regular. Its fine for a 1 episode deal but being stuck with a character named that for a whole series was something they didn't want. Paris just sounds better maybe.

I wanted to save my "Time's Arrow" rant for a separate post. First, I think it was more obvious in this two-parter than it was in "Best of Both Worlds" that the writers finished part one without any thought about part two. That's not my main issue though. This episode suffers from what I'm calling the Captain American Syndrome. Captain America wasn't the first movie/TV episode to do this but it is the most recent incarnation.

This syndrome occurs when white writers create stories taking place in the past and either through ignorance of history or some misguided desire for diversity, they ignore racial reality. In "Arrow's" case, I can understand Clemens throwing a party for Guinan: he was an ardent supporter of civil rights and women's rights. What is unbelievable on so many different levels is that Guinan's picture would be on the front page of the local newspaper and that she would be able to roam around San Fran without incident. To add to that, Picard, who seemingly knows American History, let Geordi cross over to the 19th century and again, faces no hostility at all. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? If Guinan and Geordi were south of the Canadian border during that time period, their lives were in danger for no other reason than they had really good tans. I know that the premise of Trek is that by the 23rd and 24th centuries, humanity lives in a color-blind society, but to pretend that the United States was color-blind in the 19th century is total BS.

Louis CK has this awesome skit where he talks about time travel being a white privilege because black folks can't travel to any period before 1980. He's right, and "Time's Arrow" totally ignore that reality. Picard sends Worf back to the ship with some story about the safety of the Enterprise being important but seriously, we all know that having a Klingon walking around San Fran in the 1890s wouldn't be a good idea. Having Geordi stay behind in the caves and figure out a way for them to get back to their present actually would have made more sense from a story standpoint than to have him walking around in the past bringing attention to their group. Geordi wouldn't have been allowed in that hospital and he wouldn't have been allowed in that boarding house. Racism wasn't just in the south and it bugs me to no end when pop culture re-writes history (I'm still looking at you Captain America).

Sorry...rant over.

"Relics" Scotty is such a fun character. I liked him in this episode and the idea of Scotty roaming the galaxy warms my heart. My only issue was with Geordi: he came off as such an ass toward Scotty which seemed a tad out of character. Geordi is the character who has patience with everyone, even Barclay for crying out loud, why would he get all huffy with Scotty?

"Schisms" this episode reminded me of The X-Files with the whole alien abduction thing. I know the writers wanted to do more "high-concept sci-fi" stories this season but as usual, time and budget constraints get in the way. The episode just fell flat to me.

"True Q" OK this episode confused me. So there's a human on the ship who exhibits Q qualities. Got it. Q comes along to assess whether she's fully Q or just a hybrid. Got it. If she's not a full Q she'll be executed. Hold up, doesn't compute. If having a renegade Q is such a problem, why not just take their powers away? We saw this happen to Q so why didn't they do this to Amanda's parents or Amanda herself? Something else confused me as well but I have to throw up a Voyager spoiler alert.


"Rascals" more children...really? The Ferengi as villains again...really? The younger Picard screaming "daddy" at Riker, that was kinda funny.

It's amazing that I'm just now starting to get burned out on TNG episodes. Thankfully, I can see the finish line from here.

"Fistful of Datas" you know, sooner or later someone will fix the damn holodeck. Nice to see Spiner getting to stretch his legs a bit by playing a lot of different roles. Westerns aren't my favorite genre but this ep. was a nice homage. I also have to do a small mea culpa here. I complained that the show basically forgot the events of "Inner Light" but Picard was playing his flute in the beginning of this episode. The writers still could have done more though.

"The Quality of Life" Another interesting episode that grapples with how we define life. Not nearly as compelling as "Measure of a Man" but still thought provoking. Given how many different lifeforms the Enterprise has encountered, it seems odd that the crew would so easily dismiss the possibility that the bots were sentient. The fact that one of the bots gave its life to save Picard and Geordi might make them think twice before judging what's a life form.

"Chain of Command Pts 1 & 2" The first part of this trio is basically set-up and that's fine. Ronny Cox plays an excellent ass in these two episodes. I know Picard, Crusher, and Worf were chosen for the op for very specific reasons and the Cardassians counted on Picard's expertise but there wasn't anyone younger or in better shape that the Federation could send running through underground tunnels? Part 2 is really where the meat of the story is and man does it foreshadow the intensity we get in DS9. The torture scenes with Stewart and Warner were amazing. It really illustrates the bias the TV Arts & Sciences folks have against sci-fi that Stewart wasn't even nominated for this performance. Picard's admission at the end of the episode that he thought he saw five lights was just heartbreaking.

"Ship in a Bottle" I have mixed feelings about this episode. One the one hand, I tend to think of this as another holodeck malfunction episode. Moriarty is back, leaves the holodeck and holds the Enterprise hostage until they release his girlfriend. On the other hand, after watching the sfdebris discussion of this episode, I can see why people appreciate it. Moriarty is a formidable villain even though in this case, all he wants is the freedom Picard promised him so it's not like he was being unreasonable. I think if this episode hadn't been so close to "Fistful of Datas" I might appreciate it more. After awhile you just get tired of the holodeck. I do have to say that Barclay quote to end the episode was so perfect and couldn't have been delivered by anyone other character.

"Aquiel" Star Trek meets Laura. This started off as an interesting episode but once we got into the whodunit and Aquiel actually showed up, it was all downhill. Seriously, the dog did it? I liked the dog more than pretty much anyone else in the episode.

one of the things I liked about "Ship in a Bottle" was Moriarty calling them out on not doing anything since his last appearance. It was cool both from an in universe perspective as well as real world since there were many times when stuff happened on trek that was never mentioned again or the characters made obviously empty promises.

Why not just build an android body for him? I know Soong type androids hadn't been able to be duplicated yet but that little mini-holodeck at the end was small enough to fit in a body and it obviously had the processing power necessary for Moriarty's level of sentience plus the environment it was simulating