Thanks. If you think I'm too eager to be in a debate, you wouldn't be the first person to think that and you'd probably be right. I love talking about Star Trek and find this particular subject fascinating.
I envy you meeting the cast. I haven't even ever met "my cousin" Gates.

Considering what your family did for you, you might find it interesting that despite the fact that I was very openly a huge Star Trek fan, my mother waited until TNG was off TV for about 10 years before she casually dropped into conversation one day, "Y'know, you have a relative that was on a Star Trek show."

Gates McFadden is your cousin?

I like the story in Peak Performance, but it doesn't really make sense what Star Fleet thought was going to be proven in a "war game" exercise between the Fleet's flagship and a broken down antique.

They realized the Borg were insanely powerful, after the ass-beating the Enterprise received in Q Who. They wanted to know how quickly an outmatched ship would go down and if the crew could manage to pull a rabbit out of their hat (which they ended up doing in Best of Both Worlds 2).


Oh, another thing from Peak Performance we saw later in the series - Riker picks Worf as XO over Geordi (because he's busy in engineering) and we see this later in The Most Toys when Data is presumed dead they promote Worf to Second Officer/Ops over Geordi, and in Parallels when Worf is in the reality where Riker is captain, Worf is again the XO.

Second cousin, according to my mom, her cousin's daughter.

Ah I see. Kinda cool.

Let's be honest. The Enterprise was only able to defeat the Borg because the Borg assimilated Picard, then the Enterprise rescued Picard, and then Data is on hand with his completely unique ability to connect to Picard and access the Borg subspace network.
Riker deserves credit for his bold tactics rescuing Picard, but it wouldn't have mattered if Data hadn't been there.

They ended up playing it kinda loose with the chain of command. Scotty and Trip, the chief engineers, were third in command line on TOS and ENT.
Data at Ops was third in command line in TNG, but Georgi the chief engineer was fifth(?) behind Worf at tactical/security.
On VOY, Tuvok at tactical/security was third in line.

Probably better than asking her if you can see proof that she is a natural redhead.

That’s cool. I recently purchased a couple Trek autographs from an online deal (GalaxyCon Online). The autographs have JSA Certificates of Authenticity so even though I wasn’t there getting them they are the real deal. Got Jonathan Frakes and William Shatner. I’ve been thinking about getting some of the other cast members too. Maybe eventually.

Whose mess of a signature is that in the lower left?

Edit: I suppose that's Levar's. Eesh.

Yeah, I think it must be LeVar.

I thought that LeVar only played a blind character ... not wrote like one

If anyone is in the mood to watch TNG lately, may I recommend watching this two very similar-in-theme-but-insanely-different-in-quality episodes: "Shades of Gray" (season 2) and "The Inner Light" (season 5). Watch them back to back and see if your head doesn't explode in the realization that these two episodes belong to the same series.

Inner Light is by far my favorite episode of the series. Probably alone in this.

In case anyone doesn't know, there was a writer's strike happening for part of the second season, that's why it's shorter, reuses a TOS Phase Two script (The Child, Uhura would have been the pregnant character) and why Shades of Gray had to happen (they needed something to fill airtime).

It's definitely up there for me. I think Darmok represents Roddenberry's ideal of cultures putting aside great differences to come together and I personally love how it deals with language and storytelling. I like Disaster similarly, because it's just people needing to come together to solve a non-anthropomorphic problem, while stepping outside their areas of expertise.

The Inner Light is a heartbreaking reflection on legacy and the importance of culture.

Yeah, Disaster seems to have a mixed acceptance in some parts of the fandom. I just rewatched it recently also and it's still a very interesting and enjoyable story. It also brought up something that I find interesting. In this episode, Ensign Ro is surprised to learn that Deanna is not just the ship's shrink, she is a commissioned officer (Lt. Commander, O-4 I think), and thus becomes the ranking bridge officer during the crisis.

And then, in Chain of Command when Jellico takes over the Enterprise, he calls Deanna into the ready room and says something like "I was looking at your record and it says you're a commissioned officer, so I want you in proper uniform".

What these two things taken together tell me is that it's regular practice on some Starfleet ships to have ship's psychiatrists serving (and giving the captain advice on the bridge), that are civilians. Most people seeing Deanna Troi in one of her non-descript jumpsuits consider her just an advisor, like Neelix, Kes or Seven of Nine were on Voyager. So, that's why Ro and Jellico were surprised to learn she's an Academy trained officer also.


And the episode also sets up the amazing callback on DS9 when O'Brien tells Bashir that Worf delivered Molly and Bashir asks Worf if he wants to help again with Keiko's next baby and Worf practically throws himself out an airlock to keep that from happening.

Has any other TV show had such a dramatic upswing in quality like Star Trek: The Next Generation? This isn't a rhetorical question. I'm really curious, because I can't think of another.



Without belaboring things further: the best example is how Q is utilized in the early seasons compared to the later seasons:

I remember Season 1 as being pretty bad except for the crossover episodes with Buffy.
The show improved, and S 3-5 were great.

That episode is probably in the top five of every list of best TNG episodes.

That's one of the funniest moments. Worf didn't want ANYTHING to do with delivering another baby!

Fair enough. That show indeed got better as it went along. However, I don't think the quality turnaround for Angel was quite as *massively* dramatic as it was for TNG.

In fact, they call a moment in pop culture when the property get's better: RIKER'S BEARD (as the opposite of "Jump the Shark") : https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...er%27s%20Beard

Also, I think this show got *way* better after it's awful first season (at least before it went to TBS) :

Cool. I like Star Trek but I am not an expert. Glad to see it is well regarded. The concept to me is amazing.