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Family ( #StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 2) Picard Retreats to Family Vineyard

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. Still recovering from his ordeal with the Borg, Picard visits his brother at the French vineyard where they grew up. In his boyhood village, Picard’s roadside encounter with his nephew Rene is just perfect, as are the domestic scenes with his warm sister-in-law Marie and his brittle, jealous older brother Robert (in a region of France where people speak in various British dialects). A…

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The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2 ( #StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 1) Your resistance is hopeless, Number One.

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break After a tight recap of Part 1, we pick up where we left off. The jerry-rigged deflector dish weapon unleashes all its sparkly-glowy MacGuffinality at the vessel containing the Borgified Picard, and — nothing. “Your resistance is hopeless, Number One,” Locutus intones, borrowing Picard’s nickname for Riker. Chills! On my rewatch it bothered me that the Borg vessel departs without trying to finish off…

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The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1 ( #StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 26) We Have Engaged the Borg

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break The Enterprise-D finds a crater where a colony used to be, then apparently does nothing for a few days until a team from Starfleet Tactical arrives. Because it will soon be dark at the site, and tricorders apparently don’t work at night, Riker says they’ll wait until morning, and suggests a poker game. Admiral Hanson pressures Picard to kick Riker off the Enterprise and…

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Transfigurations (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 25) Injured Humanoid Charms Beverly, Glows

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. A low-key story that revisits the “corporeal species evolving into a higher form” trope, this time from the perspective of Dr. Crusher, who observes the physical process, as an injured humanoid with lumpy face bumps gradually starts to glow. Not a great episode, but new to me, so a treat to watch. A nicely framed shot of a row of mountains at first looked…

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Ménage à Troi (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 24) Lwaxana, Ferengi, Chess, and Poetry

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. The teaser features Picard fibbing awkwardly to evade Troi’s mother Lwaxana, nicely setting up a later scene when he woos her with snatches of Shakespeare and Tennyson — first clumsily, then enthusiastically, as part of a ruse designed to… oh, nevermind why. Seeing Picard save the day with love poetry is well worth the cringeworthy setup. (And the scene also provides the visual for the…