Scotty!
The third of the original crew to turn up in Next Generation, and the only one to get a story about him – Bones got a cameo, and Spock got a lot of Romulan politics. Here the story is squarely about Scotty, and coming to terms with his usefulness in the new world.
The first half of the episode was a bit odd – while I can understand that Scotty was in a bit of shock, we haven’t seen him before as a rambling old man (closet alcoholic, sure, and there was nothing here to disprove that). It just felt out of character for him to be so oblivious to others when he was reeling off stories, something we’ve never really seen him do before. But the second half of the episode, with Geordi and Scotty developing a friendship, was a much better story.
And I loved the callbacks to the older episodes, it was nice to see some acknowledgment of the original series, which often gets short shrift in the Next Generation.
238 down, 499 to go.