Ouch. Not a good season. There are a few pretty strong moments, such as the Romulan/Cardassian 2-parter, *Shakaar* and *Visionary*. But there is nothing close to the great episodes of the previous season. And against that there are some real stinkers – *Fascination* and *Meridian* are the two worst, but the surplus of Ferengi episodes (*House of Quark*, *Prophet Motive* and *Family Business*) is pretty bad as well.
There seems to have been a deliberate attempt to reboot the show in a few respects, such as adding the Defiant. But there seems to be a lot of missed opportunities. The best stuff in this season has been when the ongoing plots of the Dominion, the Cardassians and Bajoran politics are used. But instead we spend too long with the Ferengi, and too long with generic episodes that could be in any series.
One trend I did like was the few quieter episodes, such as *Explorers* and *Facets*, where character stuff was allowed to happen without big threatening situations. Some more of that would be good, although the attempts so far haven’t bought in enough character to compensate for the loss of action.
Overall this is the weakest season since TNG’s second, and right now the trajectory of quality is not looking good.
So now we have the master list as:
– TNG Season 6
– DS9 Season 2
– TNG Season 3
– TNG Season 5
– TOS Season 2
– TNG Season 4
– TOS Season 1
– DS9 Season 1
– VOY Season 1
– TNG Season 7
– DS9 Season 3
– TNG Season 2
– TAS Season 1
– TOS Season 3
– TAS Season 2
– TNG Season 1
That’s 375 watched, 16,811 minutes, and 51.55% complete. 59,103 words written. 362 to go.