Star Trek presents ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.
OK, so the ‘Picard sees an event from the past, and we discover that the event was pivotal to the man that he became’ is a little reminiscent of a certain Jimmy Stewart movie. But it’s superbly done, and the best use of Q so far (so much better than the DS9 episode). The moral is a bit hamhanded, but that’s balanced by the strong sense of the reckless young ‘Johnny’ Picard and the risks that he takes.
The rest of the crew get a couple of minutes between them, and even Q only gets a brief appearance. The episode rests entirely on Patrick Stewart, but we know by now that we aren’t going to have a problem with that.
You have to feel sorry for Deep Space 9 – struggling to get going, while TNG is having (*Aquiel* aside) one of the strongest runs ever.
257 down, 480 to go.