Strange first episode to start a season, but the increased budget makes the show look MUCH better. Also, Riker has the beard, Guinan is now part of the crew in Ten Forward, Geordi is chief engineer, Chief O’brian is manning the transporters, and Wesley isn’t wearing that dumb rainbow outfit. However, I never liked Dr. Pulaski because she’s too 20th century ignorant and abrasive and even a little racist, though Diana Mulduar is a better actress than Gates McFadden.

The Neutral Zone sets up the Romulans which sort of bookends DS9 with whom they form an alliance with against the Dominion, of which Marc Alaimo, here a Romulan, will play Gul Dukat who fights that alliance. Strange that this as the season ender is not a cliffhanger, but I’m glad I got through the whole season and can finally get to where the show gets consistently good.

Conspiracy was in one way super idiotic, but on the other it had an exploding head straight out of a Cronenberg film. Mostly it was just idiotic, however. Too bad they didn’t think of shapeshifters until DS9 nearly a decade later because them (and the Borg) were the only real threat to the Federation, not a brain controlling beetle.

We’ll Always Have Paris tried to to too much and didn’t do anything really well. To bad, too since the Manheim experiment was a cool idea.