Silicon Avatar Stardate 45122.3: Riker and an away team witness an attack of the crystalline entity that wipes out the vegetation of a whole planet and kills several people, including Riker's acquaintance Carmen Davila. Dr. Kila Marr, whose son was once killed by the crystalline entity when Lore lured it to Omicron Theta, comes aboard the Enterprise. She is very hostile towards Data, until she learns that he has the memories of all killed settlers and is even able to imitate her son's voice. When the Enterprise encounters the entity, Marr takes revenge by destroying it with a graviton pulse that was supposed to be a means of communication.

I've tried to watch this many a time. I really have. I swear I've seen the first twenty minutes of this episode about five times, and then I fall asleep. I then wake up just after Dr. Marr destroys the entity, to see her being escorted off the bridge looking sad.
My conclusion? This is a VERY BORING EPISODE. After the rather thrilling start with people being vaporised by the entity, the episode crawls to a near halt for thirty minutes. Then, after everyone's gotten bored, there's a one minute finale that I saw coming since Dr. Marr started acting hostile towards Data and went on her speel about how her son died.
This raises the question of how stupid the security measures of Starfleet ships are, in any case. Why, even after Picard even noted that her discomfort could affect her judgment, was she allowed to carry out the procedure? And how can someone like her simply "lock out" the controls to a major system of the ship?
Frankly, I'm glad I fell asleep every time I watched this. It was probably the boring actress they got to play the doctor. I can't stand her.
Remarkable scene: Dr. Marr is seen holding her tricorder upside-down in one scene in the caves.
Rating: 0 (Hon. David Kulessa)

The Game Stardate 45208.2: Synopsis in main TNG listing

"The Game" was the first episode aired after Gene Roddenberry's death and is in many ways predicts the way later Star Trek will go. It is crude, with an rather poorly thought out idea--a game that gives pleasure (of a sexual nature, of course) that is addictive and used as a controlling device?--that should not have been seen on a Star Trek episode.
Still, it was saved from being entirely pointless by Wil Wheaton's acting as Wesley Crusher. As always Wil Wheaton does an excellent job and makes the episode almost worth watching for this alone.
And yet, the episode should have been turned down rather than being approved for filming. It is one of the many, many pieces of evidence showing Brannon Braga's complete inability to write anything that is truly Star Trek in nature, and was only saved from being completely stupid by Susan Sackett and Fred Bronson.
Remarkable quote: "Would you like me to leave the two of you alone?" -Riker to Troi as she eats her chocolate sundae.
Rating: 2 (Matthew Carpenter)

The Game Stardate 45208.2: Synopsis in main TNG listing

This episode has to go down as one of the worst of TNG and Star Trek as a whole. I have never been fond of alien takeover stories in general and this variant is utterly stupid. First of all, Riker has to play the fool who brings the game onboard. Why he fell for Etana in the first place completely eludes me. Secondly, it is very annoying that the entire Enterprise crew falls under the influence of the game. What about Worf? Who could force him, a Klingon, to play such a childish video game that looks extremely dated even by today's standards? Guinan seems to be on shore leave but I guess she would have realized that something is going on to soon. And finally, with Data incapacitated it is AGAIN up to Wesley to save the ship. I could give one point to this episode for the return of Robin Lefler but she alone does not save this example of bad writing and acting. Like I said, this is as low as Star Trek can go.
Remarkable error: After Riker, Troi and Crusher have incapacitated Data, Crusher claims that Data came to sickbay and complained about a malfunction. Actually, Crusher called Data to sickbay with Geordi standing next to him. Geordi is listening to her explanation but apparently does not notice this error.
Remarkable quote: "Your neutrinos are drifting." (Robin Lefler) -Now I hate it when THAT happens ^_^
Remarkable ship: The Ktarian ship is an obvious re-use of the Zalkonian warship from TNG: "Transfigurations". The interior seems to have been stolen from a Romulan warbird, especially Etana's chair.
Remarkable fact: The Enterprise is studying the Phoenix cluster in this episode... I wonder if they spotted Lt. Talby ^^
Rating: 0 (Timm)

Conundrum Stardate 45494.2: The Enterprise encounters a probe that wipes out the crew's memories and changes the computer records, and adds a new first officer, Commander Kieran MacDuff. The crew then learns that their mission is to destroy the Lysian Central Command who have been at war with the Federation. While the crew tries to sort out their places and loyalties, the Enterprise easily destroys a Lysian warship and easily reaches the Central Command. After this seems all to easy to Picard and Riker, who also decide not to attack, MacDuff tries to attack himself, but Worf phasers him. It is learned that the Enterprise was "drafted" by the Satarrans, whom MacDuff is a member of, to attack their dire enemies, the Lysians, in an attempt to end the conflict.

Watching this episode again brought to my attention on how this same concept of drafting soldiers through mind control would be used again in the Voyager episode "Nemesis". Only in that case, it was not a whole crew, just an individual, namely Chakotay. It is also similar to the episode "The Hunted" when soldiers are enhanced through genetic engineering.
Another piece of information I noticed was that the model for the Lysian Central Command was the "God Ship" protecting the Edo on planet Rubicun III in the first season episode "Justice".
On more of a personal note, I found this episode fun to watch. I find it interesting that with their memories erased, the bridge crew, or maybe just Worf, decide to put Worf in charge because of his Klingon sash even though Riker points out that Picard has more rank pips than anyone else.
Another curiosity, with the ability to erase memories and the obvious ability to alter the Enterprise computers, is why did MacDuff not make himself captain instead of first officer? He wouldn't have to hope that Picard agrees with him and will just blindly follow orders even after it seems that the Lysians are no match for the Enterprise and for that matter the Federation. I also found it intriguing at how, with their memories erased, Ro and Riker got attracted to each other even though in reality they hate each other. It's also interesting that Ro accepted this occurrence so easily after their memories were restored, I mean she didn't even see to be embarrassed or disgusted.
"Conundrum" is an entertaining episode and a good story. It had an interesting concept and it proved once again how morally and intellectually superior this crew is to most other humans.
Reused ship: The Lysian Central Command is a reuse of the model from the episode "Justice".
Cool effects: I thought that the mind-wiping beam was cool and as always, the discharging starship phasers were impressive.
Just weird: Riker, Ro, love, enough said.
Amusing: The scene with "Data the Bartender" was funny.
Rating: 7 (Nathaniel Scripa)

Cause and Effect Stardate 45652.1: The Enterprise is caught in a repeating time warp in which the ship is repeatedly destroyed. The crew finally escapes thanks in part to their déjà-vu and Data's programming.

Fantastic! Absolutely fantastic! By far the best non-two-parter in TNG. The story was incredibly well written and the acting was superb. The repeating poker game was a nice touch as well as the voices in Beverly's quarters. Data saves the day again with his programmable neural net. A must see!
Kitbashing: The Soyuz Class is really a kitbash of the Miranda Class, with just a few minor changes to the rear.
Effects: The special effects of the exploding warp nacelle and the eventual explosion of the Enterprise are absolutely breath-taking.
Quote: "All hands to emergency escape pods!" -Riker to crew
Another quote: "All hands abandon ship. Repeat, all hands abandon..." -Picard to crew, cut short by destruction of the Enterprise.
Rating: 10 (Nathaniel Scripa)

I, Borg Stardate not given: The crew mollycoddle a teen Borg back to health. How cute.

Plot holes only.
Sisko went ape over a crashed Jem 'Hadar ship in DS9: "The Ship". He explicitly stated that it amounted to possibly the greatest intelligence find in the past 10 years. In BoBW part 2, Data also points out the merits of preserving the regenerating Borg cube for the purposes of studying it.
So why isn't the Enterprise crew salvaging the scout ship and performing autopsies on the other four corpses?
Rating: 7 (Niall Johnson)

 

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