by Emily Maesar, Associate Editor, TVJawn

Les Landau, one of the recurring directors on Star Trek: The Next Generation once said that, “the universal concept of what Star Trek is about will endure because it's a timeless story. What Gene (Roddenberry) created, Rick (Berman) has followed up on and Michael (Piller) puts down in words, will endure forever because we’re dealing with universal themes about the human condition.”

It’s a concept that I, quite clearly, believe is true. I wouldn’t be writing about Star Trek every month, and thinking about it constantly, if that weren’t the case. But it’s something that I think really starts to shine through in The Next Generation with season four. Wil Wheaton wasn’t kidding about Michael Piller bringing the series into its own when he took over. This is, far and away, the best season, in its totality, of Star Trek that had existed up to its airing.

Sure there are episodes of TOS that remain outstanding pieces of television. There are even some truly great episodes of TNG, itself, before season four. But, as the series finished out 1990 and started in on 1991, there shouldn’t have been any doubt that The Next Generation was going to be immortal.

And part of the immortality of The Next Generation, by way of season four, is the show’s new found and deep focus on family. It’s even woven into what you might call the season arc, such as they were in the early 1990s. With the Romulan and Klingon alliances setting up the potential to drag the United Federation of Planets back into war with the Klingon Empire, Worf’s family comes into view in ways the series had only hinted at.

In The Continuing Mission, which was a tenth anniversary tribute coffee table book for The Next Generation, they propose that part of what made the fourth season “the best getting better” was the way that the Star Trek fandom was drawn into the heavy family themes of the show. This came in two parts, the first being the actual fandom surrounding the series. Roddenberry created a future where everyone was welcome, especially in TNG, and he built that future around extended (or found) families. And if there’s one way to build a fandom, it’s to give the people a group that they could easily see themselves in. (As a side note, this is true for heterosexual fans, of course, but this is especially true for queer fans… something Star Trek, as a franchise, has a great abundance of!)

The second part concerned the staff of the show. By season four of The Next Generation, the series had found itself with enough material and cultural life that it had its own fans. Not just people who were fans of The Original Series or Star Trek in general, but specifically fans of The Next Generation. And by the time the writing staff came together for the season, the room was filled with them. Scripts bought during what was, quite famously, Star Trek’s spec-script sales, were filling in gaps that Piller couldn’t have anticipated (a huge reason for keeping that program alive for as long as possible. That, and the cost).

This season saw a few big firsts, as well. You have “Brothers,” which deals with Picard’s mental state after the Borg fiasco, which is the first Star Trek episode that doesn’t have any scenes on the bridge. And, of course, “First Contact,” which is about the careful balance of when it’s allowable to break the Prime Directive and contact a civilization for the first time. There’s also a lot of fun stuff with Data this season, including an episode where he does a VO-filled “day in the life,” him getting into his first relationship and not quite understanding it, and the introduction of his precious cat, Spot.

Wesley leaves this season, there’s a captain who thinks there’s still a war on with Cardassians, and there’s trouble brewing with the Romulans. In fact, the whole thing with the Romulans in The Next Generation, but specifically in this season is fascinating because it’s similar to how TOS related to Klingons… but it’s dramatically different. For one, we get to see the Romulans much more than we ever saw the Klingons during their war with the Federation. And for two, it’s infinitely more political. Sure, there’s fighting and war birds and fun stuff like that, but you also have a Romulan spy who was pretending to be a Vulcan ambassador, you have Romulans working with Klingons who wish to separate the Empire from the Federation.

There’s a lot more interesting stuff going on here than just Starfleet fighting in a physical war with the Klingons. Most of which can be attributed to the ways in which the TV era that The Next Generation was being written and produced in was drastically different from the one that The Original Series was being made in. The ability, for instance, to have not only events from previous seasons mentioned, but have impact on future storytelling, is remarkable. And it’s something that I’m not sure Roddenberry could have imagined would be standard back when he created the original crew in the late 60s. And while it wasn’t as standard a practice during TNG as it is now, the new wave of writers and producers on The Next Generation could clearly see the code in the Matrix as they started building the series in the 90s.

And I think any other difference could be explained by the differences in the races within the Star Trek universe, and how they handle war against the Federation. A thing I find endlessly fascinating in the larger building out of Roddenberry’s world. Part of what makes this season of The Next Generation work so remarkably well is that it really shows the struggles between the ideal utopian dream of the future, and the stark reality of what the future might be like. It’s still filled with war, still filled with political intrigue, still filled with inevitable pain and suffering—but it’s truly dreaming, and working hard, to make the future better. To make it the place we always dreamed it could be.

“Fear in the name of righteousness.” That’s something Picard says during episode twenty-one, “The Drumhead.” Directed by the one and only Jonathan Frakes (he’d directed an episode in season three, and directed even more moving forward from there), the episode is a courtroom drama that acts as a money-saving bottle episode. After an explosion occurs on the Enterprise, a Klingon spy is discovered… except he’s spying for the Romulans. Admiral Satie is brought on board the ship to investigate what happened, and starts a witch hunt for the Klingon’s collaborator (who might not even exist), which she takes all the way to Picard.

“The Drumhead” has clear roots in the McCarthy era, even down to the Picard quote. It’s something that was poignant then, and remains evergreen as we move forward into the future. It’s deeply Star Trek in that way, the perfect kind of political intrigue that shows how history repeats itself and how easily personal liberties can be stripped at the will of specific people. It’s also considered, by many publications, to be one of the great Picard episodes. In the lead up to Picard, it was often cited as a “must-watch” episode to understand who the character is. And I certainly agree.

In fact, this season has really put Picard into focus for me in a way I’d actually been missing. I love Patrick Stewart, but something about Picard had always felt a bit too by-the-book, military man to me. Especially compared to Kirk, who was certainly aware of, and played into, the laws of the Federation and the bylaws of Starfleet, but who took a lot of weird swings whenever he saw fit. So, after the fiasco with the Borg, it’s clear to me that Picard has changed. Not in the terrible conspiracy kind of ways that Admiral Satie thinks, but he has experienced a trauma that truly altered him. It also just feels like Piller and company are more willing to play around with him and his choices.

And that’s ultimately what’s so enjoyable about Star Trek: The Next Generation finding its footing during the fourth season. It’s willing to have fun, to tell stories in ways Star Trek simply hadn’t before, and to carry us into the new generation of television. Not to mention it’s got some killer cliffhangers.