Category: Season 04

Stardate 44631.2: The missing starship Brittain is found by the Enterprise, but Riker and an away team find that the entire crew of the Brittain went berserk and murdered one another, leaving a single survivor – a Betazoid who can’t speak and whose telepathic “ramblings” to Troi are puzzling. When the Enterprise is immobilized by a dangerous natural phenomenon, no one suspects that the survivor’s riddles may have some meaning, and members of the crew begin hallucinating slowly edging toward the same kind of madness that drove the Brittain’s crew to kill themselves…

teleplay by Pamela Douglas and Jeri Taylor
story by Shari Goodhartz
directed by Les Landau
music by Ron Jones

Guest Cast: Rosalind Chao (Keiko), John Vickery (Andrus Hagan), Duke Moosekian (Lt. Gillespie), Craig Hurley (Ensign), Brian Tochi (Ensign Lin), Lanei Chapman (Ensign Rager), Colm Meaney (O’Brien), Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan), Deborah Taylor (Captain Zaheva)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Stardate 44664.5: Starfleet officers who were on an away team five years ago investigating a mysterious migration of previous explorers to the planet Tarchannen 3 are beginning to mutate into alien life forms and migrate to the planet themselves. Among them are Lt. Commander Leitjen, visiting the Enterprise, and Geordi La Forge. While Dr. Crusher keeps Leitjen in sick bay when her mutation begins, Geordi’s mutation goes unchecked and, more alien than human, he beams to the surface to join the other members of the away team, who have fully mutated.

teleplay by Brannon Braga
based on a story by Timothy de Haas
directed by Winrich Kolbe
music by Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Maryann Plunkett (Suzanna Leitjen), Patti Yasutake (Nurse), Amick Byram (Lt. Hickman), Dennis Madalone (Transporter Technician), Mona Grudt (Ensign Graham)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Stardate 44704.2: Shortly after very nervously performing a scene from “Cyrano de Bergerac” with Dr. Crusher, Lt. Barclay is assigned to accompany Geordi on a close examination, via shuttle, of an alien probe that has impeded the functioning of a subspace telescope array. But after being scanned, the probe somehow singles Barclay out to receive a massive mental “upgrade,” doing away with the lieutenant’s legendary reclusiveness and shyness, and replacing those traits of his personality with knowledge and learning abilities beyond human experience…and arrogance.

written by Joe Menosky
directed by Robert Legato
music by Ron Jones

Guest Cast: Dwight Schultz (Lt. Barclay), Jim Norton (Holodeck “Einstein”), Kay E. Kuter (Cytherian), Saxon Trainor (Lt. Larson), Page Leong (Ensign Anaya), David Coburn (Ensign Brower)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Stardate 44769.2: After an apparent sabotage of the Enterprise’s warp drive committed by Klingon exchange officer J’Ddan, Starfleet sends Admiral Nora Satie out of retirement to investigate the possibility of a Klingon faction cooperating with Romulans. But Satie goes beyond that, accusing a shy junior crewman of Romulan collaboration and even accusing Captain Picard of aiding Romulans and the Borg.

written by Jeri Taylor
directed by Jonathan Frakes
music by Ron Jones

Guest Cast: Jean Simmons (Admiral Satie), Bruce French (Sabin Genestra), Spencer Garrett (Simon Tarses), Henry Woronicz (J’Ddan), Earl Billings (Admiral Thomas Henry), Ann Shea (Nellen)

Notes: This episode begins a build-up to the season finale dealing with a possible Romulan-Klingon alliance. It was also the last episode of Next Generation to be scored by composer Ron Jones, who was fired by the producers for consistently disregarding instructions which Jones said were cramping his musical style.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Stardate 44805.3: Kalon scientist Dr. Timicin has beamed aboard the Enterprise to travel to a star much like his planet’s own sun to conduct tests of a modified photon torpedo that could reduce the level of solar activity – something that needs to be done within decades, or Kalon II’s sun will explode, eradicating his people. When the test fails, Timicin continues, but he is due back on Kalon II so he may carry out the Resolution – a traditional Kalon ceremony in which one ends one’s life by painless suicide at sixty. Lwaxana Troi, also visiting the Enterprise, tries to convince Timicin to continue living, although his request for asylum from his people could result in war.

teleplay by Peter Allan Fields
story by Ted Roberts and Peter Allan Fields
directed by Les Landau
music by Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: David Odgen Stiers (Timicin), Majel Barrett (Lwaxana Troi), Michelle Forbes (Dara), Terrence E. McNally (Science Minister B’Tardat), Colm Meaney (O’Brien), Carel Struycken (Mr. Homn)

Notes: Dennis McCarthy’s score was nominated for an Emmy in 1991.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Stardate 44821.3: Ambassador Odan is being transported to the Peliar Zel system to attempt eleventh-hour mediation between civilizations on two moons. One society’s new power source may mean long-term pollution and deterioration of the other society’s world. Odan intends to settle the dispute, and on the two week trip he and Dr. Crusher have fallen in love. But when a faction of radicals attacks the shuttlecraft Odan has insisted upon taking to the surface of one of the moons – he refuses to use the transporter – Odan is severely injured and is forced to reveal that he is, in fact, a Trill – an alien symbiont within a humanoid host body. When Odan’s fellow Trills cannot send another host in time to save the parasite’s life, and a countdown to war begins on the two moons, Riker risks his own life to serve as a temporary host.

written by Michael Horvat
directed by Marvin V. Rush
music by Jay Chattaway

Guest Cast: Franc Luz (Odan), Barbara Tarbuck (Governor Trion), Nicole Orth-Pallavicini (Kareel), William Newman (Lathal Trose), Patti Yasutake (Nurse Ogawa), Robert Harper (Lathal Bine)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Stardate 44932.3: During the Enterprise’s investigation of a dark-matter nebula, Lt. Jenna D’Sora, recently having broken up with a longtime boyfriend, becomes attached to Data, who at first protests that he has no human feelings, and then attempts to emulate emotions. In the meantime, the density of the matter in the nebula pulls off an astonishing disappearing act – making an entire class-M planet fade from existence. And whatever caused that is in the path of the Enterprise.

written by Joe Menosky and Ronald D. Moore
directed by Patrick Stewart
music by Jay Chattaway

Guest Cast: Michele Scarabelli (Lt. Jenna D’Sora), Rosalind Chao (Keiko), Colm Meaney (O’Brien), Pamela Winslow (Ensign McKnight), Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan), Majel Barrett (Computer Voice), and Spot

LogBook entry by Earl Green