A Brief Guide to Star Trek

cyber-conversion modus operandi were restated in the Borg’s process of physical assimilation.
    Communication and contact with other cultures was always central to
Star Trek
and it provides the dramatic thrust to some of the best episodes of
The Next Generation
. Iconic among them is ‘Darmok’, essentially a two-hander between Stewart’s Picard and an alien starship captain, Dathon (Paul Winfield, heavily disguised under alien make-up). In a set-up reminiscent of
The Original Series
episode ‘Arena’, ‘Darmok’ sees two antagonistic captains beamed to a planet where they must cooperate (or, in
The Original Series
, fight) to survive. The
Enterprise
has encountered the Tamarians, a race whose language cannot be translated sensibly by Starfleet’s universal translator (a gimmick used to get over the question of why everyone in space speaks American English). Forced to communicate with his opposite number, Picard deduces that the Tamarian speaks in metaphors drawn from his planet’s heroic myths. In trying to communicate with the representatives of the Federation, Dathon is trying to recreate one of his planet’s mythic battles in order to give the humans a shared reference point, and in doing so he and Picard create a new legend of their own. It’s a complex episode, the likes of which would never have been attempted on
The Original Series
, and many fans regard it as one of the best in the entire
Star Trek
canon, including the spin-off shows that came after.
    The original
Star Trek
often focused on finite resources: failing dilithium crystals, colonies running out of supplies or in need of medical aid.
The Next Generation
, however, takes place in a universe of plenty where ‘new’ technology like the replicator and the holodeck caters to everyone’s immediate needs. Turning raw energy into matter, the replicator can provide anything needed by the
Enterprise
crew, from foodstuffs such as ‘Earl Grey, hot’ (as frequently ordered by Picard) to heavy machine parts to repair the ship. Where the original
Star Trek
was outward-looking, with a willingness on Kirk’s behalf to ignore the Prime Directive and interfere in the affairs of other planets (for their own good, of course),
The Next Generation
was more inward-looking, dealing with 1990s concerns likeemotional therapy and bodily health (whether that be the human – or alien – body or that of the
Enterprise
itself ).
    Screened at a time when fear of AIDS was at its height and computers were beginning to make their way into homes and workplaces as tools regular people could use, several episodes of
The Next Generation
saw the metaphor of invasion (by biological or computer virus, alien species or unconscious contagion) drive many episodes. Nanites, parasites and bacteria infect the
Enterprise
and her crew with regularity (in episodes such as ‘Evolution’, ‘Phantasms’, ‘A Matter of Honor’ and ‘Contagion’). Counsellor Troi represented the touchy-feely Californian ‘talk about your feelings’ strain of self-help therapy rampant from the 1970s to the 1990s. Troi is as much about helping others as she is about suffering mental crisis herself, thanks to her telepathic nature. Such disruption of the crewmembers’ otherwise perfect mental states allowed for the kind of character conflict that Roddenberry’s dictates about the twenty-fourth century did not generally allow.
    The Next Generation
took ongoing character development more seriously than the previous show had, in keeping with wider television trends across the 1990s. Characters were treated more like real people than they had been on the formulaic action-adventure shows of the 1970s. Television became more serialised in nature, where incidents had consequences and characters changed rather than reverting to type by the conclusion of any individual episode.
Babylon 5
would be the prime exponent of this in science fiction, while
Deep Space Nine
would take a similar approach in its later seasons.
    However,
The Next Generation
made its own moves in treating its characters more like real people with emotions, wants and desires. Prime among the crew for this serious treatment is Captain Picard. The opening episodes of the show’s fourth season resolved ‘The Best of Both Worlds’ cliffhanger, and Picard was freed from Borg control. However, the show then presented an episode (‘Family’) entirely based around Picard’s emotional reaction to his experience. In his tribute to