Join or Sign In
Sign in to customize your TV listings
By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.
Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 Episodes
Season 3 Episode Guide
26 Episodes 1989 - 1990
Episode 1
Evolution
Sat, Sep 23, 198946 mins
The Enterprise brings eminent scientist Dr. Paul Stubbs to the site of a binary star system, expecting a massive stellar explosion to occur in a few hours. He has waited many years for this event and has devoted his entire life to its study. The Enterprise, however, begins to suffer a series of malfunctions, some minor but others far more serious. Wesley may be responsible for all the problems on the ship due to his experiment in nanotechnology escaping the lab. Fearing that the attack on the ship might prevent him from completing his experiments, Stubbs takes matters into his own hands, making matters worse. Meanwhile, Dr. Beverly Crusher, returned to the Enterprise after a year at Starfleet Medical, is concerned over her presence limiting son Wesley's development. Can a 17-year-old boy develop normally if his mother is always around him?
Episode 2
The Ensigns of Command
Sat, Sep 30, 198945 mins
After a century of silence, the Enterprise receives a message from the Shelia system informing them that they have discovered a human colony on a world in their sector. As they will be colonizing the planet themselves in four days time, they want the Enterprise to evacuate all humans from their territory. The planet in question is in a high radiation zone and no one can understand how any human could be living there. Data, immune to the radiation, is sent to the planet to arrange for the inhabitants' departure. Once there, however, he finds a population of 15,253 who firmly have no intention of leaving. While Picard seeks a way to get more time from the Sheliak, Data enlists the help of one local to convince the rest to leave.
Episode 3
The Survivors
Sat, Oct 7, 198945 mins
Responding to a distress call from Rana IV, a Federation colony under attack from an unknown alien ship, the Enterprise finds the surface of the planet destroyed, except the house and lot of one couple, Kevin and Rishon Uxbridge, who refuse to be evacuated, but why were they spared by the mysterious alien enemy? Their music box's melody haunts telepath Deanna Troi pathologically. After Lieutenant Worf stakes his reputation of thoroughness on his search as to the enemy ship being gone, it suddenly appears; Captain Picard decides not to follow it but return to Rana IV, where Rishon overcomes Kevin's reluctance to welcome them, even bearing a most useful matter replicator, he is an extreme pacifist. After an even stronger starship knocks their shields out, Picard takes surprising action...
Episode 4
Who Watches the Watchers
Sat, Oct 14, 198945 mins
The "Enterprise" is to provide technical assistance to a 3-man anthropological field team on the planet Mintaka III, which is observing, in hiding, the Vulcanoid Bronze Age native population. When the holographic hiding place is ravaged by an explosion, the landing party and its advanced technology are observed by two natives, one of whom, Liko, gets hurt badly and is beamed up for life-saving treatment; Picard orders his short-term memory wiped out to prevent a breach of the Prime Directive, but that fails as Commander William Riker and Counselor Deanna Troi find out, after they are beamed down again, temporarily altered to resemble Mintakans, to look for missing anthropologist Palmer. The culture now revives an abandoned belief in a supernatural overseer, worships the Picard, and soon considers offering Counselor Troi as a human sacrifice.
Episode 5
The Bonding
Sat, Oct 21, 198945 mins
Beaming down to the ruined planet of the Quaenonians, a race extinguished by self-destruction, an Enterprise landing party loses in an explosion the life of the crew archaeologist Lt. Marla Aster, who leaves behind a teenager son, Jeremy. After Lieutenant Worf, the Klingon orphan raised by humans who commanded his mother's landing party, talked with Jeremy, while Wesley Crusher, the crew member closest in age to the boy, still needs to consider how to share the experience of being orphaned, suddenly a woman appears, who pretends to Jeremy to be his late mother, coming to take him to their new home on the planet, where some activity is observed, which even taps into the ships own energy. When Deanna Troi convinces the boy neither his mother nor a safe home on the planet can be real, she disappears, the ship is attacked, she reappears and an energy form intrudes the Enterprise. Maybe persuasion works better in his interest on Jeremy's would be-substitute mother, who explains the planet's history?.
Episode 6
Booby Trap
Sat, Oct 28, 198945 mins
The Enterprise encounters a rare antique starship from an extinct culture floating in an asteroid field but becomes trapped by the same energy-draining booby trap that killed the other ship's crew. While running simulations of the Enterprise's engine abilities on the holodeck, Geordi, who has been going through some romantic woes, finds himself unusually taken with a holographic simulacrum of Dr. Leah Brahms, the ship's engine designer.
Episode 7
The Enemy
Sat, Nov 4, 198945 mins
Responding to an unidentified distress signal from the inhospitable planet Galorndon Core, deep in Federation space, a landing party finds a crashed Romulan vessel and brings in one badly wounded survivor, but Geordi La Forge, who fell in a deep crevice, failed to beam back up during a storm, and non-cranial brain injury to the Romulan suggests he too is in danger of magnetic radiation. Data intercepts a Romulan ship signal announcing it will pass the neutral zone in six hours; Picard forbids that but must promise to deliver the wounded, after recovering Geordi. Despite the Romulan's assurance, Geordi is surprised by an armed other Romulan survivor and is blinded by the radiation; they should collaborate to survive. Klingon Lt. Worf proves the only possible donor to save the captive, but objects to helping the species which killed his parents. The Romulan rescue ship's commander Tomalak being found a liar and most impatient, Picard fears a casus belli.
Episode 8
The Price
Sat, Nov 11, 198945 mins
The Enterprise hosts diplomatic negotiations while in a stable orbit around the planet Barzan, which is badly dependent on external supplies, for control of the one thing which would render it truly viable: a single stable wormhole, perfect for travel all the way to a distant quadrant. Federation delegate Seth Mendoza is informed by Data that the technologically backward Barzanians' observations are fallible, the wormhole may actually prove instable; Data and Gordi test it themselves, to determine its real value. Counselor Deanna Troi falls madly in love with a mysterious sherpa, Devinoni Ral; after sharing his bed, she realizes he shrewdly uses his empathic abilities to read and play into his opponent's emotions, wrestles with the ethics, and must decide whether to use her own...
Episode 9
The Vengeance Factor
Sat, Nov 18, 198945 mins
The Enterprise is transporting the Sovereign Marouk in an attempt to get a break away group of her people to return to the fold, so to speak. They broke away almost 100 years ago and and are now known as the Gatherers, a band of scavengers forever raiding and scavenging anything they can get their hands on. Marouk is prepared to offer them an amnesty but there is a great deal of mistrust between them. Commander Riker meanwhile takes an interest in Marouk's cook Yuta, but the attention of the crew is diverted to finding a saboteur when one of the Gatherers is killed.
Episode 10
The Defector
Mon, Jan 1, 199045 mins
Data was discovering the human condition by Shakespearian acting, when Picard gets informed a craft entered the Neutral Zone. It's identified as a Romulan scout, which claims to need urgently asylum from a persecutor. The wounded Setol gets it, and warns the Romulans nearly finished building a base on a planet in the Neutral Zone, in order to occupy it and from there strike 15 neighboring Federation zones with a fleet of war birds, which would mean another full war, but still remains rather defensive, at times hostile. Commander Riker and counselor Troi are charged with questioning him further, in case it's a ploy to lure them into the zone as a war pretext. The admiralty refuses the Empire's demand to return the defector, and orders Picard to find out if the threat is real. After technological means came to contradictory conclusions, Setol discloses his real identity, and that's not the last surprising twist...
Episode 11
The Hunted
Mon, Jan 8, 199045 mins
The Enterprise arrives at planet Angosha III, which wants to join the Federation. While their PM Naydor stresses pacifism and intellectualism, prisoner Roga Danar's escape from a maximal security facility is reported; the Enterprise undertakes to capture his cargo vessel, but it eludes the starship at an asteroid; after more tricks, the prisoner is beamed aboard and stunned with great difficulty. Danar has no life signs, his record is military. It is found he was in a program to turn unknowing Angoshan volunteer army recruits into perfect soldiers, by chemical and mind programming. He means it when he says he would rather die then return as prisoner, proves a master at escape and then surprises again...
Episode 12
The High Ground
Sat, Jan 27, 199045 mins
When most away-teams are visiting the Ruthian planet under civil war since 70 years between two continents, Dr. Crusher is taken hostage while attending local wounded by an Ensata (western continent) autonomist faction of the ruling government which uses terrorist techniques such as bomb attacks. Her son Wesley Crusher is assigned to Lieutenant Worf's technology team, and spots radiation traces indicating the use of life-threatening dimension shift techniques abandoned by Federation research because of the health toll, which fit perfectly the Ruthian government's nightmare, 'inverters' used by the Ensata revolt to dodge all scans. Her keeper Kyril Finn, the Ensata leader, shows the great need for medical aid their side is not getting from the Federation, alas the inverter causes DNA warping she can't treat, and explains how he hopes to make the Federation end the bloody conflict at last. Discussions and attacks go on...
Episode 13
Deja Q
Sat, Feb 3, 199046 mins
The Enterprise assists the planet Brial 4 which is threatened by its moon which falls onto the Western continent, reason unknown and impossible to shatter without even greater damage. The tractor beam proves too weak; then suddenly the dreaded Q appears aboard, naked, claiming to be stripped of his omnipotence too, thrown out of the Continuum and forced to chose a mortal life form: human. While Q makes a brilliant engineering suggestion and wrestles with the human condition, the Calimarane, a species with a grudge against him, and next a deus ex machina appears...
Episode 14
A Matter of Perspective
Sat, Feb 10, 199046 mins
Approaching the space station on planet Tanaga 4, the Enterprise gets a message from local Dr. Nel Apgar, but before he can speak it explodes. The ship is visited by the planet's chief investigator, who wants to arrest Commander William T. Riker for murder after he was overheard threatening Apgar, the accuser being his present widow, Manua Apgar. The captain refuses to extradite Riker to a legal system which operates on the presumption of guilt until proven innocent, so he allows only an investigation on board, for which Data provides ample technological assistance, reproducing the station on the holodeck. Riker had a secret mission there concerning the development of a low energy converter, and was seduced by his host's wife Manua Apgar, with whom the scientist 'cought' him. According to data from the planet, the fatal energy burst, of an unidentified nature, started from the spot Riker stood just at the time of his transporting to the Enterprise. After energy strikes on board, the truth is discovered...
Episode 15
Yesterday's Enterprise
Sat, Feb 17, 199046 mins
The Enterprise is observing a celestial anomaly, something akin to a wormhole when a starship appears having traveled through it. To everyone's surprise, the ship is an earlier version of the Enterprise, the Enterprise-C commanded by Captain Rachel Garrett. The instant the Enterprise-C arrives however, history is changed. Captain Picard and his Enterprise are battle weary with the Federation having been at war with the Klingon Empire for 20 years. Lt. Tasha Yar is alive with Lt. Worf nowhere to be found. Guinan knows something is wrong and Picard realizes that the Enterprise-C must return to its own time and place if their time line is to be restored.
Episode 16
The Offspring
Sat, Mar 10, 199045 mins
After a visit to a cybernetics conference on an asteroid belt, Data returns and presents the human crew to the android Lal, which he considers his child. Captain Jean-Luc Picard is appalled, to Data's utter surprise, that life was created without prior permission of any kind. Meanwhile Lal is allowed to choose, advised by Data and Troi, its own gender and racial appearance - human female. Data and others find educating and refining her software fascinating, but she makes progress no-one anticipated. Admiral Anthony Haftel comes to investigate, is impressed but wants this unique specimen removed from her 'parent', which proves no lesser drama than in a human family.
Episode 17
Sins of the Father
Sat, Mar 17, 199045 mins
Commander William T. Riker is charged with hosting Klingon commander Kurn, who takes his place as first officer as part of an exchange program. As expected, his ruthlessly authoritative command style gets on everyone's nerve, but the worst is yet to come: Kurn reveals himself as Lieutenant Worf's younger brother, and demands he joins him in dealing with a blood feud, as their late father's honor is challenged by accusations of treason to the Empire in league with the Romulans during a bloody attack. The Enterprise sets course to the Klingon first city, while Picard fears legal and diplomatic repercussions. Data finds indications the Klingon records were doctored, possibly at Klingon High Council level, so the Enterprise crew sets out to find out the truth...
Episode 18
Allegiance
Sat, Mar 24, 199045 mins
An unknown force transports Captain Jean-Luc Picard out of his quarters into a closed cell, where he joins three other captives of different races, including Federation cadet Mitena Haro, who have very different temperaments and mistrust each-other, but have no hope to escape unless they manage to collaborate. Meanwhile a perfect replica of Picard takes his place aboard the Enterprise, but Commander William T. Riker soon suspects he's too perfect and a danger for the ship...
Episode 19
Captain's Holiday
Sat, Mar 31, 199046 mins
After Doctor Beverly Crusher insists that Captain Picard is in need of recreation after exhausting negotiations between two hostile planets, the crew manages to make him accept a stay on a well-reputed holiday planet where Commander William T. Riker gets him to pick up a local souvenir statue, without telling him it is the accepted means to call for sexual gratification. After he brushes off obliging females, Picard is approached by several people, including two aliens from the future, who draw him into a quest for a mythical weapon - just the adventure he needs to refresh and revive him.
Episode 20
Tin Man
Sat, Apr 21, 199045 mins
The Enterprise takes on a Betazoid passenger, Tam Elbrun, and sets off on a mission to meet a new life form dubbed Tin Man. The cone-shaped object is in orbit around a sun in territory claimed by the Romulans. Tam Elbrun is in contact with the creature but even he is having difficulty dealing with the vast knowledge Tin Man seems to hold. Counselor Troi knows Tam, who was born with his telepathic abilities turned on, something that most Betazoid children, who normally get their abilities at puberty, will not be capable of managing and which often leads to death. Tam and Data go aboard Tin Man and Tam makes it clear that he has no intention of leaving. All the while, the Enterprise has to deal with Romulan war birds.
Episode 21
Hollow Pursuits
Sat, Apr 28, 199046 mins
Lt. Reg Barkley is a self-conscious somewhat neurotic new arrival on the Enterprise. He's always late for meetings and usually mumbles and fumbles his way through them when he's there. Commander Riker and Lt. Commander La Forge actually ask Captain Picard to transfer him out but the Captain tells Geordi he should try harder and help the young officer along. Reg spends a great deal of time in the holodeck where he has created a Walter Mitty-like fantasy world where he is the major player and those around him - holographic representations of fellow crew members - are his minions. When the Enterprise is apparently infected with a substance that cannot be scanned with normal systems, it's Reg who manages to identify it.
Episode 22
The Most Toys
Sat, May 5, 199045 mins
A presumed routine transport of material from a Federation-friendly planet to the Enterprise goes suddenly wrong as the shuttle craft explodes. Android Data is presumed killed in the accident but actually finds himself kept captive on a starship by Kivas Fajo and his assistant Varria, who have an impressive collection of contraband treasures, but refuses to be a valued capture and attempts to escape. On board Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge and Wesley champion the thesis that its doesn't fit with Data's android nature after careful examination of all recordings...
Episode 23
Sarek
Sat, May 12, 199045 mins
Spock's father Sarek, the legendary Vulcan ambassador, now remarried to another Earth-woman, Perrin, boards the Enterprise to crown his career -before retiring - by finalizing painstakingly prepared peace negotiations with the Legarans. His chief of staff and personal assistant asked Sarek to be given maximal rest in view of his weak health, but he insists on attending the ship's Mozart concert starring Data as violin soloist in his honor, and is seen there to cry, unknown for a Vulcan. Over the next several days more crew members display unprovoked aggression, even toward friends and relatives. Data gets an entourage member to confirm a medical theory: Sarek is affected by the rare Bendii Syndrome, which causes old Vulcans to lose their most-prized emotional self-control, and telepathically spreads the epidemic. Picard must think of the negotiations with the probably susceptible Legarians, which cannot be delayed, while Sarek denies his condition, alas tellingly emotionally; once he admits it, a daring alternative is conceived.
Episode 24
Ménage à Troi
Sat, May 26, 199045 mins
At the closing reception of a biennial trade conference, for the first time attended by the Ferengi race, Counselor Deanna Troi's mother, a full-blood Betazoid, scorns the advances of a Ferengi. When mother, daughter and Commander William T. Riker take shore-leave during a routine mapping voyage, he seizes his chance to kidnap them, and is found to have a practical motive beyond sexual attraction. Meanwhile young Wesley Crusher passes his tests for promotion to field ensign, but only then realizes he's rather likely to be assigned to another starship for further training...
Episode 25
Transfigurations
Sat, Jun 2, 199046 mins
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge is in love but too timid to talk to Christy Henshaw. When a space ship's escape pod is found crashed on an uninhabited planet, he is part of the landing party and has his brain connected by Dr. Crusher to the injured sole traveler, but 'John Doe' makes a massive contact and soon recuperates physically at amazing speed by mysterious cell structure mutations. He has amnesia and by instinctively touching a wounded patient proves able to heal instantly. Geordie and Data examine an unusual memory storage capsule from the pod, which allows estimating his origin, but he refuses to return, and causes his powers to manifest themselves differently. At approach, his home planet Zarkon demands his extradition as escaped criminal, to be executed...
Episode 26
The Best of Both Worlds
Sat, Jun 16, 199045 mins
Admiral J. P. Hanson personally boarded the Enterprise to join the investigation of a destroyed Federation-colonized planet, suspecting the feared Borg. Before this is confirmed, he points out Commander William T. Riker has for the third time refused a command, preferring the Enterprise. Shortly after an enormous Borg ship is found, it engages in battle with the Enterprise, which draws it away. Novel tactics are conceived. Captain Jean-Luc Picard is ordered to come aboard for unprecedented discussions, and kidnapped when he refuses. He finds they tolerate no resistance, and intend to turn him into a Borg. Riker suddenly finds himself acting captain....
