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Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5 Episodes
Season 5 Episode Guide
26 Episodes 1991 - 1992
Episode 1
Redemption II
Sat, Sep 21, 199146 mins
Captain Jean-Luc Picard convinces Fleet Admiral Shanthi that the Federation must no longer maintain neutrality because the Duras side's alliance with the Romulans turns the raging Klingon civil war into sort of a proxy war, which Gowron's loyal side is losing. All major Enterprise officers take starship commands, including Data, who had to ask for this first and immediately faces a transfer request from his first officer, Lt. Commander Christopher Hobson, who has a prejudice against androids, yet Data keeps him on. Picard is startled to hear that the Romulan commander Sela claims to be Tasha's daughter, first thinks it's a lie, then hears Guinan's theory confirmed, which would mean the previous Enterprise is indirectly responsible for the present conflict. Now the civil war is going badly, Worf's loyalty to Gowron and his family leadership are challenged at his own side, he falls in the hands of the Duras sisters, Lursa and B'Etor. Picard coordinates his fleet with Gowron's forces, facing Romulan forces outside Federation space, but Sela decides on an unforeseen strategy, which makes Data's ship's position crucial...
Episode 2
Darmok
Sat, Sep 28, 199146 mins
The Enterprise approaches the uninhabited El-Adrel solar system, near the territory of the enigmatic, presumably pacific race known as the Children of Tamar, which is now establishing contact. Picard expected fairly easy diplomacy, but the Tamarians first have a row at their side, then transport Picard and their own captain Dathon down to the nearest planet surface, which they make impenetrable behind a particle shield, to pit them for a duel, which Picard is unwilling to engage. Both the captain and his crew on the bridge desperately study the Tamarian language, which they find to be unusually focused on mythical narrative, notably the epic of Darmok, which holds the key to its metaphorical 'code', and thus to the whole situation.
Episode 3
Ensign Ro
Sat, Oct 5, 199146 mins
An emergency call from Solarion IV, a colony near the Cardassian-Federation border, is followed by Orta's space-ship's claim to have destroyed it as part of his Bajoran race's struggle to reclaim their ancient civilization's independence from the Cardassians. Admiral Kennelly decides the Enterprise's mission to settle that dispute peacefully requires a Bajoran officer and therefore assigns, without consulting Picard, female Ensign Ro Laren, whom he had to release from jail first, to the whole crew's dismay. After receiving blankets, the Bajoran refugee camp leader Keeve Falor arranges a meeting with Orta. There Picard finds former refugee Ro Laren came with a secret Bajorian agenda herself, but she tells him it's not just hers, the admiral is behind it. Then two Cardassian ships appear and their commander Gul Dolak demands the Enterprise deliver to them the ship of the Bajorans which the Enterprise is resettling as terrorists; Picard deals with the dark plot.
Episode 4
Silicon Avatar
Sat, Oct 12, 199145 mins
After a human colony is attacked, Data assists Dr. Kila Marr in studying the life-form responsible. The crew attempts to locate and communicate with this huge creature - a crystalline entity which destroys by sucking off all carbon-based life from the surface of planets it encounters. Because her son Renny was killed in an attack years earlier, Dr. Marr's agenda may not be on the same page as the crew's.
Episode 5
Disaster
Sat, Oct 19, 199146 mins
Three children, who attend school aboard the Enterprise, win the top prizes in the science fair, earning themselves a tour of the great ship by Captain Picard. When the Enterprise strikes a quantum filament, the resulting collision causes massive destruction throughout the ship. Various groups of crew members - including the captain and the children - have to work together to overcome their precarious situations and get the starship back up and running before the Enterprise falls victim to its threatening situation.
Episode 6
The Game
Sat, Oct 26, 199145 mins
On its way to the uncharted Phoenix cluster, the Enterprise gets a visit by shuttle from Starfleet Academy Cadet Wesley Crusher on leave, all help being welcome now that research time has been cut to two weeks. Everyone is happy to see the popular, brilliant boy back and hear about his faring, some exchanging some of their own cadet memories. New Ensign Lefler, about his age, takes a personal interest in him and vice versa. Wesley wisely wonders why the computer game Riker brought back from shore leave so quickly became popular or rather addictive before he tries it as they all insist. He discovers it stimulates the pleasure center but affects the higher brain functions, and Data wasn't incapacitated by accident but disconnected by players because android computer brains are immune for the game. Alas, by now Wesley is the only unaffected human, all the others hunt him down after Picard took orders for the game's distribution to other ships and bases from tailing Ktarian ship commander Etana Jol.
Episode 7
Unification I
Sat, Nov 2, 199145 mins
The Enterprise's mission is aborted to return to a Starbase where Admiral Brackett charges them with investigating the disappearance and possible defection to the ever-scheming Romulans of Federation ambassador Sarek's son Spock, who did not say goodbye to his parents but took all his personal belongings after a public row with Sarek over the Cardassian war. A visit from Picard makes them realize the key must be Romulan senator Pardek, with whom Spock maintains decades-long personal contacts, against Sarek's will. Meanwhile, Klingon leader Gowron is writing the Federation's help in the civil war out of official history, so Picard resorts to suggestions to get him to provide a cloaked ship, reluctantly commanded by Captain K'Vada, for this mission, with Data, both prepared to impersonate Romulans on Romulus. Meanwhile, Commander Riker and Counselor Troi find examining the disappearance of a Vulcan ship to and from the Ferengi most dangerous.
Episode 8
Unification II
Sat, Nov 9, 199145 mins
Picard is found on Romulus by Senator Pardek, who brings him to Ambassador Spock, who explains his secret 'cowboy diplomacy' is about the off chance of a Vulcan-Romulan reunification thanks to an old, recently significantly grown, philosophically friendly Romulan underground party, which includes the rising new Proconsul Neral, who claims the Romulan Senate itself can no longer resist the people's outcry for peace, but is actually in league with Sela. Klingon captain K'Vada isn't amused when Data claims he may be able to crack the Romulan encryption log. As Vulcan-human half-blood Spock and android Data exchange views on the virtues of emotional and cool logical qualities, Commander Riker's investigation into a stolen Vulcan ship continues, starting with the mundane wife of the smuggler who died while pursued and finds a Barolian ship was involved. Spock and Picard fear rightly it all ties together in a Romulan war plot to take over Vulcan.
Episode 9
A Matter of Time
Sat, Nov 16, 199145 mins
The Enterprise sets out to help the colonized planet Penthara IV, where an asteroid impacts with an apocalyptic effect, first scorching then lasting clouding comparable to nuclear winter. En route to it, an unknown vessel appears after a temporal distortion and beams aboard history professor Berlingoff Rasmussen from Earth three centuries later (the 26th), who is obsessed by Picard, who expects the whole crew to be questioned, despite the possibilities of fraud or altering reality. Once at Penthara IV, Geordi on the planet and Data aboard devise a method to create a greenhouse-effect, at the risk of making it far worse, so Picard wrestles with using Rasmussen's hindsight, but his own history proves significantly problematic.
Episode 10
New Ground
Sat, Jan 4, 199246 mins
The Enterprise goes to planet Bilana III to assist in testing the new propulsion method Soliton waves. Lieutenant Worf is visited by his mother Helena and young son Alexander Rozhenko, who intends to stay with him. He soon finds the burdens of paternal duties cumbersome, especially as the frustrated schoolboy proves dishonorably mischievous. The experiment goes horribly wrong.
Episode 11
Hero Worship
Sat, Jan 25, 199246 mins
A Starfleet ship has a disaster in the largest black cloud ever observed, an astronomical phenomenon which gravely distorts gravity itself. Data is able to rescue a single survivor, the young boy Timothy, who lost both his parents on the starship and suppresses the unspeakable trauma, yet may have invaluable information about what happened and how the Enterprise is best to handle the black cloud itself. Troi encourages savior Data to spend time with Timothy, who decides to 'become' an android, physically and mentally superior to humans, like his mentor. When the Enterprise reaches the black cloud, the bridge officers prove unable to handle it in any known way like the other ship, Data and Timothy must make the difference...
Episode 12
Violations
Sat, Feb 1, 199245 mins
On a mapping journey the Enterprise hosts a party of Ullian 'mind historians', specialists who telepathically retrieve people's long-forgotten memories from many races. Keiko O'Brien and Dr. Crusher enjoy resuscitating pleasant memories, but the overbearing Ullian leader Tarmin's son Jev abuses his abilities on non-volunteers against their code, and enters their thus nightmare-altered memories as a key character, leaving Troi and Riker in apparently unprovoked comas which only resemble the rare Iresine Syndrome, without the associated histamine level change. Then it happens to Crusher the same way, but Troi wakes up after three days, alas with a total black-out. After eliminating any other imaginable causes, Picard has to suspect the Ullians. Troi accepts a memory probe by Jev, who makes her believe it's Tarmin's doing, but Geordi and Data do some research.
Episode 13
The Masterpiece Society
Sat, Feb 8, 199246 mins
The Enterprise is on a mission to warn the human colony in an artificial paradisiac biosphere on planet Moab IV's southern continent of the approach of a massive stellar fragment, which will impact with seismic force causing a tectonic disaster; however, its competent, considerate leader, Aaron Conor, refuses to evacuate, confident their biosphere can withstand earthquakes. He does allow a small Enterprise party to visit their society, which, after eight generations of selective breeding to nearly eliminate the remaining human risk factors, they believe far superior. Despite their rigid rule never to leave, scientist Hannah Bates is allowed to come aboard to work out a method to deflect the approaching fragment jointly with Geordi, who, as a blind man, would not even have been born in their society, by a tractor beam and updates to the biosphere itself. While Picard disapproves of genetic 'predisposition' on principle, Troi becomes a platonic intimate with Conor, who would be prepared to accept her even as a genetically inferior mate. The deflection works at the last second before energy would have been fatally over-expended: the colony is safe from impact, but Hannah reports fatal tectonic damage, which Geordi soon finds to be faked in order to get out of her controlled life. She and others want asylum aboard, but the colony's delicate balance can't cope with such change. Conor, although in fact tempted himself, feels guilty and desperately tries to save his society.
Episode 14
Conundrum
Sat, Feb 15, 199246 mins
The Enterprise is heading for the Epsilon solar system. A suddenly approaching alien ship uses scanners so strong that all crew members including Data lose most of their personal memories, even names and ranks, yet retain their operational and language skills. The external communications are down and computer data banks have been selectively wiped. Some, including the ship's manifest, are altered, so as to make a Commander MacDuff Executive Officer (rather than Riker) and the Enterprise is on a crucial mission in a war the Federation had been conducting for years against the Lysian race. The alien ship has been destroyed, they assume by the Enterprise, although there's no battle damage. While crew members behave differently, failing their normal reference patterns, MacDuff volunteers for a memory therapy Dr. Crusher suggests, so he can pretend for it to fail and press on the attack on the Lysian headquarters, but the war logic doesn't quite add up.
Episode 15
Power Play
Sat, Feb 22, 199245 mins
The end of two centuries of storms on a planet allows the Enterprise to discover the USS Essex, a Federation starship missing for that long, and investigate its system. Riker is the only one of his away team on a moon who, after having been knocked unconscious by another electric storm and touched by an electric phenomenon, remains himself: suddenly Troi, O'Brien and even Data, apparently possessed by aliens, grab their guns on the bridge and take five hostages, including Keiko and her baby, demanding that the ship steer to the southern pole, where the Essex is. Picard has himself exchanged for the five and Dr. Crusher figures out the away team was probably affected by an ionic phenomenon, which didn't affect Riker because of his wound-caused pain, which inspires Geordi to prepare a man a pain-gun.
Episode 16
Ethics
Sat, Feb 29, 199246 mins
After one of the containers Geordi and he were checking in cargo-bay crushes seven of Worf's vertebrae, Dr. Crusher and neuro-specialists see no therapy to get him any use of his legs again, Klingon medicine having a bias against neuro-research. Worf quickly asks Riker, as his best friend aboard, to assist him in Hegh'bat, the Klingon suicide for a permanently disabled warrior, to save his and his family's dignity. Crusher's visiting scientific friend Toby Russell proudly shows her an invention in development, the genetronic replicator, which she believes can scan and reproduce the damaged neuro-system even in Worf's case, but he would be the first humanoid test-patient so Crusher is against. Pride makes Worf decline either seeing his son Alexander or trying implants which can restore 60% of his motor-functions. The Enterprise goes assist the USS Denver, with many patients in need of medical help after a Cardassian attack, but after Crusher sees Russell use an experimental drug on one of them has her thrown off the ship. Picard pleads to let her return and reconsider the replicator, as Worf can't accept her alternative. Riker finds Klingon tradition dictates the suicide-assistance be left to the closest kin, and even Worf can't ask this from his half-human boy.
Episode 17
The Outcast
Sat, Mar 14, 199245 mins
The Enterprise obliges the androgynous J'naii race's request to investigate a mysterious shuttle disappearance. When a probe follows an inexplicable neutrino emission, it too suddenly vanishes without a trace, possibly the first-ever documented 'null-space', which absorbs all electromagnetic forces around it. Riker will attempt to chart it in a shuttle with the J'naii Soren. While contemplating the differences between social and biological life with or without gender-distinctions they become close. Entering the null-space, they find the shuttle and beam back with its crew of two to the J'naii's green planet, where they fall in love. Soren is arrested for loving sexually and sentenced to psychotectic therapy.
Episode 18
Cause and Effect
Sat, Mar 21, 199246 mins
Unbeknownst to the crew, the Enterprise is caught in a time loop where they are continually reliving the same day. The Enterprise approaches a temporal distortion from which another Federation vessel is emerging. The evasive action action they take - using the tractor beam to push the oncoming vessel away from them - is unsuccessful and the Enterprise is destroyed, at which point the time loop brings them back to the beginning and they relive the sequence all over again. Several members of the crew however begin to have a serious case of déjà vu and become convinced that they are reliving the same day, over and over. Data has an idea that might get them out of it.
Episode 19
The First Duty
Sat, Mar 28, 199245 mins
SPOILERS: Captain Picard is delighted to be the commencement speaker at Starfleet Academy on Earth, but even before the Enterprise arrives for graduation, he must deliver the news to Dr. Crusher that her son cadet Wesley's Nova squadron has had an accident during Saturn maneuvers, in which his teammate Josh Albert was killed. While Picard remembers with grounds keeper Boothby a potentially career-breaking incident during his own training, the official investigation he is part of soon discovers Nicholas Locarno's team is trying to cover up what really happened, for one thing deviating from the original flight plan and blaming the deceased panicking. Picard has Data and Geordi take part in the flight recorder analysis. A random Saturn satellite sensor sweep shows they lied by omission, and Picard realizes their cocky intent. They can get off with a formal reprimand for lack of proof.
Episode 20
Cost of Living
Sat, Apr 18, 199246 mins
As undetectable parasites devour the ship, Deanna's mother arrives, taking young Alexander under her wing en route to meeting a man she's blindly agreed to marry.
Episode 21
The Perfect Mate
Sat, Apr 25, 199245 mins
The Enterprise is unwittingly used to present a unique gift to an alien race: a beautiful empath whose sole purpose is to please her mate. Problems arise when, coming out of stasis early in the voyage, she imprints herself in many ways on a particular Enterprise crewman.
Episode 22
Imaginary Friend
Sat, May 2, 199245 mins
Young Clara Sutter, like many girls her age, has an imaginary friend. She recently came on board with her father, an engineering officer, and hasn't yet made any real friends. Counselor Troi assures Clara's father that it's perfectly normal and he has nothing to worry about. While playing one day, Clara is shocked to see her friend Isabella suddenly appear before her. In fact, Isabella is a sentient being that has taken human form only to scout the ship and learn more about it. For Picard and the crew, determining the being's intent is key to determining the next step.
Episode 23
I Borg
Sat, May 9, 199246 mins
Prospecting the Argolis Cluster as potential Federation colonization area, the Enterprise receives a message from a viable moon of the fourth planet- it's a crashed Borg craft emitting a homing signal with four crew corpses and a single male survivor, who is beamed aboard as Dr. Crusher's medical help was needed. Geordi repairs his cyborg technical parts and Beverly his biological organs. During further tests he proves surprisingly cooperative in order to be 'fed' energy, they rename 'Third of Five' Hugh and although even alone he still talks as 'we' he proves quite open, Hugh learns to understand human resistance to assimilation to the Borg collective. Data and Geordi have devised an unsolvable geometrical problem which should cause the Borg collective intelligence to break-down in overload, but after Picard, speaking as the Borg Locutus, finds Hugh has become a true friend of Geordi, refusing to help assimilate him, moral doubts cause asylum aboard being offered to Hugh, who however has dutiful reservations.
Episode 24
The Next Phase
Sat, May 16, 199246 mins
After successfully responding to a Romulan vessel's engine failure distress call, Riker's Enterprise rescue team loses all traces of Geordi and Ensign Ro Laren while they beam back aboard; Data ponders on an appropriate memorial service given their different cultural traditions. The two find they are transported aboard but immaterial, unnoticed by other Enterprise crew. Ro thinks they're dead, Geordi gradually works out, like Data aboard, they must be affected by a Klingon-type cloaking technology aboard the Romulan ship interfering with another damaged system. Ro discovers there's a Romulan beamed up with them, who is ready to protect the secret by killing them.
Episode 25
The Inner Light
Sat, May 30, 199245 mins
Not long after the Enterprise approaches an unknown buoy or satellite, Captain Picard falls unconscious on the bridge. He awakens in a village where he is married but also something of a village eccentric who thinks he is a spaceship captain by the name of Picard. His wife Eline tries to soothe him and his good friend Batai does not judge him. He lives a full life, has children and grows old. The planet he is on is dying however, suffering from a long and seemingly permanent drought. On board the Enterprise, the crew does its best to revive their unconscious captain but to no avail.
Episode 26
Time's Arrow
Sat, Jun 13, 199245 mins
Picard and the Enterprise are urgently called back to Earth to see the results of an archaeological dig that reveals aliens may have visited the planet in the 19th century. Among the many relics they have found is one that is totally out of place - Commander Data's head. Data confirms that it is his own head and not that of his brother Lore. He seems completely at ease with the find, which is not the case with the rest of the crew. On the planet, Data encounters a temporal vortex and he suddenly finds himself transported to 19th century San Francisco where he meets none other than Guinan.
