#3 Lower Decks, season 7
One of the best episodes of the series; one of my personal favorites. It took some flack for being too aggressive as far as military operations go, but I think it was wonderfully done and these kinds of episodes helped to support DS9 which made it such a good series.
This script is heavy on dialogue and crew interaction and that's always a challenge since there usually needs to be a focal point of action to keep the story moving. Mostly, when they spend time on personal stories, it ends up being too much time and it either short changes the action, or it's too random and irrelevant to the franchise in general... In Theory, Qpid, Lessons, and Sub Rosa are good examples. But other times it's done right like Family, Data's Day, and this one. A lot of time is devoted to simply painting a broad picture of how the senior officers and junior officers view each other and react to each other with each group learning and growing from their interaction with each other. And they really nail it with a nice balance of characters to make the audience comfortable with so many new faces at one time. Ogawa is already a familiar face and so is Sito. And with Sito our interest is piqued after her part in The First Duty. It's wonderfully teased... not too much of her personal story is given away at first. Instead of following the main characters, the cameras stay on the ensigns and their points of view when the crux of the story is finally unveiled. The parallel poker games bond all of the characters of upper and lower decks and help to get the audience completely invested in these characters who would all be thrown away except Ogawa.
Then, with a few choice scenes, the writers cultivate the bittersweet story of Ensign Sito (and give her an even better ending than poor Wesley.) To further the DS9 foundation, Sito is chosen pose as a prisoner with a Cardassian spy for the Federation to help get him back into Cardassian territory. We're reminded that she's had a rough time since the incident at the academy. Worf and Picard must both prepare her mentally with tough love to give her the strength to carry out the mission, should she chose to accept it. And she does accept it because the Cardassian/Bajoran conflict is personal. It's a testament to how the main cast had grown by the seventh season that we didn't need to see whatever counseling Picard needed to saddle such a big responsibility onto such a young junior officer, nor how the rest of them especially Worf could be supportive of so obviously a dangerous mission. The tension amidst her colleges and her superiors as she flies unarmed and scared into a deadly game of espionage is thick enough to cut with a knife and our hearts are crushed when news of an anonymous, dead Bajoran prisoner is relayed to the crew.
I didn't want it to be the end. I half expected her to turn up in DS9 especially after Worf joined the cast, but they chose not to salvage the character again. Disappointing, but sill okay since this is one of the best written and acted episodes ever. Instead of being black and white it moves within the shades of gray where war and peace is concerned. This is Star Trek at it's fully matured state.
I also have 10 honorable mentions to match my top ten favorites, so I'll throw one in every day that I post a top ten episode. These aren't ranked
Darmok, season 5
I don't want to actually complain about this episode. I really loved it, of course, but it's so wildly popular I feel like I have to explain why it didn't make it into my top 10 favorites list. It comes down to the fact with my analytical mind, I can only stand so many "feels", particularly when I feel like someone is trying to deliberately manipulate my feelings. The emotions produced by The Inner Light and Lower Decks felt more organic; authentic. The emotions brought about by this episode feel contrived or forced.
The Enterprise meets with a race that nobody has ever been able to communicate with and it doesn't look like they'll be able to any time soon. In desperation that race decides to trap the two captains on a planet with a dangerous creature to finally break down the language barrier that separates their cultures. Picard has every reason to assume the worst at first, but hardly had their first meeting on the planet gone by before the audience can see that Dathon's intent isn't evil. He arms them both but instead of attacking his body language indicates defeat and sadness when Picard refuses to fight. I think at this point Picard should've suspected that there was more to this than a challenge since he is supposed to be a great communicator. Dathon helps him through the night with his fire, doesn't make any moves to kill him in his sleep and still Picard thickly assumes that he wants a fight the next day.... until he notices there's a deadly beast on the planet. Sorry, I'm just not buying it from Picard. Riker, maybe, but not Picard. Picard was picked for obvious reasons. Once he realizes that their language is stories from their own mythologies, nobody but Picard could validate the actions of the Tamarian captain with such relief and enthusiasm. Nobody but Picard could tell the Sumarian tale of Gilgamesh and Enkidu with more credibility and charm while he comforts Dathon who was mortally wounded by the creature. And nobody but Picard could stay the Tamarian hostilities at the end when the Enterprise retrieves him from their cage with more graveness and and sincerity. There's not much dialogue in this episode, but as a Picard episode, it does its job of pulling at your heart.
They made this out to be a vital new alliance but offered no evidence that there would be any follow up which is another cheat of one's emotions. However, it's a heart-felt episode that showcases Picard at his best and the content offers points for reflection without pushing one ideology to indicate what people "should" think. That's why I love it even though I can't classify it as a favorite.
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