by Emily Maesar, Associate Editor, TVJawn

It’s not terribly rare to have the writing staff of a particularly large room in the 1980s and 1990s change a lot from season to season. It was, and still remains to some degree, a big part of the television writing culture to bounce around from show to show. So, when season three of Star Trek: The Generation started, it was going through the pains of changing writing staff after some messy behind the scenes of season two.

Michael Piller came on during this time, quickly becoming an Executive Producer on the series by episode five. It was his mandate to the writing staff that, “​​every episode is going to be about a character's growth. And every episode has to be about something.” It’s a new mandate that I think is really starting to be part of this season, but it’s not without the growing pains of having to work within the limits of the original “alien/situation-of-the-week.” 

So, there are two things that make it very clear that Gene Roddenberry wasn’t as involved in season three. The first is, of course, that there are actually internal conflicts between crew members on the Enterprise—I just don’t think that you get something like the two-part finale without throwing out that rule. The second is that the horniness of the show goes down considerably. Roddenberry’s writing, and his standard for writing on television, has been desperately horny, in the best possible way, since the 1960s. It’s something I really admire about the final frontier: it’s not quite as puritanical as one might expect. 

So, while I’m terribly sorry to see Roddenberry’s willingness to sex things up going down considerably, I’m also happy (in equal measures) to see the series deal with interpersonal conflicts between crew members. It’s a delicate balance that season three walks, but maybe doesn't quite nail. Though I have hope for season four’s ability to do so, based on the finale alone.

And what does the finale look like for season three? Well, it’s a two-parter with a brutal “To be continued…” that was followed by three months of what I can only imagine were absolute torture for Star Trek fans. Picard has been, at least partially, assimilated into the Borg and Riker is about to have the Enterprise fire on the Borg Cube to destroy the ship, but also their beloved captain. It’s the kind of finale that I would expect from television in the 1990s and 2000s, and with the episode being penned by EP Michael Piller, it’s clear that this is the direction TNG is headed.

Along with a killer finale, the season also boosts some really fun, deeply interesting episodes. You’ve got the return of Q in “Deja Q,” an episode where our beloved all powerful being has been turned human. It’s a remarkably funny episode, but also showcases all the things I love about Q as a character. His ability to learn and grow, while still being an absolute ass, is deeply charming and it feels remarkably like a mold for future characters like him in genre fiction.

Additionally, you have the return of Denise Crosby as Lt. Yar in “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” which is a timeline-bending episode that means she’s still alive. I have a lot of questions about the technical aspects of the time travel and timeline mess abouts in this episode, but I think it has a lot of great insights into humanity and the gift of self sacrifice for the greater good. It’s showing, not just saying, the famous Spock quote, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Also, I’m told that Crosby returns later as a new character because of her going back in time, which I’m very interested to see the result of.

However, with so many episodes in the season, it’s unsurprising that there are some pretty boring and generally just fine episodes of the show. But even those episodes often pose interesting questions, like why did Starfleet make Data a pacifist and then program him to join a military organization? Which is a nice jumping off point for something I’m deeply uncomfortable with about Star Trek, but that gets even more specific and “quiet part loud” of them in this season in particular. 

Starfleet being a paramilitary organization has always been true. It was designed by Roddenberry that way, and it’s something I understand from a creative aspect. There are only two ways we’re getting into space, even if what we’re doing and who were doing stuff in space changes later. Those two ways are by the military (or paramilitary), or big business. You get Starfleet or Weyland-Yutani, there’s really no inbetween. It was true in the 1960s when the series was being conceived of, and it’s even more true now. 

I’ve talked about this aspect of Star Trek before, quite a bit, but this season of The Next Generation it became so abundantly clear how much the series was going to lean into the paramilitary of it all. With talk of Riker’s military career, as the people around him fight about him becoming captain on another ship and therefore leaving the Enterprise, what was once always lurking in the background really pops into place by the end of the season. 

That and the absolutely batshit fact that Picard makes Wesley an acting ensign on the ship this season. He’s apparently been navigating the ship this entire time and hasn’t had any Starfleet official training. The military aspect of the paramilitary organization is baffling, to say the least! It’s absolutely beyond the pale and I’m dying about it.

Anyway! We need to talk about Wesley. Like, for real this time. Let’s start with this: I like Wesley Crusher. I think he’s sweet and has a lot of potential as a character. I don’t think, in the first three seasons at least, that his potential is realized… which is a problem. It’s kind of the central problem of Wesley, actually. That and the fact that there are simply too many main characters on TNG. Yeah. I said it! Too many!

The type of procedural storytelling on the show means that no character actually gets a lot of focus. Each episode zeroes in on a particular character, and there’s no real central arc of the season that everybody’s going toward. It’s a perfectly fine way to write a TV show, and it doesn’t always mean that characters get short changed in a large cast. But you can often feel the weight of so many characters in The Next Generation. 

What does that mean for Wesley, though? Well, it means that he’s only the central character of a few episodes in any given season. Even the ones that are about his mom, Beverly, where he’s central to her story… he’s really not in all that much. And he’s certainly not acting with his own agency to do something that doesn’t forward the plot. So, like many of the characters on the Enterprise, what we know about Wesley is a series of facts, rather than anything about his character. I have a rough idea how Picard, Data, or Riker would react to almost any given situation, but characters like Wesley are much more of a mystery. Even by the end of season three—and that’s a huge problem. 

I’m hopeful that as the growing pains of Gene leaving the series start to clear out and Michael Piller’s influence really takes over, then characters like Wesley will get their due and the balance of having such a large main cast might regulate itself in a way it just hasn’t been able to in almost 75 episodes. The little looking forward I’ve done, though, seems to indicate that the way forward for Wesley is… messy at best. It seemed like actor Wil Wheaton also agreed that Wesley wasn’t getting his due, and was asked to be written out of the show following season three. I’m curious what that will look like, since I know he’s in a few more episodes generally, and that he eventually returns in the final season and has appeared in Picard. I know it's a decision that Wheaton regrets, but I wonder what Wesley Crusher and his legacy might have looked like, had he stayed on the series for the rest of the run. Especially when you consider the impact he has had with the less than half of The Next Generation he’s in. 

As I continue this journey into TNG, I’m struck by a few things. First, is the absolutely specific way that television used to be made. It’s one thing to know it, and then it’s another thing to watch a series that ran through the beginning of the modern era, and transformed with the writing and production styles of the time. It’s this perfect time capsule in that way. The second thing is that I have no idea where this series actually lands. Like, the Picard as a Borg thing? I thought that was going to be so much later in the series. I’m being honestly, and truly, so pleasantly surprised by all the twists and turns that are at once deeply part of the science fiction TV landscape, but are also obscured by the need to actually consume the series to understand the full context. 

So, as I move into season four of TNG, I’m excited to see what Michael Piller and company are setting their sights on for Picard and the rest of the Enterprise crew. Considering Wil Wheaton once said that Piller is, “more responsible than anyone else for Next Generation transforming itself into the amazing show it became in season four,” I think I’m in for something quite special.