Writing in 2021, it is great to see that I am not the only person taking a retrospective look at Star Trek, the Next Generation. When this series was first released in 1987, a little less than twenty years after the end of the Original Series, many people thought that, without Captain Kirk and his crew, it couldn't really be Star Trek. However, original creator Gene Roddenberry, was fully invested in the casting, writing and overall look of the new series, so let's see how it shaped up:
A superb Holodeck episode which further excursions into this ultimate fantasy world will struggle to match. The enthusiasm with which the writers, set dressers, costume designers and cast (both regular and guest) inhabit this stylised, 1940s detective "noir" is palpable.
We, the audience, bought into it then and buy into it now: the overall quality of the episode easily overcoming its absurder moments and some rather glaring plot holes.
Dr Crusher gets to do some real doctoring. She actually seems to care about the injured guest crewman Whalen (aka Mr Redshirt) and works hard to save him. If only other writers had done her character justice like this.
The philosophical question of what happens to these imaginary characters when the holosuite is switched off is a serious science fiction trope to which Patrick Stewart does justice with some serious actor-ing. He manages to suffuse the words "I don't know" with all the immensity of the infinite unknown. Of course, the writers get their own back on him in the final scene with one of most ridiculous pieces of long-winded alien gibberish ever set to page but his Shakespearian training means that the "Klaxon speech" is delivered perfectly.
(Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5)