Thoughts on: Star Trek TNG Season Seven

• 'The road to Hell is paved with good intentions'. That saying never mentions that that hell may not be for you... ("Descent P2")
• Anyone else start shipping Taitt and Barnaby after the scene in the sun? Wait, is it weird to ship two tertiary characters?
• Wish I could just choose whether to have emotions or not... would be nice to turn them off every now and then to cool my systems down so I don't end up just angry due to overload...
• The ambassador is a hungry boy! Reminds me of a certain caterpillar... ("Liaisons")
• Cocaine roots? I just know I heard that wrong... Plus they look more like parsnips to me.
• Worf is right; the ambassadors are insane...
• That poor kid - given a spoken line in which he states his name is Eric and yet is credited as 'boy'. So much for that little extra in your paycheck you get for playing named characters!
• Geordi still looks strange without his VISOR. ("Interface") Levarr Burton looks 10 years younger without the white-out contacts!
• Being completely unable to help the people you love sucks ass nuggets.
• Now if we could set up something like the VR controlled probe thing in reality for rescue work etc... Can we get the tech scientists working on this instead of silly things that sound cool but are actually unfeasable like solar roadways, or making more excessive methods of mass murder war?
• Surely Data at least would be concerned that the message or whatever confirmed everything Geordi said could have happened to the Hera? It's a bit suspicious that it would adhere so completely to his theory.
• I've seen enough spoilers to know Picard aint dead. ("Gambit P1")
• Why does Berann remind me of Griffith from "Berserk"?
• Yes, because when someone says something will take x time and you give them less than that they will definitely do a good job of it. ("Gambit P2") Scotty was right when he said to estimate high.
• The guy playing the Sigmund Freud hologram looks kinda like Mark Sheppard. ("Phantasms")
• Imagine how effective asking for advice from psychologists could be if you could simply run a program of different ones. Get multiple opinions without the hours of searching for and waiting for appointments and the troubles of payment...
• Dammit Worf, support that cat's butt when you're holding him! Such a good kitty though.
• Ooh, a Data cake! I wish I could take a byte...
• I'm sorry, but if Lwaxanna Troi were my mother she would've been dumped in an aged care home long ago. ("Dark Page")
• Don't tell me - Betazoid Dementia. Lovely.
• Deanna had an older sister who drowned... no wonder her mother is so protective and overbearing. Heartbreaking.
• Now that is what I call an 'oh SHIT' face. ("Attached")
• I'd be tempted to try to find out if there were any other prisoners and release them too to create a little confusion.
• I'm calling it now - the ambassador's in on it.
• I, too, need a plasma ball - for security reasons, of course!
• I don't think there's room in the Federation for all that paranoia - they've already got the Andorans for that!
• I find the Ferengi very frustrating. Just in general. ("Force of Nature")
• I especially wouldn't trust a Ferengi who smiled at me...
• But how can we be sure that the siblings aren't just isolationists willing to pick and choose their scientific results to fit what they want to believe? Just look at how research into vaccines and autism is taken - anti-vaxxers will scroll endlessly through google just to find the one article that proves them right and will discount the thousands of others that disprove them because they don't match what they want to believe.
• She was concerned about something that might have happened in the future so she forced it to. That's like being paranoid about dying from radiation exposure so you break into the Chernobyl Casket and lick the walls.
• Thank goodness capitalism is no longer a think in the STU. "This is how badly damaged this sector will be in 40 years." 'So we have 40 years. Great - who's for coffee?'
• Data's 'mother' seems quite unusual, in a similar way to Data himself... which I guess raises the old 'nature vs nurture' question - though in this case it's more 'programming vs nurture'. ("Inheritance")
• Or is she herself an android too? That would make 'sister' the more appropriate title.
• What peron who had just become a widow/er and could build hyper-realistic androids wouldn't recreate their spouse though? The things people in mourning would do for even one more day with their lost loved one are innumerable.
• "I hate surprise parties; I would never do that to you." Those are the words of a man who has definitely organised one. Beware! ("Parallels")
• If looks could kill, the Enterprise would need an entirely new senior staff and Worf would need a very strong vacuum cleaner to clean up the ashes.
• Something tells me Worf never actually made it back to the Enterprise...
• So I was kinda right. Weirdest birthday ever!
• I don't know about you but I would certainly love to own a plush Picard. ("The Pegasus")
• Secret experiments... we all know by now how well they turn out... *coughcoughunibombercoughcough*
• It would be so creepy to see the corpses of people you knew 12 years ago so perfectly preserved.
• I think we all knew where this was going when Nikolai suggested the artificial atmosphere thingy. ("Homeward") Of course he was going to try to set one up anyway.
• Or set up a simulation of the planet and transport them aboard the Enterprise... That's worse, in a way because it has to end at some point and the people suddenly lurched into the reality that their planet died however long ago without your knowledge...
• And so it all comes apart... as we all knew it would. How terrifying though - has everything you ever knew been a simulation? How would you know?
• Of course Nikolai has to hope his child takes more after their mother or the jig would be up even if his plan worked out flawlessly.
• The funeral in the cold open of "Sub-Rosa" suggests that Christians are still up to their missionary bs in the 24th century but to non-humans. Ugh.
• Ronan's 34... how long has he been 34..?
• Five minutes into "Lower Decks" and I can already understand all the hype about the whole animated series!
• I thought I recognised the Bajoran girl from somewhere.
• There's a superstition I read of once that if you watch someone leaving until you can no longer see them, you'll never see them again. I'm not really superstitious but that's not one I'm taking chances on... Did Worf curse Seto to never return by watching the shuttle go?
• Oh dear... I think Data has taken a little too much radiation... ("Thine Own Self")
• Whoever it is playing the native physician has obviously done more work in theatre than on screen... she seemed to be speaking her lines almost too loudly; almost declaring them.
• Well shit. He's turned the village into Pripyat. Have another heaping of PTSD, Data; on the house.
• It's like Frankenstein but with a happier ending...
• Wish my art classes had been like this one. ("Masks")
• A previously unidentified comet... Something tells me it isn't actually a comet.
• Called it!
• This one must have been fun for Brent Spiner. He gets to really stretch his acting muscles.
• A man makes plans for the day he commits suicide and they don't understand how he could do that. Sometimes depression is just like that though - you're having a regular day, looking forward to things and then just wham; you can't do any more. There are countless stories in real life of people who seem to be fine and then suddenly they suicide. ("Eye of the Beholder")
• Aw no - now we know where the woman went... How sad to have been completely forgotten.
• Barclay is sauch a mood though. 'I feel different than usual; obviously I'm dying.' ("Genesis")
• A female ginger... that is a very rare cat you have indeed, Data.
• Wait... is that a different actor for Barclay..? Or did he just buy himself a new hairline with his earnings...
• I think there's a bug going round the ship... first Worf, now Barclay... listening to him speak was like trying to talk to one of my friends - ten words a second and none of them understandable without some hard thinking!
• Ooh something is veerry wrong indeed..... hope Spot's ok...
• Somehing's got everyone devolving...
• Well... at least you'll be adorable, Captain.
• Hey, don't be too put out, Barclay - usually to get a disease named for you, you have to die of it!
• "Journey's End"... or as the Native Americans of Dorvan 5 know it, 'Oh Boy, Here We Go Again."...
• "Hello, man I only just met last night; I would like some hallucinogens, please."
• I was wondering if the Duras Sisters would reappear at some point. ("First Born")
• Everything relies on Alexander leaving the Enterprise... I smell a hidden agenda here.
• I'd have thought the Klingons of all people would have understood the impracticality of a boob window...
• ...well I didn't expect that... time travel trouble again!
• "When will I see him again?" 'It may be a long time.' You'll look in a mirror one day and be like 'wait a minute...'
• I've watched "Harrow" too recently to really appreciate a 'previously unknown son in mortal danger' plotline. ("Bloodlines")
• The ship is ALIIIVVEE!! ("Emergence")
• Now I wanna cosplay the mobster and his brick. Shouldn't be too hard, right?
• This whole episode in an exercise in the absurd!
• ..."Pre-emptive Strike" was just... kinda sad.
• "All Good Things..." Giving all the feels. Appropriate for the final episode.
• FINALLY. I've been shipping Picard and Crusher since episode 1 of season 1...

I do not think there was any better way they could have ended this amazing series. I can definitely see now why everyone says TNG is the best Star Trek series out there... aside, maybe, from DS9...

It has been recommended to me by a Redditor that I watch DS9 and Voyager concurrently, so as to get a better understanding of things, but that seems to me too daunting an option, so I shall continue with my plan for one series at a time. I have a long enough 'to watch' list as it is without confusing myself watching multiple shows at once.

I shall also make an effort to continue my almost-live-blogging of my viewing. Some readers have felt the need to explain things after reading some of my thoughts, but I assure you that is an unnecessary action as I do watch the entire episode, and I see no reason to go back and edit points once I have been proven wrong or a question answered. That would defeat the purpose of it being an almost-live blog!