Season Two, another season that disappoints (to a degree), but in also managed to produce a several extremely solid episodes, two of which make my top Ten episodes of TNG, though of course we also get in my opinion the worst episode of TNG, and probably the worst episode of all of Trek.
With William Ware Thesis gone, the general costumes improved dramatically, during did solid work for her one season. Music scores were still really good, and again its was rare to get a fairly full score for each episode at the time. The FX department, thanks too the producers adding more staff, dramatically improved. While still stalled with some rather uninspired stock shots, more and more original shots were done, and unlike most of season one, we would see more fluid ship movements and more varied angles. episodes like The Child, Time squared, and Q-Who stand out.
Story wise there were a few shows that I loved the premise but I didn't think the finish product held up those would be Where Silence Has Lease, Loud as a Whisper, The Royale (when the writer won't let his name be on the credits, you know there is usually a problem) and Time Squared. All of them had really interesting premises, but i don't think any of them were successfully put to screen.
The addition of Geordi as the Chief Engineer (Serious i still can't believe they didn't think they would need to cast an engineer for the show...), really helped the show, the addition of guinean and more importantly Ten forward helped the crew actually show down time (that and their poker games, which were often highlight for me on some uneventful episodes).
Episodes that worked for me Elementary Dear Data, A Matter of Honor, Pen Pals were all 3.5 star episodes out of 5. We had three episodes that were above average but not quite as good Contagion, The Emissary and Peak Performance. And then of course we had two 5 out of 5 star episodes with measure of a Man and Q-Who.
With the start of the season showing even greater polish on the production side (better set design, and set dressing, Westmore's makeup effects significantly improved, camera work from the directors seem to be using the sets better.
Already more episodes that I thought were above average then what season one produced and with a shorter season. But we also had some really bad episodes, that for whatever reason just didn't work. The Child a beautiful shot episode, possible my favorite of the season but the story (the most important part of the show) was weak, the Outrageous Okona didn't work for me (though I did like the performance of Billy campbell), Loud as a Whisper (a great and interesting concept that just didn't work as an episode), Unnatural Selection (cough, the Deadly years, though at least the makeup was pretty solid, again Michael Westmore's team really improved this year), The Royal and Time squared (two episodes I really, really wanted to like), were weak, Icarus factor was terrible outside of Worf's Age of Ascension B plot (the Riker and father A plot was horrible), I really dislike Up the Long Ladder and Samaritan Snare, Manhunt was an embarrassment (another episode where the writer removed his own name), and Shades of Grey was an insult to viewers.
But most episodes even the ones I really disliked, almost always had a scene or character moment that I really, really liked. There was a lot more subtile character growth for the crew this year (and some unsubtle ones as well).
I would rank the full first season of TNG a 2 star out of 5 star season. This season makes significant growth to 2.75 stars out of 5.
With a writers strike impacting both first and second season, and the behind the scenes drama with the writer's and Roddenberry's lawyer, I think we actually are lucky we managed to get some of the episodes we got. It also would explain why some episodes with great concepts utter failed.
Just a note, I mentioned that several shows had great concepts that i thought didn't work as episodes. I still am glad the writers tried with those episodes, because it's nice to see the writers taking risks, even if they don't always pay off.
Season Two also marked the significant style difference between Robert Legato and Dan Curry who alternated episodes as visual effects supervisor. I absolutely love the work Legato did, I really, really don't care for the look and feel of what Curry did. His was soft, and overly lite, usually having more static shots. When Legato left at the end of season one of DS9 to head the creation of Digital domain it hurt. This season marks the end of Rob Bowman's rotation with trek (outside off the fourth season episode Brothers). His work was easily the strongest visually of any of the directors up to this point. We lose him and we get saddled with the likes of Cliff Bole and dependable but rather static director.
Another big plus for this season was the expanded use of Colm Meaney, who knew how big a part of trek he would become and I would have never guessed that the actor was so good after his brief appearance in Encounter of Farpoint. While the addition of Guinan was big news, the expansion and growth of O'Brien was the much larger and positive addition to Trek over all.
