Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 5 (1992)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Series Concept by Gene Roddenberry
Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, Levar Burton, Michael Dorn, and Brent Spiner.

Features:

• Year 5 overview
  
• Production featurette
  
• Visual effects featurette
  
• Year 5 episode highlights
  
• Tribute to Gene Roddenberry
  

Rating: NR, suitable for most audiences

Anamorphic: N/A

My advice: Own it, or your geek cred is ruined.

Star Trek: TNG entered its fifth year flying high. They cleared the requisite episodes to guarantee it would live in syndication perpetuity at the end of the fourth season, and the series had climbed to enormous popularity. Not content to rest on the laurels, the Enterprise crew pressed on, putting together another season full of fine episodes in the tradition established by the previous seasons.

The one glitch in the season is the introduction of Ensign Ro, a character that has the dubious honor of being more unlikable than Wesley Crusher or Dr. Pulaski. Just when the crew managed to clear out the more annoying elements on the ship, the writers dump an antagonistic ensign with a history of terrorism and a chip on her shoulder in their midst. Worse yet, her sudden inclusion requires exposition that makes her the feature of a few episodes.

Aside from the Ro episodes, which are guaranteed to have you longing for the days of Wesley, the season is very good. Even Ro can’t spoil some of the stories she’s drawn into. “The Game,” “Cause and Effect,” and “A Matter of Time” are standouts, but all the episodes are plenty entertaining. The traditional season-ending cliffhanger, “Time’s Arrow, Part I” also admirably continues the quality tradition associated with the season finales/premieres.

Very little needs to be said of the performances, which have been excellent since the beginning of the show, and only improve with each passing season. With characters undergoing long-term development and interaction, and a cast banking half a decade of familiarity with them, the acting can’t really help but be good. Again, Ro is perhaps an exception, but it might actually be a credit to the actor’s performance that the ensign is so damned annoying.

The quality of the video is top-shelf, and the audio likewise. The transfer is pristine. The extras are pretty outstanding, as has been true of the previous sets, though it would still be nice to have commentary tracks for some of the episodes. I’m not sure why that particular feature doesn’t seem to have occurred to the makers, or what objection the creators might have had to including such commentary, but the absence of such a common bonus is palpable in a DVD collection that otherwise takes such pains to be excellent.