With the writer's strike of the previous season behind them, Gates McFadden back on the Enterprise as Dr. Crusher and both the writers and cast much more sure of who the characters were and what the show was about, season 3 fired on all cylinders.
Almost uniformly well written, acted and directed, the third season had only a few missteps and many high points.
The Bonding
When an officer is killed as part of the away team he is leading, Worf feels responsible for the incident and wants to help in the mourning and healing of the officer's son. An entity from the planet that also feels responsible for the child and appears as his dead mother to comfort him. Terminally bad, with Worf, Troi, Picard and the Crushers all trying their best with a script that just didn't work.
The scene at the end with Worf and the boy performing the Klingon ritual of whatever is painfully awkward to watch.
The Price
Like every episode in which Deanna Troi is central, there is a great deal of hand wringing and bad acting. Troi falls for a negotiator who is working for one side of a many sided negotiation for the rights to use what appears to be a stable worm hole. He turns out to be part Betazoid, just like Troi and the scenery chewing begins. The guest starring love interest, an actor named Matt McCoy, might qualify as the worst actor in Star Trek history, and that is saying something.
The Vengeance Factor
Another story revolving around a doomed romance, this time with Riker at the center. A woman who has been genetically altered to allow her to live long enough to eliminate the last members of her family enemy, falls for Riker and he for she. In the end, he vaporises her and acting coaches everywhere cheer.
A Matter of Perspective
Riker is accused of murder in a bizarre incident that leaves a scientist dead and his space station destroyed. To clear him, the crew of the Enterprise recreate the incident in the holodeck. And then they recreate it again. And again. And again. Essentially, ten minutes of story is repeated until it fills a forty minute time slot, only to have a contrived and unsatisfying series of improbable events turn out to be the truth.
Menage a Troi
The best of the worst episodes of the season. Riker, Troi and her mother, Lwaxana are kidnapped by a Ferengi bent on courting the elder Troi and exploit her telepathic powers for profit. While entertaining generally, like any Deanna focused episode, the preponderance of bad acting accounts for its inclusion in this list.
Unlike season 1 and season 2, the third season only had five episodes that could fairly be included in a "Worst of" list. To be sure, there were several mediocre episodes, but on balance, season 3 is one of the show's strongest.
James Richardson - James Richardson is a freelance writer of fiction and non-fiction. He is the resident critic and recap writer of the television show LOST ...
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