Part II, Chapter XXXIII: "Shaking Things Up"
“Season Six was where things started to get more serious. Not that they hadn’t been before, but we had characters dealing with torture, identity, abduction, and face some of their greatest fears and regrets in life. All of this is of course, not to mention the destruction of the Enterprise at the end of the season.”
- Patrick Stewart, speaking about his experiences on the set of
Star Trek: The Next Generation. [1]
While Season Five of
The Next Generation was something of a testing ground for ideas to potentially be used in the upcoming show
Deep Space Nine, Season Six was a return to a more familiar style, with no major arcs, but just as many thrills and groundbreaking moments.
The sixth season would see another
Original Series actor return to the television following Leonard Nimoy’s appearance the previous season. James Doohan would return as Montgomery Scott in the episode “Relics”. This was, in part, done to help promote the upcoming film
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, which was, at long last, being released. [2]
The season opened with the resolution to “Time’s Arrow”, and would end with the ambitious, “All Good Things...”, which would see the Enterprise destroyed and the final regular appearances of some of the main cast. “All Good Things...” would also see the introduction of the Breen, an alien species that would play a recurring role in the upcoming
Deep Space Nine. [3]
Q returned in this season, following a season of absence. He appeared in two episodes, “True Q” and “Tapestry”, the latter of which would be considered by many fans to be one of the best episodes of the series, though others complained that it glorified violence.
Aside from this, there would be no hugely controversial episodes in the season, and many more episodes that would be considered stand-outs, either due to particular performances or general writing. Of note would be the story “Chain of Command”, which saw Picard tortured by the Cardassians, and the Enterprise temporarily given a new Captain.
This would be the last season for Christian Slater and Carla Gugino in the main cast. Aware that
Deep Space Nine was to be released during the following season, the producers had decided to give the cast an out to their contracts. Slater signed on to the main cast of Deep Space Nine, while Gugino left to avoid typecasting. [4]
While none of the “core three” of Stewart, Frakes or Spiner was leaving, the news that two of the main cast were departing saddened many fans of the show, but also built some hype as to how the writers would deal with their departures.[5]
Star Trek: The Next Generation’s sixth season would begin airing in September 1992.
[1] Surprise! The Enterprise-D is getting killed off, and nobody is safe from here on out.
[2] Star Trek V will get its own update, three update's time. This is the start of a Star Trek quintuple bill. The usual two other updates, one on the film, and one on the pre-production (casting and the like) for Deep Space Nine.
[3] The Breen having a role from the get-go is the first of many changes to the Deep Space Nine of TTL.
[4] The second of many changes to Deep Space Nine. Kelly is becoming perhaps my favourite original creation, and I'm not done with him just yet.
[5] Put simply, I didn't have the guts to write anyone too major out, and I honestly couldn't see replacements or brilliant reasons for them to go.