Star Trek in the summer of 1992: The silver anniversary of the franchise from the previous year was in the past, as was the sad farewell to series creator Gene Roddenberry. Season 5 of Star Trek: The Next Generation offered state-supporting crossovers, a celebratory mood and, in terms of storytelling, an unusual three-part division as described in the last article in this series – a political bloated beginning, a rather vague middle searching for form, and crisp science fiction weeks at the end.
In the Nielsen ratings, which was the most important US way of determining ratings at the time, the glossy sci-fi series was now unchallenged in the top 3 – a few years earlier, this would have been completely unthinkable.
What did this mixture of different starting points mean for the start of the sixth season of the next generation? On the one hand, it meant a lot of self-confidence, because only a completely botched series season could have dethroned the top dog. Nevertheless, there were voices saying that the series had increasingly started to rest on its laurels over the past two years.
Explosive, creative storytelling like in Season 3 had been somewhat forgotten – although numerous classic episodes were produced, there were also some that seemed as colorless and pleasing as the Enterprise-D’s light pastel carpeted floors.
The narrative style of series in the USA began to change in the first half of the 90s, and it was now en vogue to make story arcs darker, to give heroes who are usually brilliant a little more ambivalence. Today we would call that “edgy”. This would never have been possible under the strict eye of Gene Roddenberry, because his vision of the future was strictly utopian, but after the old master’s death, it was now possible to cautiously venture into dark realms here and there.
Source: Paramount At the beginning of the sixth season of Next Generation, Data is still stuck with Guinan in the 19th century. But don’t rock the boat too much, because there are still the station bosses and advertisers to consider, who are traditionally hesitant when it comes to change. Roddenberry had also already installed his self-chosen heir to the throne, Rick Berman, during his lifetime, who was a little more willing to compromise, but was nevertheless aware of his great responsibility and continued to strictly enforce Roddenberry’s vision.
In addition, when the series began in 1987, all of the main actors in the Next Generation had signed a six-year contract, so there was a good chance that the series could end after season 6, because contract negotiations for a seventh year – or beyond – would certainly have led to success-conscious salary demands from Patrick Stewart & Co. – and thus an uncomfortably high budget.
But perhaps it was necessary to bite the bullet, because if the series had ended after the sixth season, Paramount would have lost two of its best horses in the stable at the same time, because the only show with better ratings than Next Generation was the eternal number 1, the classic sitcom Cheers, which was set to end in May 1993 after an astonishing eleven-year run.
For the Star Trek fanzines of the time, the crucial question was whether – and if so, how – the Next Generation could continue after the year that was now beginning. The new spin-off series Deep Space Nine, which was to accompany the sixth season from the middle onwards, would be contemporary and edgy (there we go again) and thus potentially represented an excellent replacement. But the start of DS9 is a story for another day.
The sixth season of Next Generation ran on US television from autumn 1992 to spring 1993. On German free TV, however, it was broadcast in just over a month from May 17 to June 22, 1994, after SAT.1 had already shown 43 episodes of the fourth and fifth seasons in their German premiere from March 1994. One episode of the sixth season was completely out of line when it debuted, but more on that later.
The series was still dubbed at high speed for private television and broadcast in the afternoon program; this intensive broadcasting meant that the previous nightshade “Star Trek in Germany” became the ratings king – just not at prime time and in front of a primarily adult audience, but rather among children and young people. For working people, there was at least a night repeat on SAT.1 on most days, even without any advertising breaks during the episodes.
But because the program schedule was often changed so late in the evening, you couldn’t rely on the night repeat starting exactly on the minute. While you were trying to time it, you were treated to some very special advertising and could watch the 0190 ladies hawking their services.
The broadcast of the sixth season also fell completely in the gap between two holidays in my home in North Rhine-Westphalia. Season 3 – still on ZDF – fell in the summer holidays of 1993 and the transition from season 4 to 5 was on SAT.1 in the Easter holidays of 1994, which is why I hired my good old friend and spoiler boy Thorsten as a holiday recording service in both cases.
I was able to take care of the VHS archiving of season 6 myself and this time I didn’t have to copy episodes recorded by Thorsten from VCR to VCR via Scart cable, with a severe loss in quality.
Recording was still somewhat stressful, as I was approaching the end of the ninth grade and all of the teachers at my high school made us write tests and assignments over and over again in order to collect final grades, which is why enjoying Star Trek often clashed with intensive study phases.
The daily broadcast on SAT.1 also meant that the cliffhanger that ran across the seasons, just like its two predecessors (and the one that followed), did not keep the tension going for months as it did in the country of origin, but was resolved immediately on the next working day. Time’s Arrow (Danger from the 19th century, Part 1) was broadcast on May 16, 1994, Part 2 on May 17.
Just to remind you how we left Season 5: In Part 1, Data’s severed head was discovered in a mine shaft beneath San Francisco, and in search of a solution to this paradox, the series’ main characters were transported to the 19th century, where they not only had to contend with soul-eating aliens, but also met a historical figure, Mark Twain.
Source: Paramount Fear of death when beaming – the first POV is shown from a transporter beam. With this story, the story was once again narratively painted into a corner of the room at the end of the season – this time not because they had to conjure up a magic weapon against the all-powerful Borg, but because the story with all its back and forth of time travel had become so overly complex that there were countless knots in the story ball of wool.
Staff writer René Echevarria remembers extensive and sometimes amusing discussions about how time travel works and that someone is said to have exclaimed: “That’s not how time travel works, you idiot!” As a result, there were major accusations and bitter arguments about the sense and nonsense of the Bill and Ted films, among others.
Showrunner Jeri Taylor remembers the development process of Time’s Arrow, Part 2 as a complete nightmare: “It was a terrible effort to get the story rolling.” And when they finally got to the script, the story was constantly being changed – on an open patient basis, so to speak – during filming. Whole passages were taken out at the last minute, restructured, other things stuffed in, and so on. Taylor: “That was probably the most problematic episode of the entire year.”
For me, the biggest disappointment in Time’s Arrow was the way a secret that the series had carefully built up over the last four years fizzled out. Jean-Luc Picard and his bartender Guinan, played by Whoopi Goldberg, had known each other for many years, according to rumors on board the Enterprise, but they never spoke openly about this connection and kept it a mystery – only small hints flashed here and there.
Now it turns out that the ancient Guinan had already paid a flying visit to Earth in the 19th century, where she had befriended Samuel “Mark Twain” Clemens and had met the captain of the Enterprise for the first time in her timeline during this confusing Data time travel adventure.
This succinct resolution did not match the epicness that had been created in my head by the years of mysterious clues. Time’s Arrow was not a great success and, as I found and still find, the quality of the big cliffhangers in the Next Generation decreased with each subsequent season.
The second episode of the season, Realm of Fear, brought back audience favorite Lieutenant Barclay, played as always by A-Team actor Dwight Schultz, after he took a break in Season 5.
This time he was allowed to fool around less than in his previous appearances, instead he was confronted with indecent-looking worm creatures while beaming back and forth to a ghost ship in the in-between world of the transporter beam, which was shown for the first time. On the one hand, these could pose a real danger, but on the other hand they were also a new manifestation of Barclay’s numerous neuroses.
The story took an introspective look into the lieutenant’s fears, was staged in a claustrophobic and chamber-like manner and was therefore somewhat scary. In this way, a story flavor was introduced right at the beginning that would run like a thread through the sixth season.
