TNG Season 2

Episodes

Template:TNG-Season2

Summary

Season 2 saw the departure of Dr. Beverly Crusher to head Starfleet Medical and her subsequent replacement by Dr. Katherine Pulaski. A number of stories focus on the development of Data, meeting his "grandfather," introducing his interest in Sherlock Holmes, determining his status as a living being, and revealing to him the moral implications of the Prime Directive. He also clashes several times with Dr. Pulaski, who does not initially regard him as a living being.

Commander William Riker is also a focus of this season, settling his differences with his father, deciding to give up an offer for his own command so that he can remain on the USS Enterprise-D, becoming the first Starfleet officer to serve on a Klingon vessel, and nearly dying after becoming infected by a deadly alien parasite.

Commander Worf receives a promotion and meets his wife, K'Ehleyr, and their son, Alexander, is conceived. Guinan comes on board the Enterprise-D to serve as bar tender in Ten Forward, and significantly, Q introduces the crew of the Enterprise-D to the Borg, their most dangerous adversary yet.

Background Information

• Out of all seven seasons of The Next Generation, this is the only one in which Gates McFadden does not appear.
• Due to the Screen Writers Guild Strike in 1988, Season 2 only contained 22 episodes, opposed to the usual 26 episodes with "The Child", the season premiere, airing initially in late November 1988. Because of this, the script for the premiere episode, "The Child", was 'borrowed' from Star Trek: Phase II, and the finale episode, "Shades of Gray" was featured as a 'clip show' -- as it primarily contained clips from the previous 47 episodes.
• From the second season Worf serves as chief security officer and La Forge (promoted to full Lieutenant) as chief engineer, both wear gold uniforms instead of red; the Ten Forward set appears with Whoopi Goldberg in the recurring role of Guinan; Riker starts wearing a beard; also, during this season, Diana Muldaur as Dr. Katherine Pulaski replaces Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher.
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was released during the run of this season.
• The Enterprise bridge set was modified for the second season. The bridge features new storage lockers on both sides of the set, which would remain with the set until the end of the series' run. In addition, Picard's chair was modified, with the panels on the armrests permanently opened, and two additional small seats added on the sides of Riker's and Troi's chairs. The conn and ops station chairs are replaced with new swiveling chairs. There is also an additional station at the rear of the bridge, an engineering control panel for the newly promoted Geordi La Forge.
• A new sickbay set was constructed featuring portions of the set from the first season combined with a new intensive care ward, freeing up the portion of the set that also doubled as the observation lounge.
• The Ten Forward lounge makes its debut this season, being the last TNG set designed by Herman Zimmerman before he left for Star Trek V and his replacement by Richard James.

See also

• TNG Season 2 performers
• TNG Season 2 DVD

Previous Season: TNG Season 1

Seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation

Next Season: TNG Season 3