Legacy

Another hum drum unsatisfying episode with massive potential. The main thing I noticed is that Beverly Crusher's attitude about insisting on beaming down to a violent area is puzzling. She insists that she can take care of her self however she recently almost got herself and everyone else killed in a terrorist episode that recently preceded this one, the High Ground. At the end of the episode she admitted she should've listened to the captain and beamed up at the beginning. Apparently she learned no lesson that stuck.

I get in this era of longform storytelling the lack of continuity of TNG is even more frustrating than it was during its initial run.

The best part of this episode is Beth Toussaint's compelling performance and it's a shame that they had to throw her away so quickly rather than make her a recurring character .

The Enterprise intercepts a distress call from a ship in serious danger in orbit around the homeworld of their former colleague Tasha Yar. When it appears that two crewmen escaped to the planet via an escape pod, an away team seems to be the only option on a world ravaged by gang violence.

A fairly standard TNG episode, albeit one that has some interesting elements. Toussaint's appearance is fantastic, suggesting that she could have become an interesting addition to the crew and the scenes set on the planet's surface are exciting and a bit different from the usual worlds we normally see. But the narrative is as predictable as they come and it has a horribly clunky conclusion, as if written by someone on work experience. Frustrating.

I'm beginning to wonder if the Enterprise works for AAA; seems like a lot of the episodes begin with them answering a distress call. This confuses me, because of the "Prime Directive". They trot it out when they don't want to help people, but the rest of the time they evacuate people, help them fight, give them supplies, etc. I just honestly have no idea what the Prime Directive is; it seems utterly confusing and extremely hypocritical. And why is everyone obsessed with Tasha Yar? She died ages ago and was a boring, uninteresting character to begin with, yet they had a whole pointless episode that "brought her back" from the past, and now we're on her home planet with her sister. Most of the story is everyone sitting around talking about Yar. Boring and pointless episode, just trying to dredge up emotion over someone who is long gone.

This would be a higher ranked episode if it had fleshed out the story more. Predictable to a LARGE degree

In an effort to save a couple crewmen from a fellow Starfleet ship that has become involved in a civil war on a planet that turns out to be the birthplace of Tasha Yar. The civil war has led to great violence, including the slaughter of trespassers. One group, the Alliance,has held the other at bay. It turns out that Tasha Yar's sister is an insurgent rebel. She is brought on board the Enterprise and joins them in rescue efforts to save the two men trapped below the planet. The leaders of the alliance give an ultimatum and the Enterprise must act. Ishara Yar masterfully gains the trust of the crew and is given great latitude in the rescue operation. During this time she is very critical of her sister. Data informs her of Tasha's great character and bravery. It seems the war on the planet excludes any sisterly affection and Ishara felt that Tasha took off rather than fight. I really believe that the show went for more believable encounters and actions. This is one of those that shows us that the writers were really gaining steam.