The High Ground

While visiting a planet in the midst of an upsurge in terrorist activity, Dr Crusher is abducted and held hostage. While Wesley assists in trying to combat a unique teleportation device deployed by the terrorists, his mother witnesses the casualties of war first-hand and tries to appeal to their fanatical leader, Kyril Finn.

It may have taken two and a half seasons but Dr Crusher finally gets the spotlight, allowing McFadden to demonstrate her talents as an actress. Unfortunately, the episode is a fairly forgettable effort that asks the question about the difference between being a terrorist and an instigator of political change with some alarming points made. Frankly, none of the supporting cast do well in a number of unlikeable roles and the episode never feels like it gets going. Still, at least Dr Crusher has a personality now - even if it is a dumb one.

The Enterprise crew get caught up in the internal politics of a planet suffering from terrorist activities.

This is a reasonably good episode that tackles a relevant subject in a fairly simplistic way. There are however a number of decent moments for the regular characters, particularly Dr Crusher.

The plot is quite simple with Crusher being kidnapped whilst Picard and the crew work to rescue her and battle terrorists. It starts off with a relatively unremarkable first half, but it gets more compelling later on as they direct their hostilities towards the Enterprise. There is nothing particularly memorable in what is presented on the subject or terrorism, other than that it's bad and this is underpinned by what becomes of Finn. Saying that the Northern Ireland reference does stand out, but more for the fact that it was controversial at the time of production and now because it's looking to be an inaccurate prediction.

Speaking of Finn and the guest characters, they are not particularly memorable for me. I do not think he is written particularly well and feels like a caricature. Devos is slightly better and she has a decent chemistry with Riker.

The main characters have a number of good moments. Dr Crusher holds firm on her ethical beliefs throughout the episode and has plenty of solid screen time. The likes of Data, Geordie, Wesley, Worf, Picard and Riker also make their own contributions to the resolution of the story.

The visuals are fairly good, particularly the action sequences. The sets are okay, but largely forgettable.

Performances of the regular cast members are all good, with Gates McFadden standing out with what I think is her best performance so far. As for the guest stars, Richard Cox does not convince me as a terrorist leader at all, but Kerrie Keane is fairly solid.

For me this one is a 6.5/10 but I round upwards.

This episode deals with the repercussions of terrorism. Not on its victims. But on the not inoccent-at-all bystanders: .

The crew of the Enterprise.

It poses the question of whether we should intervene in local affairs. Nowadays it can be seen as a commentary on the Israeli occupation, and annexation of the West bank,

or the Northern Ireland situation.

Hereby SF fullfills it function as social commentary on present day. This can be seen as Sci-Fi function to society. It is a mirror to our present day society.

Intelligently written, doing what good science fiction always does, and what Star Trek sometimes excelled at. Using the backdrop of fictional situations to illustrate the more contentious issues and aspects of contemporary societal and political life.

And it manages to do this while maintaining the tension within the plot of a good story.

Yes it features the Crushers, but long gone is the somewhat mawkish relationship between mother and son of the first series.

The writer even manages to work in an old fashioned fist fight in the final act.

Sorry, no Buck Rogers stuff here for the space cadets, just a well executed, thoughtful allegorical tale of what happens when a division of a society is marginalised to the point that they are driven to extremism.

It asks questions that are very relevant, especially now, and doesn't attempt to answer them, and nor should it, to do so really would be preaching.

As of writing this in 2025 this is as topical as ever. The chief freedom fighter was excellently portrayed and the standout of the episode. All of his actions and the development of the plot felt consistent and reasonable to his character.

Prior to now we have always seen the federation be neutral, reasonable and questioning of potential immoralities in civilisations they encounter.

Here, it felt that compared to their usual selves 'our heroes' were too quick to side with the ruling powers, they were not skeptical enough of the ruling powers nor seemed to consider the rebel cause for a moment. Finn getting his request raised to Troi fulfilled would have felt like the happy ending.

However, that wasn't the ending we got, and the position the federation took throughout makes you understand why the Klingons, Ferengi and Romulans view them in the way that they do, making this a great episode.

The negatives, I'm still not convinced by Doctor Crusher as a character. More romantic hints at Picard, more mother scenes with Wesley, illogically disobeying orders with no subsequent discipline. I'd much rather Pulaski back.