Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
The Enterprise begins this year with Katherine Pulaski replacing Beverly Crusher as chief medical officer, while Guinan joins the ship’s Ten Forward lounge. Early missions bring personal crises alongside exploration: Deanna Troi gives birth to a rapidly growing child, and Wesley faces new questions about his future in Starfleet. Picard and Riker defend Data’s right to remain an individual when a cybernetics researcher seeks to disassemble him, turning a technical dispute into a hearing about whether Starfleet can treat a sentient officer as property.
An officer exchange sends Riker aboard a Klingon vessel, where he must adapt to its command structure. Worf’s own story turns on his encounter with K’Ehleyr, a half-Klingon envoy with whom he shares a personal history. Their reunion rekindles a difficult romance, shaped by their different attitudes toward Klingon traditions. In another case, Data secretly befriends Sarjenka, a child on a world facing destruction, and must choose between the Prime Directive and trying to save her people after realizing his contact has already changed her understanding of the universe.
The season’s largest new threat arrives when Q sends the Enterprise far beyond Federation space in “Q Who.” The crew meets the Borg, a collective that adapts to the ship’s weapons and overpowers its defenses; Picard accepts Q’s help to return home with the warning that the Federation is unprepared. Other missions remain distinct, from Riker’s father reappearing with an offer of a new command to the Enterprise’s war games with an old starship. The closing episode revisits Riker’s memories as Pulaski fights an infection threatening his life.