In our previous installments, we talked about seasons 1-5 of TNG, and the relative power of the various adversaries our intrepid heroes faced.

As before, I defined ‘high-powered’ challenges as those where firing phasers would only make the problem worse, so the crew must needs turn to guile. ‘Equal-powered’ challenges are those situations where firing phasers would lead to a toss-up. ‘Low-powered’ challenges are those where phasers or transporters would solve the problem handily[3]. ‘Self-powered’ challenges are those where the conflict is inside the crew, or between crew members, or between all or part of the crew and Starfleet.

S6: 2-102220-10-12101-1-120-1-1201-122

High: 9
Equal: 3
Low: 6
Self: 8

Season six continues the seasons four and five trend of adversaries being much more powerful than the crew, or being the crew themselves, culminating in the season finale of Data and Lore teaming up with the Borg. The Holodeck Moriarty also returns (‘capable of beating Data‘), and Scotty helps them escape a Dyson Sphere (!).

We also have a more in-depth introduction to the Cardassians ‘There are Four Lights!’, and a new robotic species!

In another more powerful/self combo, Q helps us tell the story of Picard’s artificial heart.

But my favourite, and one of the most moving of the series, is the message from the ‘Ancient Humanoids’.

Judging by the number of episodes I’ve mentioned here, I feel like season six was where a lot of things came together for the show, or maybe it was the last season I really watched.