Blog

Synopsis: When a fatal accident occurs in Cadet Crusher’s squadron at Starfleet Academy, he is torn between his duty to honor and to his friends. This episode highlights the idea of the tension between the opposites, which is ongoing in our psyches throughout our lives. In “The First Duty” Cadet Wesley Crusher’s squadron leader ordered… Continue reading Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 19: “The First Duty”

Synopsis: The crew of the Enterprise is stuck in a repeating time loop of the vessel’s destruction until they figure out a way to escape it. This episode is an illumination of the idea of what it is like to be stuck in what Carl (C. G.) Jung would call a feeling-toned complex, a term… Continue reading Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 18: “Cause and Effect”

Synopsis: The crew of the Enterprise comes to the aid of an androgenous alien race and Commander Riker becomes involved in a forbidden romance with one of them. This episode is relatively well known as being an analogy for the treatment of LGBTQ+ individuals at the time in the United States, and much more progressive… Continue reading Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 17: “The Outcast”

Synopsis: Lt. Worf is severely injured and he and the crew wrestle with different cultural beliefs around death and medical treatment. In this episode the “Ethics” involved therein deal with some of the most fundamental beliefs in our culture concerning medical care, death, friendship, and disability. Lt. Worf, being a Klingon, immediately asks his friend… Continue reading Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 16: “Ethics”

Synopsis: Alien entities invade the bodies of Counselor Troi, Lt. Commander Data, and Chief O’Brien, and then try to take over the Enterprise. This episode is very similar in theme to the last episode “Conundrum,” in that they both involve a plot by a previously unknown alien race that tries to take over the bodies… Continue reading Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 15: “Power Play”

Synopsis: The crew of the Enterprise loses its memory after an encounter with an alien vessel. This episode, in which the crew loses its memory and keeps acting as it knows how to do, but not knowing why, can be seen as an analogy as to how the rational conscious ego feels when it is… Continue reading Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 14: “Conundrum”

Synopsis: The crew of the Enterprise encounter a genetically engineered society that is threatened by an approaching stellar core fragment. In this episode the crew of the Enterprise discovers a settlement inside a biodome on an otherwise inhospitable looking planet. But inside the biodome are the descendants of a genetically engineered society that had its… Continue reading Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 13: “The Masterpiece Society”

Synopsis: Counselor Troi, Commander Riker, and Dr. Crusher fall into comas after their memories are attacked. In this episode, we can see how memories can be sources of both pain and healing. And while in “Violations” the attacks were made by an alien who specifically targeted psychic attacks on the memory centers of Counselor Deanna… Continue reading Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 12: “Violations”

Synopsis: Lt. Commander Data rescues a young boy, the only survivor from a damaged vessel, and to help him through his pain the boy emulates him. This episode actually uses a term that Carl (C.G.) Jung uses in his theories on depth psychology, enantiodromia. Counselor Deanna Troi explains to Captain Jean-Luc Picard that this means… Continue reading Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 11: “Hero Worship”

Synopsis: The crew of the Enterprise helps a scientist test a groundbreaking technology while Lt. Worf becomes reacquainted with his son, Alexander. This episode illustrates James Hillman’s archetypal psychology concept of the metaxy, the in-between place where soul is made. In “New Ground” we also can see that finding this in-between place is not always… Continue reading Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, Episode 10: “New Ground”