Series: Star Trek: TNG
Episode: 4.06 Legacy (10/29/1990)
Rating: 3/5
Redshirt Status: 0/0/33
Notable Guest Stars:
Beth Toussaint (Ishara Yar) – She started off her career with modeling work and appeared in a few music videos, and a reoccurring role on Dallas. More recently she briefly held the role of Hope Wilson on The Young and the Restless in 2006.
Don Mirault (Hayne) – While this may be his most known TV credit, he has also done a lot behind the scenes. He is a skilled choreographer and owns his own publishing company.
Christopher Michael (Coalition Lieutenant)- His largest role appears to be Sergeant Michaels from 7th Heaven.
Vladimer Velasco (Tan Tsu) – Velasco has a relatively short credit list according to IMDB.com but he has appeared on several shows including JAG.
Review:
This episode is a little bit about Tasha’s background, but mostly about friendship, family, and Data. The Enterprise has gotten an distress signal from a freighter around Turkana IV, which is the home planet of Tasha Yar. Upon arriving they find out that the people on the planet have taken the two remaining crewmen hostage. The colony planet’s government collapsed 15 years ago, around the time Tasha left, and is now run by two of the remaining fractions. The one that the Enterprise away team comes across is the Coalition, in midst of a supply raid of the Alliance – the fraction with the hostages. Among the Coalition’s members is Ishara Yar, Tasha’s younger sister.
Ishara agrees to help them. It makes the various main characters deal with lingering emotions about Tasha. Ishara finds herself at odds with a few because of her memories of Tasha against their own. She believes that Tasha is a coward and has to argue with both Worf and Data about it.
Data’s emotions are probably the most explored. It focuses on how he sees friendship. Its clear he holds Tasha dear to him. Its something of a reoccurring theme on the show. This is the first time he really talks about how she died, and I think he finds familiarity with Ishara after sharing that and trusts her like he would Tasha.
I think to a point everyone did. This episode is about finding friends and allowing oneself to take the risk of trusting people. I wanted to comment on how the episode ends, but I don’t want to ruin the episode because the twist at the end is easy to spoil.
Interesting Notes:
- Written by Joe Menosky (First episode)
- Directed by Robert Scheerer
- Supposedly this episode is about Gang Warfare.
- This is the 80th episode of TNG, officially making it longer than the original series. As such, they made various in-jokes referring to the finale episode of TOS, Turnabout Intruder
Pros:
- Mentions of Tasha
- Expansion of Data’s emotional output. He’s obviously limited but this continues to support my head canon that he can process some levels of emotion. He just doesn’t quite know how to interpret them.
- Data and Riker friendship.
Cons:
- No actual Tasha, even in a flashback.
- Ishara abuses Data’s affection for her.
Screencap via CygnusX1.net
Sokorra Lewis 