By drax on Skatehive
Cost of Living (S05E20) Airdate: 20 April 1992 Written by: Peter Alan Fields Directed by: Winrich Kolbe Running Time: 46 minutes Star Trek: The Next Generation is rightly regarded as the franchise's golden age for much, if not all, of its seven-season run. However, its rigorously episodic nature inevitably led to some serious missteps, instalments so tonally aberrant or poorly conceived that they risked alienating viewers who might otherwise have become lifelong 'trekkies'. One such example is the fifth-season offering Cost of Living. While far from the absolute nadir of either TNG or Star Trek as a whole, it is one of the series' most profound disappointments. Its core flaw is one of identity: it feels like an intruder from another genre, resembling a routine and uninspired 1990s sitcom far more than even a below-par episode of thoughtful science fiction drama. The plot, such as it is, is bifurcated into two strands that never meaningfully intersect. It begins with the USS Enterprise-