The second season of The Next Generation is a hard one to peg. It’s often lumped together with Season 1 as the early, rough, spandexy era of the show that can be easily discarded. Yet it also made a couple of significant steps forward for the fledgling space opera that hinted at its future potential.

It’s not entirely fair to say that S2 is the same as S1 for many reasons. The first is a huge changeover in writing and development staff following a lot of behind-the-scenes drama. I’ve always felt that this helped to take the show out of the shadow of TOS and toward being its own thing, even if it wasn’t moving boldly enough.

I like how we do see some great developments happen as TNG took shape. For starters, we get Guinan and Ten Forward, a character and setting that prove to be instrumental in the show from here on out. Riker got his famous beard, Worf officially takes over tactical, Wesley gets a decent acting ensign uniform instead of his awful sweaters, and Geordi trades in his red command shirt for a yellow one as he takes the position of chief engineer. It’s a shame they didn’t show this promotion or feature a story around it; that feels like a missed opportunity.

Another big change — albeit a divisive one — is the replacement of Doctor Pulaski for Doctor Crusher. Both in front and behind the camera, this was a regrettable move that didn’t work out for anyone (thankfully, Crusher returned in season 3). The nicest thing I can say about Pulaski is that she has potential to be interesting, kind of an acerbic character plopped down in a too-nice crew. But the writers try to make her like Bones 2.0 too much, and she isn’t likable or appealing at all.

The ratio of good shows to bad ones doesn’t change that much from the first season, but it is an uptick. It’s still a very rough go if you’re trying to brute force your way through the show. There are a few gems in the bunch, but they’re surrounded by a lot of stinkers and even the infamous “Shades of Grey” clip show that was caused by the budget crisis and the writer’s strike. Yet even some of the bad shows lived on in that same so-bad-they’re-memorable way, such as the Outrageous Okana or the introduction of the notorious Pakleds.

But there are some genuinely good episodes of Trek here. “Elementary My Dear Data” is a solid early holodeck episode with a great villain, “The Measure of a Man” uses a courtroom to examine Data’s sentience and rights, “Pen Pals” pits Data against the Prime Directive, and “Q Who” introduces us to the famous Borg. So… four episodes I’d really suggest here out of 22? Not a great ratio, but I only liked one in the first season, so there you go.

I really loved the introduction of Sonya Gomez, a klutzy and funny engineer who dumps hot chocolate all over Picard. Unfortunately, she’s only in two episodes before they dropped her entirely (at least, until Lower Decks’ second season picked her back up). I wish she would’ve been a recurring extra.

One thing that I observed with this season is that the team is still figuring out all the rules with this universe, especially in regards to regulations, technology, and even character motivation. There’s a lot of early growth wonkiness that has to be forgiven if one is to enjoy this show, especially as stuff like the holodeck and the transporter never seems to hold to any consistent structure.

What really got me excited with Season 2 is knowing that Season 3 — and it’s big jump in quality — was right around the corner. Again, I’m thankful that Paramount and CBS didn’t pull the plug on TNG before that happened.