I watched the episode "Final Mission," the ninth episode of the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation this weekend (original air date: December 2nd, 1990).

The episode had Wesley Crusher and Captain Picard traveling in a mechanically dubious alien shuttle to get to a planet that is in need of Picard's galaxy-renowned diplomatic arbitration skills. The trip is intended as a "final mission" for Wesley, as he is about to leave the Enterprise to study at Starfleet Academy, and Picard wanted to use the time on the mission to give him sagely advice. As is predicted, the shuttle's propulsion system fails, leaving Wesley, Picard, and the captain of the alien shuttle stranded on a desert planet.

Picard maintains an uneasy command of the shuttle crash survivors, convincing the shuttle captain to make for the mountains as their best chance for food or shelter. They make their way across the desert and to a cave, with what appears to be an active spring welling up from the bottom of the cave. However, upon approaching the spring, they discover that a force field surrounds the water, and a number of energy-based sentries attack the survivors when they try to take down the field with their phasers. The sentries cause rocks to fall from the ceiling, injuring Picard. Wesley tries to help Picard, but discovers that the injuries will eventually prove fatal, and cannot be treated in the cave.

The alien shuttle captain grows impatient, and convinces Wesley to try another plan to use the phasers to take down the field around the water spring. Their plan again fails, and the alien shuttle captain is killed after being encased in "selenium fibers" by the sentries.

Wesley, tending to an ailing Picard, tries to keep Picard awake and in good spirits while he works on a way to disable the field. Picard, on the verge of death, tells Wesley how proud he is of him, gives him advice on Starfleet, the Academy, and life.

Up until now, the episode was a pretty standard "away team" story, with the added bonus of Patrick Stewart doing a good job on acting, and Wesley not being annoying and actually growing a pair.

What was more interesting about this episode is that I realized, watching the concluding scenes, that watching this episode is actually one of my earliest memories. Wesley, furious punching away at his tricorder while the energy sentries whirl around him, and then suddenly, his plan works, and the field goes down, and he's able to get the lifesaving water to Picard.

This is probably the most compelling reason I have for watching these shows. I may not have seen all of the episodes, but for the ones that I have (and no longer consciously remember), the characters and the imagery are buried deep in my memory and subconscious. And I think it's interesting to recall what a 5-year-old Josh thought about Star Trek.