Pen Pals (Star Trek: The Next Generation) Pen Pals (Star Trek: The Next Generation) "Pen Pals" is the 15th episode of the of the American science fiction television series "", the 41st episode overall, first broadcast on May 1, 1989. The series follows the adventures of the crew of the Federation starship "Enterprise" commanded by Captain Jean-Luc Picard. In this episode, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher learns to manage a science team, and in the primary plot, focusing on Starfleet's Prime Directive, Data helps a young girl on a troubled planet. As the "Enterprise" surveys an area of unexplored planets with unusually short life spans due to severe
Lessons (Star Trek: The Next Generation) of the stellar cartography on board the "Enterprise", but the set would be completely replaced for its reappearance in the movie "Star Trek Generations". James Van Hise and Hal Schuster wrote in their 1995 book, "The Complete Next Generation", that they thought the relationship between Picard and Daren was believable, and that the story itself was very effective. They thought that the loneliness Picard feels at the end of the episode was part of an ongoing story which would culminate in the subplot about Picard's loneliness in "Star Trek Generations". Several reviewers re-watched "Star Trek: The Next Generation" after the