Too Short a Season

TNG Season 1 Episode 16
Air Date: February 8th, 1988

Plot

The Enterprise is called to Mordan IV that just ended a 40 year war to rescue Federation representatives that have been taken hostage by terrorists. The Mordan governor Karnas suggests that Admiral Mark Jameson be brought to negotiate with the terrorists. Jameson had history negotiating with the Mordan people before the war broke out. During those negotiations Jameson also was trying to get hostages released and the cost was to give Karnas weapons to defeat his enemy. Jameson's view of not breaking the prime directive was to give both sides weapons, which is why the war lasted 40 years.

During the course of the episode, Jameson who is is elderly and suffering from a disease that confines him to a wheelchair, takes a rare drug that can reverse the effects of aging, but he takes a much larger dose then perscribed and it works more effectively then expected. By the end of the episode he looks like he is in his 20s. It eventually kills him, but not before he can confront Karnas who is the one that actually has the hostages. He frees the hostages when Jameson finally dies from the drug.

Quotes

"The Admiral?" - Riker
"Sickbay. Not good is a galactic understatement." - Picard

"You blamed your war on him. And there's no doubt he had a lot to do with it. But you had the weapons and you used them. You could have tried for negotiations for peace on your planet long ago. Instead you chose to fight. How many of those forty years of civil war are on your head, Karnas?" - Picard

"The quest for youth Number One, so futile. Age and wisdom have their graces, too." - Picard
"I wonder if one doesn't have to have age and wisdom to appreciate that, sir." - Riker
"I hope not, Number One." - Picard