The second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation commenced airing in broadcast syndication in the United States on November 21, 1988, and concluded on July 17, 1989, after airing 22 episodes. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the crew of the Starfleet starship Enterprise-D. Season two featured changes to the main cast, following the departure of Gates McFadden. Diana Muldaur was cast as Dr. Katherine Pulaski for a single season before the return of McFadden in season three. Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg also joined the cast after pursuing a role from the producers.

There were significant changes backstage to the writing team. Maurice Hurley became head writer, and following extensive re-writes to "The Royale" and "Manhunt", Tracy Tormé left the writing team. Likewise, following the submission of a script for "Blood and Fire", David Gerrold allowed his contract to run out due to issues with Gene Roddenberry and Leonard Maizlish, Roddenberry's lawyer. Other departing writers included Leonard Mlodinow and Scott Rubenstein, while Melinda M. Snodgrass, Hans Beimler and Richard Manning joined the team. At the end of the season, Hurley also left the team. Production designer Herman F. Zimmerman left the show to work on Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and was replaced by Richard James, who remained with the show for the rest of the series.

The 1988 Writers Guild of America strike caused the season to be shortened to 22 episodes, the lowest count for any season in the series. The strike was later blamed for the lack of quality of the first few episodes. The strike also resulted in the writing team using an unused script from the aborted Star Trek: Phase II to open the season, entitled "The Child". Budgetary changes allowed for individual episode funding to be carried between episodes, but this resulted in a lack of funding towards the end of the season which the crew attempted to solve by creating a clip show, "Shades of Gray".

"The Child" opened to 10.9 million viewers, and ratings peaked with both "A Matter of Honor" and "The Measure of a Man", which were watched by 11.3 million. Although a decrease in viewers saw the lowest number of viewers for a first-run episode in the series in "Manhunt", the show became the third most-watched series in its timeslot. Critics praised the episodes "The Measure of a Man" and "Q Who", but found "Shades of Gray" to be one of the worst episodes of the entire Star Trek franchise. The season was first released on DVD on May 7, 2002, on Region 1, and was subsequently released on Regions 2 and 3. The region-free Blu-ray releases came in December 2012, with "The Measure of a Man" and "Q Who" receiving a limited theatrical release.

Production Writing The second season saw Maurice Hurley being promoted to head writer after the departure of Robert Lewin. Hurley had been brought on board during the first season. His prior experience had been with shows such as The Equalizer and Miami Vice, and he later explained that he took the position because it challenged him.Gross; Altman (1993): p. 170 The 1988 Writers Guild of America strike had caused problems at the end of the first season, and these continued as the development of season two started, resulting in a shortened season. Executive producer Rick Berman blamed a decrease in quality at the start of season two on the lack of time available for proper development due to the writer's strike. Hurley felt that the writing on the show managed to get into a rhythm during the second half of the first season, and that the strike stopped that and resulted in his eventually leaving the series. He also criticised the lack of character arcs in the series, saying that "I did some good, some bad, some mediocre, but it's not a show that I could continue to do. It's not where I come from."

Hurley had objected to the violent and gory scenes seen in the first-season episode "Conspiracy", written by Tracy Tormé, and Tormé continued to feel alienated by Hurley. Tormé stepped down from his role as co-executive story editor, taking credit instead as a creative consultant. Following Hurley's modifications to Tormé's scripts for "The Royale" and "Manhunt", Tormé elected to be credited under a pseudonym only. At one point, Roddenberry had thought that Tormé would become eventual showrunner, but the writer left due to the re-writes required under Hurley's tenure. Hannah Louise Shearer also left the team between seasons, due to differences with Hurley, but contributed stories in later seasons. Other writers joined the team during the second season, including The Tears of the Singers author Melinda M. Snodgrass, who sold the script for "The Measure of a Man". Hans Beimler and Richard Manning were hired in the newly created positions of executive script consultants. They had both been story editors for the final eight episodes of the first season.Nemecek (1995): p. 65 Snodgrass later explained that, "Once I came on board there suddenly seemed to be this climate of discussion among the writers about what we wanted to do with the show. My impression was that this was a new phenomenon. We were a little bit more on the same wavelength." She was hired as a story editor following the submission of her first episode, alongside Leonard Mlodinow and Scott Rubenstein. The other two editors left after four more episodes, with Snodgrass remaining as the sole story editor for the rest of the season.

"Blood and Fire"

Another writer who left the show during season two was David Gerrold. He wrote an episode for The Original Series called "The Trouble with Tribbles" and came on-board The Next Generation before the pilot and wrote the first version of the bible for the series. Berman stated in an early memo that the new series was intended to be an issues-based show in the same mold as the original. Creator Gene Roddenberry concurred, and under questioning from fans at a convention which Gerrold also attended, Roddenberry agreed that it was time for a homosexual character to appear in Star Trek. Roddenberry told his staff that "Times have changed and we have got to be aware of it." This resulted in Gerrold pitching a story called "Blood and Fire", which included two homosexual crew members and an AIDS allegory. Roddenberry cleared the idea to be produced into a script, and Gerrold went off to appear on a Star Trek cruise having received a telegram telling him that everyone in the office was pleased with the new story.

Upon his return, he found that the story was not going to be used in the current form. Gerrold later said that "I was told that Gene's lawyer did not like the script and felt that this was not a good episode, and so on his advice, it seems, the script was cancelled. That's what I was told by someone who was in a position to know. I don't have any proof in writing, so I have to qualify it by saying someone told me."Gross; Altman (1994): p. 96 Official sources stated that Paramount became involved, and that the company felt the story was inappropriate for younger viewers in the syndicated marketplace and that complaints would be received from parents. The script was given to Herbert Wright to re-write. Roddenberry gave Wright a number notes on the script, who accidentally handed over notes on the script to Gerrold which were written by Roddenberry's lawyer, Leonard Maizlish.Engel (1994): p. 230 Due to the workload on Wright at the time, Gerrold offered to make a first attempt at the re-write with the intention of removing the homosexual characters.Engel (1994): p. 248 After initially clearing that with Roddenberry, Wright later received a phone call from him telling Wright not to let Gerrold work on it. Shortly after, Wright received a second call from Maizlish to reinforce the message that Gerrold must not be allowed to work on the script.Engel (1994): p. 249

After numerous revisions by Wright, including a version called "Blood and Ice", the script was eventually dropped from the schedule. Gerrold asked for his contract not to be renewed following the problems with the episode.Reeves-Stevens (1998): p. 89 Ernie Over, Roddenberry's personal assistant at the time, later said that the claims were blown out of proportion by Gerrold, that "Blood and Fire" was simply a bad script. No openly homosexual characters were ever written into another episode of the show.

Development

The series bible stated the intention to create new villains for the new show, but after the failure of the Ferengi, the Romulans were re-introduced in the final episode of the first season and continued to be featured throughout season two. The cybernetic Borg were introduced in the episode "Q Who", modified from the insectoid race that Hurley had intended to introduce in a longer version of the season one finale "The Neutral Zone".Reeves-Stevens (1998): p. 90 The Borg returned sporadically throughout the rest of the series, appearing in five further episodes. Unlike almost all other alien adversaries created for The Next Generation, they became one of only two to transition into films with Star Trek: First Contact. A further change seen in season two, which increased later in the season, was an increased focus on the trio of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Commander William T. Riker and Lt Cmdr. Data, reminiscent of Captain James T. Kirk, Dr. Leonard McCoy and Commander Spock in Star Trek: The Original Series. This relegated the other cast members to background roles for the majority of episodes.

Paramount changed the way that individual episodes were funded, with overspending on some episode budgets allowed on the proviso that it would be recouped by a reduction in others.Reeves-Stevens (1998): p. 74 Due to the effects of the writer's strike, the writing staff searched the scripts from Star Trek: Phase II, a series which was cancelled before being filmed; the first planned episode had been developed into Star Trek: The Motion Picture. From those scripts, one was identified with potential for season two; it resulted in the opening episode "The Child". The role of Lt. Ilia was rewritten in the story to become a part for Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi. Sirtis praised this development, as she felt she had been overlooked during the first season due to the presence of both McFadden and Denise Crosby.

Episodes were developed to touch on social issues in the same manner as The Original Series. "The Child" featured a brief debate on abortion, "Up the Long Ladder" discussed cloning, and "Loud as a Whisper" was about accepting the legitimacy of sign language for the deaf.Reeves-Stevens (1998): p. 92 Problems arose when the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle threatened to sue the producers if the show used Sherlock Holmes once more following the episode "Elementary, Dear Data". Budgetary reasons resulted in the season ending with the episode "Shades of Gray", a clip show consisting mostly of footage of earlier episodes.Reeves-Stevens (1998): p. 93 That episode was filmed over three days instead of the usual seven, and was agreed by the production staff to be one of the worst episodes of any Star Trek series.

Make-up and set design Following issues with his make-up throughout the first season, Michael Dorn's Klingon prosthetics were modified. Michael Westmore made the headpiece simpler, and Dorn took to wearing a headband under the headpiece to reduce a skin rash on his forehead. The headpiece was then glued down around the edges.