In case you skip it...

As the first episode of the second season, “The Child” introduces a handful of changes:

• Worf is now the permanent Chief Security Officer and is posted at the tactical station behind the captain’s chair.
• Geordi is now Chief Engineer, taking over for the rotating roster seen in the first season.
• Dr. Crusher has apparently transfered to Starfleet Medical, and has been replaced as the Enterprise’s Chief Medical Officer by Dr. Pulaski. She’s distrustful of Data, not even considering him to be alive at first, and doesn’t like to use the transporter. She looks like this:

  

• You might think Wesley would be off with his mom, but in this episode he decides his future is with the Enterprise and he gets Picard to agree to let him stay. He even becomes an “acting Ensign”, despite not having attended the Academy, and he gets to be the conn officer (taking over for Geordi).
• Riker has grown a beard. This is the origin of the term “growing the beard” to refer to a sudden increase in a show’s quality.
• Picard has asked his mysterious old friend Guinan to come on the Enterprise. She looks like this:

  

  Not a lot is known about Guinan, except that she has a longstanding and close connection with Picard, is an excellent listener, has amazing taste in hats, and is far older than she looks. She tends bar at the Enterprise’s bar and lounge, Ten Forward.

  

  It’s called that because it’s at the forward-most section of deck ten - the frontmost tip of the saucer section. Its windows therefore present a view of where the ship is headed.