Star Trek TNG rewatch

Season three is where things start to pick up, and then you're in the green through till the end of the series. Though one can make a strong case for Deep Space 9 as being the 'best' Trek, I think TNG will forever be my favorite. It successfully redefined and revitalized Trek while managing to tell exciting and powerful stories with a strong cast of actors bound together by a palpable sense of camaraderie and respect.

The first season (or 2) of DS9 had it's share of crappy episodes and it took awhile to find it's footing.

It was definitely better from the get go than TNG was.

Seasons 1 and 2 of TNG are endurance tests.  Season 3 is when the show starts to find its stride and really kick ass.

just to add - DS9 got really good when Ronald (BSG) Moore took over the reigns and the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" was really damn fun.

It took the Dominion War to really kickstart DS9. From then on its the best Trek since TOS.

I thought DS9 had the best overall quality of any Star Trek series. Thanks to some advice from the "Star Trek" thread I've been watching Enterprise, and finding that with Season 4 it turned into a really good show. But Season 1 was mediocre but the arc in Seasons 2 and 3 were mediocre to really bad IMO.

So, I have a love of DS9, and Paul is wrong. It started firing on most cylinders by midway through Season 1. As for TNG, you have to read the AV club reviews as you go. Zack Handlen does a great job of approaching the whole thing afresh.  Plus, the commentariat is quite great.  A gimmick poster named Frakes does some magnificant comedy work.

 

I have never opened my original DVDs of TNG Season 1 and 2. I could never bring myself to watch it.

S3 of DS9 is definitely when it jumps into high gear, but it's quite strong from the start. The opening episodes are well-conceived and a LOT more cinematic than TNG ever was. It does take a while to find its footing after the initial handful of episodes, but it's never actively BAD the way TNG was in the early going. Of course, there are always weak/stodgy episodes, even in the later seasons. While it's the most serialized Trek show, it's never as heavily serialized as Lost or its ilk.

 

I've heard people suggest you should start watching DS9 in S3, which I think is crazy. Again, S1 and 2 are fine, but more importantly, S3 is so cool precisely because it pays off stuff that was set up in those first two seasons. If you start S3 without knowing about the Dominion or Odo's mysterious backstory and so on, it's just going to be a lot of pointless infodump. If you've been waiting to see that stuff get resolved (and expecting that it wouldn't be, based on how cruddy the continuity of TNG was), it's really cool. In fact, a lot of what makes DS9 so cool is that you've settled into a sense of lowered expectations with TNG and DS9 goes "fuck that" and starts to deliver the awesome. It wouldn't work as well as it did if modern Trek wasn't known at that point for being kind of pedantic and slow and low-stakes.

 

As for TNG, I've deliberately never revisited it after being obsessed with it as a teenager. Even as it was still airing I started to get pissed off at how lackadaisical it could be, with continuity, character work, universe-building, and the general sense that the writers were either robots or contemptuous of their audience. There were definitely a few great episodes, though. I generally liked the Klingon episodes (especially the ones written by Ron Moore), whenever the Borg showed up it was always cool, and of course, Q.
 

What does everyone think of ST:Voyager? I think Jeri Ryan was the only reason to catch that series.

It was mostly forgettable. There were a few episodes that stood out. I did like the idea of finally having a female Capt. 

One arc that comes to mind is when they introduced Species 8472 (had to look that up) An alien race that the the borg couldn't assimilate...and they looked pretty cool

ST: VOYAGER was pretty bad.  They tried to recapture the magic of TNG and failed miserably at the casting level, creating a thoroughly unlikable and un-engaging crew of people to watch.  Things improved with the arrival of 7-of-9, but not enough to really salvage the show.  They did have a few good episodes here and there, though...the two hour episode with the Borg (featuring Alice Krige) was really quite good, for instance.

I'd say both Voyager and Enterprise suffered from having astonishingly bland crews for the most part, accompanying writing that always seemed to be solidly coasting. Admittedly, I abandoned both shows mid-second season, but neither ever did anything to really engage me on any level. DS9 was actually the same during much of the first season (and a little bit in the second), but there was enough good mixed in that it was clear the show was on a whole different level than the later shows ever got to.

I remember tuning into Voyager for a half-season or so after Seven joined because I'd heard it had improved. And yeah, it was OK. Among other things, there seemed to be at least a vague attempt to get away from Trek tropes, particularly the cliched bumpy foreheads that drove me crazy. There were some decent alien designs during those years, and I remember one episode that had part of the cast stuck outside in space suits, which was something you never see in Trek but made it seem like a harder-edged SF show. And there was one episode about how they were stuck crossing a gigantic nebula that was going to take them something like a year with no planets or stars or anything, just void, and they started to have psychological breakdowns. Just the occasional acknowledgement that they were still in hostile space on the other side of the galaxy. I give them props for that. But of course the show got lazy and boring again, and it was never THAT good anyway.

What really killed VOYAGER was Chakotay.  I'm not sure if it's physically possible for an actor to look more bored than Robert Beltran did in this role.  Something somewhat interesting would happen and he'd walk into the scene like a wet fart and just kill any momentum or enthusiasm for what was happening.  To be fair, His entire character was that damned triangle tattoo on his forehead, so I honestly can't blame him for not giving 100% to the vastly underwritten part.

I own TNG Seasons 1 and 2 on Blu-ray. Perhaps I should get around to watching them, as I haven't seen an episode of The Next Generation since I was 8 or 9.

I honestly didn't actively hate the first two seasons when I started making my way through TNG a couple years ago; maybe my expectations were appropriately low. I'm almost finished with season 5 now, and the series is consistently pretty strong. I can't stand any ep with Troi's mother, and Worf's son Alexander is an unwelcome addition whenever he turns up. Even still, I'm looking forward to diving into season 6, which I should hopefully be getting on DVD this Christmas.

 

Given the lack of continuity on most of the show, especially early, I'd start with select Season 2 episodes - Measure of a Man and Q Who, especially - because watching too many early Season 1 episodes may turn you off the show forever.

Maybe I was too broad by saying Dominion War. When the Dominion first show up in the season 3 finale is when I think the show finally got purpose. To me at least it was very middling until then with only a few good episodes. That's not to say everything from that point on was gold. I found "Vic Fontaine" pretty damned annoying. And shoehorning a new Dax in wasn't the best of ideas.

As for TNG I caught BOBW and All Good Things on SyFy last week. Two of the best things they've ever done. I really wish...budget be damned that they used the saucer seperation more.

I caught several episodes of season 2 on tv some months back for the first time in half a lifetime and was surprised by the quality of several of the episodes. The problem is it's wildly inconsistent - episodes are either more or less up to the standard of the later seasons, or near unwatchable shit like most of season 1. I'd say popular opinion on TNG is on the money for the most part, which is to say Seasons 3 to 6 are where it's at.

DS9 is a good show also but it's made by trekkies for trekkies, and possibly tends to get overhyped by trekkies for that reason. It's for people who like the Star Trek universe and want to see it fleshed out with deeper levels of continuity and detail. That's its main strength, but also makes it more of a niche interest thing. It's more inward looking and concerned with its own internal mythology than TNG, which tended to be more concept/theme driven and aimed for a much more universal appeal.

 

Voyager's watchable if it's on tv and you've nothing better to do, life's too short to go out of your way to watch it. Enterprise I could never be bothered to watch long enough to even form a proper opinion on.

 

So, I am going to sound like a shill, but I must point you to A Season of Star Trek in 13 Episodes. I started it mostly for what Bill McNeal does; his great work of weeding through Voyager's trash to come at what I am sure is a much better play list.

This article made me swear off ENTERPRISE forever.

 

 

I just see a message board of butthurt Trekers.

 

I love pointing out that in the end that new BSG basically said "fuck it" and made pretty much everyone a Cylon. Classic frakking stuff right there. Do people still use the word "frak" anymore? Oh that's right it's fucking stupid.

 

As for ENTERPRISE, it stumbled out of the gate and never really recovered. FARSCAPE really nailed what ENTERPRISE failed to do.

Uh, yeah.

I apologize in advance

 

the theme song from Enterprise- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8OpsPok6iQ

 

whomever came up with the idea to have this as the theme song really should have their head repeatedly slammed in a car door

Yes it is the worst, esp compared to the mostly great opening themes from all the other Trek series.

 

Curious to see how Ambler's TNG re-watch is going. I've only been able to sample isolated TNG episodes like Yesterday's Enterprise. Other than the premiere I've avoided Season 1 altogether.

Edited by Cylon Baby - 12/24/12 at 9:51am

Just watched the season 5 ep, "The Inner Light." I need a hug.

 

You've missed, at best, some ok episodes. I don't think there was a single actually good episode in the first season.

"Heart of Glory", maybe? And I thought "Datalore" had a certain excitement to it. There were also those two episodes that established a Puppet Masters-esque race of alien brain-eaters that were starting to take over Starfleet, and ended with a jaw-droppingly gory horror sequence that STILL feels shocking today. You can't believe that aired on network television at all, let alone Star Trek: TNG.

 

The first season gets a rep for being terrible and, well, it sort of is, but it's also weirdly fascinating. You can see the clash of ideologies as TNG tried to figure out what kind of show it was going to be. At times it's close to the zippy, pulpy, campy action show that the original was. At other times, it's the stolid, self-important, preachy show Roddenberry insisted it be (this is basically the sensibility that won out). And every once in a while it goes way down a bizarre cul-de-sac, often inspired by the genre movies of the era, particularly in the episodes I listed above. Did you know Data was originally inspired by Bishop, from ALIENS? And Tasha Yar was originally meant to be a latina and would have been far more obviously a ripoff of Vasquez. Seriously.

 

I also find it interesting that there was more work put into the aliens and the world-building in the first season than in many later seasons. There's actually an attempt not to make everything a "bumpy forehead", even if some of the results are laughable.

 

I'd say Datalore, Heart of Glory, and Conspiracy all rate as decent-to-pretty good. And there might be or or two others in that general area. But I don't think I'd put anything from the first season in the top half overall.

 

I agree that it's kind of oddly fascinating, but it also says how starved we were for Star Trek that we didn't realize how dodgy a lot of the first two seasons were for some time after.

 

Yes, Tasha Yar was originally Macha Hernandez, clearly a homage to Vasquez. Originally Marina Sirtis tried for her role, so you can think about how different that TNG would have been with her as the tough as nails security chief as opposed to the Roddenberresque Counselor. There's a reason no other Trek shows have counselors. Roddenberry was too dead to make them have one.

 

We owe a lot to Gene, but when he was doing the buildup to TNG, he had clearly lost it. Starfleet wasn't a military organization? That's on Gene. It took years to fix a lot of those misteps.

 

Gene didn't want Patrick Stewart for his new show's captain, Berman and Justman stood up for taking him on. That's all you need to know to know Gene's judgment was suspect at best.

Going back to Voyager, I think it's biggest misstep was how quickly it pissed away what was actually a great premise. Ie. An isolated Starfleet vessel with limited resources, crewed in part by people who didn't believe in the federations ideals.

All of which was forgotten after about 3 episodes when the Maquis were assimilated (groan) into the crew and everyone was one big happy clappy family again. Heck even the resources issue basically amounted to replacing the mission of exploration with 'collect resource X from nearby planet... also do some exploration'. Why even bother to strand them if they're not going to get tested? I think one of the better episodes featured a second Starfleet vessel which had taken to kidnapping and torturing an alien species to upgrade their engines. THAT'S the ship I want to know more about. Not Harry bleedin Kim and his clarinet.

Two final points of note. Firstly I think Robert Beltran rather famously became disillusioned with the series by the midpoint and took to only learning his lines and phoning it in. To be fair, who can blame him when your only character trait is his ethnicity. Every time a Chakotay episode crops up even I shriek, "Great! Time for another vision quest!".

Secondly, it does really highlight how bland the crew/cast were when the highpoint is the Doctor, who is essentially a retreading of Data. Robert Picardo is just so damn good though it doesn't even matter.

At least Berman got Something right.

As someone said in the Trek thread...once the Maquis put on starfleet uniforms the show was lost.

Something else I hated was how they started appropriating TNG foes like Q and especially the Borg. They had some decently interesting villains at the start but they ended up falling by the wayside so they could make Picard's ultimate nemesis...Janeways too.

I think Roddenberry was visionary for how he reimagined the trek universe for TNG. I can't imagine a space ship with a crew numbering more than a thousand without someone there to see to the crew's mental health. The lack of a counselor on subsequent trek shows is a big mistake I think.

PS I went to high school with someone who is related to the actor who played Harry Kim.

The Showrunners backed off that concept fairly early, but IMO it actually helped the show. Picard as an oddball who really liked the exploration part of Starfleet's mission, in contrast the majority of Starfleet Captains and Brass, who were usually portrayed as crusty Space Navy types, was interesting.

 

 

Well I hope Beltran setup a good Investment plan, because based on his "work" on Voyager plus his public comments about what a shitty show it was (while still collecting a paycheck) I don't see why anyone would hire him. Robert Picardo, being a real pro, did his best with substandard material.

 

 

Really? Picard maybe, and he does get a lot of screen time later on, but one major complaint I have about TNG is that other than Picard, Data and (sometimes) Worf the characters are so bland they don't merit any attention. And Data as the obvious Spock Substitute naturally attracts the most interest.

Geordie and Riker are great characters I think. Riker is like a more refined, sophisticated, 24th century Kirk. I greatly admire his loyalty to Picard.

 

 

Both characters had potential, but Riker's one moment to shine was in Best of Both Worlds, and his arc was that he learned to "settle" for being No 2 on the Enterprise rather than captain his own ship. The show runners' kind of admitted their failure to do anything with Riker when they did that episode where he goes into a Transporter and "Riker 2" is spawned and goes rogue.

 

As for Geordi: likable character and actor, but did he ever do anything other than spout TechnoBabble?

 

Thinking about it further, the one character I wish they'd done more with is Guynan. As shown in the series she is a smug know it all who may have Q;like powers (she faces Q down in one episode; too bad she didn't use those powers on the Borg or the 100 other threats faced by Enterprise). But the hints about her background, combined with some character defects, or just being plain wrong on occasion, would have made her interesting.

Riker really should have been written off the show at the end of BOBW.

I guess I just have always found the idea of the Enterprise D as a ship crewed by qualified, loyal and dedicated professionals, who operate on a basis of mutal respect and friendship, united by a utopian vision, to be good TV all on it's own. I am, unlike some, completely on board with what Roddenberry was trying to do in TNG, and the show is one I hold in special esteem.

Geordi was defined by his friendship to Data and his loyalty to the rest of the crew and dedication to it's mission. He did often dispense techno babble, but he just as frequently was involved in other roles central to the plot.

Burton is a charismatic and endearing actor, and so as you say, the character is very likable. I always enjoyed Geordi centric episodes, and his logic driven approach to problem solving (probably why he got on so well with Data).

I admire Riker's unswerving loyalty to Picard, and belief in Picard's interpretation of Star Fleet's mission. Frakes had many excellent moments over the series, and I never tired of Riker as I was always able to respect the character and the importance of his leadership role in driving moral - it often fell on Riker to interpret and enforce the captain's orders for the rest of the crew. Tom Riker was great, and I wish they'd done more with the concept of Riker 2. A missed opportunity.

While I appreciate the role of the counselor on the ship, I must say I never thought Troi or Crusher amounted to much as characters, which might be TNG's main drawback, the lack of truly compelling female main characters. Perhaps stronger actresses could have done more with those parts. Ro Laren was promising, but Michelle Forbes abandoned the show before that character had a chance to shine. Guynan was always a welcome addition to any episode, and you're right, we could have stood to have seen her role on the ship more deeply explored.

First of all, I think a lot of you are forgetting that Ezri Dax was a counselor on DS9. So there's that. The show actually found stuff for her to do in that capacity, though, unlike TNG.

 

Dr Harford, I'm a big believer in Trek's basically Utopian and humane future too, but the thing is, when you render that premise badly or lazily, which TNG frequently did, you end up desperately undermining your point. TNG's "pro-human future" sometimes seemed like it was crewed largely by people with Aspergers, who bore no resemblance to human beings whatsoever (not just counting the ones who were literally non-humans). I actually do think it's worthwhile to build a show about professionals who respect each other, and the idea of a positive future, but that frequently seemed to boil down to Roddenberry insisting that the characters would all get along and have no conflicts with each other, "because future". If you can't be bothered to at least suggest why your future is so Utopian, you're coming off as lazy and cynical, not humanist. There's a reason Firefly was so easily able to model its villains on the Federation--there's a distinct air of desperation and forced cheerfulness on TNG at times, and that logically leads you to start wondering where the bodies are buried on the Enterprise. Part of why DS9 was such a vastly better show is that they retained their respect for Starfleet and the Federation, while being willing to take a hard look at the costs and consequences of their utopia.

 

Pretty much all of the major characters could have been cool if the writers had bothered. Geordi in particular could be great on the rare occasions when they gave him anything to do. But mostly the writers just had Riker, Geordi, Troi and Dr. Crusher hanging randomly around in the background, doing their jobs ad occasionally falling afoul of the weird time-space anomaly of the week or whatever. There was a comical lack of character development there.

Re watching this with my wife (who's never seen it) and really enjoying it.  Although my perception of the show is probably colored by the fact that the last episode we watched was "The Measure of a Man".

 

Stewart and Spiner really own this show but Frakes is really growing on me this time around. And although I had a massive crush on Sirtis growing up I really wish they had replaced her with Guinanan, who is so much better in the counselor role.

 

Still hate Dr Pulaski though.

 

Care to explain the Pulaski hate?  I get that she is an obvious McCoy call out, but I thought she had much better stories than Dr. Crusher (until...season 6). She had a livelier dynamic for me.  Is it the hideous 80s short hair?

Pulaski never had sex with a ghost in a candle.  Advantage: Pulaski.

She always seemed like character who was placed in the show to make it more like TOS. And to be honest it never needed that, TNG was a different beast and it works because it's not simply a rehash. I'm not saying Beverley is better but at least she is different.