My TNG reviews

[WarpGirl]

These reviews aren't as wildly funny as the others but I still grin like an idiot reading them.

Now you've reviewed a few of my favorites, "Ugly bags of water" is still something my family uses to describe a particularly horrific person, (privately of course, never to their faces) and when I say particularly horrific I mean like the man who killed a 9 year old in Brooklyn and chopped him up. I am very grateful to that episode. I would have given it a 7.

Now if you hadn't mentioned your nephew in such glowing terms I'd be concerned about your hatred of children on Trek, you were quite vehement. I don't see the problem. I know, I know the whole "military" thing which in the 23rd and 24th century is a factual, compelling, and necessary arguement. However, Starfleet is SO MUCH MORE than a military and I think that adding kids on Federation ships is important to show where humanity is heading as a society.

That said, Patrick Stewert did some of the very best acting in that episode. IMVHO.

Coming of Age is one of my absolute favorite episodes of TNG, ever. And yes that is my little girl crush talking some, however the story arc it set up is reallyy one of the highlights of my TV viewing as a young child.

Please don't hate me??????

Early Worf BORES me to tears. I'm sorry but it's true. Hated him until K came into his life. Alexander also made him tolorable. Love him in the movies though!

Ah Riker's immortal "Good Ship Lolly-Pop" line. This episode was also a favorite of mine. I feel bad for Deanna you really hate her. I think she's another indication about how humanity is advancing: advocating peace over war, caring about mental and emotional health, and removing a lot of the stigma about expressing emotion in positions of authority. I think people who live in isolated enviornments (doesn't a Starship count?) in enclosed communities need psychological care. I'm shocked there isn't a shrink on every naval ship in every army in the world.

Geordie kicking major *** is ALWAYS a good thing. I was in love with every TNG man (except Worf) at one point in my childhood. Wes and Geordie lasted the longest.

Not to put to fine a point on it but why the heck were you so kind to Skin of Evil? If there was ever a time to let your sublime razor sharp wit fly this is the perfect oppertunity. This episode was HORRIBLE! Let the snark roar!

I'm sure you know Mirina Sirtis tried out for Yar. Is it really Troi you don't care for or Sirtis, or both? Either way I can understand why she isn't your cup of tea but I really feel bad for Dea right now.

As for Symbiosis, I'll be honest I don't remember this one off the top of my head to well. But I have to say that while I do believe that the Prime Directive is very misused at times, I think it's an overstatement to say that it is a "peversion of what it was originally intended."

First of all using Kirk as an example is completely bogus. Kirk would disobey any order he thought was "wrong" he did his own thing and more often than not got away scott free.

Second GR was still in control of TNG at this point. He was in charge of script approval. And this was his vision of it.

Great job like usual.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Now if you hadn't mentioned your nephew in such glowing terms I'd be concerned about your hatred of children on Trek, you were quite vehement. I don't see the problem.

If I wanted to watch a kids' show with kids, I would do that. But I want to watch grown-up science fiction and Star Trek. It's like if I wanted to watch a crime show and find out it's Nancy Drew instead of Harry Callahan.

Early Worf BORES me to tears. I'm sorry but it's true. Hated him until K came into his life. Alexander also made him tolorable.

I hated Alexander too (no surprises there) but I did like K'Ehylar.

I feel bad for Deanna you really hate her. I think she's another indication about how humanity is advancing: advocating peace over war, caring about mental and emotional health, and removing a lot of the stigma about expressing emotion in positions of authority. I think people who live in isolated enviornments (doesn't a Starship count?) in enclosed communities need psychological care. I'm shocked there isn't a shrink on every naval ship in every army in the world.

Well, I don't find this touchy-feely stuff appealing at all. Not surprising since I'm a very private person. And I loathe authority figures that play on heart strings. It just feels manipulative. I'd lose any respect for an officer who couldn't restrain himself or herself and went on to display overt emotions.

Not to put to fine a point on it but why the heck were you so kind to Skin of Evil? If there was ever a time to let your sublime razor sharp wit fly this is the perfect oppertunity. This episode was HORRIBLE! Let the snark roar!

I guess I couldn't get so worked up about it in a show where I at that juncture hadn't invested much in.

I'm sure you know Mirina Sirtis tried out for Yar. Is it really Troi you don't care for or Sirtis, or both? Either way I can understand why she isn't your cup of tea but I really feel bad for Dea right now.

Yeah, I know about the Sirtis/Crosby switcheroo. I really don't like Troi. To my recollection I haven't seen Sirtis in anything else, so I cannot offer an opinion about her.

As for Symbiosis, I'll be honest I don't remember this one off the top of my head to well. But I have to say that while I do believe that the Prime Directive is very misused at times, I think it's an overstatement to say that it is a "peversion of what it was originally intended."

First of all using Kirk as an example is completely bogus. Kirk would disobey any order he thought was "wrong" he did his own thing and more often than not got away scott free.

Second GR was still in control of TNG at this point. He was in charge of script approval. And this was his vision of it.

To me it is pretty obvious that Roddenberry had changed his views on a number of things as he got older. That is noticeable when you compare TOS and TNG. One of the things he changed was the interpretation (or definition if you like) of the Prime Directive. I much prefer the Kennedy/Johnson GR to the Mondale/Dukakis GR, if you catch my drift.

[WarpGirl]

Well I'll just wait for you to really get your snark back on. TOS and TNG are very different animals but considering the changes between the 60's and the 80's it isn't surprising outlooks change as well. For me the outlooks in the 80's are more appealing because that's the society I was born into. Also since I was a kid during TNG I of course LOVED seeing kids on the ship. I'm just glad I'm still young enough to have a generation gap where I'm not on the "old one."

Of course you're probably one of those Nordic god-like men, so...

[panyasan]

I remember When the Bough Breaks. It actually shows that having childern on a space ship of exploration in a space unknown is a bad idea. You have a weak spot (your kids) that aliens can use against you very easily.

I watched this episode when I didn't have childern yet, but speaking as a mother now I would be all over Picard to get my kid back. Also I would seriously consider taking a planetside job.

Families on DS9 made more sense to me. Also the relationship with father Sisko and son Jake was far more believeable and good to watch, as was the family O'Brien.

As for the babbling of Troi: wasn't the thought popular in those days that therapy could cure even the most hard criminal, because of the believe that people are generally good?

[WarpGirl]

One more thing to consider, TOS wasn't considered "family programming" while TNG was trying to be more family oriented. Especially after they moved it from 11:30pm on tuesdays to 8:00pm. So it isn't supposed to be more "hard core" like NU BSG. Therefore, you get less runchy stuff, less violence, and kids! Maybe this is a cultural difference in the USA I'm truly not sure.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

I remember When the Bough Breaks. It actually shows that having childern on a space ship of exploration in a space unknown is a bad idea. You have a weak spot (your kids) that aliens can use against you very easily.

Exactly! Also, the risk of running into armed combat on a regular basis. Separating the saucer section won't work because it could then be targeted and used for blackmail - "Surrender of you families get blown up!"

I watched this episode when I didn't have childern yet, but speaking as a mother now I would be all over Picard to get my kid back. Also I would seriously consider taking a planetside job.

Families on DS9 made more sense to me. Also the relationship with father Sisko and son Jake was far more believeable and good to watch, as was the family O'Brien.

Yeah, DS9 was stationary and as such a different animal, like a planetside base. Incidentally, the DS9 pilot also saw the dangers of having families aboard ships - Sisko's wife got killed at the battle of Wolf 359.

As for the babbling of Troi: wasn't the thought popular in those days that therapy could cure even the most hard criminal, because of the believe that people are generally good?

Indeed it was! And that's a view of human nature I don't believe in. If that makes me a bad Trekkie, then so be it!

[WarpGirl]

Well I think that people can change if they want to no matter how awful they are, provided they have no mental illness of brain deformities. That said I also believe that there are people out there that are pure evil, because they choose to be.

I like Deanna and I like her role on the ship. Like I said in an isolated enclosed community it's a good idea to have a mental health professional around. In today's military, you get leave scheduled and deployments are not years and years. Starfleet is a totally different animal. How many times did the crew go back to earth and see their families in one year?

It does make sense. Whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not, I can understand the evolution of Starleet.

[Cogito]

That said I also believe that there are people out there that are pure evil, because they choose to be.

I don't remember the quote, but I think it was from a famous actor talking about getting into character to play the part of a villain. He said that nobody thinks of themselves as evil. I think that's probably true.

[WarpGirl]

I think it's all up to the individual. For example one of my family's dearest friends was a former hardened criminal. But he completely changed his life, gave up his entire way of life to live a new one. It is completely possible. But then there are people who simply do not care and have no desire to change. Those people are purely evil.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

That said I also believe that there are people out there that are pure evil, because they choose to be.

I don't remember the quote, but I think it was from a famous actor talking about getting into character to play the part of a villain. He said that nobody thinks of themselves as evil. I think that's probably true.

That's true enough. Everyone is the hero in the movie of their life.

That said, it doesn't mean that there aren't genuinely bad and evil people out there. A current example is Col. Khadaffi. He's a really bad, evil person but I very much doubt he views himself like that.

I think all of us are good and bad, and it is civilization that tempers most of us us to be good people.

[WarpGirl]

I like the optimisim that TNG had about how people can change if they want too. I think that's true, if people don't WANT to change like Hitler and men like him, then yes they are absolutely EVIL.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

1-24 We'll Always Have Paris

This, the first of many Next Generation outings dealing with time-manipulation, gets overshadowed by a cheesy soap opera plot with Picard's old flame. And neither is particularly interesting.

There will be other by far more clever and cool time hiccups on this show. Despite the dire threat of tearing through the very fabric of space time, we never feel any real sense of urgency. And in the end all it took to repair the rift was for Data to put a thermos through some mirrors.

There was no chemistry between Picard and his old love Jenice, which should have made Dr. Crusher feel better about her reappearing. And again I had to fight the urge to hit Troi with a shovel for being such a nosy shrink.

We'll Always Have Paris gets a grade of 2- from me.




1-25 Conspiracy

Conspiracy could have been much better had they gone with the original intent of having a real human conspiracy within the ranks of Starfleet instead of some never heard of (and never seen again since) alien bugs. Alas, Roddenberry nixed that idea because it was way too un-Trekkian, or at least to un-shiny-happy-24th-century-people-Trekkian, and the episode suffers from it.

That makes the alien threat less menacing. There's very little build-up. It's only hinted at in Coming of Age and then we're smack down in the middle of it. This is a storyline that would have benefited with a longer arc, spanning many episodes. Instead it's all resolved in an hour and that's too rushed. The end also sets up for a sequel that we'll never see.

Still, I was fairly entertained by it and I liked how Riker fooled the possessed Admirals that he was one of them. And the gory ending was surprising.

But I cannot give Conspiracy a higher grade than 6- on my 10-graded scale.




1-26 The Neutral Zone

I think my favourite Trek villains are the Romulans, so this episode ought to have made me a happy camper. Not so, for it amounts to nothing more than having them appear from an extended period of isolationism to say "we're back". They're not even responsible for the destruction of the Federation outposts along the border - that's presumably the yet to be introduced Borg's doing. Sigh, what a disappointment!

And the less said about the b-plot the better. It's not even connected to the main story in any meaningful way. Or is the b-plot really the a-story? It gets more screen time at any rate. At the risk of repeating myself, I've come to loathe the holier-than-thou mentality of the humans in the 24th century, and that attitude is painfully evident here.

We have some thawed up people from the 20th century and no one is even remotely curious about them (it's telling that two non-humans, Data and Worf, are the ones to beam over to their cryogenic station). Why should they, it's just some barbaric people from the past. Riker even says those people have "no redeeming qualities" and feels no interest in the derelict at all. I guess they're all so enlightened now that they have nothing to learn from the past. That kind of thinking drives me, a history buff, completely batty.

The writers try to make it easy enough by making the cryo-people rather uninteresting, except perhaps for the banker, but he's made to be a strawman capitalist. God I hate this condescension Picard et al. exhibits! And here I thought Picard was interested in archaeology, but then again archaeology is about artefacts long buried, not people. He even seems pissed off that the cryo-people, technically dead, had been brought back to life so they can be a personal nuisance to him. What a humanitarian! What compassion!

I'll give a grade of 2+ to The Neutral Zone and that's only for because the Rommies are back, and that one of them was played by the great Marc Alaimo, better known as Gul Dukat on DS9.




Season One overview

It's safe to say that season one was pretty abysmal, garnering a mere 2.78 (or 3- ) in average rating. Although I haven't graded Voyager yet, I'm pretty certain that its first season will have a much better average. That makes this season the absolute worst of any Trek show. It's a small miracle that it managed to get both renewed and relaunch the entire franchise.

It had as many as four episodes which I couldn't give anything other than a zero grade, and there was also a multitude of ones and twos. Only five episodes got an average grade or above, with 6+ being the highest.

I could forget the lack of any meaningful action if the scripts hadn't been so boring and the dialogue so dull and uninspiring. I don't mind cerebral stories, but they have to be interesting and challenging. First season Next Generation was rarely that. Add to that characters that were bland and uninteresting, which means their interactions couldn't make up for bad plots.

The only characters I found somewhat intriguing were Worf and Data. It's no surprise that they are the non-humans aboard. Roddenberry's idea that there would be no interpersonal conflicts among the supposedly evolved humans of the 24th century effectively stifled any drama. As any writing teacher will tell you, conflicts create drama, and this ban on such conflicts severely constrained the stories you could tell. It also created conflicts (ironically) with the writers since Roddenberry saw fit to do extensive rewrites to their stories to excise any conflicts between the main characters.

Classically trained Patrick Stewart made a good Picard, but his character never grabbed me and I was never invested much in his character. Most of the rest, apart from the aforementioned Worf and Data, were pretty interchangeable. Small wonder that Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar) asked to leave. I just wish it had been Troi who would have left instead. She was pretty useless, spouting psychobabble when she wasn't stating the obvious. Her presence as the resident shrink on the bridge really dates this show. No wonder we haven't seen any "counsellors" on subsequent Treks. She was absent for a few episodes and I certainly didn't miss her. It only showed that her presence wasn't really needed. And the less said about the annoying Gary Stu Crusher the better. One thing that also hampered the cast was that most of them didn't have a proper function. What exactly were the job descriptions for LaForge or Worf? That would be remedied next season though.

Alas, it would take a while until The Next Generation took off. I still have trouble believing that it was the success it once was, despite it not having much competition back in the late eighties. But it hasn't aged well at all.

[WarpGirl]

WOW! 1 season in what 2 weeks. I hope you took snack and drink breaks!

Very well done, thuroughly entertaining, and a joy to read. But I do have three very big questions about your prespective, I'm scared to ask them because I don't want to seem intrusive but they are really bugging me. Please tell me to buzz off if you don't want to answer them...

First Question:

... un-shiny-happy-24th-century-people-Trekkian, and the episode suffers from it.

This quote leaves me wondering, Do you really think it's so horrible to portray a human society where materialistic greed, and other "enlightenments" are goals that people actually work to attain? The best part about Trek's theme is that the "greater good" is something to truly work for. Reading your commentary it seems like it's something you don't approve of.

Second Question: Looking at all of the terrible things that happen in the world, isn't the idea of a society where things like famine caused by corruption and greed are gone, a good thing? (famine is only one example there are other nasty things...)

Third Question: Do you hate Troi because of her profession? I can understand not liking her personality, I don't much like Worf's. But I'm getting the impression that your biggest objection is the fact that she is a mental health professional. I admit it confuses me.

Ug I probably shouldn't have asked. Please don't hate me.

[Cogito]

I would be interested to know KTR's reasons, too.

I wonder whether they're the same as mine. I thought her character was a puerile attempt to add some T&A to the show. Apart from that, it seemed to me that all she contributed was telling people what they were feeling from time to time, for no particular reason. How devastatingly well Sigourney sent this up in Galaxy Quest.

[WarpGirl]

I LOVE THAT MOVIE! Granted in the early years Troi was badly handled. But over the last decades (I am that old) she developed into a great character. I think First Contact was the best example of what Troi could be.

But seriously is a happy shiny human society sooo terrible? I don't get it.