Epic Star Trek Re-Watch - The Next Generation - Movie Week 2!

[Cheeky Devlin]

Damn I wish we were on DS9 already.

[Cheeky Devlin]

strawberry float me, I never thought bloody Star Trek could make me shed a tear, but what I just watched was devastating.

strawberry floating hell

What episode?

[Moggy]

strawberry float me, I never thought bloody Star Trek could make me shed a tear, but what I just watched was devastating.

strawberry floating hell

What episode?

The Visitor

[SEP]

strawberry float me, I never thought bloody Star Trek could make me shed a tear, but what I just watched was devastating.

strawberry floating hell

What episode?

The Visitor

Oh yeah, that'll do it.

[Cuttooth]

You OK, Moggy?

[Moggy]

You OK, Moggy?

I used to be pretty emotionally dead inside when it came to TV and movies. I think having a kid turned me into an emotional wreck for anything sad.

It's different, but the Visitor gave me Arrival vibes. That movie wrecked me.

[Cuttooth]

It also helps that Sisko is the most relatable, and therefore the best, Star Trek captain.

[Jenuall]

strawberry float me, I never thought bloody Star Trek could make me shed a tear, but what I just watched was devastating.

strawberry floating hell

I cry whenever Alexander is an episode as well

[Moggy]

The Masterpiece Society

Decent if unspectacular episode. The hidden society was interesting but I felt it could have been better if it didn't feel like it was retreading stories we've seen before society faces collapse, leader(s) refuse to leave

Conundrum

I've complained about this before, but this was a great episode that was ruined by not being a two parter. The rush at the end just leaves me feeling that it should all be so much better.

Still, I enjoyed it for the most part, the crew wondering who they are was great and Worf immediately assuming he was in command was funny. But Riker was the most hilarious, shagging his way around the ship

Power Play

Another that felt rushed at the end. They could have cut a lot of time by not strawberry floating around with the pretence that they were human ghosts and given the episode more space for a better resolution.

Still, it was a good episode and was fun to see Troi and Data being bad. O'Brien was a creepy rapist bastard though!

Ethics

Klingons are such twats.

I was struggling to see the doctor as anything but a Hilary Clinton lookalike. Her willingness to lose patients for the greater good (hotfuzz.gif) didn't help me see her as anything but a Clinton.

Along with Worf, Crusher and Riker were great in this one. Not a top tier episode and there's some dodgy stuff in there, but overall very good.

[Moggy]

It feels like this thread should be renamed "Moggy Watches Star Trek".

I watched the first episode of DS9 season 5 this morning. DS9 has vastly improved from where I was a few weeks ago, I was very close to giving up.

[Jenuall]

You're well and truly in the golden era of DS9 now

As usual I've been keeping up to date with my TNG watching but just haven't had a chance to post any thoughts in here, I blame the summer holidays!

[Moggy]

You're well and truly in the golden era of DS9 now

As usual I've been keeping up to date with my TNG watching but just haven't had a chance to post any thoughts in here, I blame the summer holidays!

[Cheeky Devlin]

[Moggy]

The Outcast

The Netflix description of this episode sounds intriguing. Riker falling for a member of an androgynous race? I'm now expecting him to be strawberry floating Ziggy Stardust in the next 30 minutes.

I wasn't too far off.

Interesting that 30 years ago there was an episode like this that discussed non-binary people and respecting people not wanting to fit male/female pronouns. And desperately sad that we still haven't grown up enough to just respect other peoples differences. Worf for the early part of the episode would fit in well on GB News.

As an episode though? The message had good intentions I think, but it was very clumsily done. The genderless society has to force people to conform, going so far as conversion therapy! I get that it's a flipped version of our society (we haven't moved far from 1992!) but it would have been better for them to be more open about everything and to show prejudices in humans (and Klingons ). As it was it, unintentionally I'm sure, felt like Fox News screaming "IF THEY GET THEIR WAY, THEY'LL FORCE OUR KIDS TO BE TRANS!!!"

I guess that's a modern read on it, Wikipedia suggests it was more an allegory of gay rights rather than trans rights. Interesting as well that Frakes didn't think they went far enough. And he's right, it's a brave episode for early 90s American TV, but they should have really gone for it. But, strawberry float, it'd probably still be brave for early evening network American TV today.

It's a little weird that there are no trans or non binary people in the 24th century, Riker (at least early on ) seemed very confused about people being genderless.

Oh and Jordi's beard? Give it up mate, you can't compete with Riker on facial hair.

Cause and Effect

Groundhog Day in space but before Groundhog Day was released.

I love a timeloop story and this was a bloody good one. My usual "rushed ending!" moan applies, but I really liked this episode. Great stuff.

The First Duty

The pre credits scene got my hopes up.

I hesitate to admit this.....but Wesley was good in this episode.

It wasn't a classic or anywhere near top tier, but it was a solid enough story. Kids being twats isn't original, but is certainly accurate.

Cost of Living

I've not watched it yet, but from the title I am imagining this episode is a damning polemic against the Tory government and their vile refusal to help during the current hike in fuel and energy prices.

Just starting to watch and had to pause to laugh. Trek does this a lot, they have "30 seconds!!" until something bad happens but a character will then spend 20 of those seconds speaking some technobabble.

"Everyone is going to die in 30 seconds!"

"Ok, prepare a tachyon field hyper loop plasma shield and send it over to the 57th quadrant to dampen the gamma radiation fields, couple it with a neutrino flow of negative ions with a complementary burst of metallic particles with a reversed polarity to capture the high energy blast of...."

"Sir, they all died 20 minutes ago...."



strawberry floats sake, a Wesley episode followed by a Troi's mother episode? Why does TNG hate me so much? Anyway, Wesley was decent in the previous episode so maybe she'll surprise me.

Dreadful episode. Troi's mum iterates the gooseberry fool out of me and Worf's son was just as bloody annoying. And then the awful am-dram style annoying as strawberry float juggling banana split on the holodeck. The only slight redemption to the episode was Worf pulled some great irritated faces.

strawberry float off TNG, you are better than this steaming lump of gooseberry fool.

The Perfect Mate

Famke Janssen

Ferengi

Not terrible but just a bit dull. It would have been more entertaining if she just wandered around the ship causing chaos.

Odd to think the Federation is basically happy with trafficking a sex slave. But it's ok, she wants it.


----

Re-reading my reviews, I watched Cost of Living a long time ago. I never guessed at the time that energy would get even more expensive And my god that was a bad episode, it's made me angry all over again thinking about the juggling banana split.

[Lagamorph]

I absolutely love the pre-intro stinger for Cause and Effect, one of my favourites in all of Trek

[Moggy]

Imaginary Friend

Yay another ball of energy enters the Enterprise, I've never seen that before!

Why are the child actors in this so bad? Isabella was the only decent one, she did a pretty creepy performance.

Picard had a decent enough speech towards the end, but otherwise it was a very meh episode.

I, Borg

Wow. That was cracking.

Picard going into full genocide mode raised some great morality questions. It's clear what should happen, right up until you look somebody in the eye.

I don't know if this will have any impact going forward, but I hope so.

The Next Phase

An enjoyable episode although it leaves you with the feeling that it'll be a wasted plot. They could now basically work out how to make people invisible but I bet we never hear about it again.

The Inner Light

Good, but full of plot holes. I find it hard to believe that a civilisation could have the technology to build a probe like that, but be unable to obtain water or have the ability to travel through space.

Still, it pulled at the heartstrings (in a good way) and Picard now knows how to play a flute.

Edit: it's now the day after I watched the episode and it's stuck with me a bit. The themes of loss and wanting to be remembered is quite haunting. It's a much better episode than my review implied. Much much better than I made it sound.

[Cheeky Devlin]

The Inner Light

Good, but full of plot holes. I find it hard to believe that a civilisation could have the technology to build a probe like that, but be unable to obtain water or have the ability to travel through space.

Still, it pulled at the heartstrings (in a good way) and Picard now knows how to play a flute.

Edit: it's now the day after I watched the episode and it's stuck with me a bit. The themes of loss and wanting to be remembered is quite haunting. It's a much better episode than my review implied. Much much better than I made it sound.

"The Inner Light" is regarded as one of the best episodes of TNG, if not the best. IMDB has it as the highest rated episode.

Love it.

[Cuttooth]

The Inner Light is a stone cold classic. In my mind it could only be improved if the scenes on the bridge were removed and it was just Picard's new reality.

Fun fact, Kamin's adult son is played by Daniel Stewart; Patrick's son.

[Moggy]

Are we doing both parts of Time's Arrow this week?

[Cheeky Devlin]

Are we doing both parts of Time's Arrow this week?

Just part 1.