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

[Cheeky Devlin]

Time Squared

I like this one.

Worf loving Rikers awful omelette (Looked far too runny for my tastes) was fun.
Also a fan of O'Brien seemingly unmoved by the sight of the dead Picard at the end.
He doesn't give a single strawberry float.
Mostly I like that he's becoming an actual character now. Roll on DS9 for Miles Prime Time!


The Icarus Factor

Meh

I couldn't care less about Riker and his Daddy issues.
The grumpy Worf B-plot was far more entertaining.

Seriously the TNG MVPs are easily Picard, Data and Worf. The rest are just not that interesting.

[Jenuall]

Yeah it's really good that season 2 really ups the O'Brien factor - it's something that TNG definitely does better than TOS, cultivates this second tier of regular characters beyond the mains - Miles, Keiko, Barclay, Guinan etc.

Time Squared
This is a really good episode!
Time travel mysteries are usually quite fun and this one is no exception. Picard's hostility and disbelief that the future him is legit is a bit tiresome at first - it's clearly you mate!

The Icarus Factor
Not buying that this dude is Riker's dad at all, he's not got the charisma to pull it off!

Best bit of the "main" plot is probably the weird blindfolded martial art that appears to make very little sense as a sport.

It's no Zero-G Kickboxing that's for sure!

Agree that the b-plot with Worf is much better, even if it does initially lean into "Wesley spots something that nobody else does!" territory too much. And yeah, for me Worf is 100% the MVP of this era of Trek, so many good stories and his character develops so well over the course of his time.

Pen Pals
Not a fan of this one really, even if the exploration of the Prime Directive is good. It's just a bit too twee for me. Kids and Trek is never a good combo either

Q Who
Oh yeah baby, now we're cooking! Probably the first legitimately GREAT episode of TNG.

It's easy to forget just how good an introduction this is for the Borg and how much an impact their genuinely alien nature and motivations had on things. Also really nice that the episode doesn't go down the obvious route of "the crew come up with a way to save the day eventually!" and it really does result in them having to beg Q to help them.

Both Q and Guinan are used really well in this, the tension building early on where Guinan knows something is wrong is very well handled and something that I think modern shows lack - no way would you get a sequence where a character just stares out of a window whilst spooky music plays for that long in a new sci-fi show!

Samaritan Snare
Ugh, Pakleds - spare me!

This isn't complete gooseberry fool, but it's not a great follow up to the last episode. The suggestion that a race can get to the point of being visited by Romulans, Klingons etc. and be able to steal all of the technology required for space travel from them, and yet still sound like they are barely able to take a gooseberry fool without supervision, is just a bit too much of a stretch IMO!

We do get some good Lower Decks content out of them though so I suppose it was worth it in the long run!

[Moggy]

Seriously the TNG MVPs are easily Picard, Data and Worf. The rest are just not that interesting.

Yeah I'd go with that. The rest are not completely uninteresting though. Riker has his moments, Jordi is decent most of the time (probably only because I LOVE the visor!). Guinan intrigues me, she seems to have an interesting backstory.

O'Brien is underused but I understand he's more active in a later Trek show?

Crusher? She's ok, but she's no Bones.

Wesley? He can strawberry float off.

Troi? Very attractive but a terrible actress and few interesting plots.

Yarr? Could have been decent eventually, maybe, but it was no loss when she left.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Yeah. It's more a case of they're not as interesting as those three, but I still like them all. Riker and Geordie especially.

O'Brien is really just a background character here, but he's one of the main ensemble in Deep Space Nine.

EDIT: Guinan has her moments but never really goes too far beyond recurring character.

[Moggy]

Yeah. It's more a case of they're not as interesting as those three, but I still like them all. Riker and Geordie especially.

O'Brien is really just a background character here, but he's one of the main ensemble in Deep Space Nine.

EDIT: Guinan has her moments but never really goes too far beyond recurring character.

My post started off as "that's unfair" and then when I started listing the characters, I realised you were right

[Cheeky Devlin]

Yeah. It's more a case of they're not as interesting as those three, but I still like them all. Riker and Geordie especially.

O'Brien is really just a background character here, but he's one of the main ensemble in Deep Space Nine.

EDIT: Guinan has her moments but never really goes too far beyond recurring character.

My post started off as "that's unfair" and then when I started listing the characters, I realised you were right

As a group they're probably one of the best casts ever assembled, but when it comes to individual characters there are definite tiers amongst them.

How far ahead have you gotten now?

[Moggy]

How far ahead have you gotten now?

I watched Silicon Avatar last night, so I'm a few episodes into season 5.

[Cheeky Devlin]

How far ahead have you gotten now?

I watched Silicon Avatar last night, so I'm a few episodes into season 5.

Nice.

Season 5 has some great episodes.

[site23]

Troi is an unfortunate character. I don't personally think the issue was with Sirtis. I think Troi just continued to be simplistically and inconsistently written long after the writers had managed to find a solid voice for all the other characters. She becomes a lot more likeable and interesting in season six - but the show only ran for seven seasons (and the seventh was a bit shaky in places, so she really only gets one single good season).

She's definitely saved from being "the worst character" by Wesley though. Have you guys got to the funnel game brain orgasm episode yet? I'm not sure when it is, but I think you're probably not there yet - I won't spoil the details but I hope that brief description gets anyone new to the show "excited" for the all time cringiest 45 minutes of TV ever.

O'Brien is one of the best characters but he's not quite fully realised until DS9.

[Cuttooth]

I unironically love that episode.

[Lagamorph]

It's literally now canon that O'Brien is the most important Starfleet officer to have ever lived.

[Moggy]

Troi is an unfortunate character. I don't personally think the issue was with Sirtis. I think Troi just continued to be simplistically and inconsistently written long after the writers had managed to find a solid voice for all the other characters. She becomes a lot more likeable and interesting in season six - but the show only ran for seven seasons (and the seventh was a bit shaky in places, so she really only gets one single good season).

My issue is mainly with Sirtis. She's fine with normal dialogue but she is atrocious when it comes to any emotional scenes. Which isn't great for a empath.

Have you guys got to the funnel game brain orgasm episode yet? I'm not sure when it is, but I think you're probably not there yet - I won't spoil the details but I hope that brief description gets anyone new to the show "excited" for the all time cringiest 45 minutes of TV ever.

I just looked it up and I think I am one episode away from that. Sounds like it will be interesting.

[Cheeky Devlin]

It's literally now canon that O'Brien is the most important Starfleet officer to have ever lived.

Lower Decks spoiler...

Loved that bit.

Need more DS9 love in Nu-Trek in general.

[Jenuall]

Just seem which episode we've got next

[Moggy]

Just seem which episode we've got next

I just looked at my review of it.

[Moggy]

Up The Long Ladder

Top of the morning, where's me lucky charms.

Woeful stuff.

Manhunt

I watched this last night and for the life of me I can barely remember anything about it other than Troi's mum being annoying and Dixon Hill being a boring way of using the holodeck.

I just read a synopsis of the episode and the above paragraph stands. Meh.

The Emissary

Looks like we are back on track, this is a much better episode. Worf is great and learning more about the Klingons is always fun.

Peak Performance

Why is Paul Scholes on the bridge?

Another good one! The idea of a training session being that unfairly balanced is odd, but it worked well for the drama of the episode. Data's side plot was also fun.

"I busted him up"


Shades of Gray

I noticed on IMDB before watching that this had a ridiculously low score. Lower than some of the worst B movies I've seen. Which made me look forward to it, how bad could it be?

About halfway through. Ahhh it's a clip show, yeah these always suck.

The framing around the clips starts ok but soon descends into nonsense.

Meh! But at least there are not 50 of these episodes.

Anyway, season 2 done. It's a very mixed season, some great stuff, lots of crap stuff. Better than season 1, but I am hoping for more consistently good stuff from here on!

[Lagamorph]

Shades of Grey was the final Star Trek casualty of the writers strike

[Cheeky Devlin]

Indeed it's not the strongest week for TNG, but Emissary and Peak Performance are decent enough.

[Lagamorph]

Peak Performance

Why is Paul Scholes on the bridge?

Another good one! The idea of a training session being that unfairly balanced is odd, but it worked well for the drama of the episode. Data's side plot was also fun.

"I busted him up"

The idea of an unbalanced training exercise is probably to get an idea of how to go up against superior foes, which in context of a recent encounter with a seemingly unbeatable Borg ship would make a lot of sense for Starfleet (Though I don't for a second think that was intentional on the part of the writers and is just a happy coincidence)

[Moggy]

The idea of an unbalanced training exercise is probably to get an idea of how to go up against superior foes,

Unless the Borg allow kids on board to check on science experiments, it wasn't going to be training that would help.