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

[Jenuall]

twitter.com/jvancitters/status/1503980940657274880

Saw this on Twitter today, always funny to get glimpses of the contemporary view on bringing back Trek with a new crew. Trekkies are furious!

Obviously lots of things changed during the development of the show but I'm not sure where the suggestion that Geordi was "the new Spock" comes from? Also almost everyone seems to be listed as a commander at this point which is bizarre!

Oh and that haircut on Frakes! He looks like Terry Wogan!

[Moggy]

twitter.com/jvancitters/status/1503980940657274880

Saw this on Twitter today, always funny to get glimpses of the contemporary view on bringing by Trek with a new crew. Trekkies are furious!

Obviously lots of things changed during the development of the show but I'm not sure where the suggestion that Geordi was "the new Spock" comes from? Also almost everyone seems to belist d as a commander at this point which is bizarre!

Oh and that haircut on Frakes! He looks like Terry Wogan!

Haha!

It's nice to see that fandom was as toxic back then as it is in today's internet culture.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Yeah, it wasn't well received at first. Luckily it was able to find a big enough audience to see it through the tricky initial seasons.

Been quiet on this weeks episodes, but I've watched three of them so far...

Angel One
It's just a bit dull. It's a boring problem, on a boring planet, with boring characters, played by boring actors. Yawn.
The sickness sub-plot was much more interesting.

11001001
This one I quite like. Partially I put it down to seeing the Starbase and all the model shots that come with it.
Beyond that I like the idea that the idea of asking for help was too risky because they would have gotten a yes or a no, so they steal the ship instead.
Good fun, and one of the better season one episodes I think.

Too Short A Season
Another dull episode. This time with some laughably bad "old man" prosthetics and acting. An unlikeable character who dies in the end. Another episode I would usually skip

[Jenuall]

11001001
As others have said - this is actually pretty decent all in all. I like the Bynars as a species and the episode actually makes decent use of the holodeck for a change.

Too Short A Season
Yeah this back to being a bit crap! I can't stand this kind of "old man acting" that we see on show here, it's like the actors have never actually paid any attention to the way that age actually changes movement/speech and just go "strawberry float it, I'll stick my lips out a bit and randomly shake every now and then"!

And yeah, Jameson is just a twat so it's hard to care about anything. Particularly grim watching is the part where his youth-ified self sort of attempts to sexually assault his wife

[Cheeky Devlin]

When the Bough Breaks
Not quite as crap as I remember. Jerry Hardin is always a pleasure to watch.
I don't really understand how 7-8 kids were supposed to provide enough genetic diversity to repopulate their planet, but lets not worry too much about that. Though as usual I do wish that Wesley had been lost.
From memory I can't remember any other "Supercomputer runs a society" episodes in TNG.
Chances are it was either a repurposed TOS or Phase 2 script, or it was written by one of the writers who used to work on TOS (Which was quite common in Season 1).
It is always fun seeing Picard having to deal with children. He always looks perpetually uncomfortable with it.

[Moggy]

It is always fun seeing Picard having to deal with children. He always looks perpetually uncomfortable with it. [/inlinespoiler]

I can't work out if the main discomfort comes from the character or Patrick Stewart himself.

[Cheeky Devlin]

It is always fun seeing Picard having to deal with children. He always looks perpetually uncomfortable with it. [/inlinespoiler]

I can't work out if the main discomfort comes from the character or Patrick Stewart himself.

I think it's definitely the character. He even says as much in the first episode that he doesn't know how to deal with them.

[Moggy]

Home Soil

Another episode that felt like a rejected pitch for TOS. Meh.

Coming of Age

This is odd for me as I detest Wesley, but really enjoyed this episode. Starfleet are twats though, only one place a year seems a little dumb for a society that has apparently abolished shortages.

A conspiracy within Starfleet sounds intriguing though!

Heart of Glory

I love the Klingons, so over the top but always watchable. Not a fantastic episode, but fun and makes me never want to go to a Klingon funeral.

The Arsenal of Freedom

Awful special effects, I know it's a 1980s show but I was really thrown out of the story by how bad the orb robots looked.

Jordi was badass though, taking no gooseberry fool from people even if they outrank him.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Yeah a bit late getting this posted. Moggy beat me to it.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Home Soil
One of the better episodes of season one I think. Though it's essentially a reworking of TOS Season 1 episode "Devil in the Dark", which might explain why Moggy thought it was very TOS-like.
The

Coming of Age
Again, one of the better Wesley episodes. I think it benefits from putting him outside his comfort zone a bit.
The side-plot with Remick doing the investigation is great fun I thought. Especially when he says he wants to serve on the Enterprise after his current posting. The look Picard gives him.

Heart of Glory
Our first Worf/Klingon episode! It's not the best of these episodes, but it's a decent enough start. I get the impression they wrote this episode then realised just how much they could do with Worf and Michael Dorn.
The clash between his Klingon heritage and his adopted human family is always a good source of material.

Season one definitely gets better as it goes on, though it's all relative I guess. For me this is probably the best week so far.

Still got Arsenal of Freedom to watch tomorrow though. Pretty sure it's the weakest of these four, but we'll see how I feel about it.

[Jenuall]

Keep forgetting to post my thoughts on these

When the Bough Breaks
Never been a fan of this one as the plot just doesn't hold together for me. You can't tell me that the Aldean's have lived for thousands of years with this shield that has apparently been causing them to be flooded by radiation and yet it's only now that they are seeing some impact of that, and that becoming sterile is the only side effect? Also they apparently have their magical computer Custodian who knows everything, surely he should have been able to say to them "Oh, by the way you can't have kids because of the shield, maybe take a look at that"

Most hilarious moment - after an episode where the Aldean's have tried to kidnap children or try to barter with them as some kind of trade, where they have demonstrated several times their inability to understand the needs of children or the ability to respect their own desires and feelings - we still get a line at the end from Troi saying "we know they'll make good parents" - WTF!?

Home Soil
This is decent enough, "new life form" episodes are usually interesting if nothing else. One thing that always bothered me though - given that the entity seems to start dying almost as soon as they turn off the lights in the medical lab how exactly does it survive without light normally? Surely the planet it was native to has a day/night cycle of some description?

Coming of Age
I forgot that we have this episode as a setup for the conspiracy which returns later. I like this side of the episode, even if it does just boil down to Remmick asking people to tell him what's going on and everyone else saying "nothing mate"

Wesley at Starfleet is entertaining enough, him getting up in the face of the alien that is angered by people being deferential is always fun. The conversation between Wesley and Worf regarding the psychological test is also a nice character moment.

[Lagamorph]

How many Chief Engineers has the Enterprise gone through in Season 1 so far? There's a new one every week.

[Moggy]

How many Chief Engineers has the Enterprise gone through in Season 1 so far? There's a new one every week.

I blame Wesley

[Jenuall]

If in doubt, blame Wesley!

Shifting Geordi down to engineering was a solid move that made a lot of sense for the show. Given how great the engineering set is we see very little of it in this first season

[Cheeky Devlin]

The Arsenal of Freedom
Enjoyed it more than I remembered, but still the weakest of the four episodes this week.
You can tell they had absolutely no budget for location filming this season which is why a big portion of the away missions end up in that awful, TOS style, studio built planet with a bold coloured backdrop. Literally looks like they just went to their nearest garden centre and bought every potted plant they could find. It's not without it's charm, but I'm glad that mostly stops after season 1.

Again, it's the B-plot on board the Enterprise that's more interesting. Geordie struggling with the responsibility of command then putting that smug prick in his place is great.
Plus the female ensign was Co in First Blood Part II, which was fun.

How many Chief Engineers has the Enterprise gone through in Season 1 so far? There's a new one every week.

I blame Wesley

Wesley

[Cheeky Devlin]

Finally getting to the end of Season 1!

Gonna be 5 episodes this week to get it wrapped up and then we'll be ready for Season 2 and Rikers beard next week!

[Moggy]

Symbiosis

Another of those episodes that could have been great but came across a bit flat. I guessed pretty quickly that the cure for the plague was actually a type of drug. Ok episode, but not one that will live long in the mind.

Skin of Evil

Utter rubbish. The creature looked awful and Troi was such a bland character that I couldn't give a gooseberry fool that she died

We'll Always Have Paris

Looking it up after, this episode was written in 5 days, due to a writer's strike. It really shows.

The holodeck is cool but strawberry float me it's overused. Go and visit some planets, not 20th century Earth simulations!

The main plot was decent though, it didn't go into a mirror universe like in TOS, but did it's own timey whimey thing and (for something written so quickly!) did a decent job.

Conspiracy

After being excited in "Coming of Age" about a conspiracy, it was a little disappointing to find out what it was. Seriously?

What could have been an intriguing look into Starfleet politics and attempts to subvert it, just became weird alien bugs controlling minds. Not an awful episode to watch, just disappointing.

The Neutral Zone

Yay, the Romulans are back.

As with so many, this could have been amazing, but was utterly ruined by the second plot. The two blokes from the 20th century were strawberry floating ridiculous and really strawberry floating annoying. Dreadful stuff.

-----------------

Overall season 1 is a big disappointment. Some good stuff but mostly crap. But I like the majority of the characters and know it must get a lot better as TNG is so beloved.

[SEP]

Skin of Evil

Utter rubbish. The creature looked awful and Troi was such a bland character that I couldn't give a gooseberry fool that she died

Or even get her name right.

[Moggy]

Skin of Evil

Utter rubbish. The creature looked awful and Troi was such a bland character that I couldn't give a gooseberry fool that she died

Or even get her name right.

Oh yeah

I wrote that a couple of weeks ago, blame past Moggy.

[Lagamorph]

I love Conspiracy, if for nothing other than this scene,

It still amazes me to this day that Star Trek of all things got away with that.


Also, The Neutral Zone (And originally Conspiracy) is doing some set up for a payoff later on, so keep that episode in mind as we go forward!
The Neutral Zone was actually originally intended to be a two part episode, with a much bigger focus on the Romulan and missing outpost plot but the Writers Guild strike began during production and disrupted those plans and caused the second part to be unwritten, so they had to compress what they had with Part 1 and go with the first draft and some very quick edits. Ultimately, this probably worked to actually be in the shows favour, but for reasons we'll get into in Season 2.