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

[Moggy]

Welcome to the great and storied lands of hating Welsey Crusher!

Ahh, not just me then. And I assume he doesn't improve.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Welcome to the great and storied lands of hating Welsey Crusher!

Ahh, not just me then. And I assume he doesn't improve.

I think the hate for him is a little bit overblown.

He's your typical "super-smart, everybody likes him, kid" and he's got that annoying, chipper attitude which just makes you want to see horrible, horrible things happen to him.

However I don't detest him as much as I did the first time around.

He's easily the most annoying character, but thankfully his appearances get rarer as the show goes on and he does get a little less annoying as he grows up.

[Jenuall]

Welcome to the great and storied lands of hating Welsey Crusher!

Ahh, not just me then. And I assume he doesn't improve.

I think the hate for him is a little bit overblown.

He's your typical "super-smart, everybody likes him, kid" and he's got that annoying, chipper attitude which just makes you want to see horrible, horrible things happen to him.

However I don't detest him as much as I did the first time around.

He's easily the most annoying character, but thankfully his appearances get rarer as the show goes on and he does get a little less annoying as he grows up.

Yeah he's probably not worth quite the level of hate he gets, but he's definitely an annoying little gooseberry fool for a solid amount of his screen time!

[Victor Mildew]

I think Wesley was supposed to be a character for younger viewers to relate to, and to be a way in to the story for those people. But even when I first watched TNG, I thought he was a smug rich twat

[Moggy]

"I want to go on the bridge, but I'll just stay in the lift"

Yeah, you do that you little gooseberry fool.

[Lagamorph]

It isn't possible to hate Wesley too much.

[Moggy]

My thoughts so far:

Episode 1 (both parts): This kid is going to be annoying

Episode 2: He might be "drunk" but this kid is super strawberry floating annoying

Episode 3: Yay for racism, it's covering up how annoying that kid is.

[Jenuall]

They have a great opportunity to get rid of Wesley in a few episodes time, they really should have taken it!

Wesley gets a lot of stick but kids in Trek are generally always a bit gooseberry fool. Jake in DS9 is probably the closest one to actually being bearable.

In some ways I think Alexander is more annoying than Wesley

[Moggy]

The Last Outpost

Lots of familiar Trek tropes here. Most notably giant ghostly head of ultimate power!

Was I missing something with Ferengi? The Federation has never seen them before, but they are described as traders. Why, if they love trading and stealing! have they never met the Federation to trade anything?

I have seen images of the Ferengi before and so I'm guessing that's not the last we'll see of them.

[Jenuall]

Yeah Ferengi start to show up a fair amount.

Unbelievably I think they were supposed to be the big new "bad guy" species for TNG, but they quickly realised that they were just a bit gooseberry fool and so we get some better antagonists as things go on!

[Lagamorph]

Yep, the Ferengi were originally the new equivalent to the Klingons in TNG, which is why their first appearance has absolutely zero resemblance to how they turn out later in DS9.

[Victor Mildew]

1. Introduce the Ferengi.
2. Profit.

[Jenuall]

1. Introduce the Ferengi.
2. Profit.

You haven't got the post count lobes to pull this off.

[SEP]

Wesley gets a lot of stick but kids in Trek are generally always a bit gooseberry fool. Jake in DS9 is probably the closest one to actually being bearable.

I cannot and will not stand for this Nog erasure.

[Jenuall]

Wesley gets a lot of stick but kids in Trek are generally always a bit gooseberry fool. Jake in DS9 is probably the closest one to actually being bearable.

I cannot and will not stand for this Nog erasure.

Boo boo, tell it to the girls on the promenade that you've been perving on with your best mate Nog

[Cheeky Devlin]

Encounter at Farpoint
An interesting start, but definitely suffers from having to introduce all the new characters and establish the relationships.
All the characters are really just the most basic sketches of what they develop into.
Picard especially doesn't come across as particularly likeable, which definitely wouldn't have gone down well with a lot of the "This isn't Star Trek!" people of the time.
But the basic skeleton of TNG is established here, it just takes some time before they really get to flesh it out a bit.

The Naked Now
A decent enough remake/sequel to the original episode.
Everyone gets to have a bit of fun, though I think it might have been better placed later in the season, once we've had a chance to establish who they are normally before twisting the personalities.
Not too much else to say really. Might be the best of this weeks episodes, but I'll need to see The Last Outpost before I can really judge.

[Jenuall]

Encounter at Farpoint
I still think this is a pretty good opener! It's got a lot of work to do in establishing a new era in the series for the first time, introducing the new cast, finding ways to tie it back to what we know etc. It's no classic by any means but I think it handles it all surprisingly well all things considered!

Picard, as almost always, is the standout - yes he's not quite fully realised as the character we will come to love but right from the off there's an assurance and authority to Patrick Stewart's performance that elevates things, there's some genuine tension around the initial confrontation that was very rarely there in TOS - most conflicts in that still felt like just some lads in space having a bit of a mess around!

Riker needs to grow that beard fast though, I always forget just how disconcerting a shaved Riker looks!

Also - watching this so soon after the original cast movies is quite cool, I had never realised before that the USS Hood that the Enterprise meets in this is the model of the Excelsior from Search for Spock (Excelsior class - clues in the name! ) I like that the design of this ship acts as a nice buffer between the older generation ships and the new Enterprise.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Code of Honor
It wasn't quite as horrendous as I remember, but it's still not ok.
Obvious racism aside, I think it's just not a particularly interesting episode.
Part of that will be down to Tasha being quite prominent and I've never been a big fan of her.
One thing I did notice was just how TOS like the music in the episode was. It's really quite similar in tone.
So yeah, not as bad as I remember but it's still an episode I'll continue to skip in future re-watches.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Hey guys.

This isn't a reaction to something anyone has posted or anything like that, but I think we need a spoiler policy going forward.

I've added the following to the OP if everyone is happy with it.

Spoiler Policy
I'm not anticipating this being a big issue, but I would remind everyone that we do have some newcomers to Star Trek going through the shows with us. When discussing episodes please try and refrain from mentioning specific plot points outside of spoiler boxes. General comments are fine unspoilered through. Especially try and refrain from talking about plot points and character development further down the road. For example characters leaving/dying/getting promoted or other major developments etc.

I think this is going to be really relevant with DS9 due to the more serial nature of it's storyline, but there are plenty of cool TNG moments that we want to keep fresh for newcomers (Well... Moggy )

Any suggestions, tweaks or comments just let me know!

[Cheeky Devlin]

Season 1 - Week 2!