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

[Cheeky Devlin]

Hide and Q

Q is a great recurring character. Easily the best "God-like" being in Trek.
Mostly I like him as he just pisses Picard off so much.

Adult Wesley is a weird looking guy. Dress him in a suit and he could have been showing off his business cards. Massive chin as well.

Tasha continues to be the least interesting character on the show and has practically nothing to do.

But all in it's one of the better episodes we've seen so far.

Haven

Meh.

The appropriate response to any episode featuring Troi's mother.

[Moggy]

The appropriate response to any episode featuring Troi's mother.

There's more of them to come?

[Cheeky Devlin]

The appropriate response to any episode featuring Troi's mother.

There's more of them to come?

She appears sporadically throughout the show.



I never really minded her to be honest. She's not as irritating or as frequent as Wesley and she does have a couple of decent moments over time.

[Moggy]

Talking of Wesley.

Datalore

SHUT UP WESLEY

Probably the best of this weeks 4 episodes. The evil twin thing is overdone in fiction, but it was entertaining.

Getting some information on Data's origins was interesting. I assumed that androids were common and were being made by the Federation, him being found on a planet wasn't something I expected.

Although it does show that the mad scientists in the Original Series were better as they could make androids that looked perfectly human.

I think this show could really do with having more 2 part episodes. So many of these just feel so rushed at the end.

[Jenuall]

I can't help but have time for the Lwaxana appearances, she's not the greatest character but the episodes she's in tend to have something going for them at least!

Tasha continues to be the least interesting character on the show and has practically nothing to do.

Yeah, the more you watch the show the more obvious it is that there just wasn't anything for her to do or seemingly interest in developing the character. Which is a shame because she starts out with a decent amount of backstory that they could have gone into quite well.

[Jenuall]

Hide and Q
Q is always great (I've not seen Picard S2 yet so this maxim may no longer hold true! ) and this is another fun outing for him and the crew.

Wesley gets killed in the episode as well so that's another real bonus point!

The guy they got to be older Wesley In your dreams Wil Wheaton!

Agree with Moggy that Riker's change when he gets his powers isn't really handled as well as it could be, but then I think we've all known that Riker is a bit of a dick at heart really!

The thing that annoys me most though is the title. Is it supposed to be a play on "Hide and Seek"? Because that doesn't work, at all!

Haven
So glad that they stopped having Troi refer to Riker as "Bill" after this point - it just sounds so wrong!

Always fun to see Lurch turn up. The scene where he's getting pissed, the parents are arguing with each other and Data is fascinated by the whole thing is probably the highlight of the episode!

The "B-plot" of the Tarellian ship and the plague that wiped them out was actually more interesting and showed more potential than the Betazoid marriage stuff that was the focus, there was probably a decent episode in there if they'd focused on the right things.

[Moggy]

The "B-plot" of the Tarellian ship and the plague that wiped them out was actually more interesting and showed more potential than the Betazoid marriage stuff that was the focus, there was probably a decent episode in there if they'd focused on the right things.

100% this. It could have been good if they focused on that. As it was, it was a struggle to even write "meh" about it.

[Cheeky Devlin]

The "B-plot" of the Tarellian ship and the plague that wiped them out was actually more interesting and showed more potential than the Betazoid marriage stuff that was the focus, there was probably a decent episode in there if they'd focused on the right things.

100% this. It could have been good if they focused on that. As it was, it was a struggle to even write "meh" about it.

Everytime he started going on about the woman he saw in his dreams all I heard in my head was this song.

[Lagamorph]

What I love about "Lonely Among Us" is the ending.

There's been a murder onboard, an ambassador has been not only killed by another ambassador but they're trying to have him cooked in order to eat him, an act that is almost certainly going to lead to an interstellar war. Rather than treating this as an incredibly urgent matter, Picard is just "strawberry float this, I'm going to bed", and then a nice jaunty tune plays out the episode as if everything is nicely resolved and Data has just made a bad joke.

[Cheeky Devlin]

[Cheeky Devlin]

The Big Goodbye

It's just a bit bland really. Not as good as later holodeck based episodes to be fair.

Datalore

Decent enough wee episode. I think this is also the first one to really delve into a characters back story in any detail.

[Moggy]

I've got a confession to make.

I've not enjoyed the start of TNG as much as I was enjoying TOS and so wanted to speed up to where it is supposed to get really good. I'm also paranoid it'll all get taken off Netflix soon and I'm not paying for Paramount+.

So I've watched loads of episodes over the last week or so and am now a few episodes into season 2.

I like this thread though, so will keep reviewing in the correct weeks.

Angel One

Rubbish, I get that they were trying to do reverse sexism to make a point, but it's really heavy handed and clunky. Plus, TNG is sexist as strawberry float in places so it's hard for them to preach.

Still, Riker had some fun.

11001001

Riker is a dirty dog isn't he. A lot of memes and jokes I've seen over the years now make sense.

Every single time they use the holodeck, there seems to be trouble. Stop using it and concentrate on your jobs.

I liked the Bynars though, one of the more interesting alien races so far.

Too Short a Season

Were they taking the piss with the episode title?

Ok episode and probably the best of this week's 4, but the "old man" effects were rubbish.

When The Bough Breaks

There's a decent idea in this one that could have been great, but way too much Wesley and the other kid actors were awful. And we've seen way too many "supercomputer runs a planet" stories.

[Lagamorph]

11001001 is an episode that I really enjoy but can't quite explain why. I think that, for what it is, it's really well written. I also for some reason really loved seeing Data taking charge (which makes sense, he is the second officer after all so after Riker he's the most senior officer on the ship) but the whole sequence is just quite a little thrill to watch.

I've got a confession to make.

I've not enjoyed the start of TNG as much as I was enjoying TOS and so wanted to speed up to where it is supposed to get really good. I'm also paranoid it'll all get taken off Netflix soon and I'm not paying for Paramount+.

TNG has a reputation for a bit of a slow start. Season 2 is, generally, an improvement (and includes one or the very best episodes of not only the entire TNG run but the whole franchise) but it's in Season 3 that the series really hits its stride.

In fairness they had a lot of issues in Seasons 1 and 2. A new cast, a production that faced an uphill battle against fans of the original decrying the lack of Kirk and Co and writers strikes (this was a general thing in American TV at the time, not a Trek specific thing) resulting in rushed production of half finished scripts from the aborted Star Trek Phase 2 series with little to no professional writer input to modernise them.

[Moggy]

TNG has a reputation for a bit of a slow start. Season 2 is, generally, an improvement but it's in Season 3 that the series really hits its stride.

Yeah that's what I've gathered and so decided to full steam ahead to the good stuff.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Yeah, TNG takes a season or two to really hit it's stride.

Season 2 is an improvement, but season 3 is definitely where it consitantly begins to put out good stories.

There's an argument to be made that TNG has the weakest season 1 in all of Star Trek. Mostly I put that down to it trying to figure out what works for it. The following shows all had the benefit of the TNG template existing, which they then adapt and work around to a lesser or greater degree so they find their voices a little bit quicker.

Stick with it as best you can Moggy. Don't worry about Paramount + ruining things too much. I'll find a way to make the episodes available if that does happen.

[Jenuall]

Ironically I'm actually enjoying season 1 more than when I watched it all through a couple of years back!

It's definitely a very peculiar time capsule of a season though

[RetroCora]

I’d argue season 3 is the first decent TNG season. I’ve been watching along and remembering just now rough it was at the beginning.

[Jenuall]

Realised I'd fallen behind on posting my episode reactions:

The Big Goodbye
Meh, decent enough but probably one of the weaker "holodeck goes wrong" episodes.

Data being confused by the lamp turning off and on when Picard moves the plug is cute, although like a lot of stuff it epitomises the problem with Data in that his knowledge of concepts/science/technology/language etc. is entirely variable at the whims of the plot - sometimes he knows hugely obscure things to solve a problem, other times he's incredibly naïve to satisfy a need for a situation to be more perilous.

Dr Crusher is definitely a "hep lookin' broad" though.

Datalore
Yay, Lore arrives on the scene!

This is quite a fun episode all in all, although we get better stuff from Lore later. The seeding of the Crystalline Entity as an antagonist that would return later is actually handled quite well here.

Too much Wesley Crusher in this though sadly.

Angel One
Yeah, this is not great... Riker has a good time I guess!

Data describing the society as an oligarchy is quite fun in the current climate.

They don't really commit to the "gender expectations are flipped" thing though. Picard describes the society as "Here, the female is the hunter, the soldier, larger and stronger than the male" but then we see them and... the women are all regular to slim built and most of the men look fairly standard "Hollywood hench", certainly by no means physically weaker. You could argue that it's a cosmetic I guess but then would a 1980s era gender flipped society see the females desiring strong looking men? I don't know, it's a mess basically!

I like how you can track the progress of the season based on alterations to Troi's outfit/appearance as an indicator of how desperate the producers were getting for viewers.

Here she is in Episode 2, The Naked Now:



And, what is ostensibly the same outfit, from Angel One:



"Get your boobs out Troi, we need to get more people watching!"

[Moggy]

I'm a sexist prick, but I approve

[Lagamorph]

They even have fun with that way later in the run when Troi is eventually told to put a strawberry floating uniform on