The following seasons are better with a few exceptions.
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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Which exceptions? I honestly can't think of a weaker season of TNG than the first one.
"Shades of Gray" is terrible as they ran out of money and strung together other episodes.
There's also the season 7 episode where Crusher has a....'relationship'....with a alien ghost thing which also did it with her grandma.
Fair. Although I suppose my point was more that season 1 was weak, rather than that there weren't individual episodes that were worse than season 1. Sub Rosa is a terrible episode but season 7 as a whole is dramatically better than season 1 as a whole.
@theinspectorst @DarthonTV @bstix The only clip show in all of Star Trek history was at the end of TNG season 2.
Fair point!
I'm thinking in episodes. I dislike the ones where they just mess around on the holodeck.
@DarthonTV Oh man... Let's just say this is not the last time you'll see that face.
So you see, that's where the trouble began.
That smile.
That damned smile.
Yes.
The actress returns. I'm not gonna tell you any more than that haha. It's a story arc I really liked actually.
And Season 1 is notoriously bad. The show was really struggling to figure out what it wanted to be. Season 2, like around episode 8 is where you start to get into the "holy crap this has no right to be this good" stuff.
It has its ups and downs, really. Some of which was not helped by the writers basically repurposing the scripts from the scrapped Phase 2 show, which were written more for Kirk and the crew of the original Enterprise, rather than for the new crew.
Still, it had a few good eps, and I'm personally partial to the Bynar episode from that season. It's a clever concept for aliens that really makes them seem alien.
@Chetzemoka @DarthonTV I wasn't particularly attached to Crusher but MAN they screwed up Pulaski bad. You cannot recreate the Spock-McCoy dynamic with Pulaski and Data because Data is too distinct and Pulaski is too derivative. You COULD have had an interesting back and forth if you put more thought into Pulaski rather than just making her bluntly prejudiced, but instead you set her as a bully against the show's best character and made everyone instantly dislike her. There's some good stuff in S2, Moriarty, the Borg, but they mishandled a lot.
@Chetzemoka @DarthonTV McCoy and Spock worked because they were on even ground. For all we love Spock, he has a prejudice against his human half instilled by his vulcan upbringing. He could give it as well as he could take it as a result. McCoy and Spock were on equal footing, both working through their own prejudices and philosophical differences while maintaining a friendship. McCoy could snip at vulcan and Spock would come back with a dig at humans.
Data did have the same standing, the same critique of humanity. It was just Pulaski talking over him with no pushback pointing out the flaws in her nature.
@Chetzemoka @DarthonTV Ugh, "didn't". Not sure I can edit a comment from Mastodon.
Anyway, the writers in S2 could have set up something where Pulaski doubts Data's self-determination abilities and Data regularly comes back with questioning the free will of biological organisms, if they had tweaked Pulaski enough that she did speak to Data like a person even as she put forth these ideas. Instead, she thinks he's a thing and most of her objections are to the people AROUND Data rather than to Data himself.
It was a very bad look and no wonder people wanted Crusher back.
To keep it vague, many actors who liked working on Trek and who the show staff liked working with would often come back as either other characters or their popular characters via various means (time travel eps, dreams, etc). Tasha's actress does make several reappearances and Tasha's story does get some continuation/wrap-up story wise (to effect the character is not forgotten by the other characters or the writers after she dies), but the actress never rejoins the cast as a full-time regular.
I tried getting into TNG a few times but always end up skipping first season and a half
@DarthonTV "Skin of Evil" gets a lot of flak for its dodgy special effects, but it's one of my favourite episodes in season 1 (along with "Coming of Age" and "The Big Goodbye"). I love the suddenness and senselessness of Tasha's death, the concept of a race that has cleaved its evil nature into a separate being which it then abandoned, and the holodeck farewell scene, especially the final shot. It's also a really good Troi episode. Lord knows she didn't get a lot of them, especially in the first season.
Nobody is really dead in Star Trek, except Tasha.
Ehhhhh... considering the events of a later episode, we really only have one person's promise that she is actually dead. Just like a certain Bajoran was presumed dead until PIC season 3, if I don't see a body, we can't assume she's truly dead.
I've seen the series so many times and I still mourn Tasha! I was so happy to see her briefly for a moment in the last season of Picard.
Do yourself a favor and listen closely to the musical score behind Tasha’s funeral, especially the cue where she turns to Picard and starts speaking to him. The music changes to this inspiring and noble motif that’s both bone chilling and uplifting. Probably one of my favorite pieces of music in all of Star Trek
she dead.
"Skin of Evil", for those who aren't so well versed as to be able to recognise an episode by number, and season count.
Star Trek: The Next Generation Spoilers
She doesn't make it, unfortunately. It's one of the few early character deaths that is permanent.
Later Star Trek:The Next Generation spoilers
The actress makes a return, both as the same character, and as someone else, however.
Personally, I think it's definitely an interesting episode and villain concept, and it's one of the few episodes that doesn't shy away from outright killing a named character, which usually isn't the kind of thing you see in RetroTrek.
EDIT: Sorry, still not used to how Lemmy does spoiler tags.
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