Season FIVE OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

Could you elaborate on that? I do think there are more misses in S5 than there were in 3 and 4 and that it's largely due to Michael Piller focusing on developing DS9 and having less time for TNG. From the premiere to arguably "A Matter of Time", I think it's kept the consistency of the previous two seasons. Starting with "New Ground", it gets into a rough patch with episodes that while trying, do not feel as refined as the show was under Piller. During the hiatus they had to take a visit to Piller's resort in Mexico to try to figure out things. From "Conundrum" and then on I think it regains some of the consistency, with a few odd episodes like "Imaginary Friend".

I brought up Season 7 as being when the show felt tired because it wasn't even trying anymore with its more cliched gimmicky pitches like "Data's mom appears", or "Picard has a bastard son". But I think BillJ what makes S5 seem tired to you is that it's no longer retaining the bombast. You always mentioned being more fond of the earlier seasons and I think that's because they have more of the sensibilities of older TV shows by being more broad and bold, especially when Ron Jones was around to really pump things up with his bombastic music. By S5 there's never an average episode like "The Arsenal of Freedom" where everyone keeps whipping out their phasers, because the show has become more talky than adventurous. I think it has worked better for TNG, because trying to be like TOS never quite worked. "The Measure of the Man" is always cited as being a highlight, and it's mostly just people talking in a room, but everything is clicking with the writing and acting. That's what TNG mostly went for from then on and I can't blame them.

 

Season 5 was bookended with a strong start and finish with some great episodes in between. The staleness really cropped up in season 6. The music became wallpaper starting in this season though, which I think contributes to the dullness subconsciously. It also lacked Barclay and Q episodes, which season 6 made up for with two appearances each.

It might have gotten stale, but the addition of Ro helped keep things fresh. I didn't realize until recently that all but two of her appearances were in season 5 only, and one was a wasted appearance at the beginning of Rascals. I guess after she passed on DS9, they didn't bother trying to give her more work, except for the Voyager placeholder Preemptive Strike.

Unlike seasons 3-4, when season 5 missed, it really missed. I count Silicon Avatar, New Ground, Hero Worship, The Masterpiece Society, Cost of Living, and Imaginary Friend among the dullest episodes of the show. Then they bring back Wesley for two episodes, and one of them revolves around him saving the adults from their own naivety again. Wonderful. Oh, and he got to kiss Ashley Judd, which I'm sure pissed off every male fan.

Perhaps the biggest moment of suck revolved around Cost of Living. An episode that had Alexander and Lwaxana Troi (and the Enterprise nearly being destroyed to add drama), with their annoyingness factor cranked up to 11. All it lacked was subplot of Keiko nagging Miles to complete the trifecta.

After a more subdued and emotional Lwaxana episode in season 4 (Half a Life), they push the reset button for Lwaxana, and set it to "Manhunt." It's also odd considering her next and final appearance in TNG is another heavily dramatic episode.

"The higherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, the fewerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" Kill me now.

 

Not sure I can elaborate much more than the show bored me. I began struggling with the show right around the same time during its original run. I understand that the show wasn't quite the same action-adventure show TOS was. There's talky and there's talky. One can be interesting and move the show forward, the other is just chasing itself in circles trying to fill an hour. The longer the show was on, the more it became the latter. Right around "Ethics", I began to realize the show really had nothing new to say nor did it have anywhere for the characters to go that they hadn't already been.

 

I agree about Season 5 being overall kind of bland (especially compared to my favorites 3 and 4). I don't remember it that way during its initial run, nor when watching re-runs or the DVDs. However, now w/ the blu-rays, it's a struggle for me to be interested in watching it. Maybe it's because I'm older and more jaded. I agree w/ MakeshiftPython that they played to TNG's strengths in focusing on character-driven (soap-operish?) plots instead of action bombast, but I think what really struck me about Seasons 3 and 4 was a combination of more consistent characters and thought-provoking moral dilemmas, which is also TNG's strong suit. Whereas by Season 5 those moral dilemmas seem cliched and bland.

The most interesting thing to me about watching the BDs is being able to really appreciate the gorgeous design and cinematography.

Let's see if my interest picks up in Season 6...

 

Maybe the later seasons get a bit blander but a lot of the stuff that sticks out in my mind that I like in TNG is from the later episodes. All Good Things, Parallels, that episode where some alien tries to make Picard love him, the Deanna cake. I have some fond memory of seeing 'Masks' as a kid and I'm hoping its still good when I see it again.

I'm surprised that "Ethics" would make you consider this season bland, I thought that one brought up some good points. The only thing I don't like about that episode is that they seem oddly undisturbed that Worf was paralyzed, they only seem to start getting concerned when he goes suicidal. I would think they'd be much more upset about it.

 

I just watched Ethics again last night. I thought the episode did a bad job selling its point. The so-called reckless doctor was in the right, I thought. Crusher wasn't getting it that Worf would rather die than be less than 100%, and she spends the entire episode on her high horse. At the end, she throws in the doctor's face that she only succeeded because she was lucky. As if Crusher never did anything risky and lucked out. The episode is called Ethics, but what was unethical? For Worf, it was black and white. Do nothing, and he will kill himself. Try risky procedure, might die, might be 100%.

Riker's rant at Picard saying "I respect everyone's beliefs, blah blah blah" was bad. Kinda shocking too is the response from Picard, saying that Worf asked Riker because he knew he could count on him. What is he saying, go ahead and help him commit suicide? That's a far cry from the Picard who ripped into Worf for killing Duras, who "respected all beliefs" yet required them to follow Starfleet code. Inconsistent writing, sigh.

 

It'll be interesting to revisit S6 when that comes out on blu, because IIRC a lot of the writers always cite that as the best season, but I can see there's plenty on this site who'd say otherwise.

 

I noticed last night that Season 5 in HD is now available for stream viewing on Amazon Prime along with the 4 previous seasons.

 

iTunes has it for sale now, too!

 

Not sure why Netflix cant show any season of TNG in HD yet, kinda sucks. Hulu has just seasons 1 and 2 in HD only. Amazon clearly has the best deal to see TNG in HD without buying it on Blu Ray or ITunes.

 

Lawyers, duh! CBS and/or Netflix probably hasn't yet revisited their licensing agreement. When Netflix got Star Trek a few years back, TNG-HD didn't exist, so it wouldn't have been included in the contract. I would expect that to change in the near future, either when the show is fully released, or it's time to renew the contract.

I would imagine CBS is interested in withholding these for streaming as long as possible to maximize Blu-ray sales. For Amazon, they charge for each episode individually, right? For Hulu and Netflix, they probably make less per episode per viewer.

 

Whereas Amazon probably has an agreement to air the HD season 6 months or so after it was initially released. So look for season 6 in HD in probably January if they go by that. Netflix is funny sometimes, now they have Star Trek Into Darkness

 

Netflix is a strange case. For example, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA 78 was presented in SD for awhile. Now there are HD episodes from the new remaster, but there are still plenty of the older SD versions. They'll eventually have TNG up for HD someday, likely after all seasons have been finished. They're probably under the same deal as certain networks like BBC America that are still airing the old SD masters.

As for Amazon, it's definitely most likely they have HD episodes because you can buy episodes individually unlike at Hulu and Netflix. That didn't occur to me at first because I'm on a subscription deal where I can watch a lot of media without having to purchase so I tend to think of that as the same as Netflix and Hulu.

 

We kick off the season 5 observations articles with "Redemption II". Check out how some mistakes in the tachyon detection grid graphics were fixed:

"Redemption II" observations at EAS

 

Sorry if this has been asked already. I didn't want to go back through 40 pages, but has anyone else noticed an odd occurrence for the commentary track for The Inner Light. I was listening to it today and around the 23 minute mark Denise Okuda asks the writer if he ever went down to the set and then nothing. The audio seems to switch back to the episode's for 40 seconds and then it's back to them talking about something else entirely.

 

Minor VFX goof in the remastered Darmok, going by the EAS Observations article.
Look at the (*counts*)... I think it's 30th observation down, titled "two final shots of the El-Adrel IV creature", and look at the remastered version of the shot of Picard being beamed away from the creature.

Notice that the transporter sparkles don't quite reach the top of his head? There's a defined line where it looks like the effect layer has been cut short or wasn't large enough to fit the matted area. You'd probably never notice it in watching, but there it is.


I am, however, flabbergasted by how good the ships look in orbit of the planet. I don't know how they've made them blend into the shot so well (lighting, bloom, softened edges, I guess?), but it's amazing what a difference modern compositing can make. Stunning work.

 

Call me stupid but I never actually realised that was a lame movie era warp effect at the start of redemption pt 2.

Now its in HD I realise the original fx crew cheaped out of giving us a proper tng style rubber band effect chronologically about 80 years after that style of warp engine was last used. (And nothing in the dialogue suggests kurn's BOP was out of date at the time)

Not that I'm suggesting the restoration crew couldve fixed that (probabaly taken up too much of their budget allotment on one shot of the BOP rubber banding itself out of there, but still, another weak job from the original fx crew.
Was it the first ever job for the new company that were about to make the famous Darmok phaser error?
That would explain a lot! (Ie they just watched The Voyage Home as their research and didnt bother updating their reference points)

 

Do we ever see Klingon ships "rubber-banding" into warp speed? Who's to say it's a sign of the era rather than a style? NX-01 rubber-banded into warp 200 years earlier!

 

No it didn't, NX01's warp effect was closer to that Klingon/movie era warp effect in reality, along with the TNG blue flash and subspace star.

Racking my brains, the only time we've seen Klingon ships rubber band was the huge one in Shattered Mirror and the BOP Kor commandeered for his heroic sacrifice in DS9

So, you know, they can do it.

 

Hmm, I just checked the Enterprise intro and you're right, it's more of a streak and flash with no apparent stretching.
However, the Phoenix from First Contact definitely does a small amount of stretching before its warp jump. I may have been thinking of that.