I thought Schisms was creepy as heck. That clicking sound... still gives me the shivers
Favourite Much-Maligned TNG Episodes
- Thread starter BigJake
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I thought Schisms was creepy as heck. That clicking sound... still gives me the shivers
It's one of the handful of alien abduction stories made for either the small or big screen that actually feels creepy and was effective. An underrated episode in a standout season.
I was getting ready to say Code of Honor, but I couldn't come up with any redeeming qualities.
I have to say I'm quite fond of Haven. But it is one of those stories I enjoy more for what they could have been than what they are.
It introduces quite a few "planetary romance" concepts into the otherwise so sober Star Trek universe: A planet so beautiful it is said to posses mystical healing attributes, two lowers finding each other across space, Lwaxana's talk about all existence being one.
I wish ST would venture down that path more often.
Oh and let's say it, Deanna and Wyatt had more chemistry with each other than Deanna and Riker ever had. Actually Riker's behavior was among the most embarrassing parts of that episode.
It introduces quite a few "planetary romance" concepts into the otherwise so sober Star Trek universe: A planet so beautiful it is said to posses mystical healing attributes, two lowers finding each other across space, Lwaxana's talk about all existence being one.
I wish ST would venture down that path more often.
Oh and let's say it, Deanna and Wyatt had more chemistry with each other than Deanna and Riker ever had. Actually Riker's behavior was among the most embarrassing parts of that episode.
The end credits had a nice font.
Oh, who am I kidding.
Oh, who am I kidding.
You know, you're right. Trek doesn't often rely on the Romantic underpinnings of much of science fiction and when it does it's a nice dabbling of color to a universe that's often relentlessly rationalistic. (I appreciate the Trek attitude that the universe is fundamentally rational, mind you, but I also feel that the understood is surrounded by a realm of mystery and mythology, and that's part of what makes it wonderful to discover things.)
Code of Honor was awesome, and a good starting point to showcase a people we should have seen more of.
A shame we didn't see any other planets with primarily dark-skinned folks, or the Ligonians fleshed out even further.
It's like the writers wanted to play it safe and have their planets remain primarily 'white,' but tell us the universe is supposedly multicultural and multiracial....lol
We needed someone like the late, great Octavia Butler or Stephen Barnes to show those guys - emphasis on 'guys' since it was primarily white males as showrunners - how it's done.
Yes, one of season one's best.
I like that the girls had the power, money and property. The girls had multiple husbands, one of whom was allowed to run things, while the girls retain the real control.
And given how many "solely white" planets we've seen, yeah let's have more solely black planets, and while we're at it, all solely other colors too.
Definitely agreed here. For me personally, it wasn't only that was O'Brien mixed up in the adventure for a change, but simply just because we got to see more Meaney, period.
I think "Code of Honor" is pretty underwhelming, especially as the third episode aired. They tried to lift bits from "Amok Time" with the whole marriage/fight to the death stuff but it just didn't resonate as we barely knew the characters.
The dark-skinned folks aren't the problem. The problem is that it is a poor story that is poorly executed. Sometimes a story is so good that is overcomes shoddy execution, sometimes the execution is so good that it makes a poor story tolerable.
Neither of those things can be said for "Code of Honor". In my opinion.
That's true and the "women are actually in charge" twist at the end seemed noting but trite and cliche.
On the other hand the episode also had "deadly weapons" made out of tinfoil, who doesn't love that?
The thing that gets me is Picard working to overthrow the head of a planetary government.
Hmmm, but where had we seen that before 'Code of Honor?' (The women in charge twist?)
From my understanding, TNG actually became really cliched with having a primarily white male led future, with the black character - Geordi - as a token character who couldn't even have a decent romance. (Yet, Riker was considered a 'stud' and slept with anything that moved). Of course, being a ladies man doesn't mean you have to actually 'act' on every woman that gives you attention; something that could have been done with Geordi.
'Code of Honor,' while not strongly written...could have been expanded into something more.
As I always say: If it was so bad - the episode - why didn't we see the Ligonians (or a planet with non-white or dark-skinned) folks again? Why the trite and cliche of running into pretty much every planet where there are only white people?
Woah wait people don't like the pilot? I mean, it's not that great but surely taking into account how rough most pilots are I thought this one was damn good.
I agree with this but I think it was a symptom of the studio simply playing to the audience of 1987 which was mostly white. Star Trek was no longer a boundary pusher, it was a product and the studio wanted to make as much money as possible and from their perspective it meant not rocking the boat. I'm guessing it is the same reason we never saw gay people in the future.
I think this is true of pretty much any stinker we've seen made. There is a good idea in there somewhere but it was botched badly along the way. Star Trek: Insurrection falls into this category for me.
Seems like this was a pretty bad experience all the way around for everyone involved in the episode. I can see why they never revisited the story.
To paraphrase Yoda: "That is why "Star Trek" failed"....and eventually had to be rebooted.
Seems like this was a pretty bad experience all the way around for everyone involved in the episode. I can see why they never revisited the story.[/QUOTE]
Like you said, it was pandering to an audience which was mostly white....and, too, you had primarily white males basically seeing the future from their viewpoint.
Space is vast.
Even if they didn't want to revisit the Ligonians (and I don't see why not since we only saw one part of the planet) I'm sure there are many, many other cultures and races that could have been depicted by non-white individuals - particularly black or darker-skinned folk.
Me it reminded negatively of a lot of 19th/ early 20th century exploration literature like "She" by Henry Rider Haggard. The "classic" Non-European (here Alien) culture of "savages" led by a powerful and naturally beautiful woman. Now the Ligonian lady wasn't white like Ayesha (or evil) but it still came off as pretty similar. After all she would have killed Yar for being a rival, just like Ayesha had beautiful women murdered.
What really left me with a bad aftertaste was when one of the Ligonian (the new preferred husband of the lady) says something to the effect "See Picard, you might have the better technology but our culture is the far more refined one!" after their whole culture being portrayed as nothing but impulsive, violent and self-indulgent. "No Lt. Yar, NO VACCINE! Me big strong Alpha Male! Me thinking only with my penis!"
....that sorta seemed really racist to me, i.e. the (white, male) show runners saying "aww aren't these Ligonians cute, they think they're people!" Which is also pretty common in older, less fortunate literature.
As for where it was done in Trek: in Angel One and with the Betazoids, and Angel One struck me as the same cliche. The women of the Ligonians and Angel One struck me not as in charge because they were awesome and it was simply the way things were done on their planet, but because somebody on the writing staff seemed to get off on the idea of dominant women. In both cases (especially Angel One) the female leaders are still heavily objectified and sexualised.
As for having planets of all light skinned r all dark skinned inhabitants.... there shouldn't have been any mono-colour planets at all, we see on Earth that that's not how it works, but I'd rather not have completely human looking "Aliens" at all. I know it was a budget thing, but still...lame... at least splatter them in purple paint or something.
And for what its worth, Riker was probably my least favorite of the main characters. I'd rather have they had focused more on Worf, Dr. Crusher and Troi and developed those characters a bit.
But you have a point with Geordi, beyond his Visor and being unhappy in love I don't seem to be able to associate many character traits with him. Now that could be because I tend to get bored from the technical aspects of the show and he was the Chief Engineer (=Mr. Techno), but I can remember far, far less of him than of even Troi. I think Data taught him painting once and he had a sister, but that's it.
It would have been cool if he had been a sort of cyborg (recently brought back from the brink of death using experimental technology) and his character arc would have been to struggle with his humanity. A sort of mirror image to Data. Data is optimistic and setting out to discover his humanity, while Geordie is the broken character who slowly feels his humanity slipping away bit by bit.
It would have given him importance and a lot to play with once the Borg got introduced!
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