I've been watching Season 1 for the first time in forever, and I'm amazed how good it is. Sure there's lots of hilarity, and a lot of sex, but the crew feel far more energised, they seem to do a lot more than in later episodes - despite having more people on the bridge. There's always plenty of extras in the background too, lots of unusual things -- tonight's episode (Home Soil) had Picard studying a diagram on the main viewer, the MSD had an inline video too. These things just didn't happen later in the series.
Seasons 1 & 2 Unwatchable?
- Thread starter ConRefit79
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I find the corridors be lacking enough extras in season 1. The ship is supposed to have 1K people.
I find the corridors be lacking enough extras in season 1. The ship is supposed to have 1K people.
That's only 25 people per deck, 8 of whom are asleep, 8 on duty and 8 on r&r.
Aside from shift change the corridors should be empty!
However the 13 stations on the bridge are rarely populated post season 1. It would be common to half Worf and an extra on the back 5, Yar on tactical, riker Picard troi and crusher on the middle 5, la forge and data up front
By season 4 it's more often Worf, Picard, riker, troi, data and Conn, 30% Down.
I liked seeing Wesley at Ops too for a change, but after season 2 he stagnated into a single position.
I am really enjoying this rewatch love the first 2 seasons
Season 3 is when it starts to get really good.
Even if you don't consider the episode racist it's a pretty terrible episode. Suppose they'd chosen another skin tone for the actors. Then it's still an episode about an exoticized tribal leader kidnapping a woman and threatening to withhold a life saving medication if he is not allowed to force her into marriage, claiming a tribal right to do so. The same episode in SG1 with Asians was also on the shortlist of series worst.
If there had been more episodes with a dark skinned alien race, with a greater variety of themes that weren't uncomfortably close to signs held up at Tea Party rallies, maybe it'd be easier to see the episode as less racist. But that just means they should have used a greater variety of skin toned aliens in other episodes.
I would agree that the weaker episodes in seasons 6 and 7 are worse than a lot of the episodes in seasons 1 and 2, but the stronger episodes are much better.
If there had been more episodes with a dark skinned alien race, with a greater variety of themes that weren't uncomfortably close to signs held up at Tea Party rallies, maybe it'd be easier to see the episode as less racist. But that just means they should have used a greater variety of skin toned aliens in other episodes.
I would agree that the weaker episodes in seasons 6 and 7 are worse than a lot of the episodes in seasons 1 and 2, but the stronger episodes are much better.
TNG looks and feels like a different show in Season 1. It changes somewhat in Season 2 but is still a lot different to the following seasons. Season 3 was where it all started to click into place and from late Season 3 to the end of the series Next Generation had found it's tone. It's the only Star Trek show that changes so drastically in almost every way from the beginning to the end. DS9 changed over time to become more serialized but the look and feel of the series was still the same. Voyager didn't change at all from beginning to end. When I see an old episode on tv I'm not immediately sure which season it's from. The giveaways are usually Janeway's hair (bun is Season 1 to 3, ponytail is Season 3 to 4, hair down is Season 4 to 7), the presence/absence of Seven or Kes and whichever recurring character/alien race may or may not appear. Some of the cast didn't change at all throughout the run of the series. Picardo looked the same, Garrett Wang looked the same, Tim Russ looked the same, Roxann Dawson looked the same from Season 2 until the end, same as Robert Beltran. Robert Duncan McNeill put on some weight and aged facially but that's it. I can always tell if an episode of The Original Series is from the 3rd season because the hairstyles are different (not in a good way).
I never really thought about it like that. I mean, a number of those people would be civilians and kids but that's only a couple decks' worth.
It also never made sense to me that there were so many civilians in the stardrive section. Shouldn't they all be living in the saucer, well away from the more sensitive areas of the ship? After all, the main warp and impulse engines, torpedo bays, two hangar decks, and the tractor beam were all in the stardrive section. Not to mention pretty much all the antimatter, presumably.
Having families on ships that do routine scientic studies and things of that sort seems okay. Same as having families on starbases. Putting your entire family on a ship like the Federation flagship that's constantly in danger never made any sense to me. How can young children be expected to lay their lives down for the cause? How can their parents put them in the position that they could be assimilated by the Borg, kidnapped by Ferengi pirates or stabbed by Klingon invaders at any time? I'd be living in a state of constant fear for my family
I do love the hotel in space. It's a comforting place to visit for 45 minutes but I wouldn't want to risk my life by living there
Yeah, 1000 sounds like a large crew, but volume-wise, it's a ridonculously huge ship. For comparison, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier has less volume and a crew of 6000.
I can tell a difference between Seasons 1 and 2 of Voyager and Season 3 onward. I agree Janeway's hair is a giveaway (and so are the hairstyles of both Paris and Torres) but there is something different about those first two seasons. The lightning maybe...something just looks different about the set. I just know it when I see it.
And IIRC, this Stargate episode was written by Katharyn Powers no less, one of the authors of “Code of Honor”!
I thought Code of Honor was a terrible episode long before I thought it was racist.
Same here. I didn't think COH was racist as much as I thought Angel One was Sexist.
Denise Crosby asked to be released and thus the Producers killed off Tasha Yar.
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