I know most people hate These Are the Voyages, but I don't mind it if you accept it as a TNG season 7 episode. I've been watching some TNG, and so right after The Pegasus I watched These Are the Voyages. The one thing that bothered me though is at the end of the episode Riker says "I think I'm ready to go talk to Captain Picard now", but yet watching The Pegasus we can see he doesn't talk to Picard. He kind of just blurts out the Pegasus' secret at the last possible minute on the bridge, with everyone there listening to him. I like the concept of the episode, but that aspect of it really doesn't seem to mesh into the episode it's supposed to fit in with.
Well yea, that was a little unavoidable considering they were like 10 years older, I can forgive that part.
What was wrong about it for me that it was supposed to be the grand series finale & the wrap up of & final word on everything. I think I would have found it acceptable as an ENT episode had it been a kind of "prank" episode in the middle of some season.
It's shit as an ENT episode, and it adds nothing to the TNG episode except continuity problems. Bin it.
I had a similar problem with VOY's 'Flashback', also written by Brannon Braga; not a great anniversary episode (felt very perfunctory - "Oh, must we? Oh well, we've got an existing idea for an episode that we could tie into the most recent movie, from five years ago; that at least still looks cool and not so dated" - as opposed to the love and care that went into DS9's 'Trials and Tribble-ations'), and adds nothing to 'The Undiscovered Country' except continuity problems (Kirk and Bones being captured two days after the Praxis explosion, rather than two months; Valtane dying on the way to Khitomer despite being alive at the end of the movie).
Flashback at least has the benefit of being Tuvok's memories of the time while his brain is being ravaged by an alien parasite. It is understandable that his memories got jumbled around a bit. Unfortunately, TATV actually is supposed to be concurrent with the events of The Pegasus. The biggest problem, for me, is when did Riker find the time to indulge in this Captain Archer holodeck program? He doesn't exactly have an abundance of free time during the events of The Pegasus, and when he does get some free time in the actual episode, he spent it sparring with Worf, getting injured, going to sickbay to get the injury taken care. Deanna actually could have been doing who knows what during the episode though, since the only scene she's even in in The Pegasus was the opening scene celebrating Captain Picard Day.
TATV insults: Fans of Star Trek Fans of Enterprise Fans of TNG Fans of Riker and/or Troi Fans of Trip Tucker Fans of the actors who play the above Fans of continuity Fans of science fiction Fans of good writing Fans of ANY writing Fans of television Fans.
So, in the middle of a crisis situation, Riker has the time to doddle around on the holodeck and attend several therapy sessions? How does that add to the immediacy of the situation that Riker is facing in an asteroid field, with a Romulan warship actively searching for illegal Federation tech?
This is how I feel about TATV: during a personal and political crisis, Riker goes LARPing. The fact that there is no real interaction between Riker, Troi and the NX crew further degrades the story. At best, the episode has a clinical feel. At worst,it's difficult to see how Riker's jeopardy in Pegasus relates to what he is doing, or how his enterntainment experiences play into the original episode.
I never really understood why they felt the need to sandwich the story of this episode into The Pegasus, an episode which aired eleven years prior to TATV. If they felt they had to do an episode about Riker playing with Captain Archer on the holodeck, why didn't they just set it after Nemesis, have Riker and Deanna aboard the Titan and thematically link it to some critical command decision Riker was having difficulty with? It wouldn't have saved the episode that much, but at least they wouldn't sticking the round peg into a square slot with the continuity. And Frakes and Sirtis wouldn't have been a decade older than they should have been.
But then they couldn't thematically tie it to ships called Enterprise. But the easy way around that is just age Riker and Troi a bit and have him in Command of the Enterprise after Picard has retired.
Not really seeing the problem there. Aside from the montage at the end (which wasn't in the script) there wasn't any thematic link to ships named Enterprise in the episode. Paramount wouldn't have gone for that. There actually are rules forbidding the Sovereign class from appearing in a TV show.
A old work around that I like. Have it be Riker in command of the Titan or some other ship, Riker be a captain, which would account for his and Troi's appearances? Otherwise a similar Riker storyline, a difficult command or personal decision.
Would have been much better, and fit in the timeline, in my opinion. I honestly don't understand why it had to be the Pegasus decision.
I'd have loved a story in two timeframes, with the Titan crew (Riker, Troi and one other) beaming down to follow up on an NX-01 first contact. The story jumps back and forth in time showing casuses and long term effects.