TNG fan watches TOS for first time

[Commishsleer]

I'd never call any Star Trek anything the best of its field (TV, movie, whatever). It can be very good, but best? Not in my book. Popular? Sure. It has a very engaged and vocal fanbase which makes it seem more important than it is, and a lot of critics and media types have taken to aping its mythology. That popularity kept its syndication ratings high so the show stuck around whereas a lot of other fine shows didn't pull the same audiences. And syndication leaned increasingly towards half hours shows. As a result, many truly great shows never got widely syndicated and are largely forgotten. And as B&W shows fell out of favor for syndication a lot of other shows just didn't get audiences despite their merits.

I believe it is the best. Don't know why but I love it. Can't quantify it. I've watched many many TV series over the years and its the best to me. I would love to love another series more. I just don't.
You can say other shows are better on some technical level. But they are not to me. If they were I'd be on some other website talking about them.
You can say your Defenders or Hillstreet Blues are better. Maybe they even have a bigger fanbase. But you can never prove it. Its still only in your opinion. Even if its a more educated opinion than my own.

 

[Maurice]

I believe it is the best. Don't know why but I love it. Can't quantify it. I've watched many many TV series over the years and its the best to me. I would love to love another series more. I just don't.
You can say other shows are better on some technical level. But they are not to me. If they were I'd be on some other website talking about them.
You can say your Defenders or Hillstreet Blues are better. Maybe they even have a bigger fanbase. But you can never prove it. Its still only in your opinion. Even if its a more educated opinion than my own.

I very plainly said "Not in my book." I don't presume to speak for anyone else, nor do I consider my opinion as to subjective quality to be more "educated". As I often say, "The audience is always right about what they like and don't like."

 

[Greg Cox]

I understand that line of thinking these days, since everyone's opinion is broadcast through the internet, but if fans were critical back then, how would that have gotten back to the studio in any substantial way? Was TMP considered so bad to Trek fans at the time that it weren't for the potential risk of not getting a sequel, would they have started a letter-writing campaign to say how bad it was?

There were conventions and fanzines and fan clubs, not to mention professional magazines like STARLOG. I remember TMP being a topic of heated discussion in both the articles and letter column of STARLOG back in day. At one point, Harlan Ellison wrote an article excoriating the movie, which provoked much discussion, pro and con, which then led Ellison to write a follow-up article arguing with the critics of his original article . .. .

Trekkies were loudly opinionated long before the internet.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

As I often say, "The audience is always right about what they like and don't like."

Absolutely true. Audience reactions never lie.

 

[Greg Cox]

TNG didn't have their first truly great episode until the middle of the third season ("Yesterday's Enterprise").

I'd argue that "Measure of a Man" (Season 2) is possibly the first truly great ep.

 

[BillJ]

I find TOS easier to rewatch then TNG.

This is my feeling about pretty much all of Star Trek. TOS was fun and didn't take itself overly seriously.

 

[BillJ]

I'd argue that "Measure of a Man" (Season 2) is possibly the first truly great ep.

For me, it was "Where No One Has Gone Before". It sold me on the TNG universe.

 

[Thomas Elliot]

There were conventions and fanzines and fan clubs, not to mention professional magazines like STARLOG.

I was aware of those elements, but I would have assumed that at the end of the day the bottom line is what mattered to the studio which is determined by ratings or box office.
People trashed Michael Bay's various films, Transformers in particular, but as long as the box office was great, sequels were green lit.

I suppose that fans openly criticizing it could have a domino effect on influencing other fans not to check it out/not to see something, so if that core fan base is being chipped away, that affects ratings/box office. But I always assumed it was the casual movie goer/television viewer who makes or breaks these movies/shows. For example, the actual Marvel/DC comic book buyer numbers around 70,000 people. Yet, something like 100,000,000 people went out to see Avengers Endgame. Most everyone I talk to in real life, who loves superhero movies, don't know or care about continuity.

I remember TMP being a topic of heated discussion in both the articles and letter column of STARLOG back in day. At one point, Harlan Ellison wrote an article excoriating the movie, which provoked much discussion, pro and con, which then led Ellison to write a follow-up article arguing with the critics of his original article . .. .

I need to find these articles and columns, but mostly I need to read Ellison's article and follow-up. I love his work but from what little I've read about his opinions, he sounds difficult to put it delicately.

I myself love TMP but I think context plays a big part in whether or not you enjoy something.
I was never too familiar with the Star Trek films, but saw bits of TWOK and thought it looked awesome. I heard TMP was lame. So my expectations were pretty low but when I finally saw it, I thought it was great. Now keep in mind though, I have never seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I heard was a strong influence on TMP. Also, I didn't grow up watching too much TOS. I probably watched maybe five full episodes tops. Had I seen 2001: a Space Odyssey and been a regular fan of TOS and been hyped up from the initial advertising campaign, maybe it would have changed my opinion of TMP and I would have ended up being strongly disappointed.

 

[fireproof78]

For me, it was "Where No One Has Gone Before". It sold me on the TNG universe.

For me it was "All Good Things."

 

[Maurice]

There were conventions and fanzines and fan clubs, not to mention professional magazines like STARLOG. I remember TMP being a topic of heated discussion in both the articles and letter column of STARLOG back in day. At one point, Harlan Ellison wrote an article excoriating the movie, which provoked much discussion, pro and con, which then led Ellison to write a follow-up article arguing with the critics of his original article . .. .

Trekkies were loudly opinionated long before the internet.

I need to find these articles and columns, but mostly I need to read Ellison's article and follow-up. I love his work but from what little I've read about his opinions, he sounds difficult to put it delicately.

Here's the initial review... (LINK)

And go to pages 7 & 8 (LINK) to see intitial reader response, pro and con.

 

[johnnybear]

Talk him into seeing "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "The Best of Both Worlds Part 1." If he's not a fan after that, he never will be.

Yes I told him about those episodes but he says, "When you put them on I'll watch them so don't spoil 'em for me!" Though he wants to see Arena on Monday evening so that's a good start!
JB

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

For me, it was "Where No One Has Gone Before". It sold me on the TNG universe.

I'm quite partial to "The Arsenal of Freedom."

 

[BillJ]

I'm quite partial to "The Arsenal of Freedom."

While a lot of awkwardness exists in TNG season one, I also find it the most imaginative of pretty much anything the spinoffs have produced. I find myself liking quite a bit of TNG season one, especially on the concept level. Episodes like "The Last Outpost", "The Arsenal of Freedom", "Where No One...", "Lonely Among Us", "The Battle", "Hide and Q", and there are quite a few more that I find very entertaining.

The acting could be downright cringeworthy at times, and the Ferengi were ill thought out in their original form, but I find far more good than bad in that first season.

 

[Vger23]

While a lot of awkwardness exists in TNG season one, I also find it the most imaginative of pretty much anything the spinoffs have produced. I find myself liking quite a bit of TNG season one, especially on the concept level. Episodes like "The Last Outpost", "The Arsenal of Freedom", "Where No One...", "Lonely Among Us", "The Battle", "Hide and Q", and there are quite a few more that I find very entertaining.

The acting could be downright cringeworthy at times, and the Ferengi were ill thought out in their original form, but I find far more good than bad in that first season.

I agree to a fair extent. I didn't like them nearly as much in first run, but I now find the first two seasons of TNG far more re-watchable than a lot of what came after. Like you, I would say a lot of it is that the concepts were more imaginative and "sci-fi" where later TNG, while arguably tighter and much better produced, felt more often like any other TV show of the early 90s dressed up in Star Trek clothes.

 

[drt]

I was aware of those elements, but I would have assumed that at the end of the day the bottom line

For what it's worth, corrected for inflation, TMP was the highest grossing Trek film until ST'09, so it didn't really lose money - more that it didn't make as much money as the studio hoped. Also, i don't think studio wasn't particularly happy with Roddenberry and the production excesses that added considerable cost to the budget (although TMP's budget number was perhaps unfairly burdened with Phase II and costs related to the other aborted Trek restart attempts in the 70s).

While a lot of awkwardness exists in TNG season one, I also find it the most imaginative of pretty much anything the spinoffs have produced.

Totally concur, there were a lot of cool scifi concepts in the first season. I also find the cinematography and music much better that the increasing blandness of the later seasons.

 

[Kor]

I love fifties and sixties futurism. And there's only one Trek series that fits that mold. To me, that's the definitive, be-all, end-all depiction of the Star Trek universe.

Kor

 

[Thomas Elliot]

Here's the initial review... (LINK)

And go to pages 7 & 8 (LINK) to see intitial reader response, pro and con.

Thanks man. That was so entertaining to read.
On one hand, I thought Ellison had some legit criticisms, other times it seems like he's just trying to flex his writing talent and sharp tongue. But either way, its a joy to read anything he writes.

I was shocked to find out that the plot is cribbed from an old TOS episode. I can imagine the disappointment by TOS fans who waited to see this long awaited, big budget story that's...an update to an old TOS episode. Maybe it was the casuals who were more impressed with it.

I thought it was unfair of Ellison to compare TMP reactions to Star Wars reactions. It should be obvious that they're too different types of genres. Star Trek is science-fiction, and Star Wars leans more heavily to action-fantasy. You even have sword fights and aerial dog fights in Star Wars so of course that's going to get a different type of reaction.

But he did bring up something that I didn't think about. TMP came out the same year as Alien, and the latter definitely seems much more impressive. The acting overall is much better, overall, and far more naturalistic. TMP has great effects, but Alien has the incomparable bio-mechanical designs of Giger and at the time it looked like a more plausible future. Alien looks like it already had both feet in the 80s while TMP felt like it was closer to Logan's Run with some of the interiors and wardrobe choices.

About the "Pro" responses. First thing that I noticed, "Everything about this film, from the Vulcan and Klingon languages to the stirring score..." The novelty alone of updating Star Trek to make it seem more "realistic" is fantastic to me. The Klingons eventually were just white guys with goatees in the original series. And here they look very alien, speaking in a foreign alien tongue, but still looking vaguely reminiscent to the originals with their facial hair.
Another scene that stuck out to me was how all these years later Spock is NOT with the crew but long haired, on some quest to apparently shed what's left of his humanity. And then...all of a sudden...he puts his hand up...something, somewhere is speaking to him. And then the Vulcan high priests drop the logic talisman stopping him from achieving an essence of pure logic. It just had this epic feel to it in its presentation.

 

[Norsehound]

So far TOS feels more like an action-adventure series with a sci-fi backdrop. TNG feels so different in comparison. It's slower paced and seems like a sci-fi show made by people who produce edu-tainment.

I was about two years old when "Encounter at Farpoint" aired. My parents were trek fans, but slogging through the first two seasons killed their interest for the show, and I was given TOS re-runs. I loved it so much my first word was "Enterprise". Growing up on a TOS diet, that (Sci-fi action adventure) is what speaks Star Trek to me.

So on some level I'm always a disappointed Trek fan because TNG, its successors, and its legacy commandeered what it means to be "Star Trek". When Trek 2009 came out fans claimed it wasn't "real Star Trek" because it didn't have those humanist progressive themes of tolerance and what not. It had to be about something! To me, Trek 2009 was more Star Trek than anything that had aired since TNG started broadcasting. And hearing Trek fans' criticisms about these things made me feel like a bit of an outcast in my own fandom that I loved so much.

I had hopes for Discovery, before more fan criticism forced them to pivot heavily by reverting the Klingons to their TNG mode and parted Discovery from the TOS era. Of the upcoming Trek show prospects, the one I'm most excited about is Pike, on the hopes that it returns to the TOS roots of just fun adventure in space without necessarily having to say something profound. Even better if they have the guts to do their own thing without adhering strictly to canon.

That said, overall, I find that the TOS-first fans are FAR more forgiving of the spin-off series that came later than the Berman-era fans are of TOS. It seems (in general) that TNG fans mostly view TOS as a quaint, goofy pre-cursor to TNG, while completely forgetting that TNG (and what followed) would have been off the air in 13 episodes if it wasn't for the fact that TOS was a cultural phenomenon and possibly the single greatest TV series ever produced.

It's a shame that Star Trek seems to go out of its way to avoid the TOS era, or really feature many mentions of TOS. Twenty four seasons of the 24th century vs what, five? (3 TOS, 2 Discovery) of the 23rd. For being the genesis of the Star Trek brand it seems TNG was pretty quick to distance itself from its roots. I get it that it's all built on the platform of Roddenberry wanting a fresh start (so he didn't have to credit TOS contributors?). As someone who finds the 24th century shows and timeline as a whole rather boring though, it means it's been a long wait for something else to come along that isn't a TNG derivative. It lasted all of two seasons before we're back to continuing off from where Picard and TNG left us.

 

[fireproof78]

So on some level I'm always a disappointed Trek fan because TNG, its successors, and its legacy commandeered what it means to be "Star Trek". When Trek 2009 came out fans claimed it wasn't "real Star Trek" because it didn't have those humanist progressive themes of tolerance and what not. It had to be about something! To me, Trek 2009 was more Star Trek than anything that had aired since TNG started broadcasting. And hearing Trek fans' criticisms about these things made me feel like a bit of an outcast in my own fandom that I loved so much.

Same here. I understand that TNG has a huge following but it misses Trek's roots, specifically that action/adventure piece that is apart of TOS that was not always a part of TNG. I think ST09 illustrates perfectly these TOS roots while having that social commentary woven throughout.

 

[Thomas Elliot]

Dagger of the Mind

The episodes keep getting better.

-I love the discussion of the prison system in general and rehabilitation. The different perspectives the main three characters have on the issue made it more substantial that super-crazy-action or melodrama of other mainstream shows.

-Spock comes across as a Vulcan Supremacist some times. What an asshole. I always thought it was McCoy who was the sole racist and the one who was always picking on Spock, but Spock loves to get in his digs against the human race, provoked or not.

-McCoy putting Kirk in check because of his ideals as a doctor was great and caught me by surprise. All by protocol too. Great writing.

-Mariana Hill as Dr. Helen Noel was gorgeous! I didn't get at first why Kirk was taken back by her? Because she's a girl! Because she's extremely attractive? Come to find out they had something in the past. It makes sense now. Her reminding him of the Christmas Party and him trying to keep the conservation to a whisper was great. And apparently they celebrate Christmas. I got the impression that Christmas was no longer a mainstream thing in TNG. And damn, could those women's Starfleet uniforms be any shorter?? Hill played the pretty and alluring female officer to a stereotypical tee, which I didn't mind at all. But the tone and delivery she gave when strongly disagreeing with Kirk or upset by his accusations and speculation was a welcome surprise. It really made me like the character even more.

-The establishing shot of the colony was really great and made me believe that this really was a penal colony on a strange planet. Very good effects.

-Vulcan mind meld. This was one of the best portrayals of it I've seen. Better than the previous one I saw with the silicon-based life form. Spock trying to gently get the truth from this addled mind, and making sure he has the consent of Gelder plays up the logic and compassion of the episode. Another great scene and performance.

-The mystery. I loved the set up. It's obvious that the penal colony head-of-operations is going to be the bad guy, but they really do their best to try and not give you any hints from the character. Even letting Kirk keep his phaser. Nice touch. But yeah, the mystery was great, and Kirk's slow suspicion of the chair room operator guy who's not quite all there was spooky.

-Karate chops. These are apparently as good as the Vulcan nerve pinch. It's almost comical how effective they are. I think I saw another episode where skinny Bones McCoy does an Austin Powers Judo chop to the back of someone's neck and back, and they become completely incapacitated. With that kind of Jeet Kun Do I bet McCoy or Gelder could take on TNG Klingons.

-So...Kirk and Noel didn't have a one-night stand? Or was it implied that they just flirted/made out but it never went any further?

-Dr. Noel being the one to rescue Kirk and save the day was a nice surprise.

In comparison to TNG
I can see why some of my older friends prefer TOS. The focus on the main three characters and their interactions make it feel like a grand adventure you and your two other friends are embarking on. Like something out of Stranger Things or Stand By Me. Or the Three Musketeers. Whereas in TNG, it's this larger ensemble cast and despite everyone getting a long, it's not that tight bond. They're not being space racists to each other like McCoy and Spock, but we don't get as many instances of casual or natural passionate interactions or responses.

In regards to the lead, you can easily put yourself in the virile hero role of Kirk, want to be like him, while Picard is more like a father figure most of the time to the rest of the crew, and I'd imagine, to the audience.

Action-adventure vs. quiet-adventure...again, I see why some TOS fans prefer it over TNG. Even though the action was minimal here, the main cast doesn't throw any punches and Kirk doesn't lose his shirt, it still feels closer to say...something like Indiana Jones. Kirk and Indy feel like they're cut from the same cloth, complete with the obligatory brief love interest and passionate kiss. It's fun. I also see now why TMP was a letdown. I thought it was fantastic as a science-fiction film. But after seeing more TOS episodes, I think the film is missing some of the high-adventure/romanticization of the original series.