What are your TNG unpopular opinions/hot takes?

[WhatAnArtist]

My biggest one is that I unironically really enjoy season 1 and consider it to be very entertaining. Most of that is down to the very specific and particular 80s cheesiness and charm, which I have a soft spot for. Even the universally agreed upon "worst" episodes I can find some mild entertainment/amusement from (e.g. Code of Honor, Justice). I like how much of season 1 basically feels like a long-delayed season 4 of TOS. That has a certain appeal, in a way, like seeing what might have happened if TOS got a season 4 right away in 1969/70. I enjoy the cheesy stories, the stilted dialogue, the cheap sets and costumes, etc. It's all so campy and fun. Later TNG became so polished and refined that it lost that early charm. Season 1 is a huge guilty pleasure for me.

I also genuinely consider season 1 to be superior to season 7. Season 1, for all its flaws, at least had a lot of memorable episodes. Almost every single episode in season 7 was painfully forgettable.

 

[Orphalesion]

The 80s cheese in Season 1 does have its certain charm; all the glittery, brightly coloured fabrics in a lot of the episodes, the weapons in Code of Honour that are clearly made of tinfoil (as awful bad as the rest of that episode is, the tinfoil weapons get a chuckle from me), Picardfeeling nothing but pure hatred for everyone and everything around him, Riker looking like news anchor, Wesley's sweaters...
There is a lot of fun in Season 1 and yeah in some ways it is more enjoyable than Season 7 which is held in 100% early 90s beige and has that weird string of surprise relatives...

Season 1 is bad in a funny way.
A lot of Season 7 is bad in a boring way.

 

[NCC-73515]

S1 had 6 good and 8 bad episodes, S7 had 15 good ones and 2 bad ones - IMO

 

[Oddish]

Hmmm... unpopular opinions...
Pulaski was awesome.
Crusher was meh.
Wesley was all right.
"When the Bough Breaks" would have been better without the "win-win" ending.
"Shades of Gray" wasn't that bad.
"Masks" was actually pretty good.
Riker should have taken his own ship.
"Ode to Spot" was pretty funny.
Ro was a traitor.
Picard should have told that Cardassian guy there were five lights right away, just to mess with his head.
An 8th season would have been preferable to "Generations".

 

[Jayson1]

Geordi did nothing wrong in the Leah Brahms episode. I love Picard speeches. Laxanna Troi was a good character.

 

[Oddish]

Activating the engine room sim beforehand and saying: "Computer, remove Leah Brahms hologram" might not have been a bad idea, though.

 

[Jayson1]

Activating the engine room sim beforehand and saying: "Computer, remove Leah Brahms hologram" might not have been a bad idea, though.

I agree but I sort of think of it like leaving your DVD in the player after watching a movie. He had no reason to think someday the real Leah Brahms would run the program or really anyone would. Sometimes people just make mistakes die to being lazy or really not thinking about possible situations in the future happening, especially when things like the real Brahms coming aboard is something you would likely think is unlikely. It would basically be like my old high school crush I haven't seen since 1994 showing up one day out of the blue.

 

[NCC-73515]

Picard should have told that Cardassian guy there were five lights right away, just to mess with his head.

"Actually, there are 6." XD

 

[Swedish Borg]

Data is a botched character.

The yellow skin to remind people that he's an android is Ok but the rest is just awful.

Data has been active for 26 years and there are STILL English words that he doesn't know? How is that possible? Especially since we see in "The Big Goodbye" that he can pick up period slang in like five minutes!!!

Data can't whistle? Or more precisely he can whistle but very slowly and there are certain notes that he can't hit? Why? But on the other hand, he can play the violin like a virtuoso!!

It's like saying that someone can sculpt the ice like he's a modern Michelangelo but that he can't make a simple snowman with a carrot for a nose!!!

It doesn't make any sense!


Data supposedly doesn't have emotion but he expresses emotions all the time... We see him smile very often and he varies his tone of voice constantly... He just sounds like some extremely naive guy who's a little off.

A perfect memory except that he's incapable of repeating a colloquialism that he's just heard without altering it ridiculously.

I am sorry but I hate this character.

 

[Oddish]

I agree but I sort of think of it like leaving your DVD in the player after watching a movie. He had no reason to think someday the real Leah Brahms would run the program or really anyone would. Sometimes people just make mistakes die to being lazy or really not thinking about possible situations in the future happening, especially when things like the real Brahms coming aboard is something you would likely think is unlikely. It would basically be like my old high school crush I haven't seen since 1994 showing up one day out of the blue.

True, but Geordi was expecting the real Leah to show up. And remember, he saw what happened to Barclay (I think "Hollow Pursuits" was before "Galaxy's Child" anyway).

"Actually, there are 6." XD

Even better.


QUOTE: A perfect memory except that he's incapable of repeating a colloquialism that he's just heard without altering it ridiculously.

The contractions are pretty dumb too. But I still think Data is awesome.

 

[Swedish Borg]

True, but Geordi was expecting the real Leah to show up. And remember, he saw what happened to Barclay (I think "Hollow Pursuits" was before "Galaxy's Child" anyway).



Even better.

I don't see why holo-Leah gets all sexual with him. He never told the computer to do that. He just said to give her a personality according to her file.

 

[Oddish]

I don't see why holo-Leah gets all sexual with him. He never told the computer to do that. He just said to give her a personality according to her file.

The holodeck is very... inconsistent as to what kind of characters it can produce. It couldn't make a convincing Minuet without the Bynars, but it made a sentient character (Moriarty) and a Leah that, while not a true facsimile, was human enough for Geordi to fall for.

 

[Jayson1]

I don't see why holo-Leah gets all sexual with him. He never told the computer to do that. He just said to give her a personality according to her file.

Perhaps Geordi fits the profile of her husband and sort of went from their. Be kind of funny if we ever saw her husband and it was LeVar Burton playing the guy only he had a beard.

 

[Tenacity]

only he had a beard

and therefore was evil.

 

[Oddish]

and therefore was evil.

Only if it's a goatee.

 

[GulBahana]

I don't know if this is a hot take but the Lwaxana episodes got old after a while.

 

[Jayson1]

I don't know if this is a hot take but the Lwaxana episodes got old after a while.

They were made in 1990s. Of course they got old.

 

[Oddish]

I don't know if this is a hot take but the Lwaxana episodes got old after a while.

Some were better than others, that's for sure.

 

[Jayson1]

I actually liked all of her episodes except Menage a Troi and Dark Page and I even like the ending to Dark Page. Worst thing about the rest of the ep was her nightmares were not that interesting and same for the aliens of the week.

 

[WhatAnArtist]

Pulaski was awesome.

Agreed. I like that she wasn't afraid to hold unpopular opinions and defend them against the crew (mostly in regards to Data). A much more unique character than Beverly, in terms of personality. I was disappointed when she left.

Crusher was meh.

Agreed.

Wesley was all right.

I didn't have strong feelings on him either way. He wasn't even my least favourite regular crewmember (that would be Deanna).

"Shades of Gray" wasn't that bad.

Agreed. I wouldn't even put it in my bottom five TNG episodes. It's not even my least favourite season 7 episode. It has that season 1 charm of being so utterly ridiculous and cheesy that it's entertaining in its own way.

"Masks" was actually pretty good.

I didn't mind the premise of it, but it felt incredibly slow-paced and plodding, even by season 7 standards. I don't think it's a terrible episode but I don't particularly like it either.

Riker should have taken his own ship.

It would have made sense in-universe, but I like Riker as a character and would have been sad to see him go. No one else would have made as good a Number One as him.

Ro was a traitor.[/QUOTE

I despise Ro as a character and have nothing good to say about her as a person, and especially not as a Starfleet officer. Picard and Riker's first reactions to her were entirely correct. Just because the writers wanted to hammer home the "poor widdle bajorans!" narrative to set up DS9, doesn't mean I have to like her one bit.

An 8th season would have been preferable to "Generations".

Is this an unpopular opinion? I was under the impression that the TNG movies are not all that popular among series fans, and that almost everyone would have preferred more seasons rather than movies.

Geordi did nothing wrong in the Leah Brahms episode.

I relate to Geordi a lot in terms of his personality and shyness with the opposite sex, so I naturally had empathy with him in these episodes. People hating on Geordi for this obviously don't have much understanding or sympathy for people with social insecurities (same with how people love to hate on Barclay).

I love Picard speeches.

Picard is straight-up my role model. I love him as a character and I actively try to emulate his attitude and morals in real life. The Drumhead is also my favourite TNG episode, and that has the ultimate Picard speech to end all Picard speeches, of course.

Laxanna Troi was a good character.

Agreed. She was a much needed injection of a fun, carefree and humorous attitude to the Enterprise. She was also a way better people person than her daughter, ironically.

Data is a botched character.

I don't dislike Data, but I do think he's a bit overrated. As a replacement for Spock he doesn't even come close. All of the best Data episodes are great not because of him, but because of the story and how other characters are involved (e.g. The Measure of a Man, The Offspring, The Most Toys). Purely as his own character, I find Data to be dreadfully dull and slightly obnoxious. I always preferred Worf as a 'secondary' major character.