What are your TNG unpopular opinions/hot takes?

[Herbert]

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.

I could not agree more. Season 1 gets an unfair rap. By S7, it almost seems like they had fallen into a "boring drama in space" type show instead of what Star Trek should be, which is let's explore space. A lot of S7 is a snoozefest or just plain whatever/meh.

I recently went through S7 and watched some episodes I haven't seen in a long while. I wanted to know if my opinion of them had changed. I came away from that with the realization that the only S7 episodes that I actually want to watch these days are
Phantasms
Parallels
Lower Decks (if I'm in the right mood)
Masks
Emergence

As far as my unpopular opinions are concerned? (not sure they are all unpopular though )

Lwaxana and Deanna were completely superfluous to the show and never should have been characters. They would not have been missed at all. It's fair for me to say that the Lwaxana episodes where she is primarily comic relief are okay but when they decided to get all dark and serious (Dark Page, the one where she falls for Charles Emerson Winchester) it was past time to stop using her character. And don't get me started on them using her in DS9
Masks is a great episode. It's completely batpoop crazy and I love it.
The earlier seasons are more enjoyable than the later seasons.
They overused Q
I love, love, love Sub Rosa (kidding)
I really dislike "evil" data. There's something very unsettling about evil data. Maybe that's a compliment on Spiner's acting ability.
And my number one unpopular(?) opinion is what I said above. They turned Star Trek into a boring drama in space show. They should have stuck with more TOS-type, exploring the unknown stories.

 

[Brennyren]

Jelico was awesome

Jellico was exactly what one needed to see with the 1701-D clique.

I like Jellico. I always saw him as a jerk with a (admittedly well-hidden) heart of gold, or at least a jerk who knew what the hell he was doing. And in the end he accomplished exactly what he was sent to the Enterprise to do -- and rescued Picard in the process. Riker came across as petulant and unprofessional in dealing with him. If he hadn't been shilled as the best pilot on the ship (I say "shilled" because I don't remember seeing evidence of that prior to this episode), he would have contributed nothing to the success of the mission.

Also, Jellico got Troi out of the camel-toe leotards and into a uniform. I'd like him for that alone.

 

[Vger23]

And my number one unpopular(?) opinion is what I said above. They turned Star Trek into a boring drama in space show. They should have stuck with more TOS-type, exploring the unknown stories.

I think they started to realize that writing compelling science fiction stories that hadn't already been covered was getting harder and harder.

It was at this point that they needed fresh blood in the writing room.

No doubt in my mind that S1 and S2 contained far more what I like to see in Star Trek than most of what S6 and S7 contained.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Jellico should have thrown Riker into the brig at the first sign of rebellion.

The Picard part of "Chain Of Command" makes no sense.

The Howard women are not RELATED!!! They all got their name through marriage!!! How could they share a common, trait? That's some idiotic plot point!

In Parallels, they won against the Borg only because of Picard's rescue. Without his connection with Data, the Borg would have won without breaking a sweat. So how could there be an alternate timeline where Picard was killed and never retrieved from the Borg? That's simply impossible.

 

[NCC-73515]

The Howard women are not RELATED!!! They all got their name through marriage!!! How could they share a common, trait? That's some idiotic plot point!

In Parallels, they won against the Borg only because of Picard's rescue. Without his connection with Data, the Borg would have won without breaking a sweat. So how could there be an alternate timeline where Picard was killed and never retrieved from the Borg? That's simply impossible.

Daughters aren't related to their moms? What is that common trait you mean?

All alternate timelines are possible.

 

[Oddish]

But you can be bi, very much on the gay side and a little on the straight side.

Very true. Think about it as blue (straight) and yellow (gay). A person can be blue, teal, aquamarine, green, lime, spring green, chartreuse, or any other shade between.

like Jellico. I always saw him as a jerk with a (admittedly well-hidden) heart of gold, or at least a jerk who knew what the hell he was doing.

I think he was underrated as a captain, but I can't get past the fact that he tried to restructure Enterprise's duty shifts just hours before they were expecting to possibly go into combat. You make a change like that during a period of routine operations, when you have a few weeks to work out the kinks.

So how could there be an alternate timeline where Picard was killed and never retrieved from the Borg? That's simply impossible.

Picard could have been killed before he was abducted, or found a way to do himself in while on the Borg cube. Riker then uses the deflector dish weapon to destroy the cube.

 

[Brennyren]

The Howard women are not RELATED!!! They all got their name through marriage!!! How could they share a common, trait? That's some idiotic plot point!

Daughters aren't related to their moms? What is that common trait you mean?

Of course daughters are related to their mothers, but in Western history and tradition a daughter, especially if born to a married couple, generally inherits her father's birth surname, not her mother's. If Jane Doe marries John Smith and they have a daughter, she is Mary Smith. If Mary Smith then marries Bill Jones and they have a daughter, she is Sarah Jones. If Sarah Jones then marries Tom Williams, and they have a daughter -- you get the idea. If Jessel Howard or any of her female descendants, at least as far as the twentieth century (when the West became more accepting of women retaining/passing on their birth names), married, their daughters would not have continued to be called Howard.

Now if Jessel had had a brother, and he married, his wife would have become Mrs. Howard. But she would (let's hope) have no genetic relationship to Jessel.

And the "common trait" @Swedish Borg is presumably referring to is whatever genetic marker made Jessel and her female descendants suitable hosts for Ronan.

 

[Vger23]

V


Picard could have been killed before he was abducted, or found a way to do himself in while on the Borg cube. Riker then uses the deflector dish weapon to destroy the cube.

Maybe instead of beaming an away team to the cube, or sneaking Worf and Data over to rescue Picard...they beamed an antimatter bomb over (like the one Kirk used to destroy the vampire cloud) and destroyed the cube juse as easy as that.

Oops...sorry...didn't mean to completely ruin TBOBW for everyone!

 

[dupersuper]

I do understand that TNG and frankly all of Trek was bad in LGBTQ representation. Maybe the worst seeing as they didn't have their first gay character until Discovery. What makes TNG progressive though is frankly the Roddenberry Vision. I know he just sort of made that up during the years after TOS while going to fan conventions but the vision is still a major thing in TNG. It shows a world were humans have mostly evolved out of our most dangerous characteristics. No other show back then had that. It shows a world that people can only dream about living in but everyone would love to live in that kind of world. It's basically a socialist dream come true. So also basically fantasy since we know that kind of world will never happen but it does spark the imagination. I mean Cagney and Lacey catching criminals ever week just can't compare to something like that.

Oh, I completely agree. I'm big on the hopeful future, and certainly would've assumed when watching as a kid that the IDIC on display included LBTGQ people, but in terms of actually showing and not just implying, I have to admit that other shows did it better at the time.

 

[Oddish]

This is a fascinating except from an article on the first "Lord of the Rings" movie. It explains, I think, why there was reduced gay representation on Voyager and Enterprise.

"While there are many reasons for the shifts in masculine representation coming out of the 20th century, one seems the most glaring and obvious. A shadow and a threat to the mainstream had been growing in Hollywood’s mind for decades: homosexuality. As awareness of queer existence rose in the cishet public consciousness — owing in no small part to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, and the increasing visibility of queer activism — Hollywood became more and more skittish about representing closeness, physical touch, and emotional vulnerability between male characters."

The AIDS crisis was actually beginning to abate, due to new treatments. Gay rights activists were pushing for greater acceptance, and pushback was inevitable. That may be why despite the overall positive audience response to "The Outcast" and "Rejoined", the makers of Trek were afraid to go further.

 

[Brennyren]

^^^ Nonetheless, when someone fails to show representation because of industry pressure, I think that does damage their claim to being "progressive."

Anyway, let me see if I can toss out a few more unpopular opinions:

1) While I realize that keeping series leads unattached is primarily for dramatic/marketing reasons (ooh! sweeps weeks romances! ), I still think the whole idea that a captain or X/O is "married to the ship" is stupid, and makes our heroes look a little neurotic. In RL, most captains are married or in long-term relationships, because the service finds that they tend to be more stable officers if they have some stability in their personal lives.

2) At risk of touching off another volley in a fairly regular battle, I hated the interpretation of the Prime Directive that was used in TNG and subsequent Treks. Specifically, that our heroes, having the ability to save certain planets or cultures from natural disasters ("Pen Pals," or "Homeward") should instead let them die because "fate" or "destiny" or some other superstitious or deterministic b.s. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think heroes are very heroic when they sit there and debate all the reasons why they should let people die -- and then plume themselves on their elevated "morality."

3) "Rascals" is awesome. Fight me.

 

[Oddish]

) At risk of touching off another volley in a fairly regular battle, I hated the interpretation of the Prime Directive that was used in TNG and subsequent Treks. Specifically, that our heroes, having the ability to save certain planets or cultures from natural disasters ("Pen Pals," or "Homeward") should instead let them die because "fate" or "destiny" or some other superstitious or deterministic b.s. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think heroes are very heroic when they sit there and debate all the reasons why they should let people die -- and then plume themselves on their elevated "morality."

Sorry to tell you this, but I think that opinion is pretty popular. If you defended Picard's initial actions in "Homeward", you'd find far more opposition.

 

[dupersuper]

2) At risk of touching off another volley in a fairly regular battle, I hated the interpretation of the Prime Directive that was used in TNG and subsequent Treks. Specifically, that our heroes, having the ability to save certain planets or cultures from natural disasters ("Pen Pals," or "Homeward") should instead let them die because "fate" or "destiny" or some other superstitious or deterministic b.s. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think heroes are very heroic when they sit there and debate all the reasons why they should let people die -- and then plume themselves on their elevated "morality.".

Seconded

 

[Oddish]

"Rascals" is awesome. Fight me.

Why would I? I defend "Shades of Gray", for crying out loud.

 

[Brennyren]

Sorry to tell you this, but I think that opinion is pretty popular.

Well, I hope so. But the next time I have to defend it sure won't be the first!

 

[NCC-73515]

Of course daughters are related to their mothers, but in Western history and tradition a daughter, especially if born to a married couple, generally inherits her father's birth surname, not her mother's. If Jane Doe marries John Smith and they have a daughter, she is Mary Smith. If Mary Smith then marries Bill Jones and they have a daughter, she is Sarah Jones. If Sarah Jones then marries Tom Williams, and they have a daughter -- you get the idea. If Jessel Howard or any of her female descendants, at least as far as the twentieth century (when the West became more accepting of women retaining/passing on their birth names), married, their daughters would not have continued to be called Howard.

Now if Jessel had had a brother, and he married, his wife would have become Mrs. Howard. But she would (let's hope) have no genetic relationship to Jessel.

And the "common trait" @Swedish Borg is presumably referring to is whatever genetic marker made Jessel and her female descendants suitable hosts for Ronan.

None of which changes their Howard 'bloodlines', and none of which had to continue all the way into the 24th century. People are keeping their names, or combining both, since probably the 90s or so already. If I'm the kid of a Howard, no matter what the other name or my name is, I'm still half a Howard as well.

 

[Jayson1]

Oh, I completely agree. I'm big on the hopeful future, and certainly would've assumed when watching as a kid that the IDIC on display included LBTGQ people, but in terms of actually showing and not just implying, I have to admit that other shows did it better at the time.

I agree. The lack of LGBTQ representation has been the franchise's biggest sin for along time. I do understand it not being on TOS but by the time you get to TNG you should at least mention that gay people exist in the world. They wouldn't do that. I think most of that comes from Rick Berman. Berman did some good things but also some really bad things while in control.

 

[Oddish]

Well, I hope so. But the next time I have to defend it sure won't be the first!

You want to have to defend an unpopular opinion, try agreeing with Phlox's position in "Dear Doctor".

None of which changes their Howard 'bloodlines', and none of which had to continue all the way into the 24th century. People are keeping their names, or combining both, since probably the 90s or so already. If I'm the kid of a Howard, no matter what the other name or my name is, I'm still half a Howard as well.

Beverly might have used "Howard women" to simply describe her female ancestors, because there was no other term for them. They had, as indicated, changed their name each generation.

 

[NCC-73515]

Exactly, so why is that an "idiotic plot point"?

 

[Herbert]

I think they started to realize that writing compelling science fiction stories that hadn't already been covered was getting harder and harder.

It was at this point that they needed fresh blood in the writing room.

I agree that they needed fresh writing blood but I blame it in part on the large ensemble cast. When you have a large cast, it just begs to have more (ugh!) character development stories. In TOS the focus was on three main characters, sometimes Scotty, and then "the rest." Some might see that as a drawback but I see it as a strength because the stories written for that show focused more on telling science fiction stories and not things like Data writing a pen pal message to Maddox describing what his day was like or Beverly trying to solve who murdered the ferengi scientist, or Riker seemingly losing his mind while trying to get in character for a play.

I'm not opposed to some character development but when the result is stuff like Dark Page, Interface, Homeward (was anyone really interested in seeing Worf's human brother?), the ultimate cringe-worthy episode Sub Rosa, Bloodlines, The Quality of Life, and many others it's a sign to me that the show has lost its way and shame on them for not noticing and course correcting. Birthright is another example. This needed to be a two-parter? Did it need to be made at all?

No doubt in my mind that S1 and S2 contained far more what I like to see in Star Trek than most of what S6 and S7 contained.

Completely agree.