Excluding ENT, the Berman era was peak Trek - the Golden Age. And of that, seasons 3 and 4 of TNG were the best of the best of everything. Perfection.
Your honest opinion on the Berman era
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For me the golden age will always be TOS and the first six movies. If none of the rest of Trek existed I could happily live with just that.
For me, TNG was kind of more fun in its first couple of seasons (once you get past the first quarter or third of s1) and it peaked with BOBW. It began losing its edge by season four. Something dreadful happened to it as they phased out Ron Jones, as though he provided a vital energy it needed. Still some good episodes in later seasons, but my rewatches always peter out by midway through the run.
This, for sure, though I might make an addition of the Kelvin films to round out the happiness. Plus, never liked the number 6.
Warts and all, I prefer TNG S01-02 to later seasons generally. The directors seem to be a bit more ambitious, the music is better and the stories are a little more on the wild side.
Their reach often fell to short, but they were reaching at least.
It all gets a bit safe, increasingly so through S05-07. I still enjoy it, but I just find more to enjoy in those earlier years.
Their reach often fell to short, but they were reaching at least.
It all gets a bit safe, increasingly so through S05-07. I still enjoy it, but I just find more to enjoy in those earlier years.
I generally agree and I really preferred Maurice Hurley as showrunner to Michael Piller. Season 2 is probably my favorite. I actually MUCH preferred it when they were more focused on plot than character.
And I agree with you that when Ron Jones was fired was the time TNG really started to lose its "edge."
It’s hard to put my finger on, but early TNG just has a certain energy and freshness that really evaporates in the later seasons. For all its flaws, I find it a much bolder and more invigorating series. Space felt big, dangerous and unpredictable. It really did feel like a final frontier. You never quite knew what might happen the following week. The characters hadn’t settled into their overly comfortable grooves yet. By season seven, the writers were really running on fumes as I’ve actually seen them admit. Pretty much all they could seem to come up with was to introduce more and more lost family members of the crew. Yawn.
The problem with the shift to primarily focusing on character is that, on TNG, the characters just weren’t, by and large, particularly interesting or dynamic. Certainly compared to the DS9 characters. Picard, Data and Worf had some good material, but whenever you get an episode that decides to put characters such as Geordi, Beverly, Troi or even Riker forefront, I’m automatically a little bored because the characters (and frankly often the performances; proficient but rarely brilliant) just aren’t that compelling to me.
I tend to agree that most of TNG’s best episodes are more plot-based. Or had just the right combination of plot and character (thinking of “The Inner Light”).
I think the characters from Season 3 on got comfortable but not overly comfortable though by the last 2 seasons some episodes did get a bit too techbabble-focused and/or actually overly weird.
I do think that by Season 5 though Ro was a really good character her introduction did correlate with some of the writers thinking, coming to think that some of the characters like Geordi, probably Crusher, and outside of weird circumstances Riker and Troi were pretty unavoidably overly flat and not really interesting. The writers did particularly seem to give up on/not like writing for Geordi after Season 4.
I think Hurley and later Moore particularly resented, pushed against the Roddenberry/Berman rules, limitations, but Piller and Taylor were quite talented too and did well working within them though not to absolute reverential self-limiting.
I think what goes wrong with TNG from around the fourth season onward is that it starts to feel a little bit like it's buying into the idea of itself as "intelligent" TV, and they start dialing back the high-concept imaginative plots in favour of incredibly cliched military/ethical dramas. This is the era where they start making Stewart read out sneering fridge magnet quotes to demolish strawmen opponents, or have episodes based around one-dimensional trope characters giving dopey one-liners about Duty and The Cost of War or w/e.
As Picard (and the crew as a whole) gets more irritating, the show buys more and more into the idea of him as a moral paragon. I also get the impression Stewart didn't really like the character, which shows through in the performance (people often mock him for wanting Picard to do more "fucking and fighting" or whatever dumb phrase he purportedly used, but I don't think he's 100% wrong, and the character as written must have been often very unrewarding to play).
All the best moments are when it drops the bullshit and just goes for a standard pulpy sci-fi plot like "SPACE CRIMINALS have possessed the crew" or "we tried to cover up that we met a reclusive alien species but we botched it and now we're wondering why everything on the ship is slightly off", which is where it proves that it can still act as a vehicle for wonderfully entertaining sci-fi.
Also agreed that the characters just aren't strong enough to support character work; characters like Riker and Troi mostly work as vessels for plots, rather than the focus of stories themselves. Probably the one exception is "Second Chances" which is my favourite episode of the sixth season by a long shot.
As Picard (and the crew as a whole) gets more irritating, the show buys more and more into the idea of him as a moral paragon. I also get the impression Stewart didn't really like the character, which shows through in the performance (people often mock him for wanting Picard to do more "fucking and fighting" or whatever dumb phrase he purportedly used, but I don't think he's 100% wrong, and the character as written must have been often very unrewarding to play).
All the best moments are when it drops the bullshit and just goes for a standard pulpy sci-fi plot like "SPACE CRIMINALS have possessed the crew" or "we tried to cover up that we met a reclusive alien species but we botched it and now we're wondering why everything on the ship is slightly off", which is where it proves that it can still act as a vehicle for wonderfully entertaining sci-fi.
Also agreed that the characters just aren't strong enough to support character work; characters like Riker and Troi mostly work as vessels for plots, rather than the focus of stories themselves. Probably the one exception is "Second Chances" which is my favourite episode of the sixth season by a long shot.
I like a lot of it, with DS9 and TNG being my favorites of the four series in this period. ENT started okay, had a rough second season but then picked up steam for its third and fourth years, and VOY had a fantastic premise but ended up squandering a lot of it with TNG Lite-style storylines and a lack of urgency to the series narrative other than, "we need to get home and we won't stop until we do."
At the end of the day, Star Trek is something I like to stick on the telly for 45 minutes while I cool down between classes.
I’m looking usually for a yarn with a reasonably interesting plot, a few gags and some cool space stuff.
I know it’s not a very demanding er… demand, but Berman Trek usually hits the spot.
I’m looking usually for a yarn with a reasonably interesting plot, a few gags and some cool space stuff.
I know it’s not a very demanding er… demand, but Berman Trek usually hits the spot.
I think many other TV protagonists have been as or more preachy, just in support of views more of the viewers already agree with.
Barring a few notable howlers, Picard's speeches tend to be things everyone already agrees with, surely.
Something like "The Drumhead" just has him say "witch hunts are bad" in a very pompous and grandiose way, which is a point nobody on Earth disagrees with in and of itself, as everyone can imagine their demographic/their ideology being subjected to state persecution and find historical precedent for such.
The episode even double-checks that everyone will agree with its message by presenting Satie as a cardboard cutout snarling maniac whose concerns are objectively untethered to reality, so that there's no room for any viewer of any worldview to disagree with Picard's takedown.
You're probably right that the way the show is written causes even more friction when the message is disagreeable, though - I'm still amazed by stuff like "Homeward" all these years later!
Something like "The Drumhead" just has him say "witch hunts are bad" in a very pompous and grandiose way, which is a point nobody on Earth disagrees with in and of itself, as everyone can imagine their demographic/their ideology being subjected to state persecution and find historical precedent for such.
The episode even double-checks that everyone will agree with its message by presenting Satie as a cardboard cutout snarling maniac whose concerns are objectively untethered to reality, so that there's no room for any viewer of any worldview to disagree with Picard's takedown.
You're probably right that the way the show is written causes even more friction when the message is disagreeable, though - I'm still amazed by stuff like "Homeward" all these years later!
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I was born in 1979 and the Berman era was the Trek I grew up on. Believe it or not, I don’t think it’s a bad time for Trek, but I don’t think it’s aged particularly well at the same time. I think nostalgia plays a big part of this being considered to be the “golden era” of Trek. That’s fine. But as I got older, I realized I liked the TOS era better. That’s just my opinion though.
I went through a thing of thinking TOS was better.
Then I flip-flopped.
Then I flopped over onto the side and now I think it’s all fine.
Then I flip-flopped.
Then I flopped over onto the side and now I think it’s all fine.
Last time I flipped flopped I threw my back out.
Sucks getting old.
Sucks getting old.
I got to say, TOS never actually get old. Past few weeks in fact, I've caught a TOS re-run while waiting for another show to come on, and you know, I can get just as absorbed in those episodes as I could when I was younger. Some episodes actually click with me more now than they did in my youth. It's really not the same with Berman era shows, despite the nostalgia connection they have with me.
Definitely a fan of the era, lot of gold to be mined in those several hundred episodes of Trek. It's my favorite era for sure, though Wrath of Khan is my favorite film!
That said, I have a lot to watch of the era still, TNG being the one I've seen all of. Have been enjoying watching Voyager and DS9 lately.
That said, I have a lot to watch of the era still, TNG being the one I've seen all of. Have been enjoying watching Voyager and DS9 lately.
624 episodes and four films. A lot of great stuff in there, and a lot of flotsam and empty calories. But then that's all franchises that have anything approaching a long lifespan.
Berman era?
First half was good, second half sucked.
First half was good, second half sucked.
So you consider 1987-1996, consisting of all seven seasons of TNG, the first four seasons of DS9 plus the first ten episodes of its fifth season, the first two seasons of Voyager along with the first twelve episodes of its third season along with Generations and First Contact the good portion of the Berman era?
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