Stuff that make you wonder but not own thread worthy

[Mojochi]

I'm sort of middle of the road with "Emergence", but I absolutely agree with their choice to make one of the final episodes be about probably THE most important character of TNG: the Enterprise herself.

It's not a bad idea & I too like the choice to let the ship itself get a Star Trek curveball tale, for a change. Its reminiscent, in that way, of Parallels, & how, in their final hours, they finally roped Worf into one of those too, that he never really got, unlike other characters.

Part of the brain storming of the season must've had a few "What's some fun stuff we never really did?" pitches. Worf never gets a Future Imperfect or a Tapestry, & neither does The Enterprise itself

Emergence just got run thru the mill a bit too fast imho. Not a whole lot of thought went into it, by my measure, unlike Parallels. (which is great) It's a rather superficial episode, at a rather substantial time in the show, & it could've been more, if they'd had the time/resources to give it some more love.

However, there is a place for those flash-in-the pan stories, in Star Trek. It too is a Hallmark of the brand. So, it's not altogether out of place. I just wish it had got more oomph, for where it landed in the lineup lol

I bet if they'd bumped it up to earlier in the season, between maybe Gambit & Phantasms, people wouldn't be so hard on it.

 

[somebuddyX]

I mean... I'd watch them & very likely enjoy them, but I'm also cool with how it turned out. Schisms in particular is meant to be ominous & spooky, & what's more ominous & spooky than that they were never heard from or spoken of again? lol

Conspiracy is a harder pill to swallow, because they'd already infiltrated the whole of Starfleet & overtaken top leadership. We get nothing more about that? Things just "be cool" not long after? To be fair though, that follow-up has to happen consecutively, or not at all, because I don't know how you write them back in, long after it was dropped & presumed resolved. If they've still been out there all this time, & still a threat, then WTF we been doing all this time galavanting about the cosmos?

I agree. I feel "Conspiracy" should have just been about the Enterprise being taken over (or a starbase or another ship). Point is it should have been slow escalation and that way that ominous message carries more weight. Problem with the Conspiracy bugs is that their two possible threats, an infiltration or an invasion, are taken by the Founders and the Borg so I think you'd have to think outside the box to use them again.

 

[NCC-73515]

They were supposed to become what turned into the Borg, those should've been connected, but giant insectoids were too difficult and expensive to do, so the collective that was supposed to have sent out the gill parasites was changed into humanoid cyborgs instead.

 

[somebuddyX]

I really hate "Justice." I think everybody acts stupid and it wastes a great concept about the lengths people will go to in order to preserve/protect a society. Also the way Picard treats Beverly is cold as hell. There was one moment I liked, where they tapped their comm badge and can't raise the ship and it made think how they could have milked some fear out of the scenario, that things aren't going to go well and maybe the kid could get executed.
Riker is such a little whiny bitch in "Coming of Age." Jesus christ, just shut the fuck up and go answer a few questions. They're crying because they're investigated about how lax their protocols are and yet even in that episode a kid is able to just steal a shuttlecraft right in front of everyone and almost crash it into a planet.

 

[Captrek]

I really hate "Justice." I think everybody acts stupid and it wastes a great concept about the lengths people will go to in order to preserve/protect a society. Also the way Picard treats Beverly is cold as hell. There was one moment I liked, where they tapped their comm badge and can't raise the ship and it made think how they could have milked some fear out of the scenario, that things aren't going to go well and maybe the kid could get executed.

Agreed.

“You have a starship with transporters. You can just beam him up and go and we won’t be able to stop you.”
“No, the PD says we can’t do that because it would be interfering. Instead we have to persuade your God to change how justice works here.”

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Agreed.

“You have a starship with transporters. You can just beam him up and go and we won’t be able to stop you.”
“No, the PD says we can’t do that because it would be interfering. Instead we have to persuade your God to change how justice works here.”

I don't know if you're suggesting an alternate ending, but in the episode they keep working on the problem until the last moment and then when they fail they do just try to beam him up and go. The Edo god blocks them, so they have to make their case to it to be allowed to leave.

They didn't decide that messing with their justice system would be the path of least interference.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

Makes me wonder what race this so called god was, since it was some kind of technology

 

[Mojochi]

Makes me wonder what race this so called god was, since it was some kind of technology

Maybe it only appeared that way. It certainly looked somewhat physically questionable

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

Maybe it only appeared that way. It certainly looked somewhat physically questionable

True, and I'd have tried a full torpedo spread on it for blocking

 

[Mojochi]

Do other Betazoids think of Deanna as... uhh (trying to be diplomatic here) mentally challenged or disabled? We always look at her ability as impressively superhuman, from the human perspective, but if you consider it from her people's PoV...

She admittedly has diminished capacity at telepathy compared to them. Sometimes her capabilities & functionality, or lack thereof, is even baffling to the viewers. If a species were full telepath, as a matter of normal biology, then she is basically handicapped, no?

Could that go toward explaining why her mom is condescending, dismissive, overprotective, & meddlesome with her, because she thinks of her as a special needs child?

To be fair, I think her mom does a lot of that, because she's also aging isolated & lonely, from having had a nuclear family that she's now lost, but there could be some coddling going on there too.

So maybe when we are critical about Deanna missing a key thing a telepath should be noticing, we can attribute to her being kind of, you know... objectively bad at it?

 

[TheAdmiralty]

I was gonna say I don't like "The First Duty" because I don't like those kids doing their space maneuver and thinking it was gonna make them look cool and everyone was gonna cheer, when I feel like in real military or not organisations this kinda wildcard stuff is frowned upon. But then again I do like the cult of personality that leads them to try that stupid shit and hoping it gets results, which we'd see again in "Valiant." But I also don't like that Wesley had to be kinda manhandled into coming forward by Picard. I feel like Tom Paris' backstory kinda gives me what I wish Wesley had done himself, in coming forward of his own volition.

It's a good episode in and of itself, but agree it's far fetched in the world of TNG that they wouldn't have all been kicked out even if it worked. Although RDM is so convincingly arrogant in the episode I can buy that that specific character would think that. A better performance than he ever had on Voyager.

 

[AntonyF]

I've watched True Q many times over the years and I always took Q calling Riker "number two" as just diminishing him. But today I thought "is he making a poo joke?"

 

[somebuddyX]

I don't know if this is thread worthy but I've been thinking about an alternate universe where the civilian characters were Starfleet and Starfleet characters were civilians and what roles you could put them in. Like switching Jean-Luc and Robert, so maybe Robert and his family are on the Enterprise - Robert as captain? Or maybe in the sciences? Jean-Luc is a civilian archeologist. The one that inspired me to think of this was who would Lwaxana be in this universe?

 

[Captrek]

I don't know if this is thread worthy but I've been thinking about an alternate universe where the civilian characters were Starfleet and Starfleet characters were civilians and what roles you could put them in. Like switching Jean-Luc and Robert, so maybe Robert and his family are on the Enterprise - Robert as captain? Or maybe in the sciences? Jean-Luc is a civilian archeologist. The one that inspired me to think of this was who would Lwaxana be in this universe?

Is it not obvious she would switch with Deanna? Imagine Lwaxana as ship’s counselor, we’ve got a basis for a sitcom right there.

And Paul Sorvino as head of security.

This is a fun idea, thanks.

 

[Mojochi]

The actor who played Riker's dad was considered for being Captain Picard

 

[Captrek]

Instead of Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, we’d have Shatner with a mustache as Captain George Samuel Kirk. And teenage Jake Sisko commanding DS9. And Molly keeping the station running.

 

[somebuddyX]

Instead of Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, we’d have Shatner with a mustache as Captain George Samuel Kirk. And teenage Jake Sisko commanding DS9. And Molly keeping the station running.

I love these. But I wasn't necessarily suggesting that the family members had to switch jobs with one another (although Lore/Data would be interesting!), but more what career in Starfleet would suit the civilians based on their interests/personalities, and vice versa. That's why I think Picard would become an archeologist rather than just be making wine back in France like Robert. Like these might be too on the nose but would Beverly have become a dancer, or Riker a musician?

 

[AntonyF]

Not so much a wondering but an observation but I just noticed Galen wore a 'waistcoat' https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTct2aLsNyACYCq2yoXLmFK-1PqzbWcru0lMQ&s

That basically became the template for Jake's clothes https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSJbD32xfrYab0nfy8PYOC5GNPfXFWT4fl38Q&s

 

[somebuddyX]

Yeah I like how vague Schisms is, I'm really glad that Time Squared wasn't retroactively revealed to be Q for the same reason. A lot of stories work brilliantly where you just sort of half-glimpse something profoundly strange toward the climax, and never get any more information than that.

I don't think I want to change "Time Squared" as it stands now, because it's one of my favourite episodes. But I kinda wish there was a way to see the episode issues/problems spread across two episodes, a bit like that "Q who" episode Idea but not really. Just more seeing the effect and then a few episodes later seeing the cause would be kinda cool. I dunno. I love "Time Squared" more on every rewatch. I just rewatched it this week and it's still great.

 

[Farscape One]

I don't think I want to change "Time Squared" as it stands now, because it's one of my favourite episodes. But I kinda wish there was a way to see the episode issues/problems spread across two episodes, a bit like that "Q who" episode Idea but not really. Just more seeing the effect and then a few episodes later seeing the cause would be kinda cool. I dunno. I love "Time Squared" more on every rewatch. I just rewatched it this week and it's still great.

"Time Squared" is really superb. I love the atmosphere and mood throughout the entire episode. TNG season 2 had that atmosphere in spades with many episodes of that season... another reason why I love that season so much.