What's betta: Star Trek TNG or nuBSG?

[Steve Roby]

Better in what way? They're products of different eras. It's like comparing Man From UNCLE with 24 -- there are superficial similarities, but they're really not the same kind of thing at all.

TNG made TV history in a lot of ways. It was the first successful big budget hour long drama series in syndication. The last few seasons represent the peak of Star Trek's mass popularity -- it was never more popular than it was for the last few seasons. Not that popular = good, necessarily, but it was an undeniably significant phenomenon. It revitalized the Star Trek franchise. It created some iconic characters. And it had some really great episodes.

Ron Moore's Galactica could have been the best SF TV series ever, if they'd actually planned it out and thought things through more carefully. No SF TV has ever had the kind of critical acclaim that series had, but that never translated to ratings. As I understand it, more people watched Enterprise than watched Galactica. Again, popularity doesn't imply quality. Few have taken the kinds of dramatic and storytelling risks that show took. But it is less than the sum of its parts, because it was all supposed to be building towards revelations that really didn't make a shitload of sense because Moore et al were making too much of it up as they went along.

So... they're both really important. Anyone who wants to pretend to have any kind of informed opinion about SF TV needs to be familiar with both. Is one better than the other? Well, one always had me wondering what the hell they were going to pull next, and the other had a lot of predictable standalone episodes, so Galactica gets the edge there. But there aren't many individual Galactica episodes I'm going to want to rewatch because they don't often stand on their own. TNG episodes are more rewatchable because you can get a complete experience from one or two episodes. TNG gets the edge there. Plus, TNG quickly became its own thing. Galactica could never shake off the whole Ron Moore this-ain't-Star-Trek thing; they did too many dumb things for no apparent reason beyond "ha! you won't see THIS in Star Trek!"

So... I like 'em both. For different reasons.

 

[Hermiod]

TNG is pretty dated after DS9 and BSG.

That's because it was made before either of those. Given Battlestar Galactica's very early 21st century tone, it's going to date a lot worse than TNG ever will.

 

[V]

Seasons one and two of "Ron Moore's BSG" are better than most anything

but given that they dropped the ball in later seasons...

TNG didn't HAVE an over-arcing storyline, so it didn't HYPE one and thus didn't let us down like BSG did when in season 3 the writers non-chalantly said in interviews "there was never a Cylon Plan and we never really planned out the series; so characters are making wacky, seemingly out-of character actions because even we don't know what Apollo and Starbuck are supposed to be behaving like"

Seasons 1 and 2 of TNG were bad, and the writers themselves thought season 7 was weak (but they knew it was the last season going into it)

but seasons 3-6 of TNG were great

the problem is.....this was when TV was morphing from "1960's family shows" like Lost in Space or Star Trek TOS, to "really realistic stuff" with dialogue that normal people say.

A lot of EARLY TNG sounds downright wacky; then some episodes just seem painfully real and with realistic human reactions.

The spinoff years, 1987-2005, were so weird. TNG was "the glory days" as they say...and it didn't date well, but you know what? At the time I thought it was good though I was a kid.

But then DS9 came out and I LOVED DS9, but the guys in charge said "It's too dark! It's not on a ship! It's not Trek!"......so we ended up with Voyager, which was a Reactionary drive to "re-create the glory days of TNG"

and Voyager.....had its moments, I liked the Doctor and some episodes mixed good dialogue, scifi concept, and pacing; but then it got dumb; I stuck around for a year after Seven of Nine was introduced, but then seasons 5 through 7 fell so flat I just stopped caring.

***And when Enterprise was coming out I said "this is it! Voyager is over and we've got a chance to finally get it RIGHT!"

then 2 minutes into it they ran the awful themesong, trying to hook morons with country music, and I knew something was up.

And soon there was: the pacing was slow, the dialogue was perfunctory, wooden, and slow; concepts were lifted from earlier Trek episodes and shoehorned into an earlier setting, and basically they were trying to write Voyager scripts; Moreover, they focused so much on trying to "re-invent the Big Three" that we NEVER got any development of the other REGULAR CAST members, beyond the thumb-nail sketches of them we had when the series began.

When they finally kicked out Bermanga in seasno 4......lets face it, Enterprise was never "great", but season 4 was "good". And some people would say I'm being too kind on it; well first off, if you HAD been watching for 3 years it was a relief; second, and most important ****Season 4 being even semi-watchable (and at times good, actually) PROVED that it wasn't that the "concept got worn out", but that Berman and Braga were idiots, and the show got exponentially better as soon as they were kicked out of the writers' room: any shred of hope for their writing ability I lost in the season 3 finale: "EVIL ALIEN NAZIS"? That wasn't bad because it was ridiculous....it's bad because we had been *directly accusing you of re-using old Trek plots* and "Space Nazis" ***WAS ALREADY DONE in the ORIGINAL SERIES (twice if you count time travel), and "The Killing Game" on Voyager had alien nazis! It was ending the finale by holding up a big sign saying "we've run out of ideas, officially!".....going into season 3 finale, we knew this was Bermanga's last chance to prove themselves before they had to hold over the reigns, and they blew it.

Finally, the series finale...These are the Voyages.....they literally said they were making a "Valentine for the fans"....of their OLD successful series! Maybe.....you know, I really might not have minded as much, if it wasn't the series finale.

You see it was episode #704; the "700th episode spectacular" was the Mirror Universe episode.

Maybe if they had simply AIRED These are the Voyages as the "700th episode special" and then Terra Prime as the "finale" it wouldn't have been as much of a shock.

****but the real problem was of course, "how do we make dramatic endings?" "uh...its been so long I can't remember....how about pointlessly killing off a favorite primary character?".

I mean it wasn't even "randomly shot in a gunfight"....that wouldn't have even been as bad.

I mean the whole point was "Riker learns a lesson about breaking orders"....Trip *had* no orders in the scenario you conjured! ***And wasn't "Trip and Archer are taken hostage" a TIRED CLICHE in the first 3 seasons to the point that we were complaining to stop doing it?

sorry for ranting

but its....I JOINED TrekBBS because I wanted to get a good start with Enterprise; I wasn't online for Voyager or DS9 and I wanted to enjoy ENT from the start....and what did we get?

Then, just as Enterprise was winding down and we knew it was cancelled (sadly, just after proving it wasn't that bad of a show if the right people were running it).......Battlestar Galactica came on in January 2005.

So the mind-blowingly good season one BSG finale "Kobol's Last Gleaming" airs around the same time as "These Are the Voyages..." ended Star Trek not with a bang, but with a wimper.

Then we waited so long for the season 3 premiere....9 months instead of the promised 6 with NO new material.....then after a few good New Caprica episodes it just got really bad. Writers had left, the network forced them to make a season of standalones (Farscape season 4 all over again)...and the writers revealed they simply didn't plan out the series: I will *never* like the "Final Five Cylons" concept or accept it, even though season 4 invented the best possible explanation for it, it still wasn't a good idea. And season 4 improved because the network wasn't messing with them but...


BSG isn't "the Next Star Trek" as I thought it might be; it's Farscape or Firefly or Alien Nation or something: a really good show that aired, changed our ideas about scifi, and then ENDED. The spinoff BSG stuff in comics and novels is *laughably bad*

and I don't have hope for Caprica with Jane Espenson in charge

so its funny, that....I got into BSG because I was, like many of you, in shock angry and embittered that Trek was mishandled and cancelled. Then just as that was happening BSG came along.

Now, BSG ended a few weeks ago, and *Star Trek is coming back*

So BSG kind of filled the void and shows "this is how scifi is meant to be done"....

But....I'm going to see Star Trek with a girl from school, and I hope when we do, we think its so great that people get INTERESTED in Trek again as a whole universe of stories to tell and characters to explore.

Battlestar is gone and not coming back; and all of RDM's other TV pilots didn't get picked up (Virtuality)

so....I've really been getting used to "BSG is dead" for a few years now, since early season 3 turned to crap and I became utterly disillusioned with how they just LED US ON thinking there was a mystery to decode that simply wasn't there. Maybe this is how Lost fans used to feel.

I don't know.

 

[The Doctor]

TNG never made me cry. Not once. Ever.

That's saying something, because I was 13 when the show ended.

BSG regularly rendered me a blubbering, phlegm-y mess. The difference, of course, is that the crew of Galactica were people. I got to know them and care about them. Their struggles mattered and their heroism was far more satisfying because they were so broken and disfunctional. Any show that could make me weep for a monster like Tigh lives in a league all of its own.

So yeah, BSG.

 

[Starkers]

Its a very difficult choice, both have their positives and negatives. Of all the Trek shows TNG has dated the worst. It just looks too sterile and beige in places, but at least they tried to come up with things that looked alien or futuristic as opposed to BSG's everyone on an alien planet dresses like us! (but have the corners chopped off their paper) TNG could have really done with more of an arc, and more ongoing storylines (although it did have them) whilst BSG has too much ongoing storyline and arc. I like both shows but at the end of the day I can randomly pick any episode of TNG, watch it and enjoy it on DVD. Slide in any random episode of BSG and you'll probably get more confused and feel the need to watch the ep before and the ep after.

The big difference though, and where TNG shades BSG, is tone. TNG told a far wider array of stories with a far wider tone. Want thoughtful you've got it, action packed yeah, depressing, yup, dark yes, funny, yes. Meanwhile BSG was just so nihilistically depressing that sometimes it did make it hard to watch. TNG had likeable characters, BSG...well at one time or another I pretty much hated every one of them except maybe Apollo, and for four years I'd have quite happily throttled Kara Thrace- a character with seemingly no redeeming features.

TNG has some fantastic episodes, but pretty much a third at least are really, really bad, BSG is pound for pound more consistently entertaining, but the downside to this is that again the eps kinds blend into one another.

The other big difference is that TNG never really hyped itself up to be the best show evah! and wasn't proclaimed as being far cleverer than it thought it was (seriously I was against the war in Iraq but New Caprica was like being hit over the head with a shovel- and plus it was just RDM redoing a DS9 story) If BSG had had a real plan and story arc, and if they hadn't given me the twilight zone ending I predicted from the first episode I'd probably like it a lot better. Seriously the show led me to expect an infinitely more original end than that.

Given the choice I'd probably pick TNG simply for the ability to watch an episode in isolation, but frankly I'd take DS9 (and Blakes 7, and Doctor Who) above either of em, because DS9 has the best of both shows without the worst excesses.

 

[Deckerd]

Considering this is a Trek forum, I think I can predict which one will win.

 

[Booji]

TNG easily. Seasons 1 and 2 were horrible, but 3-7 were very good and, more importantly, fun. BSG was good for the first season and a half, and then became an emo mess with horrible writing. It simply wasn't any fun to watch and was cringe worthy at best for season 2.5 on.

 

[bigdaddy]

TNG by a mile.

 

[Agent Richard07]

Of all the Trek shows TNG has dated the worst.

TNG is more dated than TOS?

 

[Starkers]

Of all the Trek shows TNG has dated the worst.

TNG looks more dated than TOS?

Yes, to me at least. TOS uniforms, the ship etc have a retro 60's cool look to them, the TNG equivilents (especially the early seasons) make me cringe at times. Maybe its just me, maybe it's because I never watched TOS at the time, only later, but TNG seems more a product of its time than TOS. TOS seemed to be thinking beyond the 60s (What if women and ethnic minorities were on the bridge, and it wasn't a big deal?), TNG seemed to be thinking like it was the 80s/90s (What if we had some meetings, or possibly talked about our feelings)

TNG is still my third favourite Trek show though

 

[3D Master]

Seeing as nBSG is giant pile of shit, TNG, easily.

 

[Bisz]

BSG had a strong first 2 seasons but fell apart after that, to the point where I'm not sure I even like the show anymore. I think I'll re-watch it sometime, but right now I can't imagine that happening, knowing how it ends and all.

TNG wins hands down.

 

[Agent Richard07]

TOS uniforms, the ship etc have a retro 60's cool look to them, the TNG equivilents (especially the early seasons) make me cringe at times.

I've always wondered why people complain about TNG looking dated but not TOS. One of the most common answers I hear is that the 60s look cool in hindsight, but the 80s don't. When it comes to entertainment, I agree that the 60s had a style that looks pretty cool in hindsight which the 80s lacks, but I don't see TNG as a blatant product of the 80s the way The A-Team or Knight Rider was.

Maybe its just me, maybe it's because I never watched TOS at the time, only later, but TNG seems more a product of its time than TOS. TOS seemed to be thinking beyond the 60s (What if women and ethnic minorities were on the bridge, and it wasn't a big deal?), TNG seemed to be thinking like it was the 80s/90s (What if we had some meetings, or possibly talked about our feelings)

Of all the shows, I'd say TNG did the best at trying to look beyond the present. In fact, I'd say it did so to the point where the franchise has had to dial it back. Look how many people complain about the "perfect" characters or the bridge looking like a hotel or the dress uniforms looking like dresses etc. I thought that DS9 at times rehashed too many of our present day mores to the point where it was a dressed up version of the 20th century as opposed to a show about the future. For some people though, it looks like it hit the mark they wanted it to hit.

 

[stonester1]

I love TNG, but nuBSG, easily. DS9 and nuBSG, much more difficult. Again, nuBSG, but only by a touch.

 

[BigFoot]

If the question was DS9 vs BSG, I'd actually have to think about it. This one is way too easy though... BSG.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

BSG is better...

...than pretty much everything.

 

[GalaxyX]

Anyone who likes high concept Sci-Fi will like TNG.

Anyone who likes drama dressed with a little Sci-Fi will like nuBSG.

Anyone who likes Melodrama with some good Sci-Fi will like DS9

 

[Ryan]

TNG. When it was canceled I was left wanting more. I unfortunately can't say the same for BSG.

 

[Bishbot]

TNG. When it was canceled I was left wanting more. I unfortunately can't say the same for BSG.

Same here - but I still like BSG more. TNG has an almost endlessly mutable premise with static characters in an episodic format. BSG tells a long story with characters that change all the time. Therefore BSG has a more logical end point than TNG.

Not that there's anything wrong with the TNG approach. I love that series - I just don't think that the fact BSG couldn't really have run for as long is a point against it's overall quality.

 

[Jeyl]

TNG. It has characters I can like and a ship I'd love to call home, a steady camera that didn't poke me around saying "I'm unique!" and the ending didn't involve any flashbacks*!

* I don't hate flashbacks, I just hate them when they're used as a last minute effort to give a character more of a background. If the character's moments during the flashback were that important to the story, it shouldn't have in a flashback at all.