Revisiting ST-TNG...

[Ubik]

Ach, you and your "slow" and "low energy" nonsense.

Why can't you accept that what works for you might not work for someone else? For these past two seasons even when I feel they tell a good story in a decent way I still feel much of it comes off bland. At this point I just don't care for how TNG does things. It's BLAND.

For me a story has to engage me emotionally. I have to feel like I really like and really care what's going on. If I don't then it won't matter how well something may be done technically or how many people disagree with me.

In years past I watched several episodes of The West Wing. I could see that it was a very well written and well acted series. It was very good in many ways. But overall it just failed to engage me. And the most obvious evidence of that was that I rarely thought of tuning back in unless I just happened to come across it channel surfing. And even then I hang in only if there wasn't something else I preferred available.

Although I haven't commented a great deal about it (but others have) one difference I do note is the scoring. The music in the later seasons of TNG is garbage. It's just noise without any feeling. And rather than just not enhancing a scene for me it often detracts from a scene even when I'm not paying much attention to it. I also find at this point that there's a stiffness with the characters which I find distracting.

I've already been berated for it, but the simple fact is that TNG isn't a space adventure at this point, not by my measure. And while some may like that I don't. The kind of Star Trek I like is space adventure with other things mixed in periodically. At this point TNG feels too much like mainstream drama that just happens to be in a science fiction setting and for me that's not enough.

You've just stately explicitly and deliberately why you should disqualify yourself as any kind of rational critic of TNG, and why these reviews ought to be taken with a grain of salt. You've just said it: the show is not in a genre that you like (you like space adventure while TNG, clearly, is not primarily a space adventure. Agreed - of course it isn't.) Okay. Fine. Let's also get someone who dislikes Westerns to review Unforgiven, and get someone who hates children to review Sesame Street. Really: what would be the point? And why would those reviews be of any value whatsoever? They would only be of value to readers who share the reviewer's dislike of that genre.

The thing is, the sixth season is a very good season in a television show that is of a genre that you dislike. That's clear. Again, that makes your reviews useless (for others, in any case. You may find them useful for yourself.)

Oh, and I absolutely do accept that something that works for other people may not work for you. You don't like the genre of TNG, fine. There's nothing wrong with disliking the genre, or any genre. It doesn't make you foolish or wrong. It just makes you unqualified to offer useful reviews.

 

[BillJ]

It doesn't make you foolish or wrong. It just makes you unqualified to offer useful reviews.

I'm not sure I why it makes him 'unqualified', his reviews have seemed to be pretty fair. He's been far more unbiased than I would've been.

I love TNG and I found seasons six and seven to be the Muzak versions of Star Trek. Bland and inoffensive riffs of something that was one great.

The only reason you really have for calling his views 'unqualified' is that they don't match your own.

 

[Trekker4747]

By late season six and season seven the writers and actors where running out of good ideas, and it was the right time to covert over to movies, even if the moves ended up with one very good movie, two subpar, and one horrid movie. But I thought Timescape was one of the better episodes.

It was less "running out of ideas" and more "shifting all of the good writers over to DS9."

 

[Distorted Humor]

By late season six and season seven the writers and actors where running out of good ideas, and it was the right time to covert over to movies, even if the moves ended up with one very good movie, two subpar, and one horrid movie. But I thought Timescape was one of the better episodes.

It was less "running out of ideas" and more "shifting all of the good writers over to DS9."

Fair enough, as DS9 had some good writing over the years.

 

[Ubik]

It doesn't make you foolish or wrong. It just makes you unqualified to offer useful reviews.

I'm not sure I why it makes him 'unqualified', his reviews have seemed to be pretty fair. He's been far more unbiased than I would've been.

I love TNG and I found seasons six and seven to be the Muzak versions of Star Trek. Bland and inoffensive riffs of something that was one great.

The only reason you really have for calling his views 'unqualified' is that they don't match your own.

Not at all. If you respect and like the genre of TNG, and you have legitimate and convincing reasons why TNG, in season 6-7, does not succeed at its own objectives, then I'm sure your reviews would be perfectly valid, even if I disagree with them. But a reviewer needs to judge a work of art on how well it achieves its own objectives, not what you wish were its objectives.

If you review a TNG season 7 episode, you need to say, "Okay, this episode is trying to be a family drama about X, Y, and Z. It doesn't succeed, in my opinion, because I don't believe in the relationship between the mother and the son. I don't believe the transition from love to hate. Etc Etc." Those might be valid criticisms. What is NOT a valid criticism is, "Okay, this episode is trying to be a family drama, and I find family drama boring, where's all the space adventure? This episode lacks energy. What it needs is more space adventure." See what I mean? I have full respect for a reviewer who I disagree with. A good reviewer. I have less respect for a bad reviewer, one who refuses to judge a work based on how well it achieves what it is trying to achieve.

 

[Warped9]

^^ Go back to my original postings. I stated that I drifted away from the series in the latter seasons. In my reviews I've also said that quite a bit of the show is better than I remember it to be. That said it's during Seasons 5 and 6 that I'm seeing the very things that drove me away and still are annoying me.

The fact is Star Trek was borne as a space adventure with other things mixed in. TOS defined it, like it or not. And so it isn't unreasonable of me to be turned off by a series that wears the name but turns its back on why many of us loved it in the first place. That doesn't make me unqualified but rather me calling it as I see it.

Also, I'm reviewing the episodes and sharing my opinion. You may like the stories TNG is telling at this point and how they tell them---so be it and that's fair---but I'm seeing that it's failing at what the series should be doing if it's going to wear the Star Trek name. TNG did good work up into Season 4, but after that in fits and starts it goes off the rails.

 

[Warped9]

"Descent" Part 1 **

Borg are exhibiting new behaviour and Data experiences emotion.

I was hanging in with this until Picard leaves only a skeleton crew aboard ship...and Crusher in command. After that I didn't care and have pretty much zero interest in seeing Part 2. If they aren't going to bother having even a sliver of credibility then I couldn't care less.

Descent is an appropriate title for this episode because it also shows the descent of the TNG writers to scraping the bottom of the barrel. What was a passable episode plummets into bullshit at the ending.

 

[Warped9]

Season 1 episode average = 2.56
Season 2 episode average = 2.95
Season 3 episode average = 3.23
Season 4 episode average = 3.15
Season 5 episode average = 2.96
Season 6 episode average = 2.73

Season 6 takes yet another hit in average quality.

34.6% poor to bad episodes
65.4% fair to excellent episodes

Season 5 ratings:
***** Excellent (0%)

**** Good (30.7%)
“Time’s Arrow” (Part II)
“Chain Of Command” (Part II)
“Ship In A Bottle”
“Face Of The Enemy”
“Birthright” (Part II)
“The Chase”
“Frame Of Mind”
“Rightful Heir”

*** Fair (34.6%)
“Relics”
“Schisms”
“The Quality Of Life”
“Chain Of Command” (Part I)
“Tapestry”
“Birthright” (Part I)
“Starship Mine”
“Second Chances”
“Timescape”

** Poor (11.5%)
“Lessons”
“Suspicions”
“Descent” (Part I)

* Bad (23%)
“Realm Of Fear”
“Man Of The People”
“True Q”
“Rascals”
“A Fistful Of Datas”
“Aquiel”


***** Equal to Season 1 in not having a single excellent episode. At this stage that's rather sad.
1st Season = 0 episodes
2nd Season = 3 episodes (13%)
3rd Season = 5 episodes (19%)
4th Season = 1 episode (3%)
5th Season = 2 episodes (7%)
6th Season = 0 episodes (0%)

**** It gains one extra good episode at the sacrifice of not having even one excellent one.
1st Season = 4 episodes (16%)
2nd Season = 6 episodes (27%)
3rd Season = 6 episodes (23%)
4th Season = 10 episodes (38%)
5th Season = 7 episodes (26%)
6th Season = 8 episodes (30.%)

*** Stays the same as Season 5.
1st Season = 9 episodes (36%)
2nd Season = 5 episodes (22%)
3rd Season = 8 episodes (30%)
4th Season = 7 episodes (26%)
5th Season = 9 episodes (34%)
6th Season = 9 episodes (34.%)

** Surprisingly few poor episodes.
1st Season = 9 episodes (36%)
2nd Season = 4 episodes (18%)
3rd Season = 4 episodes (18%)
4th Season = 5 episodes (19%)
5th Season = 4 episodes (15%)
6th Season = 3 episodes (11.%)

* A big jump in bad episodes and following the upward swing from Season 5. And at this stage it's sad that it has more bad episodes than any previous season.
1st Season = 3 episodes (12%)
2nd Season = 4 episodes (18%)
3rd Season = 3 episodes (11%)
4th Season = 3 episodes (11%)
5th Season = 4 episodes (15%)
6th Season = 6 episodes (23.%)


Here are things put more concisely:

Good to Excellent: Here we can see a general increase in better episodes from Season 1 onward until the turnaround in Season 5 when things start to slide. More specifically TNG starts to lose its edge.
Season 1 = 16%
Season 2 = 40.9%
Season 3 = 42.3%
Season 4 = 42.3%
Season 5 = 34.6%
Season 6 = 30.7%

Fair: Here we can see the jump in "just okay" episodes in Season 5 and the blandness continues into Season 6.
Season 1 = 36%
Season 2 = 22.7%
Season 3 = 30.7%
Season 4 = 26.9%
Season 5 = 34.6%
Season 6 = 34.6%

Poor to Bad: After a steady decrease from Seasons 1 to 3 things turn around and start to slide from Season 4 onward.
Season 1 = 48%
Season 2 = 36.3%
Season 3 = 26.9%
Season 4 = 30.7%
Season 5 = 30.7%
Season 6 = 34.6%

The figures reflect my overall impressions. From Seasons 1 to 4 TNG gets its act together and gets better and more polished. But in Season 4 the cracks start appear. Yet it's really in Seasons 5 and 6 that TNG gets into a real rut and starts to feel very paint-by-number. Very little of what they do rises above a show that feels tired. A lot of the work is just okay, a dip in genuinely good work and a rise in bad efforts.

But the real disappointment is that the whole is not equal to the sum of the parts---the last two seasons just feel bland. It isn't that there aren't any good ideas, but rather how they pit those ideas across. I generally enjoyed rewatching the first four seasons and finding I liked more than a few things more than I remembered. But the last two seasons as a whole just didn't engage me and pretty much reaffirmed why I drifted from the series.


Looking at the series overall at this point.

Good to Excellent = 52 episodes (34.2%)
Fair = 47 episodes (30.9%)
Poor to Bad = 53 episodes (34.8%)

Ratings are roughly in thirds. But the big swing segment is the percentage of fair episodes---these are the ones I felt were generally inoffensive to the point that while I don't outright dislike them I also don't particularly care for them either. What this overall picture shows to me is that I like about ten percent of these episodes more than I remember liking. And at this point there are about two seasons worth of episodes I think are genuinely worthy and the rest are dismissible. That said, though, there is a qualifier here in that I found the fair episodes from the earlier seasons easier to accept probably because I felt the show as a whole was getting better. But as things progressed the fair episodes became more easily forgettable.

 

[Distorted Humor]

I noticed that your view of “Tapestry” is a lot lower then a lot of other opinions, and I know that I personally think two of your good episodes are excellent ( “Frame Of Mind” and "Chain of Command" ) even if I do not disagree with you that season six is where it looses some of the constancy of previous seasons.

This is not to say your wrong or I am wrong, but Tapestry seems to be outlying downwards a lot more then what a lot of people normally put it at.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Descent is a really great season finale--3.5 stars out of 4.

The key to any Borg episode is effectively generating a true sense of dread and terror and while nothing can ever top BoBW-this does a great job whether with the distress call from Oniaka three to the ominous reveal of this mysterious asymmetric vessel in orbit not responding to hails to the terrifying shot of a Borg behind the door on the colony to the exciting first act where you are unnerved by the usually stoic and still Borg are fast, vicious and angry who have adopted names and care for their fallen comrades.

Then there was the effective set-up of what really happened to the Borg in the last year since Hugh was returned to them raising a series of interesting mysteries--did Picard's plan unfld as expected, where is Hugh, is Hugh the One. I really wanted to know what was going on with the Borg.

Loved Picard taking the tactic of talking directly to Crosis(Brian Cousins did a wonderful job creating a creepy character) as Locutus and the chiling realization that this drone could care less and is aware enough to understand what Picard was up to. Then the terrifying realization that Picard could have something far worse on his hands than the Borg of BoBW--he could have Borg with the deadly technology at their disposal that the Collective possessed but now are no longer regulated by the Collective Mind to keep them in check.

Then you had the mystery of what was going on with Data and what Crosis wanted with him. You are so used to him being so even tempered to see him angry was startling--Brent does a good job with that and his facial expressions really can make Data scary.

Loved the on location shots and the design of the Borg commune and the ending scenes were terrific with Bev in charge, the crew on the planet surface and the exciting moment when they are surrounded by energy weapon wielding angry Borg ready to kill them only to have Lore order them to stand down. The episode promised epic things to come. Here they did a good job with the first half in getting there so it deserves a high score but unfortunately the second half failed to capitalize on everything set up here. It really needed another episode or two to do it justice and more risks needed to be taken to shaken up the status quo.

This was TNG's second best season ender behind BoBW. You usually can't go wrong with the Borg.

 

[Warped9]

^^ Picard abandoning his ship with a skeleton crew and the CMO in command in a potentially hostile situation was a WTF! beyond measure and destroyed any credibility they had built up in the story up to that point. After that they can go to hell for all I care.

I'm really not looking forward to Season 7.

 

[startrekwatcher]

^^ Picard abandoning his ship with a skeleton crew and the CMO in command in a potentially hostile situation was a WTF! beyond measure and destroyed any credibility they had built up in the story up to that point. After that they can go to hell for all I care.

I find that Trek fans tend to get caight up on minutae like this and can't enjoy things. Honestly Bev is a 3 pip commander with command ability and it gives her more to do. The crew going down to the surface was necessary to locate Data--the Borg are the greatest threat to the Federation, something is up with them and to top it off they have some design on Data in their plans I would think locating him makes sense. And it wasn't like they went down unarmed. The hostile threat was most likely going to be on the planet not in orbit.

I'm really not looking forward to Season 7.

I'm a big TNG fan and I don't think highly of it so you'll probably absolutely hate it if you didn't enjoy season 5 or episodes like Descent.

 

[Armus]

You really put a lot of thought into this. I generally agree with your season ratings. Season 1 and 2 have a lot of bad episodes but most of the episodes are more fun to watch and revisit than anything from the later seasons. Very little technobabble, the music hits you in the right places, the mission of the week, threat of the week focus makes you feel like you are part of something with the crew, there's more exploration of alien cultures, whether it is Armus from "Skin Of Evil" or the weapon selling civilization from the "Arsenal Of Freedom" or the Drug addicted aliens in "Symbiosis". These shows know how to take a simple dilemma, like an crashed shuttlecraft or a close call transporter escape and milk some genuine suspense out of it. Give me "Symbiosis", "The Royale", and "Up The Long Ladder" over "In Theory", "Half A Life" or "Lessons" any day of the week.

That being said, Season 3-6 have generally more consistent writing. There is still a lot of good in the show. TNG just kind of lost something around 1991.

 

[Ubik]

^^ Go back to my original postings. I stated that I drifted away from the series in the latter seasons. In my reviews I've also said that quite a bit of the show is better than I remember it to be. That said it's during Seasons 5 and 6 that I'm seeing the very things that drove me away and still are annoying me.

The fact is Star Trek was borne as a space adventure with other things mixed in. TOS defined it, like it or not. And so it isn't unreasonable of me to be turned off by a series that wears the name but turns its back on why many of us loved it in the first place. That doesn't make me unqualified but rather me calling it as I see it.

Also, I'm reviewing the episodes and sharing my opinion. You may like the stories TNG is telling at this point and how they tell them---so be it and that's fair---but I'm seeing that it's failing at what the series should be doing if it's going to wear the Star Trek name. TNG did good work up into Season 4, but after that in fits and starts it goes off the rails.

TOS defined TOS - nothing else. The reason the other shows have the Star Trek name on them is because the stories take place in the same fictional universe. There is absolutely no imperative for any future series, just because it takes place in the same imagined universe, to be part of the same subgenre of science fiction. Those are your own irrational expectations, and they are based on nothing but a lack of understanding about how science fiction universes have been working in literature for decades. I think I've stated these before earlier in the thread, but science fiction writers like Robert Heinlein, Poul Anderson, and especially C. J. Cherry have created vast fictional universes that encompass individual novels (or even novel series) that are extremely varied in terms of literary genre - some of Cherry's work in her fictional universe is military sci-fi, some is planetary romance, some is hard sf, and some is very anthropological soft sf. There is nothing wrong with using the same fictional universe to tell entirely different kinds of stories, with various different approaches.

TNG is of a different genre than TOS - yes. It is. That is a deliberate choice on the writers' part, primarily forwarded, I believe, by Michael Piller's input. So, a lack of space adventure, or a shift away from space adventure, is not something that a fair or useful reviewer can criticize.

DS9 is an even more different subgenre of sf - it's part politics, part religion, part war, and part psychological study - almost no space adventure at all - and yet, it's a better television series than either TOS or TNG. Voyager, on the other hand, while it is clearly a space adventure show, is crap. So, genre has very little to do with a work of art's merits. The real question is, how well does the work of art fulfill its own function, within the parameters and expectations of its own genre? (allowing room for pushing the envelope of the genre, of course.)

Anyway, all of this aside, you're right - Descent is crap. So it part 2.

 

[Warped9]

^^ Up until the end I was wavering on "Descent" between rating it a 3 or a 4...then I hit the end Part 1 and promptly threw it in my mental trash bin.

Here's the thing. When a series generally hits the mark with you then you can learn to forgive many if not most missteps. This is the way it was for me for much of the first four seasons. But during the past two seasons I can't find it in myself to be as forgiving because the overall tone of the show has changed in such a way as to turn me off.

That said ratings aren't everything. There are episodes that may rate only fair only there's something in it that works for you and makes it acceptable. On the flip side an episode can do most everything right and yet it still leaves you cold and mostly unengaged. That's why in the earlier seasons I can forgive and accept some 3 rated episodes while later on I find that much harder to do. When I take that into account then there are few more episodes I find personally enjoyable that my previously stated 34% of the series as a whole.

 

[Distorted Humor]

Easy way to look at it is that both "Time Arrow" and "Descent" are both flawed, and both where enjoyable the first time I watched it, however "Time Arrow still has some charm, while Descent is much more wobbly in it narration as it does not have the charm to smooth out the narrative bumps.

It is funny, I am currently re watching TNG, and while a lot of the early episodes are just BAD, a lot of the very best episodes are early on.

Elementary dear Data - Season 2
Measure of a Man - Season 2
Yesterday's Enterprise - Season 3
Best of Both Worlds - Season 3/4
The wounded - First half of Season 4

That is five episodes that are some of the best in Science fiction. The reasons why the early seasons have a bad reputation is some of the early episodes are just outright embarrassing, and it not till season 7 that you have truly embarrassing episodes again. While in season 1-2 I can think of plenty.

 

[Holdfast]

The scavenger hunt in The Chase and Picard's fascination with Galen's gift to him were nice but the ending fell very flat for me (further undermined a short time later by how Picard treated the Kurlan naiskos after the Ent-D was scuttled)

I don't think Picard's reaction in Generations is at all undermining of his feelings in The Chase. If anything, it underlines how he's grown as a character through the movie. Generations is full of little visual cues like this that echo the emotions the characters are going through. Woefully underrated movie, IMO.

You've just stately explicitly and deliberately why you should disqualify yourself as any kind of rational critic of TNG, and why these reviews ought to be taken with a grain of salt... And why would those reviews be of any value whatsoever?

Well, on a personal note, I don't think that makes the reviews in any way less interesting. I haven't had the impression that Warped9 is claiming to be reviewing TNG as an unbiased third party.

The value of them to me is threefold: a) they spark the memory and encourage fresh and lively discussion in the series, such as your own posts and those of the other participants in the thread; b) they offer a different perspective than we're used to reading in this forum; and c) they're actually reasonably well-written (not something you can say of many reviews of Trek) making them quite engaging and enjoyable to read.

 

[Warped9]

Looking forward to Season 7 I can see only four episodes that I recall liking on some level.

“Parallels”
“The Pegasus”
“Lower Decks”
“Preemptive Strike”


Looking back here's a list of the episodes that I look upon favourably.

"Where No One Has Gone Before" ****
"The Last Outpost" ***
"Lonely Among Us" **
"The Big Goodbye" **
"Datalore" ***
"11001001" ****
"Home Soil" ***
"When The Bough Breaks" ***
"Heart Of Glory" ***
"The Arsenal Of Freedom" ***
"Symbiosis" ****
“Conspiracy” ****
“The Neutral Zone” ***

“Where Silence Has Lease” ****
“Elementary, Dear Data” *****
“The Schizoid Man” ***
“Loud As A Whisper” ***
“Unnatural Selection” ****
“A Matter Of Honor” ****
“The Measure Of A Man” *****
“Contagion” ****
“Pen Pals” ****
“Q Who” *****
“Up The Long Ladder” ****
“The Emissary” ***
“Peak Performance” ***

“The Ensigns Of Command” ****
“The Survivors” ****
“Who Watches The Watchers” ***
“Booby Trap” ***
“The Enemy” ****
“The Vengeance Factor” ****
“The Defector” ****
“The Hunted” ***
“The High Ground” ***
“Yesterday’s Enterprise” *****
“The Offspring” *****
“Sins Of The Father” *****
“Captain’s Holiday” ****
“Tin Man” ***
“Sarek” *****
“The Best Of Both Worlds” *****

“Reunion” ****
“Future Imperfect” ****
“The Wounded” ***
“Devil’s Due” ***
“Galaxy’s Child” ****
“Night Terrors” ****
“Identity Crises” ****
“The Nth Degree” ****
“The Drumhead” ****
“Half A Life” ****
“Redemption” ****

“Darmok” *****
“Ensign Ro” *****
“Silicon Avatar” ***
“A Matter Of Time” ****
“The Masterpiece Society” ****
“Ethics” ****
“The First Duty” ****
“I, Borg” ****
“Time’s Arrow” ****

“Relics” ***
“Schisms” ***
“Face Of The Enemy” ****
“Tapestry” ***
“The Chase” ****
“Rightful Heir” ****

 

[lurok]

^ still agreeing with majority of your reviews Finished season six and third of way through season seven. TBH, these last two seasons all blur a bit into one another, and only episodes I think that truly stand out/are memorable in six are: Chain of Command (for Jellico, shaking things up, Troi in uniform finally and torture scenes) and Timescape (frozen time visuals). Fistful of Datas is kinda fun, I guess. But I'd be hard pressed to remember any others even after recent viewing.

So far in seven, only memorable episode is Inheritance

 

[Ubik]

The scavenger hunt in The Chase and Picard's fascination with Galen's gift to him were nice but the ending fell very flat for me (further undermined a short time later by how Picard treated the Kurlan naiskos after the Ent-D was scuttled)

I don't think Picard's reaction in Generations is at all undermining of his feelings in The Chase. If anything, it underlines how he's grown as a character through the movie. Generations is full of little visual cues like this that echo the emotions the characters are going through. Woefully underrated movie, IMO.

You've just stately explicitly and deliberately why you should disqualify yourself as any kind of rational critic of TNG, and why these reviews ought to be taken with a grain of salt... And why would those reviews be of any value whatsoever?

Well, on a personal note, I don't think that makes the reviews in any way less interesting. I haven't had the impression that Warped9 is claiming to be reviewing TNG as an unbiased third party.

The value of them to me is threefold: a) they spark the memory and encourage fresh and lively discussion in the series, such as your own posts and those of the other participants in the thread; b) they offer a different perspective than we're used to reading in this forum; and c) they're actually reasonably well-written (not something you can say of many reviews of Trek) making them quite engaging and enjoyable to read.

A perfectly reasonable response.