I'm new to TNG

[Carl West]

Hi folks,

I should clarify that I’m not completely “new” to TNG. I’ve seen it a few times casually over the years, but altogether I’ve probably seen less than 10 episodes out of the whole seven year run. But I’m starting a bit of a marathon now, via Netflix. Here are some thoughts on the first two episodes:

“Encounter at Farpoint” – It’s handled well as an introductory episode. I have to say, I miss Kirk (I just finished a little marathon for TOS too). I think what I liked most about Kirk was an occasional “mischievous” quality. It came out the most in the two episodes where he used the Corbomite bluff, but I could also see it in his smaller, humorous moments while talking with Spock, Bones, or whomever. It’s obvious that Kirk was meant to be more human and affable after Capt. Pike in the pilot. Capt. Picard, on the other hand, comes off initially as extremely authoritative; and in the first couple of episodes I’ve watched, he sadly hasn’t offered much in the way of humor yet. And the rest of the cast don’t really make up for this lack. Data appears to be the one intended for this dramatic function, but I don’t feel he makes enough of an impact in the first couple of episodes.

I do like the giant “space anemones” at the end, as huge, bizarre sci-fi concepts are what I like most about the genre. And Q/John De Lancie is great as always, again adding some color to a cast that seems to be trying a little too hard at first to be “brave” and impressive.

 

[Carl West]

"The Naked Now" - This episode probably sums up the notion that the first two seasons of TNG were a little "rough," and the glory days were still to come.

My biggest trepidation coming into TNG now has been two characters that basically "rubbed" me the wrong way in the past: Troi and Wesley. One poor regular character may be tolerable, but two? Thankfully, Troi made a better impression on me watching the first two stories last night (I think she struck me as being too weepy and touchy-feely when I was younger). I think I'm more accepting of her as an empath concept now. Wesley, on the other hand, is just a bad character any way you look at it. And, unfortunately, Wesley was a little too central to the plot in "The Naked Now."

I also have to admit cringing at the scene where Tasha comes out of her bedroom all scantily-clad. Two decades after TOS, it appears that old perv Roddenberry was at it again. Look, I like women just as much as the next man. But I don't normally look to great sci-fi for "titillation." I'm grateful to Roddenberry for giving us one of the greatest TV shows in history, but his onscreen "fantasizing" about half-naked women tends to give one a fairly pathetic impression of who this man was (especially when one reads about those rumors surrounding Grace Lee Whitney's departure from TOS...)

This was a good episode for Dr. Crusher, after her being almost in the background in "Farpoint," and you can see in this early episode that she's going to be a strong link in the cast. I don't want to neglect mentioning the other characters too: Riker, Laforge, and Worf. In these first two episodes, Worf unfortunately hasn't been given a chance to do much at all. Laforge is easily likeable, so he shows promise early on. Riker, unfortunately, fails to provide any contrast to Picard's "authoritative" aura -- Riker appears just as authoritative, and comes off as little more than a "yes man" to Picard.

Altogether, a weak episode, but it will be enjoyable seeing how they iron-out the weaknesses with the cast and modify things as they move forward...

 

[Trek Survivor]

I love revisiting the old episodes; things definitely get much better. My fave seasons are 2-3.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Wesley, on the other hand, is just a bad character any way you look at it.

Yes. Yes he is.

And, unfortunately, Wesley was a little too central to the plot in "The Naked Now."

Unfortunately there are many more episodes like that to come

 

[JRoss]

You are going to have to stick with it to get to the good stuff. Please keep at it and let us know your thoughts on each episode. You are about to hit an all-time low for Trek in episode 3. It is worth it to watch the show, though.

 

[Xhiandra]

Humour isn't Picard's forte. Passionate speeches are.
He does have an authoritative streak sometimes, or rather likes to give that impression, but he's also a lot less rash than Kirk: he's not the kind to headbutt a brick wall.
He'll probably grow on you.

Wesley, you'll have to grin and bear.
There aren't that many Wesley-centric episodes, and some of those that are Wesley-centric manage to be rather good.


Anyway, yes, season 1 was very rough ("Conspiracy" is about as un-Trek-like as it gets); though not all of it is bad.
Season 2, though, was perfectly fine with the exception of the finale Shades of Grey (it's just a a clip show, absolutely pointless ep, made so because of a writers' strike).

 

[Carl West]

You are about to hit an all-time low for Trek in episode 3.

Oh, "Code of Honor"? Watched that a couple of nights ago.

One thing that didn't work dramatically for me was Tasha violently subduing the Ligonian delegate at the beginning. In a supposedly diplomatic situation?? And Picard didn't even reprimand her. I regret to say that I'm glad Tasha gets weeded out by the end of the season. She's a little too gung-ho about fighting, and Crusher and Troi establish themselves early on as stronger female characters for the show.

I liked the scene developing the friendship between Geordi and Data (where Geordi is shaving, and Data is trying to tell jokes). I think this is the first scene in the series that develops their friendship?

Also, later on in the fighting arena, I like the memorable visual effect of the lasers shooting up into the sky. Sadly, there isn't really anything else remarkable about this episode (I'm commenting on laser effects, for God's sake...). I don't think the episode is a complete turkey, but it's just a "fair" or "passable" episode which you just watch, shrug your shoulders, and move on...

"Encounter at Farpoint" is definitely the best of the first three.

 

[Xhiandra]

Forgettable. Code of Honor is just that. Its only role was to establish Tasha as a skilled martial artist, basically.

 

[Lance]

One thing that “Encounter At Farpoint” always reminds me of when I’ve rewatched it is Star Trek: The Motion Picture. If anything, “Farpoint” really underlines to me precisely how much TMP still comes across as a pilot episode to the aborted Phase II, even in it’s cinematic final version. “Farpoint” hits many of the same kinds of beats as TMP (introducing the new ship and characters, etc). I tend to think that “Farpoint” doesn’t quite gell in its two subplots though. Either one of them might have worked as an episode of its own, but neither quite works when paired with each other, even though the coda of the episode works valiantly to try and weld them together satisfactorily. That said, it makes for an inoffensive start to TNG.

I’m a bit of a fan of “The Naked Now”. Sure, it’s rocky. It’s got a lot of marks against it, not least that it retreads a TOS classic but does it much, much worse than the 1960s incarnation did. But I’m a bit of an apologist for TNG’s second episode. Part of this is nostalgia: it was one of only three or four first season episodes I had on tape back in the early 1990s, so it got a lot of airplay back in the day. I also kind of enjoy the episode’s unabashedly cheesy sense of fun. If there is any one episode of TNG that bucks the series’ reputation for being a bit po-faced, then it has got to be “The Naked Now”. Some of the performances are very enjoyable.

“Code Of Honor” is just crap, and I won’t waste any further bandwidth by talking about it.

 

[Greg Cox]

Stick it out until "Measure of a Man." That's when the show starts to get consistently good.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Humour isn't Picard's forte. Passionate speeches are.

They all have their strengths:
Kirk - Hitting on anything with breasts
Picard - [See quote]
Sisko - Being Bad-Ass
Janeway - Technobabble
Archer - Being totally inept

 

[T'Girl]

Forgettable. Code of Honor is just that. Its only role was to establish Tasha as a skilled martial artist, basically.

Which was one of the problems with casting Denise Crosby in the role of Tasha Yar. If you look at a modern female police officer, a street cop, or a woman in the service like the Marine Corp, you just don't see someone with Tasha Yar's build. The girl's a stick. As a tactical officer, an department administrator, or someone who primarily uses a weapon like a phaser she is fine.

But a hand to hand fighter? She is unbelievable as someone who could handle herself in that fashion.

“Code Of Honor” is just crap, and I won’t waste any further bandwidth by talking about it.

Would you have the same opinion of the episode if it had been cast differently, but everything else had been exactly the same?

 

[UnknownSample]

Which was one of the problems with casting Denise Crosby in the role of Tasha Yar. If you look at a modern female police officer, a street cop, or a woman in the service like the Marine Corp, you just don't see someone with Tasha Yar's build. The girl's a stick. As a tactical officer, an department administrator, or someone who primarily uses a weapon like a phaser she is fine.

But a hand to hand fighter? She is unbelievable as someone who could handle herself in that fashion.

I think this about most "tough women" onscreen, but Yar didn't trigger that annoyance in me so much. I suppose it will, now that you've pointed it out... maybe I was always too irritated by other embarrassing s1 qualities to get around to that. Jennifer Garner, that was unbelievable... I liked how in DS9, even though Kira was small, they created an illusion of being formidable that I could buy, with the interesting device of that move where she strikes the first blow with both fists together, throwing both arms and her weight into it.
I liked E at Farpoint generally. We get a glimpse of the post-nuclear-war phase of future history, reminding us that the way to the world of the Federation was a painful one. The creatures at the end were one of the few awe-inspiring SF images we get to see in Next Gen. Overall, they seemed more interested in evoking a sense of restrained "reasonability" than a sense of alien-ness or wonder. Q was warmed-over Trelane of course, and the claims of super-intelligence and near-omniscience seemed very silly, coming from someone who seemed like a dumb, spoiled rich kid playing hooky...
The acting in EaF disappointed me. I didn't like the regulars' acting until the scripts got smarter in s2. You can't act well when the lines are bad. The only vital, awake, professional acting seemed to come from the administrator of Farpoint, as OTT as he may have been.
The Naked Now and Code of Honor must be the two worst, but stay tuned for the 4th (I think), "Where No One Has Gone Before", the first genuinely good one, and a story that's very much science-fiction, about the bizarre and unknown, as opposed to sedate things like interplanetary diplomacy, etc..


TrekSurvivor-- I prefer s2 and s3 over the others, too. We are a rare breed. But as Next Gen writer Tracy Torme said, there's an improvement toward the end of s1-- in fact, he said late s1 was the peak for Next Gen.

 

[RAMA]

Why is any episode that deals with human sexuality (or android for that matter) immediately perverted??

I think Netflix may not be the best place to watch TNG right now, there is a bluray coming out in July.

 

[Lance]

"Code Of Honor" is just crap, and I won't waste any further bandwidth by talking about it.

Would you have the same opinion of the episode if it had been cast differently, but everything else had been exactly the same?

On paper, "Code Of Honor" was a middle of the road kind of story. It wasn't great, but it wasn't rubbish. It existed somewhere in the middle. It doesn't astound and in many ways it's derivative of former glories. But on paper, these aren't in themselves reasons to dislike it.

The infamous casting gafe does undeniably tend to tip it over the edge into dreck, however. And whichever way you cut the cake, "Code Of Honor" was never the best slice of Star Trek to be serving up as their third regular episode.

Why is any episode that deals with human sexuality (or android for that matter) immediately perverted??

I don't think it's so much that as it is the way the sexuality begins to pervade nearly every aspect of every story in Season One. It becomes a repeated meme, and therefore an uninteresting one. Episodes like "The Naked Now" and "Justice" (particularly "Justice" ) were rewritten away from their more hard-edged sci-fi premises, and it could be argued that the injection of sexuality tropes were inappropriate in some cases.

 

[Carl West]

Why is any episode that deals with human sexuality (or android for that matter) immediately perverted??

I guess you're referring to my comments about Tasha in "The Naked Now"?

As I said before, I have no problem at all with hot women

I've just come off of a TOS marathon, though, and that scene with Tasha immediately seemed like a continuation of Roddenberry's TOS Season 3 preoccupation with navel-baring.

I don't know. I just don't watch shows like Star Trek for that sort of, uh, "stimulation."

 

[tafkats]

I don't think it's so much that as it is the way the sexuality begins to pervade nearly every aspect of every story in Season One. It becomes a repeated meme, and therefore an uninteresting one. Episodes like "The Naked Now" and "Justice" (particularly "Justice" ) were rewritten away from their more hard-edged sci-fi premises, and it could be argued that the injection of sexuality tropes were inappropriate in some cases.

Thaaat... would be Roddenberry's influence.

Much like with George Lucas, the visionary with the brilliant idea is not always the best at executing it. Roddenberry's sexual obsessions did have a way of showing through in groan-inducing ways.

 

[UnknownSample]

I don't think it's so much that as it is the way the sexuality begins to pervade nearly every aspect of every story in Season One. It becomes a repeated meme, and therefore an uninteresting one. Episodes like "The Naked Now" and "Justice" (particularly "Justice" ) were rewritten away from their more hard-edged sci-fi premises, and it could be argued that the injection of sexuality tropes were inappropriate in some cases.

Thaaat... would be Roddenberry's influence.

Much like with George Lucas, the visionary with the brilliant idea is not always the best at executing it. Roddenberry's sexual obsessions did have a way of showing through in groan-inducing ways.

Funny, I didn't even think oily-hair Yar (and navels in general maybe) was that sexy. Obtrusive and forced, maybe... but honestly, was it even possible to ruin The Naked Now? It actuaslly helped a little-- at least it was a bit interesting, unlike the rest of the story.

As long as it's worked into the episodes well, in an unforced way, occasional more "sexual" costuming is fine-- just part of the flavor of life, I think, just as it is in the present day. If these s1 scripts started out emphasizing solid, intelligent SF concepts though, and these were pushed aside in favor of simple T&A, then that's unforgiveable.

However poorly-handled, I do like that in s1, they try to show a future with fewer taboos, and (not that this is in the same category) were willing to show a moment of graphic violence (Conspiracy)... not because I like to look at it, but because Trek needs to handle all of life, not just G-rated parts. Trek after this was usually far too "safe".

 

[Lt. LaForge]

Stick with it. It gets better. I missed Tasha. I liked her.

 

[PamalaLauren]

I thought Tasha was just wrong for the show in general and was glad to see her go. She didn't fit the position she was in. She came off as a whiny little girl who had to fight to be seen as the security chief that she was. She just seemed so small and in the background.

Obviously with the cast dominated by men they were trying to balance it out but come on, they should have writtent he character better, or cast someone who came off as more hardass than she did.

I really found watching the first couple of shows to be hard, especially now that I've seen the later seasons more. I understand the show was in development but how do they reconcile later changes with the early shows?