A Journey

[tomalak301]

I'm actually not as harsh on Code of Honor as others tend to be. Is it a bad, racist episode, sure but there was something about it that didn't make it awful. Maybe it was the musical score, or the final scene where Picard and crew get out of actually having to kill anyone.

Naked Now though, eh not as good as people say. I still don't understand how Picard got infected when he wasn't in contact with another infected skin. You can't get infected by this virus by breathing, at least that was the case in both episodes.

 

[Orac Zen]

"The Naked Now": Yeesh. The level of silliness in this episode is quite extraordinary. I never did work out why Riker was able to resist the effects of that great Trek staple, the Mysterious Alien Virus, for as long as he did while Data (an android, after all) succumbed pretty much straight away. I didn't work it out this time around, either. Wesley actually saves the ship (maybe I ought to keep track of how often he does that, just for the hell of it), but he also came across as a whiny brat ("An adult did it!!!"). Generally he doesn't annoy me; this ep is an exception. 5 / 10.

"Code of Honour": I can't think of anything good to say about this horrid piece of sexist drivel, so perhaps I shouldn't bother saying anything. Anything starting off with a line like "A woman?!?" can really only go in one direction, and this trash goes into freefall pretty much immediately. The harping about honour gets boring pretty quickly, too, and the less said about the whole "I want her (Yar)" / chick fight thing the better. Ugh. This is simply terrible. 2 / 10 - the points being for the Data / Geordi and Picard / Crusher conversations.

 

[2of1million]

I think even the actors hated Code of Honor. Poor Denise Crosby! No wonder she left.

 

[Smiley]

So far, "Code of Honor" ranks as the bottom of the episodes that I will watch again. I agree with a lot of the criticism in this thread, but I find the story itself pretty interesting. My favorite sequence is the actual combat and resolution. That arena is what "The Gamesters of Triskelion" should have looked like.

 

[WillsBabe]

Spider said:
The Naked Now - C-

In the overall scheme of things, The Naked Now is a pretty poor episode, but I like it. It's probably the only time we get a hint that Betazoids "do it" with their empathy/telepathy thing. We fangrl shippers have to take our crumbs where we can get 'em.

 

[Orac Zen]

I've watched a few more eps. Some comments:

"The Last Outpost": Ugh, Ferengi. I have no objectivity where they're concerned. I dislike just about every episode in which they appear, in any series (I actually can't recall offhand any ep featuring them I can stomach). So I can't say this did anything for me. 2 / 10.

"Where No One Has Gone Before": This is more like it. Kosinski is an obnoxious jerk and the Traveller is much more low-key (and dull) than I'd remembered, but this ep is still a huge step up on those preceding it. A lot of terrific scenes, a good premise that's executed pretty well, and a conclusion (namely, the whole Wesley The Genius thing) that's revisited in the future...what's not to like? I always enjoyed this one. 7 / 10.

"Lonely Among Us": ...and back to rather ordinary fare. There are a few amusing lines of dialogue ("What is that doing on our deck?!?" amuses me, for some reason) but it's basically another in a long series of "Strange Alien Life Form Possesses Crewmember(s)" eps in Trek. It isn't a particularly good example of the genre. 3 / 10.

"Justice": The ep I always remembered as "Wesley steps on a plant and they wanna execute him". Okay, so he squashes a number of plants , but really the ep turns out to be not much more substantial than that. Death as punishment for any crime is plainly idiotic; as an anti-"capital punishment" stance (which is presumably at least part of what it's supposed to be), the ep is about as subtle as a brick through a window. And about as useful and interesting. 3 / 10.


General note on all the eps to date: The constant references to Wesley as "the boy" are rather annoying. He has a name, for Heavens' sake. Why not just use it, instead of referring to him in such a patronising way?

 

[Spider]

The Last Outpost - D

I’ve always disliked the Ferengi, but in this episode they are at their worst. At least on DS9 they were a bit more mature acting, in this episode they act like a bunch of school kids. How is it that Star Trek comes up with these aliens that do NOT have the maturity level of a grade school child, but yet their societies develop space travel? Not logical, says Mr. Spock. LOL

The long lost society leaving behind a sentinel was pretty cool, even if it does become an overused plot idea in later Trek. That is what saved this pathetic episode from getting an F.

Where No One Has Gone Before - B-

This is the first TNG episode that steps above the average. Good script, acting, special effects. Even Wesley is quite tolerable here, and his role with the traveler was handled quite well. I had forgotten that The Traveler was introduced this early in the series, so it was a bit of a surprise when I saw him on the transporter deck in the intro. But then it’s been years since I rewatched anything from season one. Surprises like this are nice.

That one scene where Picard steps out of the elevator into space just rocks. It’s such a classic scene. The pig with the make up however, made me laugh.

Sorry I'm behind everyone in watching the episodes, but don't wait for me, just continue on along at your own pace. This is a free form thread.

 

[tomalak301]

I kind of liked the weirdness of Lonely Among Us. I'm not entirely sure why, but it was a pretty good scifi story and the stuff between the two aliens was decent enough.

 

[2of1million]

I always thought 'The Last Outpost' was a cool episode for season 1. Anyways, I finished up season 3 last night with 'The Best of Both Worlds part 1' "Mr Worf...FIRE!!!!!!"
:thumbsup:

 

[K-Star]

I forgot to mention that I watched Lonely Among Us and Justice a couple days ago. Lonely Among Us is nothing special IMO and Justice is still as hilariously awkward as ever. And my roommate saw the guy with the camel toe and freaked out. Her reaction was pretty damn funny.

 

[Spider]

Lonely Among Us – C-

How bad is it that I just watched this last night and can’t remember all of it? I don’t know if that speaks to my age or how mediocre this episode was. I think this is a good nominee for the thread about TNG’s blandest episodes. Not horrible, not good, and not worth rewatching. And another engineer bites the dust. Data smoking a pipe was good for a smile though, this one gets a low C instead of a D.

One thing that irritated me, it was totally obvious Picard was not himself, he should have been relived of command immediately.

Justice – F

Good Lord, the first 30 minutes were painful to watch, I almost didn’t make it and was thinking of just faking this review, but I didn’t. This God was supposedly evolved from a life form grounded in reality. If that was so, I wonder if humans when they reach their next phase of development will execute children for falling into a plant display? If so, kill us now, please.

This episode deserves to be ridiculed. But you know, Wesley saying “We’re Starfleet, we don’t lie” was not near as bad as everyone makes it out to be. To me, it was just his character speaking out.

I must say however, as much as I like Riker, his silly grin was grating on me early on in the episode. Oh well, another Star Trek episode where we meet God/Superior Alien/Whatever down the drain of bad execution. Pun intended.

The Battle – C+

Actually not a bad episode and the Ferengi were not nearly as irritating as they were in their introductory episode. But I still don’t like them. This was a decent Picard episode, and seeing the Stargazer was nice. This is truly the first episode where you begin to appreciate having Patrick Stewart on the show, because you can see his acting chops and what he brings to the character and the show.

It was a decently written and acted “revenge” episode with an appropriate ending. Above average, but nothing really special (other than Stewart’s performance).

 

[Spider]

Hide and Q – D

This is another Star Trek morality tale done badly. Man, I will be glad when I make through the first season.

Riker is one of my favorite characters on TNG and he wasn’t done justice by the writers in this episode. The idea of the episode is interesting though, the thought of being granted the powers of a Q is probably a favorite daydream of a lot of Trek fans, that and having access to a real holodeck. For myself, I can tell you, I would have told everyone bye-bye and left to be a Q.

The unfolding of Riker’s realization of his new powers didn’t seem realistic, and the scene where he tried to grant everyone’s wishes didn’t come off very good. The ending was pathetic, really. This was probably one of the worst Q episodes.

Haven – C-

Ack. Lwaxana Troi. I put her right up there with the Ferengi as far as irritation factor goes. The sub-plot of the plague ship with Troi’s fiancé and his connection to it was interesting enough to bump this one up past a D. Wyatt Miller was an interesting character, making the somewhat obvious decision in the end.

I loved the scene where Troi lost it and ran out of the room knocking that silly gong down. I’m also glad to see Lurch get a line in before leaving.

It wasn’t that bad of an episode, but an entirely forgettable one though. Armin Shimerman as The Box is a kicker. I wonder how one goes from a box to a Ferengi bartender.

The Big Goodbye – B-

I’m sure I liked this much better back in 1988 when I first saw it, but holodeck malfunction stores are really old now. Still, the story was good, and quite frankly the ending conversation between Picard and his cop buddy was quite moving. And it’s always a treat to see Crusher dressed up.

The Felix Leach character was a hoot coming off like a maniacal Peter Lorre character.

This is a good episode that was worth revisiting.

 

[tomalak301]

Hide and Q is an episode that I like more each time I see it. I like the theme of temptation and how absolute power corrupts. The scene with the little girl was tragic.

I saw When the Bough Breaks last night (Continuing my journey through TNG this year which took a long layoff from June) but I won't talk about it till you guys get there.

 

[Spider]

I’ve been on a tear through TNG today, but after this DVD I may give it a rest for a few days.

Datalore – B-

What’s not to like about this? We are introduced to two characters we will see more of in the future, Lore and the Crystalline Entity. Spiner does a great job in this episode playing both Data and evil Lore. Even though Lore is a bad guy, I’ve always kind of liked him.

It kind of chaffed me when Picard so readily dismisses Wesley, when Wesley was apparently the first to recognize that Data wasn't really Data. Wesley, as usual, is right and when it was all over with Picard didn’t have the decency to admit it. Bad writing. In my opinion, the Picard we’ve all come to know and love would have admitted his mistake. I chalk up that bit to the episode being a first season episode and everyone, including the writers, were still trying to find their fictional legs.

Angel One – C

Beata is hot, even if she is a bitch. I just have to say that.

Well, here we go with another message show, this time about how evil men rule over subservient women. Oh wait, I have that backwards. If it weren’t for that bit of unnecessary BS, this would have a much better episode. The sub-plot about the virus wasn’t very interesting either, and didn’t further the story any in my opinion other being a necessary plot device to keep the ground party from beaming up.

I liked the fact that the survivors from the disabled ship didn’t want to leave, that they had families. What I don’t understand is the babel about them being private citizens and not directly under the control of the Federation. I’m a private citizen, and I’m subject to the laws of our nation, I would think they would also be subject to the laws of the Federation. Or am I missing a bit of Star Trek knowledge here?

To bad Riker and Beata were interrupted before they could actually have some fun, it might have made Beata a little easier to deal with. Or is that a sexist remark, directly speaking to point that was being made about Angel One’s government?

11001001 – B+

This is definitely a classic episode of TNG. The Bynars (alien plural for binary, I suppose ) are one of the better thought out alien species from season one. I would have liked have seen some interaction with them and Data, it could have been amusing.

I really enjoyed watching Riker with Minuet in the holodeck, and him playing the trombone. Minuet is a great character; her interaction with both Riker and Picard was excellently done. She is one of those characters that, at least for me, made such an impact that you never forget her.

A great episode, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed watching again.

To Short a Season – C+

A good episode, but probably not one I would normally rewatch if I was just catching the highlights from season one. I found this bit of information on this episode from Wikipedia:

The Admiral in this episode was originally supposed to be James T. Kirk, returning to face the consequences caused by his actions during the TOS episode "A Private Little War". In that episode, Captain Kirk gives arms to a primitive tribe involved in a war with another tribe that had already been armed by the Klingons.[1] If Kirk had appeared in this episode, it would have been the second time he underwent a rapid aging to youth process, the first being in the TOS episode "The Deadly Years".

How cool would that have been? I don’t know if this is true or not, as Wikipedia is sometimes suspect with their information, but that would have been great if produced. But then, all kinds of things would have happened to Star Trek history. We would have seen how Kirk died and Generations couldn’t have had that horrible rickety ladder scene. I would image some massive rewriting would have taken place on this episode if Kirk was in it. Or probably was since Kirk didn’t appear. Who knows?

Well, either way, this episode was above average. I’m beginning to think I may have been to harsh on season one of TNG in the past. There have been some dogs so far, but there has also been many more episodes that were fair to middling to even great than I remembered.

 

[K-Star]

^Wow, you've really been on a roll! I haven't watched anything since "Justice." Well, I think it's because I've seen just about all of season 1 before, but if I'm gonna do this right...

Guess I've got something to do on Sunday (if not tonight).

 

[Spider]

I think I'm becoming a TNG addict all over again.

 

[K-Star]

I just watched all of disc 3 of season 1. I particularly liked Haven (I like all episodes with Mrs. Troi) and The Big Goodbye (Data was really funny in that episode.)

 

[Spider]

When the Bough Breaks – D+
Below average story with Wesley as the hero, and some not so good child actors. I didn’t like this episode the first time around and I still don’t. It’s not really horrible, but it just seems to me to be Trek-by-the-numbers here. Frankly, the less said about this on the better.

Home Soil – C+
This is a good episode with some good ideas. After all, who will ever forget we are ugly bags of water? This episode was good science fiction as well, something Trek doesn’t always do a lot of. Watching Data in the room with the drilling lasers after the first death still makes me tense up even though I know he will be OK. Mandl as the head terraformer is a bit of a jerk. I honestly don’t think his personality type would have been selected by Starfleet to head up such an operation.

Coming of Age – C-
When I saw this one coming up, I dreaded watching it, but it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. Still, there is too much Wesley in the 1st season for me. The secondary plot about the investigation of Picard was way overdone. In the scene with the stolen shuttlecraft Remmick goes from being an asshole to appreciative of Picard and back to being an asshole far to quickly to be believed. Admiral Quinn’s remark about something being wrong with Starfleet foreshadows the Conspiracy episode he will reappear in. I thought that was cool.

Heart of Glory – C
A decent episode, but nothing special. The Klingon stuff which, if I remember correctly, some have made negative remarks about pertaining to this episode, was not bad. Actually, for me, it was the only thing interesting, even if the Klingon commander of the ship that picked up the prisoners seemed a little tame for a Klingon.

The Arsenal of Freedom – C
Another ho-hum episode that is forgettable, but not really bad. The only think I liked about this episode was Picard and Beverly in the sink hole. I was just totally distracted by the salesman guy, because he kept making me think of his role in that X-Files episode where he carried his brother in a sack by his stomach. The ending where the drone follows Geordi into the atmosphere showed that it didn’t learn as well as advertised.

Symbiosis – D+
A good story, but it was totally obvious what the problem was early on with the “medicine”. This was a bad case of 15 minutes of plot drawn out to a whole episode.

Well, only four more episodes to go in the 1st season, and three of them are damn good. I'm looking forward to them. Well, maybe not Skin of Evil, but the three that come afterwards are good shows.

 

[tomalak301]

Wow, you're beating me now. I just saw When the Bough Breaks last weekend and thought the same way you did. Of course I did like that it brought up the issue of global climate change though, given our current situation. It was unintensionally funny. However, the less said about this one, the better. I'll see some more this weekend.

 

[Nebusj]

Splatter said:
Home Soil – C+
This is a good episode with some good ideas. After all, who will ever forget we are ugly bags of water? This episode was good science fiction as well, something Trek doesn’t always do a lot of. Watching Data in the room with the drilling lasers after the first death still makes me tense up even though I know he will be OK. Mandl as the head terraformer is a bit of a jerk. I honestly don’t think his personality type would have been selected by Starfleet to head up such an operation.

Ah, but Mandel wasn't selected by Starfleet; he was selected by Terraform Command. And the rest of his staff was hired before the results of their screen tests came back.

``Home Soil'' always makes me think someone scrambled the script pages. There's this weird repetitiveness to all the many scenes of the characters wondering if this could possibly be alive, down to -- at one point -- Worf and LaForge and Data puttering around on the science station wondering if it's alive after it's already taken over sickbay. The question would make more sense three acts earlier.