All Good Things...A good finale?

[TheQman]

What in the world did you not understand about the episode, if you don't mind my asking?

I really don't know what I don't understand. Maybe just the whole random rift in space and the whole Picard prevented humans being 'evolved'.

To me it just seemed like the episode could have been an hour long mediocre third or fourth season episode.

Maybe I need to watch it again, I havn't seen it for about two years.

Anyway, it is definitely better than the ENT finale, instead of 'could be mediocre fourth season TNG episode' it actually was a mediocre fourth season TNG episode, lol.

 

[RoJoHen]

The anomaly wasn't random. It was created by Picard (the convergence of tachyon pulses in 3 different time periods, blah blah blah) while he was hopping through time. The anomaly was bigger the further back you went, and as a result it disrupted the beginnings of life on Earth.

BUT...that's hardly the point. Picard was only traveling through time because Q decided to fuck with him. The whole thing was a test, to get Picard to realize the time paradox. But more than that, it was a way to get Picard to think outside the box, to realize that there is much more to human potential than just flying around discovering new things. In his own words, "not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence."

However, it was much more of a character piece than that. It showed that life can take you to places you never imagine at the time. It showed that friendships can end and that people can drift apart, but it also showed that you can prevent that from happening if you try hard enough.

 

[Start Wreck]

I really don't know what I don't understand. Maybe just the whole random rift in space and the whole Picard prevented humans being 'evolved'.

The rift/anomoly was caused by Picard. It wasn't random.

 

[Trek Survivor]

It was an...appropriate finale. I, however, must be one of the few TNG fans on this planet who didn't actually LIKE this episode very much!

 

[MikeS]

Anyway, it is definitely better than the ENT finale, instead of 'could be mediocre fourth season TNG episode' it actually was a mediocre fourth season TNG episode, lol.

The ENT finalé was a mediocre seventh season TNG episode IIRC.

AGT. The best finalé. RoJoHen's post sums it up perfectly. I prefer the longer uncut version. That keeps some good scenes, that said, I can only recall the "Q with an ear trumpet" scene right now.

It was great that they got Denise and Colm to appear. And funny that Frakes was the only actor who could not portray himself as a younger character. They used a scene from "Arsenal of Freedom" for his appearance.

 

[sbk1234]

From what I understand, they considered having Frakes shave his beard for it, but it wouldn't have given him enough time to grow it back for the filming of Generations.

 

[Bones2]

Best Trek finale, I'd say. Terrific episode.

 

[Pseudo]

I thought it was a very fitting end to a show that I absolutely adored. I remember watching re-runs of the original series when I was young, but it wasn't 'til TNG that I became truly immersed in the trek-verse.

I loved how it brought the whole series full-circle. I loved how it was all timey-wimey and despite itself it was a really playful and loving end to the series. (Almost) every character I cared about got a decent role and if the television franchise had ended their I'd have been quite content. Yes, DS9 was excellent. But IMHO it would have benefited from being set outside the trek-verse (and some would argue that it did in B5). And Voyager and Enterprise, while perfectly good in many ways suffered from an over indulgence of the franchise best typified by their own settings. Both shows were attempts to recapture the strange new worlds concepts of the original series and while neither particularly failed at that, neither could hold a match to their fans childhood recollections of the original series.

Sorry, I've ended up going on a bit there. Do apologise.

ETA: You do have to wonder why if a level 4 Neurographic scan is so easily performed then why didn't Dr. Crusher pick it up earlier. You'd have thought that if such medical techniques were so easily performed then they'd be performed on a fairly regular basis. Especially in a post-scarcity communist civilization like the Federation.

 

[Diddle]

I don't particularly dislike the episode, far from liking it either though. There are two things I like about this episode: The very final scene with Q. "See you...out there" and the really final scene when Picard sits down to play Poker with everyone. Other than that it was just mehish. Boring, dare I say.

 

[Unicron]

It was an...appropriate finale. I, however, must be one of the few TNG fans on this planet who didn't actually LIKE this episode very much!

Eh, nobody's perfect.

I agree with the general consensus that it was a good ep, and the best of the series finales. WYBH was good as well, but left a lot more loose threads dangling in terms of the characters separating and moving on to new things. It didn't really do as well in summing up the series as a whole the way I feel AGT did.

Incidentally, I've always liked the impression that the Q's perspective on humanity had, through forcing Picard to solve the paradox, had changed and that some of Q's ending dialogue suggested that they no longer viewed humanity as primarily a primitive and "barbaric" race. Was kind of a nice touch.

 

[Pseudo]

I don't particularly dislike the episode, far from liking it either though. There are two things I like about this episode: The very final scene with Q. "See you...out there" and the really final scene when Picard sits down to play Poker with everyone. Other than that it was just mehish. Boring, dare I say.

Y'see I just loved those moments. Admittedly I was about fifteen when I first saw it so, you can't take my word as hoyle. The scene with Q, I'll give you that it did kind of lay him up for his later appearances, but it was also juxtaposed with Picard's moment of realisation that space was not the final frontier.

As to him sitting down and playing cards. These are people he's worked with and whose company he has enjoyed at a distance of his own making for seven years. Personally I'd have thought that the events of "The Inner Light" might have brought Picard's epiphany sooner, but alas no one knew in season six and no one cared in season seven.

How else would you want a show about exploring the galaxy and our own relationships to end other than "Nothing's wild, and the sky's the limit."?

 

[RegFan]

AGT is a really good finale and also the best Q episode. He isn't a humorous character in this episode, he's Picard's friend/guide. That's exactly the way I like him.

 

[TheQman]

I don't particularly dislike the episode, far from liking it either though. There are two things I like about this episode: The very final scene with Q. "See you...out there" and the really final scene when Picard sits down to play Poker with everyone. Other than that it was just mehish. Boring, dare I say.

See, this is kind of what I thought.

 

[bbailey861]

Yes, this was a very good end to the series.

 

[Ghrakh]

Good show. Nice finale.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

I thought it was a great finale and as has been said above, a wonderful bookend to the premiere.

It was epic and showed us not just the past, but a future that was not what we would have wanted. Deanna dead, P/C married... and divorced, Picard approaching senility. Picard was able to not just save "humanity" from its primordial past, but to save our crew from a future that should never be.

The difference between the end of TNG and the end of DS9 I think relates to TPTB and their plans for the future. They planned to take TNG straight to the big screen, and so everyone survived. Not so DS9. DS9 was more of a "finale" to the series. By stranding our Captain in a wormhole, and sending Worf to the Klingon Empire, they broke up the team. I suspect they had no intention of bringing DS9 to the cinema where it would compete with TNG. Mores the pity.

 

[Epsilon IX]

In my opinion this was by far the best of the Star Trek finales. Whilst it by no means showed a firm closure to the series, this at least left the way for potentially more adventures for the Next Generation crew, which we saw on the big screen (although not always to the same quality as we saw on the small screen).

 

[Kpnuts]

Fantastic finale. One of my favourite episodes of all time actually.

Intelligent time travel mystery as well, not the dumbed down instalments we got in every other time travel ep of Trek.

 

[Franklin]

Frankly, this episode was SO good that it caused a major problem: It wrapped up the show so well that the movies couldn't rise to meet the bar of quality this set.

Maybe there shouldn't have been TNG movies and just end it with this, and the other characters making recurring appearances on DS9 or something.

Even though I enjoy some of the TNG movies to varying degrees, I tend to agree with this. AGT was such an excellent way to end the series that anything after-the-fact feels tacked on. If they had found a way to make Q the antagonist of the final Trek movie (and turned that particular story in something of a trilogy with Farpoint and AGT), I would have been very pleased.

Put me in this category, too. Happened to catch it last night on the SyFy network (well flipped back and forth between it and the Kentucky-Mississippi basketball game).
The episode was almost too good. It's not just good Star Trek, it's good science fiction.

Now, there's a lot more "talk" in it and less action in it than I remembered, and a few very conveniently placed friends to move the story (Data, Crusher, Riker and Worf are all almost too usefully placed in the future).
But I think with some fiddling, it could've become a very good big screen movie. If they were hellbent to glory to use Shatner in the first movie, given the time jumps, Kirk could've even been written into the story.

In a way, with the characters and their relationships, the theme of trust and growing to think beyond normal bounds, the paradox driving the story, and the unusual antagonist (not a real villain, just Q, who is actually helping in a way), it would've embodied so much of what good Star Trek is. It had the "big idea." Unfortunatley for B and B going into the movies, they left their best story back on TV with AGT.

Anyway, my two cents after seeing it again for the first time in quite a while.

 

[Anwar]

...Braga didn't have any real control over the movies. Can't we stop blaming him and Berman for every little thing?

Berman DID say that if they'd known they were going to do TNG movies they would've saved "Yesterday's Enterprise" for the big screen and made it the TOS crew brought to the future instead. So he knows a good plot when he sees one.