First Season

[Mudd]

"The Big Goodbye" is a great episode. That Picard commands this boring cruise ship and secretly fantasizes about being a more charismatic, adventurous guy in an exciting noir thriller was a little stroke of genius on Torme's part.

Any noir done well is better than most Star Trek.

 

[Orphalesion]

"The Big Goodbye" is a great episode. That Picard commands this boring cruise ship and secretly fantasizes about being a more charismatic, adventurous guy in an exciting noir thriller was a little stroke of genius on Torme's part.

Any noir done well is better than most Star Trek.

We have to agree to disagree. I just don't like that whole aesthetic and that whole time period. And even if I liked it, I'd watch one of the many noir movies to get it, not some Star Trek holodeck episode

 

[Unicron]

My biggest misalignment is when people think "Datalore" is a good episode. In my opinion, it is one of the worst, most childish episodes of the entire franchise. Absolute drivel...and it ends up on a number of people's short list of favorites from S1. I'd take "Angel One" over "Datalore" any day, and that's saying a lot because "Angel One" is llama shite.

For my part, I think "Datalore" had a good concept but I agree the execution comes off as a tad silly. "Justice" would have been far better if it kept elements of the earlier concepts, which were much different from the final episode.

 

[tomalak301]

Didn't The Big Goodbye win some kind of award? It was a decent episode but considering how many Holodeck episodes Trek has had since then and they've been better, TBG feels inferior now. Also, agreed about Arsenal of Freedom being a really underrated episode. I've always like that one, and it finally gave Geordi something to do.

 

[Herbert]

I find S1 considerably better than S6 or S7. And it’s not even close.

Especially season 7. What a steaming turd, with a few exceptions of course.

I really do think the hatred for season 1 is over the top. Unwatchable? Not at all. It has some poor episodes, but often far more ambition than later seasons (and indeed, series). You are never going to get things like Bynars, Armus, Minor Attack Droids and the Conspiracy parasites in later Trek! No, instead you'd get some guy with a slight wiggle on his forehead :-)

Agreed. I truly wish they had retained some of that S1 spirit in the later seasons. Instead we get things like Sub Rosa, Worf's human brother, Rascals, Dark Page, Eye of the Beholder, and many others. Where's the wonder and excitement of exploring space? Oh yeah, it's mostly gone from TNG by that point.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Parallels, The Pegasus, Lower Decks and All Good Things are so good that season 7 is superior to season 1 regardless of how many Sub Rosas are in it in my opinion.

 

[Captrek]

I think the S1 episode I remember most is "When the Bough Breaks". It was meh at best, but could have been improved just by rewriting the ending: make the Aldeans infertility permanent.

1. It would have had more gravitas. No smarmy convenient win-win solution, this is conflict on a desperate, primal level. The Enterprise retrieves its lost kids, but a civilization is sentenced to oblivion as a result.
2. Picard would not have risked two officer's lives unnecessarily by trying to beam them through the shield. Think about it, with the bargaining chip Beverly offered him, all he really needed to do was comm Radue and tell him: "you give us back our seven kids, we can give you hundreds of your own". Take away that bargaining chip and the risk becomes necessary.
3. Radue's character wouldn't have undergone that stupid flip flop from "arrogant head of state" to "I'm so humble help me pleeeeez". Instead, once the Enterprise forcibly retakes the kids, he demands that they leave, refuses any overtures of friendship or assistance, and vanishes his planet once they're gone.
4. Because the Aldeans' relationship with the Federation is adversarial to the end, it's easy to explain why the Federation never gains access to their vast knowledge or incredible technology.
5. With this darker ending, Picard is unlikely to wind up with a stuffed tribble stuck to his back.

The whole premise of that episode never worked for me. Just a bunch of childless couples who want to adopt. Is adoption no longer a thing in the 24th century? In the entire Federation, are there no children available for them?

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

That's one route they could've tried taking, but they decided that kidnapping was quicker and easier, and how was anyone going to stop them? Plus they're aliens, they think in alien ways. They didn't realise that humans are unusually attached to their children.

 

[Captrek]

I can understand it not being their first plan, but Picard never brought it up as an option. Just, “You can’t have our kids, but there are orphanages with plenty of kids who need to be adopted. We’ll put you in touch.”

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Maybe Picard didn't want to make offers he couldn't necessarily keep. I feel like it'd be a struggle to convince Federation authorities to allow the alien occupants of a mysterious hidden planet to adopt children even without their history of kidnapping.

 

[Ragitsu]

Numerous flaws aside, I like the quasi-TOS spirit of Season 1. There's no reason the scriptwriters couldn't have kept that same je ne sais quoi around for later seasons while improving the overall quality of their scripts.

 

[Oddish]

I can understand it not being their first plan, but Picard never brought it up as an option. Just, “You can’t have our kids, but there are orphanages with plenty of kids who need to be adopted. We’ll put you in touch.”

Maybe Picard didn't want to make offers he couldn't necessarily keep. I feel like it'd be a struggle to convince Federation authorities to allow the alien occupants of a mysterious hidden planet to adopt children even without their history of kidnapping.

I could see where Radue might not trust Picard, might figure that once he had the kids back, the Enterprise would warp away and warn all other Federation ships to steer clear.

But the point was, the fact that the Aldeans' condition was apparently routinely curable made it all irrelevant. Picard didn't have to raid an orphanage, any more than he had to risk splattering Data and Riker across the cosmos in a transporter accident. He could have just said: "Radue, give us back our seven kids, and we'll effectively give you hundreds in return. What do you say?" I mean, Radue was arrogant, but he wasn't dumb.

 

[Farscape One]

Didn't The Big Goodbye win some kind of award? It was a decent episode but considering how many Holodeck episodes Trek has had since then and they've been better, TBG feels inferior now. Also, agreed about Arsenal of Freedom being a really underrated episode. I've always like that one, and it finally gave Geordi something to do.

Pretty sure "The Big Goodbye" won a Peabody. That was a nice feather in TNG's cap to help keep it going.

Regarding "The Arsenal of Freedom", it's always been one of my favorites of the series because it utilizes everyone very, very well. Even Troi got to have a great scene when she was advising Geordi about the younger officers... she was doing her actual job very, very well. I also feel that in-universe this episode was the reason why Picard chooses LaForge as Chief Engineer... it's arguably the most important department on the ship, and he proved he could keep a cool head, come up with solutions, minimize risk to personnel, and do all that with an insubordinate current Chief Engineer breathing down his neck. This episode, quite honestly, is a turning point for Geordi, and definitely an essential one to view if you ever want a 'LaForge Rewatch'.


I also feel season 1 is better than people say. I think it's better, overall, than season 7.

 

[Mudd]

Didn't The Big Goodbye win some kind of award?

Yeah, a Peabody.

I remember watching it when it first aired and thinking for the first time that maybe this series had a shot at becoming something good. Because here they weren't imitating TOS.

(No, kiddies, the episode isn't a "rip-off of 'A. Piece of the Action.' Get over it.)

Later in the season the same writer created "Conspiracy," the other best episode of the first season.

 

[Orphalesion]

And because it won some award, I have to like it? Sorry. No.

I remember watching it when it first aired and thinking for the first time that maybe this series had a shot at becoming something good. Because here they weren't imitating TOS.

Instead they were imitating a crappy Noir story *sarcastic clapping*
And I still think it's derivative of all those TOS episodes that involved planets with planets that were based on a period in earth's history.

 

[Vger23]

The whole premise of that episode never worked for me. Just a bunch of childless couples who want to adopt. Is adoption no longer a thing in the 24th century? In the entire Federation, are there no children available for them?

While not my favorite S1 episode, I think the goings-on in "When the Bough Breaks" are a little more complex than that.

Numerous flaws aside, I like the quasi-TOS spirit of Season 1. There's no reason the scriptwriters couldn't have kept that same je ne sais quoi around for later seasons while improving the overall quality of their scripts.

I much prefer that to the later "mundane ho-hum" that invaded TNG. While the earlier seasons were much less consistent, at least they had that feel of adventuring and exploring the unknown dangers of space. The later seasons, for the most part, felt like a bunch of milk runs by comparison. They became far more "mundane" about being in outerspace, and it felt like we got a lot of:

1. Doing errands for the Federation
2. Learning about the character's families, love life's, etc
3. Politics / covert ops stuff

There are good episodes in those categories, but I enjoy the more sci-fi stuff you see in S1 and S2, even when it's a swing and miss. It's also a reason I like S3 of TOS so much. The "out there, in the dangerous expanse of space" feel is much greater. And I dig that.

 

[Pikirk_Janesisko]

Yeah, if anything, season 1 gave me a very poor taste of TNG. Episodes like "Justice" and "The Naked Now" were embarrassing for me to watch, even more than some of TOS season 3 episodes. And let's not forget the disappointing reveal of the Ferengis. I can count on one hand the episodes that I like from this season. Only after persevering that I was able to see why everyone loved the show. It was extremely rewarding to watch the whole thing because it gets so much better.

 

[Skipper]

Don't forget, there was *very* little science fiction on TV (I can't remember any, but I could be wrong), so I was happy to have anything, especially Star Trek.

And that little was bad. "The Power of Matthew Star" bad. "The Phoenix" bad.

 

[Commander Troi]

And that little was bad. "The Power of Matthew Star" bad. "The Phoenix" bad.

EEK! Don't remind me!

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I think part of my problem with Season 1/2 is a kind of visual dissonance. The uniforms aren't what they would later be. Riker is lacking a beard. Everything looks just a *little* bit less polished.

It's high on my list for a revisit. I don't rate it highly, but others posts on here have made me realise I'm quite fond of some of the episodes. I would say Season 2 is a step down.