First Season

[Farscape One]

I would say season 2 is a step up, overall. It definitely made space feel dangerous, mysterious, and unsafe. I'd argue it's the one season in the franchise that makes space feel as dangerous as it should feel.

Plus, we get Dr. Pulaski, who actually had more growth as a character in one season that most of the others did in multiple seasons. (Particularly how she views Data from the start to later in the season.)

Season 2 definitely had really bad ones, don't get me wrong. "Up The Long Ladder" and "Shades Of Gray" spring to mind. But some of those can be attributed to the chaos in the writing staff that was going on at the time, not to mention the Writers' Guild strike that occured, which is ultimately why we got 178 episodes instead of 182.

Season 2 had some great ones, like "Where Silence Has Lease", "A Matter Of Honor", "The Measure Of A Man", "Contagion", "Q Who", "The Emissary", and "Peak Performance".

Then you have the danger and mystery of space with episodes like (again) "Where Silence Has Lease", "Unnatural Selection", "The Royale", "Time Squared", and (again) "Q Who".

Season 3 gets a lot of the credit for being the turning point for TNG, and while I do agree with that overall, a lot of pieces that help make it the turning point can be seen in season 2.

I think of season 1 as the rough draft, season 2 as the one that gets the rest of the kinks out, and season 3 as the polishing finish.

 

[Oddish]

Plus, we get Dr. Pulaski, who actually had more growth as a character in one season that most of the others did in multiple seasons. (Particularly how she views Data from the start to later in the season.)

Pulaski remains my favorite Trek doctor, with Phlox being a close second. Tandi is pretty awesome too.

 

[dupersuper]

It was new and finding it's footing, but there are good episodes in season one, as others have said.

 

[Ottens]

Agree with a lot that's already been said here. Season 1 was chaotic in no small part due to Gene's attempts to control everything, which irritated not only writers but also the cast and fellow producers.

That doesn't mean Gene was always wrong. He had to defend what he wanted Star Trek to be.

For example, many writers proposed stories of personal conflict between the Enterprise crew. Gene insisted there should be none. I think that was right. He had his vision of the future, and it was this vision or ethos that kept people watching even though the overall quality of the first season was poor. But from what I've read, it doesn't sound like Gene was a great manager who could gently bring people around to his point-of-view. His vision of "no personal conflicts in the 24th century" certainly didn't apply to the 20th century.

I also agree with those who argue Seasons 1 and 2 were more science fiction, and the show geared toward personal and political stories around Season 3. I suspect that has to do with who was in charge. Robert Justman and Maurice Hurley both left at the end of Season 2 (IIRC), at which point Rick Berman completely took over. Berman's instinct was to play it safe. (I would also argue DS9 was such a great show because Berman was barely involved, and Enterprise was underwhelming because Berman was heavily involved.) That brought popular success. It made TNG more accessible to the general public, but it also made it less edgy.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

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.

But that would only have worked if Berman kept Ron Jones around, instead of introducing that shitty excuse for film music that plagued TNG's second half

 

[Orphalesion]

Plus, we get Dr. Pulaski, who actually had more growth as a character in one season that most of the others did in multiple seasons. (Particularly how she views Data from the start to later in the season.)

If she did, then only because her initial characterization ended up unpopular, so they tried to tweak her into something better. That's often the case with episodic, open ended story telling like that; writers will have more free hand to change things and characters that proof unpopular with the audience, while popular characters and situations are kept more static because they don't want to "mess with a good thing".

I doubt there was a conscious effort to create a character arc for Pulaski other than "let's try to make her come off as less of a harpy"

 

[Ssosmcin]

The first season falls short because it tried too hard to be the original series to the point where it remade episodes.

The Naked Now wasn't even subtle and it was the second episode to air.

Datalore was cheesy because it was The Enemy Within right down to the evil duplicate giving the good one an identical telltale to trick everyone (Kirk's scratches vs Data's twitch) And naming the duplicate "Lore" simply so you can expand on "Data's lore" and put it in the episode title was just cringe worthy.

Home Soil was Devil in the Dark

The Last Outpost had sequences lifted directly from Arena as the Enterprise chased the Ferengi.

Even the second season wasn't innocent. Where Silence Has Lease even baldly asks if any other starship has ever encountered another "zone of darkness" even remotely similar and Data says no. Not only did they create a story that invited comparisons to The Immunity Syndrome, they ticked off some OG Trek fans by not making the connection they made us feel they were leading towards.

Having said that, when it first aired, I ate up every episode because I was happy to have weekly new Star Trek again.

 

[Oddish]

If she did, then only because her initial characterization ended up unpopular, so they tried to tweak her into something better. That's often the case with episodic, open ended story telling like that; writers will have more free hand to change things and characters that proof unpopular with the audience, while popular characters and situations are kept more static because they don't want to "mess with a good thing".

I doubt there was a conscious effort to create a character arc for Pulaski other than "let's try to make her come off as less of a harpy"

Maybe. But we should take character growth any way we can get it.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Regarding the amped up sex in the first season of TNG, a lot of that was Gene being Gene, but 1980’s syndicated TV shows pushed the envelope really hard because they weren’t under the same Broadcast Standards as networks. So TNG sexed things up early on and War of the Worlds was a weekly gore fest. Even The Untouchables had some really explicit sex scenes for broadcast TV. “Conspiracy” with Remmick’s exploding head and steaming, rotting corpse never would have made it on the Big 3 in those days. Eventually, the networks caught up, but for a while, these syndie shows went out of their way to be daring. It’s a shame many of them didn’t have the writing to back it all up with class.

 

[tomalak301]

Plus, we get Dr. Pulaski, who actually had more growth as a character in one season that most of the others did in multiple seasons. (Particularly how she views Data from the start to later in the season.)

I'm glad you said this (And maybe I can post this in the controversial Trek opinion thread) because when fans talk about Pulaski disrespecting Data, I think that's a really dumb argument and they ignore the rest of the season. Yes, Pulaski disrespected Data in one episode, but she came around as the season went to the point where she teaches him about solving mysteries are better than the actual end result or cheering him on as he was playing Kolrami in Peek Performance. I think Pulaski had some of the best character development on the entire show and it was a missed opportunity that she wasn't brought back in the later years. Before Measure of a Man, Data was a toaster, and I thought Pulaski's reaction to him was kind of realistic. She changed, Data also changed, and growth happened. That's what you want for every character, right?

 

[Farscape One]

And I am speaking as a HUGE Data fan. As a kid, I hated Pulaski because of how she treated him. (Also, to be fair, she disrespected him in two episodes... "The Child" and "Where Silence Has Lease", when she asks "It does know what it's doing?" scene when she was asking for magnification on the bridge viewscreen.) As I got older and rewatched the episodes, I found a deeper appreciation of Pulaski for not only her growth but how she slowly changed her mind about him. It was realistic because it was gradual.

 

[PT109]

I love TNG's Early Installment Weirdness and embrace that my opinion is thoroughly colored by nostalgia. Season 1 was the only Trek I had on VHS as a kid. That said, there were a handful of episodes I would avoid even then

ETA: As others have noted, one of the more charming aspects about the season I appreciate to this day is that the universe felt big and mysterious. IMO, there's a wondrous (sometimes ominous) tone about many of those early episodes that gives the season a unique vibe that was lost (for better or worse) when the show grew its beard.

Re: season 2, completely agree with this:

Pulaski had some of the best character development on the entire show

 

[Herbert]

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.

That's not an unusual occurrence on any TV show in its first season. With TNG, the characters weren't fleshed out yet and would go through significant development.

 

[Herbert]

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

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

Mundane is a good way to put it. I could not possibly agree more with that and your 1, 2, and 3 above. You do need some character development I get that but they went way overboard with character-driven stories instead of plot-based stories. I recently watched the documentary, Chaos On The Bridge, and there is a moment when Ronald D Moore, a writer/producer, says that seasons one and two are almost unwatchable. That's complete bullshit and he misses the point of what Star Trek should be. It's that kind of attitude that led to the type of mundane, boring crap that permeates later seasons.

By the way, if anyone hasn't seen Chaos On The Bridge, watch it. Very entertaining. Well worth an hour.

The other thing that bothers me is stories that take the focus away from the main crew. Half A Life is a perfect example of this. Two guest stars become the focus instead of the characters who are the reason we all watch the show. Every time Lwaxana shows up this happens. True Q is another crappy example of this.

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.

Emergence in season 7 is a good example of discovering something new and weird in space. Schisms shows that dangerous and sinister aspect of exploring the unknown.

When watching TOS you feel that idea that most of space is still unknown. In TNG, it tends to feel like one big neighborhood and with a few exceptions, a safe one.

 

[tomalak301]

And I am speaking as a HUGE Data fan. As a kid, I hated Pulaski because of how she treated him. (Also, to be fair, she disrespected him in two episodes... "The Child" and "Where Silence Has Lease", when she asks "It does know what it's doing?" scene when she was asking for magnification on the bridge viewscreen.) As I got older and rewatched the episodes, I found a deeper appreciation of Pulaski for not only her growth but how she slowly changed her mind about him. It was realistic because it was gradual.

Ok, the first two episodes of a 22 episode season. Still, my point remains that when people talk about Pulaski, it's like they ignore the times when she was supportive of Data because of how she treated him at the very beginning. If you're going to judge a character who was only there for one season, you have to look at the big picture.

 

[Captrek]

I think Pulaski had some of the best character development on the entire show and it was a missed opportunity that she wasn't brought back in the later years.

It’s my impression that Diana Muldaur did not enjoy her time on the series and would not have returned if asked.

 

[Farscape One]

I've heard the same thing. Damn shame.

 

[suarezguy]

I think Season 1 was uneven, overall average rather than terrible but I think the flaws were mostly from that some of the characters were overwritten/overplayed, some to the point of being annoying (I think particularly Troi, Data and Wesley and I can also see some people thinking that of Riker), and also the writers were having particular trouble dealing with Roddenberry's desire that there shouldn't be internal conflict (later writers got better with that). Even then most of the characters were interesting and had a lot of moments, potential.

 

[Ottens]

Oh, my goodness - YES! So much Wesley Crusher in Season 1

 

[Mojochi]

It was a different era in broadcasting. In the absense of much sci-fi being on TV, there was a void needing to be filled, & Star Trek was a very well known property by then. Shows, especially ones with high name value , would get much more grace period than today, because it was understood that sometimes they were patching it together & adjusting as they went. The show survived a while on name value & promise, while all the actors figured they were days from being sacked

However, It was by no means dreadful television. I like a lot of those episodes. I feel like in hindsight it looks worse than it was perceived at the time, people were willing to give it a chance to improve. As a result, it did