New Star Trek fan here. I have zero friends that have an interest in the show and I have no clue how episodes are looked at among fans (which are considered classics, which are considered crappy). All I know are IMDB ratings on episodes haha This episode has a 7.3, pretty mediocre rating. I thought it was absolutely excellent and it's one of my favorites of the 80 or so episodes I've watched. What does everyone think of it?
Half a Life
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I think it's one of the top ten TNG episodes.
My opinion of isn't very high mainly because the only thing more annoying than early "comic relief Lwaxana" is later "let's turn her serious Lwaxana". They call it character development. I call it her jump the shark moment. Although, it's still much better than Dark Page. Ugh!
The rest of the episode is okay. Stiers is great, as he usually is. It's also neat to see Michelle Forbes, pre-Ro Laren. Overall, this episode is a skip for me whenever I'm DVR'ing episodes.
The rest of the episode is okay. Stiers is great, as he usually is. It's also neat to see Michelle Forbes, pre-Ro Laren. Overall, this episode is a skip for me whenever I'm DVR'ing episodes.
I'm not a big fan of the episode. I think the premise strains believability and don't find the love affair that interesting. And I think it's a missed attempt to make the episode about cultural adaptability rather than 'Welp, we have to have a good attitude about apocalypse-level ridiculousness cause we're so accepting'.
The basic premise that forced retirement is like "death" is really weak and it doesn't play out. The only remarkable aspect of this episode is that it introduces us to the incomparable Michelle Forbes. Very sexy, very smart. As it turns out, she becomes quite important to TNG and still appears to have left quite a mark on STAR TREK, for so brief a turn she'd had at playing Ro Laren. Lwaxana Troi, however is completely forgettable and episodes like this one, which try to make us like her more, or sympathise with her more, feel very patronising and forced. It's not Majel Barrett's fault, but she was Mrs. Roddenberry, so she couldn't just get summarily dismissed, even in this role.. Were it up to me, I'd have just painted her blue and given her another character to play and just let Lwaxana fade away ...
Yeah, Michelle Forbes (who makes Ro her own and more) is rather a bright spot in an episode that tries to discuss ageism and mandatory retirement but doesn't do it quite right. It tries and everyone gets some halfway decent lines as food for thought, but it still reminds me of "Logan's Run" with "Resolution" being just like a more personalized form of "Carousel".
Not to mention, the hair. Looks like a helicopter. If a bloke played Dara, he'd be called "Huey", known by peers as "Super Huey".
Not to mention, the hair. Looks like a helicopter. If a bloke played Dara, he'd be called "Huey", known by peers as "Super Huey".
Is mandatory retirement the metaphor we're supposed to be taking from this episode? I never saw this one as a hard parallel, like The Drumhead is to McCarthyism. I just saw it as a story about ageism & euthanasia. I mean, Jack Kevorkian was a hot button news topic in the early 90s. Trek hadn't really broached the subject since A Taste of Armageddon, & it's a pretty common sci-fi topic, ala Logan's Run, Soylent Green, etc.... I never really read any deeper into it's meaning than that
I liked seeing that Mrs. Troi had the depth of character that she did.
Everyone always says that she was a joke or annoying.
I always saw her character as a person of depth with a lot of feeling and emotions that she had to keep under control.
Like look at someone like Robin Willuams, the comedian that battled depression his whole life.
He kept that hidden.
I always felt the Lwaxana was keeping secrets and emotions hidden and covering them with bluster, noise and silliness.
Everyone always says that she was a joke or annoying.
I always saw her character as a person of depth with a lot of feeling and emotions that she had to keep under control.
Like look at someone like Robin Willuams, the comedian that battled depression his whole life.
He kept that hidden.
I always felt the Lwaxana was keeping secrets and emotions hidden and covering them with bluster, noise and silliness.
I feel I see this one differently, I feel it's more about like we're not at all supposed to agree with his people's practice, but we're supposed to learn to accept it. I feel it'd be really easy to do if we liked what they're doing, but that wouldn't be the point then, right? You have to not like it and feel it's wrong in order for you to have any sacrifice to accept another culture's way of life. I feel most shows and later series totally miss this concept and don't understand but instead slip into more colonialism type values, like the aliens almost always are wrong and need to learn the "civilized" way of doing things, I do feel TNG was like the last show that really got this right, you know what I mean?
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