I do not consider TOS "corny." After years of rabidly watching all the Trek spinoffs, TOS is the only one that I revisit regularly. I'm tired of all the other Trek serieses. That is my thought and opinion.
Kor
Has TNG Aged Well?
- Thread starter KirbyHawk
- Start date
Kor
For me, pretty much every aspect in which TNG has aged "poorly" also serves to add charm when I rewatch (so maybe that actually means it's aging well, depending on how you look at it)... except one thing. I can't believe how often Troi gets quasi-sexually-violated via her powers! The gross implications of that went right by me when I was a kid, but a recent rewatch of "Nemesis" really drove it home. Troi's mind violation in that one is particularly off-putting, and I was struck by just how frequently her role in the story was to be vulnerable to horrible trauma or possession. If you presented the same character in the same stories today, it would launch a thousand internet think pieces.
If they ever do a Kelvin-style reboot of TNG, that also makes Troi's character particularly fertile territory for modern reinvention.
If they ever do a Kelvin-style reboot of TNG, that also makes Troi's character particularly fertile territory for modern reinvention.
I will admit that one episode that has probably dated the worst for TNG, in light of what I've already said, is The Arsenal of Freedom, which I find at the same time has aged considerably well and contains one of my all-time favorite shots of the Enterprise-D: the bird's-eye view of the ship entering the atmosphere. Ever since I first saw the episode in the early-90's, that always stood out to me as a very top-notch special effect. But then it was backed by what was easily the most dated planet set ever, where you could tell that the actors were standing in front of real and fake plants that were meant to represent a planet, but the sky behind was clearly fabric with blue colored light flooding it. Even in SD that set just stands out like a sore thumb. Hide And Q's green planet was bad, but the blue sky was just terrible. I'm just glad that they dropped the planets on stage by early Season 3 when The Ensigns Of Command was the last episode to use a stage as a planet. Those types of sets looked alright on TOS back in the 60's, but by the 80's they were outdated by shooting on location. Like TNG's Justice or, I can't think of the name, but the season 3 episode where the Immortal keeps destroying his home.
Sure, but I think that's confusing a couple of separate things. TOS, by most definitions, is dated and corny (i'd love to see a definition that wouldn't conclude that, but let's put that aside for sec). But it's also a lot of fun. It's okay to enjoy corny, campy things. You can even find meaning or heroics in camp. Nobody gets to say you can't like something.
It's also never as simple as dated/not dated. TNG has some very dated or cheap aspects (see: any civilian clothing). Yet the same episodes with 80's hair and $5 costumes also has fairly current touch screen interfaces and downright timeless stories. Is TNG or TOS dated? Yes. No. Not really. All of the above.
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It's not just Troi....Riker gets a large number of things inside his head with unpleasant ramification throughout the show. Oddly they never did one where his link with Deanna means they both get the same issue. Nemesis should have had a scene where both of them just take to Ron Pearlman with some Ambojitsu sticks though after that scene. Riker is also physically violated in Night Terrors (EDIT: Schisms) basically, in Brannon Braga land, it's bad for Troi and Riker. And Seven, but only in his post Trek post Relationship comics.
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I think the best episodes aged very well but not every episode did. Our cultural experiences make it harder to accept that you can always behave perfectly principled and expect a positive outcome against those who are not. The Treaty of Algernon in particular seems a lot more ridiculous now than it did back then, that we could avoid a war by giving up an overwhelming tactical advantage.
Aesthetically it's aged, in terms of how everything looks and sounds, and their pads seem less impressive than modern tablets. But I think aesthetic age can be ignored as long as the writing speaks to universal human experiences, which in the good episodes it does a lot more than most other TV shows around the same time.
I don't think you can show it to kids and have them take to it because modern TV and movies provide constant stimulation, and some TNG episodes are based around talking and the climax is somebody stepping down or agreeing to be reasonable or characters nervously watching the numbers go back to normal. But, when they're a little older, they've started to get tired of what's popular and they're trying to branch out and find out what else is out there, I think they could still enjoy TNG.
Aesthetically it's aged, in terms of how everything looks and sounds, and their pads seem less impressive than modern tablets. But I think aesthetic age can be ignored as long as the writing speaks to universal human experiences, which in the good episodes it does a lot more than most other TV shows around the same time.
I don't think you can show it to kids and have them take to it because modern TV and movies provide constant stimulation, and some TNG episodes are based around talking and the climax is somebody stepping down or agreeing to be reasonable or characters nervously watching the numbers go back to normal. But, when they're a little older, they've started to get tired of what's popular and they're trying to branch out and find out what else is out there, I think they could still enjoy TNG.
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Tell that to Japan.
I think it aged well.
Nothing specific, I think we like to look at out I/pads and assume that this is an advantage over what they use on the show for example.
But we don't really know what they are 'using' now do we?.
We like to think that our cool junk that takes pictures are soooo cool and great. The graphics are fantastic! Lol.
I hope that we all advance past this superficiality in the future.
Possibly that's what it will take for us to advance as a race.
Nothing specific, I think we like to look at out I/pads and assume that this is an advantage over what they use on the show for example.
But we don't really know what they are 'using' now do we?.
We like to think that our cool junk that takes pictures are soooo cool and great. The graphics are fantastic! Lol.
I hope that we all advance past this superficiality in the future.
Possibly that's what it will take for us to advance as a race.
Sure, but that brings up the whole debate over whether Japan's Defense Force is a military or not.
Kor
For me the TNG cast of characters was one of the main weaknesses of the series.
With the exception of Picard, the TNG cast was bland, subdued and technocratic. I didn't see the passion in the acting of the TNG cast that I saw in TOS. Some may consider TOS corny. But the TOS characters were colorful and there was passion in the acting. Maybe some of the TOS acting was hammy, but I enjoyed it.
I remember "Relics". It was one of my favorite TNG episodes. The contrast between Scotty and Geordie, and basically the rest of the TNG characters, was stark. Scotty was colorful and lively, just like he was in TOS. Geordie was as usual aloof and technocratic. This difference illustrated the distinct styles of the two series.
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Amaris
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True, but I couldn't help but smile when the two mended fences. It just felt right.
I think it's reasonably OK having finished the series over December / January. It was nice to watch this show again from beginning to end minus a few episodes I really wanted to avoid.
However there was one costume, and I'm trying to remember the episode the aliens had large hands and the fingers were literally drawn onto the hands and it was almost as of they were trying to have fun with the audience by not realizing how fake that looked. The hand shapes were there but the fingers were drawn on.
However there was one costume, and I'm trying to remember the episode the aliens had large hands and the fingers were literally drawn onto the hands and it was almost as of they were trying to have fun with the audience by not realizing how fake that looked. The hand shapes were there but the fingers were drawn on.
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The Ensigns of Command wasn't the last episode to use a stage as planet, they kept doing it until the end of the show. In fact, I think Preemptive Strike uses the same set as The Ensigns of Command!
What changed was Marvin Rush masterful lighting of those sets. The Inner Light, with the exception of some shots, was filmed on a set, can you believe that? It really feels like they're outside, but they aren't.
Even if some episodes didn't look as good, such as I Borg, the improvement is palpable.
Jonathan West kept up the good work when Marvin Rush left for DS9 and then VOY.
Regarding the OP, I think seasons 3-7 still hold up quite well even if it looks somewhat dated after all these years.
A show that has held up quite well is Stargate SG-1, hard to believe it's nearly 20 years old.
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So true, I never get tired to watching it. My only disappointment how they wrote off the Tok'Ra
I get production values budget and set design. But it always bugged me that the shuttlebays were huge empty rooms and the doors were at right angles to the floor when the exterior shots clearly show the doors should be on an angle.. Voyager did this too.
It has aged very well. It's difficult for me to be objective, because I enjoy old shows and don't care if they look corny by latest standards, it's all about ideas for me. However, my girlfriend has never seen Star Trek until 2017, I introduced her to The Cage (TOS) and it was too dated for her (she's 27) even though she liked the premise. But after I showed her several TNG episodes, she actually got really into it, to be point of asking if we can watch some Star Trek - great win for me. She asked how old the show was and it surprised her, she thought it was more recent. But I'm being very selective in what episodes I show.
If you like Star Trek for the Sci Fi ideas, then I don't think that it really matters how it looks, that's just a bonus. I love TOS and watch it all the time, even though I was born over two decades after it was cancelled.
The worst one to age, imho, is Voyager, just because how relatively recent it is, yet it looks like it was made in the 80s. What's with the bulky laptops? It's supposed to be the 24th century. I can see the makers of TOS not consulting the few futurists that existed back then, but Voyager's computers looked older than the ones that were actually in use at the same time in the 20th century.
For those who watch ST for action scenes... I think those suck in all the reincarnations, to be honest. OK, the explosions are pretty cool in the reboot movies, but it's hardly the reason to enjoy STAR TREK.
If you like Star Trek for the Sci Fi ideas, then I don't think that it really matters how it looks, that's just a bonus. I love TOS and watch it all the time, even though I was born over two decades after it was cancelled.
The worst one to age, imho, is Voyager, just because how relatively recent it is, yet it looks like it was made in the 80s. What's with the bulky laptops? It's supposed to be the 24th century. I can see the makers of TOS not consulting the few futurists that existed back then, but Voyager's computers looked older than the ones that were actually in use at the same time in the 20th century.
For those who watch ST for action scenes... I think those suck in all the reincarnations, to be honest. OK, the explosions are pretty cool in the reboot movies, but it's hardly the reason to enjoy STAR TREK.
I think if you separate the majority of the first two seasons of TNG, it has aged incredibly well. The first two seasons have aged poorly not because of low production value, but rather because they are just poorly written and executed. There are some exceptions, of course - "The Neutral Zone" and "Measure Of A Man" being two of the best episodes of Star Trek ever produced.
The later seasons of TNG was pretty revolutionary at the time, though. Especially once you get the sense that the cast really started to gel after some initial rocky relationships, TNG is marvelous. The addition of Guinan gave the series some staying power, and even Wesley evolved into a genuinely interesting character. I think TNG in general is second perhaps only to M*A*S*H in terms of TV shows that have aged wonderfully.
Blame the 90s, not Voyager. I find the 1990s aesthetic to be so ugly and unnecessary. Voyager's interior design is great, but every time I saw someone in a non-Starfleet uniform I just scream "OH MY GOD I HATE THE 90s!!!" In fact... I think it might just be the fashion angle... The shoulder pads, the weird patterns on clothing. DS9 and VOY both had these issues. TNG kind of got around it by starting in the 1980s, and also by sticking to a rather minimalist aesthetic with their interior design and costuming choices. DS9 and VOY were both like "How busy can we make everything look? Add random textures and patterns to every surface of this scene!"
The later seasons of TNG was pretty revolutionary at the time, though. Especially once you get the sense that the cast really started to gel after some initial rocky relationships, TNG is marvelous. The addition of Guinan gave the series some staying power, and even Wesley evolved into a genuinely interesting character. I think TNG in general is second perhaps only to M*A*S*H in terms of TV shows that have aged wonderfully.
Blame the 90s, not Voyager. I find the 1990s aesthetic to be so ugly and unnecessary. Voyager's interior design is great, but every time I saw someone in a non-Starfleet uniform I just scream "OH MY GOD I HATE THE 90s!!!" In fact... I think it might just be the fashion angle... The shoulder pads, the weird patterns on clothing. DS9 and VOY both had these issues. TNG kind of got around it by starting in the 1980s, and also by sticking to a rather minimalist aesthetic with their interior design and costuming choices. DS9 and VOY were both like "How busy can we make everything look? Add random textures and patterns to every surface of this scene!"
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