Moments on TNG that make you cringe.
- Thread starter ED-209
- Start date
Agreed.
Though I did like the 'Microbrain! Growl for me! Let me know you still care!' moment in Q who
This is gonna be soooo nitpicky, but at the end of The Last Outpost (S01E05) when Beverly turns to Picard and reaches over to take his pulse, it always bugs me that she calls him Jean, not Jean-Luc. Like Just Jean. Without fail, all I can think of is:
This is gonna be soooo nitpicky, but at the end of The Last Outpost (S01E05) when Beverly turns to Picard and reaches over to take his pulse, it always bugs me that she calls him Jean, not Jean-Luc. Like Just Jean. Without fail, all I can think of is:
Great catch, and not nitpicky at all!
Early-TNG could be... inconsistent, what with Wil and De and all, but it's too easy to forget the "Jean" incident -- thank you for the memory! 
Could have been worse, imagine Commander Tash, Commander Dat, CMO Beehive, and so on...
I always wish Jean-Luc had once more turned into the VERY proud Frenchman that he is in the first few TNG episodes and had glared at her and said something about how his name is sacred to him and how dare she cut off half of it
I know this is almost a year later, but I got the impression that - retroactively anyway - Picard didn't like kids because he didn't have any. As the series and later movies went on, they made a point out of telling us Picard sacrificed "too much" for his career by not not having a family. "The Inner Light" showed Picard more than happy to have kids. When he thought he had a son in the 7th season, he was disappointed when he discovered it was a ruse by Bok. When Rene died in Generations, they made it clear he regretted not having a family. When the met Jack in P3, he didn't say "well thanks Bev for allowing me to skip the years I would have loathed."
My internal canon makes Picard's rough arrogance a defense mechanism.
Last edited:
I really think that after "The Inner Light", all of the "Picard is no good with children" business should have been scrapped. His flute playing makes it clear that he kept the skill set he picked up during his "time" on Kataan. This included parenting; he raised two children and was involved in the life of his grandson as well.
Unfortunately, people constantly forget that Jean-Luc raised two kids. And the PIC and TNG writers forgot about it as well. (Or, more likely, they all conveniently ignored it because it's easier to throw in some "Picard has massive issues when it comes to having kids" stuff than to actually write a story that confronts the trauma "The Inner Light" must have given him when it took his kids and grandkid away in the blink of an eye.
Now that you've got me thinking about it, the whole "Picard's bad with/hates kids" trope never worked for me. Maybe not so much a cringeface as a confused Scooby Doo noise.
I mean, first of all, "no children on the bridge" is a really reasonable rule. I would assume that Beverly would have said, "no children in the OR" because, y'know, safety.
Even the episodes that are supposed to be like, "look how hard it is for him to be around kids!!" weren't selling it to me. Take "Disaster." Oh, so he snapped at the crying kids in the turbolift? Honestly, I've seen some significantly less stressed-out parents be less patient with their kids while trying to problem-solve. And I think he should get some credit for figuring out that the kids would probably do better in a crisis situation if they had something to do and focus on. That's actually a pretty solid and, dare I say, child development approved tactic.
And don't try to tell me that his chuffed little "I'm a role model" on Captain Picard Day wasn't 100% genuine. He might think it all a little excessive because he's uncomfortable with the attention, but I don't think that's discomfort with the idea that the children look up to him.
Which brings me to his entire mentorship with Wesley. Look, I adore Beverly. I was one of those hard-knock-life kids who grew up watching TNG wishing that the crew would beam me right up and she'd give me a hypospray for the sads. I would have been thrilled to be her kid even though I was dumb as a post and wouldn't have fit into her whole I birth wunderkinds vibe.
BUT there is a moment Evolution where I think Picard kinda out-parents her. Beverly's really laying the whole "Wesley's not being a kid" worry on thick, to the point where I actually did think it was a little cringe.
Picard understands that she's worried, after all she's just been gone a year, but I think he was right to suggest that her anxiety isn't really about her exceptional kid being exceptional instead of doing "average" kid things (that probably wouldn't make him happy anyway...). It's more about her realizing that her son is growing up and doesn't need her the same way, which is not too bad in terms of meets developmental milestones for a teenaged boy. Like damn, that's a pretty astute observation a man who apparently has no concept of or remote interest in the nuances of parenthood.
And don't get me started on how he feels about his nephew, Rene, in the later seasons and in "Generations" where he literally WEEPS.
...anyway, imma head out.
I mean, first of all, "no children on the bridge" is a really reasonable rule. I would assume that Beverly would have said, "no children in the OR" because, y'know, safety.
Even the episodes that are supposed to be like, "look how hard it is for him to be around kids!!" weren't selling it to me. Take "Disaster." Oh, so he snapped at the crying kids in the turbolift? Honestly, I've seen some significantly less stressed-out parents be less patient with their kids while trying to problem-solve. And I think he should get some credit for figuring out that the kids would probably do better in a crisis situation if they had something to do and focus on. That's actually a pretty solid and, dare I say, child development approved tactic.
And don't try to tell me that his chuffed little "I'm a role model" on Captain Picard Day wasn't 100% genuine. He might think it all a little excessive because he's uncomfortable with the attention, but I don't think that's discomfort with the idea that the children look up to him.
Which brings me to his entire mentorship with Wesley. Look, I adore Beverly. I was one of those hard-knock-life kids who grew up watching TNG wishing that the crew would beam me right up and she'd give me a hypospray for the sads. I would have been thrilled to be her kid even though I was dumb as a post and wouldn't have fit into her whole I birth wunderkinds vibe.
BUT there is a moment Evolution where I think Picard kinda out-parents her. Beverly's really laying the whole "Wesley's not being a kid" worry on thick, to the point where I actually did think it was a little cringe.
Picard understands that she's worried, after all she's just been gone a year, but I think he was right to suggest that her anxiety isn't really about her exceptional kid being exceptional instead of doing "average" kid things (that probably wouldn't make him happy anyway...). It's more about her realizing that her son is growing up and doesn't need her the same way, which is not too bad in terms of meets developmental milestones for a teenaged boy. Like damn, that's a pretty astute observation a man who apparently has no concept of or remote interest in the nuances of parenthood.
And don't get me started on how he feels about his nephew, Rene, in the later seasons and in "Generations" where he literally WEEPS.
...anyway, imma head out.
Picard is pretty lucky. Now that Janeway is back in the quadrant, he's still not had the chat:
Janeway: "You think having kids is bad? I had warp ten salamander babies. Try cranking them babies out your birthing canal."
Janeway: "You think having kids is bad? I had warp ten salamander babies. Try cranking them babies out your birthing canal."
Picard’s weird laugh in The Naked Now when he is with Beverly. It’s so out of character and just a bizarre acting choice.
I think the order was "make sure the audience notices your character is basically drunk... USE ANY MEANS NECESSARY" 
As a parent myself, I can attest to the fact that it is entirely possible to be thrilled you have children, love them, and be a good parent and still not want to be around *other people's* kids because they drive you nuts and you are bad at dealing with them. Picard making a good parent himself and Picard not liking to be around kids in general are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
not really a cringe, but was looking for a "suspend disbelief" type thread to post in, and this is the newest/closest thing i've found.
i've recently watched Final Mission, and i can't get over how unlikely it is that they ended up remotely within a survivable dstance of water or shelter in any way shape or form, let alone a magic never-explained fountain. the whole episode suffers for it.
i've recently watched Final Mission, and i can't get over how unlikely it is that they ended up remotely within a survivable dstance of water or shelter in any way shape or form, let alone a magic never-explained fountain. the whole episode suffers for it.
Star Trek has a real problem with that sometimes.
Though I think there are some ways you could handwave it. They headed for a class M world but couldn't do a proper scan due to an intense magnetic field. Class M means it has to be suitable for human life and there's got to be water somewhere, and it could be that they aimed for the source of the magnetic field, putting them within walking distance of the weirdest thing on the planet.
Though I think there are some ways you could handwave it. They headed for a class M world but couldn't do a proper scan due to an intense magnetic field. Class M means it has to be suitable for human life and there's got to be water somewhere, and it could be that they aimed for the source of the magnetic field, putting them within walking distance of the weirdest thing on the planet.
This sort of thing is a problem on a lot of shows. I always laugh at Dallas/Dynasty when people always a seem to know every single phone number by heart and almost never have to look them up. I mean yeah, people used to know the landline numbers of their closest friends and relatives, but EVERYONE? Including random hotels? That's stretching things just a bit too much...
On Trek the problem is always "how convenient that this just happened to be right here where we landed" or "it's within scanning range, also, how convenient". Space is big. So are planets. You don't have the time to have characters look for a thing for hours (unless that's what the whole plot is about). I will admit that I'd have loved an episode in which they just stumble around on some planet for a whole 42 minutes with tricorders in their hands, trying to find something a weird sensor blip told them is there and they end up finding absolutely nothing and encounter absolutely no one because it turns out it was all a sensor glitch
On Trek the problem is always "how convenient that this just happened to be right here where we landed" or "it's within scanning range, also, how convenient". Space is big. So are planets. You don't have the time to have characters look for a thing for hours (unless that's what the whole plot is about). I will admit that I'd have loved an episode in which they just stumble around on some planet for a whole 42 minutes with tricorders in their hands, trying to find something a weird sensor blip told them is there and they end up finding absolutely nothing and encounter absolutely no one because it turns out it was all a sensor glitch
all of that is equally unlikely, though, imo, and wasn't it a bunch of outer moons or something, barely class M? and they were in that weird guys duct-taped together ship, and barely made it down. idk it just really stood out badly to me.
Barely class M is still class M. That's a properly habitable world with an entirely breathable atmosphere created by some kind of local plant life.
