Ranking the Episodes of Season One

I have to disagree. Finding the characters strikes me as excuse making. That's something that should be done before shooting starts. Twin Peaks, Star Trek The Original Series, Breaking Bad, Battlestar Galactica, Arrested Development, The Wire... all these shows were strong in their first season. For some of them, the first season was their strongest.

I think it's pretty plain to see that the problems with season one have little to do with the characters not being found yet. The writers commit mystifying blunders of basic rules of storytelling. A and B plots don't match up, episodes are missing entire acts, the stakes don't matter to anyone we care about, the main characters are not important to any resolution of the conflict... these are baffling mistakes for professional writers to make. The show got better when they corrected these mistakes.

And while I agree that season seven was a step down from 3-6, it was not without its excellent episodes. I don't think season one had anything I would call a gem of an episode. Conspiracy comes the closest. Season seven had Parallels, The Lower Decks, The Pegasus and All Good Things.

 

I have never seen BREAKING BAD, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, or THE WIRE, but with the others... first season of TWIN PEAKS, the characters were an extension of the quirkiness of the town, likewise with the second season. Plus, season one was almost entirely written by David Lynch and Mark Frost, so it's easier to have a kind of singular goal or view with less cooks in the kitchen, to use a phrase.

BSG was designed to be serial, and Ronald D. Moore learned a lot from his STAR TREK days and put it to use on BSG so the same mistakes were minimized or not there.

For TOS, I would argue it's easier to write for two or three lead characters and a couple supporting than 9 leads.

 

I can see how they reasoned it out:

Someone must have told them: "Hey, you made an only black planet episode and that could be seen as racist!"
"No problem, we'll make an only white planet episode to compensate!"

Well, I am sorry, but two wrongs don't make a right.

 

I think Wil Wheaton put it best - purely as written, the episode wouldn't really come across as especially racist (some of Tasha's and Yareena's dialogue is still kinda sexist, though that's a different issue), but when combined with some bone-headed decisions in the casting, costuming and set design departments, the end result feels like an awful throwback to old 1940s film serials that depicted Africans as tribal savages.

 

I'm not sure why this is relevant, but at any rate I think it's wrong. The quirkiness of the town was because of the characters. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that plenty of tv shows - including Twin Peaks and Star Trek The Original Series - had strong first seasons.

Finding the characters should be done before shooting, before scripts are finalized. And finding the characters was not the reason the episodes were bad.

 

Maybe not, but it was a factor.

 

Just curious are we going to get a rank season 2 thread. We always talk about season 1 but I would love to see people's opinions about season 2.

 

I'm just about ready to post it.

 

I will defend Naked Now & Farpoint. Farpoint & All Good Things bookend the series perfectly. I mean, Farpoint could obviously be better, but I love the full circle aspect & the tone Farpoint sets about humanity exploring the galaxy being like a child playing with matches.

Conspiracy tops.

S1 is still the worst TNG season by far and in the running for worst Trek season ever.

 

I definitely think Farpoint is extremely important to watch. TNG was fortunate to have been able to finish their series on their own terms, and they did a great job with that last episode.

 

As inarticulate as I am, I still feel the need to point out the merits of season one! TNG's popularity was solidified during seasons 2 and 3, but I think the show did click during the second half of season one. That's where the characters and actors found their natural voice with each other and the awkwardness of the early shows faded. The episodes have a level of suspense, intensity, and awe to them. An episode like "Skin of Evil" is effective horror filmmaking, with suspense and intensity, as silly as Armus may appear to some.

What really sets season one apart is there are more ambitious sci fi ideas in the scripts, much more so than the subsequent seasons, especially as the show began to rely more and more on the Klingons, Romulans, and personal stories. Season one aliens and societies were well conceived and imaginative, and that makes the storylines bigger in my view. The plot lines are simply more interesting. A few examples: Data's backstory in Datalore, The Binars in 11001001, the arms dealer planet in The Arsenal Freedom, the advanced but sterile aliens in When The Bough Breaks, the twisted symbiotic relationship between the Onarians and The Breckians in Symbiosis, Armus's strange backstory in Skin of Evil, and the parasites in Conspiracy.

Jumping ahead to season three, an episode like The Survivors has an original, engaging story, but it lacks the edgniess and intensity in execution necessary to make it memorable. Yesterday's Enterprise, on the other hand, although the parallel universe stuff was done to death, as well as the Klingons and Romulans, has an engaging premise, is well executed and is dramatic.

By the time you get to season 5 the plot synopsis of many episodes are fairly conventional drama. Example: Worf struggles to adjust to being a single parent, Wesley lies to coverup accident and Picard forces him to tell the truth. Good tv but not as imaginative in concept.

 

This is tough for me because, while I know S1 objectively is pretty clunky...I actually personally kind of enjoy it.

Let me give this a stab, starting from lowest to highest in each category (so this is an n-1 ranking if you want to read it that way, banded into categories):

RAT FECES:
Datalore
Code of Honor
Angel One
Justice
Symbiosis

MUNDANE / SNOOZE-INDUCING:
Too Short a Season
Lonely Among Us
The Neutral Zone
Haven
When the Bough Breaks

AVERAGE / REWATCHABLE:
Home Soil
Skin of Evil
Coming of Age
The Big Goodbye
The Battle
Naked Now
Last Outpost
Hide and Q
We'll Always Have Paris

FAVORITES / CLASSICS:
Arsenal of Freedom
Heart of Glory
Encounter at Farpoint
11001001
Conspiracy
Where No One Has Gone Before

Fun exercise...wouldn't mind seeing this for each season actually.

 

I agree with this, particularly the last paragraph.

 

Armus, I think you're right about story ideas. Of course, once you get the characters well established story ideas come easily around them. But season one did have some good sci-fi concepts. The story telling mechanics are what ruin it for me.

I have season two up, and three will be up tomorrow. I am doing video reviews of each season as I go back through them.

I like your list, although I would have Datalore much higher ranked. Other than that, we seem to be on a similar wavelength.

 

Ugh....unfortunately, I actually think Datalore is one of my most disliked episode in the entire franchise. I'm not a huge "Data Fan" so maybe that bias has something to do with it...but the plot illogic and a number of performances always just kill me on that one!

That said, this has been a fun exercise to say the least!

 

There were some plot holes that lower the score for me, but I liked the build up a lot. Good music and some good ideas planted. It didn't resolve as well as it should have.

 

I dislike Datalore because it was one of many first season episodes that made Picard and all the adults dolts to have Wesley come up with all the answers

 

Yeah, that was definitely the weak part of the episode. There were parts I thought were pretty good, though.

 

That's an understandable criticism and I'd be lying if I said I don't get a chuckle out of Lore's threat to turn Dr. Crusher's "little man" into a torch. Of course I didn't really want that to happen but I always enjoy Brent Spiner doing evil or weird and chewing on the deck and scenery.

But yeah Lore must have been pissed at losing to a total cliche plot device. Still can enjoy Spiner pulling double acting duty so this one is rewatchable for me.

 

"As silly as Armus may appear to some." Armus you are being too hard on yourself. No just kidding I couldn't resist because you post under that name.

But seriously you articulate yourself well and you speak for me about the merits of season one and how post season two the show executes better but has fewer ambitious sci-fi ideas.