Redeeming S1 moments.

[Xhiandra]

So, I've started my TNG rewatch. and it's reminded me that, although S1 is quite rough, with some pretty terrible episodes (not much saving grace to Code of Honor), it has some nice moments, too:

1) For all its silliness, Justice does tackle some pretty weighty subjects. Honestly, aesthetics and some awkwardness aside, it's a pretty good episode. And it has at least a couple of good moments:
- Picard's words upon leaving the planet ring so true:
"There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute. Even life itself is an exercise in exceptions."

- When Wesley and Beverly are reunited. Gates McFadden did a wonderful job in that scene, the emotion from Beverly's reaction seems so real.

2) Hide and Q is a bit of a mess, plotwise, but there is one great moment:
"I know Hamlet. And what he might say with irony I say with conviction. 'What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty. In form, in moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god…'"

Sure, it's mostly borrowed from The Bard, but it's still magnificent.

3) Scattered throughout, 2-3 moments where Geordi's vision is revealed to be useful. Quite a powerful message, the blind man seeing what the sighted characters can't.

I'm early in the S1 rewatch: up to Hide and Q, and I skipped Farpoint because I mostly rewatch Trek during my lunch break (telecommuting due to covid19 has its advantages), so 2-parters are too long for weekdays.

Do you guys have any such moments from S1?

 

[dupersuper]

- the introduction of characters and other elements I would come to love

- I understand the issues with doing this, especially so early on, but I really appreciated the Naked Now TOS callback

- the hints of Picards backstory on the Stargazer in The Battle was cool

- The Big Goodbye is award winning for a reason

- Datalore beginning the trend of Brent Spiner getting to play multiple characters

- Coming of Age/Conspiracy mini-arc

- Heart of Glory was just a good episode

- Wrath of Khan alumni in Symbiosis

- Tasha Yar had a lovely memorial service

- the Bolian captain in Conspiracy (we see far too few alien captains on screen)

 

[JaxsBrokenHeart]

That moment between Picard and his mother In Where No One Has Gone Before is easily the best moment in that episode and one of the strongest scenes in season 1. That combination of Stewart's acting, the lighting, and Ron Jones wonderful score creates a genuinely impactful scene. For a season that was filled with grumpy and or self righteous moments by Picard it was nice seeing a moment of vulnerability and a hint of the more nuanced character he would become.

 

[Seven of Five]

The music was pretty awesome throughout, the season, as was the design of some of the aliens introduced. As botched an introduction as they had, the Ferengi have a very unique look. Look at the Bynars, as well.

 

[Qonundrum]

So, I've started my TNG rewatch. and it's reminded me that, although S1 is quite rough, with some pretty terrible episodes (not much saving grace to Code of Honor), it has some nice moments, too:

1) For all its silliness, Justice does tackle some pretty weighty subjects. Honestly, aesthetics and some awkwardness aside, it's a pretty good episode. And it has at least a couple of good moments:
- Picard's words upon leaving the planet ring so true:
"There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute. Even life itself is an exercise in exceptions."

- When Wesley and Beverly are reunited. Gates McFadden did a wonderful job in that scene, the emotion from Beverly's reaction seems so real.

The episode ended up being trash but there is a neat story about the prime directive in there. McFadden was often underutilized in the show as well.

2) Hide and Q is a bit of a mess, plotwise, but there is one great moment:
"I know Hamlet. And what he might say with irony I say with conviction. 'What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty. In form, in moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god…'"

Sure, it's mostly borrowed from The Bard, but it's still magnificent.

A diamond in the rough. Stewart pretty much nails it.

3) Scattered throughout, 2-3 moments where Geordi's vision is revealed to be useful. Quite a powerful message, the blind man seeing what the sighted characters can't.

^^this, it's #1 in my book and an example of TNG getting it right early on.

"The Naked Now" also lets Geordi be one of two characters to have some depth in character when under the virus and not just being a hornball.

And the intended Geordi/Data "Perceivers" notion was way-cool too.

I'm early in the S1 rewatch: up to Hide and Q, and I skipped Farpoint because I mostly rewatch Trek during my lunch break (telecommuting due to covid19 has its advantages), so 2-parters are too long for weekdays.

Do you guys have any such moments from S1?

Also,

The Binars were way-cool.

The holodeck was a neat idea (though not having seen TAS at the time I thought it was a new creation for TNG.)

The blu-ray revealed the underlying look of season one, especially costuming, which de-beiges quite a lot and makes a lot more stories actually watchable.

Any Ron Jones score, and some of those elevated quality of stories that didn't deserve it.

Brent Spiner as Lore.

Heart of Glory adds to Klingon lore and mystery all while fleshing out some details in the process.

Arsenal of Freedom is a nice snappy episode that expands Geordi's horizons and shows the occasional ship separation can indeed work without culling any drama.

The Battle giving detail to Picard's previous command is definitely what the show needed.

Oh, "season oneisms" are prevalent throughout and some are very grating. The cast combined with enough interesting ideas under the hood kept it at "lukewarm" status instead of "sigh, it's just another uninspired crap faux-sequel of some buried show since everyone's now doing it." And it's those core ideas, and cast, that are redeeming as well.

 

[Alexander Corrino]

I’m a huge fan of most of season 1 (obviously not of “Code Of Honor” tho), it’s my second favorite TNG season, so to me it probably has a lot more redeeming moments than it has for most other people.

What I love the most is the (sometimes unintentional) humor, so I’d just like to throw in some scenes from “Lonely Among Us” (the episode makes me laugh every single time), like when Riker gets “caught” by the Selay and the delegate looks up and down on him and then goes like “Sorry, wrong species” - or at the end of the episode when Jean-Luc is like “whatever, Imma take a nap” when Yar tells him that the delegates aboard his ship are literally eating each other This is exactly the kind of “weird and out there” humor that I like, and the first season in general is filled with it. I just don’t take most of it too seriously and well there we go, enjoyment happens.

Oh and I do want to say I absolutely agree with the mention above of the scene that has Jean-Luc meeting his Maman. I cry every single time. And I don’t really cry usually. But that scene gets to me. It’s so beautiful.

 

[Qonundrum]

I’m a huge fan of most of season 1 (obviously not of “Code Of Honor” tho), it’s my second favorite TNG season, so to me it probably has a lot more redeeming moments than it has for most other people.

What I love the most is the (sometimes unintentional) humor, so I’d just like to throw in some scenes from “Lonely Among Us” (the episode makes me laugh every single time), like when Riker gets “caught” by the Selay and the delegate looks up and down on him and then goes like “Sorry, wrong species” - or at the end of the episode when Jean-Luc is like “whatever, Imma take a nap” when Yar tells him that the delegates aboard his ship are literally eating each other This is exactly the kind of “weird and out there” humor that I like, and the first season in general is filled with it. I just don’t take most of it too seriously and well there we go, enjoyment happens.

Oh and I do want to say I absolutely agree with the mention above of the scene that has Jean-Luc meeting his Maman. I cry every single time. And I don’t really cry usually. But that scene gets to me. It’s so beautiful.

I forgot about that episode, the Antican vs Selay. Riker pops in as a quick morsel, and both sides discuss their eating habits only to be disgusted by the other's. It won't make a main course meal for a story, but it does work as an appetizer.

The ending where the Selay is discovered to be dinner is warped (Futurama did a joke about the same thing) but I was smiling with the TNG scenes at the time. It's an interesting idea, where one species has an actual taste for another. Sci-fi rarely shows this sort of thing to begin with. But I do wonder how they would have treated these concepts in a season 3 style episode where everything was stone-serious as opposed to season 1's. Maybe combine it with season 5's "Disaster" and replace one of the subplots with the one species scouting around for lunch because the barbaric replicators that lack the nutritional value and lack the "fresh ingredients" or whatever stopped working. "Disaster" was a bit narrow in scope and is still a decent outing, but that's the ideal sort of background for having to deal with the old standby trope of "taxicab for two species going to a conference and, oops, one sees the other as a food staple so adventure ensues... On Staaaaaaaaar Trek The Next Generation!" (the newer teaser format was definitely better, but the older ones still have a certain charm... )

 

[at Quark's]

For some reason, I read "redeeming 51 moments" and I was prepared for a very long opening post ....

I always liked where no one has gone before. I mean, yes, it's uneven, and yes the Traveler can be construed to have a pedo vibe. But it also conveys the feeling that space is deeply mysterious, that we should be in awe of its mysteries, and that there are genuinely ancient and perhaps even somewhat "worn out" species out there with knowledge far, far superior to ours. (I never had that feeling with Q, they just felt like a bunch of showy upstarts, relatively new kids on the block).

 

[Gen. Zod]

I love the atmosphere of season one. It just feels like a real continuation of TOS, unlike later seasons, IMO. There's a sense of excitement and freshness that I feel the later seasons lack. I don't know, I can't explain it well, I guess.

 

[think]

IDK is this a good moment or a bad moment in S1?

 

[somebuddyX]

Geordi in the red suit flying the ship.
Wesley's striped sweater.
Geordi commanding the E in "The Arsenal of Freedom."
I remember "Coming of Age" being pretty good. I liked the callbacks to previous episodes and hints to the future. Remmick being a good bloke at the end. Wesley faces his fears, kind of like a Kobayashi Maru or something scenario.
We'll Always Have Paris weird time stuff and the dumb joke that it's a Trek episode with a characters name in the title.
The Stargazer design is pretty dope.

 

[Herbert]

I love Season One (mostly anyway) Season Two as well. The one thing that later TNG seasons tend to lack is the wonder of space exploration. Too many character development episodes. Too much Lwaxana. (honestly, why did they keep bringing her back? and then in DS9 as well??? )

I wish someone had (figuratively) bopped them over the head about season 4 or 5 and said wait a minute where's the TOS style exploration stories? I really believe they could have taken a bunch of stories from the later seasons and instead turned them into "let's explore space" episodes and the entire series would have been stronger for it. After all, didn't Picard say at the end of Farpoint, "let's see what's out there?" They really got away from that as the series progressed and instead we got crap like Sub Rosa and Lwaxana trying to prevent Charles Emerson Winchester's death, and Dark Page, and Liaisons, and Eye of The Beholder, and Conundrum, and many more that I could list.

It's not that I even dislike these episodes (although there are some I despise). Some of them are good stories. It's just that I think the series would have been stronger had they channeled more of the early season or TOS type space exploration stories.

 

[at Quark's]

When seeing those "cheesy" S1 moments back, I'm wondering; did TNG not take itself quite as seriously as it did in later seasons, when it had become a success? (take itself serious as in : not afraid to go cheesy on purpose).

 

[somebuddyX]

Watching "Code of Honor" for the "first" time now. I may have seen it in the 90s but I'm not sure. Some bits I like:

• Yar just flips that guy bringing the vaccine.
• Picard blowing up photon torpedoes 1km above the planet's surface. Wouldn't that still cause some serious effects, like shockwaves, EMP or something?
• CRUSHER: May I speak to you about my son Wesley? PICARD (daydreaming/giving zero fucks): What? (realisation) Oh. Yes. (looking away, thinking great I have to deal with this shit too now and almosts whispers). Alright.
• Crusher says Wesley's hiding in the turbolift because he's banned from being on the bridge. So Picard goes out there and Wesley's like "Sir I haven't stepped foot on the bridge" and Riker comes out of the turbolift with Troi and Data, somehow knowing what's going on and about to morph into attack dog to get rid of Wesley. Did someone call him in the communicator, was Geordi like "Hey Commander that kid's standing in the turbolift holding up traffic to the bridge, can you get up here and sort him out."
• Then Picard tells Wesley to go sit at Ops and everyone including Geordi is like WTF. PICARD: "Is the whole ship deaf?!"
• Data shitting on French to Picard's face.
• Troi seems pretty useful in that she is explaining their customs, behaviours, history etc
• RIKER: Yes, it seems reasonable put that way. But I warn you, if you get hurt, I'll put you on report, Captain. (I like the way Frakes grins and raises his eyes and points at his CO here)
  
• The music in the festivities makes me feel like I'm in Agrabah. Very striking.
• Troi bringing up the prime directive and talking about how Tasha should fight the lady were both good moments. She gets that this star trekking stuff is dangerous but they are all in danger every day they're out here. And getting that vaccine would be worth it.
• Geordi has a space razor! Why is this scene even here? Data is kind of unsettling here, reminds me more of Lore. Telling a joke to Geordi by staring at him unblinking and then stopping him from exiting the room, then forcing him back into the room even while telling that dumb joke, glaring at Geordi. I kind of feared for Geordi's safety. And then Levar has to laugh at Data's slip up but it sounds so forced I kinda want Data to snap and knock him unconscious. And then finally the plot catches up to this filler. lol
• Picard being self aware about the "Picard speech" before it was even a thing. Ha!
• Ensign Youngblood!
• They have a beautiful matte painting for the city with red hued sky even though the planet looks like any other class M and then also have the shittest looking combat arena jungle gym. Yareena's bright silver combat suit is atrocious.
• Wesley's hessian bag sweater and Riker forgot he stuck Wesley at ops at some point during the episode. Don't these people have rosters? There's over a 1000 people on this ship.

This episode was pretty fun! It's not great but I love this kind of crud.

 

[JesterFace]

"Redeem = compensate for the faults or bad aspects of"

Does season 1 really have much to apologize for? It was the 80s. It was the first Star Trek series for a long time.
Some people apparently like season 1. I don't think they have to give any reasons if they do. Latter seasons have their stinker episodes too so the first two seasons weren't the only seasons with material that wasn't great.
I'm not a fan of 1st and 2nd season, apart from 'Q Who' and 'The Measure of a Man'.
But, it has been a very long time since I watched them. a decade? I'm not even sure, I don't remember much if anything of the episodes. At some point I might need to go back and check out how I'm feeling about the episodes much later. Who knows, I might feel completely different about them. Those two seasons could feel like completely new episodes?

 

[somebuddyX]

I'm watching/rewatching them now, after hearing that these were all crap for the past twenty years, and they don't feel that bad. The Naked Now is hilarious and I mean that genuinely.
PICARD: Thank you, Counsellor. Number One, it seems our Security Chief has the equivalent of a snootful.
DATA: Inquiry, sir. Snootful?
PICARD: (internal sigh)Forget it.
Also Picard eyeballing MacDougal when she struts onto the bridge. ಠ_ಠ
I'm a sucker for people acting uninhibited, ie Fascination in DS9, all the episodes of Smallville or Supergirl where Kryptonians are drunk on Red Kryptonite.

 

[publiusr]

The Ent-D felt more like a community than a ship in season one. Though TNG did find itself later on (better uniforms), somehow—it felt...smaller.

 

[somebuddyX]

The Last Outpost has a nice hologram when they're in the Observation Lounge. The Ferengi marauder is a pretty cool design and I wished we'd seen that just once in DS9, perhaps something like an establishing shot in "The Nagus" to indicate Zek flew in on one of these.
The Ferengi battle tactic of jumping on the backs of their enemies and then crouching around like little monkey men is pretty great.

 

[Qonundrum]

View attachment 17369
IDK is this a good moment or a bad moment in S1?

It's both:

Good: A crewmember gets killed off and not in a spoofed by-the-numbers faux-emotional way, it *boom* happens out of nowhere, and not at the end either with cornball muzak.

Bad: Yar had more backstory than most of the crew. It wasn't explored. Combine that with some sledgehammer dialogue*, it's no wonder that Ms. Crosby left.

* Adding in more ambivalence, it is nonetheless heavyhanded for her cheesy season one speech to Wesley about "drugs are bad because everyone on them acts violent hence the rape gangs and people use them to escape blahbetyblah" routine. Season 3 would have done her a lot more justice than episodes like "Justice" for sure...

 

[Qonundrum]

I'm watching/rewatching them now, after hearing that these were all crap for the past twenty years, and they don't feel that bad. The Naked Now is hilarious and I mean that genuinely.
PICARD: Thank you, Counsellor. Number One, it seems our Security Chief has the equivalent of a snootful.
DATA: Inquiry, sir. Snootful?
PICARD: (internal sigh)Forget it.
Also Picard eyeballing MacDougal when she struts onto the bridge. ಠ_ಠ
I'm a sucker for people acting uninhibited, ie Fascination in DS9, all the episodes of Smallville or Supergirl where Kryptonians are drunk on Red Kryptonite.

TNN comes way too close to self-parody, and later episodes would borrow story ideas and go in proper and expansive new ways. The fact it uses proper science (Data to Riker) and how Geordi, Picard, and Yar are given the most proper depth elevates the hornball frat party aspect. Especially as early-TNG needed this type of story to build up characters, which TOS did. Now, if LD did a parody of TNT in the same style, people are accustomed to the show's tone and wouldn't be confused by something so wacky. TNN as a parody isn't a bad idea, but it's another example of TNG season 1 trying to throw anything against the wall to see what sticks. "Justice" is far worse in terms of stories, despite having a more original plot!! Or because of it and it not living up to some potential as the story is so hacked up they have the security chief being way too lax on security, Geordi saying they all screw like bunnies down there yet nobody does anything except get more enthusiastic about sending "the boy"* down there for some "relaxation". Good grief, how that got filmed and aired in the script's current state is remarkable in so many ways**.

* Wesley, who looks "of age" - certainly in most European countries (15) if not the US (16 for most States)
** and all of which are atrocious and horrific. Still, the double entendre with scaring off the teenager girl of the week (presumably also "of age"*, ***) by describing the baseball bat he should have used on the flower garden instead of his butt... again, like TNN, "Justice" would be given justice if LD actually did it and in the same style. We'd all be laughing our heineys off
*** do mind the potential recursive loop, so here's a breakpoint ​

Season one is a mixed bag and the awful stuff is what created the claim that it all sucks royally. Season 3 polishing up on what season 2 brought in and adding its own to it had a kneejerk reaction as well. Like a kid who perfects a craft then looks bad and gets too derogatory. Which isn't a perfect analogy and given Trek was trying the impossible, with "YOU CAN'T REMAKE STAR TREK!" being screamed at the time****, it's amazing of how much TNG did work out of the gate - despite its problems and, yes, there are many. It's just so easy to look back and go "if they did it like this instead: but they did better things instead. And that's what counts.

**** except it's a sequel, not remake...​