Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread
Watched Symbiosis and Skin of Evil tonight. I really want to talk about Skin of Evil, but the one thing I will say about Symbiosis was I thought Picard was in the right in terms of how the prime directive is suppose to be interpreted.
Anyway, Skin of Evil. This is mostly known as the episode they killed Tasha Yar, but in watching it tonight (And I've been seeing these episodes kind of as if they were new) I couldn't help but think this one really was one of the better episode of the season. It was definitely the highlight of Troi's season. I've always hated Counselor Troi, at least before the movies and Voyager, even though that hate became kind of tolerable when she got the uniform. The reason for this hate is because I thought she was more often than not, useless, or as I like to call her "Queen of the Obvious". However, I really thought Skin of Evil was the episode were the writers finally used her the right way. She wasn't always interrupting the conversation, but really using Armus's psychological well being against him and I thought it was some of Sirtis's best work in the early going. I think we can all agree that "Face of the Enemy" was Troi's best episode (even though I would like to know, what is everyone's favorite Troi episode), but I do think Skin of Evil deserves to be up there, not to mention it's Sirtis actually as Troi instead of a Romulan Tal'Shiar agent.
Also, I really liked the concept of pure evil. TNG really did explore some dark things in the early going, be in the 21st century court of horrors, or blowing someone's head off, but this episode explored the meaning of true evil and I really liked that.
As for the funeral scene, I actually got choked up during that scene. I've really crapped on Denise Crosby in this thread (Again, all that crapping on her will cease if they manage to interview her again for the Season 3 or 5 sets and she explained her change of mind and attitude towards TNG and the franchise as a whole. I just want to hear how someone who seemed to hate her time on the show so much went on to become one of the more pivotal actresses of the franchise in terms of marketing it) but that was a great scene and summarized the characters pretty well.
I only have 3 episodes left, but I'm really liking a lot of season 1. It just feels like the show had a different feel in Season 1 than it did in it's "popular" years and I'm enjoying a lot of the episodes again, even though I have just seen them in the last year on DVD.
