As I've grown older I've really started to like season 2 more and more. It's odd how it's been an age thing for me. And it's not just that I'm a Pulaski fan.
I watched Descent II last night again and while I appreciate it's a "give something for Beverley to do" it really struck me this time what a stupid stupid idea it was.
You have hundreds of families... not sure what the exact split is between crew and family members but it's a family ship. There are kids. Lives at risk in an situation where there's a Borg ship flying about.
You could have put ANYONE with command experience in command... even the lieutenant has more bridge experience than Crusher. Crusher can poke around in some fields looking for Data. There's no need to put a doctor in command of the ship while you have so many crew.
I know she's a commander and all that but sometimes rank is not everything.
You have hundreds of families... not sure what the exact split is between crew and family members but it's a family ship. There are kids. Lives at risk in an situation where there's a Borg ship flying about.
You could have put ANYONE with command experience in command... even the lieutenant has more bridge experience than Crusher. Crusher can poke around in some fields looking for Data. There's no need to put a doctor in command of the ship while you have so many crew.
I know she's a commander and all that but sometimes rank is not everything.
They did go out of their way to point out, in Thine Own Self, that Bev took her command exam a couple years before posting to the Enterprise & periodically commands an off bridge shift, to stay current on tactical & operations, (& cuz she like it) It implies she's always done this (even though I don't think it's ever been mentioned before, & Troi herself seemed to, even by then, still be completely unaware of it, despite having been close friends & shipmates for like 6 years. So, she does (retroactively) have command experience.
I'll admit, it's awkwardly shoehorned into the last season, both her & Troi getting legitimized as Starfleet astronauts, beyond just their healthcare fields. It was sort of a mea culpa for having been so terrible at developing their characters, & it's weird, but IMHO forgivable. It's at least a better explained shoehorning of Bev, to give her something to do, than why TF she does so many scenes as a key figure in repairing or working on Soong type androids, usually alongside Geordi, as if being a medical doctor somehow translates to being a cyberneticist.
Apparently Yaphet Kotto was a name bandied about for Picard.
While I highly doubt the role would evolve into it, but the concept of the First Officer/Number One being the lead on away missions, with the Captain being back on the ship made me think of Kotto’s role as Lt Alphonse “Gee” Giradello, the detective squad commander on Homicide: Life on the Street (AWESOME, and criminally underrated early 1990s cop show, Michelle Forbes was also a latter seasons cast member).
As that is pretty much the gig of any squad commander character on cop programs. Often to the chagrin of the portraying actors, as the detective characters of the ensemble get all the fan glory, press ink and awards
But I wonder if that sort of thing could have worked itself out on a space faring/exploration show. Where the captain character was often sidelined due to heavier, and meatier stuff the crew characters would be getting to do each week.
While I highly doubt the role would evolve into it, but the concept of the First Officer/Number One being the lead on away missions, with the Captain being back on the ship made me think of Kotto’s role as Lt Alphonse “Gee” Giradello, the detective squad commander on Homicide: Life on the Street (AWESOME, and criminally underrated early 1990s cop show, Michelle Forbes was also a latter seasons cast member).
As that is pretty much the gig of any squad commander character on cop programs. Often to the chagrin of the portraying actors, as the detective characters of the ensemble get all the fan glory, press ink and awards
But I wonder if that sort of thing could have worked itself out on a space faring/exploration show. Where the captain character was often sidelined due to heavier, and meatier stuff the crew characters would be getting to do each week.
All hail Pulaski!
I wonder if the S2 reappraisals are in part because some of TNG's "intellectual" content has aged pretty poorly - it doesn't seem too controversial these days to say it's often sophomoric "Picard versus this week's strawman" stuff - while the parts that are just pure high-concept sci-fi look better with age.
There's good stuff throughout TNG but S2 might be the last time everyone involved seemed to want to make something atmospheric and strange where the goal was just to tell genuinely weird sci-fi stories. The bland military stuff, Picard-as-moral-paragon writing, and Special Message episodes really started to crop up in S3/S4 onward, on a rewatch it's pretty astonishing how quickly the show's tone changes after S2.
There's good stuff throughout TNG but S2 might be the last time everyone involved seemed to want to make something atmospheric and strange where the goal was just to tell genuinely weird sci-fi stories. The bland military stuff, Picard-as-moral-paragon writing, and Special Message episodes really started to crop up in S3/S4 onward, on a rewatch it's pretty astonishing how quickly the show's tone changes after S2.
Don’t discount the strike as part of the quality dip. Which is why they used warmed over Phase II material and a clip show.
Productions being rushed, and not given the usual time to be fleshed out into watchable popcorn entertainment, or decided to be tabled altogether for another time, is a recipe for generally being considered a bad year overall.
I could maybe buy this if Season 2 wasn’t home to some of TNG’s most on-the-nose “moral dilemma of the week” and Picard speechifying episodes.
But I agree that Season 2 overall continues the tone of mild horror that some S1 episodes hinted at - WNMHGB, Conspiracy and We’ll Always Have Paris. The show would come back to this in the future, particularly with Joe Menosky and Brannon Braga, so I think it’s a mischaracterisation to say that S2 has comparatively more high-concept episodes.
The main difference is that S3 onwards focused more on character, which led to some of those mid-season bottle shows which came off as rather soap opera - Worf being a bad parent etc.
Take an episode like Peak Performance or A Matter of Honor - both fun, action-packed episodes. But there’s not really anything that our characters learn from them. They just confirm that Riker is awesome. In the latter, the character who gets to develop is a guest who we never see again.
Yeah, after I hit post I remembered "Measure" and "Pen Pals"!
I suppose it's more about the moment-to-moment texture of the show - it's not settled into the sedate mood it develops later on, and still feels tonally weird and unsettled.
A lot of it's on the production side; "Time Squared" is a fairly standard script but turns into something compellingly nightmarish in the way it's filmed and acted, in a way I don't think anything else does afterward. It's interesting to look at S4's better episodes like "Remember Me", "Night Terrors", etc because on paper they're as good as anything in S2 but something about them just doesn't quite land in the same way.
that and what happened to Troi's sister
Must be the first time I've ever seen 'Night Terrors' cited as a good episode! 'Remember Me' is fun, but it's more of a standard "something strange is going on" anomaly of the week story.
I think a good example is maybe 'Identity Crisis', which has a really weird atmosphere at times - the holodeck scene especially. It's uncanny and has the body horror aspect. There's also 'Schisms' which is pretty X-Files, and 'Frame of Mind' is one of TNG's weirdest episodes. And then there's 'Genesis'!
Well, maybe if they were only travelling temporally for the time-jump, there would be no other matter in the vortex? And once they’re through they can just slowly limp over to Spacedock on impulse.
I have cited many times that "Night Terrors" is a good episode.
Because it is. Great and unsettling atmosphere, good acting, great concept... it checks all the boxes.
Apologies, I defer to your judgement. I must have seen the wrong version with the confusing and aimless script that ends with Marina Sirtis doing some terrible wire work.
Because cool?These doors. Why this shape, noises, the latching things, and the "vents"?
In-universe, on might posit a reinforced airlock door to protect against the vacuum of space should the exterior shuttle or cargo bay doors and forcefields fail.
And they're on holodecks because PIC revealed they are apparently protected refuge areas.
Last edited:
I've always found them intriguing. More sturdy when the pressure changes in there, not like the flimsy regular doors that Quinn threw someone throughThese doors. Why this shape, noises, the latching things, and the "vents"?
But I've wondered what the slits are supposed to be. Closed, because they were often black and sometimes white, or open, because it also seemed like you can look through sometimes? Maybe it's simply to equalize pressure when needed. But why sometimes white and sometimes black?
Also love their sound more than the regular door sounds.
I've always thought that part. Lwaxana is overly needy, because she lost pretty much her whole family, dead daughter, widowed & then Deanna leaves for Starfleet.
I just thought Deanna being lesser at her mental facilities than other Betazoids might be a new slant on her mom's intrusiveness, treating her as delicate
Similar threads
