The Final Days of "Star Trek: The Next Generation"

[Orphalesion]

Well, again, I think most things, Q does that involve some sort of strange location or alternate timeline Q does are an illusion.

 

[Oddish]

Q is not God (the universe is not so badly designed), but that doesn't mean he doesn't work in mysterious ways.

 

[drt]

Well, again, I think most things, Q does that involve some sort of strange location or alternate timeline Q does are an illusion.

I concur. Q is a trickster, I don't know why anything he does should be taken as any kind of truth. The only thing that can't be explained as illusion was sending Enterprise to meet the Borg, but off the top of my head, the Metrons and Kalandans did the same without anyone thinking they were omnipotent.

 

[Orphalesion]

I concur. Q is a trickster, I don't know why anything he does should be taken as any kind of truth. The only thing that can't be explained as illusion was sending Enterprise to meet the Borg, but off the top of my head, the Metrons and Kalandans did the same without anyone thinking they were omnipotent.

Exactly and in that scenario (the Borg encounter) Picard even explicitly asks him whether it was "just one of his illusions", if that wasn't Q's usual way of doing things, then Picard would have had no reason to ask that.

My pet theory is that the Q are in possession of some sort of (possibly artificial) pocket dimension that's basically like an even more advanced holodeck in which Q could create all his strange scenarios from the Post-Atomic Horror courtroom to the Robin Hood LARP.
Though they definitely can move matter as well (in and out of that pocket dimension and in real space)
In other words they don't have "magic" so much, in my interpretation, just sufficiently advanced technology.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Is there ever a sense that Q has 'taken' someone somewhere and people back in the real world notice their absence?

In the case of Tapestry, Picard was on an operating table, knocked out at the time. I suppose it could have all been in Picard's head. I'd just never thought of it before.

But then when I think maybe it is illusions, I remember he threw the Enterprise a long way off course and that the subsequent Borg encounter was not only real but had lasting consequences.

 

[JesterFace]

Is there ever a sense that Q has 'taken' someone somewhere and people back in the real world notice their absence?

Maybe the trips Q makes to different times only take a second or less in the "normal" timeline so no one notices?

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I suppose so. Like, the whole thing takes place in a split second in the heads of those involved.

But then there's the Borg thing. it definitely happened. I suppose PIC S2 adds weight to the not an illusion thing.

Can we say "sometimes an illusion?"

I'm not sure that we will ever know the limits of his power.

 

[Qonundrum]

What was once the Roddenberry Box came to be known as the Piller Box. Piller was scrupulous about upholding what he perceived to be Roddenberry's vision. The most of the same restrictions that writers complained about whilst Roddenberry was alive were still in place during production of Voyager.

I think sometimes it seems like Roddenberry's death led to a writing revolution because it coincides with the start of DS9. The setting of DS9 and ISB being creative within Piller's box makes it appear that the franchise turned a corner, but while DS9 was pushing boundaries, TNG was serving up the same old with Voyager being a reskinned TNG a few years later. Then in Voyager they tried to push against the Piller box with the Maquis, but it didn't take long for the box to wall everything in...

I tend to think TNG got better after Season 2 because the show started to hit a groove. The actors knew their characters and the writers reciprocally developed that. The uniforms got smartened up. Those behind the cameras weren't learning on the job anymore and they had a better idea of what shots worked, what effects were possible and how much time X or Y would take. Some consistency in the writing team helped as well. Seasons 1-2 had a very nasty revolving door for writers. It's quite horrible to read about the weird politics that were going on during those early years.

In fact what the link between Roddenberry's death and the uptick in quality is probably more attributable to the fact that it meant he wasn't around actively hindering everyone in their jobs with the aid of his lawyer rather than a lifting of writing restrictions.

The only downer is that they swapped lighting directors; seasons 1 and 2 may have had some goofy camera angles revealing black cardboard to shroud light fixture reflections in some scenes, but most camera angles were done better and the result was a lot more visually complex (yet not busy) with shadow detail. Now compare to the blindingly bleached blanket of 5000K white flooding the entire set and it's amazing they didn't all have to wear sunglasses on set. That reminds me, it's time to whip out Photoshop again...

 

[Orphalesion]

The only downer is that they swapped lighting directors; seasons 1 and 2 may have had some goofy camera angles revealing black cardboard to shroud light fixture reflections in some scenes, but most camera angles were done better and the result was a lot more visually complex (yet not busy) with shadow detail. Now compare to the blindingly bleached blanket of 5000K white flooding the entire set and it's amazing they didn't all have to wear sunglasses on set. That reminds me, it's time to whip out Photoshop again...

Yeah the early seasons had some interesting lightning and camera angles, the lightning in the later seasons really added to the monotone "early 90s beige" aesthetic season 6 and 7 had going on (an aesthetic that would later be perfected by Voyager )