S1-2: Exploring Space!
S3-6: Exploring Ethical Conundrums and Weird Concepts!
S7: Exploring Family Members of the Crew!
The Final Days of "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
- Thread starter Danja
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S1-2: Exploring Space!
S3-6: Exploring Ethical Conundrums and Weird Concepts!
S7: Exploring Family Members of the Crew!
I quite like Season 7. I would have loved more of that instead of the 4 films.
First Contact was the best film because it was the most like the series. And the fan service: the Borg, the Defiant, the holodeck, Worf's cutlery, and even a cameo by the EMH.
It could have easily been folded into the greater series as a whole. And Insurrection could have been a two-part episode as well.
And mostly boring as hell
My controversial opnion is that its downhill after Season 4, maybe even Season 3. I enjoyed the first couple years quite a lot. I preferred Pulaski. I liked the mood and the music and the TOS-ness in the adventures. I don't feel that the show ever reached the peak of The Best of Both Worlds again. I despise Generations and everything about it. I much prefer the first 3.5 seasons to the last 3.5 seasons, 100%.
I think you could make a real case that the writing became more broad, emtional and character based after season 4 as the show increased in popularity the intellectual nature of the show suffered and the crew gradually became more humorous and informal. Some of this is obviously because of the actors deepening their professional relationships but by the films most of the characters in TNG resembled the actors personalities much more than their original characterizations in the inceptions. Season 2 was a particular favorite of mine as it was the first I watched as it aired and the good episodes of season 2 are REALLY good. I liked Pulaski as a character a lot and it benefited the show to have a McCoy type skeptic but the actress was quite a bit older and the nature of Gates' firing was classic awful Hollywood so it was a mess all around.
I could not possibly agree more.
Humor is fine as long as it doesn't develop into a sitcom. Even TOS had plenty of humor but once TNG started to branch out more to character development and brought in more guest stars, and family of crew members, the style really changed and not in a good way. In some ways, they took the Star Trek out of Star Trek. Some of those scripts could have been, with a few modifications, written for any contemporary drama show, instead of a show set in the future, in space.
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Only because they weren't Captain Zbornak, First Officer Nylund, Doctor Petrillo, and Counselor Devereaux... And of course, Neelix's one-off best friend and co-butler Coco...
Sounds like the finale was very rushed, a mad scramble of revisions. I had assumed they’d always planned to have Q episodes as bookends framing the series, but more likely it was just a last-minute decision.
I wonder what Q meant to the writers, beyond a useful plot device…. an extension of the Squire of Gothos? the Trickster in Native American lore? Loki the mischief-maker in Norse mythology? The Accuser, in Judeo-Christian tradition, always putting humanity on trial? Seems like he becomes an almost benevolent guide at the end….risking the wrath of the Continuum to help Picard through the paradoxes of time travel.
Erm... how? I liked the movie, but found the transition from 'philosophical' Picard, the Picard that sent Hugh away without destructive program, to 'action hero Picard', the one that says killing recently assimilated people is doing them a favor, and refusing to give up his ship even if that probably means assimilation of Earth by the Borg (until talked out of that by Lily) rather jarring. Generations Picard was much closer to TNG Picard even if the movie itself was perhaps less.
I don't like First Contact because I do not recognise many of the characters I love from TNG in it.
Poor TNG Movies. Someone must love em'all.
Poor TNG Movies. Someone must love em'all.
Because it brought back the most of what made the shows what they were.
* The Borg, similar to how they were in "Best of Both Worlds"
* Time travel, a reliable winner.
* An epic space battle.
* The Defiant, and Worf. They actually explained his presence, and a shoutout to DS9 to boot.
* The holodeck, and Picard's Dixon Hill program.
* Worf's Klingon cutlery.
* Reginald Barclay, kind of sticking his foot in it.
* The EMH as himself, and a sneak cameo by a makeup-freee Neelix, a nice shoutout to Voyager.
* A bit of lowbrow physical comedy, when Troi gets drunk.
* Data's continued quest for humanity, this time with the reality of human touch.
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This !
* Time travel, a reliable winner.
* An epic space battle.
* The Defiant, and Worf. They actually explained his presence, and a shoutout to DS9 to boot.
* The EMH as himself, and a sneak cameo by a makeup-freee Neelix, a nice shoutout to Voyager.
* A bit of lowbrow physical comedy, when Troi gets drunk.
Well, the question was how First Contact was most like TNG. These points don't really support that. Just the opposite. TNG wasn't known for epic space battles, time travel (they did it but not on a regular), the Defiant (which wasn't a thing yet), anyone from Voyager (again it wasn't a thing yet) or lowbrow comedy. Well, at least outside of The Outrageous Okana.
It was, honesty, a departure from the original series.
* An epic space battle.
* The Defiant, and Worf. They actually explained his presence, and a shoutout to DS9 to boot.
* The EMH as himself, and a sneak cameo by a makeup-freee Neelix, a nice shoutout to Voyager.
* A bit of lowbrow physical comedy, when Troi gets drunk.
Well, the question was how First Contact was most like TNG. These points don't really support that. Just the opposite. TNG wasn't known for epic space battles, time travel (they did it but not on a regular), the Defiant (which wasn't a thing yet), anyone from Voyager (again it wasn't a thing yet) or lowbrow comedy. Well, at least outside of The Outrageous Okana.
It was, honesty, a departure from the original series.
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Thank you for saying what I wanted to say. While I certainly can understand why he would like FC because of these points, I don't see how it was most like the series for those reasons.
I'd also like to add the Borg to this list. The way they are brought here (chatty Borg queen that tries to seduce you) is pretty fundamentally different from the faceless threat you couldn't even have a decent conversation with in TNG. Even though I can understand that shift to provide both Data and Picard with a concrete antagonist for narrative reasons.
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First Contact was a zombie movie in space, and had very little to do with TNG..
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I'd have said Insurrection is the TNG movie most like a feature-length TNG episode. Not that this is necessarily a mark of quality of course – arguably The Final Frontier is the TOS movie most like a feature-length TOS episode and I prefer to ignore it completely – though I do think Insurrection is unfairly maligned, and the production team deserve some credit for going with something original and not simply aiming for First Contact 2.
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