The only way one can find TNG not to be the best trek series is if
- Thread starter tobindax
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I'll take these one at a time and do a comparison to DS9 since thats what youre doing.
1. TNG did actually have conflict among its characters. I dont know why people say that they didnt. Episodes like The Enemy which i just watched last night where Worf actually lets a guy die when he can save his life. They mention it again a few episodes later in the Defector. DS9 had a lot of CONTRIVED conflict that made the crew look like a bunch of babies in more than a few episodes.
2. Meh, I'll say for the most part that these seasons werent great but they each produced some real gems. Frankly, I dont think that DS9s 1st two seasons were anything to write home about either. Ive seen that most of the DS9 forum agrees.
3. TNG was intended to be a sort of homage to TOS. Thats why its called "The Next Generation." DS9 is not inherently better just because it takes place on a space station.
4. I completely disagree with you. Picard showed a hell of a lot of depth when confronting Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, etc. And he did have sex, just not with many of his crewmen, except on which didnt go too well.
5. TNG humor was actually interlaced into the rest of the episode in one liners. I always hated those zany Ferengi comedy episodes in DS9 and Voyager. Go watch Deja Q or the first couple of minutes of Booby Trap for classic (and actually funny) humor.
6. White bread can not be a character on anything. If you mean white BRED, they changed quite a bit in the transistion between 1st and 2nd season and then 2nd and 3rd. Remember this is at a time when arc based TV in the US was a new concept.
7. Again we disagree. I think that everyone had excellent chemistry with each other and they all had their chances to shine.
8. DS9 had an ensemble feel? Where was Jake ever? Nog practically took his place. Characters in DS9 interacted only with certain other ones like Bashir and O'Brien. Sisko and Kira. Dax and Worf, etc. TNG had a more ensemble feel. Everyone got paired up with everyone at some point.
9. No great dynamic between Riker and Picard. I dont even know what that means.
10. If you like these shows better, i guess thats up to you, im not going to deny that they are all great shows.
11. Im with you on some of the movies, they were pretty disappointing but i tend to think that if DS9 had done movies at all, they would have suffered the same fate.
12. Again, TNG was fascinating to me and it pushed the bubble of what TOS had done by adding character and story arcs.
13. If DS9 had been a better show, it would have succeeded above its competition. A show is considered "good" if its stories are good, not based on what it was competing against.
14. Most shows from the 80s look dated. Most shows from the early 90s are starting to look dated. DS9 will have its time too! Again, its not a comment on the quality of the show.
I disagree with most of your points.
Ah, thank you. I thought it was a year earlier for some reason.[/quote]
I think GR was pretty much out of the loop, though, after season 2.
The big change for TNG was when Michael Pillar came aboard for season 3 and took over the writing staff. He's the guy, imo, that saved TNG and made it a big success. If it had kept going the way it had been, I'm not sure it would've lasted.
You're still hungover in the afternoon?!?!??!
Smeos, you've got to dial it back! That's not good for anyone! And I can kind of understand why you like the remastered versions. That was the whole point of them putting in the new digital effects, to make them more palatable to viewers who grew up with digital effects and the like.
It's a funny thing though. When SW came out, I was a very young kid. I could see that the effects and production were a lot better than ST, but, y'know, I didn't really care. I liked them both. Now, as an adult, I find myself liking ST a lot more. I guess fancy effects just don't mean much to me. I've seen some effects-heavy films that have just left me cold. I've also seen some old sci-fi movies, like George Pal's The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, which I think are great. The effects just don't matter that much. It seems though, that a lot of younger viewers just can't get beyond that for some reason.
Wasn't it just junk?
Yeah, BOT, The Ultimate COmputer and City are all classics. I actually really like Patterns of Force, the Nazi planet one. Yeah, I know it's one of those episodes that used 20th century earth sets and the like, but there was a reason for that: ST's limited production budget. The original show, adjusting for inflation, just didn't have the money that TNG did. In the ST writer's bible, GR actually put in his parallel earth theory so that they could make use of available backlot sets and costumes to cut costs. Even though Patterns isn't one of those parallel earths, like in Miri, the Omega Glory, and Bread and Circuses, it was the same idea. You kind of have to roll with the punches with the original show and enjoy it for what it's got: the characters, the fun, the action, and the drama. It's better to think of it more like theatre, where you have big set limits. That's my take on it anyway.
And, I am actually one of the very few that likes Spock's Brain. Maybe I'm the only one alive!
The giant space ameoba in The Immunity Syndrome, well, I liked that too. Yeah, it's not high concept, but it's in the same vein as a lot of those TNG anomaly episodes.
The Way to Eden and the Lights of Zetar though, well, I've never liked them.
I didn't have a problem so much with the god-like beings so much as GR's repeated story of Kirk taking down computers.
And, again, you have to chalk some of this up to limits on the production. They couldn't get as ambitious as TNG and the other spin-offs could due to lack of money and sfx technology. That limited the types of stories they could tell. Of course, imo, those same limits led to the writers to work harder in terms of characterization, action, and drama, I think.
When you think about it, both ST and TNG had limits which the writers worked hard to overcome. ST had the budget and sfx box and TNG had the GR perfect people box. How the writers dealt with those constraints really characterized the identities of those two series.
Hey man, when Friday rolls around, it's time to party hardy. Besides, I think TOS is on at like one o'clock, which is early for me on a weekend.
I was the same way, at first. Eventually, I got tired of it. The SW prequels are proof of that. Sure they've got amazing SFX, but there's not one line of memorable dialog in the whole three movies (except for "YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!", which is more mockable than anything else). I prefer some intelligence and debate about right and wrong, good and evil, etc. This was the sort of thing that GR just seemed to have lost touch with by TNG. There were still good guys and bad guys, but we were always the good guys, and we seemingly never had to get our hands dirty to defeat evil. Unlike "In the Pale Moonlight" which is my favorite episode ever. You may like it or you may hate it, but either way, it stimulates debate like nothing else. That, in my opinion, is great drama.
In BoT, at least in the original version, there was debris and stuff, but I distinctly remember seeing dust or sand or something like that raining down as well.
I understand that they had a limited budget with which to work. My problem isn't so much with uniforms or lack of makeup or even re-used lots. It's the writing that gets to me. I'm of the opinion that all a great episode needs is a couple of good actors and some hefty dialog for them. Hell, I'd watch "My Dinner With Andre" recast with Garak and Picard and listen to them debate philosophical viewpoints for an hour . . . and it would still be better than the junk that Voyager called entertainment.
The thing with the gods just screams to me of GR shoving his whole "Religion is evil" thing down my throat. I'm not religious myself, but I don't see the need to bash it constantly.
I was the same way, at first. Eventually, I got tired of it. The SW prequels are proof of that. Sure they've got amazing SFX, but there's not one line of memorable dialog in the whole three movies (except for "YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!", which is more mockable than anything else). I prefer some intelligence and debate about right and wrong, good and evil, etc. This was the sort of thing that GR just seemed to have lost touch with by TNG. There were still good guys and bad guys, but we were always the good guys, and we seemingly never had to get our hands dirty to defeat evil. Unlike "In the Pale Moonlight" which is my favorite episode ever. You may like it or you may hate it, but either way, it stimulates debate like nothing else. That, in my opinion, is great drama.
In BoT, at least in the original version, there was debris and stuff, but I distinctly remember seeing dust or sand or something like that raining down as well.
I understand that they had a limited budget with which to work. My problem isn't so much with uniforms or lack of makeup or even re-used lots. It's the writing that gets to me. I'm of the opinion that all a great episode needs is a couple of good actors and some hefty dialog for them. Hell, I'd watch "My Dinner With Andre" recast with Garak and Picard and listen to them debate philosophical viewpoints for an hour . . . and it would still be better than the junk that Voyager called entertainment.
The thing with the gods just screams to me of GR shoving his whole "Religion is evil" thing down my throat. I'm not religious myself, but I don't see the need to bash it constantly.
I think GR was pretty much out of the loop, though, after season 2.
The big change for TNG was when Michael Pillar came aboard for season 3 and took over the writing staff. He's the guy, imo, that saved TNG and made it a big success. If it had kept going the way it had been, I'm not sure it would've lasted.[/quote]
Not according to Ron Moore.
http://trekmovie.com/2008/06/12/exclusive-interview-ron-moore-on-breaking-out-of-the-box/
Not according to Ron Moore.
http://trekmovie.com/2008/06/12/exclusive-interview-ron-moore-on-breaking-out-of-the-box/
[/quote]
Isn't that what I said?
Yeah, Michael Pillar was the guy who turned TNG around in season 3.
I like to call it the Ayn Rand Syndrome. After The Fountainhead, her brand of philosophy became the "in" thing (still is) and she became this pseudo-cult figure. Then she wrote Atlas Shrugged, which at time reads like nothing more than a soapbox for Objectivisim. I am a huge fan of the former book but not the latter. And while I don't subscribe to all her ideas, I admire her as a fiction writer. She has a very concise prose-style that I like. Nevertheless, the difference in the two books can be liken to the differences in TOS and TNG.
GR, because of his fan adulation, came to see Trek more as a means to project a so-called Utopian future and not as a vehicle for storytelling. He, like Rand, bought into his own PR.
Isn't that what I said?
Yeah, Michael Pillar was the guy who turned TNG around in season 3.[/quote]Maybe I should bolded what I meant then.
It happens all the time with powerful people. At least GR didn't turn out like L. Ron Hubbard.
According to Futurama, he will be. "All power to the engines!"
To Lilith--
Not about to get into a ping-pong writing contest with you. Not my style on these kinds of websites. Besides, we have gone over most of this already.
Concerning the differences in DS9 and TNG, and concerning the differences in the characters of each show, I'll let the creators who worked on them speak for me.
All quotes from the Official Star Trek Deep Space Nine Companion, pages 4,5, 218.
• The creators of Star Trek Deep Space Nine built a cast of characters totally different from the comfortable, familiar ones that has been on previous incarnations of Star Trek.
–Official Star Trek Deep Space Nine Companion
• As they developed the bible for the show, Berman and Pillar decided that the "town"–or rather the space station–would be a darker and grittier environment than the fans of both the original series and The Next Generation were accustomed to seeing.
– Official Star Trek Deep Space Nine Companion
• "We didn't want to do the same thing again. We didn't want to have another series of shows about space travel. We felt that there was an opportunity to really look deeper...?"
• "It's like the difference between a one-night stand and a marriage. On Deep Space Nine, whatever you decide has consequences the following week..."
• "We really set out to create conflict on every level of this show, " says Piller....
– Michael Pillar
• "Everybody in the original series was heroic, but they weren't pure in the way that Gene Roddenberry decided to make the characters in The Next Generation," explains Writer Joe Menosky, who served on the staff for TNG and freelanced several scripts for DS9....
• ...But, the characters on DS9, notes Menosky, "You can see right away they're not the perfectly engineered humans of TNG. They seem more real. I don't know if that makes them as attractive to the viewers or not. But they are really different, and they represent a different way to tell a story. And, it was definitely a conscience choice to create that potential for conflict."
–Joe Menosky
• "Gene's major rule was to avoid conflict among his twenty-fourth-century human characters," says Rick Berman. We needed this conflict for decent drama, and we didn't want to have to always bring the conflict into the stories from the outside...."
–Rick Berman
• Like Fields, Ira Steven Behr was a TNG veteran, albeit a shell-shocked one. "I did not enjoy writing TNG," he admits. "I did not like the lack of conflict, the kind of stodginess, the tech solutions to a lot of problems."
• Behr is not a big fan of plots that rely heavily on elements like quantum singularities and tetryon particles. "I think that both TNG and Voyager go too far with it," he says, noting that such reliance was one area about which he tended to get into disagreements with Michael Piller. "I really wanted to take the tech out of DS9, and you'll see that in the first two seasons there was a lot more tech than in season 3 forward." This is when the baton was passed from Piller to Behr as executive producer.
–Ira Steven Behr
• Slowly, the skeleton grew, with many of the key crew members being solicited from The Next Generation. However, in tackling Deep Space Nine, their mandate was to create the look of something very different from previous efforts....
• "Even though I was already involved in a very successful show, it was clear to me that it was a good opportunity to do something new and different, Rush says.... "DS9 was a chance to do something for which they wanted a darker, more sinister place...."
–Marvin Rush, Director of Photography
On the other matter, in my mind it's a foregone conclusion on an informal website that bold, personal, creative statements--even far reaching ones--are and can be made. They are opinions similar to what one makes in a blog, and I sometimes write from that perspective. Many on this very thread have, and do on many websites.
It's clear to me that you are very defensive about TNG. Sorry if I offended you, truly, but you shouldn't take my criticisms so personal as to get sarcastic and make far reaching comments that are just as labeling and inaccurate as the "absolute statements" that trouble you in my writings. My making negative remarks about TNG flaws are a lot different than attacking an individual. TOS and DS9 had their faults too, god knows, but don't forget, this thread was about TNG and whether it is the best TREK, so pointing out it's problems was within the scope of the discussion. This was not dissing, and, even if you continue to choose to look at it that way, I was never--despite what you think--cynical.
If you have read other postings here, I have made many, many, positive statements about TNG, even rating it third on my list of series. If someone wrote: "TOS was the biggest piece of crap ever written for TV," it wouldn't phase me because I know it's not true. I'm secure in that. I wouldn't slap all kinds of judgements on them.
I can well imagine how TNG fans must feel at this point in time. Must be hard to see it's movies not live up to expectations and just get cut off in favor of TOS. Must leave a sore spot and I can definitely see it at times on various TREK websites from some Next Gen fans when TNG flaws are pointed out.
I think it's for the best that TREK return to it's roots with TOS. Hopefully, the franchise can get a real boost from the new film, and possibly, if successful, it might hasten the day that TOS returns to TV and even TNG returning to the spotlight.
Not about to get into a ping-pong writing contest with you. Not my style on these kinds of websites. Besides, we have gone over most of this already.
Concerning the differences in DS9 and TNG, and concerning the differences in the characters of each show, I'll let the creators who worked on them speak for me.
All quotes from the Official Star Trek Deep Space Nine Companion, pages 4,5, 218.
• The creators of Star Trek Deep Space Nine built a cast of characters totally different from the comfortable, familiar ones that has been on previous incarnations of Star Trek.
–Official Star Trek Deep Space Nine Companion
• As they developed the bible for the show, Berman and Pillar decided that the "town"–or rather the space station–would be a darker and grittier environment than the fans of both the original series and The Next Generation were accustomed to seeing.
– Official Star Trek Deep Space Nine Companion
• "We didn't want to do the same thing again. We didn't want to have another series of shows about space travel. We felt that there was an opportunity to really look deeper...?"
• "It's like the difference between a one-night stand and a marriage. On Deep Space Nine, whatever you decide has consequences the following week..."
• "We really set out to create conflict on every level of this show, " says Piller....
– Michael Pillar
• "Everybody in the original series was heroic, but they weren't pure in the way that Gene Roddenberry decided to make the characters in The Next Generation," explains Writer Joe Menosky, who served on the staff for TNG and freelanced several scripts for DS9....
• ...But, the characters on DS9, notes Menosky, "You can see right away they're not the perfectly engineered humans of TNG. They seem more real. I don't know if that makes them as attractive to the viewers or not. But they are really different, and they represent a different way to tell a story. And, it was definitely a conscience choice to create that potential for conflict."
–Joe Menosky
• "Gene's major rule was to avoid conflict among his twenty-fourth-century human characters," says Rick Berman. We needed this conflict for decent drama, and we didn't want to have to always bring the conflict into the stories from the outside...."
–Rick Berman
• Like Fields, Ira Steven Behr was a TNG veteran, albeit a shell-shocked one. "I did not enjoy writing TNG," he admits. "I did not like the lack of conflict, the kind of stodginess, the tech solutions to a lot of problems."
• Behr is not a big fan of plots that rely heavily on elements like quantum singularities and tetryon particles. "I think that both TNG and Voyager go too far with it," he says, noting that such reliance was one area about which he tended to get into disagreements with Michael Piller. "I really wanted to take the tech out of DS9, and you'll see that in the first two seasons there was a lot more tech than in season 3 forward." This is when the baton was passed from Piller to Behr as executive producer.
–Ira Steven Behr
• Slowly, the skeleton grew, with many of the key crew members being solicited from The Next Generation. However, in tackling Deep Space Nine, their mandate was to create the look of something very different from previous efforts....
• "Even though I was already involved in a very successful show, it was clear to me that it was a good opportunity to do something new and different, Rush says.... "DS9 was a chance to do something for which they wanted a darker, more sinister place...."
–Marvin Rush, Director of Photography
On the other matter, in my mind it's a foregone conclusion on an informal website that bold, personal, creative statements--even far reaching ones--are and can be made. They are opinions similar to what one makes in a blog, and I sometimes write from that perspective. Many on this very thread have, and do on many websites.
It's clear to me that you are very defensive about TNG. Sorry if I offended you, truly, but you shouldn't take my criticisms so personal as to get sarcastic and make far reaching comments that are just as labeling and inaccurate as the "absolute statements" that trouble you in my writings. My making negative remarks about TNG flaws are a lot different than attacking an individual. TOS and DS9 had their faults too, god knows, but don't forget, this thread was about TNG and whether it is the best TREK, so pointing out it's problems was within the scope of the discussion. This was not dissing, and, even if you continue to choose to look at it that way, I was never--despite what you think--cynical.
If you have read other postings here, I have made many, many, positive statements about TNG, even rating it third on my list of series. If someone wrote: "TOS was the biggest piece of crap ever written for TV," it wouldn't phase me because I know it's not true. I'm secure in that. I wouldn't slap all kinds of judgements on them.
I can well imagine how TNG fans must feel at this point in time. Must be hard to see it's movies not live up to expectations and just get cut off in favor of TOS. Must leave a sore spot and I can definitely see it at times on various TREK websites from some Next Gen fans when TNG flaws are pointed out.
I think it's for the best that TREK return to it's roots with TOS. Hopefully, the franchise can get a real boost from the new film, and possibly, if successful, it might hasten the day that TOS returns to TV and even TNG returning to the spotlight.
Sarcasm is my permanent state of being - whether I'm happy as Troi is with her chocolate sundae's, or pissed off as Picard about universal injustice. I didn't say anywhere that DS9 sucked, or that the characters were boring, or that it was a worse show than TNG, or anything of the sort. I didn't label DS9 in any way, shape or form, nor did I attack you. I said DS9 wasn't for me, explained why and countered your dislikes about TNG with reasons why I like those same things. Not in an effort to change your mind, diss you, or be cynical, but to show you that not everyone enjoys the same things. I feel little need to defend a tv show, I do feel a need to undermine the assumption that because you think so, everyone should think so and this is how your initial post came across to me. If I misinterpreted, my apologies
It is clear to me we have different styles of writing. I find your writing to come across as abrasive and absolute, and you obviously find my style offensive and snarky. That happens. As far as I'm concerned there are no hard feelings whatsoever (or any really
)and I'm certainly not bothered by you preferring DS9 and TOS over TNG. Hell, you could like Enterprise over TNG and I wouldn't care 
As for ping pong - I like ping pong. It soothes my mind
Ping... pong... ping... pong... ping... pong... ping... pong...ping... pong... ping... pong
See?
As a TNG fan...
It's not really the best time for TNG fans. But not exactly because of the reasons you're mentioning.
I like TNG the most, but I like TOS very much too, it's third on my list (Voyager is second - maybe I'm subjective, but i was my first Star Trek, I grew up on it).
I'm really looking forward to a new TOS film. I'd like to see TNG film just for one reason - killing Data was a big mistake, and I would like a film to revive him and fix that mistake. But I can live without it. The cast is getting older, and I don't really want them to recast TNG, it's too early. The TNG films were a little bit disapointing. But I think the problem was in the movie scrpits, not in the TNG itself.
And I'm really happy about the next film, because I was afraid that after Nemesis and Enterprise, we won't be seeing new ST films ir series for a really long time.
But many people like to bash TNG these days. Because it "looks old, it's boring, characters are bland, there's not much drama"... I agree with some of the points they're mentioning, but I see them as TNG advantages, and I totally disagree with other points. I'm 21 now and I've watched TNG for the first time about 4-5 years ago. And it didn't look old and bland. TOS looks much older, with all those funny special effects, clothes, space ships. But I don't care about that, TOS is still a great show.
And many people are bashing TNG and praying DS9. I watched DS9 just after TNG, and I never liked it that much. Yes, it has much more drama, and less perfect characters... But after Voyager, TOS and TNG (I watched them in that order) it really didn't seem like Star Trek, and it lacked the elements which I like in ST.
Everyone can have an opinion, but many people are claiming that DS9 has much more quality than TNG. Some of them even criticize TNG, saying it's a bad show, that it sucked... (I don't mean you.) That's what bothering me.
If darker sci fi shows with more drama are popular today, it doesn't mean they have more quality.
I like sci fi because of the mysteries, imagination, interesting stories... (it's a little bit hard for me to explain why in English, it's hard to find the right words) I like drama too, but I don't want to much drama in sci fi shows, and especially not in Star Trek.
Like Lillith said, I didn't say DS9 sucked, it's a bad show or similar and I don't think that. But many people are saying someting like that about TNG nowadays.
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Dude, you took the words right out of my mouth.
The PRIMARY reason I like TNG is because it's a Sci-Fi show that gave us SCI-FI!!! and some pretty high concept SCI-FI at that (at least with the good episodes). I agree that a LOT of the show was hit and miss, but when it hits, it's a friggin home run!.
TOS is my second favorite because it too was SCI-FI with some normal flowing drama added into the mix.
While Voyager was watchable, it's not memorable to me, and DS9 I find horrid, I mean all the conflict is so forced!!! To me that basically tells me the Star Trek writing staff was a bunch of lame bird brains who had to increase the "screaming and shouting" matches to have a (in their minds) "quality show".
I could write a book on everything that DS9 did wrong, but I won't bother. Outside of this forum, not a single soul likes that show (and yet I know a ton of non trekkies that; maybe not "love" TNG, but kinda like it and enjoy it somewhat)
That's just not true. I know many DS9 fans who don't participate in online message boards. Why the hate for the show? Can't you love TNG (and TOS) without trashing another show (and its fans)?
You know why dude? Because of the snobbish, elitist attitude that not only the writing team of the show had toward that show, but the exact same attitude that a lot of people on this board have. Apparently DS9 is god, and everything else is hunker junk.
Yet I have never EVER met someone in real life who liked the show. And even all my jocky friends admit to watching TNG "when it's on TV, even though it is kinda nerdy". And some even watch TOS.
Yeah, and in my opinion they are just as wrong as you when they make these kind of elitist comments. DS9 isn't god. It's just the best Trek show.
In MY opinion. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love TNG. I don't really like VOY though. It's just this attitude of some people, who can only express their love for one series while bashing another. I try not to do that. There are always people who'll love something you don't. That's just the nature of a message board.And I still can't accept the notion that outside of this message board there are no DS9 fans. I made a wholly different experience.
I think TNG is an amazing show, but TOS is definitely my favourite Trek (also my favourite American live-action of all time), followed by DS9. Data, however, is my second favourite character (right after the legendary Spock, of course XD), if that matters. *shrugs* Eh...maybe that makes me weird, but that's how I feel about the matter.
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