What are some plain stupid things from Season One?

[Spectre Of The Fun]

I love the plain stupid assumptions made that shouldn't be.

Specifically by Picard in "The Naked Now" when he tells Crusher she can relax about the illness they are dealing with because medical records (including a cure) from the original Enterprise have been found pertaining to likely the same disease.

Yes it sounds like a solution from a problem faced 100 years earlier but I WOULDN'T assume the answer had been found until verification. Of course the disease has mutated and the cure will still elude Dr. Crusher for a time that is almost disastrous!

 

[Oddish]

The Romulans in "Angel One" were originally Ferengi so I think someone just did "Find/Replace" and switched them.

Clearly, they needed to have some continuity about who was going to be TNG's Big Bad and when. The Romulans would have been just fine in any show after S1 E26... problem is, "Angel One" is before.

I cut that episode a lot of slack because it avoids an egregious error made later on by DS9... but it was far from TNG's best effort.

 

[Weyoun 251]

Clearly, they needed to have some continuity about who was going to be TNG's Big Bad and when. The Romulans would have been just fine in any show after S1 E26... problem is, "Angel One" is before.

I cut that episode a lot of slack because it avoids an egregious error made later on by DS9... but it was far from TNG's best effort.

What was the DS9 error?

Also to whoever first brought up Troi's accent - you have now ruined TNG for me. I have never really heard it (obviously there was an accent but I never thought about it) and now I can't unhear it and it is really really jarring

 

[Timewalker]

What was the DS9 error?

Also to whoever first brought up Troi's accent - you have now ruined TNG for me. I have never really heard it (obviously there was an accent but I never thought about it) and now I can't unhear it and it is really really jarring

That was me. If this ruined 7 years, several movies, a few guest appearances on Voyager and Enterprise, and a TNG spinoff for you... well, that wasn't my intention.

But I stand by my opinions.

 

[Oddish]

What was the DS9 error?

"Angel One" acknowledged that equality between the sexes comes by evolution, a slow and arduous process, but in the end inevitable.

The Ishka/Zek arc on DS9 basically had Ferengi females transformed instantly from basically livestock to apparent full equality by Ishka seducing Zek. It's tantamount to saying that Susan B. Anthony could have singlehandedly secured women the right to vote way back in 1866, by scooting off to Washington and playing "hide the salami" with President Johnson.

 

[Weyoun 251]

That was me. If this ruined 7 years, several movies, a few guest appearances on Voyager and Enterprise, and a TNG spinoff for you... well, that wasn't my intention.

But I stand by my opinions.

It was meant light heartedly mate - it hasn't literally ruined it but the accent is now much more prominent that before due to being consciously aware of it.

 

[Weyoun 251]

"Angel One" acknowledged that equality between the sexes comes by evolution, a slow and arduous process, but in the end inevitable.

The Ishka/Zek arc on DS9 basically had Ferengi females transformed instantly from basically livestock to apparent full equality by Ishka seducing Zek. It's tantamount to saying that Susan B. Anthony could have singlehandedly secured women the right to vote way back in 1866, by scooting off to Washington and playing "hide the salami" with President Johnson.

All caught up - a very good point mate about the inconsistency

 

[Timewalker]

It was meant light heartedly mate - it hasn't literally ruined it but the accent is now much more prominent that before due to being consciously aware of it.

I'm not angry with you.

 

[Weyoun 251]

I'm not angry with you.

Just disappointed?

 

[Timewalker]

Just disappointed?

Bemused. I'm actually really surprised at the idea that someone could watch this series and not notice a really noticeable accent.

 

[Weyoun 251]

Bemused. I'm actually really surprised at the idea that someone could watch this series and not notice a really noticeable accent.

I think my intended humour is not coming across too clearly so I do apologise.

I don't know how to explain it but accents are something that I don't notice or pick up easily, especially when I've not considered that it might not be their natural accent.

If Patrick Stewart puts on an accent then I will obviously notice it as I know his voice.

I don't know Sirtis outside of TNG and, to a lesser extent, Gargoyles and I haven't watched that in 20 years if not more

So I always just thought that was her voice.

Knowing that it isn't, and paying attention to it specifically following the discussion is really jarring.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'm a baseball fanatic, so naturally I thought it was stupid as fuck when Trek got rid of it. Not only that, they treated it like some wussy-ass New Age bullshit about how nobody plays competitive sports anymore. Which we all know is a load of crap.

Thankfully, current Trek seems to have ignored this bit, as the London Kings were mentioned on LD (Rutherford asked Tendi to a game) and PIC. Also LD spoke of another team called the Buffalo Solar Knights.

As for Troi's accent: Apparently they made Marina use the fake accent because they didn't want two actors with UK accents in the same show. (I have NO idea why that was supposedly a big deal.) So since Patrick Stewart got there first, they made Marina change hers.

As for why she didn't use the US accent she would later adopt? No idea. Probably since at first nobody knew which of Troi's parents would be the alien and which would be human. And when Majel was cast, of course nobody was gonna tell HER to use an accent, so that fell to Deanna's father...who, it turns out, didn't have one either!

 

[Forbin]

A couple of pages late to comment on accents, but I always bring up my own family.
Maternal grandmother from Scotland, maternal grandfather from the Bronx, paternal grandparents from New Jersey. Mom from the Bronx, but lost thaqt accent because they moved to Jersey when she was a teen. Dad always from Jersey. Me, all Jersey. My sister moved to South Carolina with her kids when they were young. Sister has lost her Jersey and has a "medium" southern accent. Her oldest picked up a pure SC accent, and HIS kids sound like they're in Deliverance. When I visit down there, I pick up the damn accent within an hour.

 

[Orphalesion]

This is the episode that made me loathe both Picard and Riker. The idea that neither of them could understand why Claire Raymond would be sad about her family who have been dead for centuries is disgusting. They told Deanna to help her not out of compassion, but because her sadness annoyed them. It was basically, "Counsellor, can't you shut her up?"

The whole show has an unrealistic depiction of how humans react to the death of their family members, like the kid whose mother died on an away mission. Perfectly clean, overly-groomed, and nobody watching over him, making sure he eats and sleeps, and he's not even a teenager yet? That's ridiculous.

It's even worse if you compare it to Riker's over-emotional mugging and pouting over Troi planning on going through with her arranged marriage in Haven. People apprently don't mourn death of close family anymore, but if your ex-with-benefits gets married it's the end of the world...

In fact I would call the entirety of Riker in Haven as one of the plains stupidest things in Season 1.

And another is Yar in Justice claiming she has studied the Edo laws and it's "all simple, common sense things"...including apparently that you get executed for squashing some flowers.
And then she spends the rest of the episode flirting with Edo hunks, and despite her supposed friendship with Wesley, she takes no part in his defence. Yar has no involvement or investment in his situation at all.

 

[Skipper]

In "The Neutral Zone", the way the survivors from the 20th century got treated like dogshit by everyone on the crew, even though one of them (Ralph Offenhouse) had the presence of mind to figure out the solution to the problem and save the day!

(I like what the novelverse did with Offenhouse: First, he becomes an ambassador to the Ferengi. A perfect marriage if there ever was one. Later on, he's the Federation Secretary of Commerce.)

Everyone speaks ill of Code of Honour or Justice, but at least there our heroes behaved almost like actual human beings. In The Neutral Zone they seemed monsters devoid of any trace of empathy. It's not like they found actual nazi! I mean, they were a country singer, a homemaker and a financier! Surely not the very worst that the 20th century had to offer, but they were treated with the contempt reserved to, I don't know, war criminals?

Actually, even Khan was treated with more respect, and he was an actual war criminal.

 

[johnnybear]

I'm guessing that the special effects team couldn't handle the Tholians as a returning enemy back then. The Ferengi were a good threat according to Picard until we actually saw them and realised they were too comedic as a viable ongoing baddie and that's probably why the Romulans were brought back in before they'd thought of going one better and creating a new insectoid menace that...cybernetic warrior race that was built up as the greatest commination ever but were limited to one show a year for the next six seasons!
JB

 

[Oddish]

that...cybernetic warrior race that was built up as the greatest commination ever but were limited to one show a year for the next six seasons

That was why they were scary... they weren't overused.

 

[Farscape One]

Plus the only reason the Borg appeared once person was because two of their episodes were season finale cliffhangers, which means they were really only used for 4 stories: "Q Who", "The Best of Both Worlds", "I Borg", and "Descent".

By contrast, VOYAGER used them 4 times in a year and change: season 5's "DRONE", "INFINITE REGRESS", "DARK FRONTIER" two-parter, and season 6's "SURVIVAL INSTINCT" (produce and aired directly after the season 6 premiere). Never mind the appearances before and after those episodes.

 

[Oddish]

Most notably "Unimatrix Zero". Or, Tom gets promoted, Seven gets kissed, and Janeway goes full Qua'pla with a bat'leth.

But getting back to S1, the Ferengi were kind of par for its course... trying something new and finding out it didn't quite work as intended. Adapting Trek for the 90's was a learning curve, to be sure.

 

[Farscape One]

Most notably "Unimatrix Zero". Or, Tom gets promoted, Seven gets kissed, and Janeway goes full Qua'pla with a bat'leth.

Ugh. I hate that two-parter. It was the final nail in the coffin for the Bort being a credible threat.

Janeway's plan to attack a TACTICAL cube and get assimilated ON PURPOSE, and then her, Tuvok, and Torres go back fully to their old selves by the next episode? It COMPLETELY undercuts the terror, horror, and violation of being assimilated, and cheapens all the mental scars and anguish that Picard and Seven went through.