It's not the best TNG episode like many fans believe (it's never been my favorite, like, ever, and not even my favorite Season 5 episode) but I also don't think it's remotely bad.
What are your opinions regarding Star Trek that are, shall we say, unorthodox?
I agree. Fits the tone of the film quite well.
Most people I know have similar views. I tend to ignore mediocre scores (something egregiously bad can annoy me to no end, though). However some film scores are excellent and work well with their films. The score for To Kill a Mockingbird is one. The one for Jaws (if you can get over its omnipresence in parodies and cliches) is another. Though I’m not fond of its overuse, the score for Superman the Movie is yet another. I could probably type until dawn and not do more than scratch the surface.
I'm a huge film score aficionado, especially from the 50s through the 70s. Some masterpieces hit during that time, like Ben-Hur, Spartacus, The Sand Pebbles, Superman, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Those are scores I'm still able to listen to for hours and hours.
Which leads me to my two unorthodox Star Trek soundtrack opinions:
1) Generations is an underrated score that is some of Dennis McCarthy's best work.
2) Jerry Goldsmith's scores for First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis are forgettable and pale in comparison to his work on The Motion Picture and The Final Frontier.
I think those opinions are rather orthodox myself.
For whatever reason, Rick Berman did not hamper composers on the fillms with the same kind of restrictions he did on the various TV series. He actually let them write music instead of insisting on 75% just being bland background noise. And whenever Dennis McCarthy got let loose, he could prove himself a very able composer.
As for Goldsmith, I think his main theme for First Contact is absolutely beautiful and I like his Insurrection theme as well, but the scores themselves are quite average. Nothing bad about them per se, just forgettable as you said. By contrast, I find the entirety of his The Motion Picture and The Final Frontier soundtracks to just be masterpieces from beginning to end.
Not terrible IMO but not a standout either. It works in the wider context of the show as an anthology piece but on its own merits it's a bit of a drag.
The celebrated one I can't stand is "Measure of a Man"; virtually nothing any character says makes sense or connects to the question supposedly being asked.
Since it's more fun to lift up savaged episodes than tear down celebrated ones, I really like "Rascals" and think it's easily one of the best of the sixth season.
I concur with the opinion that Goldsmith hit it out of the park with the main title theme of First Contact. As a theme, it fits Star Trek perfectly without having ever been heard before. It's a prime example of how to write new music, music that is appropriate for a franchise that already has an established body of music that composers are seemingly expected to recycle, and regularly do.
I dunno. I think both are fun.
Surely there's got to be someone around here who can't stand "Best of Both Worlds," right?
"Lessons" bores me to death. I get it, it's a relationship-building and character-developing episode for Picard, but Neela Daren has never done anything for me and aside from the musical recital in the Jefferies tube this one just sits there and feels tepid.
I think "Rascals" is among the very worst of TNG. It makes the crew look REALLY, REALLY incompetent for getting taken over by Ferengi with two OLD Klingon Bird of Preys.
I'll give it credit for casting the kid versions of those 4 really well (child casting was not always good on TNG), but I just can't get past how this episode makes people who beat the Borg look like complete buffoons.
I am on record many times as saying that I preferred less character focus in TNG. I know it is conventional wisdom that when Michael Piller came on board and shifted the focus from plot to character is when the show got good, but I disagree. I much prefer having the show be plot-focused and the character development come naturally out of those stories, rather than having entire episodes be focused on characters with the respective sci-fi plot just being an afterthought.
"Lessons" is a great example of that. And I agree with you. The only really redeeming thing is them playing the music in the Jeffries tube. Well, and I like when they are playing together in Picard's quarters as well. "The Inner Light" was a rare chance for Jay Chattaway to shine and write some real music, and here he gets to do an excellent job doing a new arrangement of that theme. Other than that, though, the episode doesn't do much for me.
I love the Star Trek IV soundtrack. It's so happy and cinematic.
Nella's rolled up piano she places on the deck plate magically sprouts a stand just as soon as she starts playing it and it really bothers me.
It's almost as bad as Dr Marr's backwards tricorder that no one cast or crew bothered to tell her about.
I think Riker had the more compelling argument in Measure of a Man.
Interesting parallelism in that the way Riker attempts to disprove Data's sentience by removing his arm and reattaching it was fine by Riker by aliens later on.
Hot take: There isn't a bad TOS movie score. I enjoyed all of them. TVH's was ingenious in that it had to have the customary grandiose orchestra Star Trek score, while being an uncustomarily "fun" adventure. Not an easy ask, & the only one that did it that way, but it still fits into the overall franchise music aesthetic. That movie might not have worked out as well without it imho.
I try to do a little mental gymnastics to get around that. They know. 20 years he's had every due that's warranted to all officers. His rights are established. They know this move is shifty, going in, but they want their android army anyway, & Maddox is their best chance, because Data isn't pursuing it with them.
I suspect Maddox & Nakamura cooked the whole thing up, & tried to pass it thru, quietly & innocuously, as simple research orders, by deliberately staging it on the outskirts of Federation space, where few would be looking. (He's here to "work on" your android) Yeah... That's not deliberately nondescript at all.
It's so dispassionately undersold, that it smells of him clearly knowing there's more to it than thatI suspect they intentionally pulled Louvois out of exile, specifically because she'd opposed Picard before, and lost, banking that she'd have an axe to grind with him. They intentionally implemented the scheme, while she was still unstaffed, figuring that if it did come to Data resigning, & it being refused, whereby someone might object legally, (which they'd hoped wouldn't happen) no one available (on the Enterprise) would take up going against Data. (Like Riker did)
I suspect they fed her the obscure & undefined legislation, that had her set the default as "Data is a toaster", after the fact of his service. It probably related to salvage or whatnot & how Starfleet had found him... and I suspect all of this maybe happening because Nakamura's base was by the Neutral Zone, & having some disposable android troops would be handy out there. They were saved only by Picard's persistence & Louvois ending up having integrity, & possibly the naivety to not know why they'd put her there.
It's all way too coincidental & convenient, that it reeks of a conspiracy to steamroll Data, even though none of that is addressed. I am suspicious of Nakamura, and his behavior towards Picard subsequently does nothing but substantiate that suspicion.
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