Just sub out Vespa with Troi, Helmet with Picard, Lone Star with Riker, Dot with Data, and Barf with Worf.Definitely redefines "action", dunnit?
And "your helmet is so big" with "your head is so BALD."
What was your worst TNG episode?
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
- Start date
And "your helmet is so big" with "your head is so BALD."
Perhaps the fact that the death penalty was not carried out was his true penance and punishment? The trauma from this experience (and other bad episodes) probably contributed to his decision to leave Starfleet and become a Traveller. Also, I was not saying that I was upset by the failure of local Edo planetary authorities to execute him for breaking their horticultural laws, only that this was a silly story point, therefore making this likely the worse episode.Ah, but were you upset because he received the death penalty, or because it wasn't carried out?
Also, Riker probably broke more rules in this particular episode… but likely ‘off screen’.
I haven't watched that episode in a long time. I just remember watching that episode with those ridiculous (and uncomfortable-looking) costumes and thinking that those poor guest actors must really need that paycheck.That one episode where Wesley stepped onto the grass and fell over whilst trying to catch a ball, accidentally breaking a fence in the process, initiating a death penalty penance for himself.
Yeah, Up the Long Ladder had some pretty horrific paddywhackery going on.
Yeah, plus Riker murders a couple of people and Pulaski condones it. Ughhh. Only good part of that mess was the scene with the Klingon booze.Yeah, Up the Long Ladder had some pretty horrific paddywhackery going on.
This is why I find it far worse than Code of Honor.Yeah, Up the Long Ladder had some pretty horrific paddywhackery going on.
Everyone is fearful if they don't disown that episode they'll be called racist, but things like the Paddywhackery gets by. But in Code of Honor they were an intelligent species that were making innovative vaccines that the Federation needed. The Irish get no such luck.
To this day I have trouble seeing why "Code of Honor" is racist. The script even says the only loose point of comparison of their culture with Earth is ancient China, or something like that.
Lutan is a really unique, cunning antagonist too, and the actor - who really deserves a lot more respect for his performance - makes him both genuinely detestable and uncomfortably charismatic. I don't think there's ever been another character who wields the Prime Directive against Picard so perfectly. In most of the rest of TNG, antagonists are people who are either irredeemable (and must be sneered at by Picard), or simply need to change their minds (by being sneered at by Picard), but Lutan is a shrewd politician who's already ten steps ahead by the time Picard even beams down.
It's a shame there was such a backlash because it's probably part of what doomed us to TNG's endless series of pastoral European villages populated by old white men with grey hair (in the Californian desert) from that point on.
Lutan is a really unique, cunning antagonist too, and the actor - who really deserves a lot more respect for his performance - makes him both genuinely detestable and uncomfortably charismatic. I don't think there's ever been another character who wields the Prime Directive against Picard so perfectly. In most of the rest of TNG, antagonists are people who are either irredeemable (and must be sneered at by Picard), or simply need to change their minds (by being sneered at by Picard), but Lutan is a shrewd politician who's already ten steps ahead by the time Picard even beams down.
It's a shame there was such a backlash because it's probably part of what doomed us to TNG's endless series of pastoral European villages populated by old white men with grey hair (in the Californian desert) from that point on.
Worst for me is Shades of Grey. Until then, I'd thought Star Trek was of a caliber above doing a clip show, & especially a poorly executed one. I get why it had to be done. They'd blown the budget on the big Q-Who extravaganza & came up short whilst owing an additional unanticipated episode. It's a bad pickle to get stuck in, that I believe coincided with a writer's strike too. So maybe it was their only recourse.
However, there was a better & just as easy way to do it. You make it Wesley's life hanging in the balance, instead of Riker's. For good or ill, Wes had been a prominent feature of the 1st two seasons, & one of the main necessities of a decent clip show is a fertile selection of material to draw from, that a show which had only been going for 2 seasons lacked badly. There's just not much history there for retrospective, unless you're reflecting on the life of a featured child player.
Wes had been in a LOT of scenes by then, to draw from, with pretty much every character & in a lot of situations. His development was one of, if not THE most prominent character arc at that point. He's not only the best focal point, logistically, but also dramatically, because he's a kid, & his mom is away, leaving Picard as his surrogate. Now, instead of leaning on the weakly developed relationship of Riker/Troi, you get the much better actor of Picard, fretting over losing Bev's son, years after losing her husband, to the dangers of space. The drama/dialog writes itself.
It's still a cheap clip show shortcut, but at least you are optimizing your assets, and it also sets up the return of his mother for the following season. Heck, you could even have her return FOR that reason, if he were to be stuck with recovery at the start of it. You get her guilt about leaving him to take up at Starfleet Medical, & then walking away from that over it.
I'm pretty sure they'd known they were done with Muldaur by the end of the season anyhow. It just fits. A clip show is a disappointment on numerous levels, but particularly that they missed coming up with that.
However, there was a better & just as easy way to do it. You make it Wesley's life hanging in the balance, instead of Riker's. For good or ill, Wes had been a prominent feature of the 1st two seasons, & one of the main necessities of a decent clip show is a fertile selection of material to draw from, that a show which had only been going for 2 seasons lacked badly. There's just not much history there for retrospective, unless you're reflecting on the life of a featured child player.
Wes had been in a LOT of scenes by then, to draw from, with pretty much every character & in a lot of situations. His development was one of, if not THE most prominent character arc at that point. He's not only the best focal point, logistically, but also dramatically, because he's a kid, & his mom is away, leaving Picard as his surrogate. Now, instead of leaning on the weakly developed relationship of Riker/Troi, you get the much better actor of Picard, fretting over losing Bev's son, years after losing her husband, to the dangers of space. The drama/dialog writes itself.
It's still a cheap clip show shortcut, but at least you are optimizing your assets, and it also sets up the return of his mother for the following season. Heck, you could even have her return FOR that reason, if he were to be stuck with recovery at the start of it. You get her guilt about leaving him to take up at Starfleet Medical, & then walking away from that over it.
I'm pretty sure they'd known they were done with Muldaur by the end of the season anyhow. It just fits. A clip show is a disappointment on numerous levels, but particularly that they missed coming up with that.
| "Ménage à Troi" because Lwaxana, although it has Picard's countdown that you can you can use in recuts "If ______ is not in my arms in ten seconds, throw everything you've got" Maybe "Half a Life" for both Lwaxana and those alien dipshit xenophobes with their fucked up sun. |
100% agree. It's a great performance.
I like that as a potentially compelling alternative. I think the writers weren't prepared to move that needle with Picard yet... at least not significantly. He was still stern stuff.
On the flip side I guess they had the shuttlecraft scene and actually Shades of Grey could have been a good second part to that in the same season.
It may have been hard to torture Wes with the negative scenes, and from there the story would then need changing more and more.
I did do a whole post defending Shades... https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/in-defence-of-shades-of-gray.311957/
There's a lot the writers weren't prepared for lol, but it's a good point. They'd be advancing that relationship quite a lot faster than they'd probably outlined. I think it's even another positive for the following season, that we're wanting to soften Picard some now. An event like this would really bring everyone so much closer together. The family feel of season 3 & beyond would have a verifiable launching point
A crisis would definitely be a good continuation to build on for them. I just mostly think... hey, you're sitting on a brilliant actor who in maybe only a couple simply drafted scenes could really make us feel the bedside worry, unlike Troi who mostly just hammed it up thru that episode.
Honestly, with this version, I'd think you'd have to rework the "illness" properties altogether. I think they fell on that lame negative/positive memories schtick, because it was all they could come up with, to make use of the limited clips of Riker actually doing stuff, which in his case was all away mission stuff
In Wes' case, the majority of his content had been about growing & learning experiences, the kind of remembrances that you'd think on, when you are in mourning. It has the dynamic for a more traditional clip show, that isn't using the clips as a gimmick, but as they normally would be used in one, like fond recollections, a true retrospective that might make you fear they're killing the character off.
After all, the show had killed off Tasha a season earlier & as such, that fate loomed in a much more real way than most shows of the time
I hate The Schizoid Man SO MUCH. I agree with all of what you just said and I hate watching that dude just go around using Data's body as a vessel to be a weird, irritating, gross, self-absorbed creep.
To know him... was NOT to love him?
I thought Picard's histrionics at the end were kind of cheesy.
Similar threads
