When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technobabbl

[Good Will Riker]

...This is what always bugged me about the evolution of TNG.

Around the time when Rick Berman started asserting more control over TNG, and when Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor started dominating the writing process, a lot of the action/adventure and journeying into the unknown disappeared from Star Trek replaced by the spacial anomaly of the week, technobabble solutions, "talk diplomacy," and shipbound family b-plots for the main characters.

After the airing of "The Best of Both Worlds, part II" and by the middle of the 4th season, the danger and excitement of adventuring into the unknowns of outerspace all but disappeared, and was replaced predominantly by character development episodes which sadly only benefitted 3 of the 7 main characters (Picard, Data, Worf).

Why is this? Was it due to Rick Berman's "bean counting ways," or due to some studio mandate?

Looking back on TNG, it was the most conservative out of the 5 live-action Star Trek shows in terms of economy when it came to the re-use of stock footage, use of special-effects, and the deployment of phaser fire.

 

[roguephoenix]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technobabbl

about the same time the guys started gaining weight on the show....

 

[crouteru]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

Oh... I liked the character building episodes. They started cropping up from the second season's 'Measure Of A Man' onwards. It was at that point where TNG left it's unfortunate substandard TOS roots behind and began embracing more recent themes and ideas. Sure there was less emphasis on action and adventure, but making us care more about who the characters are rather than what they do is probably my biggest complement for TNG. The same goes for DS9.

 

[Timo]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

Action and adventure in TNG? Really?

In the first season, I think the characters broke into a run perhaps twice, in "Heart of Glory" and "Conspiracy". They had a phaser fight featuring more than one shot in "Arsenal of Freedom" and "Too Short a Season" in addition to "Heart of Glory". Generally, only Data and Riker got to do physical action that in some way furthered the story, while Yar or Worf made brisk moves when the script said "Yar/Worf demonstrates brisk moves", usually not even against any real opponent.

Those statistics would seem to hold constant for the rest of TNG, as far as I can tell. There was lots of running and fighting in Season Five, for example, despite the physical confines of bottle shows. Indeed, there was a lot of physical action, violence and jeopardy in "The Game" and "The Next Phase" which were almost completely bottled up.

Also, Picard became much more of an action hero towards the end of the show, largely at the actor's own behest, compensating for the taming down of Riker's role.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

Not sure about action/adventure per se, but from "New Ground" to "Imaginary Friend" in season 5 there was a dull "family drama" phase, with only "Conundrum" and "Cause and Effect" really standing out. Maybe "Power Play", but I haven't seen that in awhile.

Elements of intrigue or mystery we a bit lacking at times...but I could say that about almost every series. They tended to recycle morality plays and cliched stand-alone episodes.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

Not sure about action/adventure per se, but from "New Ground" to "Imaginary Friend" in season 5 there was a dull "family drama" phase, with only "Conundrum" and "Cause and Effect" really standing out. Maybe "Power Play", but I haven't seen that in awhile.

Power Play would be considered a hostage drama, though, since O'Brien is one of the possessed and Keiko and Molly are among the hostages, there might be that 'family drama' aspect.

 

[Good Will Riker]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

It's just that Star Trek since the end of TNG and with the arrival of DS9's 3rd season, launch of TNG's film series, start of VOY, premiere of ENT, and with the upcoming Star Trek (2009) action-adventure is at the forefront again.

Why was this exciting element often-times taken out of TNG? Sure, we all love good drama, but without that action-adventure, space (as represented in science-fiction) at times can be a very boring place.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

^^^
Sounds to me that that's around the time when doing more action-adventure oriented shows became cheaper, easier, and more efficient to do.

Voyager was CGI in parts of the opening credits. A (relatively) cost saving (for how versatile it is) CGI ship during the TNG run was probably never given a second (or first) thought.

 

[Commander Ryker]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

I think they created technobabble so that Geordi sounded like a real engineer, and not a man wandering around the corridors in a woman's hair clip

 

[Good Will Riker]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

I think they created technobabble so that Geordi sounded like a real engineer, and not a man wandering around the corridors in a woman's hair clip

Unfortunately, whoever mandated that decision to excessivly use technobabble to cut corners in writing real tension and excitement into the drama contributed to the Star Trek name brand going down in recent years.

 

[KayArr]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

Can't really get behind your premise--I consider seasons 4 and 5 the best seasons of the show, with 3 and 2 coming after in that order, and 1, 6, and 7 being mostly unwatchable. I guess I agree with you--I'd just say that's seasons 6 and 7, not 4 and 5.

 

[Natural]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

I didn't find TNG to be heavy on techobabble on the whole. Later series got progressively worse. While I'd agree that S6 and S7 were getting weak, I think it was mostly due to lazy writing and schmoozing the actor's egos. It's almost like the seasons started with a formula for a certain # of A plots per character and they wrote around that formula, instead of just picking the best overall episodes. Did we really need to have 2 Troi episodes per season? 2 Crusher episodes? While some of these character episodes did yield some gems, I generally much preferred the "crew vs obstacle" episodes vs. the "character vs obstacle" ones.

 

[Birdshine]

Re: When did action/adventure disappear in TNG and replaced by technob

I think its a hilarious contrast between TNGs insane amount of technobabble to TOS where for some reason in a future with dramatically improved technologies man kind is still getting into fist fights with aliens.