He tends to like women who rub him the wrong way, apparently lol
*Why* are TNG Seasons 1 & 2 Bad?
- Thread starter Emperor Norton
- Start date
Contagion was freaking awesome. Time Squared was another great one from season 2.
Yes, both episodes were terrific. Season 2 is my favourite season.
That's putting it mildly
(I can't help but feel some of the commentators rather missed the point.)
Data outright said that an Irish reunification would be achieved through terrorism. I wonder how Patrick Stewart felt performing that scene. I notice also that the Sinn Féin-supporting Colm Meaney did not feature that week. (Once when I was watching Whispers my father walked in, gestured at Chief O'Brien and said "That guy's an Irish terrorist!").
Incidentally SfDebris has just reviewed this episode.
I'm new here and kind of new to TNG. My dad always watched it when I was a kid but I saw only a few full episodes here and there. I saw some TNG movies a long time ago and I always liked the characters a lot.
For the past few years I've wanted to watch the whole series. I'm only on the first season and I've heard how bad it was but so far, I'm really enjoying it. I'm almost finished with the first season. Now this is right after watching all of TOS for the first time so maybe that's why TNG seems so good to me.
Anyway, since this forum doesn't have sections for each season I guess I won't participate too much until I finish the whole series to avoid spoilers. I look forward to reading this whole thread until then.
For the past few years I've wanted to watch the whole series. I'm only on the first season and I've heard how bad it was but so far, I'm really enjoying it. I'm almost finished with the first season. Now this is right after watching all of TOS for the first time so maybe that's why TNG seems so good to me.
Anyway, since this forum doesn't have sections for each season I guess I won't participate too much until I finish the whole series to avoid spoilers. I look forward to reading this whole thread until then.
I sorta came from the same place as you. TNG was on when I was young and I remember it but the first Trek I actually watched and got into was TOS. Later when TNG was on netflix I watched it.
I don't think season 1 and 2 were as bad as people say. Season 2 I actually like very much. Episodes like Q Who, Contagion, Time Squared, Where Silence has Lease, Pen Pals, Peak Performance and The Measure of a Man were touchstone episodes that brought TNG to the next level. As a whole Season 2 is very strong and was the turning point for me. Everyone just focuses on the fewer crap episodes like shades of gray and the Outrages Okona.
Season 1 was rocky but not terrible. It just looks worse because the show got so much better. Yeah there was crap like Angel One, Code of Honor and the Naked Now but most episodes were passable. Picard was a wonderful character from the beginning and Patrick Stewart really did a great job throughout the series.
Everyone seems to forget that even great seasons had flops here and there. Like Season 5 was great but it had such shit episodes like Rascals, The Game and The Perfect Mate.
Everyone has their own tastes too so no ones gonna like everything.
not entirely. They do have a lot of highly questionable episodes (i.e. "The Naked Now" and "Code Of Honour" the two worst episodes of the 1st seaon without doubt for various different reasons.) However, there are also plenty of really good episodes (i.e. "11001001 (wth the Bynars) and "Where No One Has Gone Before" (the first appearance of The Traveller, etc.) which more than make up for this.
D. Mankind just developed better tech and treated aliens as The Other instead
You might even win an electionAnd no one bats an eyelid if you kill an ambassador and eat them.
I was in my teens when STNG arrived in the late 80's. I recall being bored at Encounter at Farporint (Its a rerun I still won't watch) I like the action of TOS. I stuck wtih STTNG hoping it would get better, after season two it did. But this was in the days before zillions of T.V channels.
I sometimes prefer Seasons 1 and 2. For example, I recently watched The Child and Conspiracy again on blu-ray. Although the pacing, moralizing, and characterization are sometimes grating, the better episodes do have their charms. Similar to early Season 1 of Star Trek, they have an eerie aura of the unknown in deep space. I find the scores much more original and interesting. The sound mix is generally more enveloping. Regarding cinematography, The Child in particular was shot like a big-budget film, with striking setups.
There was something more adventurous about Season 1 than any other season. Maybe it was the musical score, or just the way the characters were acting (Geordi being the Cowboy caricature).
Personally I've grown to enjoy Season 1 and 2 more over the years. Episodes like Arsenal of Freedom, Conspiracy, Measure of a Man and Q Who I would put up with any of the best episodes of the series.
Personally I've grown to enjoy Season 1 and 2 more over the years. Episodes like Arsenal of Freedom, Conspiracy, Measure of a Man and Q Who I would put up with any of the best episodes of the series.
There certainly was a broader scope of story telling in those first 2 seasons, before they got heavier into the characters having what seemed like obligatory centric episodes later on. Because the show was so new, when they featured a player, it was in the context of a bigger story, ala Data being the focal point of Pen Pals (Which I very much like) but there was still room for so much more in it. Unlike something like Interface, which has just a butt ton of Geordi all over it, & the episode drags because of it. In a way, that's something those episodes like Time Squared, & Unnatural Selection had going for them. They didn't get too hung up on all the screen time going to the featured player. It was still important to them to work the other main cast into the mix as well
I like the show's first two seasons. Like a lot of new shows, the cast hadn't quite grown into their characters yet and the universe was still in the process of being constructed (TNG was much bigger into world-building than TOS ever had been IMO). What's more, the TOS influence was still to be keenly felt. No doubt Roddenberry's presence played a big role in this, but I'd say it was more than just that as well. Like any new show - particularly one following in the footsteps of an iconic programme such as TOS - it took a good while to find its own distinctive voice. By about Season 3, it had done just that.
But the early seasons, for all their clunkiness and frequent corniness, had a unique aura about them that no subsequent Star Trek show ever captured. Space still felt vast, unexplored and full of hidden dangers. I think the show lost a lot of that feeling as the years went by.
But the early seasons, for all their clunkiness and frequent corniness, had a unique aura about them that no subsequent Star Trek show ever captured. Space still felt vast, unexplored and full of hidden dangers. I think the show lost a lot of that feeling as the years went by.
In the entirety of season 7, there was almost NO exploration. Thine Own Self & Homeward had primitive worlds that they botched their observations of. Attached was a known world petitioning to join the UFP. Liasons had a few newly acquainted ambassadors, & there were 3 unknown lifeforms encountered, but one was born on the enterprise, one only got seen by Geordi via a probe interface, & then there was Beverly's ghoul guy. All in all, not a banner year of exploration
This tone really is my favorite thing about the first two years. Space feels lonely and mysterious in these episodes in a way it does nowhere else in all of Trek.
Yes, agreed. Currently rewatching season 1 on blu-ray for the first time, and am getting an even greater appreciation for many of these episodes. My opinion is frankly, TNG started out very good, became excellent, continued with "excellent but played it safe" and ended on quite good.
This. Take "where no one has gone before". Cheesy? Yes. Flat characters? Yes. Pedophile vibe? Perhaps.
But, there's no other TNG ep that conveys to me as strongly that, advanced as the Federation may think itself to be, there are species out there that are way, way, way ahead, and much, much older, and not necessarily confrontational. And extremely alien, to boot.
Q is probably more powerful (though we don't know for certain), but he comes off as a showy upstart in comparison, trying to play to the weaknesses of the crew, and in the process seems to reveal all kinds of weaknesses of himself. The Traveler (or his species) on the other hand, somehow comes across as genuinely ancient -- and we never learn about the extent of his true capabilities.
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