Star Trek The Next Generation appreciation thread (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

There’s still an opportunity if they think it makes sense to include her in the new shows. Olivia d’Abo appears to still be active.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Watched "First Contact" from the fourth season tonight. The cold open is great: It takes a pretty standard hospital scene from seventies and eighties television, and then uses that template to invert the POV: an alien invasion story where the invading aliens are humans.

It's also a fairly strong episode from an art direction/production design standpoint; the episode required creating a past that was somewhere in between the then-present day of the early nineties and the future of the original series, but with a completely different culture and an isolated and alternative course of technological development.

There is a logic to having First Contact occur shortly before faster-than-light travel, given the misunderstandings that could otherwise occur. But it does seem a shame to swoop in and deprive a species of taking one giant leap on the basis of their own innovation and ingenuity -- in this case, even earlier than usual due to Riker's predicament.

I also appreciated that the objective of the mission -- to initiate first contact -- was ultimately a failure. This pre-warp civilization wasn't interested in what the Federation was selling. And yet, we come away respecting their chancellor. He acts carefully and rationally. Even when Picard doesn't agree with his decisions, he understands why the decisions were made. A really strong dramatic performance from George Coe, who is usually known for comedy.

The only really discordant note for me was the scene where Bebe Neuwirth's character coerces Riker into sleeping with her before she'll try and help him escape. Neuwirth's performance is fun, but the humor of "she wants to bang an alien!" doesn't make up for the ickiness of the what transpired.

 

[Sam Favate]

I always liked First Contact. It was nice to turn the show on its head and look at our crew from the other side. I was disappointed when the movie reused the title, but at least the movie was a good one. (Nemesis reused a title from Voyager, but that's a bit different - Rick Berman had been wanting to use the title Nemesis for several years and was determined to slap it on something. In the cases of Nemesis, both movie and episode were not good.)

 

[SamT]

Wasn't First Contact a movie?

 

[Jason_V]

Wasn't First Contact a movie?

Star Trek: First Contact was a movie. First Contact was a TNG episode.

Star Trek: Nemesis was a movie. Nemesis was a VOY episode.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Watched two first season episodes tonight, "Conspiracy" and "The Neutral Zone". Man, I forgot how rough the show was back then. The cast chemistry wasn't yet fully developed, and the writing was often stilted.

"Conspiracy" was one of those episodes that I saw as a little kid that's stuck with me every since, particularly the stinger sticking out of the back of the necks, and the bowls full of squirming larvae. The creature horror, while tame by Alien standards, is still kind of shocking for this show. And the idea of a parasitic lifeform taking over the Federation Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style is an intriguing one, but one with consequences too far reaching to really be suitable for a one-off standalone story. And the final beat, implying that the parasites have called in for reinforcements, was never followed up on as far as I can recall.

"The Neutral Zone" is a really odd combination of two stories that don't really go with each other. The A-plot is this satire of the eighties cryogenics fad, with three oversized personalities from 1988's conception of the early twenty-first century. It's fine for what it is, but Trek has definitely done more exciting things with ancient humans discovered in a state of suspended animation. Leon Rippy's addict musician is fun, but feels more like a TOS guest character than a TNG guest character. Ralph is a pretty unsophisticated critique of unchecked Reagan-era capitalism, while Clare is the only one of the three that is really easy to empathize with. Crusher casually resurrecting them all also flies in the face of later depictions of 24th century medicine -- while medicine is far more advanced than today's, the same roughly twenty minute timer of brain death usually still applies. Even more perplexing: the major development of the episode, the return of the Romulans, is the secondary story. And the mysterious common enemy would seem to be the Borg, based on the description of what had happened to the starbases, but as far as I know Q's interventions led to the first contact with the Borg. The writing is rough and out of character even by first season standards, too, starting with Riker dismissing out of hand the discovery of an ancient human spacecraft, and continuing with Picard chewing out Data for inconveniently saving some lives. On the plus side, Marc Alaimo's brief appearance as one of the Romulans is a reminder of why he would later make such a good Big Bad for DS9.

 

[Nelson Au]

Those two episodes from the first season may look rough, but I always liked them. I haven’t read or kept up with the behind the scenes of the writing of The Neutral Zone, but I’d guess there is some of Hurley’s work there being re-written to leave bits of the Borg left in as vague aliens that were never fully realized then.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Yesterday I watched "The Hunted", from season three. I liked it a lot. Some complex ideas explored, and the bad dudes get their karmic rewards. Before taking over Zefram Cochrane from Glenn Corbett, James Cromwell makes an early Trek appearance here as Prime Minister Nayrok. And a likable performance from Jeff McCarthy as the programmed super soldier.

And tonight I watched "The Naked Now" and... yeesh. They really leapt right into the android sex, didn't they?

 

[TravisR]

And tonight I watched "The Naked Now" and... yeesh. They really leapt right into the android sex, didn't they?

Tell me more...

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Watched a couple interesting episodes tonight.

All languages around the world, even languages that developed completely independently of one another, share certain commonalities. In Nicaragua, Deaf students with no previous language acquisition aside from a few home pidgin signs were place together for the first time in schools during the 1980s. A completely new language developed spontaneously among the students independently of their teachers, and Nicaraguan Sign Language too shared those commonalities. In the 1960s, Noam Chomsky suggested that humans have a genetically inherited language acquisition device that provides young children with an innate understanding of grammar and so all of the world's languages developed from that common, instinctual core.

The idea of a universal translator is built on the foundation of those shared commonalities; by applying the mechanics of those commonalities to a stream of vocabulary, the translator can break the language down and interpret, and then approximate an equivalent in the user's native tongue.

"Darmok" explores what happens when the Federation encounters a species whose language is not built on those commonalities. Walter Percy once described human language as a triangle: the signifier, the referent, and the person associating one with the other. When Helen Keller associated the word "water" with the sensation of feeling water, the crucial component for the association was Helen herself. The Children of Tama developed in many ways like the other warp-capable civilizations in the alpha quadrant, with roughly analogous technology. But their language isn't reduceable to signifier and signified. The universal translator can parse vocabulary, but not grammar because the Tamarian language doesn't have grammar in the sense that the universal translator is designed to recognize. Instead, experiences are interpreted in the context of past experiences through a vast oral tradition, and the vocabulary exists solely to reference those past experiences. The story of Darmok and Jalad is a parable, but also the foundation for expressing a number of complex ideas with a different kind of specificity than the languages we're used to. Adjectives and adverbs are unnecessary, because the modifiers are built into the reference. There might be fifty different parables where two strangers bond facing a common adversary, each with subtly different nuances. What might take several sentences to articulate in English can be encapsulated by referencing just the right moment from just the right parable.

To bridge the gap between two species with two very different conceptions of language, the captain of the Tamarian vessel has to take Picard through one of those parables. I really liked that the other captain was the one who had to do the heavy lifting; Picard's role was basically to associate the word "water" with the liquid water. Just as that connection unlocked English for Keller, the experience on the planet unlocked the Tamarian language for Picard, at least enough to establish a basis for communication.

To develop a translator with any more in-depth utility in deciphering the language, however, would require decades studying the Tamarians' mythology and history, so that the meaning behind the references could be better understood.

"A Matter of Time", from later in the fifth season, isn't nearly so mind-blowing. But it's an unconventional sort of time travel episode, because it's only the guest star doing the time traveling. And because he's coming from the past, the writers are able to break Gene Roddenberry's rules about the evolved state of humanity to tell a story about a guy who mugged somebody and stole his shit. And while all of that is being dealt with, there's also a planet grappling with a series of climate calamities, the natural ones quickly left in the dust by the man-made ones. Matt Frewer is in his sweet spot here, playing someone who is playful and gregarious but also subtly menacing.

A separate observation about HD-remastered TNG: I really love the CG-rendered planets that have replaced the standard definition originals; combined with the first rate model photography for the ships, and the final product looks like a million bucks.

 

[Mark_B]

A separate observation about HD-remastered TNG: I really love the CG-rendered planets that have replaced the standard definition originals; combined with the first rate model photography for the ships, and the final product looks like a million bucks.

What's even better is to watch it with Amazon's Fire-Stick/Cube in HDR10. It's like it was made yesterday.

 

[Sam Favate]

What's even better is to watch it with Amazon's Fire-Stick/Cube in HDR10. It's like it was made yesterday.

Why does the Fire Stick make a difference over, say, Blu-ray?

 

[Mark_B]

When using Firestick and streaming from Netflix it upscales from HD to HDR10. If the Blu-ray is in HDR10, then there is no difference. I suppose it's possible that the Blu-ray player upscales it too, but I have never watched it on Blu-ray. I also hadn't watched this since I installed Atmos speakers. I was really surprised the difference that added to the sound. The constant sound of the ship in the backgound is all around you now instead of just from the sides.

 

[Josh Dial]

I also hadn't watched this since I installed Atmos speakers. I was really surprised the difference that added to the sound. The constant sound of the ship in the backgound is all around you now instead of just from the sides.

The audio for TNG is not in Atmos in any format (physical or streaming). What you heard was the 5.1 track upmixed to Dolby Surround (or DTS: Neura X depending on your particular device settings) and output through however many speakers you have. Both upmixing technologies are quite good, though, so I don't doubt it sounded great. I watch (almost) all my non-Atmos/non-DTS: X media with the upmixing turned on and it almost always sounds terrific.

Also, for video, I'm pretty sure the streaming source (like the physical Blu-ray) doesn't have any high dynamic range metadata. Some physical devices can effectively "read the screen" and generate pseudo-HDR results without metadata, but those are pretty sophisticated devices (not saying the Firestick isn't good--just that I don't think it can do this sort interpolation).

 

[Mark_B]

The audio for TNG is not in Atmos in any format (physical or streaming). What you heard was the 5.1 track upmixed to Dolby Surround (or DTS: Neura X depending on your particular device settings) and output through however many speakers you have. Both upmixing technologies are quite good, though, so I don't doubt it sounded great. I watch (almost) all my non-Atmos/non-DTS: X media with the upmixing turned on and it almost always sounds terrific.

Also, for video, I'm pretty sure the streaming source (like the physical Blu-ray) doesn't have any high dynamic range metadata. Some physical devices can effectively "read the screen" and generate pseudo-HDR results without metadata, but those are pretty sophisticated devices (not saying the Firestick isn't good--just that I don't think it can do this sort interpolation).

I realize it is not true Atmos. Like you said, It is the up mixing of the original sound done by the receiver. Very few services stream Atmos. The receiver has some sort of algorithm and it knows what to speakers to give the Atmos envelope effect. Basically, it's stuff going to the rear speakers and it added to the overhead sound. It just amazed me. The Enterprise comes over you instead of to the side is the best way I can explain it.

Actually, I have the Fire Cube and my receiver says the signal being received is HDR10 and that is what's passed thru to the display. My display then recognizes the HDR10 and uses a different gamut. It may not be true HDR10, but it sure looks good. I have also been told that TNG was shot on film, not tape, hence the wonderful picture when it was remastered to HD. DS9 does not look nearly as good.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Tonight I watched two connected episodes that aired a season apart.

In "Booby Trap", the Enterprise-D gets caught in a deadly snare left over from an ancient and cataclysmic war. As Geordi seeks to tweak the engines to escape the trap, he creates a simulation based on the designer of the Enterprise-D's propulsion systems, Leah Brahms. This simulation is based on the information available to the computer about Brahms, but really it's the ship itself in human form. Geordi, who has never been smooth with women, gets to reach a more intimate place with his ship in the guise of an attractive woman.

In "Galaxy's Child", the real Leah Brahms visits the Enterprise, and Geordi has trouble separating the real person from the computer's approximation. In the process, the audience is forced to confront the murky moral implications of holodeck technology: Brahms feels violated, and she has a right to feel violated: her likeness was appropriated without her consent and used in intimate ways she'd never have approved of. Worse, Geordi leverages what he's learned about her from the simulation to his advantage without being upfront with her about the source. Geordi gets some commuppance when he learns she's married, but I still don't think the episode fully grappled with the ethical concerns involved with the premise. I didn't buy the episode giving him the moral high ground by the end, and I didn't buy her so easily forgiving his creepy behavior.

Susan Gibney is excellent in both episodes, though, playing two very different characters with the same face. She was a finalist to play Janeway on "Voyager" and you can see why. Even though she was only 27 when she shot "Booby Trap", she has a screen presence and a deeper voice that make her come across more mature.

The inciting incidents for both episodes were interesting, too. In "Booby Trap," you have an ancient interstellar civilization that destroyed itself before it could get beyond its own backyard. In "Galaxy's Child", you have some truly alien aliens -- no humanoids with bumpy foreheads or funny ears here. And as one of the early instances of CG on the show, it's interesting to see the new visual effects for the child in the HD version that have to match up with the fiberglass models of the adults that are still used.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

the ethical concerns involved with the premise.

I think this is an especially interesting episode to look at in today’s social media era. I haven’t been in the dating world for quite some time and I missed the whole app dating scene which my still-dating friends tell me has taken over. Between that and regular social media, whether you meet someone the first time from an app or meet a more old fashioned way, it’s now possible to look up someone’s life in a way that just wasn’t when this episode was conceived. I’ve had friends tell me it’s worked both ways - the success story of having a date mention an obscure shared interest that neither would have thought to mention had they not seen the other person also shared it, and the less than successful story of feeling almost like a research project where the date has tried too hard to construct a perfect conversation or night out based on the incomplete snapshots of a life that social media offer. Not in an intentionally malevolent way, but almost like Geordi, mistaking sharing an interest in a profile with actually knowing the person behind it, and then trying to use that sense of familiarity in an almost tactical way.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

Tonight I watched two connected episodes that aired a season apart.

In "Booby Trap", the Enterprise-D gets caught in a deadly snare left over from an ancient and cataclysmic war. As Geordi seeks to tweak the engines to escape the trap, he creates a simulation based on the designer of the Enterprise-D's propulsion systems, Leah Brahms. This simulation is based on the information available to the computer about Brahms, but really it's the ship itself in human form. Geordi, who has never been smooth with women, gets to reach a more intimate place with his ship in the guise of an attractive woman.

In "Galaxy's Child", the real Leah Brahms visits the Enterprise, and Geordi has trouble separating the real person from the computer's approximation. In the process, the audience is forced to confront the murky moral implications of holodeck technology: Brahms feels violated, and she has a right to feel violated: her likeness was appropriated without her consent and used in intimate ways she'd never have approved of. Worse, Geordi leverages what he's learned about her from the simulation to his advantage without being upfront with her about the source. Geordi gets some commuppance when he learns she's married, but I still don't think the episode fully grappled with the ethical concerns involved with the premise. I didn't buy the episode giving him the moral high ground by the end, and I didn't buy her so easily forgiving his creepy behavior.

Susan Gibney is excellent in both episodes, though, playing two very different characters with the same face. She was a finalist to play Janeway on "Voyager" and you can see why. Even though she was only 27 when she shot "Booby Trap", she has a screen presence and a deeper voice that make her come across more mature.

The inciting incidents for both episodes were interesting, too. In "Booby Trap," you have an ancient interstellar civilization that destroyed itself before it could get beyond its own backyard. In "Galaxy's Child", you have some truly alien aliens -- no humanoids with bumpy foreheads or funny ears here. And as one of the early instances of CG on the show, it's interesting to see the new visual effects for the child in the HD version that have to match up with the fiberglass models of the adults that are still used.

In the series finale, it was intimated that Geordi had married Leah. Picard asks Geordi "how is Leah" when he visits Picard at his vineyard.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

In the series finale, it was intimated that Geordi had married Leah. Picard asks Geordi "how is Leah" when he visits Picard at his vineyard.

That sort of just doubles down on my issues with how "Galaxy's Child" wraps up. Geordi went into meeting Brahms with a whole set of preconceived notions based on his fantasy with his holographic facsimile of her. Guinan rightly called him out for his wrongheadedness in bogging her down with his preconceptions. But then the episode ultimately validates his entitlement, basically calling her a stone cold bitch because she didn't reciprocate his advances despite the fact that she came aboard for entirely professional purposes and was already seemingly happily married.

Fortunately we know from "Picard" that the 2395 that was shown in "All Good Things..." isn't the actual future of the Prime universe. Picard's experience of that future in "All Good Things..." meant that he made certain different choices. And because Picard is one of the most consequential figures of the 24th century, those differences had ripples large and small. Some things, like Picard exiling himself to his family's vineyard, happened in both timelines. But in the Prime timeline, Data had been destroyed 16 years prior to 2395 and Picard had never married Crusher. The commbadges are similar (but not identical) to the "All Good Things..." 2395, but Starfleet uniforms are very different. The Enterprise-D is still in service, and Riker is an admiral -- presumably because Troi died in this future, so he didn't have a family with her and didn't need to retire to care for his terminally ill child.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Tonight's TNG episode was "The Wounded", from Season 4. It was an interesting one, because it forced Picard to wade into the muck of galactic politics, something the Enterprise is usually able to stay above. He knows that Captain Maxwell is correct in his allegations, but he also knows that if those allegations are proven true it will plunge the Federation into a costly war that it is not prepared for. So he prioritizes the peace over the truth. It also sets up a few things that would prove usual for the DS9's writers: O'Brien's wartime service on Setlik III, and his resulting antipathy toward the Cardassians. Speaking of the Cardassians: It's pretty remarkable how well-formed they were right out of the gate. Their military armor would evolve, and the makeup would be further refined. But the civilization of sophisticated, imperialistic fascists was there right out of the gate. Marc Alaimo's performance as Gul Macet really created the template for the Cardassians and made him the obvious choice to play the Cardassian Big Bad when DS9 came about.