Star Trek The Next Generation appreciation thread (1 Viewer)

[KPmusmag]

Adam - thank you for sharing. I am enjoying revisiting the episodes with your comments in mind. And it is leading me to revisit episodes I have not seen in a good while.

 

[Philip Verdieck]

I always liked The Most Toys. I liked seeing Data on his own while his shipmates thought he was dead. I liked the moral dilemma Data faced, especially at the end. Did he fire? There’s no answer, but I think he did.

Saul Rubinek was very good, and was a last minute replacement for another actor who died suddenly.

Yow, didn't know that. From wikipedia:

David Rappaport, a well-known British dwarf actor, had originally been cast for the part of Kivas Fajo. Rappaport struggled with depression during his life, and attempted suicide shortly after filming some scenes as Fajo. (Rappaport later died by suicide on 2 May 1990, three days before the airing of this episode). Saul Rubinek was brought in to take over the role and complete the episode. Select scenes with Rappaport were included in a special In Memoriam reel on disc five of the third-season TNG Blu-ray set.[6][7]

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

TrekCulture has anointed the following 10 episodes as ones audiences "must see" before watching "Picard" Season 3:

1. TNG 3x06 - "Booby Trap"
2. TNG 6x12 - "Ship in a Bottle"
3. TNG 6x26/7x01 - "Descent"
4. TNG 7x08 - "Attached"
5. TNG 7x25/26 - "All Good Things"
6. DS9 6x16 - "Change of Heart"
7. Voyager 4x26 - "Hope and Fear"
8. Star Trek: Nemesis
9. Lower Decks 1x10 - "No Small Parts"
10. Picard 1x07 - "Nepenthe"

Of the five TNG episodes, I've already revisited "Booby Trap". But I plan to go through the rest of them between now and two weeks from Thursday, starting with...

Tonight's episode: "Ship in a Bottle", from Season 6.

An absolute banger of an episode, with a premise that has troubling implications.

My one regret is that I didn't start with "Elementary, Dear Data" first. There were references to that earlier episode that I only vaguely remembered from when I watched it back in the nineties. It's one of the rare cases on TNG with significant continuity to a prior episode, and I wish I'd respected that.

It starts with an impossible premise: That Moriarty is able to will himself free of the holodeck. And then it provides an explanation that makes sense within the internal logic of Trek's futuristic science: He was able to will himself free because he never actually left.

But the Matryoshka doll concept of holodeck simulations within holodeck simulations within holodeck simulations raises an urgent question: How do you know when you've reached the top level and exited the simulation? It's the Matrix question before The Matrix. Picard is comfortable accepting the possibility and engaging with the world on its own terms. Barclay, who has always blurred the lines between holodeck fiction and the real world, isn't quite so comfortable with the idea.

To help the audience keep things clear, this episode establishes a convention that would later be used in other simulation heavy episodes: Exterior shots of the starship only occur during sequences set in the real world. Sequences set in the simulation(s) have no such establishing shots.

In terms of preparing me for "Picard" Season 3: The episode explains both why Moriarty is so much older and why his program didn't get destroyed when the Enterprise-D was destroyed in Generations. The program was moved to portable storage, and presumably sent to holodeck or perhaps transporter experts at a specialized Starfleet facility, so it wasn't on board when the Enterprise-D crashed. And the program was set to run continuously, to provide Moriarty and the countess with a realistic simulation of the world they would have encountered had the transporter trick been actually released. So it makes sense that the simulation would age them like real biological organisms.

Season	Episodes Revisited
1	3, 8-9, 14, 16-18, 25-26
2	2, 7, 11-13, 15, 21
3	6, 11, 22
4	3, 12, 14-16, 24
5	2, 5, 7-9, 12-14, 22-26
6	1, 4-6, 12-13, 18-19, 22
7	7, 9, 12-13, 16, 18

 

[Sam Favate]

Ship in a Bottle has a more intriguing sci-fi concept than Elementary Dear Data. It’s a very good episode in its own right without worrying about it being a sequel.

Interesting list of episodes. I wonder how that DS9 story relates. Recall that that was one where Worf and Dax were on a mission and she got severely injured. Worf failed the mission to save her.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I watched Ship in a Bottle a couple days ago and really enjoyed it - possibly more than Elementary Dear Data. Moriarty doesn’t have to be burdened with learning about the holodeck as part of the plot, so he gets to be himself on the outset, but like Sam noted, with a more overtly sci-fi bent. The first time around it was TNG visits Sherlock Holmes, but having it the other way around, the past visiting the future and gaining the upper hand, that makes it even more fun.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Tonight's episodes: "Descent", the two-parter that closed out Season 6 and kicked off Season 7.

It's an ambitious undertaking, to a fault: There's a lot that doesn't work, but there's also a lot I really like.

The biggest problem is Lore's grand return. His nefarious plot to rid the galaxy of organic life doesn't really hold together, as Hugh himself identified. Lore is essentially all ego: His plot is a means to place himself in a superior position and hold authority over others, the plot itself isn't necessarily that important to him.

So it just doesn't hold together enough for me to buy Data betraying his friends and colleagues to sign onto it. I think the episodes needed more scenes where Lore exploits Data's desperation for emotions to get him to act contrary to his emotional compass. For the story to work, Data needed to feel like a junkie, and Lore his dealer.

The other big problem is that the return of the Borg to Federation space is a big effing deal, and I think that plot gets lost as Lore takes center stage. We have an admiral that chews Picard out, all of these battlegroups and organized patrols, and then all of that falls by the wayside when the Enterprise follows Data's shuttle through the transwarp corridor. Part 1 raises the prospect of a major militarization of Starfleet, to the point where the admiral is mandating that Picard abandon some of the Federation's core values in service to tactical expediency, and then we never hear about it again.

But, as I said, there is still a lot I really like. I love Crusher captaining the Enterprise with a skeleton crew, and overcoming steep odds with minimal resources. It helps further establish her as a capable captain, so we believe the anti-time future where she's captain of the USS Pasteur. I really enjoyed the subplot with Ensign Taitt, one of the most junior officers aboard the Enterprise who finds herself called upon to serve in a senior staff role with everybody more senior than her on the surface of the planet, and rises to the challenge beautifully. I would love it if "Picard" or another 25th century Trek show would bring back Alex Datcher as Captain Taitt, now in command of a Starfleet science vessel.

I also appreciated the attempt to do something different with the Borg. The very thing that makes them such a terrifying adversary also makes them two-dimensional. This builds upon "I Borg" to further explore what Borg are like when cut off from the Collective. Unlike Data, who is manipulated the entire time by Lore, Hugh is responsible for his own moral choices. It's another terrific performance from Jonathan Del Arco, as Hugh has to decide whether or not to help the people he blames for his current predicament.

I can't pinpoint exactly why, but the planet that Lore set up his base of operations on also felt more alien than most TNG Class M planets; part of it was the unusual lighting, with a pinkish hue to everything outdoors. But it was also the lack of anything that felt too soundstage-y or repetitive of the show's usual design style. Even the little things helped, like the two moons in the daylight sky.

I enjoyed Stephen Hawking's cameo, too; it was clear that he was enjoying himself immensely.

In terms of preparing me for "Picard" Season 3: First and foremost, the return of Lore. The way that character is left raises a number of questions for his return in "Picard": After his plot was foiled, he was deactivated by Data and then decommissioned and dismantled. Even assuming someone was able to reassemble him, the emotion chip was removed prior to his decommissioning, and was last seen left in Data's quarters in Star Trek: Insurrection.

Season	Episodes Revisited
1	3, 8-9, 14, 16-18, 25-26
2	2, 7, 11-13, 15, 21
3	6, 11, 22
4	3, 12, 14-16, 24
5	2, 5, 7-9, 12-14, 22-26
6	1, 4-6, 12-13, 18-19, 22, 26
7	1, 7, 9, 12-13, 16, 18

 

[Jason_V]

Boy, "Descent" is really a story of divergent quality. I'm normally not on the "Data whines about emotions" episode train, but I love almost everything about Part 1. There's action, humanity, location shooting, things we've never seen before, a deadly menace, humanity...it feels important.

And then Part 2 comes around, dropping like a plodding, dull hour of television. There's some good parts, but it's just mostly boring. I'm more invested in the Enterprise storyline than the planet story. The return of Hugh is handled with a womp womp. It's pretty emblematic of the entire seventh season: half-baked big ideas, a show showing its maturity (or is it age?) and mostly stuff I don't care about.

 

[John Sparks]

I remember when my fellow fire inspectors and I were taking a tour of Paramount studios and we walked thru the Enterprise set. I immediately set on the plastic covered captain's chair and said to everyone, "Make it so!" We all had a good laugh.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

And then Part 2 comes around, dropping like a plodding, dull hour of television. There's some good parts, but it's just mostly boring. I'm more invested in the Enterprise storyline than the planet story. The return of Hugh is handled with a womp womp. It's pretty emblematic of the entire seventh season: half-baked big ideas, a show showing its maturity (or is it age?) and mostly stuff I don't care about.

I loved how Beverly handled the situation.

 

[Sam Favate]

Descent - which aired nearly 30 years ago - was when I was officially tired of Brent Spiner's routine as angry Data/Lore/Soong relative. I feel like he's played the unhinged part at least as long as he played calm, peaceful Data.

I did not like the characterization of the Borg either. It was all a bridge too far. The Borg - in all of their appearances over the years - have never been more scary than in Q Who and The Best of Both Worlds.

Descent has some nice location shooting, but it's a big swing and a miss.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Tonight's episode: "Attached", from Season 7.

While Kirk was out there banging every species of female he came into contact with, Picard has generally lived a more monastic existence: For him, duty has always come first, and that never left much time for more intimate relationships.

Of the handful of romantic pairings he's had over his various appearances on TV and the silver screen, his largely unspoken feelings for Dr. Crusher top the list.

With Riker and Troi, the will they/won't they dynamic imposed upon their relationship always felt a bit artificial to me, because the two of them just work together.

But with Picard and Crusher, there have always been legitimate reasons for not pursuing something deeper. For one Picard is Crusher's commanding officer, which creates a problematic power disparity. But even setting that aside, Crusher's late husband was Picard's best friend, served under Picard, and died at least in part as result of decisions Picard made. All of that makes a relationship between them a complicated proposition.

Still, you can feel the familiarity and history between them in the early scene where they have breakfast together before being abducted. Crusher isn't afraid to call Picard out when he's lost in his own thoughts instead of listening to her, and Picard isn't defensive when she calls him out. They are able to successfully navigate having their minds linked later in the episode because they already have such a good rapport beforehead.

The whole plot that arranges for them to experience one another on a deeper level speaks to the fact that Federation admission rules exist for a reason. A world that is not at peace with itself can't trust others at the level required to join a larger community full of peoples unlike themselves. I don't think you can entirely transcend xenophobia without transcending strife between nation states. If your experience of the world is Us versus Them, it's going to be hard to see the other Federation species as anything other than a Them.

The funny thing is that Riker, in the process of trying to rescue his captain and chief medical officer, has forced the Kes and the Prytt to engage with one another in a more direct and meaningful way than they have in centuries. The rescue mission might finally shake up the status quo and lay the groundwork for them to address their differences.

What I like about the Picard/Crusher relationship is that it isn't fiery and passionate. These are two mature adults who aren't prone to acting rashly or without weighing the consequences. They are careful with their own feelings, and the other's feelings too. There is a lot to unpack with their friendship, their feelings for one another, and the Jack Crusher of it all. The mind link provides a mechanism for that, to clear the air in a way that I don't think they otherwise would have.

In terms of preparing me for "Picard" Season 3: We know from the trailers that a covert message from Crusher to Picard's old TNG era combadge is the inciting incident for the entire season. Their relationship has always been floating in the background, but this episode was one of the few times where it took center stage. Unlike the anti-time future seen in "All Good Things", Picard in the Prime continuity doesn't seem to have ever married her -- perhaps because he knew from that glimpse in "All Good Things" that such a marriage would end in divorce. But that doesn't mean that they don't still have feelings for one another, and a very long shared history.

Season	Episodes Revisited
1	3, 8-9, 14, 16-18, 25-26
2	2, 7, 11-13, 15, 21
3	6, 11, 22
4	3, 12, 14-16, 24
5	2, 5, 7-9, 12-14, 22-26
6	1, 4-6, 12-13, 18-19, 22, 26
7	1, 7-9, 12-13, 16, 18

 

[Sam Favate]

I always liked Attached. Not because of the plot, which is pretty slim, but because Stewart and McFadden are very good playing off one another. Plus, it addresses something that kind of ( but not really) existed from the beginning of the show. It was a bit of payoff for six years of patience. Even though the ending was unresolved, the fact the episode addressed this was reason enough to make the episode noteworthy.

 

[Nelson Au]

I’m avoiding spoilers for Picard, though it might be interesting to know that list of episodes to watch before the premiere of Picard S3. I did see one trailer last year that I sort of didn’t want to, but my curiosity got me. So I think I know one element for the season. But for now, i’m still not looking for that list.

Last night I randomly picked a TNG episode that would be fun. I stumbled on Rascals. I thought that episode was fun and was well done, even if the science was iffy and the resolution again was to use the transporter. But the fun of the story was great, so I can overlook the science. Plus the science had enough credibility to be plausible. So that leaves how easily the Ferengi were able to defeat the Enterprise. The writers did that just so they could set up the situation for the kids to save the day.

It’s was interesting see the impact of becoming a child from those character’s points of view.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Tonight's episode: "Who Watches the Watchers", from Season 3.

When a Federation "duck blind" (of the style later seen again in Star Trek: Insurrection) suffers a catastrophic power failure, an egregious violation of the Prime Directive occurs, and the primitive locals begin to worship Picard as a God.

It's not an especially innovative concept; Arthur C. Clarke's third law, that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", dates back to 1968 after all.

But TNG episodes have a tendancy toward perfect outcomes, where through a bit of cleverness or skill the Enterprise crew is able to resolve the problem of the episode with an ideal outcome for all involved.

This episode, by contrast, deals with the fallout in a completely FUBARed situation where all of the precautions to uphold the Prime Directive have failed. The mission of the episode is not to find an ideal outcome, but rather the least bad outcome.

The head of the anthropology team urges Picard to minimize the damage by roleplaying as the deity they already think he is and handing down a framework that will allow them to develop more or less on the same path as they would have before the contamination occurred. But as Picard rightly points out, they had left superstition behind a long time ago and it would be wrong for him to deprive them of that achievement.

So he takes the opposite approach, and pulls back the curtain to reveal everything. By sharing his knowledge, he is able to ensure that they continue upon a rational path. There is no question that what the villagers have seen and what they now know will have consequences that ripple down through the generations. They are likely to advance far faster than they otherwise would have, now that they have a concrete understanding of what will someday be possible for them.

But given the choice between that head start and burdening them with a false theology that would take them centuries or even millennia to outgrow, I think he made the right call.

I appreciate that he actively took action to insulate his subordinates from getting caught up in the consequences of his choice, to the extend that he relieves the transporter chief so that it is he himself who brings the pre-warp civilian on board.

Some great guest stars this episode, too: "Dark Shadows" actress Kathryn Leigh Scott as Nuria, the village leader; the always brilliant Ray Wise as the villager whose experience aboard the Enterprise-D causes all of the problems that fuel this episode; and a pre-marriage Pamela Adlon as the daughter of Wise's villager.

I appreciated the callback to "Pen Pals", when Dr. Pulaski was able to erase the recent memories of Data's friend, as well as the bit of technobabble to explain why that was unlikely to work with this species. And this episode explains where Picard got the tapestry in his quarters, and why it is so meaningful to him.

And it's always fun to see the Vasquez Rocks on a Star Trek show, too.

Season	Episodes Revisited
1	3, 8-9, 14, 16-18, 25-26
2	2, 7, 11-13, 15, 21
3	4, 6, 11, 22
4	3, 12, 14-16, 24
5	2, 5, 7-9, 12-14, 22-26
6	1, 4-6, 12-13, 18-19, 22, 26
7	1, 7-9, 12-13, 16, 18

 

[Kevin Hewell]

"Who Watches The Watchers" is a wonderful episode. I especially love how the proto-Vulcans are already on the path of logic.

 

[Sam Favate]

Who Watches the Watchers is one of my all time favorite episodes of any Star Trek. Great writing and gets to the heart of the conflict between reason and religion. It's a 5 star episode.

 

[Philip Verdieck]

I am unsure if I would make my top 10 TNG list but its in the top 20.


Now I need to come up with that list...

 

[KPmusmag]

I am another big fan of "Who Watches the Watchers".

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Tonight's episode: "Up the Long Ladder", from Season 2.

This is a pretty trashy episode that doesn't hold together particularly well, but I had a good time with it.

I love stories about long lost human colonies, and this episode gives us not one but two: A Mennonite-style agrarian colony facing decimation from solar flares, and an antiseptic technocracy who have come up against the limitations of their scientific and technological know-how.

The Mennonite colony is basically The Quiet Man without any nuance or subtlety. Just about every offensive Irish stereotype gets trotted out here. It's in really bad taste. But I still found myself enjoying the earthiness of it, the livestock and hay on board a starship reminding me of "Firefly" a bit. These people aren't Roddenberry's idealized 24th century humanity, which means they're allowed to have flaws and personality.

The high-tech colony is even more of an outlier, because it had sustained itself through genetic engineering, something that is rarely explored in Trek due to the bans resulting from the Eugenic Wars. And here is an entire civilization that exists solely via genetic engineering, vast cities populated with copy after copy of the same five people. It made sense to me that Pulaski would not be able to help; the Federation bans on genetic manipulation means that human medical science wouldn't have progressed much in that are over the intervening three centuries.

But the idea of replicative fading is a very late-eighties conception of cloning; the analogue is a fax of a fax of a fax of a fax, with generational loss each time. But while we haven't mastered human cloning in the early 21st century of our timeline, we have mastered full genome sequencing. It seems like it should have been a simple matter to create five pristine digital copies of the five survivors' genomes, and then make all copies based on those digital files. And while it makes sense to forgo regular reproduction in order to prevent inbreeding over subsequent generations, it doesn't make sense for the five survivors not have had children with one another. If they had paired off and had multiple kids through each genetic pairing, and then cloned the babies, they would have had at least a couple dozen different people to duplicate rather than just the same five people.

It was also frustrating that using the dispossession of the one colony as a solution for the other colony wasn't even considered until the last act of the episode, given that it was obvious from the beginning.

But nor would that necessarily be the only solution: Surely they could recruit Federation citizens interested in embarking on a new adventure to further diversify the gene pool and not turn the women of the first colony into brood mares.

There's a certain irony in Riker being the one most adamantly opposed to being cloned, given that that's basically what happens with Thomas Riker a few seasons later. And I can't imagine that pro-life audiences reacted particularly well to seeing Riker vaporize the cloned embryos with his phaser.

I would guess that the current people in charge of Trek would find this episode embarrassing, with good reason, and wouldn't want to revisit it. But I for one would be interested in seeing how the combined colony is getting on decades later in the "Picard" era, or better yet centuries later in the "Discovery" era.

Season	Episodes Revisited
1	3, 8-9, 14, 16-18, 25-26
2	2, 7, 11-13, 15, 18, 21
3	4, 6, 11, 22
4	3, 12, 14-16, 24
5	2, 5, 7-9, 12-14, 22-26
6	1, 4-6, 12-13, 18-19, 22, 26
7	1, 7-9, 12-13, 16, 18

 

[Sam Favate]

Ooof. Yeah, that one is problematic. I won't deny it's fun, but it's cringe-worthy in many places, especially the accents. And okay, I get that they're not technologically advanced, but these people look and act like they came from the 17th century, and certainly nowhere near the 24th. Throw in the boozing, and you've got a whole lot of stereotypes happening.