TNG Season One is over! What did you think, in general?
TNG Season One is over! What did you think, in general?
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19 responses to “TNG Season One is over! What did you think, in general?”
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I’m reading These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Three by Marc Cushman, which just got released in December for Kickstarter backers (regular street date is in February). TNG Season 1 reminds me of a comment Cushman makes about the difference between Gene Roddenberry and new producer Fred Freiberger in TOS Season 3. Speaking about a difference of opinion over the rewriting of early drafts of “Elaan of Troyius,” Cushman writes “This alone demonstrated the difference between the two men. As a writer/producer, Freiberger clearly cared about his craft, but he was from the school of thought that TV was, after all, TV. Write ’em fast; shoot ’em fast; get ’em to the network fast; and stay within budget. And make time for your family. Roddenberry, as demonstrated by his handling of scripts and other duties of the producer through the making of The Lieutenant and the first two season of Star Trek, was a perfectionist, a chronic rewriter, and a writer/producer with a tendency to overspend. And to put work above family. It made for better Star Trek, but it did not make for a better relationship between producer and studio, and producer and network, and husband and wife.” Pg. 89.
If corners were shaved on TOS Season 3 (for which Cushman says Roddenberry shares blame), they were cut right to heck in TNG Season 1. There is not much perfectionism, passion, or vision on display, especially where it really counts: in the writing. There is interesting stuff going on in the visual design, and in the performances of the better actors, but it doesn’t amount to much if the writers view their mission as halfheartedly churning out porridge, instead of chasing an ideal of television, and humanity, at its best.
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Agreed! Hard to recommend any of these episodes. Glad I watched for completeness but still waiting for the star trek magic to return. I watch mostly for dialogue, characterization, and big ideas, and these were all practically nonexistent. A shame. Plus pretty racist and sexist for a show written in the 80s, and universe-building also pretty poor (lots of vague telling while showing not much and sometimes even the opposite). I can understand denise quitting; the only things I really liked at all were Brent Spiner’s and Michael Dorn’s acting. Still, they are no Leonard Nimoy. Patrick Stewart I loved when I saw him in shakespeare in the park years ago but am not really loving here. Well, I am persistent, so on to season 2!
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#1! So true.
#2: just weird, agreed. And how is it that the one interesting thing about the character (father having died) is NEVER explained and hardly even mentioned??
#3: speaks for itself.
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The thing that surprises me about Wesley is not that someone (Gene Roddenberry) thought that boy wunderkind would be a good idea for a character, but that after introducing the concept, they found they had nowhere to go with it. He’s an unusual presence on the bridge because of his age, and he has an unusual backstory, but moving forward, how does he integrate with the ship and become an integral part of telling interesting stories? With the exception of some of the earliest episodes, “The Naked Now” (which did the character no favors) and “Where No One Has Gone Before,” they rarely did anything more than remind us, again, of his backstory, or give him a chance to say something foolish.
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Having nowhere to go with character concepts seems pretty standard so far. Was Roddenberry just blocking every good idea or what?
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When do me move on to Season 2, btw?
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Soon? The break is opportune to me, since this is busy season at work. We talked about going into turbo mode and doubling up episodes on some days for season 2 to burn through it faster, but I’ll be honest and say I don’t know if I can handle that until things start to slow down (which may be soon, although I feel like I’ve been saying that for a couple of weeks now). I came up with a scheme where the S2 episodes that are rumored to be best would get their own day, but other days would have two episodes, in a sequence like this: 1-2, 3, 4-5, 6-7, 8, 9, 10-11, ST5, 12-13, 14-15, 16, 17-18, 19-20, 21-22.
Note that we are also due to take a break mid-season to watch Star Trek V.
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Sounds good. I’ll take this as an opportunity to build up a small number of views in advance, so I don’t get too far behind when things are busy here.
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Yes, let’s resume when things slow down. I am up to #10 and while I thought 3 and 8 were interesting, #9 was superb. Overall much more watchable than season 1. Good luck with the legal stuff!
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Why don’t we just start Monday with one at a time and I can reassess.
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Keeeeeeevinnnnnn! Randi is watching way far aheeeeadd! 😅
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She’s our Wesley.
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😀
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I did have some more thoughts about the series after watching the Season 1 documentaries on the Blu-ray set. It’s plain that most of the actors went in thinking “There’s no way this will get past first season” and, in at least some cases, “This is a terrible idea–they can never recreate something like Star Trek,” which may have been a widely prevalent view. Yet, despite that, and despite the abject failure of the attempt to reboot Battlestar Galactica with its own short-run sequel series in 1980 (obviously, a new BSG series could never catch on!), TNG was a hit in its first season, despite the weaknesses in the writing.
People point out that there wasn’t any other new science fiction available on television at the time unless your PBS station got Doctor Who (winding down in the days of Doctor #7) or Red Dwarf. I don’t think that’s a sufficient answer. Even in its first season, TNG has some strengths I perhaps haven’t sufficiently accounted for, despite my frustrations with the writers. The writers might let you down week to week, but the series has a look, a mise-en-scène, which is compelling, and crucially distinct from TOS. It’s not easy to copy a format and yet make it different. They had the advantage of four films to break the mold and design imprint of the series and open up people’s minds. Credit where it’s due though–TNG does look different, it does have its own vibe, and the core sets and special effects are darn impressive, especially for 1987. You can put yourself on the ship, suspend disbelief, and dream of living in the future, even as the writers aren’t quite keeping up with our imaginations. Whatever was going on in the writers room, clearly a lot of production people worked their hearts out on the show.
I also think we need to separate the casting from the writing of the characters. The good spin on the writing of the characters is that it is a work in progress (crossing my fingers!). But they did assemble a lot of interesting people to play them, people with distinctive personas that pop out of the screen, people you want to like even as they strain against the limitations of the scenes they are given to play. Even Gates McFadden is someone I instinctively like and feel bad for every time she’s given a lame Dr. Crusher scene, presented to show her off at worst disadvantage. Probably the worst victim of bad writing is Troi–so many lame scenes! What a poorly conceived character!–but it’s not Marina Sirtis’ fault. I like having her around, and in episodes like “Haven” and next seasons’ “The Child,” she shows she can bring the goods if she’s given something real to play. Just about the only actors I didn’t like watching in first season, even when they were playing frustratingly bad scenes, are Denise Crosby and Wil Wheaton (sorry, Wil–you were awfully young at the time, and they dressed you poorly). As I’ve said before, Frakes as Riker could be annoying and awkward, but he does seem to have the talent of being magnetically annoying and awkward, which at least adds spice? Your drama has to come from somewhere, if the writers aren’t bringing it.
This doesn’t make early TNG anywhere close to being on the level of TOS–but it does make it comfortable to watch, and the premise of dreaming of space exploration in a better future of harmony, enlightenment, and understanding is still as strong a premise as it was in 1967. They just need better writers.
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I get the feeling I would like most of the actors as people, although not sure that I like all of them as actors. But true they are generally distinctive, and that
Jonathan Frakes has presence, even if in a rather annoying manner. I do think this gets better in Season 2… the main issue that I have with him is the constant smirking. It seems like someone talked to him about that in between seasons or something.
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The “Who’s the father?” line from the season premiere may have been a lapse back to form.
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Gah. Don’t remind me. Whole episode so inappropriate and clearly not written by anyone who has actually given birth!
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TNG has some absolutely incredible visual effects and sounds for 80’s TV; they still hold up 25 years later. In particular, I love the sound of the warp core in the engine room.
Poor Marina Sirtis. Troi is the one character for whom I can’t conjure up an episode, or even a moment, where I felt she really shined. She doesn’t get any help when the real ship’s counselor shows up in Season 2 (exhibit B of why Troi needs to be ship’s ambassador, not counselor).
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Yes! There should clearly be a ships ambassador position if this is a voyage of discovery. Amd ambassadoring is the only useful thing get character really does. If people came to her it would be different I think.
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