Wert's Star Trek: The Next Generation rewatch (now in added HD!)

[Ferrum Aeternum]

Good reviews. I too am a big fan of Timescape - one of those wacky Brannon Braga ideas that actually worked.

DS9 - the sets and the model - look fantastic on the TNG S6 set. I really hope they do it next.

Please, please, so much this.

[Werthead]

701: Descent, Part II

After beaming the entire Enterprise crew to the surface of Random Crapsack World to look for Data, the entire crew gets beamed up again apart from the regulars, who have been captured by Lore (LOOOORE!!!) and/or Hugh. Cue some vaguely intriguing scenes of Crusher commanding the Enterprise and doing a good job and some painfully awful scenes on the planet as Lore manipulates Data and Data tortures Geordi but not really very much and Picard does sweet FA.

The first half of this two-parter was bad, but the second is downright diabolical. There's a lot of grist for the mill here, with Data being forced to torture his best friend and the Enterprise crew realising how badly they messed up with Hugh, but it all falls astronomically flat. Captain Crusher is a nice idea, though, as is giving her a bridge crew of her own (who vanish after this episode because reasons). There's also a nice nod to continuity, with the Enterprise now able to use the metaphasic shield from Suspicions at will (and by DS9 it appears that both Federation and Klingon ships can use it as standard to fly through the coronas of stars). But yeah, it's mostly pretty bad. The episode feels kind of tired, with both the actors and writing running on fumes, and a few exceptions aside this is a problem that will blight a lot of the season.

[Werthead]

702: Liaisons

Two Iyaaran ambassadors arrive on the Enterprise as part of a cultural exchange, whilst Picard is taken to visit the Iyaaran homeworld by a pilot. Their ship crashes on a remote planet, the pilot is killed and Picard is forced to work with a crash survivor from another ship who is not who she appears to be (I SHIT YOU NOT) and stuff. Meanwhile, the other ambassadors bond with Troi and Worf, the former by eating lots of chocolate and the latter by pissing Worf off through general annoyance. Later on it turns out all to be ways of testing human boundaries and other stuff that happened.

A dully predictable script is livened up by some good performances: all three of the visiting aliens are played by solid actors and there's some pretty good moments of comedy. Troi's legendary capacity for chocolate is overwhelmed by her alien friend and Worf's partner gives an amusingly gleeful performance as Worf pummels him. "Excellent! Can you pause in breaking my face momentarily whilst I document this experience?" This is let down by the stuff on the planet, with bad writing, bad set work and even Patrick Stewart giving a sub-par performance, possibly due to sheer boredom.

703: Interface

Geordi gets hooked up to remote-control a probe (for some reason, this is technology Starfleet doesn't have 400 years after we invented remote-controlled vehicles) to investigate a starship trapped in the atmosphere of a gas giant. Then his mother disappears with her whole ship and Geordi starts seeing visions of her through the technology. Everyone else thinks he's gone mad, but it turns out the he hasn't. REALLY. It turns out random aliens are up to shit, because this show hasn't tapped that well too often in the previous 153 episodes.

This is quite possibly the most half-arsed episode of TNG ever made. It's not completely bollocks, like so many other episodes where clearly things were going wrong but the actors and writers committed to it anyway, but it just feels unpolished. There are some okay ideas floating around but the episode never really follows through with them. Teleoperating probes joins seatbelts and video cameras as bloody obvious technology we had even in the 1980s that for some reason Starfleet can't use in the 2370s, but hooking them up to Geordi through his VISOR interface is a good idea that is then not really expanded upon (it's left unclear if Geordi gets normal vision back as a result). The inclusion of the story with Geordi's mother feels shoehorned in from a different episode idea, and a potentially interesting subplot with Data learning how to help his friend deal with grief goes nowhere. So it's all extremely mehhhhhh.

During the writing of this episode, Ron Moore apparently turned to his colleagues and said "Is this really all we've got left, stories about Geordi's mother?" And it's hard to disagree. The season needs to snap out of it soon.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

Oh goodness, Season 7 TNG...a few diamonds buried in a big stinking pile of crap.

I look forward to seeing what you have to say about several of these.

[Durckad]

I am eagerly awaiting your write ups on both Masks and Genesis.

I am usually much more forgiving about TNG than you but ye gods these were some lame episodes.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

I am eagerly awaiting your write ups on both Masks and Genesis.

I am usually much more forgiving about TNG than you but ye gods these were some lame episodes.

And Sub Rosa. :ack:

[Jaxom 1974]

I'd actually blocked out Liaisons... can't say I've ever seen it in syndication...

[RumHam]

Teleoperating probes joins seatbelts and video cameras as bloody obvious technology we had even in the 1980s that for some reason Starfleet can't use in the 2370s

They also apparently abandoned circuit breakers in favor of a system where everything just explodes.

[drawkcabi]

702: Liaisons

Two Iyaaran ambassadors arrive on the Enterprise as part of a cultural exchange, whilst Picard is taken to visit the Iyaaran homeworld by a pilot. Their ship crashes on a remote planet, the pilot is killed and Picard is forced to work with a crash survivor from another ship who is not who she appears to be (I SHIT YOU NOT) and stuff. Meanwhile, the other ambassadors bond with Troi and Worf, the former by eating lots of chocolate and the latter by pissing Worf off through general annoyance. Later on it turns out all to be ways of testing human boundaries and other stuff that happened.

A dully predictable script is livened up by some good performances: all three of the visiting aliens are played by solid actors and there's some pretty good moments of comedy. Troi's legendary capacity for chocolate is overwhelmed by her alien friend and Worf's partner gives an amusingly gleeful performance as Worf pummels him. "Excellent! Can you pause in breaking my face momentarily whilst I document this experience?" This is let down by the stuff on the planet, with bad writing, bad set work and even Patrick Stewart giving a sub-par performance, possibly due to sheer boredom.

"Why won't you LOVE ME?!!" :ack: :ack: :ack:

[Werthead]

704/705: Gambit

Picard is dead! Okay, he isn't, but he appears to have been killed by space pirates when in fact he's been taken prisoner and is being forced to work for them. Due to the power of Dramatic Contrivance, Riker also ends up a prisoner of the space pirates and he and Picard have to fake a deadly rivalry to win the trust of the space pirate captain. Meanwhile, Data takes command of the Enterprise and faces resistance from Worf, who thinks Data is a bit of a dick. Lots of running around in space happens that is kind of pointless and Picard teams up with a Romulan crewmember (who is actually a Vulcan played by the non-Kirstie Alley Saavik from Star Trek III and IV) and intrigue takes place. At the end it all turns out to be about an ancient Vulcan superweapon which can only kill people when they are angry. If they're not, it doesn't work. The Vulcans appear to have buried the weapon out of sheer embarrassment at its lameness.

This is a two-parter in the grand old TNG tradition of being too much story for one episode but nowhere enough for two, so the second half resorts to filler. However, this is overall a reasonably okay story. We know Picard's not dead and the writers have fun with the concept, but there is way too much contrivance in how everything is set up. The pirate captain is kind of weak for letting all these strangers join his crew unvetted and the superweapon is so poor it's laughable. Data and Worf's antagonism is a good idea but it is let down by Worf being way too passive and Data apparently showing anger when Worf defies him. Also, the episode highlights a problem the show has done a good job of sidestepping: exactly how famous are Picard and Riker? Picard-as-Locutus almost destroyed the Federation and Riker saved it. The fact that clued-in interstellar pirates don't know who they are is itself a stretch, but the notion that a Vulcan intelligence operative (even one who later turns out to be a traitor) wouldn't recognise them is laughable.

Still, an okay story, especially after some recent clunkers, and it's nice to see Babylon 5's Na'Toth, Caitlin Brown, in action as one of the mercenaries.

[Shryke]

I am eagerly awaiting your write ups on both Masks and Genesis.

I am usually much more forgiving about TNG than you but ye gods these were some lame episodes.

Masks is crazy without being interesting, but Genesis is just so much fun to me because of the sheer Jurassic Park-esque silliness of the whole thing.

It's basically all about waiting to see what crazy monster that the crew has somehow turned into pops up next.

[Werthead]

At the time Genesis had the reputation of the worst episode of Trek ever made, which it only kept for a couple of years until Voyager gave us the masterpiece that is Threshold.

In retrospect, that's complete BS. Most of Season 1 and a chunk of Season 2 are probably still worse than Genesis.

[RumHam]

Aren't there also some terrible episodes in the original series? This is probably just cause I was raised on TNG but I'd probably rather watch the worst TNG episode than the best original series episode.

[Durckad]

Masks is crazy without being interesting, but Genesis is just so much fun to me because of the sheer Jurassic Park-esque silliness of the whole thing.

It's basically all about waiting to see what crazy monster that the crew has somehow turned into pops up next.

At the time Genesis had the reputation of the worst episode of Trek ever made, which it only kept for a couple of years until Voyager gave us the masterpiece that is Threshold.

In retrospect, that's complete BS. Most of Season 1 and a chunk of Season 2 are probably still worse than Genesis.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I kinda love Genesis but I'm well aware how hated it is by the rest of the fandom. It's basically the Trek equivalent of a really dumb horror movie.

Masks is just kinda dumb. The whole thing kinda rests on Brent Spiner's ability to overact and that's just not enough.

I totally forgot about Subrosa though. Apparently, I managed to completely blocked that one from my mind.

[Aemon Stark]

Aren't there also some terrible episodes in the original series? This is probably just cause I was raised on TNG but I'd probably rather watch the worst TNG episode than the best original series episode.

There are many terrible episodes in TOS. To name a few, I dislike tedious crap like "The Omega Glory" and "And the Children Shall Lead..". Awful.

The problem with Season 7 is that it simply has so many episodes which are not just stupid, but forgettable in a thoroughly mediocre way. "Liaisons" is certainly a fine example of this, even if the "LOVE ME!!!!" ridiculousness gives it some silly camp value. But "Interface" is a lot worse because it's boring. And slow. We'll get to some of the other boring, mediocre ones soon enough, but I'd highlight (or anti-highlight) "Dark Page", "Force of Nature", "Sub Rosa", "Eye of the Beholder", "Firstborn", and "Bloodlines". Stuff like "Masks" or "Genesis" fall into the "weird for the sake of weird" category and hence are actually kinda enjoyable. Sort of.

[Jaxom 1974]

It's funny. I never really thought of season 7 being that bad... then you actually go back and think about it... :lol:

[Martini Sigil]

I would like to see a Trek series in this age of television...on a cable network like FX or AMC .... or even TNT or USA

I grew up on Trek.... DS-9 is my favorite of all of the series.... and I remember being angry at how Enterprise (the best premise of all the series, IMO) jumped the shark so early.... it should have been great

But TNG had such strong characters.... I hated when they'd over-use the holodeck .... or wait for things to go balls up before Data has to save the day.... again .... but even through the sub-par episodes, waiting for "Yesterday's Enterprise"., or The measure of a man, or The Best of Both Worlds, or Tapestry, or Inner Light made it worthwhile

[Ferrum Aeternum]

I would like to see a Trek series in this age of television...on a cable network like FX or AMC .... or even TNT or USA

I grew up on Trek.... DS-9 is my favorite of all of the series.... and I remember being angry at how Enterprise (the best premise of all the series, IMO) jumped the shark so early.... it should have been great

I too would love to see a Trek series on modern television, and I believe it will happen within the next several years. It's just too strong a franchise to lie dormant forever (not counting the movie reboots, which are a whole separate animal as far as I'm concerned).

I'm one of those who thought Enterprise got a lot better as it went along, and only jumped the shark with that putrid finale.

[Rhom]

I too would love to see a Trek series on modern television, and I believe it will happen within the next several years. It's just too strong a franchise to lie dormant forever (not counting the movie reboots, which are a whole separate animal as far as I'm concerned).

I'm one of those who thought Enterprise got a lot better as it went along, and only jumped the shark with that putrid finale.

But would you set it in the JJ-verse? Or the original timeline?

Perhaps you could do a show set after the events of TNG, but in the JJ verse. :dunno:

[Ferrum Aeternum]

But would you set it in the JJ-verse? Or the original timeline?

Perhaps you could do a show set after the events of TNG, but in the JJ verse. :dunno:

If a new series were to be set post-DS9/Voyager (my preference) then I see no reason to diverge from the original timeline. JJ-verse is fine for what it is, but I think it works a lot better on the big screen than it would on TV.