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


Werthead

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Also, I've always liked Pegasus, and it gives a glimpse of a Starfleet that isn't always so perfect. I don't think Section 31 had premiered on DS9 yet, but if TNG had another season or two, this is the kind of episode that would have been retconned into it...

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I could definitely see that. As an aside, one of the most significant disappointments about Insurrection is how it completely side-stepped the Dominion War. It wasn't even necessary to involve DS9 much directly (although Worf's presence is kinda an example of that already), but why Starfleet would send its flagship on a silly diplomatic/scientific mission when Federation worlds were falling to the Jem'Hadar is beyond me.



And it would have made for a much better movie.


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Nope, it came out during DS9's last season. According to IMDB, they wanted to reference the fact that Dax had just recently been, ya know, murdered by Dukat as something relevant to Worf, but Rick Berman nixed it. Might have been "confusing" for those that didn't watch DS9.

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Nope, it came out during DS9's last season. According to IMDB, they wanted to reference the fact that Dax had just recently been, ya know, murdered by Dukat as something relevant to Worf, but Rick Berman nixed it. Might have been "confusing" for those that didn't watch DS9.

Wow. What's confusing about having someone say "sorry your wife died." They really did not respect DS9. I remember reading that they were originally going to destroy the defiant in First Contact until the DS9 people complained. Then Nemesis just ignored Worf's being appointed Klingon Ambassador at the end of DS9 and had him back in a Starfleet uniform.

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I don't know what this movie Nemesis is, but I'm fairly sure Insurrection was the last TNG movie, similar to how Heroes was cancelled after an impressive debut season.

In any case, I feel like not including DS9 plot elements in any TNG movie was a big missed opportunity.

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In any case, I feel like not including DS9 plot elements in any TNG movie was a big missed opportunity

The Dominion War is referenced in Insurrection and DS9 later confirms that the Son'a became full allies of the Dominion. But yeah, not using the Dominion War as more of a central backround conflict was a mistake. It would have been good to have seen what the Enterprise-E got up to in the war.

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713: Homeward


Worf meets up with his foster brother, a researcher studying a native species on some distant crapsack planet. The planet's atmosphere is disintegrating because of Dodgy Science and the Prime Directive means that all the people have to die, but Worf's foster brother sneakily beams them onto the holodeck and convinces Picard to take them to some other world whilst the holodeck gives the impression they've never left their own world.



An actually interesting premise, with the holodeck used to fake reality for a bunch of hapless aliens. There's some iffy dialogue and contrived plotting, but it's a reasonably watchable and entertaining episode in a mediocre season. It also sets up some guest actors who are good enough to return on Deep Space Nine: Penny Johnson plays Kasidy Yates on that show and Brian Markinson would play Elias Giger in the excellent In the Cards.




714: Sub Rosa


What the hell? What the actual hell what the hell? What the actual helling hell? What the what the what the hell?



Sub Rosa is a bad, bad, bad episode. There's the bizarre American fetishisation of Scotland in the episode which is only a step away from Up the Long Ladder's outright Irish racism, the utterly shit performances from all of the guest cast, or how the plot is nonsensical drivel even by Trek's normal standards. But mostly what makes it bad is the outright cheapness of it, the total lack of coherent direction and the jaw-dropping fact that any producer would let this script get past them. Appalling.


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The only thing that doesn't feel like a well of missed opportunities involving Trek since the end of TNG's run is DS9. Voyager, Enterprise, the TNG movies, just seems to wallow in so much "what if's" all for the sake of Trek's effort as a franchise to continually play it safe. Of course there was a bunch of missed opportunities before that too, the original series cancellation, the first movie, the aborted Star Trek Phase II, but after all that's come since, they don't seem as frustrating.


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Ah yes, the magic cursed Scottish candle episode. Universally reviled and considered one of the worst TNG episodes of all time, if not the worst. Some of the 1st season clunkers might give it a run for that dubious honor though. Might.



Homeward is not bad, actually compared to the rest of this season, it's pretty good although it strikes me as being a pretty lazy concept or at least one that the writers have returned to a few too many times. Was Worf's foster brother ever mentioned before on the show or was he magicked transported up out of thin air for this episode?



On the other side of the fence, Parallels and The Pegasus are great episodes, although the lack of consequences or repercussions on Pegasus is kind of amusing though not that surprising considering it's TNG.


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I've also always liked Homeward. Not the greatest or most inventive story (the Prime Directive handwringing is especially tedious), but it's a rare episode with multiple strong guest roles. I really liked Sorvino as Nikolai - it's just a shame he never appeared earlier or later on in the show (or DS9... though we might have wondered why he was married to Kasidy's identical alien twin). And Markinson is really a very gifted character - always interesting performances regardless of what it is (though he was in the awful CTV TV movie Plague City: SARS in Toronto).



I vaguely remembered the throwaway lines about the Dominion War in Insurrection. I still don't get why they didn't go for a more action-oriented war story; they could even have brought the Romulans in given the uneasy alliance.



But Sub Rosa is quite another matter. The weirdo Scottish fetish is pretty extreme - and that's coming from someone from Nova Scotia. Some choice quotations from Memory Alpha:



"That candle has brought nothing but misery and bad luck to your grandmother."


- Ned Quint about the family candle




"Think what you want. See what you want. Just do as I say. Dinna light that candle or dinna go to that hoose, or before you know it, they'll be burying another Howard in this cemetery."

- Quint, warning Dr. Crusher about the ghost

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Sub Rosa is my least favorite episode of Trek, ever. Even the most preposterous plots and horrid performances from other clunkers were at least good for a laugh now and then. Appalling is the right word to describe it, on every level.



ETA: and yes, Parallels and The Pegasus are both great. The high points of this season, easily.


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I don't know what this movie Nemesis is, but I'm fairly sure Insurrection was the last TNG movie, similar to how Heroes was cancelled after an impressive debut season.

In any case, I feel like not including DS9 plot elements in any TNG movie was a big missed opportunity.

sorry Insurrection not last, it was Nemisis...though it sucked out loud, in my not so humble opinion

Ah yes, the magic cursed Scottish candle episode. Universally reviled and considered one of the worst TNG episodes of all time, if not the worst. Some of the 1st season clunkers might give it a run for that dubious honor though. Might.

Homeward is not bad, actually compared to the rest of this season, it's pretty good although it strikes me as being a pretty lazy concept or at least one that the writers have returned to a few too many times. Was Worf's foster brother ever mentioned before on the show or was he magicked transported up out of thin air for this episode?

On the other side of the fence, Parallels and The Pegasus are great episodes, although the lack of consequences or repercussions on Pegasus is kind of amusing though not that surprising considering it's TNG.

Parallels best of this season...outdistancing all others...

...Homeward - ok a little weak but i liked the concept and the struggle and final inability of Vorin to marry his known world with the real world...something that i often think of when we finally discover extraterrestrials, will humans be able to accept that there are beings more advanced, more in tune with the universe and its reality...

...Sub Rosa was only good to me cause i love me some Beverly....any hour with a redhead is a hour well spent... :smoking:

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sorry Insurrection not last, it was Nemisis...though it sucked out loud, in my not so humble opinion

It's this kind of crazy talk that makes people think there was more than one Highlander movie too...

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Sub Rosa is my least favorite episode of Trek, ever. Even the most preposterous plots and horrid performances from other clunkers were at least good for a laugh now and then. Appalling is the right word to describe it, on every level.

ETA: and yes, Parallels and The Pegasus are both great. The high points of this season, easily.

I actually think there are worse episodes. While the likes of Code of Honour and Symbiosis from season one have camp value, I've always really hated Imaginary Friend from season five. It's the one with the space entity that takes the form a young girl's imaginary friend... her eyes glow red when she's mad. :ack:

sorry Insurrection not last, it was Nemisis...though it sucked out loud, in my not so humble opinion

;)

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I actually think there are worse episodes. While the likes of Code of Honour and Symbiosis from season one have camp value, I've always really hated Imaginary Friend from season five. It's the one with the space entity that takes the form a young girl's imaginary friend... her eyes glow red when she's mad. :ack:

;)

i just saw code of honour the other day (bbc daily airing) and laughed out loud at the battle scene on the jungle gym...but i agree it was just the kind of camp that star trek gives better than anyone else...

...i also agree imaginary friend was one of the worst...though i also disliked interface with equal feeling

... :smoking:

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I don't know what this movie Nemesis is, but I'm fairly sure Insurrection was the last TNG movie, similar to how Heroes was cancelled after an impressive debut season.

Why would you cast out Nemesis but keep Insurrection?

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