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TNG S1
I've gotten back into my World's Slowest Star Trek rewatch and finished season 1 of The Next Generation last night.
It's the first time I've ever watched the show straight through, which is interesting. I've seen SO many episodes of this show since my dad was always watching it when I was a kid, but I never watched it in any kind of order. Here are some random thoughts:
+ Nothing gets me hyped like the opening theme for this show. I love all the Trek themes, but TNG's theme is mine. It sends me directly back to childhood. This show started airing when I was a little less than a year old, and I was 7 when it ended. I'm pretty sure it immediately went into syndication and it was always my dad's favorite, so it was just...always on when I was growing up. (Heck, it's frequently on when I visit them now!)
+ EVERYONE IS SO YOUNG. I realize that's a dumb thing to say when this show started airing 34 years ago, but even in my memories of the show itself, everyone is quite a bit older.
+ It's so funny being back in the world of monster-of-the-week television because a plotline that would be an entire season in a show being made today is wrapped up in a single episode and this tickles me.
+ I'm also very struck by the...space in the show. By which I mean: it moves slowly--it breathes in a way that TV shows don't do anymore and sometimes it breaks too much--and there is so much visual empty space. Television has changed SO much since this show was airing. Today the production design is much slicker, the camera angles are so dynamic, the pacing is so tight. It just feels like a different medium.
+ I had totally forgotten that Q is in the very first episode. Ridiculous.
+ I had also forgotten that Bones makes a one-minute cameo with DeForest Kelley in full age makeup. And of course he's bitching about Vulcans again. I know the show seems to think that it's haha endearing old crotchety guy stuff, but I have always super hated that Bones is such a xenophobe--it's the thing that keeps me from loving him wholeheartedly. Not fun to be reminded here.
+ Patrick Stewart was super beautiful. So was Marina Sirtis. So was LeVar Burton.
+ They clearly haven't really worked out the characters' personalities yet. Picard, especially, seems all over the place.
+ Data, on the other hand, is just so immediately lovable. As a kid, Deanna was my favorite because I thought she was pretty and had good hair and I wanted to be her when I grew up. (She got to be on a starship without having any science or military function! The dream!) But on this watch, Data is my fave and I am side-eying everyone who is being passive-aggressive towards him.
+ I hate that the very third episode has everybody getting drunk. Like...those kinds of storylines are only funny after we get to know all the characters. That way, we can see the contrast between their behavior in the episode and how we know they usually behave. It was far far far too early to do that in this show.
And the fact that it made everybody act sexually??? INCLUDING DATA???? Sure, some of the characters would act that way, but not everybody becomes immediately horny when they're drunk and also it makes zero sense for Data to be programmed to have any sort of sexuality at all. I guess this is just me being ace, but I hate it.
+ Because I adore Dawn Summers, the second most hated teenage character in genre TV history, I was willing to give Wesley a chance this time. I kind of expected to find him pretty neutral. But no...he really is that annoying. It's not actually him, it's how much space he takes up in the narrative in the first half of the season. Have a very talented, smart kid on the show. But don't make him some kind of super genius who can do everything the adults can do. It's just a bad, bad writing choice.
He's always right, often at the expense of adults. And then we have the textual "He's one of the most important people in human history!" bit and I'm just like...no. No one wants this.
And that's disappointing because the chance is there to explore the family/domestic lives of officers. But I guess we get DS9 for that.
I really tried to like him, but I simply cannot!
+ It makes zero sense for Deanna to be on the bridge all the time, but I like her so much that I don't care.
+ Minidress guy showed up not only in the pilot but also in episode 5!
+ I had forgotten how early in the series Data-the-Sherlock-Holmes-fanboy shows up. I love it so much.
+ The way Tasha Yar was treated is just egregious. They clearly couldn't figure out what to do with her, which is a shame because I can think of a ton of different things they could have done with her. And then they try to give her a big emotional sendoff episode, but it isn't earned. It's just a messy situation and Denise Crosby deserved better.
+ The quality ranges, but there aren't actually many terrible episodes. I had kind of expected there to be, but mostly the worst ones are just sort of mediocre and slow and boring-ish (though there's some sexism that shows up in quite jarring ways). Otoh, there aren't any outstanding episodes either. It's very much a show that doesn't exactly know what it's doing yet. And it's not nearly as good as the original series was at exploring ideas. TOS just had loftier aims: even when it failed at attaining them, it aimed really high. TNG sometimes tries but never aims very high.
+ Still, watching it is its own kind of comforting. This is my childhood. But I feel like it's going to take soooo looooong to get through the other 6 seasons when all I really want to do is watch DS9!
It's the first time I've ever watched the show straight through, which is interesting. I've seen SO many episodes of this show since my dad was always watching it when I was a kid, but I never watched it in any kind of order. Here are some random thoughts:
+ Nothing gets me hyped like the opening theme for this show. I love all the Trek themes, but TNG's theme is mine. It sends me directly back to childhood. This show started airing when I was a little less than a year old, and I was 7 when it ended. I'm pretty sure it immediately went into syndication and it was always my dad's favorite, so it was just...always on when I was growing up. (Heck, it's frequently on when I visit them now!)
+ EVERYONE IS SO YOUNG. I realize that's a dumb thing to say when this show started airing 34 years ago, but even in my memories of the show itself, everyone is quite a bit older.
+ It's so funny being back in the world of monster-of-the-week television because a plotline that would be an entire season in a show being made today is wrapped up in a single episode and this tickles me.
+ I'm also very struck by the...space in the show. By which I mean: it moves slowly--it breathes in a way that TV shows don't do anymore and sometimes it breaks too much--and there is so much visual empty space. Television has changed SO much since this show was airing. Today the production design is much slicker, the camera angles are so dynamic, the pacing is so tight. It just feels like a different medium.
+ I had totally forgotten that Q is in the very first episode. Ridiculous.
+ I had also forgotten that Bones makes a one-minute cameo with DeForest Kelley in full age makeup. And of course he's bitching about Vulcans again. I know the show seems to think that it's haha endearing old crotchety guy stuff, but I have always super hated that Bones is such a xenophobe--it's the thing that keeps me from loving him wholeheartedly. Not fun to be reminded here.
+ Patrick Stewart was super beautiful. So was Marina Sirtis. So was LeVar Burton.
+ They clearly haven't really worked out the characters' personalities yet. Picard, especially, seems all over the place.
+ Data, on the other hand, is just so immediately lovable. As a kid, Deanna was my favorite because I thought she was pretty and had good hair and I wanted to be her when I grew up. (She got to be on a starship without having any science or military function! The dream!) But on this watch, Data is my fave and I am side-eying everyone who is being passive-aggressive towards him.
+ I hate that the very third episode has everybody getting drunk. Like...those kinds of storylines are only funny after we get to know all the characters. That way, we can see the contrast between their behavior in the episode and how we know they usually behave. It was far far far too early to do that in this show.
And the fact that it made everybody act sexually??? INCLUDING DATA???? Sure, some of the characters would act that way, but not everybody becomes immediately horny when they're drunk and also it makes zero sense for Data to be programmed to have any sort of sexuality at all. I guess this is just me being ace, but I hate it.
+ Because I adore Dawn Summers, the second most hated teenage character in genre TV history, I was willing to give Wesley a chance this time. I kind of expected to find him pretty neutral. But no...he really is that annoying. It's not actually him, it's how much space he takes up in the narrative in the first half of the season. Have a very talented, smart kid on the show. But don't make him some kind of super genius who can do everything the adults can do. It's just a bad, bad writing choice.
He's always right, often at the expense of adults. And then we have the textual "He's one of the most important people in human history!" bit and I'm just like...no. No one wants this.
And that's disappointing because the chance is there to explore the family/domestic lives of officers. But I guess we get DS9 for that.
I really tried to like him, but I simply cannot!
+ It makes zero sense for Deanna to be on the bridge all the time, but I like her so much that I don't care.
+ Minidress guy showed up not only in the pilot but also in episode 5!
+ I had forgotten how early in the series Data-the-Sherlock-Holmes-fanboy shows up. I love it so much.
+ The way Tasha Yar was treated is just egregious. They clearly couldn't figure out what to do with her, which is a shame because I can think of a ton of different things they could have done with her. And then they try to give her a big emotional sendoff episode, but it isn't earned. It's just a messy situation and Denise Crosby deserved better.
+ The quality ranges, but there aren't actually many terrible episodes. I had kind of expected there to be, but mostly the worst ones are just sort of mediocre and slow and boring-ish (though there's some sexism that shows up in quite jarring ways). Otoh, there aren't any outstanding episodes either. It's very much a show that doesn't exactly know what it's doing yet. And it's not nearly as good as the original series was at exploring ideas. TOS just had loftier aims: even when it failed at attaining them, it aimed really high. TNG sometimes tries but never aims very high.
+ Still, watching it is its own kind of comforting. This is my childhood. But I feel like it's going to take soooo looooong to get through the other 6 seasons when all I really want to do is watch DS9!
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As someone who stood next to him for a photo op three weeks ago, I can attest that he's still beautiful. :DDD
+ EVERYONE IS SO YOUNG. I realize that's a dumb thing to say when this show started airing 34 years ago, but even in my memories of the show itself, everyone is quite a bit older.
After Picard S3 ended, I watched the pilot and had the exact same reaction. They're SO YOUNG. But when I was watching as a 5/6-year-old, Picard looked SO OLD.
Like you, TNG was my childhood show because my parents loved it, and I also have never watched it straight through (or if I did as a child, I don't remember it). I remember certain beloved episodes, like "Ship in a Bottle" and "Yesterday's Enterprise," but my main memories are from the movies and then certain moments from the show that traumatized me, like Tasha's death, everything to do with Locutus (for YEARS, the Borg scared me more than any other fictional villain, despite having such a crush on Seven), and the episode where they turn into animals. I considered trying to watch it the whole way through but didn't continue after Encounter At Farpoint, but this is inspiring! I'll definitely need shows to fill the gap if the strike goes on for months.
+ Nothing gets me hyped like the opening theme for this show. I love all the Trek themes, but TNG's theme is mine. It sends me directly back to childhood.
THIS THIS THISSSSS My sister and I used to dance around the living room during the theme song when we were little. It still fills my heart like nothing else. It plays during the Picard S3 credits, and Lauren, I cannot express how emotional it made me. I need that wibble emoji with the teary eyes.
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Aww, I love this! And one of those rare people who is equally beautiful on the inside! What a gem!
But when I was watching as a 5/6-year-old, Picard looked SO OLD.
Haha, I know!
for YEARS, the Borg scared me more than any other fictional villain, despite having such a crush on Seven
They are genuinely really scary!
I had a hard time getting into the show at the beginning (probably because it feels so jarringly different than TV does now), but now I'm fully in the "this is comfort food" zone.
THIS THIS THISSSSS My sister and I used to dance around the living room during the theme song when we were little. It still fills my heart like nothing else. It plays during the Picard S3 credits, and Lauren, I cannot express how emotional it made me. I need that wibble emoji with the teary eyes.
I love this more than I can say!
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... does that mean Adric is #3? Although he was the first one, chronologically. (Not sure how familiar you are? Adric was one of the 5th Doctor's companions, and honestly not that bad. But he was a fairly accurately portrayed teenage boy - often moody and contrary, besides being smart - so he was intensely disliked.)
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When I first watched the show, I had no problem with Wesley. However, when the show started airing I was five, so Wesley might has well have been an adult to me. By the time I was old enough to critique media in any meaningful way, Wesley was not present as much and his character wasn't misused quite so badly when he did appear, so I don't think I had strong opinions on him then either, and when I started going online I was surprised at how much most people hated him. But in retrospect, I do get it. There were ways the character could have worked, but the writers were not availing themselves of any of those ways, especially early on.
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This pleases me inordinately.
I'm the same re: Wesley--when I was a kid, he didn't bother me because I was also so very young. But the writers really did do wrong by that character, which is a disappointment.
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I agree with basically everything you said here! When I go back to '90s era television, it really does feel like a different medium. I think it's fair to say that short-form television today is closer to miniseries of the '90s/'00s than the long-form television and can be analyzed and treated as such. It's impossible to compare an 8-episode season with a 25-episode season; they are not the same creature.
I didn't know fandom thought Wesley was the most annoying when I started TNG; I just *experienced* it in live action. It's too bad. I also still think it's an interesting choice (not sure where I land on it besides 'interesting') to have Riker and Deanna be exes from the start.
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She had curly hair!!! These things were important! (See also: Mary Jo on Designing Women!)
I think it's fair to say that short-form television today is closer to miniseries of the '90s/'00s than the long-form television and can be analyzed and treated as such. It's impossible to compare an 8-episode season with a 25-episode season; they are not the same creature.
Absolutely. And like I always say, I like the best of both. I'm glad there are more really tightly-written shorter-season shows now! I just wish there were the 22-episode ones too!
I also still think it's an interesting choice (not sure where I land on it besides 'interesting') to have Riker and Deanna be exes from the start.
I don't love it--did I say that in this?--mostly because they don't take the time to actually explore it. I think they could have done it better.
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