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Should I start watching Star Trek TNG?

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Karu said:
Started this show couple month ago. Only got to episode 16 or so. There is some horrible, and i mean HORRIBLE stuff happening in that first half. I expected bad things, but some episode were just unbearable. At least a certain kind of unintentional humor kept me going for a while.

Still, since I love Star Trek, especially if there are fantastic stand alones in the mix (Being the only one on the planet who loves the first 2 season of DS9), I will watch it definitely at some point!
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Season 1 & 2 can be condensed pretty well:

S1

Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Where No One Has Gone Before
The Battle
Hide and Q
Datalore
11001001
Home Soil
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Skin of Evil
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

S2

Where Silence Has Lease
Elementary, Dear Data
A Matter of Honor
The Measure of a Man
Contagion
The Royale
Time Squared
The Icarus Factor
Pen Pals
Q Who
The Emissary
Peak Performance

There's a few clunkers in there, but you should probably watch them for plot or character development reasons. Starting with season 3 they really hit their stride and we get amazing eps like "The Survivors" & "BOBW" more often, and the overall ep quality improves too.
 
The SO and I started watching TNG not to long ago. I guess I had forgotten, but Picard isn't the lead character, I remember loving him so much that I always talked about how great he was to the SO, and yet when we started (got about 12 Eps in) you realize that Picard really is a supporting role to Riker in the first season.
 
TruePrime said:
The SO and I started watching TNG not to long ago. I guess I had forgotten, but Picard isn't the lead character, I remember loving him so much that I always talked about how great he was to the SO, and yet when we started (got about 12 Eps in) you realize that Picard really is a supporting role to Riker in the first season.
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Riker is TNG's Kirk at first.
Q even 4th walls it in Season 3 when he talks about how Riker changed once he grew the beard. (After being offended that Riker didn't take the half-naked women Q'd materialized clinging to each of his arms.)
 
Ciastek3214 said:
He plays Q in every series he's in. Hell, he apparently plays Q in MLP.
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Well, he ended up playing a character who was written to be a more mischievous version of Q, and they ended up being able to get him to do the voice rather than a planned sound-alike.
 
GungHo said:
He took an unfortunate break from type in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.
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Now I'm thinking what would happen if he took the role of Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Fring in Breaking Bad.

"Good morning, Walter White, mon cuisinier. How is your cancer today?"
 
I think I am one of the few people that prefers Voyager over a lot of the rest.

Voyager --> TNG --> TOS --> DS9 --> Enterprise

To me, Voyager was odd in a few places, but the characters and stories in the good to great episodes far outweighed any oddness.

I have watched it beginning to end a number of times (Love that it HAS and end).

Love it.
 
Mr Pockets said:
I think I am one of the few people that prefers Voyager over a lot of the rest.

Voyager --> TNG --> TOS --> DS9 --> Enterprise

To me, Voyager was odd in a few places, but the characters and stories in the good to great episodes far outweighed any oddness.

I have watched it beginning to end a number of times (Love that it HAS and end).

Love it.
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I might put Voyager over DS9. But never over TNG.
 
Voyager is the only Trek series that I think starts off great and slowly becomes terrible as it goes on. Which is pretty much the reverse trend of every other Trek show.
 
Karu said:
Started this show couple month ago. Only got to episode 16 or so. There is some horrible, and i mean HORRIBLE stuff happening in that first half. I expected bad things, but some episode were just unbearable. At least a certain kind of unintentional humor kept me going for a while.

Still, since I love Star Trek, especially if there are fantastic stand alones in the mix (Being the only one on the planet who loves the first 2 season of DS9), I will watch it definitely at some point!
Click to expand...



Some of the acting is just wow but I'm totally letting everything slide because the good ideas and good intentions are coming through.

Sometimes it does feel like Patrick Stewart is the only one who knows what he's doing there. But goddamn, he totally carries it and is usually so good I that I don't care about the others being goofy.
 
Sephzilla said:
Exactly, and it gets worse from there.

I actually like Janeway as a character, I just think she makes a completely unbelievable captain of a ship.
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She's actually more believable than any Startfleet Captain.

Source: I know a thing or two about their real world counterparts...
 
Nostremitus said:
She's actually more believable than any Startfleet Captain.

Source: I know a thing or two about their real world counterparts...
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It's believable to think all Starfleet captains are incompetent leaders who never should have been put in charge of a Starship?
 
Karu said:
Started this show couple month ago. Only got to episode 16 or so. There is some horrible, and i mean HORRIBLE stuff happening in that first half. I expected bad things, but some episode were just unbearable. At least a certain kind of unintentional humor kept me going for a while.

Still, since I love Star Trek, especially if there are fantastic stand alones in the mix (Being the only one on the planet who loves the first 2 season of DS9), I will watch it definitely at some point!
Click to expand...

You are not alone, my friend.
 
DrForester said:
It's believable to think all Starfleet captains are incompetent leaders who never should have been put in charge of a Starship?
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Most, not all. That's how the real world works. You just have to hope that when crap hits the fan, it's one of the few good leaders that are there. Or that if it's a less than ready leader, that their support staff are up to the challenge. Sure, there are ways to try to predict how people will handle stress and try to make intelligent choices. and you try to pair command teams in a way that will balance each person's weaknesses. In the end, though... it's still a crap shoot.
 
Nostremitus said:
Most, not all. That's how the real world works. You just have to hope that when crap hits the fan, it's one of the few good leaders that are there. Or that if it's a less than ready leader, that their support staff are up to the challenge. Sure, there are ways to try to predict how people will handle stress and try to make intelligent choices. and you try to pair command teams in a way that will balance each person's weaknesses. In the end, though... it's still a crap shoot.
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I assume in the star trek telepathy heavy future, they should at least be screening to weed out the psychopaths
 
Sir_Crocodile said:
I assume in the star trek telepathy heavy future, they should at least be screening to weed out the psychopaths
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Being a weak leader or making bad decisions under pressure doesn't make a person a psychopath. And training scenarios, no matter how realistic, will not trigger the same responses as real life. Even with telepathy, they'd pick up on how the person feels they would respond to a situation, there's no way for them to know how the person would really react.

I'm sure they're able to make more educated guesses, but it would still be impossible for them to be perfectly accurate.
 
Nostremitus said:
Being a weak leader or making bad decisions under pressure doesn't make a person a psychopath. And training scenarios, no matter how realistic, will not trigger the same responses as real life. Even with telepathy, they'd pick up on how the person feels they would respond to a situation, there's no way for them to know how the person would really react.

I'm sure they're able to make more educated guesses, but it would still be impossible for them to be perfectly accurate.
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I was thinking about Janeway specifically here

like

if someone is about to become a captain it should probably be confirmed beforehand that they don't go in for murder
 
Sir_Crocodile said:
I was thinking about Janeway specifically here

like

if someone is about to become a captain it should probably be confirmed beforehand that they don't go in for murder
Click to expand...

Gotcha, but how would the psych exams tell how a person's psyche would react to meeting a god-like entity that separated them from everything they've ever known, and the type of decisions she would make following that incident? Sadly, our history is filled with leaders who have snapped under much less pressure who had shown no signs of mental instability before the psychologically traumatic incidences they found themselves in.
 
kick51 said:
Some of the acting is just wow but I'm totally letting everything slide because the good ideas and good intentions are coming through.

Sometimes it does feel like Patrick Stewart is the only one who knows what he's doing there. But goddamn, he totally carries it and is usually so good I that I don't care about the others being goofy.
Click to expand...

He was basically. There are interviews about how the rest of the cast wasn't taking it seriously early on but Stewart was so dedicated to acting that he inspired the rest of them to step their game up
 
Nostremitus said:
Gotcha, but how would the psych exams tell how a person's psyche would react to meeting a god-like entity that separated them from everything they've ever known, and the type of decisions she would make following that incident? Sadly, our history is filled with leaders who have snapped under much less pressure who had shown no signs of mental instability before the psychologically traumatic incidences they found themselves in.
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Too bad the show decided to not really explore this theme beyond a couple throwaway lines here and there.

If Voyager was made now, with how much TV has grown over the past decade, versus when it aired, I think it would've been in contention for one of the best Trek shows ever. Sort of the opposite as it stands as it's pretty much in contention for worst one with Enterprise.
 
WanderingWind said:
Too bad the show decided to not really explore this theme beyond a couple throwaway lines here and there.

If Voyager was made now, with how much TV has grown over the past decade, versus when it aired, I think it would've been in contention for one of the best Trek shows ever. Sort of the opposite as it stands as it's pretty much in contention for worst one with Enterprise.
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Yeah, it was made before PTSD became something that the general public took into consideration.
 
WanderingWind said:
Too bad the show decided to not really explore this theme beyond a couple throwaway lines here and there.

If Voyager was made now, with how much TV has grown over the past decade, versus when it aired, I think it would've been in contention for one of the best Trek shows ever. Sort of the opposite as it stands as it's pretty much in contention for worst one with Enterprise.
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Good point

I mean, I don't buy that Janeway's often bizarre and horrific decisions are planned to be a result of mental issues (unless they're the writers issues), but a series where she made those calls and the crew reacted as a normal crew would (with real maquis tension this time), and possibly pushing back against some of them could have been a very intriguing show. Mutiny? Tuvix staying around? Voyage not striking a deal with the borg? could have been some interesting times.
 
There's a part of me that still really wishes TNG got an 8th season. If it did
Generations wouldn't have happened
and
we could have gotten a nice long TNG/DS9 Dominion War crossover
.

Nostremitus said:
Most, not all. That's how the real world works. You just have to hope that when crap hits the fan, it's one of the few good leaders that are there. Or that if it's a less than ready leader, that their support staff are up to the challenge. Sure, there are ways to try to predict how people will handle stress and try to make intelligent choices. and you try to pair command teams in a way that will balance each person's weaknesses. In the end, though... it's still a crap shoot.
Click to expand...

I don't think "real world" applies when the story takes place in a fictitious 24th century where mankind shuns monetary gains in favor of benefiting the race as a whole. Trek's humanity is very different from our own.

Compared to the rest of the Trek captains on TV, Janeway is a very weak captain. She's far too impulsive, lets her emotions overrule good judgement, likes to put her own moral beliefs above those of the rest of her crew, and treats the Prime Directive like a recommendation instead of a rule. Great character, very unbelievable Starfleet captain. She would have gotten weeded out before ever getting the big chair. I could buy Chakotay being the Voyager captain and Janeway being the Maquis rebel.
 
Just finished watching "Encounter at Farpoint" on Netflix, due to this thread (thanks!).

Gotta say, it was better than I expected. A bit campy, some stiff dialogue and acting, but a good story and a lot of potential. I'm nervous because of all the people in this thread talking about how bad S1 and S2 are, but I'll just keep going and if it gets too bad, I'll go by some of those "recommended episode" lists until I hit S3.

I've never been able to get into Star Trek much (tried watching the movies with OG cast, but ugh can't stay interested), but I'm hoping it works out better for me this time.

Oh, and Q is a dick. Good character, but a total dick.
 
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