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Star Trek TNG's "Parallels"

I know Parallels gets poopoo'd on around here but I think that's mostly due to the SFDebris review. But I am a sucker for alternate dimension stories. Even if one alternate dimension gave us the one Trek romance second only to the Seven-Chakotay relationship in its blandness and implausibility. And speaking of implausible scenarios, Wesley became a security officer. And it's the only episode where Geordi was naked in the same room with another woman. Sucks that he was dead.



And even after watching it several times over the years I never noticed this one detail.

9157e41ee9a794418a212t8aej.jpg





And for fun


 

radcliff

Member
I didn't like the Worf/Troi relationship arc this episode started, but it was cool to see a reality where the Federation was losing the war with the Borg and how desperate that Enterprise was to not go back to their reality.


What detail?

Data has blue eyes
 

night814

Member
TNG is great at balancing crazy weird fun like the holodeck while dealing with major villains like the Borg. It's spectacular and silly no matter what they were doing.
 

Soapbox Killer

Grand Nagus
Also, I always thought that Warf never made it back to his actual reality.


If the first reality jump was during Warf's birthday party, why at the end of the episode was there no surprise party?
 
You're praise the episode in the first line but then use the rest of the post to trash on it? Someone lost the Battleth tournament I see. It was you.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
It was an okay gimmick episode I suppose, and yeah, it started that Troi thing.

I didn't know it was hated though. Like it's not Data playing with his masks at least.
 
Speaking of terrible TNG things that some people like for some reason I watched Star Trek Generations the other day with a group and several of them loved it. I don't know if I can go on in a world filled with such injustice.
 

Ogodei

Member
I liked the episode because it does a good job of selling a growing mystery. Like the earlier episode where Riker is playing the role of an insane person in a play and gradually starts to gaslight himself, except this time it's really happening but it starts with things so subtle that Worf could have made an honest mistake.

As a reformed fanfiction writer, i can appreciate crack pairings and alternate universes, so that episode also hits the sweetspot there.

Plus, yeah, the peek into "Borg Apocalypse" universe and suicidal bedhead Riker.
 
Dammit! I must have somone been pulled in to a parallel dimension.
Well, at least in this one there was also never a sequel to The Matrix ... *uses Google* .. oh god, no ... we must go back!

In this dimension Enterprise wasn't cancelled at Season 4 and concluded naturally at Season 8, culminating in the battle between Archer and
Corrupt Future Archer, also known as the Future Guy
Was so good. Want to sit down and watch my ultimate collector's edition with 17 hours of bonus features?
 
I never thought about WorF returning to the wrong reality. Maybe he ran into Geordi before they showed up to Worfs quarters.


The 7th? Uh, you're not gonna get a lot of agreement on that.

7 was evidence they were running out of ideas. I mean two words - Sub Rosa.
 
I never thought about WorF returning to the wrong reality. Maybe he ran into Geordi before they showed up to Worfs quarters.

I was under the impression that the first shift occurred while he was still on the shuttle, Geordi's presence was just exacerbating the problem.

"Worf ponders that somehow he has been shifting from one to another." Troi asks how it happened. Data goes to the viewer and opens a diagram. "When Worf's shuttlecraft came into the fissure, its warp engines caused a small break between the quantum realities. Worf was thrown into quantum flux. He started shifting into other realities." "
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Parallels_(episode)
 
Re: Generations, it has a genuinely strong opening act that I feel does rather buoy the movie. The rest of it just sort of waffles around mediocre.

As to Parallels, definitely a neat concept, though I think it's caught up against the fact that the series had already tried it several times, whether in an individual facing changes in reality as Beverly did, or all of reality changing as happened with the time displaced Enterprise C. So it's stuck searching for novelty and doesn't really know how to handle it too well.
 
A Borg Invasion should of been the backdrop for the new ST show, taking place after the movies and Voyager.

Personally, I would have much preferred them to expand upon the Machiavellian themes Deep Space Nine touched on with Sisko resorting to any and all measure to preserve the Federation. Specifically, a show based on Section 31 and their every day acts of espionage targeting alien races perceived as threats to the Federation.
 

Kneefoil

Member
Of the Star Trek episodes I've seen, I've probably enjoyed 99% of them. But 99% of the episodes I've seen also don't really stick with me, so I don't remember much about them until I rewatch them. Parallels is one of the latter 99%. Chances are it's one of the former 99% as well, though.
 
Speaking of terrible TNG things that some people like for some reason I watched Star Trek Generations the other day with a group and several of them loved it. I don't know if I can go on in a world filled with such injustice.
The only good thing I can think of with Generations is Lursa and Betor's reactions to watching Geordi go through his daily routine. Other than that, I'll watch Insurrection ten times over before watching Generations again.

7 was evidence they were running out of ideas. I mean two words - Sub Rosa.
Was that the one where Crusher fell in love with a ghost? Because if so, I think that might be the worst episode of Star Trek I've ever watched.
 
A Borg Invasion should of been the backdrop for the new ST show, taking place after the movies and Voyager.

I'm thinking an extragaltatic threat that is immune to telepathy is the way to go.

Personally, I would have much preferred them to expand upon the Machiavellian themes Deep Space Nine touched on with Sisko resorting to any and all measure to preserve the Federation. Specifically, a show based on Section 31 and their every day acts of espionage targeting alien races perceived as threats to the Federation.

Not a popular opinion I'm sure but I'd rather let sleeping dogs lie. Star Trek is well past the point where you're picking and choosing bits of continuity in order to maintain coherence and they've already faced a host of internal and external threats, godlike beings, deteriorating warp fabric, the borg (multiple times), extra-dimensional species, parallel universe threats, quadrant-scale invasion with the Dominion, temporal threats and millions of week-to-week problems. The new show is doing prequel again and hopefully it goes better than last time they did it. Never-the-less, it's an overstuffed universe, it has a lot of novels if you really feel the need to go deeper and I don't think it needs anything more.

I would rather a clean slate approach. Not even a Kelvin-verse "oh the timeline diverged at so-and-so" but a reimagining from the beginning without being a slave to any preexisting continuity at all. Back to the core of what Star Trek can be with a mixture of weekly plots and overarching continuity.
 
As for really bad opinions, I love Q! I've always enjoyed breaking the belief that an almighty creature would no longer interest itself with the goings-on of lower life forms, let alone one specific individual of that group life forms. We don't know what an almighty creature would want to do. and if The Sims are any indication, it's fucking with them, really badly.

Oh, forgot I love this episode and probably my favorite episode is "The Survivors" lol. It was the first one I watched and it got me totally into Star Trek. The Twilight Zone aesthetic of two people being the only survivors on an entire planet enthralled me, and caused me to go on a binge watch of the rest of the series.
 
I would rather a clean slate approach. Not even a Kelvin-verse "oh the timeline diverged at so-and-so" but a reimagining from the beginning without being a slave to any preexisting continuity at all. Back to the core of what Star Trek can be with a mixture of weekly plots and overarching continuity.

Yep, that's what I'd like to see. Not a reboot, just a completely fresh universe. New crew, new politics, new aliens, new discoveries etc. It'd be great to have the freedom to think about how this generation sees itself in the 23rd/24th century, rather than what those in the 60s or 80s thought.

I just wish Discovery wasn't shoved into a pre-existing timeline that it has to dance around.
 

.JayZii

Banned
The only TNG episodes I actually don't like are the Troi's mom episodes. Even those can be sort of dumb fun, though.
 
The only TNG episodes I actually don't like are the Troi's mom episodes. Even those can be sort of dumb fun, though.

They are just kind of awkward. The whole wanting to fuck Picard shtick got old

That one episode she is in with the ambassador who has to face his death is a good episode tho
 

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
The only TNG episodes I actually don't like are the Troi's mom episodes. Even those can be sort of dumb fun, though.
I do like the one where she brings her huge butler/helper/sidekick guy with her and they all have dinner and he just keeps hitting a gong constantly.
 

Harlock

Member
The replicator effects on society has to be drastic. Why be a bartender in the spaceship when you can be at home with a replicator creating food and videogames for you?
 

t-storm

Member
A Borg Invasion should of been the backdrop for the new ST show, taking place after the movies and Voyager.
No thanks...

Borg need to be retired. I love how they were introduced: creepy, mysterious, threatening, unsettling.

ST now needs to get creative and introduce a new villain alien species along the same vein that's not eye roll inducing... (i.e. species 8472).
 

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
The replicator effects on society has to be drastic. Why be a bartender in the spaceship when you can be at home with a replicator creating food and videogames for you?
On the show the bar is just for socializing.

Remember, social media wasn't a thing yet. Neither was the internet.
 

NeOak

Member
Not a popular opinion I'm sure but I'd rather let sleeping dogs lie. Star Trek is well past the point where you're picking and choosing bits of continuity in order to maintain coherence and they've already faced a host of internal and external threats, godlike beings, deteriorating warp fabric, the borg (multiple times), extra-dimensional species, parallel universe threats, quadrant-scale invasion with the Dominion, temporal threats and millions of week-to-week problems. The new show is doing prequel again and hopefully it goes better than last time they did it. Never-the-less, it's an overstuffed universe, it has a lot of novels if you really feel the need to go deeper and I don't think it needs anything more.

I would rather a clean slate approach. Not even a Kelvin-verse "oh the timeline diverged at so-and-so" but a reimagining from the beginning without being a slave to any preexisting continuity at all. Back to the core of what Star Trek can be with a mixture of weekly plots and overarching continuity.

I've been reading Memory Alpha since yesterday and holy shit, this is all true.

I need to really watch DS9 and VOY, maybe ENT from the start too. And finish TNG....
 
The replicator effects on society has to be drastic. Why be a bartender in the spaceship when you can be at home with a replicator creating food and videogames for you?

Well why do any job in that universe? What about Sisko's dad working a sweat in his restaurant all day and night?

Their excuse was just for personal development and enjoyment etc.
 
D

Deleted member 102362

Unconfirmed Member
I love Parallels. It's one of the best episodes of a pretty rough season, and it's a lot of fun to watch.
 
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