seven in seven outfit vs regular




pretty absurd

ST TNG S7E18: Eye of the Beholder

Interesting though flawed attempt at doing a vengeful spirit story within the confines of TNG. Troi experiencing memories of death and questionable activity puts her on the scent of the mystery, meanwhile her and Worf begin a relationship. These are not strands that really support each other well, though it could have worked with better writing. Another slightly disconcerting thing is some of the alien makeup in this episode looks a bit...vagina-ey....

I did like the Troi strand, but it didn't cohere with growing relationship story, I think it should have been 2 separate episode maybe.

6/10

ST TNG S7E19: Genesis

Where everyone started de-evolving or becoming other creatures. With a comedy twist this could have been out of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but they treat it reasonably seriously, and it entertains. The story reminded me of a story from Judge Dredd that was run years before this episode was made, called 'Monkey Business at the Charles Darwin Block'. Marina Sirtis was effective as someone becoming a reptile (I'm not kidding)

Barclay as a spider was something to see.


5/10

ST TNG S7E20: Journey's End

Welsey comes back and is a stroppy little twat till he goes on walkabout, sees his dad, and goes off to be a space wanderer like Caine from Kung Fu.

Meanwhile in what is clearly a much, much too on-the-nose story about native Americans in space being forced to relocate, and us finding out Picard has ancestoral guilt over the same actions from centuries before, it's hard not to start retching.

I know Ronald D Moore likes an Exodus story, but I'm shocked he had a hand in this nonsense.

Quite dreadful

2/10

Holy Schnitzels...

yeah i feel like the costume designer considered just giving her body paint but instead opted for a clothed version of it to save time getting into costume each day

That's pretty harsh. I quite liked this one. The great thing about TNG is it explored interesting issues intelligently for its story of the week and then moved on. This one feels "right on" for today's culture wars and the idea of original sin and inherited guilt. However, at the time it was made it did explore issues and ideas where other shows wouldn't go - the trans episode is another good example of this.

However, the great thing about TNG is that once the idea had been explored, it moved on in the next episode.

The thing about TNG is even terrible episodes are okay, because you like hanging out with the crew whatever.

I agree and It almost certainly helps that this one is a "Picard" episode.

I'm not sure there is any TNG episode featuring Picard that is less than a 5/10, particularly when he is in diplomatic mode. I think what I like about this episode is you see Picard reason through his dilemma, such as dismissing any idea of inherited guilt because that's obviously a stupid idea, or at least it used to be.

Strange New Worlds just wrapped up its first season and this is the "Get Back" of Star Trek. They went back to the series roots in doing episodic, smaller stakes, more character focused, optimistic stories, rather than serialized, dark, end of the galaxy stuff that Discovery and Picard have done for 6 seasons so far. The cast is great and they all have amazing chemistry together. The show generates that warm feeling you get from watching a bunch of likeable people doing interesting stuff that you get with the classic casts. The episodes run the gamut of genres from action, adventure, drama to comedy. With it being a prequel there are going to be some retcons so you just have to go with the flow on them. But if you are a fan of the older Trek series and have been turned off by Discovery and Picard, I highly recommend checking this one out. It is likely the best and most consistently strong first season to a Trek series since season 1 of TOS.

5 out of 5

I will be doing Strange New Worlds after ST TNG Season 7 done. I'm psyched for it.

ST TNG S7E21: Firstborn

Thoughtful and interesting look at Alexander's Klingon heritage, and how Worf and Alexander deal with it. Quite touching and interesting. Also, awesome to see the Duras sisters!

7/10

ST TNG S7E22: Bloodlines

Another father/son episode, this time with Picard finding out he has a son cos vengeful Ferengi Bok wants him to pay for killing Bok's son. It's not bad, seeing Stewart's Pciard struggle with parenthood, and they do cop out a bit near the end, but a decent middling story.

5/10

ST TNG S7E23: Emergence

Interesting premise about interacting non-biological systems starting to evolve emergent intelligence, but it's written in a way that is both confusing and in a way the crew just don't appear to really know what to do, other than go along with the weird and slightly dream-like behaviour of the intelligence that is trying to emerge. Also the outcomes of what the emergent behaviour is doing to the ship seems to be quite dangerous to the crew, but no one seems to be trying to work out how to get rid of it, other than being aware whatever they try to do to stop it has negative consequences.

Good idea, not well executed.

5/10

Agree completely. The show was so good that one of the first things I did every Thursday was stream the just-released latest episode. It's the first time in a long time that I was actually looking forward with anticipation to a new Star Trek episode. There were a couple of episodes in the middle of the 10-episode season that I wasn't too thrilled with, but the show came back with a vengeance after that. And I absolutely loved the final episode and how they tied it in with TOS. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil anything. The only problem now is having to wait until next year for more episodes.

LaMDA

lame, can't even correctly voice "artificial"

it's NOT the voice, it's the sentiment... lame.

ST TNG S7E24: Preemptive Strike

An episode set around Ro Laren, who is one of the most interesting occasional characters in TNG. Directed by Patrick Stewart. Well written and developed, it's interesting to see how the character of Ro takes a turn that is a bit unexpected, but entirely consistent with the Ro persona. I don't want to spoil it.

I'm glad there was one more Ro episode before the entire series finished.

7/10

6 episodes into strange new worlds and its fantastic.

Unfortunately, you're now going to run into what I consider to be the two weakest episodes of the season. In fact, I was concerned that the show's writing was about to fall off a cliff and take us down to Discovery/Picard territory, but fortunately, the final two episodes brought it back up to the good/great level.

ST TNG S7E25: All Good Things...

... must come to an end.

Final episode of ST:TNG, and it's double length, and features Q in a rather good coda to the very first episode, Encounter At Farpoint.

It's a little overrated, but it's fun and hits a lot of high points, but for some reason the CGI in this episode does not look that great. I think the new type of starship used in this one was just not generated that well. Old Picard barking out his demands is a little jarring at first, but is more fun when you get used to it. Crusher taking him down a peg or two for making demands on her bridge is worth a look.

7/10

Overall, TNG is a big comfort watch, spending time with a cast you like doing adventures that range from fantastic to ropey, but every episode is watchable because it's a good time to spend your time with these people.

I'm now going to spend some time going through newer Trek, including
- Strange New Worlds
- Picard
- Discovery
- Prodigy
- The Orville !

Before descending into a FIRST WATCH of Deep Space Nine....

i liked the orville but over time the novelty wore off and i stopped watching