yep. They can push a dude through the hull like it's not there, but they don't just fall downwards...

Just broadly speaking, almost all the episodes involving Picard and Borg have been great. Even the movies worked alright.

Voyager's Borg episodes in comparison are lackluster, despite the franchise's contribution to a lot of Borg's background lore.

I liked that we get to see more of Ensign Ro Laren, who's been underutilized ever since she was introduced. The fight/chase scene with her is great. Otherwise, the whole "everyone thinks we're dead" premise didn't really go anywhere and just felt like the writers were cribbing ideas from The Twilight Zone. And way too much technobabble; I give it a B-.

Ironically, this was intended to be one of those "we're out of money, let's not make any new sets" episodes that you see from time to time on Star Trek, but the special effects made it one of the more expensive episodes of the whole season.

Also, who put Data in charge of arranging funeral services? How does that even make sense? You have a professional ship's counselor on board, I don't know how this isn't Troi's department.

This episode would have been way better if Data had ****ed it up and arranged some completely inappropriate funeral service. The writers missed a golden opportunity for some lols.

This thread got me watching TNG remastered and I have to say they did a pretty good job.

Premise was a sci-fi take on death... I was bored. You die... end of story.... nonono you die beginning of story. I give it a C.

ST TNG S5E25: The Inner Light

Hmmm, I should like this one more. Picard gets zapped by alien probe, and lives a lifetime on a planet, whilst only being asleep for 25 minutes... So we explore Picard as a family man, and ageing village elder who knows the planet to which he belongs is slowly dying, and an exploration of that. It's very Roddenbery and more than a little Twilight Zone-y, and feels undramatic to me, though I must admit the final shots of Picard playing the flute were quite affecting.

Music was quite impressive.

This one is touted as one of the best episodes of the entire series, but I can think of at least 10 better ones, imo....

Eh, I just found it a bit maudlin.

8/10

S06 E19 "Lessons" is a great companion to the episode you reviewed. The music is excellent. And Wendy Hughes who played Commander Daren did a great job probably being one of Picards best love interest matches.

The scene in "Lessons" where they play Moonlight Sonata in the Jeffrey's Tube junction was always a favorite of mine.

ST TNG S5E26: Time's Arrow part 1

Season 5 ends with a cliffhanger, but I like the premise and will look forward to the second part. Data's head found in the past, weird dimension-shifting stuff, and some sort of life-draining couple wandering around 19th Century America... and a bit of Mark Twain too...

I liked Data in the 19th Century, explaining how he as because he's French. That section reminded me of City On The Edge of Forever


7/10

I'm taking a short break from NextGen, as I wanted to go through this season of fan-made non-canon Trek, which I've heard some good things about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Continues


I'll comment on the episodes here, as I watch them.

That episode marks the 4th and final TNG appearance of the great Marc Alaimo, who played 4 different roles on the show and would move on to play one of the best recurring Trek characters on DS9.

I think a rewatch of this lessens the impact of him finding out what's really going on. Most of the episode is interesting in terms of seeing Picard out of his element, and the standard drama around the crew trying to solve the problem, but for once, the climax and reveal outshined the buildup, by a long ways.

I finally got through season 1 of TNG. By the end of it, the show has improved quite a bit, especially the last 2 episodes. Most of it is the intangibles, like the acting, editing, pacing and things like that, even when the stories are still mediocre.

In the final episode, the Romulans show up, do nothing and then leave. The B story about cryogenically frozen people, which also goes nowhere was still an interesting character study and it was overall a good episode. The early episodes had me bored often and checking the clock to see how much time was left but I was really able to enjoy many of the later ones. Picard has also gone from a grumpy Frenchman who hates kids in the pilot to more closely resembling the later versions of the character.

I was not originally familiar with the character of Tasha Yar and after seeing all the episodes with her, my feelings are that she was a good character who had potential but I don't miss her that she's gone. Though honestly I could've said that for most of the season 1 cast, especially Wesley and Troi.

Riker feels like kind of a third wheel character. I understand why they created the first officer, so that the captain wouldn't go down on every dangerous away mission, but there have been several times where Riker and co are on a mission, stuff happens and it keeps cutting back and forth to the bridge where Picard says "What's going on down there? Report!" and it kills the flow and tension in the scene.

Apparently season 2 is supposed to be a bit of a bumpy ride as well and it'll be a shame to see Dr Crusher gone as she was one of the best characters in the show so far. I wonder if that was the reason that the Picard-Crusher romance subplot never took off. Or maybe it was yet another thing that they introduced early in the series that got quietly abandoned later on.

I have pretty mixed feelings about DS9.

I generally liked it quite a bit but I always had the nagging feeling it was Babylon 5 with Star Trek skin.

That's a good way to quickly describe it. Of course DS9 came first, so it'd be more accurate to say that B5 is what you get if DS9 shed its Trek skin

The flute from the society left behind was a genious device used later in the series. Not going to put a number on it though.

I hope I'm wrong but it feels like they've already telegraphed the entire series:

Picard has quit starfleet and is living a sad, disillusioned life on earth after the destruction of Romulus. One day, a chosen one, MacGuffin girl shows up and says she needs his help. He goes to starfleet who says no, so he assembles a ragtag crew to go on one last adventure and along with his former friends and allies (Data, 7 of 9, etc) they save the day and learn the true meaning of friendship, heroism and all the positive traits that he wanted to regain.

The "disillusionment -> redemption" arc has already been done quite a bit recently, like in the Last Jedi and Mad Max: Fury Road.

Looks really good otherwise and it's nice that after all the reboots and prequels of the last 20 years we're finally getting a continuation of the prime Trek storyline.

I would hope that there are some twists in there (The stuff about the Romulans experimenting with Borg tech and that going awry, etc), but yeah, that seems like the jist of it.

I also have a lot of faith in Stewart not to go along with something that was awful for the sake of it. Yeah, he did Insurrection, but that was in the middle of a multi-film arc for the TNG crew. He's coming out of Star Trek retirement to do this, and has never seemed like the type to do dumb **** for the money.

You mention movies like TLJ, which was just god awful, so I'm hoping they've learned from that and are willing to devote more effort to solid story telling. In any case, I'm willing to hold off my doubts for Dept. Dir. Bullock.

Yeah, just looks like character driven fan service...

...can't wait

Well apparently they're bringing back:



so, you aren't wrong.

Well, it's can't be any worse than STD.

Engage