My TNG Reviews
Season One
1-01-02 Encounter at Farpoint
As a Star Trek episode Encounter at Farpoint is pretty bad. Even as a pilot for an entirely, and eagerly awaited, new Trek series it's quite bad. It's surprising that this was able to launch an entire new era of Trek on television. But then again, in the late 80s the TV landscape was a lot different.
It's not even that I review this in hindsight, 24 years after the fact, because I remember being underwhelmed by it even back then. And it certainly hasn't aged well. That goes for the entire run of The Next Generation, but especially for its first seasons.
The pilot does an adequate job of setting up the characters and universe, but it's a shame that neither is particularly interesting. None of the characters really stick out, with the notable exception of the android Data, even if he's somewhat of a caricature. Patrick Stewart lends a certain gravitas to Captain Jean-Luc Picard, but he comes off as something of a stiff. And I cannot get over that the first major action this French captain does is surrender. It is indeed a new generation. The rest are just bland and most of them will never get that interesting, the Klingon Worf another exception.
I don't care much for the look either. The new Enterprise 1701-D is more of a luxury liner than a warship/ship of exploration. It even has families on board, which is pretty irresponsible for a ship that routinely engages in armed combat. The "uniforms" are pretty silly looking spandex pajamases, and the less said about the "man skirt" the better.
But what about the plot? Well, that too was fairly uninteresting and it was rather obvious that they meshed two plots into one just so they could fill two hours. The Farpoint plot was predictable and the Q plot just annoying. But then again, Q is an annoying character. He grows somewhat over the course of new Trek, but he'll become much too overused. Godlike beings have been a bane of Star Trek ever since the original series. He seems inserted here just so Picard can pontificate about how evolved humanity is in the 24th century. Yawn! If there's one thing I don't care for much in modern Trek, it's this concept of "perfect" human beings, something that goes against everything we know about human nature. It's a pipe dream made up by hippies. It's also a sign that creator Gene Roddenberry had a change of heart as he got older. I prefer the more relatable humans in the original series and Enterprise.
But there was one moment that brought a little tear to my eye, and that was the cameo appearance of a very old Admiral McCoy, effectively handing the torch over to the a new crew and a new series.
However, I cannot in good conscience give more than a grade of 3- to Encounter at Farpoint, and that's still generous. Since it the first Star Trek on TV in 18 years I give it a little slack - otherwise it would've been just a 2.
1-03 The Naked Now
It's a bad sign that they had to go and pilfer an old original series episode for their second outing. They even don't bother to hide the fact, actually referencing The Naked Time and its cure. It's even intentional, as a way to showcase the deeper feelings of the characters. Alas, it falls flat because we don't really know any of them at this point.
The episode isn't even amusing and it seems all the characters' deeper feelings are sexual (apart from young Wesley) as a whooping six main characters engage in coupling up. I don't know, but it didn't really enlighten me as to what makes them tick.
And let me take the opportunity to say how much I despise the Wesley character. He gets them into a deadly mess with his antics that aren't even remotely funny (my namesake Kevin Riley did that a whole lot more entertaining on the original series). And of course the boy wonder is so smart that he gets the ship out of it in the end. Gah! Can you spell Mary Sue? In fact he's so much of a wish fulfilment character for old Gene Roddenberry that he's named after the Great Bird's middle name.
I measly grade of 1 to The Naked Now.
1-04 Code of Honor
This has got to be one of the worst episodes of Trek ever produced. It's totally cringe-inducing and insulting, and perhaps even borderline racist in it's depiction of these black people modelled on some notion of honour in tribal Africa.
Nothing much even happens as it just drags on and on, with people talking and talking without revealing much, just so they could stretch the story to fit into an hour. And the less said about the stupid duel fight at the end the better.
I'll give a non-grade of zero to this boring and offensive episode.
(-)
1-05 Haven
The first season of The Next Generation began really badly, and Haven is no exception. I can understand why it was pushed forward in the original airing order. It introduces us to one of the worst, if not the worst, recurring character in all of Trek, namely Deanna Troi's obnoxious mother Lwaxana. And no, even in her first outing she wasn't tolerable. It's obvious she's in Star Trek just because of Majel Barrett Roddenberry's last name. She should've been content as the computer voice.
I never liked Deanna to begin with, so I didn't really care that she was being married off, especially since it was a foregone conclusion that she wouldn't be since she's a main, albeit pretty useless, character. And Riker behaved like an annoying emo child. "Waning to be a starship Captain!" Ha, considering he spent seven plus years avoiding becoming just that.
The only redeeming thing about this was Mr. Homm, politely thanking Picard for the drinks.
A grade of 1+ to this outing.
1-06 Where No One Has Gone Before
This episode is the first real try by The Next Generation to go on a grander scale - travelling a billion light-years into who knows where - but alas it failed. What we got was some weird alien on an acid trip, spouting new age nonsense about thoughts and time and matter. This could have been a lot more interesting, but it quickly devolved into bizarre hallucinations and funky lights.
Not to mention hammering down that annoying child prodigy Wesley Crusher is oh-so-special. To add insult to injury Picard makes this 24th century Mozart an acting ensign. Had I been a real Starfleet officer I'd been pissed as hell about my CO playing favours and putting a child on the bridge, filling a slot that by rights and training should go to, you know, real officers.
And I have to roll my eyes at the episode title Where No One Has Gone Before, a sign of the more politically correct era, since saying "man" is deemed too sexist (and probably speciest as well). It's now part of the opening catch phrase as well.
I'll give this episode a grade of 2+ on my 10-graded scale.
1-07 The Last Outpost
Artefacts of an ancient extinct empire sound intriguing, doesn't it? Too bad that they never did much of the Tkon Empire in The Last Outpost. It was just a means of introducing the extremely disappointing new "enemy", the Ferengi. I don't know what the producers were smoking when they thought that people up, but it communicates that they really haven't a clue what real capitalism is like. The Ferengi are a caricature, and a really bad one at that. How anyone would consider them a credible threat is beyond me. Thankfully the producers soon realized that and shifted focus to more believable menaces, like the Borg and the returning Romulans.
This episode also exemplifies the unfortunate tendency of 24th century Trek to be not just preachy but also condescending and acting morally superior just because we're so "evolved" compared to the other barbarians like the Ferengi. You know, for a civilisation that prides itself on tolerance, the Federation, and especially the humans, often comes off very intolerant towards those not sufficiently enlightened. Apparently the Rip Van Winkle Tkon gatekeeper agrees in this with Riker after the latter managed to quote Sun Tzu and say profound things like "fear is the greatest enemy". Puh-leeze!
And once more, after only seven episodes, we see Picard surrendering unconditionally again. Luckily for him the Ferengi were too daft to notice it.
Another grade of 2+ to The Last Outpost.
1-08 Lonely Among Us
This episode contains the by now tired cliché of Alien Possession™ and as such it's fairly standard. Not very good but not overtly bad either. It's just not very interesting. A living lightning bolt inhabits the Enterprise circuitry as well as various crew members, until it reaches Picard. It then, along with Picard, beams itself into the energy cloud from whence it came.
The best part of Lonely Among Us was when the senior staff contemplated removing the possessed Captain from command. Too bad they dragged on about it until it was too late. That would have made the episode a lot better.
The stupidest part was the sub-plot about two species hostile to each other riding along for a peace conference. It was frankly superfluous since it didn't have anything to do with the main plot, and they were silly to boot. But it allowed Riker et al. to once again tap themselves on their shoulders about how enlightened humans are now that we don't even eat meat from livestock anymore. Sheesh!
The resolution was all too convenient and frankly violates established Treknology. Picard's living energy (presumably his "soul") could reintegrate with his body stored in the transporter's pattern buffer after more than an hour. No wonder they never tried that life-saving technique again, since it would amount to introducing virtual immortality.
I'll give this a generous grade of 3 out of 10.
For me it's the opposite. To me the TNG characters were mostly walking stiffs, whereas the TOS characters felt and acted like humans, even if we never saw their families. And in terms of relationships, nothing on Trek has ever topped the friendships between Kirk, Spock and McCoy. 
