Picard
March 16, 2008We have to talk Star Trek.
I have a love-hate relationship with the franchise. On the one hand, there was a time when I thoroughly enjoyed Star Trek: Voyager. It was aired on a regular schedule on Dutch TV (six episodes a week), and I watched it religiously. On the other hand, Star Trek is probably the most overrated franchise you can find. Star Trek - I’m sorry to say - is really, really bad. Seriously. If there is one series in this world that makes absolutely no sense in any way imaginable, it’s Star Trek.
So, I liked Voyager, but at one point, I just snapped out of it. I saw the ridiculousness again, got ahold of my mind, and stopped watching it. I believe I missed most of the last two seasons - did catch a few episodes here and there, and read up on how it ended. Anyway, my Trek days were, luckily, over.
Until a few days ago. For no apparent reason, I had a longing to watch Star Trek. I have no idea where it came from. Suffice to say, I decided to dive into The Next Generation, at the beginning, season one. And oh yes, it’s every bit as bad as I remember it. Seriously. This is really, really crappy television. The only thing keeping it alive is, of course, Patrick Stewart. I don’t like Picard as much as I liked Janeway (I’m alone in that, aren’t I?), but Patrick portrays the guy excellently.
I read that the other seasons are much better, so I guess I’ll just keep ploughing through season one, biting my lip, shaking my head in utter disgust that this abomination got to see more than one season, but that Dead Like Me and Threshold got cancelled. Such unfairness can only come from Hollywood.
Film | 
Personally, I can only watch TNG, and only seasons 3-7. “Voyager” was so-so in my opinion, and only seasons 3-4 were “ok”. I never liked DS9 (very few episodes were good), ENT was crap from beginning to end and the original TOS are just too old to watch now: they make me laugh with the way they act or the script was written — even if I always liked Mr Spock.
The first and second seasons of TNG were absolutely crap. I am not sure if it’s TOS that’s worse, or the first two seasons of TNG. I believe from these two seasons only 2-3 episodes were “ok”, all in the second season (e.g. a “Measure of a Man” was not too bad). Where TNG really excelled was in seasons 3 to 6 (season 7 was very so-so again). There are some episodes in there that are true classics. True lessons of life! True social commentaries at their finest! THESE where the episodes that exploded the Star Trek franchise in the mid-90s. I have blogged about some of these particular episodes here. When I say that “I love TNG” on various posts online, I am most referring to these 30-40 episodes that were near-perfect.
Comment by Eugenia — March 16, 2008 @ 6:42 pm
Well, despite Brent Spiner being present and Carla Gugino looking great, I think of Threshold of the best example for a good idea turned into laughable acting. I liked the storyline, but to see them perform caused me almost real physical pain sometimes :/
As of Patrick Stewart [TNG is my second favorite ST show besides DS9, and I don’t really care how some people think of DS9 as utter crap :) ], there were four of his movie/tv appearances that I really liked: Ahab, Scrooge, Hood, and of course Picard. I really like to see him perform, and I hope to get to see him on stage before he retires.
Comment by l3v1 — March 16, 2008 @ 7:31 pm
Nimoy: I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
[A camera tracks Fry but he ignores it.]
Fry: You know. 1966? 79 episodes, about 30 good ones.
ST:Voy and series 1 and 2 of TNG are probably my least favorite Trek. My favourite Trek is Series 4-7 of TNG, the film series and select TOS. Some of the later DS9 is OK. I’ve reserved judgment on Enterprise until I’ve seen some more.
“Kaaaaaaahn!”
Comment by michael reed — March 16, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
I didn’t like The Game. It was probably one of the episodes meant to make Wil/Wesley look bad. Some writer had it in for him(which one?) and had him do bad dialogue, at least so I read on his blog.
I really liked most of those episode Eugenia mentioned, but have to add The Inner Light to the list.
Comment by mikesum32 — March 17, 2008 @ 12:48 am
Let’s all keep in mind ‘The Next Generation’ started in 1987, so as far as being over-fictional (and the many production quality issues) - it really wasn’t that bad for a TV show at the time.
Do we remember Doctor Who (the original b&w episodes!) - where props and ‘creatures’ could barely stand up, audio was horrible, and the plots were far-far-far-fetched…? That didn’t keep people from watching and loving it, I know I still try to catch episodes late night on PBS weekends.
But these were relatively ground-breaking shows, and while we have lots of criticisms about them - let’s remember this was LOW budget TV. TV!! not movies..
…so why are you still watching these old shows you think are so ‘horrible’? Because they really weren’t, until you consider the fact that it’s 2008 - so the sci-fi technology they use is either already invented, disproven, or still infeasable.
then again, bad acting is bad acting.. :)
Comment by Jacob Munoz — March 18, 2008 @ 5:42 pm