LizstarTrek - TNG Season 1

No more Kirk! No more Spock! A little more Bones. It is finally time

Continuing on my quest to watch and talk about EVERY Episode of Trek ever made, we’re on to THE NEXT GENERATION

It’s been a long time. And season 1 has… growing pains. But I’m excited

Energize

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Encounter at Far Point Part 1 - TNG 7/10

A tentative seven. All the stuff with Q was… annoying? Like, John Delancy is great. But he was written poorly here, a lot of it probably Roddenberry’s work.

And yet MORE “Humans are warlike and need to prove themselves”. We’ve done this like eight times. It’s a little old.

Once we’re past that, though, the character points are very nice! Some characters haven’t quite hit their stride (Beardless Riker, shudder) but it’s so good to finally see them. I kept yelling out “MY BOY!”

And of course, McCoy shows up to be cool. A solid 137 years old, and Deforest Kelley once again bein’ the type of actor to just go “LATHER THAT SHIT ALL OVER ME” when they need him to do old man makeup

I’ll also be saying this a lot, but I love Data. He’s the best.

A few more thoughts:

Tasha Yar’s job is to make dumb decisions and be yelled at. What an unfortunate character. She deserved better.

Apparently the original script had Wesley as a 15 year old girl named Leslie. Can you imagine how different life would be????

The Encounter at Farpoint Part 2 - TNG 7.5/10

Better than the last one, cause the weird Q bullshit is much better here. Everyone still feels wrong, not quite how they should be, but it’s honestly a good start to the TNG series.

Nice intrigue and concept, too.

But yeah, most of the characters are really uncharacteristic. The only ones that feel correct in any way are Crusher and Data. And Worf. Poor Worf. At least he caused one of the best lines

“…Are you about to blow a hole in the viewfinder???”

The Naked Now - TNG 3.5/10

Why does Tasha Yar have the Superman curl

This episode is an homage to The Naked Time from TOS, but it’s not NEARLY as good. Alas, no one swings a sword, but thats the least of our worries

No one knows how to write/act drunk, write women, and ESPECIALLY not both at the same time

I mostly found all the characters really obnoxious? And not just while drunk, it’s just a matter of growing pains in mostly the writing. Some silly moments.

“Worf, stop trying to tell me the star is going to vaporize us, I need to yell at this child!”

The entirety of Yar and Data. God, poor Yar, so mistreated.

Worf is the only one who didn’t get infected and he STILL was barely allowed to do anything.

Horny Picard makes weird grunting mating calls and I do not like it.

Riker was somehow NOT the horny one!!

Code of Honor - TNG 1/10

Ah yes. The Racist Episode. The “space africa” episode, as I’ve heard it called, but I’ll call it “Space Africa as imagined by old white men” episode.

I expected this to be racist. I did not also expect it to be sexist. But holy shit.

As a note, the alien species is not written as black in the notes. But they were ALL cast as black, because of fucking course they were.

It’s an episode where a black guy kidnaps a woman and engages in a Traditional Ritual to make her one of his wives. Good lord.

I will say, it’s still not the worst episode I’ve seen so far. But PROBABLY 2nd worst, and almost certainly the worst for TNG all together. I can’t imagine it being worse than this.

The ToS sexism ep is still worse to me cause at least it shows women can fight.

…though actually

Okay, in this episode, it shows Yar being attracted to her kidnapper. And Troi baits on her being attracted to his masculinity, and it is FUCKING DISGUSTING.

And then directing anger at the wife instead of him, ughhhh it’s so fucking nasty.

The Last Outpost - TNG 4/10

THE FIRST FERENGI EPISODE! And my GOD are the Ferengi done poorly. You know, the rest of the episode is actually pretty good? But the Ferengi are SO DISTRACTING. They’re set up as Big Bads and they try hard to sell it but its so goofy.

It has some fun character moments? The first beginnings of the Data and Geordi Bromance. Riker handling an ancient guardian super well. But then in the background, the entire time, are a bunch of Ferengi dancing like gremlins in the background like idiots

Fun fact, Armin Shimmerman is in this episode! And when he came back as Quark, he announced that his plan was to take what he did here, and do THE EXACT OPPOSITE, because of how horrible it was.

And then we got Quark. I love Quark.

This episode feels noncanon lol… tbh, most of this season feels noncanon.

Where No One Has Gone Before - TNG 8.5/10

I liked this in spite of some of its flaws, but its probably the best so far. The Traveler is a neat character, with a cool concept. Part of me is disgusted at the “Wesley is the Chosen One” vibe, but its done well here. I shouldn’t discount this episode for how that plot point can be done poorly later. Here, Wesley is just shown to be talented, and someone wants those talents cultivated. That’s nice.

The one asshole character was annoying, but seeing him deflated is hilarious.

Other things I enjoyed: Showing off some of the other random crewmembers doing fun stuff. I liked the violin scene.

The guy in the skirt. Fuck yeah man skirts.

Riker standing up for Wesley against Picard’s weird annoying anti-kid shit.

Lonely Among Us - TNG 3/10

ඞ sus

So uh, this episode was super messy. Lots of things just felt irrelevent. The entire B plot with the two aliens was padding, though the designs were cool. They added nothing. Also the mutiny added nothing. Basically everything was irrelevent.

Like it’s to add tension but it kinda… doesn’t work. And smiley happy Picard upsets me greatly.

This isn’t a BAD episode though, because it gives us Data in a Pipe. Which is one of the best character moments so far, for sure.

I gotta say, I’ve been saying all the characters feel like they’re off, except for three: Riker is not QUITE as good as he will be but he’s still great. Geordi isn’t as relevent as he will be but he’s still Geordi

But Data is 100% Data. He starts great, he stays great.

EDIT: Oh my god I forgot something about this episode that annoyed the shit out of me. So, this season has a weird rotating cast of Head Engineers. This is cause Roddenberry wanted to focus more on the bridge than anywhere else, though we hang out in Engineering all the time anyway so this seems like a waste of time. Anyways in this episode we have another new head of engineering who gets killed. He’s an Indian dude named Lt. Jg. Singh

And I’m just like…

Y’ALL KNOW THERE ARE OTHER INDIAN SURNAMES THAN SINGH, RIGHT?

There are literally five characters in this fucking franchise with the last name of Singh. For fucks sake. At least with the newest one, La’an Noonien-Singh, she’s y’know, connected to Khan. Who is ONE OF THE MOST WELL KNOWN TREK CHARACTERS. Maybe come up with another fucking surname so we don’t constantly think back to Khan. Or so you don’t seem like you only know one Indian surname.

Continuing on our multi-year long voyage of adventure and discovery, we find ourselves deep in the first season of The Next Generation. It is… not good!! God I cannot wait to get out of this quagmire.

Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. By our estimates, we’ll be out of Season 1 by March. Heavens preserve us.

Justice - TNG 2/10

The only good thing about this episode is this Picard expression.

It’s also the expression I was making the entire time.

It was just extremely uncomfortable. The Idyllic Hippy People were so awkward and uncomfortable to watch, and the actual plot and concept was mostly annoying. I DID like the ending of “there is no justice with a law that’s absolute and inflexible”, that’s a nice moral I guess. But Christ, the acting is stilted, and it just made me so uncomfortable. And the god exploration wasn’t very interesting either. Honestly the second half was way batter, but the first half set me up REAL bad to hate this.

The Battle - TNG 9/10

This is a REAL good episode. I usually like to go “this is the TOPIC episode”. But here I’d have to say “This is the Picard PTSD and gaslighting episode”. But there are a lot of those. This is one of them, and it’s a good one.

This would be a WAY better introduction to the Ferengi. The villain, Bok, is a fun villain, especially cause of how unferengi he is, and how that’s a plot point. The other Ferengi aren’t offended by his evil actions, more that he’s doing stuff for revenge instead of personal profit.

I love how Picard is like “Doctor, I have a headache” “What?” “A headache, don’t you know what that is?” “Of course I do, but we don’t see many of those anymore”

Crusher, you did NOT cure stress headaches in 2364 there’s no fucking way migraines are now a thing of the past, like the Measles. What, are their inoculations against migraines now?? Did you isolate a weakened migraine germ for vaccines?

Hide and Q - TNG 8/10

Damn, it didn’t talk long at all to actually get Q. The Q in the opening episode barely felt like Q. This feels like he’s ACTUALLY Q, and it’s so good to see him. He’s a shithead and I hate him but it’s good to see him.

This was fun. Lots of fun moments. Q turning into Data made me scream. Q and Picard doing a Shakespeare off was also hilarious. NEVER challenge Sir Patrick Stewart to a Shakespeare off!! Also this episode had a lot of this face, which I found really weirdly entertaining.

What it was doin’ with Riker made me… very uncomfortable. But that’s the point, it did it well!! Also, the scene with the “gifts”…. I like how everyone reacted. ESPECIALLY Data. GOD I LOVE DATA. HE’S SO GOOD. “You could certainly snap your fingers and make me a human, sir. It would be real for everyone. But not for me.”

That’s a common view of thought with trans people as well. Like yes, many people would like a snap of the fingers. But not for many others.

Haven - TNG 6.5/10

A Betazoid episode!! Troi is sadly the worst character in Season 1. She’s just… done so poorly. It’s gotten to the point where we’ve been poking fun. “I am sensing great annoyance from the audience”. Her fiance is a doctor and is like “You already knew that though because you’re psychic, right?” and we went “I am sensing much doctor from him”

There’s not a LOT to this episode? It’s mostly an awkward wedding with a Jewish Mom and a Catholic Mom arguing a lot. The issue is resolved really easily with no problems, and it feels a little sudden but it was honestly mostly fun, though I’m bad with awkward humor.

It DOES have the Trashiest Woman In Trek, though.

Also another funny thing about it was the opening. Riker was sitting in his room, watching a hologram of two women playing the harp, looking weirdly horny. I was like “is this alternate universe pornhub, harphub?”

And thus Harphub was born.

The Big Goodbye - TNG 9/10

The first “Shit Goes Wrong In The Holodeck” episode! I was almost wishing this episode was JUST a Holodeck episode. I felt this episode is at its best when Picard, overworked and stressed, is enjoying 1930s detective novels in the holodeck. He’s just so adorkable and goofy. I came to love it more by the end, though.

The actual action is exciting and tense, though. They have to escape the Holodeck both because gangsters are trying to murder them, AND there’ll be a diplomatic incident otherwise.

Big fan of Data in this, as always. He always gets real into this shit in a fun way. Also the ending is WILD. The holodeck getting EXISTENTIAL and DEPRESSED about the world disappearing. “After you leave, will I still exist?” “I honestly don’t know. Goodbye, my friend” is… SCARY.

It’s just fun though. Trek has always done gangsters well.

Thoughts

Okay, so thoughts on this cluster… Yeah we had a pretty big stinker early on, but the rest were good, or great even! This gives me hope, maybe the season will get good after all. They just had to run through all the Phase 2 scripts they still had sitting around and actually write good shit.

I am sensing great quality in this.

Datalore - TNG 9.5/10

Are you prepared for the kind of review you’ve earned, little man? If you are not a little man, please disregard this message.

Possibly the best episode so far, and this is because Brent Spiner is the only actor who feels at 100%. Data is the best character already, but also the best in season 1, and this is a VERY GOOD lore episode. It’s also a good Lore episode! Evil twins as a concept are nothing new but god does Spiner chew the scenery in a good way.

Also this is the most quotable episode of this season, by far. The “prepared for the kind of death you’ve earned” line is my favorite in many all of TNG, and “Shut up, Wesley” is of course, classic.

Speaking of Wesley, my only major problem with this entire episode is Wesley himself. It makes sense he’d be the first to realize Data is actually Lore pretending to be Data, he interacts with him first, and also is friends with Data, but everyone else should have realized it too, and I’m just not a fan of the “the kid is right and all the adults don’t listen wah” concept trope, it’s boring. There’s no way Data’s other friends wouldn’t have noticed, it just feels shoehorned for Roddenberry’s OC to be The One To Solve It All.

P.S. There was a segment where Picard was referring to Lore as an It, and Data was like “You keep using it, which implies he is a thing, and also implies you view me the same way”. Picard went “Oh no, I see your point, I’m so sorry, never my intention.” And then they RESUMED CONVERSATION. That’s it! Imagine. When did Star Trek get so woke.

Here have a fun picture of all the Stunt Datas

Angel One - TNG 1.5/10

Feminism is when women are men and men are women. And when women are misandrists. That’s VERY feminist.

This is the dumbest shit I’ve ever watched in my life. It’s just sexist and gross while trying to be the opposite of sexist but oh my fucking god it is SO sexist. See, it’s a world where women rule… So they’re the ones who are bigger and stronger and more assertive! And the men are small, effeminate, and like wearing perfume!

I want to die.

Also the B plot is here, Wesley gets the captain sick, and he puts Geordi on command. Not any of the people ABOVE Geordi but eh I like Geordi, and he looked so giddy, it was cute. No one can act sick btw. Especially not Sir Patrick Stewart. Sick Worf is funny though. By the end though this B Plot just felt like it was elongating the episode and I did not appreciate having to watch this any further.

Also the first Horny Riker moments. “Diplomatic relations” indeed. Too bad the rest of the episode made me so uncomfortable that I couldn’t even enjoy him looking so fucking sexy in that dumbass outfit.

Anyways the plot of this is that there are men who crashlanded here and are so attracted to Amazonian Women that they wanted to stay, but were annoyed when the women didn’t Make Them A Sandwich, so they’re kind of political dissidents. Fuck this episode.

Also the ending had a really bad plot hole but I wanted the episode to be over so much I didn’t even care.

Apparently, the original concept of this wasn’t to be some take on feminism or anything, but a take on apartheid. And then Roddenberry fucked with this. Quote from a meeting about this, from Roddenberry, loudly: “Women are untrustworthy, vicious creatures”. So thank you, Roddenberry. This episode would have been bad anyway but my god.

For some reason I cannot give this episode a 1/10 though. It DOES have Riker’s Hairy Man Chest, and Geordi in command. But that’s it.

11001001 - TNG 8.5/10

I love that TNG has an actual alien budget. Look at these aliens, the Bynars. They’re so cool. What a good concept too.

This episode is like 60% no plot, just vignettes about random fun stuff. I was almost hoping no plot or crisis would happen. Sadly, a crisis does happen, but it’s pretty exciting and the mystery of it is quite engaging.

I did find Picard Boomering and trying to figure out a computer fun. But I was slightly confused/annoyed by the Bynars not just… explaining what they were doing. Why not explain it? Everyone would have helped them. Yeah I know the Bynars are like “You might have said no” but would the Federation REALLY have gone “yeah no, our allies? Fuck ‘em”. Also the end with Minuet just disappearing… why would the Bynars have done that? Just ask em to reinstall it. What the heck.

Fun things about this episode:

Captain Picard is like “Ahhh, we have two days without anything! I’m going to turn on my relaxation light and read”. Picard is a HUGE fucking loser oh my good god.

There’s a scene in the middle where Riker gets weirdly horny in the holodeck. The Bynars upgraded the holodeck, and it makes a sentient program (which has no ethical implications I’m sure). It’s uncomfortable but I like seeing Riker get excited about Jazz. I love how just last week I was joking about whether people fuck in the Holodeck and there’s no way its not what Riker does in this scene.

Riker also plays Trombone in this episode, which Frakes plays IRL, and he’s played trombone on multiple albums, including a 1991 album by Brent Spiner! Exciting. I think he’s good at it but the “don’t give up the day job” line fucking SLEW me.

“Hey man, that girl seems real into you”

“How can you tell?”

“The way she’s staring at you unblinkingly is so hot”

And then Picard walks in like “Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt” and I fucking cackled.

Nice bulge, Worf.

Too Short a Season - TNG 2/10

This episode has one of my least favorite tropes in Star Trek, The Commodore/Admiral. A shitty useless dude who waves his dick around, takes over command, and fucks everything up. And this time, the Admiral looks like one of the puppets from Genesis’ Land of Confusion music video, so it’s even worse.

His over-acting as an old man was PAINFUL to watch and listen to, I weirdly hated it. Also he’s only 85! Why does he look like that? Bones looked and moved better, and he was like 140!! TBF, it’s cause of some fake disease called Iverson’s.

He gets a medicine that reverses aging, one for him and one for his wife. It has a super high mortality rate, unless you take it slowly over 2 years. But instead, because it wasn’t working in time for this mission, he downed his bottle and his wife’s, like that was the smart thing to do, and gets pissy when people are rightfully bothered by it, especially his wife.

The main problem with this episode really is that the admiral is so unlikable, and this episode is 80% this admiral, and he’s SO unlikable. Like “let’s just fuck the prime directive up the ass” unlikable. That’s the issue with this trope in general, though. And god, it really is my least favorite trope in Trek. Or at least VERY up there.

At least he dies of Young Age. Fuck that guy. This is a leftover TOS script that is just so poorly fit into this, straight down to that little moment where the captain talks to the other on the bridge to try and make a moral. “Just goes to show. The quest for youth is futile, number one”. No. That’s not the moral. Don’t try and make a moral out of this. BTW this was inspired by the Iran Contra Affair. The moral they should learn is to stop being inspired by IRL political stuff. They do it so poorly.

Here’s some backstory too: Roddenberry’s attorney, Leonard Maizlish, wrote edits for the script, with his own edits, adding in stuff with Wesley, claiming the edits were made by Roddenberry. DC Fontana, the writer, and Rick Berman grilled him, cause Roddenberry was at his home sick, and Maizlish admitted he had made it instead, trying to force his own view on what Trek would be. Berman threatened to get the writer’s union in here to protect DC Fotnana, and sue the pants off of Maizlish and Roddenberry, and he backed down. The ONLY GOOD THING BERMAN EVER DID.

When the Bough Breaks - TNG 6/10

In this episode, a species is dying out because of climate change, and they kidnap children so that their lessons and culture is passed on, since they can’t have children due to some genetic problems.

And then the children form a union.

This isn’t a BAD episode, but it wasn’t super interesting. But for an episode with a bunch of children, it was better than I’d have expected. Some parts of it were cute and sweet though, and it’s the start of Picard’s Redemption Arc around kids.

LOOK AT THE AMIGA BALL, WITH ITS CAMEO IN TREK!

Home Soil - TNG 8.5/10

The first 8 minutes are people doing technobabble awkwardly and grumpily and it’s very boring and uninteresting and then people start screaming and that makes it a little better. Data dodges lasers which is sick but then people get angry that he breaks a laser that was trying to kill him. Come on y’all.

They find a speck that they think could be life, but it’s inorganic, no carbon. And they’re like “THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE” as if the Horta aren’t canonically a part of the federation and fucking rad. How DARE you ignore the Horta, by favorite rug covered in meatballs >:( Also we had a fucking Crystalline Entity earlier this season y’all

Troi: “I can’t really make heads of tails of this woman. Maybe you can!” Riker: “Seduce her, gotcha”

If literally anyone other than Frakes was playing Riker I would not like him.

Anyways the episode in general is really quite good. The idea isn’t super original but I like how they handle the “oh god we didn’t know it was life” and the life declaring war on humans. Also the line “SEND US HOME TO WET SAND” is a good line.

Coming of Age - TNG 7/10

Oh BOY! Another asshole Admiral episode! AND a Wesley episode! Okay first let’s complain about the Admiral shit

An asshole Admiral shows up, explains nothing, says something is wrong with the ship, and makes his goon go around and watch everyone. Gives me big Customer Service vibes, with some corporate shitbag who doesn’t know you or your job showing up and watching your every move, judging you for each time you don’t remind someone of the extended warranty and hoping you can be fired. And if you ask any questions or get snippy they abuse their power to fire you anyway.

Like yes. He’s supposed to be a shitbag. We’re supposed to hate him. And we do! But it doesn’t make it pleasant to watch!! At all! :D

The second part of this episode is Wesley. Which again, I think people shit on Wesley too much but I’m still not a big fan of his writing. It’s also not pleasant to watch! Though I do REALLY like him and Worf’s conversation about fear. Worf is VERY underutilized this season. Let my boy be Klingon. Let him DO THINGS. I’m glad they’re doing it.

Also like, I’m glad more recently they’ve made the Acadamy less of a “This is for GENIUSES” thing cause it makes me uncomfy here. Some of the parts of it are nice though, like the angy guy who bumped into them, it’s cute. Also, Benzites are so cool. Good alien design. Also there’s a Vulcan here. TNG has a big derth in Vulcans for some reason. You’d think, since they’re like the most popular alien, there’s be more.

I ended up liking the Wesley portion more than I thought I would by the end (though only getting ONE of the four candidates in seems silly. They’re all qualified??? It feels very 20th century thinking), but most of the episode is still just this asshole with a preconceived notion that he should get the captain fired investigating everyone, and every officer is sick of him. And it tries to set up a thing for later with a conspiracy within Starfleet. The Wesley stuff (especially Picard being a dad to Wesley) really did warm this episode up for me by the end though.

This episode DID give us this gif as well. A classic.

Heart of Glory - TNG 9.5/10

raises head up AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

THE FIRST KLINGON EPISODE! Gosh I love Klingons. They’re my favorite (other than the Horta of course), and I was JUST complaining that Worf didn’t have enough to do, and they didn’t know what to do with him. The meme is his job is to be thrown around by the Monster of the Day to show how strong it it, but that’s not even here in this first season!!! But at least he can do some KLINGON LOREBUILDING!

The episode starts without that though. Instead it’s Geordi lorebuilding! Picard gets really weirdly into being able to see how Geordi sees, in the middle of a rescue mission and Data and Riker are like “uhhh sir?”

I do like how Geordi’s view of Data looks like a character portrait from Disco Elysium though

Anyways they get to the Klingons who say that the broken freighter they’re on, they were in a fight with some Ferengi (they’re still trying to make the Ferengi a threat). In order to beat them, they surrendered, and then beamed over bombs when the Ferengi lowered shields and moved forward. So uh, they did a warcrime! Yay! That’s… honorable!

This is good foreshadowing that these Klingon are kinda shitty. It’s a neat struggle with Worf, battling his upbringing, what he knows is right, and his heritage, who are trying to lead him astray because “peace sucks”. It does kinda sour for me when Picard doesn’t trust Worf. Like c’mon. It’s Worf! He won’t betray you! And he doesn’t. That’s one single negative thing there, though, and it’s very brief and out of nowhere. The rest of it is so good, ESPECIALLY the stuff with Worf. He’s so good, and there’s little trickles of what he’ll become. This is more than a trickle. This is like the start of the river.

Anyways, the Klingon stuff here slaps. It shows how fractured the Klingon empire is, it builds Worf up in a great way. And it shows us THE KLINGON DEATH RITUAL. God I love it. I did it with them. Be warned, dead. A warrior comes.

The Arsenal of Freedom - TNG 8/10

This episode kinda surprised me at every turn. Lots of good twists. I expected it to be a Riker episode, it has some good Riker lore, but a lot of characters get a good change to shine. Even Yar! Yar gets to be actiony and make good shots in fighting off a powerful enemy, Picard and Crusher have a great moment trying to keep her alive and awake after a major wound and being seperated. And Geordi! Ahhh, Geordi. He’s a badass running a good ship and putting up with some asshole. Yet ANOTHER chief engineer, the third one we’ve seen. God I can’t wait for them to give Geordi a real job.

This engineer is a shithead. At the first sign danger, he’s like “LEAVE AND ABANDON THE CAPTAIN AND THE AWAY TEAM, ALSO GIVE ME COMMAND.” Then Geordi’s like “no fuck off” and eventually he calls him back up and orders the Enterprise to run away. He’s then like “You’re ABANDONING them?!” and I just…. come on. I’m fine with an asshole character but he’s literally contradicting himself and it’s makin’ me GRUMPY.

This episode is tense and fun, pretty good, but nothing BREATHTAKING, y’know? Nice action scenes though.

Symbiosis - TNG 2.5/10

This episode is fucked UP. Like oh my god. Okay to explain: There are two societies. One society only makes a drug, and nothing else. They are uber capitalists, they make that drug, and then sell it to the other society, which is filled with people dying of a plague the drug can cure.

That’s already fucked up. The Brekkians (I’ll call them Pfizer from now on) are like “Yes sure you’re dying. But hey, we need money!” that’s fucked up. BUT IT GETS WORSE.

TURNS OUT THERE’S NO ACTUAL VIRUS. THERE’S NO PLAGUE. The drug is a narcotic and it’s actually just WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS. And the Brekkians are intentionally keeping this ENTIRE civilization drugged. Just to make money. And Picard is like “Well we can’t come between that, sure we think it’s evil but we can’t push our morality on them” LIKE. LIKE.

And then there’s a weird drug PSA, where Wesley is like “I don’t understand, Yar, why would anyone start doing drugs?” and then they do a Just Say No PSA and it feels like Reagan was breathing down these fuckers necks, making it a “very special episode” where you gotta teach the kids about the War on Drugs. God I hated this. And not just because I have actual PTSD involving drug use. Which I do. But also cause it’s just poorly done. They wanted to do it well but they failed real hard.

And Picard is like “Hey no that’s the Prime Directive, we can’t stop these parasites from leeching off of an entire civilization and making them drug addicts. We could easily fix this, Crusher has ways to ease the withdrawal symptoms. Instead we’ll abuse the prime directive and make it so they won’t be able to leech off them down the line, cause they won’t help fix their ships, and the shipments will eventually stop.”

That is… NOT HOW THE PRIME DIRECTIVE WORKS. AND THAT’S NOT HOW IT….. AGGHHH.

“Beverly, the Prime Directive is not just a set of rules!”

You’re right. It’s a set of rules that writers can abuse and twist around and claim works one way or another each episode so they can create drama. This episode would have been over instantly if it did work how it’s supposed to.

At least we got this Riker good face!

Also, I’m thinking to make these posts stand out a bit more from each other in the tag, I’m going to put an image of the most striking scene from that group of episodes. And uh… there’s no more striking image in all of season 1 than this fucking thing.

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Skin of Evil - TNG 6/10

I can’t believe they waited until her final episode for actually enjoyable moments with Yar. Her and Worf at the start, with Yar apparently being in some fighting tournament, and happy that Worf bet on her for the tourny. Bet with what, I dunno. I like to imagine it’s just poker chips, and whoever has the most at the end “wins”.

This episode is known for a single thing and one thing only, and they do it in the first 12 minutes. Talk about blowing your load. The rest of the episode is fine. A weird psychopathic blob shadow monster holds Troi hostage, and I’ll be real, this is probably the first good Troi scene. This episode is in Yar’s shadow forever, but this is actually a Troi episode, and she’s good here.

The episode is mostly just a godlike asshole torturing people though, and that’s not…. super fun. Not terrible, though. The funeral scene made me tear up. Look at this moment where Riker is gasping for breath in a tar monster btw. That’s some printer ink and other garbage, and Frakes dove right into that. Imagine though, if they had killed off Yar AND Riker.

Look at the elusive Green Uniform. This means that Dr. Crusher is a Goblin. (I have no idea why it’s green for two shots of her, and then it’s back to blue. I dunno why.)

Time for some Fun Facts about Natasha Yar and her actor, Denise Crosby , TNG’s most Unfortunate Character. She deserved so much more. So, the story behind her conception is hilarious. You see, one day in the late 80s, Gene Roddenberry was watching Aliens. A good movie. But he loved one thing in particular from it. The character of Private Vasquez. And immediately after, he was so beholden by her, she went “I WANT A CHARACTER LIKE THAT IN TNG”, which was in pre-production at the time.

On that day, Gene Roddenberry discovered lesbians, and discovered how hot they are. This is the only time I have ever related to Gene Roddenberry.

BTW killing her off was Roddenberry’s idea. He thought it’d be shocking. Thus giving us less of a chance to make the character with the most potential actually fill that potential out. Fuck Gene Roddenberry.

After recording her final scene (from the previous episode for some reason, not this one) the crew threw a party for her. Years later on Twitter, exec producer Rick Berman showed off her communicator, saying that Crosby gave it to her as a gift. Crosby responded to the tweet with “No, you ripped it off my shirt and said I wouldn’t need it anymore”. Fuck Rick Berman.

We’ll Always Have Paris - TNG 10/10

The start of this episode is so good. I love seeing Picard just… BE PICARD. He’s such a hardass in a… OKAY way, but he can be so much more. I like him a lot here. I love him fencing. I like him wistfully wandering Paris. Seeing Sir Patrick Stewart try to be horny for this random woman I enjoy less but I don’t really like watching ANYONE act horny, it always falls flat in Trek.

It’s a tense episode, with you slowly trying to unravel Picard’s strong emotions around these two people they picked up.

And then the timey wimey bullshit starts to happen and you get awesome shit, like that picture with Data up there. Stakes are HIGH. Most other stakes are like, “oh no we’ll all die” or “oh no, this planet and all its people will die”. Here, it’s “oh no, THE UNIVERSE WILL UNRAVEL AS ANOTHER CONTINUITY RIPS THROUGH IT”. That’s… a lot. And it’s really cool! It’s done well, and is exciting! I LOVE the scene with three Datas. I also love how Picard is like “Data we need to send you” “Oh, because I am a disposable machine?” “What? No, any human seeing two hundred of themselves in a time bubble would disassociate. You can handle that.”

And the ending is beautiful too. A great emotional conclusion. Powerful, and fitting. I’m surprised how much I enjoyed this episode. Best episode of this season maybe? It’s either this or Datalore, with Heart of Glory following close behind.

Here’s a fun continuity error…. That’s Yar’s arm!! BUT SHE DEAD! Let’s just say it’s more Timey Wimey bullshit.

Conspiracy - TNG 8/10

THE GORIEST STAR TREK EPISODE! Look at that fucking thing. This is some god damn 80s horror movie special effects. It looks great! But it’s VERY jarring.

A follow up from a previous episode, with many characters returning. Specifically Coming of Age, and that annoying flunky and his fucking Admiral returning. Well… at least we won’t have to worry about that flunky appearing again!

This shit is tense. In a fun and good way. The Admirals are a very good set of intimidating villains, and things infiltrating the minds and bodies of the Top Brass of a military-like organization is a scary but super interesting premise. I always feel like Star Trek pussy foots around “the Federation can be bad”. This isn’t that, of course, the Federation isn’t bad, bad aliens infiltrated the spines of the top brass. But it’s unsettling in a good way.

Good action, good creepy concepts. It’s…. not very Star Trek tbh? It’s fucked up in a way that is NOT trek-ish. This episode is so weird. It feels so extremely out of place. The first like, 3/5th or so are fine, but then it veers HARD.

AND THEY ALSO DID A STINGER AT THE END. Remmick (the guy who’s head asplode), was sending a beacon! To some unexplored sector of space! Ohh nooo, what could that mean for-

It means nothing. This never comes up again. It was set up, had this weird payoff, set up more, and then nothing. Also they killed 2/3rds of the top brass of the Federation, but that will apparently not effect anything or be any problem cause it’s also not mentioned again. This almost feels non-canon. It’s GOOD. It’s ENJOYABLE. But I dunno if it should even be here. The writer says that the script was apparently shot down by Maurice Hurley, the head behind the scripts at the time, cause it wasn’t Trek. It was too dark and fucked up. But Berman liked it so much it was put back in. Also, the original concept was YET ANOTHER take on the Gulf War??? This guy loved that. Originally it was going to have NO aliens, and instead was going to be a straight up military coup. Which like I said earlier, is something I’d kinda like to see Trek tackle, but Roddenberry was like “NO THE FEDERATION IS BIG GOOD AND WOULD NEVER STOOP THAT LOW”. Which is why I want them to tackle it, because power corrupts, mother fucker, no matter how futuristic socialist we are.

I wouldn’t trust this guy to do it right though. We gotta wait to DS9 for that.

AND IT’S SOMEHOW NOT EVEN THE FINAL EPISODE OF THE SEASON.

The Neutral Zone - TNG 9/10

I dunno how you can follow up Conspiracy. But we have a throwback to Space Seed (they discover a derelict that has people in cryo-stasis) and the first Romulans in TNG, so they’re pulling out THE BIG GUNS! These two things clash, and complicate everything. It’s kinda… jarring. The A plot and B plot do not fit together. Apparently it was due to a writer’s strike. Makes sense.

The frozen people are from the early 90s, they died and were frozen until their problems could be cured. And now they’re a bunch of capitalists (and some random woman) in Space Socialism and are very confused. And all the Space Socialists are literally like “how did we live past the 21st century????”

Parts of the 90s People B Plot are VERY interesting. I do like seeing a realistic outlook on how people handle this. You have three characters. A housewife, a rich financier, and a rockstar. The housewife breaks down depressed everyone she knows and loves is dead. The financier is confused and frustrated that suddenly he has no power anymore. The rockstar is mostly just bored, and not distressed. It’s a really interesting view on how people would legit handle this situation, more than Space Seed.

Anyways then Romulans are here. The GIANT Romulan ship is a good re-entry to them. They mostly show up to be scary and threatening, and say “WE ARE BACK”, which is good because it means they’ll stop trying to make The Ferengi a threat so the Ferengi can start being enjoyable to watch.

This is a good episode. I understand some people’s issues with the weird capitalist posturing, or the tonal shifts, or how it doesn’t feel like a season finale (at least it’s not a clip show). But I think it was done very well considering it was cobbled together from a script outline.

SEASON ONE OUTLINE

I did it. We’re done. No more season 1. Okay look, people mock this season for a reason, but I think it’s more growing pains than “this is shit”. There’s a LOT of good here. We’re lucky it even continued and had the CHANCE to grow, but I’m glad it did. This season shows a lot of potential. And it was better than like, most TOS seasons tbh.

I’ll see you all next week, for the start of season 2, which is actually one of my personal favorites (it has my two favorite episodes). See you then!