Star Trek: The Low Budget Generation

[kieferskunk]

On a whim, I decided to start watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix. They have the entire series nicely indexed, so I started at the beginning, not having seen much of the first season

Comments

[kyouryuu]

While it is painfully campy at times, I feel that's one of the more endearing things about Star Trek. For every "City on the Edge of Forever," there's another "A Piece of the Action." The Trekkies tend to focus on the really serious lore when, in reality, there are just as many stupid episodes - and of course the wonderful Star Trek IV - to suggest that the creators themselves didn't always take themselves so seriously.

It's important for any series, especially one as prolific as Star Trek, to be able to laugh at itself.

[kieferskunk]

That's kinda my point, tho. They found a way to do a good job of laughing at themselves in the latter half of the series, but the first season in general, and the first four episodes in particular, were just *awful*. I love TNG, and I love Star Trek as a whole, but you can't deny it got off to a really shaky start. :)

[kyouryuu]

Yeah. I'm not saying the first episodes did it right. Heck, most of the movies didn't either. It gets off to a very clumsy start. It's hard to imagine anyone thinking that the Ferengi would be Next Generation's equivalent of Klingons, but that was the original plan.

Still, as you say, by the time it got to Season 3, the writers had a better grasp on things. The strong and often disparate personalities of the characters, by far my favorite aspect of Star Trek, came together. And with the Borg, they finally created a villain that was, for all intents and purposes, terrifying.

[kieferskunk]

No argument on the Borg. That was a brilliant move on the writers' part, IMO. :)

[_dogan]

I couldn't agree more. I mean, just look at the third episode in the whole series "The Naked Now", which was just.....so awkward to watch looking in retrospect with what we know about the show

[megami]

POWER THROUGH IT! I've become quite the colossal Star Trek nerd in the last couple years. It's a bit funny how I didn't mind TNG too much, but have a REALLY hard time with TOS because of the horrible acting.

[julzerator]

The second season has Polanski, beware! I was so glad to make it through that season!

[megami]

Same! She's terrible. ~_~

[cateagle]

Yes, it had it's good and bad shows each season, but I will tend to agree with the opinion that it, for whatever reason, got better once Riker got a beard. Personally, I think The Naked Now was a poor adaptation of one of the lesser ST:TOS episodes.