posted
I can't help but agree with all of your points Middy Seafort. I always wanted to see a follow-up from the first season episode "Conspiracy", now that would have been good.
The first two seasons were pretty bad in my opinion, with the first being bloody awful. For me, TNG really started kicking ass in season 3 and started dropping off somewhere around the end of season 5/start season 6. Whether it was the scripts or me just growing up and getting hooked on DS9 I don't know. But I enjoyed seasons 6 & 7.
In either case, you're right Middy Seafort, they did miss a lot of opportunities - a pity, for they may have made TNG that tiny bit better (not that it was bad - it was good, while it lasted).
-AK
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Registered: Apr 2001
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I'm glad to see that the discussion I hoped would result from my first post has taken off.
By the numbers, gents.
quote: Originally posted by AndrewR: "The New Star Trek" - but you wanted closely linked story arcs. It wouldn't have been Star Trek then - or a 24th century of TOS. TOS had less continuity than TNG. and I DON'T mean ARCs when I say continuity - I hate how that word has been perverted.
While the word arc has been thrown around and mentioned, I was pondering just an ongoing, developing storyline that folded over the course of serveral episodes like "Hill Street Blues" and "L.A. Law," but not fully plotted out to exact detail. I use the Q/Trial angle as one story element that could've been allowed to grow and grow.
Rather, than continuity, I was thinking more along the lines of character development as well.
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: TOS was great - yes. We only really got to know about Kirk and Spock and to a lesser extent Bones.
S, U, S and C were just 'extras' with a few extra lines... really. They probably had more development than Chakotay though!
Agreed, however, I am not taking about TOS. It was a product of its time; anthology storytelling over ongoing. In fact, TOS, as originally concieved was the story of a ship's captain much like Horatio Hornblower but in space instead of the high seas. TOS from the get-go was just about Kirk, but when Spock proved popular he became a forefront character.
Harlan Ellison recalled in his "City on the Edge of Forever" book that he was disapointed that "Star Trek" at that time didn't have the characters grow and change as the episodes progressed.
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: TNG we got to know more about ALL the characters than we did in TOS.
Did we? Did we really? We got to know them, get familar with their character traits. But did they grow beyond those traits. Did they ever go left, when you fully expected them to go right?
Let's take a line from "All Good Things..." , which I think really summerizes the flaws in TNG well.
Q: "...and what have we seen. You worrying about Commander Riker's career decisions, listening to Counselor Troi's padantic psycho-babble, helping Data in his witless exploration of humanity." (I've paraphrased from memory, forgive me if it is not exact.)
Riker never got his command. Troi never moved beyond her psycho-babble. And Data was not one step closer to being human.
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: Middy sounds like he/she needs a good dose of DS9. It has everything your talking/complaining about. The least explored character would probably have been Jadzia.
I, being male, did enjoy DS9 and was going to cite that as an example of what TNG could've done. But I didn't because I felt that would alienate the arguement more than B5.
Besides, I wanted to use a series that was more of a counterpoint than DS9. B5 provides that since it was the first of the new breed of SF-TV that challanged Trek's hold of the airwaves.
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: BUT Who really cares. And who cares about no arcs. It's the stories and the characters that count.
Apparently, I do. You do. And those who have already participated. Yes, it is about the stories and characters. That's why I started this topic.
Too bad, many of the TNG episodes you could just juggle the characters around, put in Riker instead of Geordi, and it wouldn't have changed the course of the story one iota.
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Data is barely the same character between Farpoint and "All Good Things..."
Being seven at the time, I can't really speak to expectations, though I had watched TOS reruns for some time before that. But the fact remains that, from my point of view, TNG was a well written, well acted television show. Anything beyond that is just gravy.
I suspect this may be a division of taste which we cannot breach. Some people seek out complicated plots, and if those are found in stories that are lacking in other areas, the plot makes up for it in their eyes. Others might want identifiable characters, or a story that's simply told in an aesthetically pleasing way. These different interests would seem not to be relatable. Plot does not intrinsically trump character, or vice versa.
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posted
Despite this thread/talk - I still think TNG was GREAT. The characters I still love and I can still watch an episode - CAPTIVATED when it is repeated.
While we might not have gone all 'troi' on knowing the insides of each character - we did get growth and change. We did get to know enough about these characters to CARE what happened to them. Voyager on the other-hand - we knew next to NOTHING about them, and what we did was constantly changed. So how could you form any sort of emotional attatchment to them? I would say maybe only the Doctor was the only one that you could empathise/feel/know on that show.
With Voyager as a whole - it's like reading a novel and having the characters change in each chapter. Change not as in growing but change as in fundamentally WHO they are to begin with. Voyager never set the ground work. We never knew where they were coming from. I think I have an article from the start of Voyager where Berman and Braga (not so much Jeri Taylor) didn't want to know ANYTHING about Janeway or Chakotay or Tuvok or Kim etc. Life before "Caretaker" - to be that is just ludicrous.
More episodes like the superb "Gravity" showing that TUVOK wasn't this emotionally staid person we've always seen him to be would have been fantastic. He just became another 'person' though. The brilliance of the relationship that was shown in Year of Hell between him and Seven (her carrying/guiding him through the hall) and him being the 'emotional rock' for Janeway was really fantastic. It just evaporated like one of Guinan's fancy drinks from "Time's Arrow".
I remember one of my questions to Ken Biller I think?? was answered at Trek Web about bringing that relationship between Tuvok and Seven back - he said no... cause their voices were both monotone.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
Personally, I think comparing what TNG was to what other Trek shows have been is sort of missing the point raised at the beginning.
TNG had a lot of interesting potential, but it fell into formula pretty quickly, and any tensions between the characters evaporated within the first handful of episodes (and don't blame Roddenberry for that...after all, he wanted Diana Muldar (Pulaski) in the show as a foil for Data, and she wasn't nice to him at all).
As to the merits of the show. TOS was very much a product of it's time, but TNG wasn't even a product of it's time. Aside from visual effects technology, it was behind the curve in almost every respect compared to the state of the art in the late 80s. Scripting, cinematography, scoring, acting styles...all rather stale.
Frankly, TNG tepidly failed to go where even contemporary dramas had gone before.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
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posted
Whether or not TNG was as good as it could've been, at least it was a definite improvement over TOS. Same can be said for DS9. Sure DS9 could've been better, but it was a logical and creative improvement over TNG. Then along comes Voyager and we have a series which is clearly a step backwards from both DS9 and TNG. As for Enterprise, I don't think anything needs to be said.
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: I suspect this may be a division of taste which we cannot breach. Some people seek out complicated plots, and if those are found in stories that are lacking in other areas, the plot makes up for it in their eyes. Others might want identifiable characters, or a story that's simply told in an aesthetically pleasing way. These different interests would seem not to be relatable. Plot does not intrinsically trump character, or vice versa. [/QB]
It's the old Po-TAH-to, Po-ta-TO arguement. To each their own. However, plot and character are intrinsic to each other in any form of literature. Complicated plots with complicated characters are possible; it has been done in book-form SF for years. But it is all according to taste, upon that I agree with you.
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: Despite this thread/talk - I still think TNG was GREAT. The characters I still love and I can still watch an episode - CAPTIVATED when it is repeated.
This is not a TNG-bashing topic. I did not start this topic to denounce TNG, but rather to get others to look at the whole of the series critically in a literary fashion. I have stated that I too enjoyed the seven season of TNG. I also wanted to pose the question, "Was there loss potential?"
It is up to everyone to decide for him/herselves.
quote: Originally posted by MrNeutron: TNG had a lot of interesting potential, but it fell into formula pretty quickly, and any tensions between the characters evaporated within the first handful of episodes (and don't blame Roddenberry for that...after all, he wanted Diana Muldar (Pulaski) in the show as a foil for Data, and she wasn't nice to him at all).
Indeed, he did try to add Pulaski as a foil for Data in an attempt to recreate the Spock-McCoy dynamic. However, there have been rumors that Gates McFadden's departure may have been much like the Michael O'Hare departure on B5 (not really a creative decision, but rather a studio-based one). I also wonder what would've been had Pulaski stayed, but that's another topic.
But Roddenberry did dicate from the very beginning that by TNG's time, humans had gotten over their petty problems. A noble aspiration, but I tend to believe more in the Nick Meyers and JMS notion that humans will still be humans... even 400 years from now. They'll still want a burger and a smoke. Besides, no matter how perfect someone is, he or she will still have a hard time getting along with everyone on board a ship filled with 1,000+ souls.
quote:Originally posted by Middy Seafort: And Data was not one step closer to being human.
...
B5 provides that since it was the first of the new breed of SF-TV that challanged Trek's hold of the airwaves.
I disagree quite a bit with the first point. Data was very different by the time All Good Things rolled around.
And, really, B5 "challenged Trek's hold of the airwaves"? Do you really think it made any difference at all?
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quote:Originally posted by Middy Seafort: Riker never got his command. Troi never moved beyond her psycho-babble. And Data was not one step closer to being human.
For Riker, see "The Icarus Factor," "The Best of Both Worlds," "Second Chances," and "The Pegasus." For Troi, "Disaster," "Face of the Enemy," and "Thine Own Self." For Data, there are too many to mention, but "The Measure of a Man," "The Offspring," "Brothers," "Legacy," and "The Quality of Life" stick out the most. All those episodes show significant growth for the characters in question, moving them beyond their first season characterizations. I could cite similar milestones for Picard, Beverly, and Worf, and to a lesser extent, Geordi, Tasha, Wesley, and O'Brien.
quote:B5 provides that since it was the first of the new breed of SF-TV that challanged Trek's hold of the airwaves.
It did? In my market, TNG and B5 were on the same channel... B5 was juggled around frequently, while TNG kept the same prime-time spot it had since it premiered.
quote:Too bad, many of the TNG episodes you could just juggle the characters around, put in Riker instead of Geordi, and it wouldn't have changed the course of the story one iota.
This is true, but it still doesn't change the fact that most of the stories were unique and creative. The fact that they could work for almost any type of character makes them that much more appealing, IMO.
Registered: May 2002
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I think my use of Babylon 5 and the manner in which I stated that it challanged Star Trek's of the airwaves has caused a bit of confusion.
I meant that it challanged, creatively, the dominant Trek control of SF TV. Everyone seems to think I meant ratings-wise.
Before B5, television execs thought the only successful SF TV could be Star Trek despite the floodgate opened by TNG. Something JMS dealt with when pitching the series in the TNG domintated television world.
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Uh, I would be willing to bet that the only show that made any impact on the desirability of future shows in a similar vein was The X-Files.
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quote:Originally posted by MrNeutron: Personally, I think comparing what TNG was to what other Trek shows have been is sort of missing the point raised at the beginning.
Ummm, why? It's showing what TNG did right and how something like Voyager got it very wrong.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Uh, I would be willing to bet that the only show that made any impact on the desirability of future shows in a similar vein was The X-Files.
You'd win that bet. As for the X-Files though, there would be no X-Files if it wasn't for TNG or Twin Peaks. Oh and some good casting!
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
quote:Originally posted by Starship Millennium: For Data, there are too many to mention, but "The Measure of a Man," "The Offspring," "Brothers," "Legacy," and "The Quality of Life" stick out the most.
Indeed. I'd add "The Most Toys" - the ending was great.
Ro Laren had a pretty good development given her short amount of episodes. "The Next Phase" and yes, even "Rascals".
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
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