Star Trek: TNG has aged badly (IMHO) [Archive]

mogiaw

04-18-2003, 07:24 AM

I just saw The Next Generation on Sky the other day for the first time in years.I was shocked cos It looks terrible. The sets look too beige, the acting is dodgy and the storylines seem so much worse than they did when i first watched it. It seems to have dated far worse than the original Star Trek. Ugh I must be getting old.

mog

carnivorousplant

04-18-2003, 07:33 AM

Perhaps one doesn't expect it to be "old" because they are still making movies.

Odesio

04-18-2003, 07:41 AM

Originally posted by mogiaw
I just saw The Next Generation on Sky the other day for the first time in years.I was shocked cos It looks terrible. The sets look too beige, the acting is dodgy and the storylines seem so much worse than they did when i first watched it. It seems to have dated far worse than the original Star Trek. Ugh I must be getting old.

I think it has aged poorly as well though it still beats Voyager. I'd put the best TOS episodes against the best TNG episodes any day. TNG was a bit to self-rightous at times for my taste.

Marc

carnivorousplant

04-18-2003, 07:47 AM

Ah, but again, when Janeway says "Break out the compression phaser rifles", I get all tingly.
:)

BMalion

04-18-2003, 07:47 AM

Amen on the over use of biege, I saw some episodes again after my pal got season 1 and 2 on dvd and almost every set looked like my doctor's waiting room. bleh.

Turek

04-18-2003, 07:56 AM

Originally posted by MGibson
I think it has aged poorly as well though it still beats Voyager. I'd put the best TOS episodes against the best TNG episodes any day. TNG was a bit to self-rightous at times for my taste.

Marc

"The Inner Light" versus "The Trouble with Tribbles"? No question: TNG wins!

NoClueBoy

04-18-2003, 07:58 AM

Beige? I hated Shades of Grey.

carnivorousplant

04-18-2003, 08:03 AM

Originally posted by Turek
"The Inner Light" versus "The Trouble with Tribbles"? No question: TNG wins!

Not fair. You compare Citizen Kane to Cocanuts.

Say, Inner Light compared to The City on the Edge of Forever, or
Best of Both Worlds to Amok Time.

Sock Munkey

04-18-2003, 08:18 AM

Oh really? How about "City On The Edge Of Forever" versus "The Naked Now"?
TOS forever!

Odesio

04-18-2003, 08:20 AM

Originally posted by Turek
"The Inner Light" versus "The Trouble with Tribbles"? No question: TNG wins!

I've seen every episode of TOS and TNG but I don't know the names of most of the episodes. I know more of the TOS epsidoes simply because I've been watching them since I was 5 or 6. One thing I've noticed is that the episodes that were good 30 years ago are still good and those that were bad are still bad.

I really hated Roddenberry's heavy handed new age philosophy presented in TNG. "Starfleet is not a military organization" my ass! (Though again Voyager was a lot worse in the new age touchy feely department.) I always found it odd that the most alien creatures on TNG were the humans.

Marc

NoCoolUserName

04-18-2003, 08:32 AM

But City on the Edge of Forever is the only really good TOS ep. TNG has Inner Light, Best of Both Worlds, Measure of a Man...

They both have a large portion of turkeys as well. There's probably already a thread for worst eps.

Mars Horizon

04-18-2003, 08:40 AM

Originally posted by Sock Munkey
Oh really? How about "City On The Edge Of Forever" versus "The Naked Now"?
TOS forever! Unfair comparison.

"City On The Edge Of Forever" won industry awards, and may be the best written ST episode, bar none.

YMMV.

astro

04-18-2003, 08:58 AM

The City On The Edge Of Forever (http://www.thelogbook.com/read/q4-01/city.htm)

Interesting backstory

This volume reprints the original draft, and several subsequent revisions, of Harlan Ellison's multiple-award-winning, career-defining, critically acclaimed, and seemingly life-ruining Star Trek script, The City on the Edge of Forever. A lengthy essay opens the book with the full background of the episode's birth from Harlan's own inimitable point of view. Numerous people have taken credit for City's success over the years, and just as many have been more than happy to lay the blame for any perceived faults in the story at Harlan's feet. In this book, Harlan lashes out at all of them. Every last one of them. In a way, maybe "lashes out" is too gentle - he positively breathes fire at many of his former colleagues.

Chief among Harlan's rogues' gallery of people who defaced his work is the late Gene Roddenberry, and no secret is made of this fact. Gene was instrumental in the mythologizing of the supposed troubles with Harlan's script, after all, and all things being fair, Harlan takes more than his allotted shot back at Star Trek's creator, also taking shots at virtually everyone else involved in the show. It is nice to see him firing off a salvo in William Shatner's direction, though - I never quite fell for Shatner's self-important declarations that he had personally saved Star Trek umpteen gazillion times, and Harlan's response to the erstwhile skipper's biographical blitherings is a moment of pure glee.

cankerist

04-18-2003, 09:35 AM

It is nice to see him firing off a salvo in William Shatner's direction, though - I never quite fell for Shatner's self-important declarations that he had personally saved Star Trek umpteen gazillion times, and Harlan's response to the erstwhile skipper's biographical blitherings is a moment of pure glee.

"Don't take shots at me....It sickens me."

Achernar

04-18-2003, 10:04 AM

Originally posted by mogiaw
I just saw The Next Generation on Sky the other dayWhat, the whole thing? Come on. Which episodes did you see? Some of them sucked to begin with.

mogiaw

04-18-2003, 10:29 AM

Well i didn't watch every episode of TNG but the Moriarty Holodeck one was on and several others that I had seen and enjoyed before but now they look so terrible. As someone else mentioned the New-ageyness of the dialogue is terrible. Also the educating Data motif seems really, really corny now. I'm sure if I saw some of the episodes that people have been citing as the best again I'd probably have a slightly different opinion but in general it seems much inferior to when i watched it years ago.

mog

BTW what was "The Inner Light" about?

toadspittle

04-18-2003, 10:30 AM

I think teh first couple seasons REALLY didn't age well--but the later ones (after Riker grew his beard, as a general benchmark) hold up just fine.

But still, one quick glance at the movie "Generations" reminds you how amazing it all can look if you spend the time/money on the proper lighting. (I could watch that damn scene in his ready room, when the star goes nova, about a million times....)

NoCoolUserName

04-18-2003, 10:31 AM

I didn't mean to sidetrack this into a discussion of good/bad episodes. To reply to the OPs contention that TNG has not aged well:

1) I'm not sure what "the acting is dodgy" really means. Patrick Stewart, Bret Spiner (how do you pronounce Spiner, anyway?) and Michael Dorn are top-notch actors. The rest: not as good.
2) Beige? You're complaining about the color of the sets/lighting? Sheesh, talk about nit-picking!
3) Story lines are uneven, to say the least. Some were quite good, IMHO of course, and many sucked. There's only so much you can do when you have to have a new script every darn week. As I said before, I think that TNG had more good scripts than TOS.

How a show looks is such a flavour-of-the-moment sort of thing that sometimes it goes out of style and comes back in. Whatever you nominate as the best looking show right now, I guarantee that it will look dorky in 15 or 20 years. Then it might be cool again in another 15 or 20.

Achernar

04-18-2003, 10:40 AM

To rhyme with interior designer.

Daniel

04-18-2003, 11:16 AM

Originally posted by toadspittle
But still, one quick glance at the movie "Generations" reminds you how amazing it all can look if you spend the time/money on the proper lighting.

I wasn't aware that movie even had lighting. The Enterprise was so conspicuously dark in Generations, it was genuinely annoying. I couldn't see a damn thing!

Bryan Ekers

04-18-2003, 12:55 PM

Among other things, the dramatic music (as well as that background "engine hum") was really overplayed in the first few seasons of TNG, almost to the point of drowning out the dialgue.

Ephemera

04-18-2003, 02:39 PM

I've seen a few episodes of Voyager lately and its aged much worse than TNG has. I haven't seen any DS9 episodes to compare them to though. :(

BMalion

04-18-2003, 03:16 PM

Originally posted by NoCoolUserName
2) Beige? You're complaining about the color of the sets/lighting? Sheesh, talk about nit-picking!

and another thing, I don't much like the color of your post.

;)

Hail Ants

04-18-2003, 04:11 PM

The first season of TNG was very, formative (IOW it often stunk). It got considerable better from the 2nd season on.

You can always immediately spot a 1st season show by the uniforms. They had no collars, an extra stripe along the top black part and an obnoxious seem right down the front! Not to mention the ridiculous mini-skirt uniforms some of the women wore.

Troi's hair (i.e. wig) and Worf's makeup were both really bad too.

Bryan Ekers

04-19-2003, 12:17 PM

Originally posted by Hail Ants
Not to mention the ridiculous mini-skirt uniforms some of the women wore.

Some of the men, too. I kid you not.

astro

04-19-2003, 12:45 PM

Originally posted by Bryan Ekers
Some of the men, too. I kid you not.

Umm... I don't recall this. Do you have a pic link to buttress this assertion.

carnivorousplant

04-19-2003, 01:20 PM

! saw hairy legs walk by in a skirt in one episode. I can't remember which. The guy was carrying one on those pads Yeoman Rand was always handing Kirk to sign.

Bren_Cameron

04-19-2003, 02:54 PM

There are definitely men in miniskirts in the pilot episode--the name of which escapes me now. Actually, I didn't mind that, and kind of wished they'd kept it up....

I'll see if I can get Mr. Cameron to get a screen capture. My computer isn't set up for it.

carnivorousplant

04-19-2003, 03:06 PM

Journey to Farpoint

Sam Stone

04-19-2003, 03:28 PM

"The Inner Light" was my favorite TNG episode. Most of the others had way too much trek-babble-as-substitute-for-writing-good-plot-lines, and the new age philosophy drove me absolutely batty. And especially the quasi-communist never-explained nature of the federation.

But let's contrast TNG with the best SF on TV, which was Firefly:

TNG:

Captain: Helmsman, take us to planet X.
Troi: Captain, are you sure that's wise? I'm picking up conflicting emotions.
Riker: Captain, planet X is off limits. Surely you know that!
Geordi: Yeah, Captain! Besides, it's almost lunchtime. Shouldn't we get together as a committee and decide whether or not we should actually set course before or after lunch?
Worf: Before we go, captain, would you mind if I killed something?
Captain: Oh, the decisions! It's so difficult!

Firefly:

Captain: Set course to take us out of here.
Crewman: Are you sure that's wise?
Captain: Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I beat your ass with until you realize who's in ruttin' command!
Crewman: Aye Aye, sir!

Ephemera

04-19-2003, 04:09 PM

Originally posted by carnivorousplant
Journey to Farpoint

Encounter at Farpoint.

For shame.. you should have your Trekkie license revoked.

Bryan Ekers

04-19-2003, 04:14 PM

Originally posted by Aesiron
For shame.. you should have your Trekkie license revoked.

I agree. You're conflating the first episode (Encounter at Farpoint) with the last (Journey's End).

Hang your head in shame!

Ephemera

04-19-2003, 04:17 PM

Ahem. Give me your card while you're at it, young man. The series' finale was All Good Things.

Achernar

04-19-2003, 04:31 PM

AHEM. It was "All Good Things..." - you forgot an ellipsis. Not a major infraction, to be sure, so I'm just going to put you on probation. ;)

Bryan Ekers

04-19-2003, 04:52 PM

Whoops, Journey's End wasn't the last, but the seventh-to-last episode.

I remain smug and outraged.

Achernar

04-19-2003, 05:01 PM

I seem to recall that there was a television special called "Journey's End", hosted by Jonathan Frakes, which looked back on TNG, and aired like right before "All Good Things...". I guess I'm misremembering, though, because I can't find any evidence of it, even under a different title.

carnivorousplant

04-19-2003, 07:05 PM

It was a test, and you did very well.
:)

Ephemera

04-19-2003, 09:34 PM

:dubious:

Snooooopy

04-19-2003, 10:09 PM

Originally posted by Sam Stone

TNG:

Captain: Helmsman, take us to planet X.
Troi: Captain, are you sure that's wise? I'm picking up conflicting emotions.
Riker: Captain, planet X is off limits. Surely you know that!
Geordi: Yeah, Captain! Besides, it's almost lunchtime. Shouldn't we get together as a committee and decide whether or not we should actually set course before or after lunch?
Worf: Before we go, captain, would you mind if I killed something?
Captain: Oh, the decisions! It's so difficult!

Let me hasten to add ...

Data: I may learn something about being human on planet X.
Wesley: Wow, am I a weenie.
Barclay: Me, too. And everyone keeps asking me why the guy from "The A-Team" is wandering around the Enterprise.

And somebody's got to run a Level 5 diagnostic, then crawl through one of the Jefferies tubes to reroute something through the deflector dish!

Ephemera

04-19-2003, 10:26 PM

Don't forget Q. It isn't a TNG episode without him.

Alan Smithee

04-20-2003, 12:07 AM

here's (http://www.trek5.com/caps/tng/101-102/pages/TNG101_113.htm) the infamous guy-in-a-skant (yup, they called the male mini-skirt a "skant") from Encounter at Farpoint. I sure don't want to know how this guy's aged!

Alan Smithee

04-20-2003, 12:08 AM

Sorry, that post really called for a :dubious:. My first time to use it, and I blew it.

Smapti

04-20-2003, 01:28 AM

here's the infamous guy-in-a-skant (yup, they called the male mini-skirt a "skant") from Encounter at Farpoint. I sure don't want to know how this guy's aged!

<KIFF>

I'm not as big a fan of velour as you are, sir.

</KIFF>

Ranchoth

04-20-2003, 02:20 AM

Hey, I liked the way the sets looked! What better way to say, "I run a galaxy-spanning multi-system civilization and I can do whatever the Hell I want" than building a kilometer-long heavy cruiser that STILL had an interior that looks like a hotel? Conquering the stars in STYLE, baby! Yeah!

In any case, it has to be better for crew morale than the "Voyager" interior...that one looked like the inside of an air conditioning duct. Ugh.

But...I am glad that they didn't put ferns on the bridge, like in some of the initial concept drawings. There are some lines that even I won't cross.

Ranchoth

04-20-2003, 02:22 AM

As for the "skant," well...Maybe with a higher collar. And longer sleves. And maybe a belt.

Or just some pants.

SPOOFE

04-20-2003, 05:09 AM

What better way to say, "I run a galaxy-spanning multi-system civilization and I can do whatever the Hell I want" than building a kilometer-long heavy cruiser that STILL had an interior that looks like a hotel?
Building one that doesn't have a warp core breach every other week? Seriously, if it weren't for the prevalence of time causalty loop singularities (that seem to be more common than hydrogen in the Star Trek universe) the Enterprise wouldn't have lasted five seconds into its maiden voyage.

Alan Smithee

04-20-2003, 03:22 PM

Originally posted by Smapti
<KIFF>

I'm not as big a fan of velour as you are, sir.

</KIFF> KIFF? I'm not sure what you mean, but the :dubious: I meant to add was supposed to help indicate I find a guy in a skant unappealing enough without twenty years aging added. At least that's what I was trying to say.

Kamino Neko

04-20-2003, 05:37 PM

It's a Futurama reference. Kiff is the alien crewman who hangs around with Captain Zapp Branigan. They wear uniforms much like skants.

vivalostwages

04-20-2003, 07:04 PM

I always identify a Season 1, 2, or 3 TNG episode by Jonathan Frakes' weight. He really packed on the pounds for a while after that.

Kamino Neko

04-20-2003, 07:19 PM

Originally posted by vivalostwages
I always identify a Season 1, 2, or 3 TNG episode by Jonathan Frakes' weight. He really packed on the pounds for a while after that.

I watch his facial hair.

If he has the beard, it's late on.

If he looks like a dork, it's early.

(He really, really looked better with the beard...)

vivalostwages

04-20-2003, 10:17 PM

I'm with you, Tengu. He looked like Pottsie without it.
About the weight: I do the same thing with the TOS episodes re: Shatner's fluctuating weight.

Oh, and the TNG uniforms....Troi never looked at all professional to me until Captain Jellico made her put on that regular uniform. And then she kept wearing it, no doubt realizing that she looked better that way.