As a crew member I would have happily accepted Spock as Captain, Sulu also did a good job, hell pretty much anyone would have been better than New Kirk.
Nope, exactly the opposite, he did the right thing (I’ve never particularly been a fan of the Prime Directive though I understand the reason behind it), my problem is with him trying to cover it up. Outright lying and falsifying a report is a serious offence, its basically saying you can’t be trusted, after all if you’ve lied about that what else have you lied about?
And the ‘laddish hijinks’ refers to Kirk’s reaction to getting caught out, like its no big deal and even worse he blames Spock for getting him in trouble. Well sorry former Captain Kirk, there’s the door, you can let yourself out, maybe you can get a job selling second hand cars or something.
Again if you’re going to break the rules like that then at least have the backbone to stand by your decision and be prepared to justify them, not cover them up like schoolboy.
Sisko was badass, but let’s not forget DS9’s showrunners and writers got intense flak from some segments of fandom for “abandoning the vision”.
Right. TOS Kirk would have broken the rules AND stood up to assume responsibility. But then again, TOS Kirk was a career veteran of exploration, battle, and diplomatic missions – not Reboot Kirk, given command while still a reckless third year cadet, which means that we get to watch him grow up when already in command.
Yeah, I don’t know why he felt the need to lie about it except to save a little paperwork. Saving Spock and letting some natives see a spaceship isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s not like they gave them plans for nuclear weapons, and they were already running around in disguise and messing with the volcano which is definitely interfering.
Not because it was Star Trek, but because it was virtually the only space-based SF show on TV.
In 1973, there was a TV series called The Starlost. It was created by Harlan Ellison, but the producers mangled his concept so badly that he wouldn’t let them put his real name on it. The acting was wooden. The stories made little sense. The special effects were all done with chroma-key. It was pretty awful.
But I never missed an episode. It wasn’t Star Trek, but it was the only SF program on television, which made it more entertaining than 90% of the other programs at the time. (Plus, I was only 13 at the time. :D)
In 1974, there was a TV series called Space 1999. The acting was wooden. The stories made little sense. It was pretty awful. But, at least the special effects were well done.
But I never missed an episode. It wasn’t Star Trek, but it was the only SF program on television, which made it more entertaining than 90% of the other programs at the time. (Plus, I was only 13 at the time. )
Never seen an episode of The Starlost in my entire life, except for about the last 10 minutes of one I just happened to catch one Saturday afternoon. It was terrible!
Honestly, if it was aired today do you think TNG would even survive the third episode “code of honor”. The episode was so racist and sexist the network would have been deluged with internet hate.
To kind of go back to what earlier posters said, Paramount doing it syndicated and getting several years commitment helped enormously. None of the four networks (Fox was relatively new and didn’t have a full schedule) would do so. Going syndicated meant stations could be satisfied with lower ratings than networks, which (almost always) want higher ratings. Apparently there were a lot more independent stations when TNG debuted then at the beginning of the 1980s. I can only speak for the NYC market but TNG was on WPIX 11…which had been airing TOS reruns for almost two decades. You kind of had that imprinted in your mind that if you want Star Trek, got to channel 11.
I wasn’t crazy about the first season: too much preaching by Picard to every alien on how Earth survived possible nuclear destruction in the 20th century. Also the casting of the Ferengi as this all powerful malevolent empire didn’t work out since they had decided to make the Klingons at peace with the Federation and the Romulans were in hibernation. Ferengi worked better as comically greedy people on DS9. But it was Star Trek. Not boring like Space 1999 and not Glen Larson bad like the first Battlestar Galactica (which I had hopes for since they killed off Jane Seymour early. Not that Jane Seymour was bad but it made me hope they would avoid “only red shirts die” syndrome. Turns out she wasn’t even suppose to last that long and they changed her dialogue in the 3 hour pilot. But who knew that in 1979?).
In days of three networks, sci fi network shows didn’t last long. Probably due to network interference but westerns like “Gunsmoke” and sitcoms like “My Three Sons” lasted a lot longer. Sci Fi is kind of a narrow audience.
Remember that TV in 1987 was not the sophisticated medium of long running arcs and good writing that we have today. It was Simon and Simon, The A-Team, Matlock, and Highway to Heaven. Hill street Blues was perhaps the best show out there. TNG was above average TV compared to what else was being offered. It only looks dated now.
Even more to the point is how weak sci-fi was at that point. TV was giving us very little. ‘V’ was a decent mini-series (if heavy handed) but the weekly series was pretty awful and uninspired (it started OK with some serial efforts, then just became lizard alien plot of the week). What else was there? Semi-sci-fi like Knight Rider (aimed at kids) Starman (just a fish out of water story with sci-fi elements) Otherworld (bleech). This is the era when US sci-fi fans happily watched the original Dr. Who episodes and overlooked their cheap effects & production values just because it was better written than anything else around.
