I never thought anyone cared about Far Point. It was a great beginning of the series though because of Q and concluding with a space jellyfish.
If Q wasn’t there poking at them it really would have been a dull episode.
Even Starfleet didn’t really care about Farpoint. The old city is being bombarded: “Wellllll… isn’t that something.” Their leader is floating in mid air being tortured: “Wellllll… do we really want to interfere with that? Let’s think it over first.”
Q does love screwing with People but he is actually pretty helpful. If he hadn’t given Picard so many clues that something was going to happen at Farpoint there is a much better chance he would have blown it out of the sky. The whole thing comes off like he’s trying to keep his pet space jellyfish from being killed by another fish in his galactic aquarium.
He must not have been fond of that crystalline entity though. He let that die, or maybe being blown to smithereens is how they propagate.
And do it with no automation.
Maybe it’s something that can only be learned while having sex.
So, yes.
I was interested at the time because it was bringing back Star Trek.
Q always helped them out despite being an ass. I believe that in some episode it becomes clear that he likes humanity and helps them against the Continuum’s wishes
They did so on average once a year or so. Moreover, it’s not like family members couldn’t just travel to meet the Enterprise, as it often visited various space stations or other planets for routine business and patrols, and civilians can apparently hitch rides to places.
Not only “on the bridge” but in her own designated chair, where she does nothing but sit for hours and “observe” the crew members. And I thought the Security guards who were always hanging around the bridge on ***TOS ***were scary… :eek:
Yeah the season 1 shows were terrible. But what other sci fi was there at the time? When I’ve gone back to shows like Quantum Leap, I’ve had a similar “what did I ever see in this?!” thought.
The success of TNG was down lack of competition, and two other factors IMO:
Patrick Stewart. Great actor, even when his character wasn’t fully fleshed out.
How upbeat the show was. I still love that, and the TNG theme music still gives me goosebumps. It’s a reality where science has made so many amazing things possible and here we have a crew of the best of the best pushing the boundaries of discovery. It’s actually a very different tone from the “exotic roadtrip” TOS and the darker later treks (though I enjoy all of them).
“Councillor” does sound like a euphemistic name for a political commissar – trained to make sure counter-federationary thought doesn’t take hold aboard ship. She senses someone having “incorrect emotions” and makes sure to “suggest” a “counselling session”.
As for children on the Enterprise, I always fanwank it as 24th century attitudes towards kids has changed. After all, cabin boys/midshipmen young as 10 served on old Navy ships. They played important parts in battles too.
Depending on the alien culture or even certain human culture, they might feel any risk is balanced by the experience.
In ST:Voyager, 7of9’s parents took her with them while studying the borgs. A really stupid risk, even the USS Enterprise left the children home, when they knew they were going to fight the borgs.
Hell, there are people like that where I come from. They’re called “social workers,” and spend most of their time with their noses up other people’s asses.
Not only that, but she’s supposed to be able to detect deception, and emotions, body language and such…from ALIENS. That would be like asking a body language expert his opinion on an Ostrich. When he’s never seen an Ostrich!
I always hated that excuse that the show ‘needs to find its feet’. TOS was great because they had Sci-Fi writers and not a stable of TV writers. They jumped right in without a real ‘origin story’.
TNG’s characters were mostly gimmicky. The stories had B and C arcs. No show approximated the feeling of ‘family’ like TOS did.
They also had Roddenberry, who was not only an award-winning writer but understood SF as well. The show’s decline started when his involvement began to slacken off until it was “virtually nonexisent” (Nimoy’s words) in the third season.
