ST:TNG getting better
Joseph Edward Herbers
much better over the last three episodes???
Since it began, I have watched each episode with a sense of unfulfillment.
The show had more promise than I thought it would, but the stories
always left me disappointed.
But the last three weeks' shows have finally lived up to my expectations
of what ST:TNG could be. There were new, interesting ideas, new looks
at old issues (the prime directive), and a suprising amount of study of
human behavior. I was rather amazed at the intensity and subject matter
of this weeks episode and very pleased at how the show turned out.
"The Bonding" dealt more with people's feelings and reactions (esp.
towards death) than any of the original Star Treks. The idea was great,
the plot was good, the acting superb, and even the direction proved
interesting. The last two weeks have also had good characters, original
ideas, and better endings than most episodes of ST:TNG.
I think one of the things that ST:TNG has been missing in comparison to
the original is tension. In the old show, there was a life and death
struggle every episode, the bridge crew was sharp, the aliens menacing,
and Kirk was as tight as a drum, barking out orders and debating issues
with Spock and McCoy. In ST:TNG, things are too relaxed. People walk
around chatting about things, reclining in those comfy bridge chairs,
just doing their jobs. Even the death of Tasha Yar was too random
and quick to bring any real emotion into the show.
I think one of the big differences is the music. The original series
had loud, thundering, driving music whenever a conflict of any kind
was at hand. Even the normal background music lent a certain mood
to the scenes. The scores were very impressive and are available
in record stores even today. The only music you ever notice in
the new series is the opening, and of course that has no effect
on the general mood of the show.
The recent episodes of ST:TNG have been able to create more intensity
do to the improved scripts, tighter acting, and better direction. I
hope to see this continue. ST:TNG could be as interesting and enjoyable
as the original if it continues to live up to its expectations.
Live long and prosper
Wendy Sarrett
preceeded it (I forget the name but the one where these primitive
aliens start worshiping Picard). The stories and acting were great.
BTW - I like the fact that this season they seem to be dealing with
more, shall I say, "realistic" issues that people in their situation
would have to deal with, instead of destroying the alien of the week
which seemed to be common in the original ST. (Actually my favorite
stories in the original series were the non "shoot em up" ones like
"City on The Edge of Forever").
Wendy
Matthew Ault
I _heard_ that Roddenberry has been more or less kicked out
of the production staff for ST:TNG. Yes, I know that he is
still listed as Executive Producer in the closing credits, but
the rumor was that he was being too restrictive concerning the
story lines and scripts, so the powers that be gave him the boot.
Like I said, just a rumor, but it could explain the marginal
increase in quality...
-maa
------
"Please, Spock, do me a favor and don't say it's fascinating."
"No, doctor. But it is... interesting."
-McCoy and Spock
------
William December Starr
In article <20...@ut-emx.UUCP>,
r...@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Robert Dorsett) said:
> 5. And a minor point: Geordi (in the last episode) getting sent down to
> have a "good look" at things. "No way a tricorder could have picked THIS
> baby up," he says, holding up some sort of grenade. The writers have yet
> to explain how a Federation technology which can produce the wonder-visor
> cannot also produce a tricorder capable of picking up the same information.
Technical point: Geordi reported that someone or something had (a) dug
up the mines, (b) disarmed them, and (c) left them lying around in
plain sight, where they couldn't be missed. Presumably, all this
happened after the ill-fated Worf-led expedition at the beginning of
the episode. Also presumably, had Geordi been along on the first
expedition, he wouldn't have spotted the concealed mines either.
Timothy Fay
>Has anyone else noticed that Star Trek: The Next Generation has gotten
>much better over the last three episodes???
Nope. I haven't.
The 3rd season opener was pretty good (the one where Data tries to
evacuate a "lost" colony), but the second episode was little more
than a remake of FORBIDDEN PLANET. The third episode, with the
pseudo-Vulcans, was excreble.
I have seen no real improvement in either the direction, writing
or acting on the series (the only thing I do like are the new
opening credits). If we're lucky, The Next Generation will take
a cue from Trek Classic, and warp into cancellation at the end
of its third season.
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INET: ava...@pnet51.cts.com
===================================================
"'Medium' is the perfect word for Televison; it is
neither 'rare' nor 'well done'." -Woody Allen
Scott Gibson
>
>BTW - I like the fact that this season they seem to be dealing with
>more, shall I say, "realistic" issues that people in their situation
>would have to deal with, instead of destroying the alien of the week
>which seemed to be common in the original ST. (Actually my favorite
I am curious.
Could some enterprising [:-)] soul cull the list of TOS episodes and produce
a list of those episodes which simplify to "destroying the alien of the week"?
I don't have an episode list, but I don't recall the percentage of such
episodes being very high. In fact, I thought that one of the goals of the
series was to avoid such stories, which were the mainstay of shows like
"Lost in Space".
I would be interested in seeing such a list.
Scott
Russell E. Button
>jher...@zippy.eecs.umich.edu (Joseph Edward Herbers) writes:
>>Has anyone else noticed that Star Trek: The Next Generation has gotten
>>much better over the last three episodes???
>
>Nope. I haven't.
>
>a cue from Trek Classic, and warp into cancellation at the end
>of its third season.
>
I'm glad that "The Powers That Be" don't listen to folks like this guy. I
happen to enjoy this show very much. It is the only thing I bother to watch
on TV. Just because it doesn't measure up to what he thinks it should, he'd
deny me the opportunity to watch it.
Yes, it has flaws. But then, don't you? Just imagine if every person who
was flawed got canceled? What happens with TV shows is that they are
commercial products. If enough people enjoy them and watch them, then they
get commercial sponsorship. That's it. Artistic quality (and WHO'S gonna
be the judge?) is far down on the priority list. I feel fortunate that
Star Trek: The Next Generation has enough of the qualities that I find
enjoyable.
If you don't dig it, use the TV equivalent of the "n" key. Nobody said that
you HAVE to watch it!
Russ Button
Timothy Fay
>In article <13...@orbit.UUCP> ava...@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Timothy Fay) writes:
>>
>>If we're lucky, The Next Generation will take
>>a cue from Trek Classic, and warp into cancellation at the end
>>of its third season.
>
>I'm glad that "The Powers That Be" don't listen to folks like this guy. I
>happen to enjoy this show very much. It is the only thing I bother to watch
>on TV. Just because it doesn't measure up to what he thinks it should, he'd
>deny me the opportunity to watch it.
Goodness, these Trekkies are a paranoid bunch. I have no desire to
deny you the opportunity to watch whatever programs you want to watch,
just as I have no desire to watch an amateurish production like _Star
Trek: The Next Generation_. (I've stopped watching the program after
viewing the episode with the pseudo-Vulcans. One of the worst so far.)
>
>Yes, it has flaws. But then, don't you? Just imagine if every person who
>was flawed got canceled? What happens with TV shows is that they are
>commercial products. If enough people enjoy them and watch them, then they
>get commercial sponsorship. That's it. Artistic quality (and WHO'S gonna
>be the judge?) is far down on the priority list.
You just said it yourself: Artistic quality is far down the list, as
the show demonstrates each week.
Mark A. Lindsay
>If we're lucky, The Next Generation will take
>a cue from Trek Classic, and warp into cancellation at the end
>of its third season.
Unlikely since TNG is the *top-rated* hour-long syndicated show currently
on the air, and third rated for all syndicated shows. (Source: TV Guide,
11/4/89 issue.)
---------------
University of Oklahoma | Mark A. Lindsay | Veritas Omnia Vincit
---------------
c...@psuecl.bitnet
Hear, hear! Give that man a ceeegar! (Ok, so it's an old cliche...)
I happen to like ST:TNG also, and I don't appreciate a single person trying
to burn it into the ground. Sure, some of the episodes are a little weak
on plot, but then most everything on T.V. is even weaker. Just look at
some of the garbage like War of the Worlds and Friday the 13th. Personally
I think anybody who watches those shows ought to be shot (though I did hear
a rebroadcast of the original Orson Wells show of War of the Worlds on
Halloween night ... B-) but I don't try to get them cancelled. You've
got complete control over what you watch. It's known as the channel selector.
If you don't want to watch it, turn the knob (or push the button, whichever
may be appropriate...) If everyone does this, the show will get no sponsoring
and will be cancelled, but I think that rather unlikely...
Live long and prosper.
--
- Charles Hannum "Klein bottle for sale... Inquire within."
c...@psuecl.psu.edu "To life immortal!"
cmh...@psuvm.psu.edu "No noozzzz izzz netzzznoozzzzz..."
P.S. I may not like the show, but I like the quote. To life immortal!
Robert Michael Gutierrez
>In article <13...@orbit.UUCP> ava...@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Timothy Fay) writes:
>>jher...@zippy.eecs.umich.edu (Joseph Edward Herbers) writes:
>>>Has anyone else noticed that Star Trek: The Next Generation has gotten
>>>much better over the last three episodes???
>>
>>Nope. I haven't.
>>
>>If we're lucky, The Next Generation will take
>>a cue from Trek Classic, and warp into cancellation at the end
>>of its third season.
>>
>
>I'm glad that "The Powers That Be" don't listen to folks like this guy. I
>happen to enjoy this show very much. It is the only thing I bother to watch
>on TV. Just because it doesn't measure up to what he thinks it should, he'd
>deny me the opportunity to watch it.
This is also the way that the real "powers that be" think, unfortunately :-(
(Network Programmers, that is).
Fortunately, in the syndication world, you're not at the mercey of some
money driven, "mad prophet of the airwaves" (to quote Peter Finch). Even
though I am not a fan of ST:TNG, the 3 episodes I have seen are some of the
best quality television I have seen considering the constrained budget they
have to work with. I *definitely* think TNG would not have lasted beyond
1/2 season on Network TV, but independent TV stations are crying for this
type of programming, because they know that the audience they will attract
would appreciate it, instead of endless Vanna White Fashion Shows.
Why is it American network programmers (with a few exceptions) think all
of their audience have 13 year old mentalities, but British and Japanese
programmers treat their audience as they were adults.
Robert Gutierrez -- Internet Network Operations.
NASA-Ames Research Center,
Mountian View, California.
rwtang
WARNING: Long and rambling discourse with semi-flames to come.
*sigh*
Nothing bores me more than arguements like, "well you oughta look
at crap like [name of show]" when one's sacred cow is gored. It's like
my dad can beat your dad arguements; it doesn't prove anything. Besides,
being better than a typical piece of network tv crap is pretty faint praise
indeed.
Now let me say that I think there HAS been a noticeable improvement
in TNG in its third season. Fewer idiot plots and outright boners, with a
few stronger characterizations have been quite evident; only the snobbiest
of snobs would fail to note this.
Yet, for the truly demanding, the third season still has room for
vast improvement. While the third season shows have been competent, they have
not been consistently GREAT. That is, while TNG is better than, say, a
JAKE AND THE FATMAN or DYNASTY or COLBYS, it is a far cry from some really
great TV like ST. ELSEWHERE, LA LAW< HILLSTREET BLUES or even WISEGUY.
I think only MEASURE OF A MAN has even approached that level of dramatic
quality, yet even this episode falls short of the subtle, yet deep nuances
these shows have attained.
granted, getting a show of that kind of quality is much more
difficult on a SF show; you have to create a tremendous number of
believable throwaway cultures on a show like TNG from whole cloth which you
don't have to do on LA LAW (though lawyers ARE pretty alien creatures, now
that I think about it....). And getting the details right is virtually
impossible; it's damn hard to do it right on a feature film, let alone
a weekly TV series.
Yet, the point I'm making is subtler. It's not the cultural baggage
that I'm after; it's the creative risktaking I'm after. It's evolution of
character, allowing things to evolve, taking a stand that I'm after. And that's
not happening on TNG.
I don't think we're getting a whole lot of surprises out of the
characters on the Big-E; they just don't seem to evolve and change like
on the better TV shows. A Picard doesn't change or evolve like a Frank Furrillo,
Vinnie Terranova or a Dr. Westphal. Nor does a Wil Riker change like a
Peter White or a Wes Crusher evolve (and let's not even compare Commander
Cleavage to either Fay or Joyce.....). Part of it is that the TNG crew
don't have the hard edges or depths as these characters do (a trait which I
think that they share with the TOS crew); as heroric archetypes, they aren't
allowed to be as human as tother characters. Nor can they really change, as
they can't get any better or "gooder", nor can they make really rotten
choices and commit real evil--that just won't cut it in the Trek world.
Moreover, the stories themselves have taken on a kind of blandness
and non-riskiness; they take safe, predictable viewpoints and don't allow
the characters a real option to make bad choices (see HEART OF GLORY, where
the odds are stacked in Worf's favor). There's a certain soft-headed
Hollywood liberalishness about many of the scripts in TNG; politically, they
don't stray too far from the liberal mainstream, avoiding the hard edges
of either political right or left and the cynicism and pessimism that
makes a WISEGUY or HILL STREET BLUES possible.
Not that any variation from this mindset would be accepted. The
very mild actions of Picard in WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS have not been
acceptable to many fans; any attempt to explore moral ambiguities have been
rejected by many viewers who prefer a black and white view of the world.
This is ironic, since the distribution of TNG has been through
syndication, which supposedly allows for more freedom in expression. Yet the
result has been somewhat bland (less so in the third season), resulting in
shows that aren't really that much different from what's been shown on
network schedules. They are very safe shows, with no stretching of
characters, no testing the limits of what would really go into the makeup
of a real, Federation-type future.
--
Roger Tang, Member
Uncle Bonsai Memorial Fan Club
American Flag Disposal Unit #3245, Chonk Moonhunters chapter
gwan...@blake.acs.washington.edu
Otto Hack-Man Heuer
>Fortunately, in the syndication world, you're not at the mercey of some
>money driven, "mad prophet of the airwaves" (to quote Peter Finch). Even
>though I am not a fan of ST:TNG, the 3 episodes I have seen are some of the
>best quality television I have seen considering the constrained budget they
>have to work with. I *definitely* think TNG would not have lasted beyond
Constrained budget? They spend over a million ($1,000,000.00) on each and
every episode!! You can do a LOT with a million bucks a week.
P.S. I *like* TNG.
--HACK-MAN
DISCLAIMER: I speak for myself, my computers, and (to some degree) my company.
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Robert Michael Gutierrez
>guti...@nsipo.arc.nasa.gov (Robert Michael Gutierrez) writes:
>>Fortunately, in the syndication world, you're not at the mercey of some
>>money driven, "mad prophet of the airwaves" (to quote Peter Finch). Even
>>though I am not a fan of ST:TNG, the 3 episodes I have seen are some of the
>>best quality television I have seen considering the constrained budget they
>>have to work with. I *definitely* think TNG would not have lasted beyond
>
>Constrained budget? They spend over a million ($1,000,000.00) on each and
>every episode!! You can do a LOT with a million bucks a week.
This is what I get for listening to one of the staff on the show, who always
wishes he had more money to use :-)
>P.S. I *like* TNG.
One of these days, I should start watching it, but I forgot to pay my cable bill,
and so, I'm stuck with NBC on my small Ku satellite dish.
Robert Gutierrez -- NSI Network Operations -- NASA Ames Research Center.