If you've been following this blog (and I have no idea why you would), you know that I recently covered the Star Trek animated series, as part of an effort of my wife and I to watch all Trek series in chronological order. We managed to make it through the original series movies since then (it was truly painful to watch Star Trek V: Kirk vs. God again), so now we're watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix.
I'm not going to do a separate entry for each episode--that would take too long and there's plenty of others on the net who have already done so. However, from time to time, I will drop in a blog entry with my thoughts on recent episodes we've watched.
One point upfront. If you want to feel really old, consider this: The period of time since TNG premiered (1987) is now longer than the period between the TOS (1966) and TNG premieres. Ouch!
We're several episodes into the first season so far--
- I'm sure the cast was nervous during the production of the pilot. The characters were not fully formed, concepts were being introduced, and from my memories at the time, the series was far from a sure thing. That being said, it is very strange that everyone involved on camera really gave you ACTING by the bushel. Every line was spoken like it was the most important thing ever said--like they were giving speeches in front of a podium.
- Why did they spend what seemed like half the pilot separating and reattaching the saucer section--so some Trekkie could say "I knew they could do that from the engineering manual I bought at the convention"?
- Who's bright idea was skirts on the early uniforms--specially for male extras? I know it was William Ware Theiss, but somebody had to approve that.
- Does Dr. Crusher shop at uglysweaters.com for her son, or does Wesley buy them? (BTW--there's a tumblr if you're interested in seeing them)
- In retrospect, I don't think Tasha Yar was killed due to Denise Crosby's Playboy pictorial. She was not a good actress, and her backstory is terrible. Rape gangs? She also held back Worf on the show--all he did was talk about Klingon honor before she was offed.
- Picard seems to go for the "surrender" option a lot
- The juxtaposition of drama and humor is very strange--wacky antics from Data one second, and a deadly decision the next
Star Trek: The Next Generation is available on Netflix--more to come!