Star Trek: TNG Appreciation Thread

Caveneau

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RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
I searched the forums by title and it didn't seem like we had one yet specifically for TNG. If I missed it, my apologies. I, like many other Star Trek fans have been rewatching episodes from Star Trek: The Next Generation since the new Picard series has aired. I find I've had to go back to the fountain of quality I remember as a kid. A show about a mankind's reach for greatness. Or maybe I just miss the writers who loved Star Trek and loved science fiction stories.
 
This is an outstanding idea—thank you for kick-starting this thread!

For me, TNG’s greatness always came from writing that lingered long after the episode aired and caused your to “think” about things on a larger scale.

Here is a short clip with examples that illustrate this point:

 
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Since Star Trek Picard is leaving it's mark, I really enjoy going back to the good ol' days where the stories involved diverse characters working together to achieve a common goal. Nobody's voice was diminished. Dialog was well distributed between main characters. Funny how the writers even took some extra time to throw in additional lines of dialog that made characters relatable. I also like how those old shows used to try and to show both sides of conflicts, instead of selfish characters who are the new and bestest ever, retroactive to the beginning of time, or maybe just intervals of 25 years like 'the next generation' of writers and executive producers...I digress.
 
Watching S7x02 - Liaisons. Worf's freakout scene in the conference room is funny. That obsessive chick who helps Picard was pretty cute. Psycho but cute.
 
Funnily enough I re-watched the Inside the Writers Room TNG Season 3 Bluray bonus feature last night.
It's great to hear the writers talk about how they worked within the established parameters of the show but pushed the boundaries now and then without ever smashing them down, they had respect for the show.
Seth does a great job moderating the discussion.
It's a fascinating documentary.
The writers on Picard would do well to watch it and remember that boundaries don't have to be restrictive but can make you go in creative directions and tighten up the story.
 
The writers on Picard would do well to watch it and remember that boundaries don't have to be restrictive but can make you go in creative directions and tighten up the story.
That's never going to happen.

Something I find funny, symbolically, is how in STP they call Sushi and Douche the 'Destroyer of Worlds'? They must be referring to their own cast of writers and all 18 executive producers.
 
I may get blasted for 'thinking' this, but anyone remember Jack Nicholson's line in 'As good as it gets' about how Nicholson's character as an author, writes such realistic characters. That's their approach in writing the Picard character. Think of Picard from TNG era, than just remove all 'reason and accountability' from the new version, make him apologize for past transgressions of others and/or things that are completely irrelevant to the story narrative.
 
You can take the kid out of Yorkshire...

One thing I'm not sure Sir Patrick ever quite squared within himself. He was used to getting tapped to play kings and ministers and great heads of state, wise and weighty and all that, in his stage work. He had a bit more action in his earlier TV and film work, but Gene and Bob wanted a Captain who was more settled in himself -- mature without being old. If that makes sense. They spent time in TNG showing and telling how Picard did have his brash youth, shunning family tradition to join Starfleet, the only freshman to win the Academy marathon, the incident with the Nausicaans, taking command of the Stargazer when the Captain was killed, the Picard Maneuver, etc. But something happened in the years between losing the Stargazer and getting the Enterprise that got that out of his system. This, incidentally, is something I'm profoundly curious about, and hasn't been adequately explored in the ancillary fiction. He went from being an obscure Captain of a third-rank ship, in partial disgrace for losing said ship... to having the respect of Admirals and the clout to get the Federation's new flagship full of bleeding-edge tech. I want to see that story.

Anyway, by the time we met him, he was competent and confident and bold, without being hasty or thin-skinned (well, once we were past the growing pains of the first part of season 1). TNG showed that about the only thing that slipped through his settled rôle as master and commander of a Galaxy class starship was when history and/or archaeology was afoot, or, worse, threatened. "Time's Arrow", "Captain's Holiday", "The Chase"... But Sir Patrick chafed at always having to be the voice of reason, despite the truth of the character by that point in his life. Picard-as-action-hero started to creep in as he got more say in story. By the films, he was about to the point of full-on John McClane. Fistfights with the baddies, climbing and swinging about the set during the climactic fights, machine-guns and bared arms, getting the girl, car chases...

There are reasons I took the tone I did with him in my immediately-after-leaving-the-theater Nemesis rewrite (before I went back further and retroactively nullified the loss of the Enterprise-D and Picard-as-action-hero). I like relaxed, wry, charming Picard. That plays to a lot of Sir Patrick's strengths as a person. The best way to cap out his arc through and after TNG would be to promote him to Admiral and have him serve as a a roving ambassador-at-large for the Federation, much as Robert April had done a century earlier. We saw hints of that in TNG, in "Future Imperfect" and "All Good Things...". That is, I think, the biggest let-down for me of Picard-the-series. He should be relaxed in himself, what with no longer being in active command of a thousand-plus people, still able to get fired up about Doing The Right Thing™, but all of the unresolved-trauma-and-haunted-by-his-past stuff has no place here. It did in TNG season 4, but he moved past that. It shouldn't have been in First Contact, either. Made for good drama, but even with his often-detrimental stoicism, nine years, with Beverly and Troi there with him, should have seen him well and truly been past that.

I just recently re-read Imzadi for the umpteenth time, as well as watching "Future Imperfect", "All Good Things...", "Timeless", "Endgame", and "The Visitor" to get my fix of what FutureTrek should look like, and boy I wish this were a proper evolution of TNG: Still-active Ambassador Picard, having forestalled his Irumodic Syndrome thanks to the look forward Q afforded him; Beverly commanding the Pasteur; Admiral Riker serving out of Starbase 75 and commanding the venerable 1701-D; Wes as his first officer (and former chief engineer); Troi dividing her time between family and serving as Picard's diplomatic aide; Geordie commanding the Challenger; Worf serving as ambassador to the Klingons; Data... is a longer story. So much potential there even within the "confines" of the actual canon and the characters' authentic selves. The science-breaking Romulan supernova, the lore-breaking dystopian setting, the all-wrong æsthetic, the angst and brokenness of everyone... Pff. Toss all that crap into the nearest transporter and leave it particle-ized in deep space.
 
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Since Star Trek Picard is leaving it's mark, I really enjoy going back to the good ol' days where the stories involved diverse characters working together to achieve a common goal. Nobody's voice was diminished.

Shut up Wesly!


Sorry, could not resist :)
 
Cat's out of the bag I'm afraid. Love it or hate it this IS today's Trek, if it performs poorly in the ratings CBS won't give it a do over. It is what it is.:rolleyes:
 
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