Television | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Child (Review)

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also next year’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season (and a tiny bit of the second), episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

Let’s play make believe for a second here. Let’s imagine you are producing a television show that had a very rocky first season, but seemed to be making steps in the right direction. This was a show already respected for its depiction of social issues like racism or drug use…

However, despite that, the first year of the show had some major gender issues. Your writers and actors had been pointing out that some of the episodes in that first year could be considered sexist. Of the three actresses in you regular cast, two left. One became the first regular on a Star Trek show to die in the middle of the season, and you had to write the first episode of the second season to write out the other actress who had been having some trouble with a male producer.

Now, keeping all that in mind, let’s carefully consider what to do with the remaining female lead character. If you are producing the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, you choose to have an alien impregnate that character without consent, use her body as incubation chamber, exploit her maternal instincts and then make her watch what she believes to be her own child die. More than that, you make sure that the female character is completely superfluous to the script itself, and that nobody seems to care particularly about her.

Don’t worry, Troi. Face of the Enemy is less than half a decade away…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Beverly Crusher, Data, Deanna Troi, gene roddenberry, jean-luc picard, Leonard Nimoy, Neutral Zone, Next Generation, picard, spock, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, StarTrek, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E), Vulcans, William Riker, Worf | 5 Comments »

Doctor Who: The Snowmen (Review)

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Darren

Snowmen are rubbish in July. You’ll have to be better than that.

– the Doctor points out that the Great Intelligent doesn’t seem especially… intelligent

The Snowmen is a return to the sort of plot-driven Christmas Special that we occasionally saw during the Davies era. Much like The Christmas Invasion was concerned with introducing David Tennant and The End of Time, Part I was focused on wrapping up the Davies era, The Snowmen feels like it’s more concerned with setting up the fiftieth anniversary half-season ahead than it is with being a Christmas Special in its own right.

Sure, The Snowmen has all the festive trappings you might expect. There are killer snowmen, as the title implies. There’s a rich lonely old miser, as we’ve come to expect in these sorts of tales. There’s a nice Victorian setting for all the action as well. However, The Snowmen devotes a considerable amount of time to developing the mystery surrounding the Doctor’s new companion, and setting up a recurring foe for this fiftieth anniversary half-season.

The result is somewhat unsatisfying, as if The Snowmen is working harder to check the requisite boxes than it is to provide seasonal Doctor Who viewing.

What white teeth they have…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, BBC America, christmas, Clara, doctor, doctor who, Jenna-Louise Coleman, matt smith, Moffat, Richard E. Grant, Sherlock, sherlock holmes, Simeon, Snowmen, steven moffat, tardis, Yeti (Doctor Who) | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 1 (Review)

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also next year’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season, episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

Well, the video and sound quality on the blu ray are excellent. I feel the need to state that here, first, before I delve into the season as a whole. I jumped on board the recent high-definition re-release of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the work done here by the production team is astounding. As I trawled through every episode from Encounter at Farpoint to The Neutral Zone, I was amazed and impressed at how much care had gone into restoring and renewing the show for high-definition. I can’t imagine how painstaking the work was – re-editing the original film stock, remastering old effects, remixing the sound. The team have made a believer out of me, and I am on board for pretty much any restored Star Trek boxset that CBS sees fit to release. (I can’t wait to see Deep Space Nine updated.)

I think it’s important to acknowledge the work that went into producing a set that looks and sounds fantastic. It made returning to the show a joy, even when I was (frequently) reminded of just how rocky that first season was.

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Devil in the Dark, Encounter at Farpoint, kirk, Naked Now, Neutral Zone, Next Generation, patrick stewart, picard, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, Star Trek: The Animated Series, star trek: the original series | 10 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Neutral Zone (Review)

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also next year’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season, episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

Watching The Neutral Zone, it’s hard not to feel that the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation should have wrapped up with Conspiracy. At least that would have represented a bold step forwards, even if it wasn’t the direction that the show would ultimately take. In contrast, a lot of The Neutral Zone falls back into the trite, patronising arrogance that we’ve seen our crew demonstrate repeatedly over this first year, treating three refugees from twenty-first century Earth as an excuse to lord their superiority over the viewers at home. It’s a rather strange direction to take, and it certainly doesn’t make for good television. Which feels like a bit of a waste, given that the B-plot is actually quite workable.

“We’re back.”

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Balance of Terror, Benedict Cumberbatch, Beverly Crusher, Data, Deanna Troi, Federation, Geneva, jean-luc picard, Klingon, Neutral Zone, picard, Romulan, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, Starfleet, Television and Movies, Wall Street Journal, Wesley Crusher, William Riker, Worf, Yuppie | 8 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Conspiracy (Review)

Posted on December 24, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also next year’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season, episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

Conspiracy stands out from the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In fact, it stands out from pretty much the majority of the Star Trek canon, feeling distinctly unpleasant and unnerving throughout. It is not just the gore – which remains one of the most weirdly graphic scenes in Star Trek history, to the point where it was edited out of the original BBC broadcast of the show.

There’s something more unnerving and uncomfortable about Conspiracy, as it represents the first time we’ve really seen the Federation and Starfleet so thoroughly corrupted and subverted. Sure, we’ve had rogue officials, obfuscating bureaucrats and meddling administrators, but Conspiracy represents a thoroughly cynical examination of some of the core concepts that Star Trek takes for granted.

It isn’t indicative of what The Next Generation would eventually evolve into, even seeming considerably darker than Star Trek: Deep Space Nine normally delved, but it does represent something bold and new, something that we never would have seen in the original Star Trek. I think that is what makes it such a fascinating episode in this rocky first season, even ignoring its sizeable flaws.

A can of worms…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: arts, Beverly Crusher, Federation, gene roddenberry, Next Generation, picard, Prime Directive, science fiction, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: the original series, Starbase, Starfleet, Starfleet ranks and insignia | 12 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – We’ll Always Have Paris (Review)

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also next year’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season, episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

It’s hard to believe that we got this far into the show without a Picard-centred episode. Sure, the original Star Trek was reluctant to probe too deeply into Kirk’s background, but Star Trek: The Next Generation had already demonstrated that it was more willing to probe the histories of characters like Data (Datalore), Worf (Heart of Glory), Yar (Code of Honour and The Naked Now) and Troi (Haven). Star Trek shows, by they nature, tend to gravitate around their leading actor, and Patrick Stewart has been shown to hold the show together through sheer force of will at certain points. However, We’ll Always Have Paris marks the first time we’ve really delved that deeply into the character of Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

While we don’t peer nearly deeply enough, it’s fun to base an episode around Patrick Stewart, and time-travel was always a fun story-telling device on The Next Generation.

Picard's love life is solid as a rock...

Love on the rock…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: arts, Heart of Glory, Holodeck, jean-luc picard, kirk, Naked Now, Next Generation, patrick stewart, picard, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the original series, Starfleet, William Riker | 3 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Skin of Evil (Review)

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also next year’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season, episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

Skin of Evil is a mess of an episode. It’s a whole bunch of concepts thrown together, and executed in the most ridiculous and banal manner possible. There’s a lot of the disparate elements of Skin of Evil that could easily work if handled properly. Most notably, the idea of a character dying in the line of duty rather than as a hero is a fascinating one, and the eponymous monster could be an interesting twist on the “god-like beings” we seem to stumble across once every couple of weeks in the Star Trek universe. However, Skin of Evil winds up feeling the one thing it should be impossible for an episode like this to be. Despite all the different stuff happening involving all the different characters: it’s boring.

A slick operator…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Beverly, Beverly Crusher, Data, Denise Crosby, Encounter at Farpoint, Gates McFadden, Geordi La Forge, Health, J Abrams, Jadzia Dax, james t. kirk, Marina Sirtis, picard, Riker, Ro Laren, Shopping, Skin of Evil, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: the original series, William Riker, Yar | 7 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Symbiosis (Review)

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also next year’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season, episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

After Arsenal of Freedom, I was wary of Symbiosis. Star Trek has always liked exploring socially and morally relevant ideas through the vehicle of science-fiction. I can understand the appeal of it – science-fiction allows us to divorce basic arguments for all manner of clouding context and to address them in the purest or terms. I think Star Trek is at its most powerful exploring these themes (as The Next Generation would do in episodes like The Outcast), but there’s a risk involved. Nobody wants to be lectured about a simplistic moral principle for forty-minutes, and nobody wants to see a complex issue boiled down past all recognition.

So it’s pretty nice that Symbiosis works quite well. The show is a bit bumpy in places, but it does a lot of things well enough that it’s an entertaining watch. Indeed, it feels like the kind of episode we should have seen a lot earlier in the year.

Star gazing…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Arsenal of Freedom, arts, Beverly Crusher, Data, Denise Crosby, Earth, Federation, Orbit, patrick stewart, Photosphere, picard, Prime Directive, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the original series, Sun, Symbiosis, Television, Wesley, Wesley Crusher, Will Wheaton | 6 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Arsenal of Freedom (Review)

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also next year’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season, episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

I suppose that Arsenal of Freedom could be worse. At its heart, it’s the sort of issue-driven story that the classic Star Trek did so very well. The original Star Trek was fond of constructing clever (and not so clever) explorations of the issues of the day, giving the audience a relatively simplistic morality play about the dangers of certain vices and the risks that they might pose to a civilised society. Later on its run, Star Trek: The Next Generation would handle its own morality plays with just a bit more nuance and sophistication, favouring deliberate and considerate probing rather than its predecessor’s endearing brashness. Like so much of the first season, Arsenal of Freedom feels like it is an attempt to capture the flavour of those sixties episodes.

At least, though, the show concedes that time has passed, and that social mores have shifted. The social issues of the day are no longer hippies (The Way to Eden) or simplistic racism (Let That Be Your Last Battlefield), and Arsenal of Freedom is a “message show” for the eighties. It is a morality tale about the dangers of unchecked capitalism and the risks of weapons development. It’s clumsy, awkward and a little forced, with The Next Generation not quite suited to this particular form of heavy-handed moralising, but it could be a lot worse. Which, I suppose, is something.

Looks like we’ve got a Minos problem here…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Arsenal of Freedom, Deanna Troi, Denise Crosby, jean-luc picard, Klingon, Last Outpost, Minos, Neutral Zone, Next Generation, Riker, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the original series, Troi, William Riker | 14 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Heart of Glory (Review)

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also next year’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season, episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

I think Heart of Glory is, ironically, one of the first times that Star Trek: The Next Generation is consciously trying to force its way out of the shadows of its illustrious predecessor. Episodes like The Naked Now and Justice felt like hold-overs from the classic sixties Star Trek, with little acknowledgement that the world (both inside and outside the show) had dramatically changed in the two decades since Star Trek appeared. I used the adjective “ironically”, because Heart of Glory actually sees the return of one of the most classic Star Trek aliens, and one of the most recognisable pop culture extraterrestrials.

The series bible famously stated the show had no real interest in going back to the Klingons, but Heart of Glory suggests that following up with the funky foreheaded aliens might have been the smartest thing that the first season did.