The Next Generation | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Sarek (Review)

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Darren

This January and February, we’ll be finishing up our look at the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and moving on to the third year of the show, both recently and lovingly remastered for high definition. Check back daily for the latest review.

Sarek is a rather wonderful episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s a celebration of the franchise’s history, but without being overwhelmed by the weight of continuity. It’s also a heart-breaking story about an old man coming to terms with his mortality, assessing the legacy that he leaves behind and the future he had hoped to shape. The beauty of Sarek, then, is the way that the episode ties these two threads together – offering a rather touching metaphorical exploration of Gene Roddenberry’s own influence on the franchise and his own deteriorating health.

Back to the future…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Emotion, gene roddenberry, Ira Steven Behr, Michael Piller, patrick stewart, picard, Sarek, spock, star trek, star trek: the next generation, star trek: the original series, Television, the next generation, tng, tos, Vulcans | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Most Toys (Review)

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Darren

In a way, The Most Toys feels like the other side of the coin to Hollow Pursuits. One of the more interesting aspects of Hollow Pursuits is the way that it casts guest character Reginald Barclay as something of a Star Trek fan. He escapes from his mundane existence into a fantasy world where he tells his own stories about the crew, succumbing to various fan fiction clichés. The Most Toys is also built around a guest character who seems to have been written as a Star Trek fan, albeit a lot less pleasant sort of type than Barclay.

Fajo is a collector, you see.

An honest trader? Fajo chance!

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Brent Spiner, collectibles, Data, david rappaport, fajo, kivas fajo, saul rubinek, star trek, star trek fandom, star trek fans, star trek: the next generation, Television, the most toys, the next generation, Theft, trekkers, trekkies, tv | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Hollow Pursuits (Review)

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Darren

Hollow Pursuits is another demonstration of just how far Star Trek: The Next Generation has come in its third season. It’s a show comfortable enough with its cast and setting that it’s willing to look at the Enterprise from a completely fresh angle – to examine what it must be like to work on the Enterprise in the shadow of Geordi and Riker and Picard, getting none of the glory and making none of the decisions.

Hollow Pursuits is the first time we’ve really seen a dysfunctional member of the Enterprise crew, with Dwight Schultze showing up as Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Reginald Barclay. Barclay is a character unlike any the franchise had produced to date, and Schultze is incredibly charming in the role. It’s no wonder that he went on to become one of the franchise’s most loved guest stars, recurring several times over the course of The Next Generation, popping up in Star Trek: First Contact and even visiting Star Trek: Voyager a few times.

Straight to the point…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: barclay, dwight schultze, fan fiction, fantasy, hollow pursuits, Holodeck, holodiction, ownership, privacy, privacy rights, reg barclay, Reginald Barclay, sally caves, sarah higley, star trek, star trek fans, star trek: the next generation, trekkers, trekkies, virtual reality | 6 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Tin Man (Review)

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Darren

Tin Man is an interesting piece of science-fiction situated towards the end of the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Michael Piller’s focus on character general shifted the show a little bit away from science-fiction high-concepts, with Tin Man feeling like something of a companion piece to the science-fiction mystery of The Survivors. It’s a story about the wonders of the universe, a rather eloquent (and underrated) celebration of the limitless potential that exists out in the cosmos.

This no the Tam or the place…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: harry groening, high concepts, romulans, science fiction, star trek, star trek: the next generation, Television, the next generation, tin man, tin woodsman | 15 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Captain’s Holiday (Review)

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Darren

Captain’s Holiday is another one of those infamously troubled episodes from the third season that turned out fairly okay, considering all the meddling and tinkering unfolding in the background. That said, it’s more like Ensigns of Command than Yesterday’s Enterprise, but it’s still a watchable and entertaining episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also probably the strongest comedy episode so far.

Then again, when the show’s other comedy “highlights” include The Outrageous Okona and Manhunt, you can see why this might seem like damning with faint praise.

A hidden gem?

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: captain's holiday, comedy, gene roddenberry, Ira Steven Behr, jean-luc picard, picard, risa, star trek, star trek: the next generation, the next generation, time travel, tng | 10 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Allegiance (Review)

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Darren

Allegiance is a solid episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It just has the misfortune to follow three of the strongest episodes the show ever produced, and to come directly in front of one of the franchise’s better-received “light” episodes. It would be a tough situation for just about any episode, and the biggest problem with Allegiance is that it’s very much “traditional” Star Trek. It’s very safe, it’s very standard, it’s very familiar.

Allegiance is really a bunch of Star Trek clichés put in a blender. A doppelganger arrives on the ship to allow an actor a chance to flex their muscles; powerful aliens are keen to learn a lot about humanity; radically different people work together in order to overcome an obstacle; there’s even a lovely coda on just how well-oiled the Enterprise crew have become. It’s all executed quite well. Allegiance is a charming piece of work, one that feels intentionally light and breezy. It’s just naturally a bit of a step down from the phenomenal run of episodes that came before it.

Yep, it’s a bit of a light week for the Enterprise crew…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: allegiance, Cliff Bole, essentialism, Hans Beimler, Michael Westmore, patrick stewart, picard, richard manning, star trek, star trek: the next generation | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Sins of the Father (Review)

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Darren

Sins of the Father is another watershed moment for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek as a whole. It’s really the first time that the franchise has invested in proper long-form world-building, rather than treating continuity as something that occasionally built up by sheer narrative momentum. It’s an episode that ends on an ambiguous note, suggesting more to come. It’s also an episode that nails down a lot of Klingon culture and tradition.

In a way, it’s the logical conclusion of a narrative style that has been building since The Enemy and The Defector earlier in the season; creating a sense that The Next Generation isn’t just the story of the crazy adventures that or crew have week in and week out, but a window into a much larger fictional universe. There’s a sense that the adventures of the Enterprise are set against a much larger and vaster universe, and Sins of the Father really gives us a glimpse at that.

It broadens the scope of The Next Generation, in terms of subject matter and also in terms of narrative possibilities.

Picard gets his Palpatine on…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: duras, khitomer, Klingon Empire, klingons, kronos, qo'nos, romulans, ron moore, ronald d. moore, ronald moore, sins of the father, star trek, star trek: the next generation | 1 Comment »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Q-Squared by Peter David (Review)

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

Q-Squared is probably Peter David’s most ambitious Star Trek: The Next Generation novel. “Q-Squared is almost my challenge to the reader to keep up with me,” he boasted in Voyages of the Imagination. Essentially a meditation on reality and free will within that construct, Q-Squared is a breathtakingly confident endeavour. It’s an interesting reflection on the potentiality embraced by The Next Generation, the broadening of the franchise’s perspective to embrace the best of all possible worlds.

Q-Squared hit stands in early July 1994, just over a month after All Good Things… brought the curtain down on The Next Generation for one last time. It’s tempting to look at the two stories as companion pieces. All Good Things… is an exploration of the time that the crew spent together – jumping backwards and forwards to trace our heroes over the course of their lives. In contrast, Q-Squared jumps sideways – looking at what might have been, or what could have been.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: crossover, dimensions, jack crusher, jean-luc picard, pad, peter david, q, star trek, star trek: the next generation, time, timelines, Trelane, Yesterday's Enterprise | Leave a comment »

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

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Darren

The Offspring is an absolutely wonderful piece of Star Trek. In many ways, it is a spiritual successor to The Measure of a Man, the breakout show of the second season. (This similarity was one of the factors that led writer and script editor Melinda Snodgrass to harshly dismiss it as “fairly obvious and tired and stupid” in Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages.) Sitting between two of the more epic and sweeping stories in the third season, The Offspring is a touching little story about parenting and childhood, and a nice character episode for Data.

It remains one of the most touching episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation ever produced, and a fitting debut for both future staff writer René Echevarria and soon-to-be-prolific Star Trek director Jonathan Frakes.

Building a loving family…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: androids, beloved, brent spine, Data, Jonathan Frakes, lal, Michael Piller, nineties, Offspring, René Echevarria, rene echivarria, robotics, ronald d. moore, star trek, star trek: the next generation, Television, the offspring | 5 Comments »

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

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films.

The Last Generation, a five-issue miniseries written by Andrew Steven Harris and illustrated by the wonderful Gordon Purcell, feels like a companion piece to Harris’ Alien Spotlight: Borg issue. Both are essentially stories about the morality of using time travel to re-write history, and both can be read as a reflection on Star Trek continuity as a whole.

Published from November 2008 through to March 2009, The Last Generation feels like something of a preemptive rebuttal to JJ Abrams’ May 2009 reboot of Star Trek. Much like Alien Spotlight: Borg before it, it feels like a conscious attempt to vindicate and validate the franchise from the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation onwards.

Given the fact that the “reboot-in-all-but-name” back-to-Kirk nature of Abrams’ film was openly discussed well ahead of the release, it’s hard not to read The Last Generation and Alien Spotlight: Borg as protests against the decision to set the clock back on the franchise and start with Kirk yet again.