patrick stewart | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Time Squared (Review)

Posted on January 10, 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.

Time Squared is an intriguing little episode, if not entirely satisfying. Like The Royale before it, it features the Enterprise stumbling across a phenomenon that it can’t explain. Also like The Royale, the episode presents an existential horror to the crew. Time Squared is significantly stronger as a character piece, forcing Picard to confront a potential future version of himself that he can’t reconcile with his own expectations and self-image. Unfortunately, the open-ended mystery of the episode lacks the bizarre charm of the unresolved questions dangling at the end of The Royale.

“I never noticed before, but the Captain has pretty spectacular bone structure…”

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Deanna Troi, gene roddenberry, Geordi La Forge, Hurley, jean-luc picard, patrick stewart, picard, Q Who, Royale, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, Time Squared, USS Enterprise, William Riker, Worf | 10 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Star Trek – Generations

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Darren

This August, to celebrate the upcoming release of Star Trek: Into Darkness on DVD and blu ray, we’re taking a look at the Star Trek movies featuring the original cast. Movie reviews are every Tuesday and Thursday.

There are lots of problems with Star Trek: Generations. It feels too much like a two-parter from the television show. It tries to fit in a laundry list of demands from the studio. It wastes Malcolm McDowell. It decides that the only part of the original series deserving a send-off is James T. Kirk, and then pushes him off-screen for an hour before dragging him back into the movie to kill him off in the most ironic and anti-climactic manner possible.

Yet, despite these considerable flaws, Generations also has a lot to recommend it. Although the script occasionally feels a little overcooked, the themes concerning mortality lend it a serious amount of weight. Director David Carson demonstrates that he can work wonders on a tiny budget. Cinematographer John A. Alonzo finds a way to shoot familiar sets in a way that makes them look incredibly beautiful. None of these strengths can fully compensate for the very fundamental flaws with the seventh Star Trek cinematic outing, but they do mitigate them somewhat.

Generations isn’t a great Star Trek film, and it isn’t even the best odd-numbered Star Trek film, but it is far from an unmitigated disaster. Well, except for the way it treats Kirk.

Riding the wave…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: james t. kirk, jean-luc picard, kirk, Leonard Nimoy, Malcolm McDowell, patrick stewart, Rick Berman, Star Trek Generations, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the original series, StarTrek, Stratford-upon-Avon, Trekkie | 36 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Outrageous Okona (Review)

Posted on December 29, 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.

Well, I’m not sure if you can call two solid episodes in succession a “streak” or a “roll”, but Where Silence Has Lease and Elementary, Dear Data were two hours of television that demonstrated how far the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation had come since its rocky first season. However, it appears that the two very good episodes in a row did not represent a sudden change in direction and did not assure consistency. The Outrageous Okona is a bad episode, by just about any measure. It’s not necessarily as offensive as Angel One or Code of Honour, but it is quite painful to watch.

Unlike a lot of the bungled “message” shows in the first season that contained misjudged ideas or offensive elements, The Outrageous Okona is merely a terribly written and unfunny mess of an episode that simply gnaws at the viewer.

He works best Solo…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Angel One, Burton Armus, Data, Deanna Troi, Debin, Encounter at Farpoint, Han Solo, jean-luc picard, Last Outpost, Naked Now, Outrageous Okona, patrick stewart, picard, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the original series, Starfleet ranks and insignia, StarTrek, Wesley, Wesley Crusher, Where Silence Has Lease, William Riker | 4 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 – 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 – 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 – When the Bough Breaks (Review)

Posted on December 16, 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.

When the Bough Breaks and Home Soil are an interesting two episodes of the first season of The Next Generation, if only because they seem to contrast each other so well. I’ve complained before about how the first season of The Next Generation had a great deal of trouble finding its own identity, and When The Bough Breaks feels like a conscious attempt to do a story in the style of the original Star Trek, even if most of the elements are fairly original.

In contrast, Home Soil starts with a premise that owes a considerable debt to a very specific episode of Star Trek, Devil in the Dark, but finds a way to approach it that emphasises the differences between the two shows. You can probably guess which one of the two episodes I preferred, and while When the Bough Breaks is never as bad as it could be (a story focusing on Wesley and other child actors?) it’s not necessarily good, either.

The lost world…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Alternative, Angel One, Archaeology, Atlantis, Brent Spiner, Civilization, Earth, Ferengi, jean-luc picard, kirk, Next Generation, patrick stewart, Social Sciences, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the original series, Tasha, When The Bough Breaks, Yankee Traders | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Angel One (Review)

Posted on December 13, 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.

Any time I worry that I might have been too kind on Datalore, watching Angel One tends to set me straight relatively quickly. Watching Angel One feels like somebody in the writers’ room said, “I really liked the racism in Code of Honour! Can we do that again, but with sexism?” It’s very difficult to imagine to imagine how the script got into production without somebody raising red flags about it. While a lot of the racism of Code of Honour arose from the decision to cast the Ligonian characters as black, sexism in hardwired into the DNA of Angel One, making it one of the most unfortunate scripts in a long line of unfortunate scripts.

I believe in Angel One… something crappy in every season of TNG…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Angel One, Beata, Data, Datalore, Deanna Troi, Gates McFadden, Jonathan Frakes, Klingon, Marina Sirtis, patrick stewart, picard, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, Starfleet, Troi, Worf | 19 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Big Goodbye (Review)

Posted on December 11, 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 actually enjoyed The Big Goodbye on a lot of levels. It’s not a great Star Trek episode, but I don’t think that the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation produced a great episode. Even those episodes I do not actively hate are still significantly flawed. The Big Goodbye has more than its fair share of problems, but it does several things right. It never pretends to be more than it is, and it allows Patrick Stewart to do a lot of the heavy-lifting. Stewart is effectively charged with selling the episode to the audience, and he does a tremendous job. The result is something quite similar to the eponymous holonovel – something diverting and entertaining, but hardly profound or essential. Given the quality of the surrounding episodes, “diverting and entertaining” seems like just what the doctor ordered.

Over the Hill?

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Big Goodbye, Brent Spiner, Data, Dixon Hill, Holodeck, jean-luc picard, List of Star Trek characters (G–M), Our Man Bashir, patrick stewart, picard, Recreation, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, Starfleet ranks and insignia, United States, Wil Wheaton | 9 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Haven (Review)

Posted on December 10, 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.

Haven is… not as terrible as I thought it would be. There have been select episodes I’ve been dreading on my re-watch of this awkward first season. I was right to fear Code of Honour. I had perhaps been a tiny bit too harsh on The Naked Now. I am quaking at the prospect of watching Angel One and Too Short a Season again. However, Haven wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared that it would be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s filled with plot holes and it is as dull as anything, but it’s not actively that bad. If it sounds like I’m damning with faint praise, then I probably am.