Riker | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Measure of a Man: Extended Cut (Review)

Posted on January 7, 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.

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

This is a rare treat.

The Measure of a Man is generally regarded as one of the best episodes that Star Trek: The Next Generation ever produced, and a crown jewel in the entire Star Trek franchise. As such, it’s a prime candidate for this sort of lavish restoration treatment, with the blu ray collection featuring not only the televised version of the episode, but a special extended edition.

This extended edition was the version originally filmed and edited together, until the production team realised that it ran almost a quarter-of-an-hour over the slot allocated to the show on syndicated airing.

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: borg, Data, DVD, gene roddenberry, Geordi La Forge, jean-luc picard, List of Star Trek characters (N–S), Measure of a Man, Next Generation, picard, Riker, Roddenberry, Romulan, spock, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, Starfleet, Trek, William Riker | 4 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Matter of Honour (Review)

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Darren

The second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation might be a bit rough around the edges (among other places), but there’s still a sense that the show is trying to improve itself, struggling to find its own voice. Most of the first season seemed content to offer a pale imitation of the classic Star Trek show, ignoring the fact that a lot had changed in the two decades since Kirk and Spock took to the air.

A Matter of Honour is an example of The Next Generation engaging the late eighties instead of trying to evoke the lost spirit of the sixties. Taking the “Klingons as Communists” metaphor as far as it could logically go, and serving as a companion piece to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, A Matter of Honour is a tale of deep space détente.

Guess who’s going to dinner where?

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Filed under: Movies, The Next Generation | Tagged: arts, Data, Icarus Factor, jean-luc picard, John Putch, Jonathan Frakes, kirk, Klingon, List of Star Trek characters (G–M), Matter of Honour, Measure of a Man, Michael Piller, picard, Riker, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, Star Trek:Deep Space Nine, StarTrek, Wesley, Wesley Crusher, William Riker, Worf | 7 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Where Silence Has Lease (Review)

Posted on December 27, 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.

If we ignore The Child as an aberration, a recycled script necessitated by the Writers’ Guild of America Strike of 1988, Where Silence Has Lease actually makes for a much stronger starting point for the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. We’re not quite at the point where we’re getting consistently good episodes on a weekly basis, but episodes like Where Silence Has Lease and the following Elementary, Dear Data demonstrating that the show was at least learning what worked and what didn’t in the bets of the first season episodes.

In particular, Where Silence Has Lease allows the show to tell a straight-up science-fiction exploration story that provides commentary on the human condition, but in a manner that isn’t as clumsy as first-season efforts like Lonely Among Us. It’s not a classic episode, but it’s a solid one. However, a solid episode of the second season can stand alongside the best episodes of the first season, demonstrating that the show is making significant progress towards the consistent quality it would eventually maintain.

Into the void…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: jean-luc picard, Klingon, Michael Westmore, Next Generation, picard, Riker, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, Starfleet Academy, StarTrek, Where Silence Has Lease, William Riker, Worf | 6 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 – 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 – 11001001 (Review)

Posted on December 14, 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.

Maybe it’s just because I’m delirious coming out of Angel One, an episode that managed to make Datalore look almost reasonable by comparison, but I quite like 11001001. Part of that comes down to the fact that it’s one of the few episodes in this troubled first season that manages to take the restrictions imposed on the show by Roddenberry and make them work. It helps that the aliens of the week – the Bynars – are among the more interesting creatures to appear on the show so far. And it finally makes for a nice Riker episode, finding a way to team up Riker and Picard, a duo that haven’t spent enough time together at this point in the series.

Base, the final frontier…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Angel One, Beverly Crusher, borg, Bynars, Data, Deanna Troi, French, Geordi, Geordi La Forge, jean-luc picard, Jonathan Frakes, levar burton, List of Star Trek races, picard, Riker, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, Starfleet, StarTrek, Where No One Has Gone Before, William Riker | Leave a comment »

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.

Safe Haven?

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: best of both worlds, Betazoid, Beverly Crusher, Big Goodbye, Conventions, Deanna Troi, Earth, entertainment, gene roddenberry, jean-luc picard, List of minor recurring characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lwaxana Troi, Miller, Next Generation, patrick stewart, picard, Riker, Shopping, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, Trekkie, Troi, William Riker | 5 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Lonely Among Us (Review)

Posted on December 6, 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.

Lonely Among Us actually embodies quite a few of the problems with these early episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. While it’s hardly the worst episode of a season, it is certainly not among the stronger episodes. It’s a story that doesn’t really have a centrally defined conflict, and plays into the worst of the smug “humans are special” subtext that pervades episodes like The Last Outpost. At one point, possessed!Picard observes, “The search for knowledge is always our primary mission.” Based on episodes like this and The Last Outpost, it seems more likely the ship’s primary mission is lording it over alien cultures they deem inferior.

However, more than that, Lonely Among Us simply lacks a compelling narrative drive to make it entirely worthwhile. The ideas here aren’t half-bad, but the execution is downright dull.