Star Trek Next Generation | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Peak Performance (Review)

Posted on January 22, 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.

Peak Performance is a functional episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It doesn’t really stand out all that much, and it feels quite a bit average. Still, that’s not to dismiss Peak Performance. After all, this past season has seen The Next Generation advance considerably. During the first season, an episode like Home Soil or The Big Goodbye was a welcome relief. At this stage in the show, episodes like Peak Performance and Contagion are the average.

Of course, the third season would see the show’s quality improve even more dramatically, but we’re still just a little bit away from that. So we’re left with Peak Performance, a fairly standard piece of Star Trek that feels just a little bit too formulaic and a little bit too cliché. While it’s not among the strongest of the season, there are definitely worse sins.

Game on…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Achilles, Big Goodbye, Data, Errand of Mercy, february, jean-luc picard, Katherine Pulaski, Klingon, Next Generation, Pulaski, Romulan, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Wesley, Wesley Crusher, William Riker, Worf | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation (DC Comics, 1989) #59-61 – Children of Chaos/Mother of Madness/Brothers in Darkness (Review)

Posted on January 22, 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. This is actually supplementary to the first season of the Next Generation, specifically the episode The Battle.

Continuity is a funny thing. Star Trek: The Next Generation would develop its own internal continuity as it went along. The episodes featuring the Klingons and the Romulans (and the Borg) all fit together in a somewhat logical and progressive pattern, even if the show lacked the clear story arc structure of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. While the show did offer background information on the members of the Enterprise crew, it never felt particularly beholden to them.

Picard’s time commanding the Stargazer was one of the earliest parts of his history to be established, in the first season episode The Battle. Picard’s tenure on the ship is alluded to several times over the course of the series, and there’s a sense that it was a formative experience for the commander. While it’s never stated outright, it’s suggested that the death of Jack Crusher and the loss of the Stargazer may have turned him into the somewhat aloof and distant superior we met in Encounter at Farpoint.

The slingshot manoeuvre…

And yet, despite that, The Next Generation never delves too deeply into Picard’s past. There’s the occasional reference to his time serving on the Stargazer, or a reminder of his complicated relationship with Wesley and Beverly Crusher, but The Next Generation is a television show that seems to move forwards. Even the events that happen to Picard in the context of the show – his abduction by the Borg in The Best of Both Worlds or his alternate life in The Inner Light – don’t seem to have affected Picard too much.

So it seems appropriate that this bit of future history should become fodder for the comic books and tie-in materials, delving mroe deeply into the history of The Next Generation than was possible (or even desired) on screen.

Stargazing…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: batman, Battle, Beverly Crusher, christopher reeve, jean-luc picard, Michael Jan Friedman, Next Generation, picard, richard donner, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: deep space nine, StarTrek | Leave a comment »

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

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Darren

The Emissary is one of the stronger episodes from the tail end of Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s second season. An interesting meditation on heritage and race, as well as an insightful character piece for Worf, The Emissary is an interesting exploration of Worf’s relationship to his culture – and how his experience is far from universal. It’s the sort of story that The Next Generation should have been producing on a more consistent basis, but it’s better late than never.

Bonded by blood…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Cold War, Federation, gene roddenberry, Heart of Glory, Klingon, Klingon High Council, List of minor recurring characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation, List of Star Trek characters (G–M), Michael Dorn, Missouri, Samaritan Snare, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, United States, Worf | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Manhunt (Review)

Posted on January 20, 2014 by Darren

There’s a strange sense of fatigue as we come towards the end of the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as if the effort of producing Q Who? has really just drained the show of any ambition or drive. To be fair, there are probably more banal motivations at play. The 1988 Writers’ Strike had taken the entire industry by surprise and has been credited with dropping television ratings by ten percent. It damaged the tail end of the first season, causing an improvised conclusion to We’ll Always Have Paris and is probably responsible for the mess that was The Neutral Zone.

The damage also bled into the second season. Even closing with a clip show, Shades of Grey, the second season wasn’t able to meet the average quota of twenty-six episodes per season. The season premiere, The Child, had to be hastily repurposed from an aborted script for Star Trek: Phase II. Even with the shortened orders, the second season of The Next Generation frequently saw episodes coming in behind schedule and above budget. This is one of the reasons that Rob Bowman, despite being responsible for two of the season’s strongest episodes (Elementary, Dear Data and Q Who?), did not become a regular director.

“It’s a good time for nap time…”

Behind the scenes, the show seemed to be threatening to pull itself apart. Tracy Tormé and Maurice Hurley were frequently at loggerheads with one another over all manner of issues. Tormé was only allowed to register two pseudonyms with the Writers’ Guild of America, he used both on the second season of The Next Generation, protesting over modifications made to his script. It’s no wonder that the writers’ room pretty much exploded at the end of the season, with both Tormé and Hurley departing. When Michael Piller was put in charge on the third season, he had to pretty much start from scratch.

All of which explains why the tail end of the second season seems so lifeless and limp. The Emissary is really the only second season script with any life in it once the show gets past Q Who? Most of the rest of the season seems to trying to limp across the finish line. Still, even with all of that in mind, Manhunt feels a little mean-spirited. It’s an episode designed to mock at Lwaxana Troi, to reduce a middle-aged woman going through a process explicitly compared to menopause to the butt of some particularly harsh joke. It’s hard to find that all that amusing.

Starlit dinner…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: alex kingston, Child, Deanna, Deanna Troi, doctor, february, List of minor recurring characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lwaxanna, Michael Piller, Neutral Zone, Next Generation, Q Who, Rob Bowman, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: enterprise, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Tracy Tormé, William Riker, Worf | 5 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Up the Long Ladder (Review)

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Darren

It’s been a while since Star Trek: The Next Generation has been openly offensive. So, just in case you’d forgotten that this was the same production staff that gave us “Riker beams down to a planet of beautiful women and screws their heads on straight” or “Troi’s womb is occupied by an alien intelligence, isn’t that cute?”, the writing staff have conspired to remind us that just because prejudice doesn’t exist in the 24th century (tell that to the Ferengi!) doesn’t mean that it can’t exist inside a late twentieth century writing room.

Begosh and begorrah! The space Oirish are coming!

“Wait, we’re actually filming this?”

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Abortion, Beverly Crusher, Child, Deanna Troi, february, irish, jean-luc picard, Klingon, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Next Generation, Riker, Robin Roberts, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: the next generation, star trek: voyager, United States, Up the Long Ladder, voyager, William Riker, Worf | 16 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Samaritan Snare (Review)

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Darren

To describe Samaritan Snare as a step down from Q Who? feels like an understatement. Q Who? was Star Trek: The Next Generation realising that it needed to improve its game if it ever wanted to measure up to its predecessor, interrogating some aspects of the series that had been taken for granted, calling the crew out on their arrogance and offering an opponent that could really push the Enterprise crew for all that they are worth.

It was really the logical culmination of themes running through the second season, themes that seem to faintly echo into Samaritan Snare, another story about the arrogance and ego of the Enterprise crew. Unfortunately, while it does seem to acknowledge many of the same weaknesses and flaws that Q Who? hit upon, it can’t help but seem a little disappointing. Here, the Enterprise are not thrown against an impossible-to-defeat adversary. Instead, their arrogance turns them into interstellar marks.

His heart just isn’t in it…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Deanna Troi, february, games, Geordi La Forge, jean-luc picard, Klingon, picard, Samaritan Snare, science fiction, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, Video game, Wesley, Wesley Crusher, William Riker, Worf, youtube | 4 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Q Who? (Review)

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Darren

Q Who? throws down the gauntlet for Star Trek: The Next Generation. It serves as a fitting reminder that Picard and his crew are still amateurs when it comes to space exploration. They don’t even win the day – they suffer “a bloody nose” before limping away from their strange new opponents to lick their wounds. For a crew that never seemed to sweat before, who never seemed like they were under pressure, this is a shocking development.

More interestingly, it’s something unknown in a universe that has become far too familiar. Three of the four episodes leading into Q Who? ended with the crew accepting that there were some things they’d never fully understand or comprehend, and – while it’s unlikely this was intentional – it seems like a nice bit of thematic foreshadowing rather than haphazard plotting. For the first season-and-a-half of the show, it seemed like the Enterprise was always dealing with the familiar, always in control of the situation.

With Q Who?, everything is put into perspective.

Borg to death…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: borg, Cold War, Cyborg, Dan Curry, Denise Okuda, Donna Haraway, february, Federation, games, Geordi La Forge, iphone, jean-luc picard, McDonalds, Moby Dick, Next Generation, picard, Soviet Union, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: first contact, star trek: the next generation, Time Squared, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), William Gibson | 23 Comments »

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds VI – The Beginning (Review)

Posted on January 15, 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.

The Borg are, quite possibly, the most significant addition to the Star Trek mythos since the Klingons. They are one of the few modern pieces of Star Trek lore that will be instantly recognisable to a broader audience. They have featured, in some way, in all four of the Star Trek spin-off series. They are constantly rumoured and suggested as a viable antagonist for the rebooted film series. The Borg are a pretty big deal.

And yet, like so many pop culture villains, they seem less threatening the more we know about them. One of the more frequent complaints about the use of the Borg in Star Trek: Voyager was that it made the aliens more familiar, more understandable, more relatable. Continuing to build off the premise of the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact, the Borg became an alien species that Janeway would reason and negotiate with, in stark contrast to Q’s characterisation of the collective in Q Who?

Although Star Trek: Enterprise did manage to turn the Borg’s fascination with mankind into a causal loop, televised Star Trek never managed to produce an origin story for those cybernetic monsters. Ever ready to fill in a perceived blank in the canon, the expanded Star Trek universe has actually proposed a number of origins for the Borg.

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: best of both worlds, borg, Collective, february, kirk, Klingon, Next Generation, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: enterprise, star trek: first contact, star trek: voyager, StarTrek, voyager | 3 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Pen Pals (Review)

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Darren

Pen Pals is a pretty mediocre episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, one with a lot more potential than the episode actually delivers upon. Centring around Data’s unilateral decision to violate the Prime Directive and the consequences stemming from that decision, there’s a sense that Pen Pals might have been a lot more incisive in earlier version – a lot more willing to ask tough questions about the rules and regulations that our heroes uphold.

Sadly, Pen Pals instead ends with a massive cop out and an unwillingness to really commit to any big idea or to interrogate any of the show’s core concepts.

Everything burns…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Data, Ensigns of Command, Geordi La Forge, jean-luc picard, Measure of a Man, Next Generation, Pen pal, picard, Prime Directive, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, Starfleet, Wesley, Wesley Crusher, William Riker, Winrich Kolbe, Worf | 8 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation (DC) Annual #2 – Thin Ice (Review)

Posted on January 14, 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.

Riker is a character caught between a rock and a hard place. According to the series bible, Riker was imagined as one of the “dual lead characters” for the show and clearly envisioned as an impulsive and brilliant Kirk to Picard’s more rational and stoic Spock. However, it didn’t quite work out that way, for a number of reasons. For one thing, the writing on the early years of Star Trek: The Next Generation tended to be a bit more sterile and bland, so Riker was never really allowed to step too far out of Picard’s shadow.

Instead, we got lots of characters talking about how ambitious Riker was, without seeing it for ourselves. It’s implied that Riker’s career led him to separate from Troi, something Peter David ran with in Imzadi. Everybody is constantly telling everybody else how Riker desperately wants to be a starship commander. And yet, when it come to the actual characterisation of Riker on the show, none of this shines through.

Due to the constraints imposed on the early years, interpersonal conflict was impossible in early Next Generation scripts, putting Riker in a paradoxical position as a character. We’re repeatedly told how ambitious and career-orientated he is, but none of that shines through.