yeah, i know
8 Likes
s1e1, s1e2 Encounter at Farpoint parts 1 and 2
15 minutes into his first day of command, before riker is even on the ship, picard is performing an extremely risky maneuver of abandoning half the ship to float out into space while he formally surrenders to the magical being calling itself Q
worf is tasked with wrangling the civilian crew in the saucer so the main crew for Q’s Trial of Humanity™ is picard, troi, data and tasha yar. riker, dr crusher, wesley and geordi are on farpoint station and they’re noticing it’s weird, it’s Qey. delicious apples are popping into existence, it’s not right. there’s also strong sexual tension between riker and every other female character on the show, but that’s not Q that’s just every day
dr mccoy is 137 years old and makes a short cameo to show off how aggressively southern he became after the events of the original series, and to talk shit on spock behind his back one last time. i like to think that deforest kelly just plain forgot how to play bones because he never cared about star trek at all, and why start now
i like that picard is a hardass mf and the way they’re humanizing him is he’s terrible with kids. he doesn’t necessarily hate kids, his foible is just that he has no affection for human beings who are ignorant and untrained in spacefaring. he’s understandably annoyed that his frontline exploration mission of science and diplomacy has a cruise ship agenda tacked onto it.
riker and troi have an unspoken history, but that’s hardly even noteworthy. him and tasha yar probably banged already too, she’s just not at all bothered by it. tasha knows how to remain professional on the job. anyway Q wasn’t really testing humanity, he was subtly preparing them to react altruistically when confronted by a magic space jellyfish that was captured and abused by the aliens at farpoint station. troi’s empathy power was key to them putting together the mystery, and two magical space jellyfish float away safely.
6 Likes
In. Fuck, Season 1 is so bad, godspeed to all the crew on this voyage.
3 Likes
I hadn’t watched Moonlighting and Magum for ages so that wasn’t very interesting to me but I have watched most of TNG during Covid so looking forward to these rankings.
2 Likes
I might have to forward these reviews to my ex, a huge Star Trek nerd.
tasha knows how to remain professional on the job. anyway Q wasn’t really testing humanity
I will have to pretend I don’t know the future.
3 Likes
s1e3 The Naked Now
the crew is getting routine health exams and riker is literally leaning over dr crusher’s shoulder while she examines geordi, so toxic. i guess it’s okay to be there for data’s exam, but what can a human doctor do for data? did they forget data is a robot in this episode? fuckin running a tricorder over him, okay i guess just do whatever
in his memoir Making It So, patrick stewart recalled that this episode felt like the kind of story you turn to when you’ve completely run out of ideas. an inhibition-loosening virus infects the ship, creating love triangles among the crew and giving all our hot characters an excuse to take their clothes off and get sexy.
wesley takes the opportunity during a pandemic emergency to make a dramatic power play. he sends fake announcements to the whole ship in picard’s voice, handing over formal control to wesley, and barricading himself in engineering with a force field. deep down, wesley is a traitorous piece of shit. this wasn’t the virus, this was the real wesley.
picard tries to muster a security detail to put down the mutiny, but they’re all busy fucking. tasha yar’s entire midriff is exposed and she successfully seduces data, who admits that he’s fully functional and trained in a broad variety of techniques. his fingers probably all vibrate and shit. she for sure fucks him.
in the end, wesley uses his savant engineering skills to save the ship, and dr crusher simultaneously chances upon a cure to the virus, basically cockblocking herself. she was just about to bang picard but now she’s got to inject the whole crew with this dumb cure.
Summary
s1e1, s1e2 Encounter at Farpoint parts 1 and 2
s1e3 The Naked Now
3 Likes
I haven’t watched most of TNG, but I’ve enjoyed diebitter’s episode rankings on 2p2, and someone started a similar thing on the new site a few years ago too, though they didn’t finish it.
Will look forward to following here, maybe I should finally actually watch the show too…
True, although all of the seasons have good and bad episodes. The show does improve over time, probably season 6 is the best but 5 is similar quality and they ended on a high note which is always nice.
2 Likes
Looking forward to this thread. My partner is a big fan, primarily for the later season’s expansive and accepting approach to everything. She also laments the bad episodes, particularly the ones like ep3 was described. Sometimes she shows me good episodes and i admit those are usually very good and thought provoking.
Maybe similarly, my one TV obsession has typically been Northern Exposure. At the time it aired it felt imcredibly progressive. 20 years later it is full of ick, of course. Some episodes are full of magic though. And some should never have been aired.
NEx did 6 seasons, though only 4.5 are watchable.
s1e4 Code of Honor
the enterprise meets with a group of african tribesmen who are aliens and technically not african at all. they are primitive in many ways, but possess a powerful vaccine that dr crusher can’t replicate. picard is dealing with them diplomatically when tasha yar is kidnapped. troi cautions that the alien african tribesmen are very horny. the stakes are high
the crew learns that the kidnapping was a diplomatic custom in their culture. picard goes down on the planet to negotiate for the medicine and tasha, and she gets roped into a duel to the death with the king’s #1 concubine. both tasha and the king’s current #1 concubine put on spiked poison gloves and battle on top of the agrocrag from the nickelodeon game show GUTS.
as soon as tasha deals the death blow, the two of them are beamed to the ship’s medical bay and dr crusher undoes the murder. the crew explains that they have the technology to bring someone back from death. the alien african chieftan calls it witchcraft and isn’t happy about it, but is honorbound to accept.
Summary
s1e1, s1e2 Encounter at Farpoint parts 1 and 2
s1e4 Code of Honor
s1e3 The Naked Now
2 Likes
s1e5 The Last Outpost
our first introduction to the ferengi. data describes them as worst kind of capitalists (then quietly, to himself and off camera, adds, “the alive kind”).
the enterprise and a ferengi ship are both disabled by an ancient magical wizard. riker confronts him on the planet and paraphrases the dune quote fear is the mind killer, earning the wizard’s respect. the wizard has seen both dunes, he knows patrick stewart was in the original dune, he’s excited to meet him on the ship, so he sides with the humans over the ferengi.
the physicality of the ferengi is outrageous. they are all in constant motion. if they’re not running around the scene they’re jerking their arms around in random directions and mugging wacky faces.
Summary
s1e1, s1e2 Encounter at Farpoint parts 1 and 2
s1e4 Code of Honor
s1e5 The Last Outpost
s1e3 The Naked Now
1 Like
Let’s make the greedy race of aliens short with big noses, no one’s going to find that problematic!
1 Like
s1e6 Where No One Has Gone Before
wesley and some strange men are playing around in the engine room and the next thing you know, they’re going way faster than warp 10, jumping 2.7 million light years in a few minutes. way further than voyager. this is so beyond the delta quadrant, they jumped 2 full galaxies before they came to a stop
a delusional engineer named kaczynski (a descendant of ted kaczynski, i assume) thinks he discovered super fast technology all by himself, ignoring his alien friend with superpowers working alongside him. in trying to get back home, they find themselves one billion light years further away. that’s when the hallucinations start
some good acting from pat stew when picard sees his dead mom on the ship. tasha yar sees a cat she had to abandon when she was an orphan living alone on the streets of a horrible city plagued with “rape gangs”. it’s the second time she’s mentioned the rape gangs. they’re also cat-killer gangs, because she shooed the cat to safety when one of the rape gangs caught her 
and i guess that was the last time she saw that cat
alien friend with superpowers, known now as “the traveler” explains that the power of positive thinking is real, and everyone on the ship has to believe the ship can travel 1 billion light years in a minute, in order for it to happen. the traveler tells picard that wesley is special, which is annoying. but at least picard doesn’t pass along the message; the kid’s cocky enough already.
picard begrudgingly makes wesley Acting Ensign™ after they make it home safe. probably because he was jealous that wesley was stunting on him with this dope sweater all episode.
get that kid a uniform!
Summary
s1e1, s1e2 Encounter at Farpoint parts 1 and 2
s1e6 Where No One Has Gone Before
s1e4 Code of Honor
s1e5 The Last Outpost
s1e3 The Naked Now
1 Like
Looking forward to this thread.
In general, my favorite Star Trek episodes are when the crew encounters a vastly technologically inferior race, or a vastly superior one. Of course, anything with Q is golden.
If I had to pick a favorite STTNG episode that I think is underrated, it would be First Contact, which I think was season 3 or 4. Riker gets injured on a pre-warp civilization’s planet, about to discover warp technology, which hastens First Contact, and Prime Directive hilarity ensues.
From the moment I first saw it, it set my mind down thinking of ALL kinds of tangents. Like what happened to the civilization, what happened to the scientist who joined the Enterprise, etc etc.
If it were me in that situation, I’d definitely go with the aliens.
Cant wait to hear your take on it.
1 Like
Also, I saw a meme that Wil Wheaton is older now than Patrick Stewart was when STTNG first aired.
Makes sense, logically… but still hurts.
2 Likes
STOS S1E26, Errand of Mercy, had both in one. Kirk is contemptuous of the Organians until he finds out he’s just an ameba as far as they’re concerned.
3 Likes
s1e7 Lonely Among Us
a rival diplomatic delegations visit the ship and we learn that future humans are so woke they’re all strictly vegan. all “animal slavery” has ended, and delicious meaty pork chops and milks are 100% replicated.
an electrical force inhabiting the ship is jumping into crew members and controlling their minds, forcing them to take strange actions. this is the exact plot of twin peaks if you watched closely. when it jumps into picard, the crew immediately notices something is wrong because he’s smiling slightly and acting friendly towards the other crew members on the bridge, something the real picard would NEVER do.
picard orders them to a strange nebula, shocks the crew unconscious for a few minutes and transports himself into the clouds as energy. riker is ready to mark him dead and fly away warp 8, but troi senses picard out there and they transport him back on. he remembers nothing after transporting off the ship, and goes to his quarters for a nap. leaving riker to deal with a botched diplomatic negotiation and active murder investigation
Summary
s1e1, s1e2 Encounter at Farpoint parts 1 and 2
s1e6 Where No One Has Gone Before
s1e7 Lonely Among Us
s1e4 Code of Honor
s1e5 The Last Outpost
s1e3 The Naked Now
1 Like
For a while back in 2007, Wil Wheaton wrote some epic reviews of TNG. Here’s Farpoint.
Summary
The Enterprise, which is huge and beautiful and majestic, cruises through space toward the camera, and Trekkies who have waited since the 60s to have new Star Trek on television let out a mighty cheer. The camera zooms in on a darkened window, where her captain – the second bald man to command a starship called Enterprise – steps out of the shadows and gazes at the stars. In voice over, the captain, Picard, says that they’re heading out to “the unexplored mass of the galaxy.”
Picard heads out on a tour of this spiffy new Galaxy Class starship, through engineering and up on the bridge, while he tells his log (and the now tearfully celebrating Trekkies) that the ship is huge, isn’t entirely filled with crew just yet, and is on its way to Farpoint Station, where they’ll pick up their new first officer and absolutely nothing else of interest will happen.
Wait. Of course something interesting will happen! They’re supposed to solve the mystery of Farpoint, but before the ship can even reach its mysterious destination, a more pressing mystery presents itself: the mystery of the giant mysterious CGI net that the ship can’t pass . . . mysteriously.
A clue arrives in the form of a being who calls itself “The Q,” dressed as an Elizabethan ship’s captain, and speaking in ye olde English(e). A little corny? Sure, but nobody cares when he delivers the very first Red Shirt blasting of the entire series! Yeah! Oh. Wait. He’s not dead, he’s just frozen. Well, that’s kind of lame, but it still looks sort of cool, so I guess we’ll let it pass.
Picard takes the Red Shirt’s phaser and tries to rub Q’s nose in its “stun” setting (not the smartest move in the world, dude) and Q tells him that he had better turn around and take his spaceship home, or he’s totally going to kick him right in his spandex-covered nuts.
Before Picard can offer one of his soon-to-be trademark rebuttal speeches, Q transforms into a WWII-era American military officer, and really lays into Picard about how humans are a savage race that’s unfit for tooling around the galaxy in spaceships. Surprisingly, he doesn’t transform into Michael Moore at any point during his diatribe. He eventually transports himself off the ship, after ominously promising Picard that they’ll meet again one day. (A personal observation on this exchange: This scene is terrifically important – maybe even the most important scene of the entire pilot – because it sets up the tone of the show, introduces Picard’s character, and needs to grab the audience’s attention so they’ll stick around for the next hour or so.
John deLancie’s outstanding acting ability and dramatic instincts can not be praised too much in this regard. He doesn’t just wear different costumes and speak in different voices; he actually becomes different characters as he accuses humanity of being a bunch of shitcocks. Patrick Stewart responds with an equally powerful performance, striking just the right balance between indignation and an attempt to genuinely enlighten this strange being. While there will be many truly awful episodes over the next two years, including the very next one, ‘The Naked Now’, this exchange previews what The Next Generation is going to be about for much of its first three seasons, for better and for worse. I don’t know if the significance of this moment was felt by the actors when they filmed it, but they turned in great performances nevertheless.)
Well, now the Enterprise has a problem: run away or fight? Well, there’ll be plenty of time for running away in the future, so Picard decides that the best way to protect his crew is to take the ship to maximum warp speed, drive it away from the mysterious net, and separate the saucer section from the stardrive section.
Wait. What? Separate the saucer section from the stardrive section? The ship comes apart, like a Transformer? Can it turn into a gun and a boombox and a dinosaur, too?
All the families head up into the saucer section, which will be commanded by Lt. Worf (who as a Klingon certainly won’t want to shoot at everyfuckingthing he sees, and is therefore an excellent choice for the task of keeping them out of trouble) while Picard takes Tasha, Data, and Troi with him into the stardrive section, where he assumes control of the battle bridge, and makes plans for a sexy party.
The mystery net turns into a mystery shiny ball and chases the Enterpise at mysteriously fast speeds. After a minute, Picard orders the emergency saucer separation, a process which, though untested at warp speed and therefore theoretically deadly and dangerous, is made kind of silly by our knowledge as the audience that it’s obviously going to work, and is accompanied by the triumphant Star Trek theme music. It’s not The Motion Picture-esque in its lameness, but it sure comes close, especially when the saucer section pulls away, and the stardrive section makes a burning rubber sound as it turns past the camera and heads back to face off against Q.
http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/01/03/star-trek-the-next-generation-encounter-at-farpoint-part-i/
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Star Trek: The Next Generation: Encounter at Farpoint (Part I) (series premiere)
Posted Jan 3rd 2007 12:06PM by Wil Wheaton
Filed under: Science Fiction, Retro Squad, Spike, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Title: Encounter At Farpoint (Part I)
Original Air Date: September 28, 1987
Written By: D.C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry
Directed by: Corey Allen
Episode: S01E01
Stardate: 41153.7
Synopsis: The Enterprise, which is huge and beautiful and majestic, cruises through space toward the camera, and Trekkies who have waited since the 60s to have new Star Trek on television let out a mighty cheer. The camera zooms in on a darkened window, where her captain – the second bald man to command a starship called Enterprise – steps out of the shadows and gazes at the stars. In voice over, the captain, Picard, says that they’re heading out to “the unexplored mass of the galaxy.”
Picard heads out on a tour of this spiffy new Galaxy Class starship, through engineering and up on the bridge, while he tells his log (and the now tearfully celebrating Trekkies) that the ship is huge, isn’t entirely filled with crew just yet, and is on its way to Farpoint Station, where they’ll pick up their new first officer and absolutely nothing else of interest will happen.
Wait. Of course something interesting will happen! They’re supposed to solve the mystery of Farpoint, but before the ship can even reach its mysterious destination, a more pressing mystery presents itself: the mystery of the giant mysterious CGI net that the ship can’t pass . . . mysteriously.
A clue arrives in the form of a being who calls itself “The Q,” dressed as an Elizabethan ship’s captain, and speaking in ye olde English(e). A little corny? Sure, but nobody cares when he delivers the very first Red Shirt blasting of the entire series! Yeah! Oh. Wait. He’s not dead, he’s just frozen. Well, that’s kind of lame, but it still looks sort of cool, so I guess we’ll let it pass.
Picard takes the Red Shirt’s phaser and tries to rub Q’s nose in its “stun” setting (not the smartest move in the world, dude) and Q tells him that he had better turn around and take his spaceship home, or he’s totally going to kick him right in his spandex-covered nuts.
Before Picard can offer one of his soon-to-be trademark rebuttal speeches, Q transforms into a WWII-era American military officer, and really lays into Picard about how humans are a savage race that’s unfit for tooling around the galaxy in spaceships. Surprisingly, he doesn’t transform into Michael Moore at any point during his diatribe. He eventually transports himself off the ship, after ominously promising Picard that they’ll meet again one day. (A personal observation on this exchange: This scene is terrifically important – maybe even the most important scene of the entire pilot – because it sets up the tone of the show, introduces Picard’s character, and needs to grab the audience’s attention so they’ll stick around for the next hour or so.
John deLancie’s outstanding acting ability and dramatic instincts can not be praised too much in this regard. He doesn’t just wear different costumes and speak in different voices; he actually becomes different characters as he accuses humanity of being a bunch of shitcocks. Patrick Stewart responds with an equally powerful performance, striking just the right balance between indignation and an attempt to genuinely enlighten this strange being. While there will be many truly awful episodes over the next two years, including the very next one, ‘The Naked Now’, this exchange previews what The Next Generation is going to be about for much of its first three seasons, for better and for worse. I don’t know if the significance of this moment was felt by the actors when they filmed it, but they turned in great performances nevertheless.)
Well, now the Enterprise has a problem: run away or fight? Well, there’ll be plenty of time for running away in the future, so Picard decides that the best way to protect his crew is to take the ship to maximum warp speed, drive it away from the mysterious net, and separate the saucer section from the stardrive section.
Wait. What? Separate the saucer section from the stardrive section? The ship comes apart, like a Transformer? Can it turn into a gun and a boombox and a dinosaur, too?
All the families head up into the saucer section, which will be commanded by Lt. Worf (who as a Klingon certainly won’t want to shoot at everyfuckingthing he sees, and is therefore an excellent choice for the task of keeping them out of trouble) while Picard takes Tasha, Data, and Troi with him into the stardrive section, where he assumes control of the battle bridge, and makes plans for a sexy party.
The mystery net turns into a mystery shiny ball and chases the Enterpise at mysteriously fast speeds. After a minute, Picard orders the emergency saucer separation, a process which, though untested at warp speed and therefore theoretically deadly and dangerous, is made kind of silly by our knowledge as the audience that it’s obviously going to work, and is accompanied by the triumphant Star Trek theme music. It’s not The Motion Picture-esque in its lameness, but it sure comes close, especially when the saucer section pulls away, and the stardrive section makes a burning rubber sound as it turns past the camera and heads back to face off against Q.
Picard then surrenders, Troi cries, and Q wraps the ship up, and transports the crew members to a late 21st century courtroom, where the cast of Time Bandits prepares to watch them stand trial for “the multiple and grievous savageries of the species.”
Oh. Is that all? Well, this should be interesting . . . except it really isn’t. It’s page after page of expository arguing about how horrible humanity is by Q, and how totally awesome humanity has actually become by Picard. It’s not as preachy as future episodes will be (‘Lonely Among Us’, and ‘Symbiosis’ come to mind), but it could get to its point much more quickly than it does, and it delays what the audience really wants: getting into far-out situations involving robots and magic powers while solving real life problems. Luckily for us all, Q declares that Picard’s (and humanity’s) fate rests on how he handles his encounter at Farpoint, adjourns the court and returns them to the battle bridge before Poochie reminds us to recycle to the extreme.
After a commercial break, the audience finally gets its first encounter at Farpoint Station, a pointy, crop-circle-looking place on the planet Deneb IV. We’re introduced to Commander William Riker in an expository scene with Farpoint’s Groppler Zorn that makes it painfully clear to the audience that something weird is going at Farpoint station, which was built very quickly, a little too perfectly, and way under budget. (Clearly Halliburton doesn’t make it to the 24th century.) For the slower kids in the audience, a bowl of apples magically appears when Riker mentions that he likes them apples, (that’s mysterious and weird, kids) but as soon as Riker leaves the room, the Groppler freaks out at . . . well, something, promising all sorts of angry retribution to the unseen recipient if it ever pulls that sort of shenanigans again. Okay, does everyone get it now? There’s something weird going on at Farpoint station! It’s a mystery! Yeah, it’s the Mystery of Farpoint Station. (I wonder if the Enterprise will get a bumper sticker, like the ones they give you at the Mystery Spot or Sea Lion Caves that says “I solved the Mystery of Farpoint Station!” when it arrives?)
Well, we’ll have to wait to find out, because now it’s time to introduce some more characters, namely Dr. Beverly Crusher, and her son Wesley. Riker encounters them on the outskirts of the mall, where they’re about to do some shopping. Star Trek: The Next Generation is full of wonderful surprises about the future, and this is one that will make everyone happy: in the future, there are still outlet malls, and they’re just as plentiful in the rest of the galaxy as they are on 20th century Earth.
As they walk around the mall, Riker tries to tell Dr. Crusher how mysterious the whole place is, but she interrupts him to admire a bolt of fabric. Just before Riker can tell her the exciting tale of them apples, the fabric changes into exactly what the doctor ordered. Woah! Mystery!
Riker and the Doctor begin to discuss the mystery, when Wesley interrupts them to explicitly point out how mysterious the whole thing is. (It’s right around this moment, according to historical data and polling research, that the Kill Wesley movement got its first member, though scholars are unable to agree upon who it was. It has been narrowed down to a single male virgin, approximately age 24, living in his parents’ basement in the American Midwest.)
Dr. Crusher and Wesley wander off into the mall to get a good seat for Carousel, and we get to meet Geordi LaForge, who tells Riker that the Enerprise has arrived, but only with the stardrive section, and the captain wants Riker to beam up immediately. (Riker then becomes the very first character on Star Trek: The Next Generation to use the transporter, which I’ve always been a little envious of.)
Riker beams up the Enterprise, meets Tasha in the transporter room and heads over to the battle bridge. (Okay, personal aside: I’d forgotten how ridiculously hot Denise was on the show. Damn, that girl really worked that spacesuit, didn’t she?) Once they get to the battle bridge, Picard is a total dick to Riker. He’s such a dick, Data and the unnamed CONN guy (played by future DS9 regular Colm Meaney) share a meaningful, “WTF” look. Picard then plays the popular “Q Gone Wild” video for Riker, and Riker delivers a “WTF” look of his own.
The saucer section arrives, and Picard orders Riker to reconnect it manually. He’s a real dick, again, in this scene, but at the very end he glances up right after Riker leaves and gives the tiniest hint of an impish glint in his eye, as if he’s enjoying putting Riker to this test. Set aside for a moment how profoundly irresponsible it is to risk some human error in a procedure that’s obviously been automated for a good reason, and enjoy that moment. It’s a cool bit of acting that I don’t recall seeing explicitly given in the script, and am fairly certain was brought to life purely through Patrick’s acting experience. It layers the character with depth and complexity that won’t be fully explored for a long time.
Riker gets to the battle bridge, and after a whole bunch of “WTF” looks all around, successfully reconnects the stardrive section to the saucer section, in a scene that earns the Star Trek: The Motion Picture award for unnecessary and entirely too long visual effects jerk off. He then spends some quality time with Picard, where we learn that Picard doesn’t like kids. Oh, interesting fact! I’m sure the writers won’t use that as a crutch at all in the coming years.
Riker reports to the bridge, looking for commander Data, but finds Worf, instead. (Hey, at least he was looking for him on the bridge, and not in that bar down on deck 17. You know the one I’m talking about. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.) Worf tells Riker that Data is escorting an admiral who refuses to use the transporter to a shuttlecraft, and this is where we separate the Trekkies from the Trekkers, folks, because the hardcores know before they see or hear him that the Admiral is Dr. McCoy. The ensuing scene remains one of my absolute favorites in the entire run of the series, and is quoted partially below. The episode ends with the two of them walking down the corridor, the Admiral telling Data that the ship has the right name, and “if you treat her right, she’ll always bring you home.”
1 Like
Here is Wil Wheaton discussing the day he became as old as TNG Patrick Stewart.
https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/ccigy9/want_to_feel_old_today_i_am_the_same_age_patrick/