Amph Engage! The Star Trek: TNG General Discussion

Well, in their defense (sorta), as I've been going through this series, the systems controlling the warp core ejection process fail or go offline very easily. So, blowing up the D instead of ejecting the core isn't them being silly- just consistent.

The families on board thing had it's pro and cons. Both TNG and DS9 did appeal to a lot of kids that way, in ways Voyager and Enterprise were never able to. Kids don't care if Wesley or Jake are annoying, but they do like having a kind of avatar of themselves in that world. Ditto for Lucas on seaQuest.

It made some sense initially in the series, when things with the Federation were relatively peaceful beyond the "mysterious Ferengi" and the D was focused on exploration. Factor out the super-aliens one couldn't predict the D would encounter, and the D is more like a mobile science station.

But, as things like the Borg, Cardassaans, Dominion, etc became more prominent and common threats, forcing Starfleet to revert to more militarized scenarios, it made less and less sense to keep those families aboard.

Though I believe they intended to address that issue with the saucer separation ability, so that they could drop off civvies or get them out of harms way while the battle portions of the ship could go into or take care of more dangerous situations- but they didn't have the budget to use saucer separation every time they should have, and it eventually became a very rare occurance instead of the routine action it was originally portrayed to be.

I believe Berman or Braga eventually described families onboard as "an interesting experiment", but one that became increasingly ilogical given the increasingly dangerous situations, etc, which is why they're phased out by the time of First Contact.

 

Not to mention that it was a ship named Enterprise facing off against a Klingon Bird-of-Prey. The D was doomed the moment battle began By the same token, there's something about photon torpedoes that cause Klingons to stare at them in awe as they're about to get blown to bits

 

Little known fact: Klingons evolved from deer.

 

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TNG 625: Timescape
-Premise: Aboard a runabout, Picard, Data, La Forge, and Troi encounter time distortions; they also discover the Enterprise, frozen in time, seconds away from destruction.

-T2Q Comments: First appearance of a runabout on TNG beyond the DS9 crossover episode, no? Though this one looks mighty spacious inside (this is apparently the only episode to ever show this section of a runabout).

Haha, so this is where the Picard song bit originates from as does the Space Lincoln YTMND!

Not-Lyta #3! Picard references Face of the Enemy and Time's Arrow. Seventh galaxy destruction shown on screen- Picard takes it kind of well. The whole "let's rewind time first" solution seems to be too easily executed, or believed to be so at least.

Picard having to instruct Data to be ready to stop the power transfer seems like a redundant command- they planned this all out already and we the audience know this too.

The watched pot scene at the end is amusing enough. Well, I'm a sucker for time travel episodes and alternate reality episodes..and this is kind a a little of both, I guess time dilation is most appropriate. For me, Definitely Essential; For others, just a good Episode, but Not Necessarily Essential.



Up next: TNG 626 & 701: Descent, Parts I & II.


Alternate Universe Log:

-TOS: The Alternative Factor (Anti-Matter Universe)
-TOS: Mirror, Mirror (Mirror Universe)
-TOS: The Tholian Web (Mirror Universe & "Solo-Kirk" Universe)
-TNG: We'll Always Have Paris (Simultaneous Continuum universes, "Manheim Dimension")
-TNG: Yesterday's Enterprise (Federation-Klingon War universe)
-TNG: Remember Me (Beverly Crusher-created Warp Bubble Reality)
-TNG: Cause and Effect (failed timeloop occurances)
-TNG: Timescape (aliens from alternate timeline, alternate outcome of Enterise's destruction)

 

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TNG 626: Descent, Part I
-Premise: The Borg begin a new offensive against the Federation, but this time they're acting as individuals; Data experiences his first emotions while fighting them. (Season Finale)

-T2Q Comments: I love how they've included Hawking amongst Einstein and Newton in the future "Wrong again, Albert!" lol. Interesting that the episode title comes up before the opening credits sequence- wonder why that is? (seems they didn't want them to distract from the phaser fight.

Return of the Borg. Gotta give them some credit that they waited 3 years to bring the Borg back "for real" (even if they are a rogue faction), as opposed to a smaller story like I, Borg. It shows intelligent restraint that Voyager never showed.

These are some badass Borg- not so much space zombies as freaking aggressive cybercommandoes. Woah, that was cool, whatever type of transit effect that was.

An Aggamemnon in Trek- didn't remember that one, ha. Spiner can be subtley creepy at times, though you normally don't get to see that too often as he tends to go quirky or campy.

Ah, so these are transwarp conduits like we'll see used in Voyager often (and, as a nice bit of continuity, the screens show the conduits ending in the Delta Quadrant). Also wanted to comment that the rogue Borg ship design was quite cool- nicely asymetrical to counter the perfect shapes of other Borg craft. Some excellent score to this episode btw.

Beverely as Captain also has some hints of possible futures. Ah, so this is where the Borg logo originated? always seemed odd to me (from reading/looking at trading cards or seeing the stands for the action figures) that the Borg (so far as they were portrayed previously) would have an ensignia like the other races. Though not quite an oh-my-god cliffhanger, one of the better cliffangers they've done- and the idea of a Lore/Data-led vicious Borg force against the Federation is a disturbing suggestion. Definitely Essential.

Trivia: The Borg building here was also used as the base of the original Power Rangers. Hawking remains the only person to play himself in a Trek show.



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TNG 701: Descent, Part II
-Premise: Picard tries to free Data from Lore's control; the Enterprise battles the Borg ship. (Season Premiere)

-T2Q Comments: Evil Data doesn't really fly- his dialogue is awful. Troi certainly isn't very consistent with the notion of negative emotions. Funny that LeVar almost pulls his hand free of the restraint. Crusher uses the Metaphasic shielding from Suspicions (and if one had skipped that episode, it seems kind of a technobabble solution pulled out her ass, so I may upgrade that episode's status).

hmm, well, there goes my theory that Evil Data's bad dialogue is intentionally bad because he's been faking it all along...

Overall this was a good-to-middle two-parter, though Evil Data kind of drags it down a bit, and the sense of a rising threat that the cliffhanger presented was never presented or realized here. It's not as good as BOBW, Redemption, Unification or Chain of Command, but surpasses Time's Arrow and Birthright.

Originally it seems they intended to have Barclay in the episode instead of Taitt, which would have been a definite improvement, sadly they went with Taitt for availability and cost issues.

This is the last we see of the Rogue Borg (though I noticed the episode does present the "Borg Collective" as a separate group from the rogues, which dispells my original concern of the Borg's evolution being ignored by later movies and shows). Still, I wish the rogues had factored into DS9 at some point as that just seems like a huge missed opportunity.

Oddly enough, I remembered the end of this episode incorrectly- I thought it ended with the Borg turning on Lore and tearing him apart. Must be thi

 

Dammit, yes. Yes, it would.

Lore didn't bother me as it could be attributed to the impact of the emotion chip giving him value to the existence of a brother.

Mind clarifying that contradiction?

I don't think it could be an intentional allegory- Clinton was only in office for a year and a half of TNG's run. B5 and DS9 are the ones that ran during the Clinton years.

(of course, some people compare plotlines of B5 with the W years, so maybe sci-fi just pays it forward? )

 

I think I see the distinction. In fact, I think I fully understand "great concept, bad execution" from Revenge of the Fallen

 

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TNG 702: Liasons
-Premise: As alien dignitaries visit the ship, Picard's shuttle crashes on a desolate moon where he meets a woman who has been stranded there for seven years.

-T2Q Comments: "They look like dresses." "You share all those qualities!"

Man..i dunno, not sure what to say about this episode...there's some interesting concepts, but the execution can vary wildly from good to silly to predictable...a few good character interactions...but I think the overall concept is harmed by having such human looking aliens. Can't say I'd want to watch this one again. Average.

Trivia: The dessert-loving ambassador's actor was actually allergic to chocolate.

Up next: TNG 703: Interface, TNG 704: Gambit, Part I & TNG 705: Gambit, part II.

 

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TNG 703: Interface
-Premise: Geordi uses a virtual reality probe to explore a wrecked ship inside a gas giant, but he's preoccupied by the disappearance of his mother's ship.

-T2Q Comments: It's not a show made in the 90's if it doesn't have it;s own spin on VR

They go into the potential risks of that level of sensory input- now, despite the safety cut-off point, why would you use a probe that could do that when a less dangerous one could be remote controlled via the same particle beam used to control this one?

DS3 mentioned here, so now we have DS3, DS4, DS9 and the eventual DS5 mentioned in First Contact. The Excelsior is also mentioned- same one?

And it seems it's the type of "you die in the matrix/die in your dreams, you die for real" type scenarios- "your mind makes it real".

The casting of Geordi's dad and mom is kind of amusing, actually- while I see in the trivia notes that they were all in Roots together, both Vereen and Burton also had prominent places in PBS/NJN programming. It's like after school in 3rd grade all over again!

You know, you'd think with that Starfleet logo being the default image on a datascreen when it's not in use that they'd have a real problem with image burn-in on those things...

Why does Beverely not know who he's talking to when Geordi specifically addresses her as Mom?

And another energy being that just passes through a bulkhead...

Overall, a so-so episode. Average. Wouldn't want to see it again, despite the use of exploring Geordi's family for the first time. I think the whole probe/sci-fi plot thing lets down the episode- I think if it had stayed focused squarely on Geordi dealing with his mom's possible death and the search for her ship (without involving the "they magically ended up on the planet we happen to be at" stuff) it could have been a great episode.

Great little quote from Jeri Taylor about this episode: ""We've had the family of everybody else on board. Every other character has had their family dealt with except Geordi and probably the main reason for doing [this episode] was there was an order to finally flesh out his character more than it had been, and to show that he didn't spring isolated from Zeus' forehead." "



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TNG 704: Gambit, Part I
-Premise: While investigating Picard's apparent death, Riker is captured by pirates pillaging Romulan archaeological sites.

-T2Q Comments: Interesting initial premise so far as crew reaction scenes go- though undermined by the obviousness of Picard's death not being the real deal by the very format of the show.

We have a Huxtable on the bridge! Ah, and Admiral Chekote-Not-Chakotay shows up in this episode too (makes sense- this 2 parter aired during the DS9 3-parter so they probably just filmed all his stuff at once since he only appears on a vidscreen).

"Detached duty"- "your mission is at your discretion" well, that's something handy- surprised we haven't had a story about a captain tricking his way into recieving that to achieve a personal goal.

Interesting that this is the second consecutive non-finale/premiere 2-parter to revolve around a member of this species.

The "Barada system"? is that after Klaatu just before Nikto?

Pretty good shoot-out for Trek- definitely above average, I think it has to do with how fast the enemy weaponsfire seems to move compared to often sluggish phasers and disruptors.

Captain Data is pretty good- better than Captain Riker. Now I see why they gave him the Enterprise-E (according to the Countdown comic).

Ugh- the hair! the trollish little guy kinda works in a Karg-from-MOTU-Movie kind of way, but this other dude looks like a big-headed version of KHAAAAAAANNN! Khan lookalike he may be, I do like this pirate captain. Na'Noth #1 part t

 

Plus, this establishes (A) Klingon opera, and (B) Worf's love for it