With the worst behind us, we present our summarized ratings for season 1 and ponder what we ever did to deserve this.
| Title | Eugene’s Rating |
Torie’s Rating |
||
 |
1×01/ 1×02 |
“Encounter at Farpoint” Aired: September 28, 1987 |
3 | 2 |
 |
1×03 | “The Naked Now” Aired: October 5, 1987 |
1 | Impulse |
 |
1×04 | “Code of Honor” Aired: October 12, 1987 |
Full Stop | Full Stop |
 |
1×05 | “The Last Outpost” Aired: October 19, 1987 |
2 | 1 |
 |
1×06 | “Where No One Has Gone Before” Aired: October 26, 1987 |
4 | 4 |
 |
1×07 | “Lonely Among Us” Aired: November 2, 1987 |
1 | 1 |
 |
1×08 | “Justice” Aired: November 9, 1987 |
2 | Impulse |
 |
1×09 | “The Battle” Aired: November 16, 1987 |
2 | 2 |
 |
1×10 | “Hide and Q” Aired: November 23, 1987 |
3 | 3 |
 |
1×11 | “Haven” Aired: November 30, 1987 |
2 | 2 |
 |
1×12 | “The Big Goodbye” Aired: January 11, 1988 |
3 | 2 |
 |
1×13 | “Datalore” Aired: January 18, 1988 |
4 | 5 |
 |
1×14 | “Angel One” Aired: January 25, 1988 |
1 | Impulse |
 |
1×15 | “11001001” Aired: February 1, 1988 |
4 | 2 |
 |
1×16 | “Too Short A Season” Aired: February 8, 1988 |
2 | 3 |
 |
1×17 | “When the Bough Breaks” Aired: February 15, 1988 |
2 | 1 |
 |
1×18 | “Home Soil” Aired: February 22, 1988 |
2 | 2 |
 |
1×19 | “Coming of Age” Aired: March 14, 1988 |
3 | 3 |
 |
1×20 | “Heart of Glory” Aired: March 21, 1988 |
4 | 4 |
 |
1×21 | “The Arsenal of Freedom” Aired: April 11, 1988 |
1 | 1 |
 |
1×22 | “Symbiosis” Aired: April 18, 1988 |
3 | 2 |
 |
1×23 | “Skin of Evil” Aired: April 25, 1988 |
1 | Impulse |
 |
1×24 | “We’ll Always Have Paris” Aired: May 2, 1988 |
3 | 3 |
 |
1×25 | “Conspiracy” Aired: May 9, 1988 |
3 | 3 |
 |
1×26 | “The Neutral Zone” Aired: May 16, 1988 |
2 | 1 |
Are there any ratings you would change?
Eugene: I think I did tend to overrate episodes this season, but now that I can look back on it as a whole, I would bump several of them down: “11001001” should be a warp 3, “Symbiosis” is Warp 2, and I think “The Naked Now” deserves to get my only Impulse rating. I just can’t bring myself to give any episode this season any better than a warp 4.
Torie: I’m going to bump “Too Short a Season” down to a Warp 2, because I watched it just a few months ago and can’t remember anything that made it mediocre, but I remember all the things that were terrible. I’m otherwise pretty content with my ratings.
Best episode? Favorite episode?
Eugene: I’m going to call “Heart of Glory” the best episode this season. It turned out to be a real surprise to me, since it was never really on my radar before; like I said in my comments on it, I didn’t even remember this one happening so early in the season. It really feels like an episode from a better period of the show. Unsurprisingly, my favorite episode of the season remains “Where No One Has Gone Before.” It just hits all the right notes for me, well, most of them. And it was almost as good as I remembered it.
Torie: As my only Warp 5, “Datalore” wins as the best episode of the season. It’s chilling to watch, lacks the moralizing and weak performances of the rest of the season, and sets up a few basic character conflicts that will endure throughout the series–all things that make it similar to “Heart of Glory,” the other gem of the season. I think between the two “Datalore” is my favorite, though.
Most disappointing episode?
Eugene: This is a tough one, since pretty much every episode disappointed me in some way, even the ones I already had low expectations of. So many episodes I remembered liking turned out to be deeply flawed. The most disappointing was probably “We’ll Always Have Paris,” simply because it had so much potential for a great SF premise and meaningful character development, but ultimately fell short. That was the basic theme this season, wasn’t it?
Torie: “Encounter at Farpoint,” by a mile. It’s the series opener and they had two hours to tell a good story, but the whole thing is a barely watchable mess. Personally I’m going to say “The Big Goodbye,” because I remember the Dixon Hill episodes pretty fondly and that was just not good.
Eugene’s final thoughts on Season 1: I’m glad it’s over? Okay, that probably isn’t enough. Well, I’m also glad that I re-watched it, despite the associated suffering and lingering trauma it caused.
This has always been my least watched season of TNG; when I was recording the series on VHS, I was always trying to get better copies of each episode, but I never much cared whether I had decent copies of season 1. (I didn’t, which probably also contributed to infrequent viewing.) Aside from an episode or two, I never attempted to appreciate any of these episodes as more than an entertaining diversion, so I’m happy that we’re now giving it the same critical treatment we gave the original series. It deserves it, and seeing how awful the show was at the beginning makes its eventual success all the more impressive and gratifying.
I tried to write a couple of scripts for DS9 and Voyager back in junior high, but when I was watching all these shows I wasn’t making any serious, dedicated attempt to writing fiction professionally. So it’s fascinating and instructive to pick the stories apart now and recognize and learn from their many mistakes, and I am even more eager to study the good decisions the writers make later on. It’s remarkable how you can take the same characters and settings, and many of the same plots, and end up with an episode as unwatchable as “The Naked Now” or as brilliant as “The Inner Light.”
I’ve been assuming all along that TNG only survived by some miracle fluke of its nature as a syndicated program, which may account for some of its perceived success, but according to The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion by Larry Nemecek, the show was actually a commercial hit, top in the syndicated ratings and with an overwhelming approval rating from fans. I guess people were just starved for more Star Trek, and despite its problems, many were willing to give it a chance. Many of the story problems we’ve identified–inconsistencies in continuity, lack of character conflict and development, plots that went nowhere–were frustrations for the writing staff as well. There was apparently a “revolving door” of writers through season 1 and the beginning of season 2, which perhaps slowed once Gene Roddenberry voluntarily stepped back his role–though he still rewrote a lot of scripts and refused to allow conflicts among the perfect Starfleet crew. Even with the writers’ strike, which affected the quality and quantity of scripts (season 2 would have only 22 episodes, 21.3 episodes if you want to be mean, which is kind of a mixed blessing really), the show’s writing team largely stabilized and solidified in its sophomore season, and a lot of other elements finally fell into place, from set design to costumes, visual effects and makeup. The producers finally knew what they were doing and clearly took the opportunity to fix many of the issues from the previous season, further refining and shaping the show into the series we know and love.
When we set out to do a TNG re-watch, we were considering doing only select episodes from season 1, but as we tried to list the ones we had to cover, we realized that almost every episode was significant in some way and worth discussing. I still think that’s true. Season 1 was very rough on all of us, but it was the foundation for all that came after it–an entire revived franchise set in the Star Trek universe. And I think this show is also important: from the perspective of its syndication (which is the only reason it lasted more than a season), considering the fact that it was one of only a handful of SF shows on television for a time, for the way it revolutionized the way special effects were done, because of the caliber of the writers who contributed to it, and for the many careers it launched onscreen and behind the scenes. I think TNG is an important show, and I’m interested in continuing to see just how well it holds up to current television, especially at its best.
But yes, I’m looking forward to season 2, even with all its low points. Even with Dr. Pulaski. Getting through season 1 TNG was not nearly as dispiriting as the last season of the original series, when we had all its past glories to compare episodes to, and nothing to look forward to but the animated series and a handful of good films. Instead, TNG will only get better! (Just give it a little more time…) I feel like we’re witnessing the evolution of a cultural phenomenon in a way we couldn’t, and likely didn’t, while it was actually on the air; back then, no one could have known just how good this show would get, even if they knew how good it could be. It won’t always be pleasant (*cough* “The Child” *cough*) but at least all those flaws give us something interesting to talk about, right? And hey, I’m finally getting some use out of my overpriced DVD collection.
Thanks again to all our readers for joining us on this remarkable, sometimes painful, journey.
Torie’s final thoughts on Season 1: HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME. I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS.
What, I need more?
About five years ago, my boyfriend was in the mood for a full TNG re-watch. I hadn’t watched it since syndication and I had missed plenty of episodes anyway, so I said why not. One by one we got our Netflix discs, and let me tell you, I finished Season 1 kicking and screaming. Every day he had to beg me to keep watching, promising it would get better. I could not imagine it ever improving, and I convinced myself that whatever regard I had felt for the episodes I had seen was obviously misplaced. Of course, the show did get better, but I had some serious deja vu as we watched it this time around. By halfway through this re-watch, I was despairing. What had I ever liked about this show? Why am I still watching? Is my love for this Trek above other Treks proof of insanity? Can we just watch Season 3 of TOS again?
I wish I could say that despite the handwringing and rage and tears, I caught some inklings of what made the show so amazing. But honestly, I don’t feel like that happened. Most of this season was utterly unrecognizable to me from later seasons, and for the better. The writing is a disaster most days. It’s hard to believe this show ever gave us “Chain of Command” or “The Best of Both Worlds.” Even thematically it feels alien, with its condescending sermons about the glory of mankind, and I believe in the glory of mankind! Interesting science fictional ideas are executed with the kind of clumsiness you’d never expect from some of the outstanding writers they rounded up, and the crew is too perfect and distant to feel relatable or interesting. So why subject myself to this? I never stuck through Babylon 5 (or Enterprise, for that matter), so what makes TNG different?
Part of it is knowing the good episodes that will come next, like a long climb to a summit with a worthy view. But part is also that even with the worst script, Patrick Stewart can command my attention. A bad holodeck episode still makes me wish I had a holodeck. A sloppy wet kiss to the awesomeness of man’s abilities still stirs that part of me that watched the SpaceX Dragon ship and wished it was me up there. It’s the sense of possibility. You just know that with time, this cast can gel together. With a strong narrative, these characters will feel like friends to me. And hopefully, with a deft hand at the wheel, space travel will once again be inspiring.
Until then, I can at least say that at long last, our shared nightmare is over.
Until season 7.
I was going to say it was a miracle that Paramount ordered a second season, but then Eugene pointed out that the show was a ratings hit. And thinking back, sure we mocked the show mercilessly — from Wesley to Picard surrendering to almost everything about Troi — but we damn well watched it every week. I suppose in part is because it simply was Star Trek. We were 2 years after STIV and a still a merciful year away from STV and TOS was a) committed to memory and b) getting harder to find. And yes, there were flashes of what could be. Season 2 is going to be a bit of a trial; in a way, it’s like season 3 of TOS, low lows, but high highs (not to mention starting out really awful). But the actors will become more comfortable in their roles, the writers finally understand the show they’re writing for, and the gasps of fresh air come just often enough to get us through to consistently better stuff.
I never stuck through Babylon 5 (or Enterprise, for that matter), so what makes TNG different?
But Torie, Babylon 5 gets better!
And I totally agree with your sentiments about Patrick Stewart. By the third episode or so, he is one of the most compelling reasons to continue watching the show. I see him up there and I just trust that everything’s going to be all right.
@ 1 DemetriosX
Keep in mind, though, that 1988 was a veritable dead zone of decent primetime television. Look here:
http://www.inthe80s.com/prim8788.shtml
So I can see the ratings.
@ 2 Eugene
I watched the whole first season! But I bounced off Farscape after Season 1, too, so my mileage obviously varies.
@3 Torie
In all seriousness, B5 doesn’t get good until season 2. You need the first season for a good foundation for later plotlines and the overall arc, but it’s mostly painful to watch, except for “Babylon Squared,” which is one of my favorite episodes of any series. Farscape was also rough on me. I haven’t finished it yet, but I will one day.
@ 4 Eugene
Well I’ve already forgotten everything that happened in Season 1 aside from bad makeup and cheap sets, so I’d have to start over, and that’s not happening.
Farscape was awful. I’ve been in better D&D campaigns.
@3 Torie
Actually, that’s not a terrible lineup. Except for Saturday, I see something I watched every night of the week, and not just time filler, but stuff I turned on the TV to watch. Max Headroom was great television and far too subversive to have survived as long as it did. And right off the top of my head, I see at least 3 shows with ST connections: Spenser had Avery Brooks, Brent Spiner had played a recurring character on Night Court, and Cheers provided a couple of actors for later stunt casting (or maybe just Bebe Newirth).
Also, yeah, B5 got waaayyy better in later seasons.
@ 6 DemetriosX
I remember most of the comedies, but none of the dramas. Speaking of which, did you hear they’re making a new ALF movie? Yeah.
@7 Torie
I thought that ALF movie was just the creator making some noise about how now would be a good time to bring him back. Do you have a “solid” rumor of the project being more than that?
@ 8 Eugene
I thought it was in development hell? You could be right.
@ Torie
I suppose it’s an age thing. Heck, you probably weren’t even allowed to stay up late enough to be aware of most of the dramas. But there are a few in there that were hugely popular and some that were even intelligent. I think the only drama I watched that wasn’t a cop/detective show was probably Beauty and the Beast (yeah, I admit it). Anyway, prime time wasn’t so awful that it could account for people actually putting up with TNG as it was. The name and the dearth of SF helped, but it wasn’t desperation.
Dreadful.
*harrumph*
*shakes cane for a bit*
Bring on the nominally better, marginally less awful, dentodermically-dependent Season 2!
Also, a round of drinks for our intrepid rewatchers, sifting through the worst of Star Dreck to bring us our weekly entertainment: watching them squirm and suffer.
Yr Lovable Curmudgeonette
Does anyone have a sense about what point in the series Gene Roddenberry and his kvetching, meddlesome atty Leonard Maizlish were led off the set (bourbon bottles a-clinking, one imagines) and pastured? It would be interesting to look at the series through that lens, and see if the improvements time with that.
When I glance over the episodes list for S2, I see quite a few stabs at science-fiction-y story lines. Like S1, I give these credit for trying. I don’t see too many episodes that advance the characters much, or that establish much in the way of story arcs. Perhaps these foci are related?
It’s funny, but TNG was actually kind of lousy at the SF angle. TNG was a bit better at the high adventure aspects, once things settled down and everyone got more comfortable with the setting, the characters, and their limitations. The SF stuff eventually just became McGuffins to tilt at… and this worked.
How well I remember the details of life around this time. The crappy little apartment on 50th street where SWAT teams were not unseen, the crappy job, the trying to work full time and go to school at the same time. (Failed, so I am an unlettered fool) And Watching Next Generation with my friends. Yeah we were STARVED for Trek. We watched this and enjoyed it. You kids today don’t know just how tough it was bakc then. We were desperate for anything that didn;t look like it has Star Wars’ serial number scratched off.
I rememebr this was also the year my girlfirend departed for better pastures and my very long writers’ block spell ended. My writing instructor gave me special permission to use Next Gen as my final in writing for TV and Film, and I outlined a full episode, later writing that episode but sadly the strike killed any chance of submission for Yar left the show.
It does get better. The rewatch has shown just how *bad* this first season really was. I remember some favorite episode coming up, but not for awhile.
BTW I just went ot Disneyland for the first time since 1986 and watched Captain EO, man did Trek steal the Borg or what?
Well, when I was ten I thought Encounter at Farpoint was amazing! I have the exact opposite opinion now. I guess that within the context of the time, TNG Season 1 really was special and groundbreaking in its own way. In hindsight…its the depths of awful at times. But it was bold and different in some ways. When I did my rewatch, The Battle was the surprise episode that I enjoyed the most upon a second viewing…I know it isn’t great, but there’s something about Picard having that previous command that I find so compelling, and I have always loved the Stargazer. Where No One Has Gone Before really is a solid episode, and I’d agree is definitely the most polished highlight of a dismal field.
Great rewatch Torie and Eugene…you guys make this so much fun, and I appreciate the devotion to this project…lord knows I wouldn’t want to sit through some of this crap again.
Appropriately enough, I just ran across this article in which Ron Moore calls TNG’s first season “kind of weak”: http://blastr.com/2012/05/ronald-d-moore-think-nexts.php
I got started on TNG Trek a little later than many viewers here; I had insufficient control over the television at the start and didn’t really pick up the show regularly until the second season. Of course I eventually got round to the first season episodes in reruns although not in any particular order, so it’s been interesting to revisit them in their proper order.
If I have to pick a favorite episode from the first season it’s got to be, of all things, “The Battle”. There’s a lot wrong with it but that doesn’t matter because we finally get to see Patrick Stewart acting instead of lecturing. I used to think “Conspiracy” was really cool; it looks pretty silly to me now but I still appreciate some of its creepy atmosphere.
I can’t quite get behind “Heart of Glory”; Worf emerges from the episode as a full-fledged supporting character, which is good, but the problem is that it’s a Klingon-centered episode and I just can’t take the Klingons too seriously. (They remind me of the Psychlos from Battlefield Earth; they leave you wondering how in heaven they could ever manage to run a corner liquor store much less a galactic empire.) Nor can I support “Datalore”. I’ve made no secret of my distaste for Brent Spiner’s ham acting and we get our first real taste of it in that episode.
Worst? Oh, too many to choose from. Let me put it this way, though. There are a lot of bad TNG episodes which, nevertheless, I would continue to watch if I were whiling away the time with a hotel room TV and had nothing better to do. If the episode were “The Naked Now” or “Angel One”, though, I’d probably look for something else.
I, too, must thank Torie and Eugene for enduring the bad with the good–mostly bad, up to this point, but not without flashes of quality. It’ll be getting both better and worse in the second season. For one thing, I’ve never hated Dr. Pulaski. For another, we’ve got the first holodeck episode that’s actually somewhat interesting, the fascinating episode where Picard meets a copy of himself, “Q Who”, and Data pouting because he lost a board game. There’s also “Measure of a Man”, an episode I’ve got serious problems with but which I must admit is at least thought-provoking. But we’ve also got the virgin birth episode, Joe Piscopo, that off-putting episode with the Oirish aliens and the clone people, and “Shades of Grey”. God help us.
A few busy days at the museum. (Painting display bases, ripping fixtures off the wall in a gallery about to be remodeled, being given a personal tour of and briefing on the museum’s JetStar by a pilot who once flew it, giving other groups tours of the museum, and getting the third spacesuit – of four – into its repainted display case. The usual stuff.) I checked in a few times to read the comments but was too tired to comment.
On the comments about the ratings for the first season. I know from myself, and my circle of friends, that what kept us coming back every week was that it was new Star Trek episodes. As with the discussions here, our discussions many times drifted away from the story in the episode in question and focused on the implications of some minor thing seen or suggested within the episode. I guess that’s how we dealt with the bad ones. Looking at this season now, I find myself thinking of the episodes as products of their time and that while they seemed new and fresh back then, they now seem to blend in with the rest of TV from that time.
I agree with the above comment about Max Headroom. There was a show with an edge that would still be noticed today. And, it had probably the best – though hardly wise or legal – bookkeeping advice “Just put it down as ‘Money in, Money out’ and leave it at that.” That line has stuck with me all these years. Another was (said in a panic over falling ratings) “We could go porno early.” Working in the TV industry at the time, I knew the desperation of that suggestion. The episode that stuck with me the most was one where a police officer was focused on shutting down an unlicensed TV receiver unit while being willing to ignore an Illegal printing press being used to help teach children of families who couldn’t afford the schools – as long as they promised to get it out of his district. He explained “Hey. I’ve got kids too.”
Back to TNG’s first season. I’m glad I took part in the discussion. I has helped me see, with a different eye, the roots of some of the things I liked in the later seasons.
Not just to Torie and Eugene. I want to thank everyone for these weekly discussions.
@ 10 DemetriosX
So I should just chalk it up to a mass delusion?
@ 11 CaitieCait
I love that this is the only place in the world where I’m not the miserable grump. Well, the only one, anyway. :)
@ 12 Lemnoc
My understanding was that Roddenberry was involved heavily through season 2, only backing off for season 3 because of declining health.
@ 13 bobsandiego
Season 2 is a mixed bag. It’s got some gems, and they did a lot to advance Data’s character and introduced Guinan and gave us more O’Brien and of course the Borg, but they also gave us Worf’s girlfriend, Pulaski, and more crappy Wesley.
@ 14 glorbes
Haha, we do it for you! I know just you feel, though. I thought Voyager was the greatest thing that ever happened and I obsessively tuned every week. Now all you need is say is “Neelix” and I want to sob openly.
@ 15 Eugene
Well I would call the last 2.5 seasons of BSG “kind of weak,” using his definition.
@ 16 etomlins
Interesting to see all this love for “The Battle.” It’s an episode I honestly hadn’t remembered at all, but the conversation here has given me a lot to think about.
@ 17 Ludon
I thought of you the other day when I was at a party at the Intrepid Museum. Some jackass put his empty beer glasses on top of an exhibit. Seriously.
Your point about the value of our digressions is important and one I always come back to. Even when it was bad, ST manages to be interestingly bad. Usually it’s a fault of craft, not ambition, and there’s something to be said for that.
@18 Torie
Well, as others have said, it may not have been very good, but it was Star Trek. And as I noted, TOS was slowly vanishing from broadcast reruns. Paramount may already have been planning to sell an exclusive package to some cable network and were already not renewing old syndication contracts or offering new one. At the very least, they saw a better market for for TOS videos if we couldn’t see the episodes on several different channels every week (depending on where you lived).
If “Neelix” can make you sob openly, then I can only imagine that “Tuvix” leaves you curled up in a corner somewhere. And I don’t even want to think what “giant salamanders” does to you. Actually, Voyager is a little better than its reputation. The writing never quite got to the highs of TNG or DS9, and they took a couple of character arcs in weird directions (Seven and Chakotay? WTF?), but there was some good stuff in there, too.
@19 Demetrios X
I can only imagine that “Tuvix” leaves you curled up in a corner somewhere.
*shudders* HATE that episode, though some have attempted to convince me that the morality in question makes it an interesting episode.
And I don’t even want to think what “giant salamanders” does to you.
Isn’t that the episode that they’ve actually rejected from canon?
@20 Eugene
I’ve heard that, but I’ve never seen it explicitly stated that that is the case. Imagine what it would feel like to be the person who wrote the only episode of live-action Trek to be officially decanonized.
@ 19 DemetriosX
I honestly remember so little about that series, aside from liking Seven of Nine more than I expected. I have been meaning to rewatch it to see what I think now. I can only recall a handful of specific episodes, the salamanders unfortunately among them… The Seven/Chakotay thing never for a MOMENT approached the awfulness of the Neelix/Kes/that other guy love triangle.
Imagine what it would feel like to be the person who wrote the only episode of live-action Trek to be officially decanonized.
You got me curious, so I looked it up. Well, the guy who wrote the teleplay was Brannon Braga, who gave us “Best of Both Worlds…” as well as 105 other episodes (as writer or co-writer). He dated Jeri Ryan, worked on 24, Terra Nova, and Flash Forward. My guess is it feels pretty good to be him.
The story was by Michael De Luca, who seems to be a wildly successful Hollywood producer. I bet it’s also pretty good to be him…
@21 DemetriosX
I finally researched this (ie. surfed the internet) and it seems like it isn’t official, but I imagine it’s the strong preference of all involved. Supposedly Robert Duncan McNeill likes to pretend it was a dream Tom Paris had. And it looks like Brannon Braga wrote this one and is disappointed that it’s the only episode anyone ever mentions, even though he later worked on a TV show with the same title as the episode.
“Voyager” was the only Trek show I never gave any sort of chance. I watched the pilot, got the worst possible first impression of the captain and her crew, and didn’t bother tuning in the next week. Heck, I gave “Enterprise” a longer try than that.
One thing I meant to say in my earlier post but forgot to add: I contend that, in a way, “Babylon 5” got worse as it progressed instead of better. The show was interesting so long as Straczynski was keeping everything mysterious, with brief glimpses of the “Shadows” and hints about the Vorlons and so forth. When the time came to reveal the mysteries, though, “Babylon 5” came up short. I daresay I’m still a little bitter about the titanic anticlimax that was “Into The Fire”.
@22 Torie
I was wondering this morning if I have a vague recollection of Voyager because I never read a good book about the show, like I did with the TNG and DS9 Companions. But I suspect it’s more because I only ever watched the episodes once, for the most part.
@22 Torie,
OK Brannon Braga has probably lived it down and De Luca has done some good stuff (though he also has Blade 2 on his conscience), but I suspect it’s also a little like the punchline of that joke: …but you fuck one goat…
@24 etomlins
B5 does tail off a little bit towards the end, partly for me because a couple of people have rather sad arcs, and partly because casting problems forced some last minute changes, but you are right that some of the reveals fall short. But seasons 2-4 are pretty good.
I was vacationing in Nova Scotia last week and having too much fun sight-seeing and kayaking to get around to logging in and reading this particular post.
So here we are, almost a week later and a lot of the stuff I would have liked to have talked about is already old news. Nevertheless, I will continue.
Firstly, Torie @ 3 already spoke for me on the subject of TNG’s success: Back when it first came out, there wasn’t a lot else worth watching. A ton of the series that were available at the time had been going on for freaking forever and people were really tired of Magnum P.I.
Nevertheless, I was not one of the ones who kept watching. I seem to recall I spent most of 1987-88 trying to survive dying of boredom in school by reading a lot. TV bored me to tears and TNG didn’t help.
Babylon 5: I could never get through the first season. People keep telling me that it gets better but damn, life is too short to slog that far through drek.
DemetriosX @ 10: Really? I remember the shows that year pretty well and by and large I really didn’t care for them. As I already stated above. Max Headroom didn’t do much for me and though my mom watched Beauty and the Beast every week I couldn’t even get into that. I thought Cheers was kind of stupid and even L.A. Law held little interest for me. Jake & the Fatman I kinda liked but not enough to make sure I was around to watch it every week.
Voyager: Neelix does make me sob openly. I’ve never been able to watch more than a handful of that show.
DS9: I’ve tried watching the show on Netflix a handful of times and I just can’t seem to muster up the effort to watch the next episode. I’m still somewhere in the beginning of season 2. I guess I’m just not a very good Star Trek fan, because I rather enjoyed re-watching the entire Enterprise series on Netflix, though Season 3 was painful.
@27 Toryx
You know, I was mostly going by titles, but looking at it more closely, a lot of the stuff I was watching was in its final season and a lot of those were pretty weak and getting by on reputation. I still say that stuff like Spenser and Moonlighting were intelligently written (and Joss Whedon couldn’t have gotten away with half the things he’s done if it weren’t for Moonlighting) and worth watching. I suppose I mostly watched Beauty and the Beast for Linda Hamilton, but let’s not forget that George RR Martin was involved in production and the show does bear a lot of his fingerprints. (And I just remembered that it is also another Trek connection since Armin Shimmerman was a regular.)
You probably ought to give Max Headroom another try. Sounds like you might have been a little too young to appreciate it at the time. It was really very biting social commentary that’s still applicable today. Also DS9 really doesn’t pick up until late season 2 or season 3 (coincidentally around the time the primary TNG writers moved over because TNG came to an end).
I watched TNG seasons 1-5, maybe a bit of six. I wtached DS9 for one season maybe a bit of two, Voyager, well I have a saying “It took TOS 3 season to get to Spock’s Brain and Voyage 3 episodes to get to Beelix’s Lungs.” 3 episodes and I quit. Enterprise? I watched the pilot and stopped.
I’ve been called a tough room.
@27 Toryx:
Seconding the vote for Max headroom, which we ought to rename “The Prophecy,” since we all live there now.
I’ll give Max Headroom another shot, if it’s available on Netflix or for streaming somewhere. I watch old tv shows on Netflix all the time.
I liked Spencer for Hire for a while (and was initially excited about DS9 because of Avery Brooks) but by the time TNG was out I’d gotten bored with it. Same thing with Moonlighting. I guess that by and large most 80’s tv shows didn’t have much staying power for me. Even if it’s a show that I really love, I think they should all pretty much come to an end after 5 or 6 seasons before they get stale.
@ 27 Toryx
That sounds great! And you’re never too late.
I only made it through DS9 with Eugene pushing me along. The first and seventh seasons are dreadful, the 2nd and 3rd are merely bad, and 4-6 are mediocre. I still don’t understand the love affair with that show. It definitely does improve after the first few seasons, but it barely reaches the mediocrity of some TNG, and never really surpasses it.
I also can’t think of a single show that had more than five good seasons. Five seems to be the magic number.
@32 Torie,
5 may be the magic number, but season 1 is very rarely one of those five. Actors and writers need to find the right aspects to the characters and sometimes shows need to find whole new directions to become good. I disagree strongly about DS9, but perhaps a lot of your problem is with the darker tone? The whole Dominion War arc worked very well for me and the show hit some high spots that are as good as anything TOS or TNG ever hit.
@31 Toryx,
I was intrigued by the choice of Avery Brooks, but oh the jokes we made before DS9 actually aired. Spen-SAH! Got me a giant nickle-plated phaser! and so on. When TNG came along Spenser was fading, largely because the dynamic changed with Susan leaving and Rita Fiori coming along. Sure, that happened in the books too, but the chemistry between Robert Urich and what’s her name – Minuet – was just off. Moonlighting was having its disastrous third season with all the production delays that wound up shifting the focus to Agnes and Herbert. Maybe it wasn’t as good a year as I thought, but I don’t think it was so bad as to make most of season 1 TNG look good by comparison.
@ 33 DemetriosX
Oh it wasn’t the tone, it was the characters. Sisko was an angry black guy, Kira was always wrong, Dax legitimized sexist stereotypes, O’Brien was a racist, Keiko was a harpy, Bashir was creepy, etc. The only people I wound up liking were the Cardassians and I found myself rooting for them! Only by the end of the series Dukat was a crazy zealot and Garek had daddy issues so I felt I lost them, too. The war was built up for me too much. I felt that whole arc was over much too quickly, but I thought a lot of the episodes about how the Federation reacted to the changeling threat were fantastic.
But Jeffrey Combs is also awesome in every role, and one day I’m going to get a cat and name it Gul DuCat.
@32 Torie
I’m one of the few people who really likes season 6 of The X-Files, so I’d say that broke the season 5 barrier. I would also argue that Supernatural is still going strong after 7 seasons, but your mileage varies. I’m sure there are a handful of others.
I think there are a few exceptions to the 5 season rule but it’s rare. I agree with Eugene that Season 6 of The X-Files was pretty good…I even have it on DVD.
But I’m not going to agree with Supernatural. I’m still watching it but I think I’d have been happier if it had ended with Season 5 (before those last ten seconds).
Having said that, I’ll confess that haven’t watched any of Season 7 so maybe when the DVDs come out for that I’ll change my mind.
Now I’m trying to think of other shows that I liked after Season 5. Hmm.
@36 Toryx
Oh, I agree that Supernatural should have ended in season 5 before the last shot, but season 6 wasn’t bad… Just unnecessary. I still enjoy the writing and the characters and everything, but they should have quit while they were ahead.