I watched episodes 7 and 8 last night. My legs were dead by the end and I could hardly get up the stairs. But that’s why I do it.
The quality (or lack thereof) in those shows is mind boggling.
Here are totally subjective rankings out of 10:
Probably you have conditioned yourself to like it by pairing watching it with the self production of endogenous opiates.
I remember the episodes by title and not by the number, so you would have to refresh my memory of which episodes you’re talking about. Although I do recall that the first season of TNG did not especially appeal to me. It wasn’t until the second season when Katherine Pulaski joined that I started enjoying it.
“Lonely Among Us” and “Justice” are the names of the two NTG episodes. I’m going through them all in order, so I had watched all the previous ones before watching them, and have watched the next two since.
I also watch movies for a change of pace from Star Trek, and yesterday was “American History X”. I had seen it many years ago and didn’t remember most of the details. It’s alright with good acting. It’s a 6.5/10.
My wife worked late yesterday and got home around 7:00. She wanted to watch something so we watched “Justice League”. Up until last night I hadn’t seen a superhero movie worth my time in many years… and that’s still true… ugh! They all suck and blow in too many ways to mention. This one gets 2/10, and that’s only because my wife and daughter had a good time watching it.
Yeah, “Lonely Among Us” and “Justice” were both pretty awful. Although “Justice” did deal with the concept of arbitrary “zero tolerance” laws that were just handed down from on high as it were, and as such it could have been interesting – in practice it was a pretty silly story. And those ridiculous costumes the natives wore were the absolute worst.
I completely agree about the current crop of superhero movies. I liked “Captain America, the First Avenger”, but they went down hill from there. And the DC movies are worse than the Marvel ones. Only recently did I watch the Dark Knight movie, the one with Heath Ledger as the Joker, and the violence was so disgusting I changed the channel halfway through it. From now on, I am not the slightest bit impressed when I hear that someone won an Academy Award.
Yeah, “Lonely Among Us” and “Justice” were both pretty awful. Although “Justice” did deal with the concept of arbitrary “zero tolerance” laws that were just handed down from on high as it were, and as such it could have been interesting — in practice it was a pretty silly story. And those ridiculous costumes the natives wore were the absolute worst.I'm pretty sure the reason I love NTG so much is because I identify with the morality humans finally arrived at. Every episode is a blunt morality lesson, and in spite of the many terrible things about the show, I like the feeling I get when seeing my morality being played out.
The characters are all super simple but lots of fun to watch (both Deanna Troi’s mom, Lwaxana, and Q, are a total hoot whenever they make an appearance.)
I completely agree about the current crop of superhero movies. I liked “Captain America, the First Avenger”, but they went down hill from there. And the DC movies are worse than the Marvel ones. Only recently did I watch the Dark Knight movie, the one with Heath Ledger as the Joker, and the violence was so disgusting I changed the channel halfway through it. From now on, I am not the slightest bit impressed when I hear that someone won an Academy Award.The CGI has been way over the top for many years now. It would be interesting to see if Hollywood knew how to make an action movie without a green-screen for the action shots- the director would probably be clueless as to what to do.
Lately, story and acting have been a distant second and third consideration when making most action movies, but since I only care about those two aspects of a movie, I honestly haven’t been interested in watching one for at least a decade.
I’m with you about the morality of the series. For some reason a lot of people complain about the characters being “too perfect”, but to me that was the whole point. Just the other day I heard about a university that suspended all of its fraternities and sororities because a student was killed in a hazing ritual. I hope that by the 24th century, humans will have learned to be more mindful and self-disciplined.
I was trying to think of which episode from the first season was my favorite and it was difficult to pick one. I suppose it would be “11001001”, if only for the appearance of Minuet. “Neutral Zone” was a good one, too.
It’s been many years (mid 90’s) since I watched any of these, and the names of the episodes meant nothing way back then so they’re meaningless to me now. As I watch them I see the names of episodes, but I’ve already forgotten the few I’ve seen.
I love any with Lore (Data’s ‘brother’), Q, or focus especially heavily on one of the main characters. It’s been so long since I last watched them that I forget almost every episode. A few specific scenes are stuck in my memory, but remembering an entire episode… not even close.
Tonight I’ll watch two more (unless the ‘honey-do’ list has some new and urgent additions). Having these to watch is great incentive to get my exercise, so in a few weeks I might be up to three episodes.
If I remember the list of episodes I consulted, the next two in line would be “We’ll Always Have Paris” and “Conspiracy”. Those were pretty good, too. I saw the first one the other day on BBC America. One interesting thing to notice is that at one point, at Troi’s suggestion, Picard visits the holodeck in order to work out a problem which is nagging at him. The characters he meets there just happen to be playing out a scenario which perfectly coincides with the problem which is on his mind – implying that the holodeck doubles as a therapeutic tool, somehow reading your mind and furnishing appropriate interaction. In later episodes, this concept seems to have been discarded for the most part.
Maybe Trois just secretly placed the therapeutic scenario in the holodeck, just before she suggested that Picard go there.
That’s possible except that she didn’t know the nature of his conflict; she only sensed that he had one and offered to talk it over with him. Picard declined (this was the first season, remember; by season seven he wouldn’t have hesitated) and only later decided to visit the holodeck.
Anyway I stand corrected. The next two episodes in sequence would have been “The Battle” and “Haven” – two fairly humdrum episodes in my opinion. Not bad, but not exactly memorable either.
Advo, You’re not one of those Trekky people are you?
Anyway, the holodeck is obviously a very powerful AI devoted to its tasks of entertainment, education, training, etc. (and perhaps, also, psychologically therapeutic interventions). So here’s what could have happened. You as an audience member were shown enough for you to detect that aspect of the holodeck’s function. However, for that function of the holodeck, to be effective, it must remain unknown to the crew members that they are being therapized. So no one ever knows about it, or talks about it, or even realizes it when it’s happening, as it is quite subtle.
Wasn’t there an episode in which the Enterprise, along with the holodeck as a critical component, became sentient? There was a train ride going on holograpically, and members of the crew would go into it to try to figure out what was going on. I don’t recall for sure if it was a TNG episode or one of the other series incarnations.
Yes, “Emergence” was one of the last episodes of season seven. The Enterprise wasn’t what I’d called “sentient”, but it comes “alive” and produces a seed, which it releases into the galaxy. Then it just sort of goes back to normal. It was one of those “high concept” stories that I personally think didn’t made a lot of sense. In fact it was one of the reasons that I wasn’t overly disappointed when TNG was cancelled. I remember thinking at the time that if this was the best they could come up with, it was time to retire the series.
I finally got back into my biking to TNG.
Anyone remember the episode where humans were called “ugly bags of mostly water”? I had forgotten it until watching it last night. What a great line. The next episode after that one was also good (The Enterprise was ‘investigated’ to see if Picard was a traitor and Wesley Crusher tested to see if he could go to Starfleet Academy).
So far I’ve watched 17 and not a bad one in the bunch. Not all are fantastic but none are bad. They always leave me feeling good and hopeful for our future, which is what I need after hearing the nasty rantings of my fellow Albertans who want to separate from the rest of Canada due to the federal election outcome last week.
That line has stuck in my head forever. It really developed the Picard character too, the way he was obviously personally offended by the description, but kept himself composed to act as ambassador to this new life form.
“Ugly bags of mostly water” is one of the best lines ever. I hope whichever writer came up with that got a raise.
Although the description was accurate in a way (as pointed out by Data), I never liked the inclusion of “ugly”. It sounds too childish and insulting to be something an advanced lifeform capable of communicating would say.
Simply calling us “bags of mostly water” would do the trick more realistically (or as real as things can be on a show where 90% of the aliens are simply humans with a mask (and sometimes not even that) and terrible fashion sense.)
But it did make me look at humans and life on earth more objectively, which is the whole point of the episode. So since it’s successful in getting it’s point across in a very memorable and humorous way, who am I to complain?
I finished episode 4 of season 2 last night. Guinan and Dr. Pulaski are part of the crew now. I like both of them.
Dr. Pulaski is not very well liked by the majority of fans, but I like her crusty edge- kind of like a curmudgeonly old uncle who you love because of, not in spite of, his gruffness. Guinan is the typical wisdom-dispensing bartender character, which is typical because it works, and Whoopie is a decent actor, so the character is a good addition in my opinion.
The insane lack of ability to use the transporter with any intelligence is still part of the story-line. How hard is it to transport people to where you want them instead of 30m away?
And don’t get me started on the self-destruct course of action by Picard when they were captured by the Nagilum. He and Riker casually choose 20 minutes to be the length of time the crew has to live, then they casually do… nothing- Picard relaxes in his ready room listening to classical music and no one else even takes a break from their job. Near the end, with literally two minutes left, the bridge crew is just puttering around pushing buttons, no alarm or stress or concern that the end is seconds away. Ugh! Of all the terrible ways to screw-up a movie or TV show, having completely unrealistic reactions to extreme events is #1 by a long shot.
I’ll be off the bike for a few days, so won’t be able to watch more until Thursday evening at the earliest.
I’ve watched ‘Chernobyl’, ‘The Post’ and ‘Sum of All Fears’ while riding the bike the last three nights.
‘Chernobyl’ is amazing. It happened when I was in school and not into watching the news, so it was always a story I knew about but no not in any detail. If the Netflix series is even close to being accurate, it is mind-blowing! It’s a mini-series, so I have four or five episodes left and I can’t wait to watch them. 8.5/10 [so far].
‘The Post’ is a movie based on The Post newspaper choosing whether or not to publish stories from leaked papers about the Vietnam War. 6/10.
‘Sum of All Fears’ is a John Grisham movie about some neo-Nazi’s trying to start a war between Russia and The US. 5/10.
Tonight I’m going to try to run on the treadmill, which means I can’t watch television (it’s too loud and too far away from the TV.) I’ll get back to watching ‘Chernobyl’ on the weekend, then get back to TNG next week.
Holy guacamole Batman! Chernobyl is amazing!
It’s an HBO series that I highly recommend. I watched two episodes tonight and am blown away by the magnitude of the disaster.
Watch it.