Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 1

An awesome friend surprised me a year ago by gifting me the complete BluRay series of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). Longtime readers of the blog will recall I spent most of 2014 going through and reviewing all of the Star Trek films once a month throughout the year. I can now look forward to analyzing each season of TNG right here! I may not be able to knock them out at my same rate as the movies since I only average watching about two episodes of TNG a week currently, but as I understand by the third season TNG gets pretty damn must-see, so maybe I will be cruising through the seasons at that point. As in previous TV season blogs, I will write these in a list style running down random highs and lows that popped out to me throughout the season.

-TNG premiered in 1987 (trailer) via syndication and not dedicated to a single major network. This was unheard of for such a show. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek and responsible for helming The Original Series and producing on the motion pictures was responsible for helping to create and produce TNG through its first few seasons. TNG focused on a new cast and crew of the iconic Enterprise vessel and takes place in 2364, just under a century after The Orginal Series started off.

-I am stoked to finally go into this overdue journey of watching every episode of TNG. Growing up as a 90s kid there always seemed to be reruns on cable of all the Star Trek shows. I was not a regular, weekly watcher, but with four different series out by the end of the 90s it became almost impossible not to stumble upon an episode channel surfing (remember that?). I absorbed roughly a dozen episodes of each series that way over the years. TNG seemed to resonate with me the most because of its iconic cast of characters, but I have also heard strong arguments for Deep Space Nine too.

-I had a fun conversation with my dad last weekend filling him in on my TNG quest and asked him about his memories of the show. I was surprised to learn he said he still watches the show because the networks still air reruns of most of the series on at late night and he usually falls asleep to it. He gave me a few fun memories of his, and we both shared a laugh at how different Ryker was in the first season without his intimidating, vintage beard.

-TNG has a strong, diverse cast and because the cast was so huge I noticed that almost every episode one or two of the supporting characters were not there so more time can be focused on the rest of the cast. The two primary stars are Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and First Officer Ryker (Jonathan Frakes) who are featured on every episode. Tasha Yars (Denise Crosby) is the badass security officer, Geordi (Levar Burton) and Data (Brent Spiner) are the two on-the-nose best friends helms-men of The Enterprise, Worf (Michael Dorn) is a battle-hardened Klingon whose advice consistently gets rejected, Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) seems to be a poor doctor as several patients pass away under her watch throughout this initial season and her son Wesley (Wil Wheaton) is not so affable either. The same can be said for Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis).

I had no recollection of Tasha or Wesley at all going into the series premiere since neither was in the movies I watched a few years ago. Troi is the only character I disliked throughout the first season. Her role as counselor and her psychic ability to ‘read feelings’ could not have been portrayed any worse since her ‘psychic readings’ was basic body language and context deductions that anyone should have been able to decipher. I am told her character is far less annoying in later seasons. Wesley is also a little bit of a buzzkill as the boy wonder Ensign on the bridge solving problems that the adults swiftly brush off, but I kind of get his role being there to resonate with younger viewers.

-There was no dedicated cast member as chief engineer for the first season and that role was randomly filled by several minor actors off and on throughout the season. One of the early chief engineers was Argyle (Bill Yeager). He was only a recurring character on two episodes for the first part of the season so I cracked up upon learning he started a letter writing campaign encouraged fans to write in of support to get him on the show more frequently. Naturally this lead to him instantly being booted off the show and being replaced with other chief engineers of the week until TNG settled on Geordi taking over that department from season two on.

-I recall hearing several times over the years the first year or two of TNG is a rough watch, primarily because Gene Roddenberry had final say over the show in the early years and he was notorious for countless last minute rewrites that became an issue in production. Sure enough, this season was a slog to get through with half the episodes featuring baffling plots and questioning points of conflict to base an episode around. A prominent example is the crew fighting off an airborne contamination that turns the infected into the equivalent of bumbling drunks with a maxed out sex drive. There are several other mind-numbing episodes with just as eyebrow-raising plots that made season one a chore, but there were at least several fairly good-to-strong episodes this debut season too that helped counterbalance the bad just a wee-bit.

-Even though he was not in the movies, I was aware of the ‘omnipotent presence’ known as Q (John de Lancie) due to seeing a online play-thru of the videogame Star Trek: Borg where he was the quirky sidekick in a FMV PC game chastising you for every decision you make. I was delighted to see him in the same quirky role in the two episodes he was on in the first season. I am not going to even attempt to explain his role here, but came to discover I will see him in six more episodes for the rest of TNG as he attempts stump the TNG crew with more of his dastardly challenges.

-TNG looks stunning in HD! Several years ago Paramount was able to re-master the entire series in HD because TNG was shot on 35mm film. For computer special effects they had to go in and painstakingly re-master all the individual CG effects by hand. It is well worth it because the show looks stunning now, and there are a couple extra features detailing all the hard work put in with the obligatory SD-HD comparison shots and it is amazing seeing the difference.

-Speaking of extras, saying there is a ton on here is an understatement. I tallied roughly three hours of extra features on the season one BluRay, among some are HD exclusives. The gag reel is uniquely compiled compared to countless others I have seen so do not gloss over that. There are also about eight other behind-the-scenes features and of those Launch and Continuing Mission get my top picks as thorough half hour deep dives on getting the show started and casted and highlighting its pivotal moments with archived and recent interviews from nearly the entire cast and crew. If you are into the aforementioned HD/SD upgrades to the show and how they pulled it off then definitely check out Energized: Taking TNG to the Next Level as it was a truly fascinating watch at Paramount’s remarkable job re-mastering TNG.

-One unofficial extra feature that has been tremendously helpful for me is the podcast, Star Trek: The Next Conversation. Two writers from the sitcom, The Goldbergs host this show that dedicates each podcast to breaking down and analyzing every episode of TNG in chronological order. Both hosts are avid Trek fans, but one has never seen TNG before for some reason and it creates a great teacher/student dynamic to the show. They helped shed a lot of background information and filled in some gaps that I did not pick up on my initial watch. Minus the over-reliance on sound effect transitions, it wound up being the perfect supplementary material I consumed after every episode of TNG and if you ever decide to start watching through TNG from the beginning I give it the highest recommendation.

-Even though there are a lot of dud episodes in the first season, by the last several episodes it seemed like the cast was starting to gel and the episodes were slowly-but-surely becoming more compelling to watch. There is a tear-jerker Tasha episode that has a great final scene from her, and an awesome season finale I was on board with where The Enterprise picks up several human frozen in cryogenics in the 20th century and thaws them out for amusing antics on deck. I hear the show starts to ramp up next season, and is at max warp speed by season three on. Even though this season was a doozy, I did not mind persevering through it to see the origins of the cast and how far they will evolve in the following seasons. Please join me again here in a couple months for my log of season two!

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5