Star Trek: The Next Threaderation

[Orbert]

The next that aired, "Family" is also good, and is something of an epilogue to the amazing two-parter.  Jean-Luc takes some well-deserved time off and visits his brother and his brother's family on Earth, and he reaches a catharsis.  They made "family" the theme of the whole episode, so there's a few other interweaving stories (including a horrible Crusher subplot), but it's worth it for the Picard story.

[ReaPsTA]

The original Borg as imagined in TNG were the ultimate enemy. Without morals, completely decentralized and thus almost impossible to kill off.
Bummer they compromised that concept for the movie.

There's a scene in part two I like where Picard/Locutus talks about how the Borg are trying to improve quality of life.  It does the smart thing and gives them a point of view (because no one thinks they're the bad guy), but that point of view makes them creepier.  To them, this is good?

[Orbert]

They assimilate other species and cultures that they encounter, making their "species" stronger, comprised of the best of everything they know.  This is all done with an ultimate goal of sacrificing individuality to the betterment of the collective, but they are highly efficient and unfettered by emotion.  This can certainly be seen as "better" from a certain point of view.

[hefdaddy42]

They were just pinko Commie bastards in disguise!

[jingle.boy]

"Best of Both Worlds" remains my favorite piece of Star Trek ever.

Agreed.  I remember I first watched it in syndication - I had just started to get into TNG (real time) during Season 4, so the station I was watching Seasons 1-3 on at aired Part 1 on a Friday.  I had to wait all weekend to find out what was going to happen!!  I couldn't imagine waiting 4 months when it originally aired as the perfect season ending cliffhanger.

[rumborak]

Patrick Stewart said in an interview that that cliffhanger  was the worst, in the sense that people would recognize him at stop lights, pull down their windows and yell at him from their cars "what the hell, dude?!"

[Kotowboy]

The Best of Both Worlds > First Contact.

All Good Things > Every TNG Movie.

[El Barto]

Seems about half of us were around at the time to see Best of Both Worlds actually as a cliffhanger, rather than just seen back to back. I honestly thought part two was a real letdown. It's not terrible or anything, but like several other TNG two-parters, the second half just fell flat for me. They never really manage to keep up the second half of cliffhangers.

[Orbert]

Agreed.  At the end of Part I, there's a real feeling of "Oh shit, what can possibly happen next?" which of course is the whole idea.  This is resolved in the first 30 seconds of Part II, and then it's on with the show.  As you said, it's not terrible, but I think most of us were expecting a much bigger payoff than we got.

[El Barto]

Redemption was kind of similar. You had the whole Klingon civil war going on, which was great, and Worf running off to actually act like a Klingon for a change. Part two you have Picard and Tasha Yar's daughter, and Data learning to be a captain. Again, I thought it was a perfectly good episode, and I always love Data being in command, but as a conclusion to part one it was a letdown. Then there's Time's Arrow which was great in part one, and absolutely dreadful in pt 2. Descent was an exception in that it just sucked ass from beginning to end.

[BlobVanDam]

The Best of Both Worlds > First Contact.

All Good Things > Every TNG Movie.

I'd say All Good Things was better than all but First Contact, but it's not movie material. The Best of Both Worlds was great, but I'd give the edge to First Contact. Had TBOBW been done as a movie instead though, I think it definitely could/would have been better than all of them.

[lonestar]

Redemption was kind of similar. You had the whole Klingon civil war going on, which was great, and Worf running off to actually act like a Klingon for a change. Part two you have Picard and Tasha Yar's daughter, and Data learning to be a captain. Again, I thought it was a perfectly good episode, and I always love Data being in command, but as a conclusion to part one it was a letdown. Then there's Time's Arrow which was great in part one, and absolutely dreadful in pt 2. Descent was an exception in that it just sucked ass from beginning to end.

I would say one sure exception was Chain of Command Pt. 2 The climactic scene with Picard and the Cardassian was so damn brilliant.

[Nefarius]

My Trek apprentice and I had a very nice Saturday with four great and diverse (drama, fun, treachery, action) DS9 episodes: The Visitor, Little Green Men, Homefront, Paradise Lost. I decided to throw in Star Trek First Contact next. It was about half a season too early in the timeline but without any real impact as she's just seen Worf in command of the Defiant in Paradise Lost. She liked the Borg episodes a lot so a TNG crew adventure and the Enterprise E were a welcome change in our list of DS9 episodes. She enjoyed the strong episodes and the movie a lot. On with the rest of DS9 S4 in five days.

Greetings...
Nef

[The Dark Master]

Redemption was kind of similar. You had the whole Klingon civil war going on, which was great, and Worf running off to actually act like a Klingon for a change. Part two you have Picard and Tasha Yar's daughter, and Data learning to be a captain. Again, I thought it was a perfectly good episode, and I always love Data being in command, but as a conclusion to part one it was a letdown. Then there's Time's Arrow which was great in part one, and absolutely dreadful in pt 2. Descent was an exception in that it just sucked ass from beginning to end.

I would say one sure exception was Chain of Command Pt. 2 The climactic scene with Picard and the Cardassian was so damn brilliant.

Chain Of Command Pt. 2 is quite possibly my favourite episode of Star Trek ever.  Just watching Stewart and Warner, two masters of the art of acting, playing off of each other like that is awe-inspiring.

That being said, because Chain Of Command was in the middle of a season rather then being a season finale/premier, it wasn't as much of a cliff hanger as it could have been.  It's one thing to have to wait a week, it's something else entirely to have to wait 4 months. 

[Kotowboy]

All good things definitely tied everything up nicer than Nemesis did.

And it definitely had the scale and scope to be a movie.

I'm surprised they never had Q in a movie. They probably felt that after AGT that he was no longer needed and he *kind of* ended up as a good guy and

making him a bad guy again would be too much of a 180 or that having him in a movie would resolve any crisis in a jiffy.




Although - an interesting idea could have been if Q showed up to take the Enterprise to an area of space that not even the Q had visited because he's obviously so arrogant that he thinks he can solve anything in an instant - but then there is something there that takes away his powers and threatens the ship. You could have Q learning to actually act like a crewmember and become an actual valuable member of the team...

Then at the end when they resolve the problem - and Q's power returns he's learned way more about what it is to be human and blah blah.

[jingle.boy]

^ ... Um, Deja Q??

[Kotowboy]

Um... you could say the same for BOBW and First Contact ? !

[Kotowboy]

Watched STID again last night.


I enjoy it. It's a fun movie. Nowhere near the disaster everyone makes it out to be.

[hefdaddy42]

It's a disaster.

[King Postwhore]

I dug it.

[Kotowboy]

It's a disaster.

This forum is a disaster.

[The King in Crimson]

It's a disaster.

This forum is a disaster.

Your mom's a disaster... in bed.

[King Postwhore]

It's a disaster.

This forum is a disaster.

Your mom's a disaster... in bed.

Depends.

[The King in Crimson]

It's a disaster.

This forum is a disaster.

Your mom's a disaster... in bed.

Depends.

Depends on the bed?

[King Postwhore]

When you're old....yes.



Think of a product named Depends.  I await your facepalm.

[El Barto]

They should have found a way to keep Captain Jelico around for a while. At that point in the show they were damned short of ideas, and the shakeup he brought would have really made it much more interesting. Even another 4 or 5 episodes would have been fine. Maybe pull a Crissy Snow and have him phone up each episode and say "my rehab is progressing fine. I expect to be back at the end of the 6th season, Number One."

Also, since when is Riker the best pilot on the ship and the only one capable of delicate flying?

[Orbert]

I kinda liked Captain Jellico.  Yeah, he was a hardass and expected things done a certain way, but that's probably more common in the military than Picard's laid-back style.  For the drama, they made him a bit of a dick, but he'd come around a bit by the end.  If they'd figured out a way to bring him back, he could've been even less of a dick and it would've been fine, merely an extrapolation of the character.

And I share your WTF at Riker being the best pilot.  100% plot contrivance right there.

[Kotowboy]

It's a disaster.

This forum is a disaster.

Your mom's a disaster... in bed.

She died in 1997.

[El Barto]

I kinda liked Captain Jellico.  Yeah, he was a hardass and expected things done a certain way, but that's probably more common in the military than Picard's laid-back style.  For the drama, they made him a bit of a dick, but he'd come around a bit by the end.  If they'd figured out a way to bring him back, he could've been even less of a dick and it would've been fine, merely an extrapolation of the character.

And I share your WTF at Riker being the best pilot.  100% plot contrivance right there.

At times he seemed like a pretty nice guy. When he first came aboard he was excited and jovial. The second time he met with the Kardies (after flipping out on them the first time) he seemed downright magnanimous (albeit for only a minute or two). Where I run into a problem is figuring out what to do about Riker. Data was the best possible XO he could hope for; they were made for each other. While the tension with Riker is part of what made it all work, I have a hard time putting all of the pieces together.

While the timing was off by a few months, he would have been an interesting commander of DS9. He would have been far more believable as outright resenting the whole emissary role, and he understood and despised the Kardassians. Would have made for an entirely different version of what we all agree was an awesome show, but it would have been damned interesting to see that play out. Besides which, Ronnie Cox is just far better than Avery Brooks. Brooks didn't become worth a damn until they turned him back into Hawk, which they were so adamantly opposed to from the beginning. Jelico was already most of the way there.

[Orbert]

Yeah, I'm trying to think of a time Ronnie Cox was ever not awesome.  I've always liked him (yes, even on "Apple's Way").

Jellico (two L's, dammit!) was clearly created to be like an anti-Picard.  Family guy, puts his kids' artwork on the walls, but a hardass on the bridge.  Picard was always chill, but didn't really open up to people.  It seemed so obvious that the more unlike Picard they made him, the more opportunites there would be for conflict and drama, which was pretty cheesy for them to do.  But that didn't mean he was a bad character.  The character itself was cool, largely due to Ronnie Cox being awesome.

[El Barto]

Yeah, I'm trying to think of a time Ronnie Cox was ever not awesome.  I've always liked him (yes, even on "Apple's Way").

There's a scene in Beverly Hills Cop that perfectly defines his character which is all on Ronnie Cox; they probably should have given him a writing credit for that one improvised bit. After Axl Foley conjures up the "alternate story" about how the titty-bar bust went down and the other two detectives fess up, Axl chastises them for "fucking up a perfectly good lie." Bogomil has to stifle a very slight chuckle while keeping up the authoritative demeanor. It establishes Bogomil as both a genuine hardass (which was already demonstrated), and a human enough guy to appreciate everything he just saw (I would have been rolling). My understanding is that was one of the bits that they improvised on set, and it perfectly explains why he can be a tyrant at work yet still the sort of guy that can get along well with a Foley-type maniac. All Ronnie Cox.

[Orbert]

That was a great scene.  Actually, pretty much every scene in the movie, but any with Bogomil.  He saw that Foley was a character and needed to be kept on a short leash, at least at first, but also saw that he had genuine skills and never put him down.  A good captain works with what he has, and Foley was an asset, not a liability.  I remember Bogomil being impressed that Foley knew about coffee grains when his own people didn't.

[ddtonfire]

The Best of Both Worlds > First Contact.

All Good Things > Every TNG Movie.

I can get behind this.

[El Barto]

The Best of Both Worlds > First Contact.

All Good Things > Every TNG Movie.

I can get behind this.

I agree with both statements taken individually. However, where I have a problem is that in conjunction they suggest that FC isn't the best TNG movie. It was pretty crappy all things considered, but it was still the best of the lot. I enjoyed Insurrection more, but it also suffers the same faults and also doesn't really seem much like a movie. I think we all agree that it's just a 2 hour episode filmed with a bigger budget. FC seemed fitting of a big-screen and still had entertaining stuff going on, despite being pretty crappy ST (and introducing the damned Borg queen).

[Kotowboy]

Generations is the only one that *feels* like a movie to me.

Maybe Nemesis too but not as much.

And yeah - FC is great the first time you see it. I find it rather boring on repeated viewings - worse with Insurrection.

I always love generations.