Some of the Q episodes are pretty weak, but plenty are very good. I can't call him a shit actor or a chit character on the basis of his better episodes. Tapestry is one of my favorites of the series, and AGT was certainly the ultimate way to wrap things up. I don't like him in the comedy episodes, Q-Pid and Q and the Grey are terrible, but when he's being sinister he's very good. He also shows excellent development throughout the series (which they burn in the subsequent series).
I await to see his excellent episodes, so far he's only been an unfunny troll, nothing's worse than that
I wanna weigh in on the "worst character" discussion from a few pages ago, even though I'm not really qualified since I only saw TOS and 4 seasons of TNG so far.
When it comes to the TNG main cast, I don't think there are bad characters per se, just bad performances from actors. I think the premise for each of these characters had something fundamentally interesting to me, it's just that this somethings were mishandled in the first 3 seasons by 80% of the writers being shitty 80's TV writers.
At first I thought I could easily exclude Picard and Data , but then I realized even they could have fallen victims to that discussion if it weren't for the strength of the actors portraying them. There was nothing special about Picard for the first few seasons, just a righteous and compassionate leader. A ton of actors from that era could have played it lame and boring as fuck. It was Patrick Stewart's mannerisms and general acting skills that made Picard what he was, helped him endure the bad writing and weak character-development along the initial seasons. Same could be said about Data IMO, an android -so you can imagine what an average actor of the era could have done with that- and an obvious attempt to re-create the Spock experience, yet he took it and flew with it in a cool direction.
Geordi seems to me like the character with the least fundamentally-interesting aspects at the baseline, the genius buddy who's awkward with women, yet I find him way more tolerable than Beverly or Troi. I think it's that the actor plays it with a casual approach and a kind of warmth that made the character relatable and thus likeable to me. The actor makes him a real character, like when he goes on about technical stuff, I buy his display of knowledge and eagerness to research.
The actors playing Beverly or Troi are just horrible, no redeeming qualities, just plain fuckin horrible, even though both characters have very interesting aspects and potential, ON PAPER. Kinda nasty but I remember Pamela Anderson saying in the 90's that she had to fuck her way to the top until she got to star in her own TV show cause that's just how things work, I imagine these two had to have done some services to be on TNG, either that or they were just incredibly cheap to hire. But what I don't get is why stick with them after the show became a hit? They're such fish out of water in most of seasons 4 and 5, their weakness drags amazing episodes back, just by their on-screen presence. Yet they continue to give them lines and even episodes that revolves around them! It may just be that back then TV writers did not have nearly as much feedback from the audience as they do now, to let them know what's working and what's not.
Same could be said of the human Lego O'Brien but I'm trying to focus on the main cast, but god damn how I face palm whenever they shove that dipshit and his fuckin wife in my face.
Then there's Riker; if y'all recall I really disliked that character for the longest time since I started watching TNG. I would've put him in the same league as Troi and Beverly, but
That actor improved significantly every season, he clearly worked on himself constantly. By season 5, I no longer see him as a cheap Kirk-knockoff. He still does that dumb surprised raise of eyebrows along with a smile when a woman says something cute, but it's less annoying now for some reason heh. He also stopped making silly super hero poses on full body shots
. His delivery of his lines got significantly more grounded too.
Wesley was another victim to bad writing. I mean yeah the actor has the charisma of an empty can of RC Cola, but I mean.. kids, he might have grown into a better actor, but he was seriously and permanently damaged by the writers choices and the way the character started out. Case in point; a couple of episodes ago for me, The First Duty, he did a fine job, it was a great episode tbh.
Worf doesn't fit into that discussion I think, cause that character was just inherently fascinating, I don't think there would be a way to fuck it up.
I'm enjoying season 5 so much that I'm seriously considering starting it over after I'm done, I know it's ridiculous.
Topic: Star Trek: Thread Space 9 (Read 275009 times)
