loonyblog.

This is part three of my look back at the entire Star Trek franchise. Part one was an overview of the franchise and part two looked at the original series. For part three, I’m going to look at Star Trek: The Next Generation, which isn’t just the second Star Trek series, it’s also the template that all modern sci-fi shows have followed.

Next Generation is a strange beast. The show started in 1987, following four successful Star Trek films, including The Voyage Home, a campy, tongue-in-cheek affair that was also the most successful one until 1996’s First Contact. From the outset, the show sent mixed messages. The show presented us with what at first appeared to be a largely humorless captain in Picard…a stern, child-hating man with a rod pretty far up his ass. On the other hand, it was clearly going to take the franchise to new heights of Roddenberry-ism.

By Roddenberry-ism, I mean the sort of heavy-handed utopianism that’s all over Star Trek. All the shows do it (even Deep Space Nine, although they do an excellent job breaking free of the mold), but the premiere of Next Generation (“Encounter at Farpoint“) is simply laden with it.

The plot involves humanity on trial, defending its worst actions against a higher power who has determined the species to be evil. We’ve seen this before already in several episodes of the original series, not to mention the first and fourth movies. And none of that is a coincidence. “Encounter” was co-written by D.C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry himself. And that’s okay. “Encounter” is a little painful at times…Wesley’s wide-eyed innocence is grating, Q is lacking the humor he would get in later appearances, and generally everyone’s a little stiff. But what cracks me up the most is just how badly they tried to be politically correct.

Image source: NexusTrek

You’ve got a veritable rainbow of a crew, including a Klingon (a Klingon!) showing that in this generation, the federation has managed to bury the hatchet with their enemies, and that women aren’t just limited to being communications officers (oddly enough, this is a position that was phased out) or yeomen. Oh, and not only are the skirts slightly more conservative, but men wear them too.

Yeah. Dudes in skirts.

Thankfully, this didn’t last long. But it cracks me up that someone, somewhere thought this would fly. According to Wikipedia, The Art of Star Trek explained it by saying, “the skirt design for men ’skant’ was a logical development, given the total equality of the sexes presumed to exist in the 24th century.”

Once the series got under way, things got a little clearer. Picard developed a sense of humor, Wesley became a little less grating (relatively speaking) and the show developed into an excellent series. This is largely because the cast and characters (aside from Wesley, of course) were all so likable. Also the man skirts went away.

Only Data has a real arc over the course of the series, and even that’s a little open ended. But generally, my favorite character is Riker. He had that Kirk charm and a real sense of humor to him, and the Riker-centric episodes are always enjoyable. The exception to that rule would be “The Outcast“, the season five episode where Riker falls for the androgynous alien…that one was pretty bad. But episodes like “A Matter of Perspective” and “Future Imperfect” are loads of fun. But really, all the characters are great here, a notable contrast to the later series (particularly Enterprise, with its throughly unlikable crew).

Fans inevitably point to “The Best of Both Worlds” as the series’ pinnacle, but I disagree. My favorite episode is definitely season five’s “Darmok“. This episode was clearly a writer’s episode. It’s a word nerd story where Captain Picard gets stranded on a planet with a member of a race the federation has never been able to communicate with. What’s most remarkable about the script is that after watching the episode, you can go back to those early scenes and actually understand the language they speak. It’s really a remarkable achievement, and one of the high points of the entire Star Trek franchise.

There are lots of other gems…I particularly like “Second Chances” (the twin Rikers episiode), “Reunion” (a great Klingon one, and one featuring Worf’s delightful wife), “The Perfect Mate” (the episode featuring Famke Janssen as the perfect woman, because who else would you cast?) and of course, “Elementary, Dear Data” and “Ship in a Bottle” the two Professor Moriarty episodes. I even like a Wesley Crusher episode…”The First Duty“, the one featuring Wes at Starfleet Academy. Maybe it’s because he’d been gone for a while, so it was easier to take, but I like that episode quite a bit.

The low point of the series – and really, as far as I’m concerned, the entire franchise – is season one’s “Skin of Evil“, also known as “that episode where Tasha Yar dies.” This has to be the lamest death of any major character in any sci-fi show I’ve ever seen. I’m all for killing characters…hell, I love it. I’m even for having her die in a senseless and meaningless fashion. That’s great. But unfortunately the antagonist in this episode looks like a reject from Fraggle Rock. It has zero menace, and while I was able to forgive effects that cheesy in the original series, there was just no excuse for something that lame two decades later. The fact that good stuff came from her death (namely Data’s further understanding of humanity) is a plus, but the episode itself is a complete waste of time.

There are a number of episodes featuring older cast members, and there’s a mixed bag if ever there was one. McCoy’s appearance in “Encounter at Farpoint” is a disaster that’s best left unmentioned, but the Sarak and Spock appearances (in “Unification“) fare a bit better. And then there’s “Relics” a great overall episode that just happens to feature Scotty.

The one major criticism I have against Next Generation is that there was never really any long-driving storyline. But considering how much ground they were breaking by simply being a successful prime-time science fiction series, and how many conventions they were creating on a week-to-week basis, it’s hard to hold it against the show. It is unfortunate that the final episode (“All Good Things…“) is sort of a downer, but at least it left things open for the inevitable movies (even if all of them except First Contact are forgettable).

Next Generation is a great series. It lasted seven seasons, and it the quality never really dipped. It paved the way for Deep Space Nine (not to mention every other sci-fi series since), and completely fleshed out the franchise into the world it is now. It may not be my favorite series, or even my second favorite series, but it’s a heck of a lot better than numbers four and five on that list.