Star Trek
I’ve been wanting to re-watch Next Gen, since i haven’t seen it since it originally aired, pretty much, and I have memories of it being pretty good (some of the time).
I started with Season 1 a while back and found it next to unwatchable. So I asked around on the internet and among friends and relations: when does Next Gen get GOOD? The consensus seems to be “season three”.
So I watched the first ep of season 3 a couple months ago, and Henry and I watched the second ep last night. Hmm. Stiff, clunky, poorly-written to an almost unbelievable extent, boring camera work, and I think that instead of auditioning actors for supporting roles, they just grabbed random people off the street and handed them a script.
It was “Lost Skeleton of Cadavra” bad. Hilarious.
So then we watched an ep of TOS and, by comparison, it was a Shakespeare play performed by fine actors and filmed by a genius. Episode: “The Galileo Seven”. The cinematography was interesting! The story was compelling! The actors ACTED! The sets, though simple, were attractive. Even the music was appealing. Sure, the “Spock is a Vulcan and has no emotions — but wait! When the chips are down, he’s as human as anyone!” angle was perhaps overplayed… but you’ve got to remember that when it originally aired that was a new story and not yet part of our cultural language.
I’ll keep slogging through Next Gen. I KNOW there are some good episodes in there somewhere. But thank goodness I’ll always have TOS to fall back on when I need that “Star Trek” feeling in my soul.
Category: Blog 2 comments »
January 27th, 2014 at 6:45 am
Maybe try watching Deep Space Nine. I’ve been rewatching both series and DS9 holds up much better. Star Trek Phase II on youtube is a good fan version of the original Trek.
Love your librovox recordings – you are one of my favorite readers.
April 23rd, 2014 at 5:26 am
I wanted to share ST:TNG with my kids. But for the reasons you mentioned they find it so boring. I agree you have to pick and choose episodes (which I think is true with all of the ST series actually). I wish we could share our lists!
My girls took more to ST:V because they really liked having a girl captain and a hologram doctor. I always loved Klingons–oh dear I think that says something about me.
And ditto Amy. We all love your recordings. Happy Spring to you!