EARLY ACCESS- Star Trek TNG Season 1 is BETTER Than You Think

Not sure if you fellas knew this, but Picard’s love interest in “We’ll always have Paris” is Michelle Philips, one of the singers from The Mamas and the Papas, famous for the song “California Dreamin’”. If you watch the video on YouTube, she is so young…just a kid. Fun fact!

Chris S.

Agreed. We can never know. All we can do is guess how probable.

Numinous2019

I always liked the court scene in Farpoint...🤷‍♂️

Greg Quinn

The writers didn't really know what to do with Troi in season 1; from what I heard, she was only kept on because Tasha Yar had been killed off and Dr Crusher was soon to go.

Ee'char

I would not be surprised if it will be only Top 5.

Sam Langanke

Top 10 list incoming next? :)

Andreas Schmitt

Oh that must be a tier that I’m not in. Thanks for the response

TalynStarburst

I just remembered a movie that Denise Crosby was in after she left the show..."Skin Deep", starring John Ritter. If you have not seen it I recommend it, it's hilarious.

Monty Crawford

Kam Fong: indeed he should have had more screen time. The only member of that cast who had actually been a policeman.

Collin Freeman

I don’t doubt William Shatner was insistent on having all the attention. There are plenty of accounts from the TOS cast and crew to support that assertion.

Collin Freeman

On the rare occasions he got substantial material, you could see that Kam Fong as Chin Ho Kelly from the original Hawaii Five-O could have carried his own series.

Anthony Bernacchi

Seeing your reactions to this season and your comments/likes so far, I am really excited to see how you enjoy the rest of the series and eventually DS9.

DustmanNorochj

There will always be fans who say season 1 (and even 2) are unwatchable, just as there are fans who swear they never rewatch a season 3 TOS episode. Everything gets exaggerated over time, and I dare say that season 3 TNG, while excellent, has somehow attained a holy grail status over the years. My attitude is the same as TOS and TNG producer Bob Justman. I love them all,

Glenn Johnson Barnes

The realities of making a TV show would be harder for a young actor like Wheaton than a movie. 16 to 20 hour working days, far less time for re-takes and a constant, gruelling schedule with more than one episode being filmed at a time on occasions. Even an experienced actress like Genevieve Bujold wasn't able to cope with this.

Numinous2019

I would say step back a moment and listen to the critique of "a lot of these are forgettable" + "the actual plot I don't care" = "it's better than you think". If the shows are forgettable but you like it even if you don't care about the plots, is that really a show that's better than people think? Plot is everything. What's the expression, "if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage."? Good actors can appear in bad stories, but the stories are still bad.

Ken R

Over here in Ireland, we were familiar with Stewart from both TV and movies. So it was odd at first to see him in this sort of show. It took a while to stop 'seeing' Stewart and start seeing Picard. A similar issue was Gareth Thomas as Blake in 'Blake's 7' at first. An actor with a long list of TV appearances and too immediately recognisable when cast, until his talent (like Stewart's) overcame the previous casting associations.

Numinous2019

We did. The Patron top episode lists are exclusive to the Target Demographic tier, but we announced it to everyone in a few of our posts. Apologies if you missed it.

Josh (Target Audience)

My favorite character hasn't been introduced yet. *waits patiently*

Jovet

The argument I would make about TNG S1 is this. If it was an entirely new franchise (no TOS) would it have retained a large enough audience to avoid budget cuts and a reformat for any S2? The behind the scenes issues & conflicts impaired the scripts. TOS bought TNG enough time to gain its footing, after trial and error in the first two seasons.

Numinous2019

There are stories of Shatner's insistence that Kirk be the one to solve each episode's dilemma.

Regan

I knew Levar Burton from Roots and Wil Wheaton from Stand By Me, and that was it. I had seen Patrick Stewart in Excalibur and Dune, but did not remember him because his film roles tended to be supporting cast and not 1 of the main leads.

Collin Freeman

Yes, but also that is just how most TV dramas were done in the 1960's. You had a lead who got 75-80% of the attention, a co-star who got 15-20%, and any remaining cast got the scraps. Wild Wild West, Gunsmoke, and the original Hawaii Five-O come to mind as classic examples. Then you had shows like Lost in Space that flipped the whole 'who gets the most screen time' thing on its ear. Even in shows Mission: Impossible, Peter Graves tended to get most of the attention: Peter Lupus flexed and Greg Morris got stuck in cramped places handling remote electronics.

Collin Freeman

Well this is what can happen when you don't have William Shatner throwing a tantrum any time the attention isn't on his character.

Regan

Will you still be taking in the top 5 favorite episodes from the audience?

TalynStarburst

Going into the series, the only actor with which I was familiar was Levar Burton from Reading Rainbow.

Geoffrey Linehan

If you ever see the name Cheryl McFadden listed in the credits for some movie or TV show, that's Gates. Cheryl is her real first name that she usually goes by when she's doing choreography, and Gates (her middle name) is used for acting credits.

KatWithAttitude

Mark

One of the greatest strengths of TNG, imo, is the more ensemble use of the cast instead of the big 3 and then the others. It is more realistic to have the experts in their respective fields doing what they are trained to do rather than giving everything to Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and occasionally Scotty. The cast is first-rate and really carries the show throughout, good story or not. It just took them awhile for the actors and writers to "find" the characters and get more comfortable individually and as a group.

Collin Freeman

It’s not canon but there’s a really good Star Trek novel called “Q Squared” that could be summed up as Q & Picard Vs Trelane. Don’t read it until after season 3 as there are some spoilers

Matthew McKinnon-Gray

There is much speculation in the Star Trek forums and such that Trelane from TOS was a baby Q.

Monty Crawford

Ka'Plah!!

Monty Crawford

Separate episode, coming in a couple days

Josh (Target Audience)

Not as good and “sucks” are two different things though. I’m pretty sure which one they will choose if it came down to those two.

PIG

I think you hit on why so many don't like Season 1. It took awhile for show to find its own identity and separate itself from TOS. The new characters are not supposed to be the old, but with different actors. Season 2 still has more than its share of groaners but those glimpses of the greatness to come is there.

Stephen Wright

No best episodes ranking? Or will this be a seperate video?

Sam Langanke

4:54 I think that point, without getting into spoilers is what people really glom onto when they say that "Season 1 sucks" because so much of it is basically the production picking up the leftovers of Phase 2, some unused bits of TOS, Gene essentially taking the Phase 2 Bible and changing names... It doesn't quite have its renown identity *yet*. Incidentally, when Frakes did the scene where he got pulled into the goo, it was printer's ink and Metamucil(Laxative powder). When he came back out of it, Levar Burton was laughing in disgust and said "Frakes, I would not have done that man!" They were going to do it with a stunt person originally, but Frakes opted to do it himself. 10:14 Yes. There were a few people suggesting to you guys to skip over season 1 (and even season 2!) and frankly I find that really... Irresponsible. There is so much that is built in the first two seasons that, yes, they flesh it out later, but without seeing those first two seasons you wouldn't know anything. If there's something setup in season 1 or 2 and they come back to it in season 3... As a first time viewer you're not going to have the full benefit of the history. Not spoilers, but you've already seen episode 2 of season 2 where the "Romulans" just show up out of nowhere. How utterly confusing would that moment have been without having seen the end of season 1? 10:46 There was a cut element for Geordi and Data. They were going to form their own "group" as buddies because they both see things so differently. Their group name was going to be the "perceivers." Literally have their own private two-man club. One of Gene's ideas that was sadly lost along the way. LeVar quoted the scene it was going to be setup in, I can't remember the exact quote. 14:02 Wesley's mom has got it going on? 17:29 The problem with Troi is they have her sitting on the bridge so often to simply state the painfully fucking obvious. "He's hiding something." "He's worried." Yeah. Thanks. An amoeba could have figured that out. Half the time she is literally a waste of space and actually breaks the atmosphere of a moment by stating the obvious. "He's very mysterious." Oh, no kidding. The actor's performance and the music didn't give that way, thank you counselor obvious pants... Yeah, not my favorite. I can't wait for episode 3 of Season 2, it's one of my favorites of the season. LLAP, guys.

Steven Johnson

Be interesting to see if your opinions change when you've seen the other seasons.

KatWithAttitude