UNCUT REACTION - Star Trek TNG S1E12 - The Big Goodbye
Added 2023-11-10 15:00:08 +0000 UTC
Comments
TNG's first legitimately great episode. Clearly this was a lot of fun for the cast, and it gives me vibes of A Piece of the Action. I also like how they really fleshed out the secondary characters like the police lieutenant and Whalen. It definitely set a precedent for the holodeck/holodeck malfunction episodes, which is a far better and more versatile plot device than TOS' approach of "this planet developed identically to one specific part of Earth's history". The holodeck can be overused, but it's a great storytelling tool regardless. There are still some inconsistencies with how the holodeck works compared to later, but it was early days. Clearly this is a Picard episode, but Crusher ad Data get time to shine as well. It's great to see Picard being more assertive compared to the earlier episodes. Picard isn't the "action captain", but you still need to see the guy throw a punch once in a while. It's just great seeing Picard enjoying himself for a change given how overly serious he was at first. Crusher was great too, and we see there's an attraction between her and Picard that wasn't just alcohol virus induced. "Why aren't we all being interrogated" always makes me laugh. Data is also really starting to stand out now. We get essentially 2 Datas here. The one getting completely lost in the role from, and the one who's a starfleet officer. Regarding the latter, there's a definite shift in this episode toward the Data we know and love from later in the series. He's still clueless about human behavior(though what's Whalen's excuse for not reading the room with Picard and Crusher), but he doesn't seem as absent minded regarding his duty as he did earlier on. Finally, having the crew give a round of applause for Picard getting the greeting right and he and Data just carrying on their duties while still in the Dixon Hill costumes(and somewhat in character), it was probably the first scene where TNG really felt like a family. Lastly, Data starting to talk about his origins is just a bit of foreshadowing for the following episode.
Timothy Nikiforovs
2024-06-20 22:13:01 +0000 UTCI forgot how funny Data is in this one. The fact they can't just shut off the power and everything be fine is a pretty silly plot armor.
Jovet
2023-11-22 05:54:27 +0000 UTCTracy Torme' (son of legendary crooner Mel Torme') was a writer for a number of early episodes. He would later go on to co-create Sliders. So showing him as the writer of the fictional Dixon Hill stories was an easter egg of sorts. Wow, I forgot how much they were flailing around to find the proper tone during season 1. I forgot how much Picard and Beverly used to flirt. Not to spoil but they drop that with a quickness once things get rolling. They also drop the cluelessness about history and archaic terms. 200-300 years is not enough to erase commonly known items, terms, or vernacular. We (collectively) most certainly remember minutia from the American Revolution era. The next episode is one of the (if not THE) best of Season 1. Can't say the same about the six to follow it. But as they plow into the home streach you will really feel the cast start to truly settle into their roles. You've still got another season and a half before the onset of true awesomeness.
StealthMomo
2023-11-16 05:55:37 +0000 UTCI like your reactions. I have a question: for the next episodes, can you show the original video maybe like in episode 1-10 instead of sometimes? I have the german DVD version. we use more frames per second. so our version is shorter. I play my version in x0,96 speed, but i have to sync the videos maybe every 2-4 minutes still. the commercial breaks are ~1-2 second longer in your or my version. It would help when I can see a change of a scene, blurred or clear.
Redjac
2023-11-15 02:15:38 +0000 UTCThis definitely has the mark of season 1 (where the writers aren't thinking things as far through as they should.) They get better at that. The biggest holes I think are the fact that, one, no one is outside the door when it opens and the gangsters step out. It's clear from the earlier scenes that Geordi and Wesley were working right outside the holodeck. And two, why didn't they just beam Picard, et al out of the holodeck?
Nerd's Gold
2023-11-12 01:20:52 +0000 UTCYes! I'm hoping they'll watch Sliders too. Such a great concept. Very different from Star Trek but still really good and interesting. Plus you get John Rhys Davies as a main character
Katie Jackson
2023-11-12 01:13:35 +0000 UTCSuch a great series.
Steven Johnson
2023-11-11 20:51:03 +0000 UTCThat actually makes a lot more sense, or at least flows a little better watching in that order.
Joe Concepts
2023-11-11 19:08:18 +0000 UTCGene Roddenberry liked young writer Tracy Torme. He began to groom him to be the future show runner for TNG. Behind the scenes pressures drove him off the series, but he went on to create the well regarded SF series Sliders.
Mark Chrisco
2023-11-11 18:29:07 +0000 UTC"fraternize" ;) "to meet someone socially, especially someone who belongs to an opposing army or team, or has a different social position" as in "The soldiers were told not to fraternize with any of the local people."
Andreas Schmitt
2023-11-11 15:51:46 +0000 UTCThanks for the great reaction! I love this episode and glad you enjoyed it so much!
Gary Leyh
2023-11-11 06:41:18 +0000 UTCAlso kind of random, but even first season TNG was so much better than most of the tv sci-fi produced in the late 70s through the 80s. We just hold Trek to an incredibly high standard 😊
Glenn Johnson Barnes
2023-11-11 05:49:26 +0000 UTCYou'd probably appreciate this episode more if you'd seen many of Humphrey Bogart's 'noir' films and detective literature. Character names are derived from the 1930 book by Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel and the 1941 film 'The Maltese Falcon' directed by John Huston. The character of Cyrus Redblock's name is play on the name of the actor Sydney Greenstreet, the actor who played the baddie in 'Maltese Falcon', named Caspar Gutman. Mr. Leech is clearly inspired by the actor Peter Lorrie who played Joel Cairo. Even the episode's title is a mash up of 'The Long Goodbye' and 'The Big Sleep', both outstanding Raymond Chandler novels turned into films. I be interested to see your reaction to Falcon since you saw 'The Big Goodbye' first....
Shane Davis
2023-11-11 05:46:13 +0000 UTCIt always made perfect sense to me that everyone could be eradicated in the Holodeck. It’s the same as erasing any solid matter created in there, in the pilot Data and Riker talk about the rocks and vegetation being created Wesley got wet falling into real water. So any matter left behind could be “disassembled.”
Philbot
2023-11-11 03:52:14 +0000 UTCanyone else think Picard saying that Data is from South America is a nod to Kirk saying Spock is Chinese in City on the Edge of Forever ?
James Bottas
2023-11-11 03:08:53 +0000 UTCThe holodeck is always broken
Scarpad’s Domain
2023-11-11 01:16:33 +0000 UTCYou could tell the scripts were improving the tide was turning
Scarpad’s Domain
2023-11-11 01:13:01 +0000 UTCAs much as you guys enjoyed this one...(spoiler ) Your gonna love "a fistful of datas".
Monty Crawford
2023-11-11 00:42:52 +0000 UTCTo me, the first solidly good episode. Seeing how much you guys have liked episodes I can't stand, I cant wait to see how much you love the actual classic episodes. Going to be a fun few years.
John M.
2023-11-11 00:10:41 +0000 UTCSomething tells me the writer didn't like Patrick Stewart... LOL!!
StonyD
2023-11-10 23:31:30 +0000 UTCIn the pilot, Farpoint, Data tells Riker that most things their replicators can create, those elements are real in the holodeck. This involves basic things like water, air, etc. Wesley walked out of the holodeck soaked. I imagine an "upgrade" allows basic things like lipstick to be real. As for Data solo-ing those guys in the holodeck, much like Worf he is nerfed in situations like this to allow everyone else to be at risk for the plot. I always said the same thing, Data should be able to take them all out.
StonyD
2023-11-10 23:18:34 +0000 UTCGood job of spotting Lawrence Tierney, Alex. Like his behavior on the Seinfeld set, Wil Wheaton has said Tierney's presence on the set of TNG was rather disturbing. Nerd note: William Boyett, who plays the police sergeant, played the modern day LA police sergeant for 7 years on Adam-12 from 1968-1975. And your discussion about AI self-awareness was interesting. Another great episode (from the Target Audience). As for TNG, I think it was very good: B+
Collin Freeman
2023-11-10 23:01:18 +0000 UTCAnd son of the crooner Mel Torme.
Collin Freeman
2023-11-10 22:21:25 +0000 UTCI have always thought the opening for TNG was too long. I always appreciated the brevity of the TOS intro. Just me, I'm sure.
StonyD
2023-11-10 22:15:45 +0000 UTCNot referring to anything I’ve seen here, but rather one of the comments the guys read at the end of this video: folks, please be careful about telling them what future episodes WILL do and WONT do, even in general terms. They should move forward with zero anticipations.
Tom Occhipinti
2023-11-10 22:03:37 +0000 UTCI think the last episode "Haven" was the point where A and B plot-lines started to make their way into the series as well as character development moving to the forefront. This episode continues building on that as most of the rest of the first season does, although there's an episode coming up shortly that to me is not only the worst episode of the first season but probably the worst episode of the entire series. No spoilers though. I'll be very interested in what J&A have to say about it afterwords.
Dan Krantz
2023-11-10 21:24:38 +0000 UTCI have to say, one of the real joys of watching you guys do this is in the post-episode wrapup you talk about what you'd like to see in TNG in the future and the (not few times so far) us old hands know EXACTLY how your wish will be fulfilled.
JD Nevesytrof
2023-11-10 19:32:13 +0000 UTCI mean, "The Big Goodbye" won a Peabody and an Emmy, it's clearly the first moment the show got actual plaudits, so people were recognizing this thing could get good.
JD Nevesytrof
2023-11-10 19:30:17 +0000 UTCI have to say.... and I don't want this to incite a conversation about future episodes that goes into spoilers.... but I think this is the first episode of the series that begins to accomplish the tone and character of the later scripts that reflect the quality that we will know and love. Not 100% so -- but tilting in that direction. Originally, I thought that the opening few episodes of Season 2 would accomplish that…. But I’m willing to say that it actually starts here. Without going into spoilers, do you guys (minus our 2 hosts) agree with me?
Tom Occhipinti
2023-11-10 19:06:24 +0000 UTCTracy Tormé is actually a guy hehe. He was one of the early writers. This was probably one of his best episodes.
Andreas Schmitt
2023-11-10 19:01:15 +0000 UTCPicard: "That kiss was so...REAL!" Riker: *instantly more interested*
JD Nevesytrof
2023-11-10 18:36:30 +0000 UTCIt's too bad things are so inconsistent about what matter can leave the holodeck, I get simple inanimate things like snowballs, water and lipstick but not complex "living" characters, but they never stick strongly to any rules about the simple stuff.
JD Nevesytrof
2023-11-10 18:34:15 +0000 UTCCyrus Redblock is very similar to the name of the actor, Sydney Greenstreet. He was in Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. Hmm.
Geoffrey Linehan
2023-11-10 18:22:58 +0000 UTCAs you figured out, Dixon Hill is a metafictional character (like Itchy and Scratchy) created for this episode, hence Tracy Torme being named as his original author -- an example of how observant you guys are, as well as of high definition allowing on-screen displays to be legible which probably would not have been on the original broadcast. Because my late mother was a huge TNG fan, if I wanted to allude to the concept of a "fictional fictional character," all I had to say was "Dixon Hill" and she knew what I meant. (I believe one of your other patron's screen name comes from another such character introduced later in the franchise.) I haven't read it, but there's actually a TNG novel called "A Hard Rain" (a title taken from Data's final speech in this episode) which is almost completely a Dixon Hill adventure. It *does* include a plot element that gives the story "real world" (that is, Picard's "real world") stakes, but in a way which is less disruptive to the Dixon Hill story than in this episode. (It takes place later in the Star Trek timeline than the point you've reached, though, so it would contain spoilers for later episodes.)
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-11-10 18:11:02 +0000 UTChmmmm.. maybe.. I still think it's more likely a clumsily written line but I like that you've reasoned a way to make it make some sense. if we're going to live in the canon let's go with what you suggested lol
James Bottas
2023-11-10 18:10:33 +0000 UTCI always thought that didn't make sense on previous viewings, but this time it occurred to me -- since the Holodeck partly works on similar principles to the transporter, as explained in "Farpoint," maybe the danger was that it would absorb the four real people into the pattern buffer and they would become irrecoverable energy, as almost happened to Picard in "Lonely Among Us"? Speaking of "Lonely Among Us," Alex and Josh forgot that Assistant Chief Engineer Singh died in that episode (the only crew death so far).
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-11-10 17:52:11 +0000 UTCI kind of wish they had just let Patrick Stewart improvise his own alien language because that just sounded awkward as heck.
JD Nevesytrof
2023-11-10 17:48:01 +0000 UTCSecond holodeck malfunction episode. Don't forget "The Practical Joker." :-)
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-11-10 17:46:17 +0000 UTCBy the way, that was a portrait of then president Franklin D. Roosevelt on the wall.
Mark Chrisco
2023-11-10 17:40:53 +0000 UTCI just sort of liked this before when watching it but I enjoyed it much seeing you guys point out a few things I missed while talking to my friends and drinking before when watching it....... kiddin'
Prof Moff
2023-11-10 17:25:18 +0000 UTCyeah wesley's line about the risk of everyone inside just vanishing is a bad line. clearly the writers haven't fully thought out the rules of the holodeck yet. just ignore the line. what would've worked is something like, "there's a risk that the holodeck malfunction might put them in some dangerous or fatal setting" followed by the next scene of the few seconds in the arctic setting
James Bottas
2023-11-10 17:24:03 +0000 UTCI think they fixed that in post in that slightly later episode with a line of dialogue.
Paul Rymer
2023-11-10 17:23:38 +0000 UTCThe next holodeck episode is...never mind. You'll find out. It's always fun to see Picard let his hair down, so to speak.
KatWithAttitude
2023-11-10 16:44:50 +0000 UTCBrent Spiner is so good when he gets to not be just normal Data
AzoriusMage
2023-11-10 16:08:56 +0000 UTCIt would be pretty funny if for every malfunction they called engineering to turn the entire ship off and on again.
Phillip Grischa
2023-11-10 16:07:31 +0000 UTCI don’t know, it feels kind of familiar. “Alexa, turn on heat”. “ALEXA, Turn on heat!”, “I SAID ALEXAAA TURN ON HEAT!!!”, then you have to get out of bed anyway and go to the other room and find the thermostat in the dark. 😝
Glenn Johnson Barnes
2023-11-10 15:50:20 +0000 UTCimagine not being able to turn the power off in engineering....
AzoriusMage
2023-11-10 15:43:09 +0000 UTCThey really should install an off switch on the outside of the holodeck.
Phillip Grischa
2023-11-10 15:31:30 +0000 UTCYeah, your first “holodeck malfunction” episode…very original story, and the cast rises to the occasion. And Gates looks hawt 🔥
Glenn Johnson Barnes
2023-11-10 15:22:59 +0000 UTCHad this episode aired in intended order, the reference to holodeck upgrade would have tied in with a later obvious episode in this season.
Geoffrey Linehan
2023-11-10 15:06:00 +0000 UTCBeing in the UK, these Friday uploads really help me get through the rest of the workday ❤️
SinocTheHodgeheg
2023-11-10 15:01:57 +0000 UTC
