Captain’s log…Star date…-311206.39837011666,
It was just 4 days ago that I set out on this mission, and already I’ve failed partly. I wasn’t able to make it through the first 15 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation this weekend as I had hoped to do. I did get close though, I made it through the first 12! I’m still not sure how I want to ‘review’ this as I go, but this is how it’s going to happen today.
My overall impressions…mixed. From people’s comments I expected the first few episodes to be damn near unwatchable. In this respect I was pleasantly surprised, I can see what people mean that it can be hard to watch, but I was able to get through most of them without much problem. Special effects were bad, but I expected that. For a show just starting out with little to no money I didn’t think I was getting ‘Avatar’ level effects. All that being said, i’m not hooked yet. I really felt that if I wasn’t going into this with the intention of making it through the series (and later the other series) I would have stopped watching after the first 4-5 episodes. It’s a slow burn kind of show, and I don’t mind those, but nothing really intrigued me enough. Needless to say, I will continue to watch as I am committed to seeing this through to the end. It has to get better…right?
How much is he in the show?
Captain Picard is a great lead, its easy to see why they choose Patrick Stewart, when he’s on screen you can’t take your eyes off him. Riker seems interesting at times, while at other times he seems to only exist to reaffirm Captain Picard’s orders on away teams. ‘Hide and Q’, the episode where Q (is he going to be a continuing character? didn’t see him coming back after the first episode but I was wrong) gave Riker ‘the power of the Q’, may have been my favorite of what I’ve watch so far. Only because there was some more play between Riker and Picard, I’m hoping there’s more of that (I sense there will be). The laser gun toting, ‘beast’ face french soldiers were a little hard to take seriously, and the action between them and Wolf was down right laughable. Second favorite episode would probably be ‘The Big Goodbye’, the first of the famous holodeck episodes. I liked the break from the Star Fleet world, and I’m a sucker for fish out of water humor. I’ve heard friends of mine trash the holodeck episodes, so I was trying to remain unbiased while I watched it, but I really did enjoy it.
I liked the holodeck episode, is that bad?
New goal is to make it though the remainder of season 1 by next Monday. That’s 16 episodes in one week, something I think I can manage. I heard from people that the show dramatically jumps up in quality after the first season and a half, so i’m looking forward to hitting that mark.
Favorite Episodes of the week:
- ‘Hide and Q’
- ‘The Big Goodbye’
- ‘Code of Honor’
Least Favorite Episodes of the week:
- ‘Haven’
- ‘Lonely Among Us’
p.s. Yes, I used a ‘star date calculator’ for the star date above…I hope it’s correct.
Man, if your favorite things so far are Q and holodeck, then you are in for a TREAT. Basically TNG is a sci-fi series made by people who actually wanted to do a period drama. With Q in it.