I get this is a contrarian opinion and you are feeding off of downvotes, but one of the strengths of Star Trek is that the episodes and even seasons don’t matter at all. Watch the best ones, if you like them watch some more, if you don’t, then don’t. The shitty netflix idea of low-effort serialized content with cliffhangers every episode sucks and I’m so glad that Start Trek didn’t do that.
Data’s Day
The Drumhead,
Measure of a Man
Q Who?
Qpid (silly but good)
The First Duty
Relics (if you liked TOS.)
Tapestry.
Anyway that is enough. If you don’t like those, then by all means don’t watch anymore. But sitting down and watching the first season of TNG then declaring that it sucks, is doing yourself a disservice.
In 7 seasons of TNG they made about 3.5 really good seasons of TV, and yeah the first two seasons you’d be okay watching less than 6 episodes.
Hell even extremely serialized shows like Babylon 5, there are episodes that I skip on rewatch, especially in Season 1. The weird insectonazi episode (someone smuggles an artifact onto the station and it turns him into this weird super soldier who is concerned about being “PURE!” and they solve it by convincing him he’s not pure enough and he shoots himself) yeah skip that one. I also skip the religious parents kill their child because they think his soul leaked out during surgery episode too. Oh and that stupid boxing episode that shouldn’t have been made.
I totally get you about those episodes. They’re clunky and really really heavy handed. But I feel like the first time you watch through the show they drive home some important ideas really hard. Because of their cringeyness you just can’t get them out of your head, and they make sure you keep those ideas in your head as you watch.
B5 is obviously campy as hell and not as realistic as something like battlestar Galactica. I’ll always wonder if it could have been a timeless masterpiece if it had been made a few years later, but I also wonder if it would be as human and relatable if it was more real, less 90s idealistic. It’s definitely a show you have to view in the context of the time it was made.
Talking about the specific three episodes I mentioned of Babylon 5…
“PURE!” my memory of the episode boils down to my above description, plus I think that’s the one at the beginning where Dr. Franklin’s archeologist friend walks in and talks to him over his shoulder like he’s on a really shitty soap opera. It…might add some subtle notes to the B5 aroma but it’s not that important. When I re-watch the series, I skip it. Maybe, if trying to preserve the impact of Season 2 when the actual story gets going, I’d play this episode for someone going in blind to kinda trick them into thinking they’re watching hokey old adventure-a-week, But someone who knows generally where this is going, skip it for time.
Dumbass parents kill their healthy child…I guess it has some merit as a Star Trek TNG episode that TNG never filmed. Try mentally sliding Dr. Crusher into the role of Dr. Franklin in this episode. But…did this episode ever get a black and white flashback later on? I think you could safely remove it.
The boxing episode is just plain filler. Most of the cast isn’t in it; it’s about Geribaldi’s father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate, competing in the sacred alien underground bare knuckle match that’s racist against humans because of course, he draws a long fight against an alien that doesn’t matter, and the credits roll. I’d rather have watched Vir fold his laundry.
Infection:
We see a transformation of a human into a fighting machine capable of incredible destruction, and the human’s will is subverted. Meanwhile delenn and sinclair are both going to have their own radical transformations, and Sheridan is going to become that fighting machine. His will gets subverted as well ‘damn me for agreeing to it and damn you for asking’. We also see that this is a universe where humans are ripe for being taken advantage of by the enemy and their tech. It’s the 4th episode. We haven’t learned anything about earthgov or the technomages or anything at this point, but he’s giving us the context with which to understand what’s coming.
Believers:
The child is terminally ill. Franklin saves him, but it doesn’t take. Even with the best intentions and the necessary tech he still fails. You can win and still lose, which is basically the whole setup for crusade. There are many reasons aliens don’t ask outsiders for help. We see it again with the Marcab, but the difference is how delenn and Lennier choose to accept that there will be loss. This is the lens JMS wants us to see the narn and the centauri through. They are both dying races and how they accept it or not is extremely important for everyone.
TKO:
It’s about determination and acceptance, but it’s also about why we do things. This is the battle John goes through with the shadows and the vorlons. What Garibaldi’s friend is being asked is ‘what do you want’ and ‘who are you’. He starts out with the first question, and gets rebuffed. When he ultimately answers the second and things go better for him. But crucially, not because he obeys anything. It’s because he’s strong and independent and true to himself.
I get that you don’t need to rewatch them because you have the context. But I wonder if I wouldn’t have viewed the rest of the series the same way without these campy, heavy handed storied. He really slams home the message and I think that’s on purpose.
I get this is a contrarian opinion and you are feeding off of downvotes, but one of the strengths of Star Trek is that the episodes and even seasons don’t matter at all. Watch the best ones, if you like them watch some more, if you don’t, then don’t. The shitty netflix idea of low-effort serialized content with cliffhangers every episode sucks and I’m so glad that Start Trek didn’t do that.
Data’s Day The Drumhead, Measure of a Man Q Who? Qpid (silly but good) The First Duty Relics (if you liked TOS.) Tapestry.
Anyway that is enough. If you don’t like those, then by all means don’t watch anymore. But sitting down and watching the first season of TNG then declaring that it sucks, is doing yourself a disservice.
In 7 seasons of TNG they made about 3.5 really good seasons of TV, and yeah the first two seasons you’d be okay watching less than 6 episodes.
Hell even extremely serialized shows like Babylon 5, there are episodes that I skip on rewatch, especially in Season 1. The weird insectonazi episode (someone smuggles an artifact onto the station and it turns him into this weird super soldier who is concerned about being “PURE!” and they solve it by convincing him he’s not pure enough and he shoots himself) yeah skip that one. I also skip the religious parents kill their child because they think his soul leaked out during surgery episode too. Oh and that stupid boxing episode that shouldn’t have been made.
I totally get you about those episodes. They’re clunky and really really heavy handed. But I feel like the first time you watch through the show they drive home some important ideas really hard. Because of their cringeyness you just can’t get them out of your head, and they make sure you keep those ideas in your head as you watch.
B5 is obviously campy as hell and not as realistic as something like battlestar Galactica. I’ll always wonder if it could have been a timeless masterpiece if it had been made a few years later, but I also wonder if it would be as human and relatable if it was more real, less 90s idealistic. It’s definitely a show you have to view in the context of the time it was made.
Talking about the specific three episodes I mentioned of Babylon 5…
You’re looking at them too literally.
Infection: We see a transformation of a human into a fighting machine capable of incredible destruction, and the human’s will is subverted. Meanwhile delenn and sinclair are both going to have their own radical transformations, and Sheridan is going to become that fighting machine. His will gets subverted as well ‘damn me for agreeing to it and damn you for asking’. We also see that this is a universe where humans are ripe for being taken advantage of by the enemy and their tech. It’s the 4th episode. We haven’t learned anything about earthgov or the technomages or anything at this point, but he’s giving us the context with which to understand what’s coming.
Believers: The child is terminally ill. Franklin saves him, but it doesn’t take. Even with the best intentions and the necessary tech he still fails. You can win and still lose, which is basically the whole setup for crusade. There are many reasons aliens don’t ask outsiders for help. We see it again with the Marcab, but the difference is how delenn and Lennier choose to accept that there will be loss. This is the lens JMS wants us to see the narn and the centauri through. They are both dying races and how they accept it or not is extremely important for everyone.
TKO: It’s about determination and acceptance, but it’s also about why we do things. This is the battle John goes through with the shadows and the vorlons. What Garibaldi’s friend is being asked is ‘what do you want’ and ‘who are you’. He starts out with the first question, and gets rebuffed. When he ultimately answers the second and things go better for him. But crucially, not because he obeys anything. It’s because he’s strong and independent and true to himself.
I get that you don’t need to rewatch them because you have the context. But I wonder if I wouldn’t have viewed the rest of the series the same way without these campy, heavy handed storied. He really slams home the message and I think that’s on purpose.
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There’s episodes of ds9 you can skip. The baseball episode, anything focused on quark, anything where the entire plot is just O’Brien torture porn
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