Here now are five cool things from Star Trek-TNG First Year. And I’m not going to lie, this list was not the easiest list I have ever come up with since most everything from that year was stupid and eventually changed or improved right down to those awful reclining chairs they had for the navigator and conn officers on the Bridge (who thought those were a good idea??).
Q
The funny thing is that Q was created by accident. When the powers that be wanted a two hour pilot, Roddenberry added the Q stuff. And good thing because Q is quite literally the best thing in the pilot. He is the only one who doesn’t feel, well, boring! John DeLancie took this character and made him one of the most popular villains ever. Take for example his second appearance in season one. The episode is about as good as any season one episode, but you still get some great Q moments and one of the best Q/Picard exchanges ever. You could even argue he’s not even really evil, except in his first appearance he clearly was intended to be more of a menace than he would become. He appeared in several more episodes, DS9, Voyager, and even video games but it was season one where it all started.
Tasha Yar
Tasha was one of the few standouts on the new show. Denise Crosby is really cool and she knew how to play Tasha as tough, but likable. To bad they didn’t give her anything to do so Crosby didn’t decide to leave the show. However I have argued that may have been for the best. Since without her Worf was allowed to bloom and grow (he was practically invisible that first year), and I honestly can’t imagine how the show would have looked with her. Besides it’s not as if she never appeared again, including her best appearance in one the best episodes of the entire series! So yes her role is one of the things that makes me enjoy watching these episodes again. She was also the only character to have a strong back story that year and even get some emotional depth, take the Q episode I mentioned above where she gets an emotional scene with Picard. The other characters all felt stock that first year but Tasha felt like a real person. I loved her and judging by some of the things I found online I wasn’t alone. I already discussed her final episode as a regular cast member elsewhere, so let’s move on.
Good Episodes (?)
Yeah I know, there were good episodes? A lot of people love “The Big Goodbye”, though I only think it’s ok. And people usually remember “Conspiracy”. I know the scene of the guys head being blown off gave me nightmares when I first saw it (no, really. That happened! Truth be told I rarely see that episode in re-runs). And while Wesley tried his best to ruin it, “Datalore” was a pretty solid episode giving us Data’s android double. It was a rare example of the evil duplicate cliche making sense. “11001001” was good too, though not perfect. And I have always had a fondness for “Lonely Among Us”, though I am not sure why. I still remember first seeing it and being happy at the prospect they were killing off Picard (I did not like Picard at first). Symbiosis is a really good if underrated message episode which I think tried a lot harder than he rest of the dreck that year. Hmmm, did I say underrated? I feel another article coming! And of course there was the pilot, which had it’s good points but I already did a whole article on that. But the truth is while some worked there was a lot of other episodes which went from cornball goofy to flat out offensive!
The Holodeck/Enterprise-D
I talked in my last article about a stupid room that never appeared again after one episode it ea in. So it was only fair to do the flip side of that. One of the few good ideas to come out of season one was the holodeck. Yeah the technology makes no sense, but who the hell cares? It’s a fantastic idea and taken full advantage of right at the start in the pilot episode. It would get used a lot in just the first season, and was always really cool. But to be honest, the whole ship was really cool. Except for some cosmetic changes the ship we got in the pilot is pretty much the ship we got in the final episode. It was a very good design. A Galaxy Class star ship and it felt BIG. Yeah you could argue it was more of a luxury liner than a battleship, but remember they weren’t at war so why wouldn’t the ship be built for peace? (See “Yesterday”s Enterprise to see what the warship version would gave been like!). The first Enterprise was more combat ready because they were constantly fighting people. And It’s easy to forget that in the other shows The Defiant and Voyager were designed for specific combat missions (The Borg and the Badlands respectively). Enterprise-D was a pure exploration vessel, having families aboard and it could even separate into two, a saucer section and a drive section. How cool is that!!! To bad that the saucer sep never got used, a lot like The Battle Bridge which was made a big deal out of but hardly ever seen….but that’s ok it was a stupid idea I always thought. What the heck did they need that for exactly? Even Best of Both World’s it barely served a purpose.
What it began!
The truth is, TNG was going to be a monster no matter how good or bad it was. A lot of people watch Star Trek-The Motion picture now and can’t believe it was a big hit. It’s so damn slow! But back when the movie came out, no one cared about that! They just wanted to see Kirk and Spock and all of them together again. This was the first time since the original series not counting the animated show (which most don’t). I’ve even heard the first sight of Kirk was met with applause! But if it hadn’t been for that movie we never would have had Wrath of Khan and the others. And the same goes for TNG’s first season. We look back today at the silly scripts, campy dialogue, and hokey acting. But in 1987 we didn’t care, Star Trek was on TV again!! And that was epic! We had been hearing the hype since 1986. I still remember reading the articles in Starlog and The Official Fan Club Magazine, and when the Star Trek IV VHS was released it had a huge promo for the new series. And it was awesome! Yeah Ok some things pissed people off right away, like Wesley saving the entire ship in the second episode and the fact “The Naked Now” was the second episode and they were already stealing ideas, but we still loved it. Heck I even had action figures, remember the aliens The Selay and The Antican? I do because I had the toys. And lest I forget as bad as that season was without it we wouldn’t have had anything that followed including the awesome 3-7 seasons, The Best of Both World’s, DS9, Voyager, The four movies, and ok even Enterprise. You could even argue we never would have had a reboot in franchise didn’t get that kick-start thirty years ago (wow!!). TNG got the Star Trek franchise going and it would keep going until it hit its peak in 1994. Then the slow decline set in..but that’s another story. Point is it all started with that corny first season. And one last thing I like-It would have been so easy to pretend that first year never happened, like a lot of shows do with bad early ideas, but the creators didn’t retcon it away-it was part of the history of the crew and there were many callbacks over the years right up to and including the series finale.
So there you have it, while not perfect the first season of TNG still deserves respect for bringing life to a stagnating franchise. And it’s always fun to look at those shows, and be amazed how far the series would go. And next year it will be the 30th anniversary, good lord I am old.
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