idk if this is a hot take or not but Season One isn't as bad as so many people say it is.
Posted by CanadianAndroid@reddit | TNG | View on Reddit | 39 comments
Yes are some lows (Code of Honour, cough cough), some poor editing choices and it hasn't really come into it's own yet.
I finished rewatching it yesterday and over all I think it has much more classic moments than blunders. The season has a lot of camp to it. I like that it bounces from stuff like saving a giant space jellyfish's partner to negotiating some treaty and back to giant killer crystaline entity type stuff. All the while asking themselves the philosophical side of their solutions. Hell I really liked the bug stuff at end of the season.
A lot of the classic Trek villains are introduced in season one, the Ferengi, Lore, and not the least of all Q. While the Ferengi didn't really pan out as a major threat to the federation, I would argue that the concept of them broke the into mainstream culture(whether due to tng or ds9 idk). You tell someone your manager is an fn Ferengi, they will likely know it's meaning.
optimusprime82@reddit
I've said it for a long time, season one and two have more good episodes in them than seasons six and seven. The exodus of skilled writers from TNG to DS9/VOY really hurt the final years of TNG.
bookant@reddit
We certainly didn't think so when it was airing. The notion of the first two seasons being bad came around much later from young people seeing the entire show as a completed whole and not having any concept of the context/time it was made.
anthony0721@reddit
Season 1 had the best, dream-synth score
Appropriate_Lime_101@reddit
Season 1 is great. It's just different. It's more like TOs
Supervisor-194@reddit
Unironically, sincerely, and quite unapologetically, I state; TNG Season's One and Two remain my favourites — with Season One taking the top spot.
GoatApprehensive9866@reddit
❤️ 2 > 1 for me, but 1's definitely got more stories in it's favor than given credit for. I'll put "Pen Pals" over "The Masterpiece Society" any day, even if Geordi gets the best material in the latter.
CanadianAndroid@reddit (OP)
Star based and tacheon pilled.
I_lenny_face_you@reddit
Dish level: Deflector
Tea level: “Earl Grey” out of 10
GoatApprehensive9866@reddit
The whole series is camp but it's often handled with a sincerity. The space jellyfish are dumb but it's easier to buy into that than Worf having multiple backup redundant organs except for the spine, of course.
Only a handful feel truly laugh-at campy.
Season 1 has ups and downs, but it feels more like exploration and adventure of the unknown than most of the last 3 seasons.
Justice, Code of Honor, Datalore, and Angel One in particular fall apart the worst, but they still have some watchable scenes and good acting by some of the guest casts that definitely help.
Sea-Quality4726@reddit
Season 1's first half is the only time they're consistently exploring like Picard promised us at the end of Far point. Most of the rest of the show is shuttling diplomats and experts around and responding to internal crises and distress. Almost every episode they could look up the destination in Starfleetpedia, which they frequently couldn't in TOS.
GoatApprehensive9866@reddit
Great points, thanks! That might be why episodes like "Q Who" I appreciate that much more.
"Starfleetpedia", LOL, nice touch and very true. In that regard TOS remains supreme as the crew had nothing like that.
Many TNG episodes definitely are incidental and not exploration of its own sake. Even "Time Squared" starts out by responding to a distress signal, but takes a novelty turn when it turns out to be their own shuttle with Picard in it. Then come Neutral Zone-themed episodes. "Contagion" is also due to another starship having explored first and amazingly nobody found any of the equipment before (probe destroyed them) . "Pegasus" was due to exploring illegal research by Pressman and contriving to get the Enterprise into an asteroid and charting the innards of an asteroid otherwise wouldn't be done.
I wish more of TNG were like "Home Soil" where the true unknown were being discovered or tripped over, but even then they stand in a room and let the scanner do the talking. On the plus side, Wesley didn't point and say "that's a lifeform you adults" 8 minutes in... Or "The Nth Degree" that definitely goes where none had before. But they really are few and far between TNG's more usual tropes.
It's not like TOS didn't rely on other ships being destroyed or diplomacy on occasion with "The Immunity Syndrome" or "The Doomsday Machine", or "Friday's Child" but the parallel is loose, TNG definitely stopped exploring the wonders of the universe, and TOS would be more inventive overall despite it's shorter run.
Plus, TOS likely couldn't have done season 4's "First Contact" episode either.
tomenjean@reddit
Very solid point.
Twigling@reddit
It has a lot of weak and rough episodes, as well as a few stinkers. I'd still rather watch it than any episode of, for example, Discovery or seasons 1 and 2 of Picard. Thankfully season 2 of TNG is a great improvement - it still has some problems but it's getting there and, despite some weak episodes, is, IMO, better overall than season 7.
According_Sound_8225@reddit
I'll always watch S1 and S2 eps when they show up on TV. Even if it's not a great episode most of them are not terrible, and the music really adds to the atmosphere.
GoldfishMotorcycle@reddit
The music! Great music in season one.
KimmyGurl420@reddit
I love TNG, but I can't really agree.
It's better than a kick to the groin, but it certainly isn't good on the whole.
A few good episodes in a sea of mediocre to bad. When I rewatch it, I only make it through on the "it's so bad it's good" principal
Large-Tree-3666@reddit
I love camp so yeah season 1 is a personal favorite haha
StellarSurveyor@reddit
Agreed. I actually prefer the first seasons
Absentmindedgenius@reddit
I mean, compare it to modern Trek, and it seems pretty good.
_fly-on-the-wall_@reddit
i love 99% of tng including season 1
hyst0rica1_29@reddit
Someone, months ago, pointed out that if you looked at all the episodes of the season, 1 or 3 (Naked Now, Code of Honor, for example) were clunkers, but WAAAAY more were actually pretty good. Heart of Glory brings back the Klingons in a major way; Neutral Zone was ok but could’ve been better for the Romulans; Conspiracy was the great What If..? thread that was never followed up & so on.
In the end it’s just a situation of collective memory being repeatedly told S1 was a big hole of Suck when it actually wasn’t.
jsonitsac@reddit
They definitely managed to hit a stride after Maurice Hurley came on board. The back half of the season was definitely a more settled situation. They started getting a better sense of how to play to their actors strengths and realized that they could bring Patrick into the action from time to time. The problem is that season one had some all time lows
lilbluetruck@reddit
I just got Paramount Plus and was not going to watch Farpoint, but did anyway, it was not as bad as I remembered. Then I got caught up in Falling skies, almost done, them I'll get back to TNG.
ResplendentShade@reddit
Aside from Code of Honor and Encounter at Farpoint, I really like season 1. As crazy as this probably sounds to some, I think I might like it more than season 7.
But yes agreed, it isn't as bad as many say it is, and I don't recommend that viewers skip it. In no small part because season 2's Yesterday's Enterprise is imo the best episode of the series and it hits a lot harder if you've seen all the Tasha Yar stuff from season 1.
tomenjean@reddit
Thank you for saying this. I’m currently in Season 7 with a complete series watch, and I keep telling myself I think 1 as a whole is a little better than 7….
However, the one thing with Season 1 though—why is it so GODDAMN HORNY?!?!
CanadianAndroid@reddit (OP)
This was me yelling at my screen during Skin of Evil
TASHA, STAY AWAY FROM THE PUDDLE! TASHA GET OUT OF THERE!
GoatApprehensive9866@reddit
I loved Tasha, at least when the scripts weren't doing character assassination. And, yep, I didn't mind her speech to Wesley in "Symbiosis" as that feels more Germaine to her character than how she and Riker were written in "Justice".
Long-Emu-7870@reddit
Of course it is.
The actors are boring, mannered, stiff, hesitant.
I mean just compare dorne in seasons 1 and 2 with season 3. Compare Stewart with everyone else. I mean I think you're all just biased because you like these characters and you grew up on them, and you probably thinking of them at their best.
The ideas are often just terrible. Oh let's have everyone have sex. Justice?
Betelgeuse_PT@reddit
That second episode where everyone gets drunk was the lowest of the lowest.
htownAstrofan@reddit
Nah, at best it has 10 good episodes. Thats less than half of the season. Granted there are classic episodes in that season to rewatch but yes it is that bad overall.
roadtrip-ne@reddit
It’s not great. But it’s watchable. Tons of potential I’m glad they gave it space to grow
Complete-Shallot5775@reddit
Love season 1. All the rougher elements I find charming.
TwoRight9509@reddit
The first one is trash and my son hated it and thought I was nuts.
IlIIllIIIlllIlIlI@reddit
I think its fine on its own, but the comparison is what makes it feel much more less than
dinosaurkiller@reddit
I refuse to rewatch many of the season one episodes because they are that bad. There are also good episodes that help define the show and its characters but Code of Honor isn’t a one-off, nearly half of season one is terrible, the other half is okay.
GoldfishMotorcycle@reddit
I fly the flag for season one. I think it's aged beautifully.
Some wonderfully weird episodes in there, with a style and tone that I wouldn't want seven seasons of – but I'm really glad we got one. Campy, 80s, b-movie sci-fi type stuff. Compared to the comfortable sophisticated confidence they found from around season 3 onwards, season 1 is almost a different show. But I love it.
Champ_5@reddit
It's not.
Obviously yes, Code of Honor and all that.... no doubt terrible there.
But if you watched S1 without having seen any other TNG, I don't think many people would think its terrible or even bad. Certainly not great, but not terrible.
Its just that it becomes worse by comparison when looking at how great the middle seasons were.
StarfleetStarbuck@reddit
Yes it is.
CanadianAndroid@reddit (OP)