Star Trek: TNG - Season One... ENGAGE!

Ranked at no. 4 in my Top Ten Science Fiction Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation seemed to be the logical successor of the original Star Trek series. After all it had the same ship, with the same mission (albeit now an ongoing instead of 5 year mission and boldly searching out new horizons etc and go where no-one (not no man) had gone before. It’s fair to say that I didn’t really get into the series until season 2, and that while season 1 does have quite a few things going for it, it really doesn’t match up to some of the later ones. (Though by the time Worf was having an affair with Troi I did think it was getting rather too silly!)

It’s set nearly a century after James T. Kirk and gang’s mission finished, with naturally enough a completely new ship, captain and crew. The style of the series was vastly different from the original series, but in this first season it was too conscious of its forebear, resulting in some contrived references to the earlier Enterprise crew and even to the plotlines of the original series. (Probably the worst example of this is the ludicrous second episode, which mimics an earlier plot fairly closely.) Even the theme music (which I do like, btw, though it's not as good as the intro music in Star Trek Voyager) is a slightly revamped version of the theme music to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In fact some of the episodes would have completely crashed and burned if it hadn’t been for the dry humour in the dialogue and the very competent cast.

However in relation to the cast, some actors did take a while to really settle into their roles, and some of the character development early on was pretty awful. The worst example of this is Lieutenant Worf (played by Michael Dorn)– a Klingon officer (thing pointy forehead if you’ve never seen a Klingon before!), who exhibits some of the war-like traits of his race but ends up being daft more often than not in this first season. Both Dorn and the writing are at fault here. Some of the cast slip right into their roles – Patrick Stewart as Captain Jea-Luc Picard, Jonathon Frakes as First Officer William Riker, and Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data (an android) seem comfortable with their roles from the beginning. Others not so much… I always found Counsellor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) rather annoying, and never really found her performances to be that great. Watching her awkward attempts to retain some modesty with an improbably short mini-dress for a uniform in the first episode though elicits some sympathy for the poor woman. (This was soon replaced with a ghastly grey bodysuit that became her usual clothing for the show.) It’s odd that this was in place despite the show’s eagerness to prove its political correctness, including male officers in (what appeared to be) mini-dress uniforms too – thankfully this daft idea was soon discarded – and the introduction of female and Asian Chief Engineers. Mind you the only Indian I ever remember seeing in the show got killed in that episode, which doesn’t seem very PC!!!

Other key cast members include LeVar Burton (Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge) who is blind but thanks to the wonders of 24th century technology is able to see through a visor, Dr Beverley Crusher (Gates McFaddon), and her endlessly irritating son Wesley (Wil Wheaton) - who despite being annoying does have some good features (I'll admit that grudgingly!!).

Troi’s half-Betazoid character (who was an empath – she could sense people’s emotions and had some telepathic abilities) was one half of the equation to make up for the fact that there was no Mr Spock – Data, the android who had no capacity for emotion (though this changed in a later series) being the other half. Really this was another example of how tied the writers felt to the original series – not until about half-way through the first season did the show start to develop a character of its own, and by the start of the second series seemed determined to prove that it had completely broken free of the shackles of Kirk & co. Characters like Lieutenant Tasha Yar had interesting back stories which were developed over time, while Data and some others were characters that really developed throughout the season and indeed the series.

Some of the storylines here are pretty weak though there are some good ones – the feature-length season opener “Encounter At Farpoint” had a pretty strong storyline considering the need to introduce so many characters. A few others in this season were very good – possibly the best being “Where No One Has Gone Before”, with the warp engines being enhanced to the point of sending the Enterprise not only to galaxies previously unvisited, but into a place where their minds are empowered in a very literal sense. This is one of the more thoughtful and less… obvious storylines. Many of the others are unfortunately not up to the same standard. “Angel One”, which has a female-dominated society and a plot that makes no sense, is probably the worst. The others generally range from okay to quite good.

Much of the most enjoyable aspects of this season stem from the interplay between the characters, with some quite amusing scenes thrown into most episodes. It’s not the best season TNG had but it’s not terrible, and is pretty much essential viewing for fans of the series. There are some special features on the last of the 7 DVDs in the set, by far the most interesting of which is a “making of” featurette that gives some of the secrets of the special FX and wardrobe department. The thing I found surprising is just how many of the effects are not CGI. The origin of the idea for Geordi’s visor design is also quite amusing.

Of course the Enterprise couldn’t count on the old rabble of enemies such as the Klingons (sort of friends now), the Romulans and the like. So there are a number of new races brought into the equation here. We have the Ferengi, who I’ve always thought are quite fun because they’re so absurdly horrible but they turn out to be useful at times anyway – they make their first appearance here in “The Last Outpost” (episode 4) – resembling mischievous children more than anything, but they do develop – and the Q (in the form of the excellent John de Lancie) – an incredibly powerful and conceited race, who pop up in the first episode and again in “Hide and Q” – which also features the most appalling dialogue in the season (again given to the hapless Michael Dorn – Worf always seems to get the worst lines…) There are a few others but these are the two the spring to mind most readily. The greatest enemy in TNG – The Borg – are only hinted at in the last episode of the first season, but don’t appear until the second.

Well that about sums it up – far from the best TNG season but still worth watching (with tongue firmly in check much of the time!)

The set comes in a grey / silver case with the Starfleet logo on, which is relatively stylish and very distinctive. You can get it for around £20 or $50 these days. Worth it if you’re a fan, but season 2 is much, much better.

Movies

The Star Trek Next Generation crew have appeared in the following Star Trek Movies:

Generations – decent start but terrible second half

First Contact - awful lines for Worf again but this film is a lot of fun!

Insurrection - personally my favourite of all the Star Trek films

Nemesis - ugh, what a disaster this film was!!