Before I begin this review, I have been - let's say warned - to not watch this show until Season 3. I obviously didn't listen, not because I didn't believe the warnings, but because I am a person who likes to watch things from the beginning. However, I didn't completely ignore the advice - my viewing schedule of the first two seasons is somewhat sporadic and I skip many episodes.
For instance, for this season, I picked out only the episodes that weren't terrible. My standard for watching an episode was not high and yet I ended up skipping about eight episodes. You're probably wondering how exactly I decided what was and what was not terrible without watching them. It's actually pretty easy to find people's opinion's on episodes online. That combined with looking at their IMDB scores gave me a pretty clear picture of what to avoid, such as "Angel One."
You may ask why I'm writing a review with such an incomplete viewing schedule and I'd answer there's very little chance my opinion on this season will change. I watched the best of the best and while I won't quibble with a few of these episodes I skipped possibly being worth watching, they most likely weren't good enough to drastically make this season seem better. The results were not pretty. And these were the best the series had to offer. If anything, watching more episodes could only make my reaction worse so I'm doing the season a favor.
I won't share every episode I watched, but "Conspiracy" is pretty much the only great episode. Not all of them were bad episodes, but all of them had a significant problem holding the show back. For instance, "Encounter at Fairpoint" is way too long and boring to justify its length. I'm being a little unfair as I also really enjoyed "The Big Goodbye" and "11001001." "Datalore" and "Home Soil" do an effective job at creating backstories of Data and Worf, the former much better, while also introducing me to a recurring villain (I'm guessing by the way). "We'll Always Have Paris" is also a good episode, almost solely due to the acting ability of Patrick Stewart with a weak romantic backstory and a bland female weighing the story down.
Those episodes aside, this season has a lot of episodes as mediocre or worse. It actually reminds me quite a bit of the original Star Trek. Somehow, the original has aged better than the first season of Next Generation. I don't know how that is possible, but it holds true for me. And trust me, that's not a compliment to the original series, which I find has aged as bad as any show I've ever seen.
So why exactly should you watch the first season of Next Generation? Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner are the reasons. These two men carry the show with a helpful assist from Gates McFadden as Dr. Crusher. Stewart lends a dignity to the show's proceeding it so clearly has not earned yet. Spiner is so good it confuses me that I've never seen him in anything else.
The rest of the cast is either expositional dialogue or downright awful. Denise Crosby is quite awful as Tasha Yar, though she got better as the season went along and I could see a scenario where she became a decent character. That said, I'm not sorry she exited the show. Marina Sirtis is not necessarily the problem, but her character is so poorly written she doesn't stand a chance. And I probably skipped the worst Wesley episodes, but Wil Wheaton is not a great actor. (I don't hate him, but I can easily see how people did.)
Basically, The Star Trek: Next Generation has a first season that leaves no indication it will find future greatness. The only potential greatness is Patrick Stewart. I've read that Gene Rodenberry had a large creative voice in the first two seasons and is partially, if not totally, to blame. I'm not sure if that's true, but it would make sense. The Next Generation aired 20 years after the original Star Trek, but the show regressed rather than improved upon. I'm certainly intrigued to see how exactly the show turns that around.
Grade: C-
Playlist
1. "Retro [ROUGH]" - Childish Gambino
2. "Jazz (We've Got)" - Tribe Called Quest
3. "Never Catch Me" - Flying Lotus feat. Kendrick Lamar
4. "Rebirth of Slick (Cool like Dat)" - Digitable Planets
5. "Summersong" - The Decemberists
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