Kirk was dynamic and an intelligent man of action, with great supporting officers and crew.
The show had charisma, alien life and beautiful women.
TNG was touchy-feely, PC and gay. And that annoying teen fucker Wesley????
That's a bit of a write-off, isn't it?
shareTOS may be fine to you Baby Boomers, but TNG was made for the next generation of Star Trek fans.
Well, here's one Baby Boomer who loved TNG. It built on the best parts of TOS & then added new dimensions to it.
shareNo offence meant, Owlwise, but I assumed the OP was a Baby Boomer, I was referring to them.
No offence taken, Foebane. :)
While I have a special place in my heart for the favorites of my youth—who doesn't?—I'm also very happy to see new classics come along in the subsequent decades. How dreary it would be if they didn't!
I'm a millennial and I prefer TOS by far.
shareAlso a boomer (I'm 62) who spent many pre-cable TV days and years watching TOS on channel 11 NY.
Despite that, I really like Next Gen, although there are some crappy episodes that must be expected and accepted. I'll watch either when it's on TV and if they are both on at the same time, I'll pick which one to watch based on the actual episode being aired.
Like others, I also have a problem with some of the PC crap on TNG.
And there's no way Kirk would have thrown the entire Federation under the garbage scow like Picard did in The Pegasus. In my opinion, Picard should have been brought up on charges of sedition.
"Shut up Wesley"- Captain Picard
shareSTFU, Boomer!
shareTOS could get really, really weird, and that's one of the things I loved about it! Brilliant sci-fi one week, slam-bam action the next, then serious drama, eccentric comedy, high camp, low camp, sheer godawful stupidity, unintentional comedy, etc.
TNG was just serious sci-fi, every week, always moderately good. Never achieved either the heights or the depths of TOS.
The problem with TNG is that it started off so shaky. The Q-story that Roddenberry forced into the pilot (in order to make it a double episode) was horrible and the second episode's lousy remake of TOS' "The Naked Time" didn't help matters. Thankfully, episodes like "Where No One Has Gone Before," "Datalore," "11001001," "Heart of Glory" and "Conspiracy" proved that TNG could rise to the level of its progenitor. Episodes in the second season like "A Matter of Honor," "The Royale," "The Emissary" and, especially, "Q Who" sealed the deal and TNG went on to great success.
Despite the several bad segments in the first two seasons, I honestly think TNG is just as good as TOS.
Interestingly, TOS had the opposite problem: It came out of the gate firing on all cylinders, but went out shaky with its dubious third season.
I suppose you could say that Q never really fit into the show as a whole, which was supposed to be hard sci-fi with no fantasy elements.
But since John Delancie was so fantastically good, I forgave that, and always looked forward to his appearances.
You no doubt know this, but the character of Q was based on Trelene from the TOS episode, "The Squire of Gothos." I don't have a problem with Q's sense of humor or playfulness since why should we assume that all superior beings would be solemn? It seems reasonable that if beings were omnipotent in a fudged-up Universe, they'd have some fun with weaker denizens, such as humans.
But Q didn't belong in the debut episode of TNG since the purpose of a pilot is to establish the characters and tell an interesting story. D.C. Fontana's script for "Encounter at Farpoint" did this, but the studio pressured Roddenberry to make it a double episode, so he forced the Q story into it, which didn't fit Fontana's screenplay and was a premature introduction for Q.
By contrast, Trelene's introduction on TOS (his only episode) wasn’t until the second half of the 1st Season when the serious tone of the series was well established. Plus Trelane was presented in a believable manner despite his goofy antics. It's called good writing. In "Encounter at Farpoint," however, it's not 8 minutes into the story — the premiere episode of the series — and this goofball character suddenly appears on the Bridge and proceeds to instantaneously kidnap the Bridge crew, taking them to some bizarre trial in the midst of a bunch of uncouth barbarians. This entire sequence takes place in the first half hour of the pilot and it just mars the seriousness and credible-ness of the rest of the episode and wasn't a good sign for the series.
Q's next appearance on TNG was in "Hide and Q," which sucked, not because of Q or John de Lancie, but because the screenplay & execution were lousy (it's very similar to TOS' second pilot -- "Where No Man Has Gone Before" -- just lacking the excellence).
Of course Q went on to become a quality side character in TNG and he was key to some great stories or, at least, very entertaining ones, like "Q Who?," "Deja Q," "Tapestry" and "All Good Things..."
The third season suffered from budget cuts mandated by the suits, and from having a producer who didn't really "get" the show.
share