ONGEG Video: Encounter At Farpoint 1

[Sonnenburg]

We kick off Opinionated Next Gen Episode Guide and the Q arc (which ties into Voyager and is the reason I'm doing this) with where it all began, and it did not begin well. EaF is an awful story with a lot of the characters acting like insufferable dolts - no wonder John de Lancie stood out for his performance of Q. So enjoy, but I do admit, this review could use a little more cowbell.

Video

[Lord Revan]

well I dout anyone here is Zealous enough to not admit that there was some really shitty TNG episodes and as always great work

[Stile]

Speaking as a former Drunken Sailor (formerly drunk [as of last night] and formerly a Sailor, although I like to think of myself as a Veteran Sailor, but that goes without saying) I say Bravo!

[DarthShady]

Another great review. I'm glad you decided to do this.

And yes it could definitely use a little more cowbell.

[Captain Seafort]

Great stuff. Are you going to go through the entire series, as with OVEG and OEEG, or just the Q episodes?

[Marcus Aurelius]

I remember when I first watched the TNG 1 season. Even then I wondered what happened to interesting characters. William Shatner overacted for sure, but these characters all just stood there looking bland. Most of the scripts were mediocre or outright poor. In fact I still think that on average TNG had much worse script writing than TOS. The characters got better in time, but it took a couple of seasons. For a supposedly classic series the first two seasons of TNG were remarkably luckluster.

[Thanatos]

Minor correction I am obligated to make: That's a Marine uniform (Service Alphas) he changes into after the explorer.

Although bizarrely, he's wearing all 3 Rifle Marksmanship badges. I hope someone in the costume department got fired for that one!

[NomAnor15]

"...and my ability to rant like a longshoreman with Tourette's syndrome..."

These reviews make my day man.

[Erik von Nein]

Oh, lord. I had forgotten how bizarre that whole court scene was. Jesus, what were they injecting?

[Cyborg Stan]

I find the 99 Red Balloons song amusing because the german version mentions Captain Kirk.

[Patrick Degan]

When I first watched it back in 1987, "Encounter At Farpoint" struck me as a terribly cluttered story, a good chunk of which was wasted with character/concept introductions, and utterly lacking in the sheer plot economy of either of the TOS pilots which simply rolled right into the main story (in both) with ease. Gene Roddenberry began his attempt to reinvent the wheel with this episode and the clumsy shopwork of it all just shows more and more with each passing year. The characters are indeed lackluster, redundant, and stilted. Yar's "impassioned" defence of the Federation in the courtroom before Q froze her (mercifully for us) makes my teeth itch every time I have to sit through it. Data was utterly unbelievable —we'd seen intelligent android characters in SF for years and Roddenberry's recycled-Questor was a throwback almost to the robot in Lost In Space. Did the Great Bird really think he was breaking new ground with a battery-powered plastic Pinnochio which served only to bury Brent Spiner's natural comedic talents? I didn't buy Data as a character at all in that pilot. Nor Yar. Nor Troi (off of whom I got a creepy "political officer" vibe in those early episodes) or the "suppressed-yet-smouldering-romance" between her and Riker which was just a Star Trek: Phase II recycling job (the suppressed Decker/Ilia romance from that series proposal). Especially not Gary Stu-er-Wesley Crusher. I hated Wesley almost from the jump, along with the entire idea of kids and families on the ship. Picard irritated me as well; not only with his bombastic pontifications but in later scenes when he'd stupidly keep shouting orders on the bridge which Q was blocking from being heard.

So much was fucked up with that pilot. The plot itself was standard cookbook Star Trek but Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana managed to reduce even that to McGuffey's Primer level SF. It insulted my intelligence because it wasn't even up to the level I was at when I started reading SF in grade school.

EaFP could have been salvaged if four utterly redundant caricatures had been dropped along with the whole introductory nonsense which cluttered up half the script as well as the on-board families plot element, which was utter bullshit. A decent trailer, roll up into the trap for the characters, roll into the action, solve the mystery and have the captain having to make a decision. One hour would have done for this and with that sort of discipline we might have gotten a far better first season as a result. This pilot though shows the uncooked mush in the pan that Roddenberry and Paramount fobbed off on us as a complete dinner, which had to be sent back and even reheated a couple of times before it became something palatable.

[CaptainChewbacca]

LOL! "And some curly-haired guy who probably won't even matter.'

I'd forgotten the Chief was there from day 1 of TNG. Awesome.

[Patrick Degan]

Well guess what? I've got a FEEVER. And the only prescription, IS MORE COWBELL!

BONG BONG BONGGGGG

BWAHAHA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Something else Wil Wheaton's reviews don't have.

I think TNG episodes should be rated on the cowbell scale from this point onward.

[DaveJB]

It always struck me how weirdly dark and oppressive the show's cinematography was in the first two years. In particular, the bits in Zorn's office and the battle bridge look like something out of a horror movie.

Encounter at Farpoint is pretty horribly padded, since Paramount decided that they wanted a 90 minute episode rather than a 45 minute one - in fact, originally there was no Q, and he was added to fill out the first part. I'm kind of divided on how they ended up doing the episode, since one just about Farpoint would have been boring and quite pointless, and the Q stuff is kinda interesting... still, not really a great episode at all.

[Superman]

I'd forgotten the Chief was there from day 1 of TNG. Awesome.

Except he didn't have the rank of Chief (which is an enlisted rank) at this time. He was a commissioned officer with the rank of lieutenant until at least the third season. Pretty harsh, especially when he mentioned having to call Enisgn Nog "sir" in that ep of DS9.

I don't know what he did, but that's a hell of demotion.

[Captain Seafort]

Except he didn't have the rank of Chief (which is an enlisted rank) at this time. He was a commissioned officer with the rank of lieutenant until at least the third season. Pretty harsh, especially when he mentioned having to call Enisgn Nog "sir" in that ep of DS9.

I don't know what he did, but that's a hell of demotion.

O'Brien was made an NCO in "Realm of Fear" (series 6), to make Barclay outranking him a plot point. They then ran with that to the extent that it was repeatedly inferred (and may have been stated outright) that he'd always been an NCO.

[Superman]

They then ran with that to the extent that it was repeatedly inferred (and may have been stated outright) that he'd always been an NCO.

Yeah, I know. Still pretty lame, especially since Riker actually referred to him as a lieutenant in the TNG episode "Where Silence Has Lease."

[Mr Bean]

Good old O'Brien,
Speaking of which, was there ANY other major character who was an NCO or even an enlisted? Wesley was an ensign and every other bloody bastard is sword in as an officer of some kind. A shipmate of mine back in my Navy days used to joke that the reason O'Brien was always annoyed was because he was the only enlisted man in Starfleet.

[Superman]

Good old O'Brien,
Speaking of which, was there ANY other major character who was an NCO or even an enlisted? Wesley was an ensign and every other bloody bastard is sword in as an officer of some kind. A shipmate of mine back in my Navy days used to joke that the reason O'Brien was always annoyed was because he was the only enlisted man in Starfleet.

Nope. As far as anyone knows, he is the only enlisted man in Starfleet... which means that everyone else outranks him. I think the fish in Picard's ready room technically holds the rank of Cadet, which means O'Brien is beneath him too.

[Captain Seafort]

No major characters that I can recall, although there were a few recurring ones - the Defiant's engineering staff were other ranks, Tarses was referred to as "crewman" in "The Drumhead", and Worf's adoptive father was a CPO (and identified O'Brien as such, despite the latter wearing a full Lt's pips at the time).

[Lord Revan]

and IIRC all macos (yes I know it's Earth startfleet but ST nontheless (even if we'd like to forget it happened)) apart from the commanding officer were enlisted also.

[Bounty]

DS9 was crawling with enlisted personnel, and TNG had a few of them as Roddenberry's influence wore off. He wanted an all-officer Starfleet in TNG for some reason, and that's pretty visible in the early seasons before NCO's and crewmen were written back in.

[Swindle1984]

As the only consistently competent member of Starfleet, O'Brien probably got demoted for making everyone else look bad in comparison.

[Bounty]

You seriously think that's still funny?

[tim31]

Dear Mr Sonnenburg,

I know you're a busy man, what with two other series to tear apart and all, but if you were going to indulge in just a few Next Generation episodes to mock for our amusement, these would be my picks:

Code of Honor(goes without saying)
The Last Outpost
The Battle
Devil's Due
Starship Mine
Force of Nature
Sub Rosa
Genesis

We're all really thankful for the work you've done so far, and look forward to many more video reviews to come.

Sincerely, and on behalf of other viewers,

Timothy Watters