30th Anniversary TNG Episode Discussion Marathon

[Nate the Great]

Actually, let's take a sidestep to the casting memo reproduced on this page.

I'll only comment on the actors I'm familiar with.

Mitch Ryan was considered for Picard, and played Kyle Riker later. He's a bit too rough around the edges for the kind of captain Picard was supposed to be. Certainly a fellow captain as a recurring character, and I would've liked to have seen him as Kyle at least once more, perhaps in the aftermath of "The Best of Both Worlds." And married to Pulaski just to mess with Will's mind, of course!

Rosalind Chao as Tasha just seems ludicrous (even if John Ferraro seemed to like her). Maybe she could've played Troi.

Eric Menyuk eventually played The Traveller. I could see him play a different sort of Data, perhaps one built by an alien and having a more generic "become more humanoid" goal rather than strictly human.

Kevin Peter Hall eventually starred as Leyor (one of the bidders for the Bazan wormhole) in "The Price". I don't really remember how he did.

Seeing Tim Russ and Wesley Snipes on Geordi's list is just surreal.

Seeing McFadden using her real first name of Cheryl is a bit unsettling. I'm glad that her schedule evidently cleared up so she could take the role.

[Nate the Great]

TNG Companion, "Encounter at Farpoint"

The first pilot outline was a more primitive version of the "exploited alien" subplot. A second starship and a battle are involved. As has been mentioned elsewhere, the Q stuff was only added to pad out the episode past an hour.

Robert Justman said that the editing had to be made a bit less tight to fill the time available. I'm reminded of when SF Debris complained that Voyager filled leftover time with technobabble and DS9 filled it with character work. Apparently early TNG was filled with special effects like STTMP, and we all know how well that turned out.

DeForest Kelley insisted on being paid scale for his cameo.

O'Brien is mentioned with the rank of Lieutentant, but this version of the Companion only goes up to the fifth season, so perhaps his rank was still in flux. I don't have the time to go to his Memory Alpha page for something this trivial right now.

Tasha's one-time use of the skant and Troi's appearance in the miniskirt uniform are mentioned.

[Nate the Great]

TNG Companion, "The Naked Now"

This episode sparked the first of many waves of early criticism from fans who felt that too many TNG plots were being lifted from original-series stories. In this case, however, that was exactly what Gene Roddenberry wanted: a story, like "The Naked Time" of 1966, in which the wants and needs of new characters could be quickly revealed to a waiting audience.

There's a way to achieve that goal without blatantly copying "The Naked Time", Gene. Rick Berman tries to claim that it's a homage, not a copy. Nice try, Rick.

"Code of Honor"

Tracy Torme, an eventual writing staffer, later said he was embarrassed by the shows "1940s tribal Africa" view of blacks and by the fight's uncanny resemblance to the win-or-die battle between Kirk and Spock in "Amok Time".

"Uncanny resemblance"? If you say so, Tracy...

"Haven"

The Companion claims that this is the only time Troi uses "Bill." We've already covered the second time. "Imzadi" won't be used again until "Shades of Gray", a surprise to me.

"Where No One Has Gone Before"

In the original teleplay, Kosinski was responsible for both the warp effects and the accident; he also had a son who felt he spent more time on his career than with him. The crew was in awe of Kosinski in the original script, and the hallucinations were even more bizarre, including the image of Jack Crusher appearing to both Picard and Beverly.

I don't know where you could've fit Kosinki's son into the story, although it would've done a good job of fleshing him out. I wonder what a Jack Crusher hallucination would talk to Picard and Beverly about: giving Beverly permission to date again and telling Picard to stop feeling guilty?

"The Last Outpost"

According to Zimmerman, the Ferengi's poor eyesight accounts for their beady eyes and brightly lit ship's interiors; their huge ears help to compensate by providing them with better hearing.

So that's why the lights were so glaring. I always thought it was to save on the cost of building a Ferengi bridge set!

"Lonely Among Us"

The diplomatic conference was added by Fontana, as in her 1967 original-series script, "Journey to Babel."

If that was Fontana's intent, she didn't do very well. As I mentioned in my original coverage of the episode, exactly what the crew was supposed to be doing was unclear, and having cannibal ambassadors sort of killed the mood.

Apparently O'Brien was in Security this time around. I'm reminded of Leslie back in TOS.

"Justice"

In an earlier draft (before Roddenberry sexed up the locals) there was a rebellion in progress, complete with an execution of the rebel leader. I question how this could've worked if there was a god hovering above the ready to stop any such violence.

"The Battle"

The Ferengi do better in their second appearance, but the "silliness quotient", as Rick Berman put it, made them a "disappointment as a major adversary."

Yeah, and who's fault is that?

No mention has ever been made of the nine years in Picard's life between the Stargazer abandonment and his taking command of the Enterprise, although several incidents are mentioned as having occurred in that era: in "The Measure of a Man" and "The Wounded", including Jack Crusher's death "Family."

"The Measure of a Man" refers to the Stargazer inquiry, but that couldn't have taken that entire time. "The Wounded" and "Family" refer to events during Picard's Stargazer era, not after it (Jack died in 2353, the Battle of Maxia was in 2355).

Memory Alpha makes clear the fact that we know nothing about the nine year gap after the inquiry ended, except for the following:

* He must've been in command of a ship when he met Tasha as referenced in "Legacy". Tasha was saving colonists from a minefield and impressed Picard.
* The novel "The Buried Age" says that he took a sabbatical after the inquiry to pursue archaeology for awhile.

Apparently this episode has the first appearance of the shirt-tugging variant of the Picard Manuver.

[Nate the Great]

TNG Companion, "Hide and Q"

Picard's Shakespeare is apparently open to "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Act III, Scene 2. This is a scene with Oberon and Puck, where Puck explains that he made Titania fall in love with Bottom, followed by the discovery that Puck used the love potion on the wrong couples from Athens, followed by Oberon telling Puck to sort everything out. It's a rather long scene. I suppose the intent is to compare Q with Puck, along with making it clear that even Q has a higher power that he answers to.

"Too Short a Season"

The director admits that there was a bit too much talking in this one.

The first appearance of a Starfleet admiral.

"The Big Goodbye"

TV Guide complained that this episode is too similar to "A Piece of the Action", but Tracy Torme and the fans (and me) disagree. I've seen many different kinds of stories set in the gangster era, there are many directions to take it.

"Datalore"

Before this episode the staff was still working with the original premise that Data was built by aliens.

This is the last of three episodes where Argyle is Chief Engineer. I remembered "Where No One Has Gone Before", but had forgotten about "Lonely Among Us."

"Angel One"

Larry Nemeck says that the only noteworthy scene is the one where Troi and Yar laugh at Riker's native garb. I could dispute that, but I don't want to search for a second example right now.

[Nate the Great]

TNG Companion, "11001001"

Larry likes that this episode showed what Frakes could do, pointing out trombone-playing and doing romance. He also notes that the autodestruct sequence is much more formally worded than in the TOS era.

"Home Soil"

Larry considers this episode to be a pale imitation of "Devil in the Dark", but I must disagree. Certainly it doesn't reach the heights of the TOS episode, but that doesn't automatically make it garbage. Larry does like the "ugly bags of mostly water" bit, though.

I've written out entries for the rest of the season into a separate document to be copied into the regular posts going forward.