TNG without the annoying bits

[Baffalo]

This comes from the OVEG threads, and I have to wonder what TNG would look like if we cut out some of the bits that just don't work or should've come into being later, after the show had its feet under it.

An example would be Counselor Troi. I don't mind the concept of counsel for Captain Picard, either in the form of sage wisdom or emotional support, but in the beginning we had two characters who accomplished the same role, and not at all equally. One was Guinan, the other Troi. Guinan offered up strong, sage advice useful in situations where Picard needed a voice of reason and clarity, as well as a bit of mysticism. Guinan always knew what to say, what to get someone to drink to bring things into perspective, how to just listen and yet on occasion just give someone a stern motherly look. With Troi, you never really get that. She's more a love interest for Riker, and Picard just puts up with her because of it. You never get the feeling, early on, that Troi serves any real use.

When it comes to the golden child, I'll say this. The character of Wesley Crusher isn't annoying so much as it is the ham-fisted approach of trying to squeeze him into the show as a brilliant character. Take for example his creation of a device that conveniently provides a substitute for dilithium crystals right when the ship needs them, or the nanites that take control of the ship but achieve benevolent sentience. Wesley Crusher is an insult to anyone who has ever had to spend four years in a higher education environment trying to learn their craft, such as me. You're saying it's easy for advanced engineering principles, principles we don't even have today, to be picked up by a kid not even out of high school? And not just one advanced degree, but two or even more. No, Wesley annoys me because if engineering were easy, I wouldn't need to spend four years of my life trying to master enough of it to get a career.

Worf. Worf doesn't work early on because while he does represent the new model Klingon, he also shows the short-sightedness that will come to dominate every single Klingon character. Klingons in TOS were cunning, dangerous, sometimes a bit cowardly but not too terribly so. They didn't have good make-up but they made up for it by being an enemy that Kirk couldn't simply punch back into the void. TNG bastardizes the concept of honor by declaring that Worf is bound by honor to be a warrior, and that failure to act with honor was pointless and stupid. Honor doesn't mean courage alone, it also means having character and the integrity to stand by what you say and do. The honor the show tries to shovel off on us is merely an excuse to make Worf appear like he's a 'warrior'. If you look at Star Trek VI, the best Klingons were the dinner party Klingons. When they beamed aboard, they gave off an aura of 'We are warriorrs, we are dangerous and deadly', but they never openly threatened the crew of the Enterprise. They read Shakespeare and enjoyed the arts, like a samurai. They were warriors, but it wasn't a one-dimensional affair.

I know this might come off as a rant, and that most of this will come off as being a, "Well, this is all season one and two stuff" thing, but some of it has a lasting effect. The Klingon thing especially. Sure, there are plenty of episodes where the Klingons change as characters, but they're still treated as being just a step or two above barbarians who want to bash people's heads in. Really, what I want to know is if we had the power to go back and change TNG, how would things be different? Would we keep the Wonder Kid bullshit and the fuzzy leather armor for the Klingons? Or would the show be rebuilt to add depth, cut the parts that annoy us, and make it stand out?

[Darth Tedious]

On the point of Troi- I must say that while her character could have been much better, she did very often serve an important role with her empathic abilities when new species were met/negotiations were being made/quasiomnipotent beings were encountered. I would go so far as to say that she was probably more valuable to the crew in that capacity than she ever was in hep official role as Ship's Counsellor.

WRT your main question, I'd say the show could have been better if not just the Klingons, but the Ferengi (and possibly also the Romulans) had been better handled. When the Ferengi were introduced, they seemed like an interesting new (possible) enemy, but eventually degenerated into somewhat of a joke.

And the Boy Wonder stuff definitely should have been very toned down, if not completely removed.

If I could change just one thing in the whole of TNG, I'd have some follow-up episodes to 'Conspiracy'. I was always disappointed we never heard back from those rather nasty alien bugs.

[Stofsk]

There are plenty of things I'd like to change about TNG, but Worf and the Klingons are not one of them. The episodes dealing with Worf's family feud with Duras and his discommendation and subsequent redemption are among TNG's finest.

PS The Klingons in TNG were also sneaky, cunning and not above engaging in skulduggery (unless the contention is that the Duras family were some kind of spectacular anomaly). Worf harping on about 'honour' makes sense if you consider him the outsider looking in, the person who grew up in an alien world, never knowing his place or where he stood among humans. So the stories he hears about Klingons paints a picture in his head, an idealised or romanticised picture if you will. Then what happens? He visits the Klingon Homeworld for the first time and discovers it is corrupt. How that arc ends was fantastic - at the end of 'Redemption' he has a chance to slay the final heir of his mortal enemy, but relents, as his personal honour is quite far removed from the Klingon way. 'Kill him, it is our way!' 'Perhaps, but it is not mine.' And then he turns his back on the Klingons and joins Picard.

And despite what many here think, I happen to like the depiction of the Klingons in TNG. The problem with TOS Klingons, is that they were very obviously Soviets in space. The Klingons in TNG (and the movies as well) really broke away from that model and made their identity unique. I appreciated that, and if there were some missteps along the way that could be debated, on the whole I think the writers (like Ron Moore) were overall successful in what they were doing.

[Alyeska]

People blend together the TNG and DS9 Klingons. While similar, they are not the same. Some early time in TNG we see some interesting dialog between Riker and some other Klingons. They are quite inteligent in their own right, they just prefer a different form of culture. Later TNG continued to show most Klingons along this same line. Only a few were blithering blowhards. But you can get incompetent people in any military. Is Janway a fair representation of Starfleet Captains? I certainly hope not.

DS9 started going more into the Space Vikings territory.

[Skylon]

When it comes to the golden child, I'll say this. The character of Wesley Crusher isn't annoying so much as it is the ham-fisted approach of trying to squeeze him into the show as a brilliant character. Take for example his creation of a device that conveniently provides a substitute for dilithium crystals right when the ship needs them, or the nanites that take control of the ship but achieve benevolent sentience. Wesley Crusher is an insult to anyone who has ever had to spend four years in a higher education environment trying to learn their craft, such as me. You're saying it's easy for advanced engineering principles, principles we don't even have today, to be picked up by a kid not even out of high school? And not just one advanced degree, but two or even more. No, Wesley annoys me because if engineering were easy, I wouldn't need to spend four years of my life trying to master enough of it to get a career.

Wesley isn't inherently a bad concept. He'd have been better as a recurring character like Guinan. He's Crusher's son, Picard could still be a surrogate father to him (thereby softening up Picard's "I hate children" attitude), and he could even be a boy prodigy. But it went too damn far.

Worf. Worf doesn't work early on because while he does represent the new model Klingon,

Early on also, Worf had frankly nothing to do in most of season 1 ("Heart of Glory" aside). He serves literally no function beyond being the token Klingon. You could have filled him with any generic guy. I'd read that the concept of Worf originated as an idea to have a Klingon "Mr. Leslie" on the Ent-D bridge, to show how things changed between TOS and TNG, before evolving into a full blown part for the series. He finally gained a function when Yar died, and season 2 started to flesh him out.

[Patrick Degan]

Wesley isn't inherently a bad concept. He'd have been better as a recurring character like Guinan. He's Crusher's son, Picard could still be a surrogate father to him (thereby softening up Picard's "I hate children" attitude), and he could even be a boy prodigy. But it went too damn far.

Wesley Crusher would have had a lot more credibility in the series if he had already been introduced as a serving midshipman cadet undergoing the field-training phase of his Starfleet education aboard the Enterprise. Replace the civilians (or most of them anyway) with a corps of mids also undergoing field-training and the character has an actual function from the jump; presented to the audience as the next generation to follow this next generation. Wesley would have been a Picard- (or Riker-)in-training. They sort of came to that in a very half-assed manner and of course had to make him the Golden Child. Plus he has his mommy on board and that doesn't help sell the character at all.

[Stofsk]

I don't object to civilians onboard the Enterprise on principle, however I think if there was place for family it would be on a starbase. DS9 did this extremely well with Jake Sisko, underused as he was, nevertheless did portray civilian life in a pretty decent way.

You could have civilians on the Enterprise who were mission specialists, scientists and the like. But under no circumstances should anyone, ever, have gone 'lol let's have children onboard'. Wesley was the oldest kid and you could finagle a way to have him onboard by adopting Patrick's idea of midshipmen. But there were several kids who were very young, too young really.

Now if the Enterprise was engaged in long-term patrol and was a long distance away from the nearest base, and Ensign Ricky and Ensign Jenny had sex and 9 months into the mission a baby popped out, well that's something else - assuming there's a compelling reason for the Enterprise to be exploring, Picard may deem it not a priority to return back to a starbase upon news of the pregnancy. You could then have children onboard organically and even make it a plot point by pointing out how the Enterprise is not an ideal place to raise a child. They sorta did this with Voyager, and I think that was Voyager's way of criticising TNG.

[tim31]

And despite what many here think, I happen to like the depiction of the Klingons in TNG. The problem with TOS Klingons, is that they were very obviously Soviets in space. The Klingons in TNG (and the movies as well) really broke away from that model and made their identity unique.

Did you miss the angle in Undiscovered Country or something Not incidentally, the allegories of TUC were what made it my favourite film, not to mention the fact that it had been established in TNG that the Klingon Empire and the Federation were on peaceful terms and someone actually gave enough of a fuck to write a screenplay that bridged this without crapping over source material from either end.

As for the Galaxy Class, that's a failure of policy. Social, military, take your pick. It's like that old joke about a cow being a racehorse designed by a committee.

[Stofsk]

And despite what many here think, I happen to like the depiction of the Klingons in TNG. The problem with TOS Klingons, is that they were very obviously Soviets in space. The Klingons in TNG (and the movies as well) really broke away from that model and made their identity unique.

Did you miss the angle in Undiscovered Country or something Not incidentally, the allegories of TUC were what made it my favourite film, not to mention the fact that it had been established in TNG that the Klingon Empire and the Federation were on peaceful terms and someone actually gave enough of a fuck to write a screenplay that bridged this without crapping over source material from either end.

I'm more referring to the Klingons we see in Star Trek 3, who seemed to be the prototype for the TNG Klingons, but you're right, TUC definitely pushed the 'Klingons as allegory' idea to the limit.

As for the Galaxy Class, that's a failure of policy. Social, military, take your pick. It's like that old joke about a cow being a racehorse designed by a committee.

I really love the Galaxy class, as well as the Constitution class. There is a very palpable sense that whoever built both ships were in love with her. All that crap about it being a death trap and 'lol exploding warp cores lolol ' is just that - crap. Cherry picking. Nobody ever marvels at how it got the shit kicked out of it in 'Best of Both Worlds' yet continued to fly.

Sorry, it's a sore point with me.

[tim31]

Fair enough too. But we've had this discussion before Chris, and you know my feelings. I'm still hurt by what you said about the Enterprise B

[Stofsk]

They ruined the Excelsior! Unforgivable.

[TOSDOC]

There are plenty of things I'd like to change about TNG, but Worf and the Klingons are not one of them. The episodes dealing with Worf's family feud with Duras and his discommendation and subsequent redemption are among TNG's finest.

PS The Klingons in TNG were also sneaky, cunning and not above engaging in skulduggery (unless the contention is that the Duras family were some kind of spectacular anomaly). Worf harping on about 'honour' makes sense if you consider him the outsider looking in, the person who grew up in an alien world, never knowing his place or where he stood among humans. So the stories he hears about Klingons paints a picture in his head, an idealised or romanticised picture if you will. Then what happens? He visits the Klingon Homeworld for the first time and discovers it is corrupt. How that arc ends was fantastic - at the end of 'Redemption' he has a chance to slay the final heir of his mortal enemy, but relents, as his personal honour is quite far removed from the Klingon way. 'Kill him, it is our way!' 'Perhaps, but it is not mine.' And then he turns his back on the Klingons and joins Picard.

And despite what many here think, I happen to like the depiction of the Klingons in TNG. The problem with TOS Klingons, is that they were very obviously Soviets in space. The Klingons in TNG (and the movies as well) really broke away from that model and made their identity unique. I appreciated that, and if there were some missteps along the way that could be debated, on the whole I think the writers (like Ron Moore) were overall successful in what they were doing.

I think you hit the nail on the head as far as Worf is concerned, but the Klingons still seem one-dimensional for a large part of TNG, as far as Darth Wong's Viking brain bug analysis goes. I still think a society based on "The Final Reflection" would have been a far better portrayal of a three-dimensional Klingon society, meshing both TOS and TNG Klingon depictions without messing with Worf's preconceptions, and I would have used that book for the blueprint instead if I were given the chance to go back and do it again.

[Alyeska]

They ruined the Excelsior! Unforgivable.

No. They updated the class. The Excelsior was never changed itself. Both designs are good. Might as well complain the Constitution refit ruined the original Enterprise.

[Baffalo]

They ruined the Excelsior! Unforgivable.

No. They updated the class. The Excelsior was never changed itself. Both designs are good. Might as well complain the Constitution refit ruined the original Enterprise.

If I remember correctly, they only added the two flaps for the simple reason that they didn't want to tear up the Excelsior model by knocking a hole in it, but they also didn't want to build a new Excelsior model with a hole just for one scene. Because those models are expensive and it was one scene. Though they did buy tons of uniforms for a single scene and then couldn't afford enough of the DS9 uniforms to deck out everyone on the set.

[Batman]

No. They updated the class. The Excelsior was never changed itself. Both designs are good. Might as well complain the Constitution refit ruined the original Enterprise.

Except there's the little factoid that it didn't. The Constitution refit looked considerably better than the the original. The Excelsior refit as per the E-B looked considerably worse.

[Skylon]

If I remember correctly, they only added the two flaps for the simple reason that they didn't want to tear up the Excelsior model by knocking a hole in it, but they also didn't want to build a new Excelsior model with a hole just for one scene. Because those models are expensive and it was one scene. Though they did buy tons of uniforms for a single scene and then couldn't afford enough of the DS9 uniforms to deck out everyone on the set.

Ironically, those two flaps did ruin the Excelsior model. When the effects team went to get the model ready for its part as the USS Lakota on DS9, they found the flaps and other bits could not be removed without damaging the model (or they were removed and ended up damaging the model). In either case, the only thing the DS9 production crew could do was leave the Ent-B bits in place, and ignore the minor continuity headache.

[Stofsk]

Skylon beat me to it.

[Stofsk]

Skylon beat me to it.

Forgot to add, that for the previous seven seasons of TNG, whenever we saw an Excelsior class we saw it as the one Sulu commanded. In addition, the wall in the Observation lounge which had all the Enterprises included the B and it was of the regular Excelsior class. Then Generations came along and they added those stupid side things, ruining the model and also ruining the continuity. The Excelsior-refit was available 70-80 years prior the Lakota getting refit, and we're told it was such a big deal for the Lakota, yet the Lakota is like the only refit-Excelsior we ever see. Makes no sense at all, and we also see plenty of Excelsior class ships in DS9 which were CGI and weren't of the refit type.

[sc_owl]

Troi: Would have been better if they had made her part of the medical set up, instead of giving her a seat on the bridge. Looking back at old TNG episodes, I just don't feel the character served much of a purpose on the bridge. The whole empathic ability angle wasn't really necessary either IMO - the advice on the bridge would have been better served coming from Riker, from his "intuition"... Would have made Riker a stronger character as well.

Worf: Never really had too much of a problem with his character, although I didn't like the angle with him and his son. I think it would have played out much better had his son been older and already serving in the Klingon Defence Forces. There was an episode where a Klingon officer is posted on the Enterprise, and I think it turns out to be Kurn. Could have been an interesting multi-episode arc had the officer been Worf's son.

Wes: I think his character would have been more believable had he already been a full ensign when assigned to the Enterprise, on his own merit, for excelling at the acadamy. This could have opened up a lot of interesting story possibilities about not being stationed with family and the like. It would have also made his academic abilities more believable.

Children on the Enterprise: Never got my head around this to be honest. Seems a stupid idea whichever way you look at it.

Civilians on the Enterprise: Not so much of a problem if they are mission specialists, but instead of just saying they are on board, they should have at least tried to do some decent stories about them.

[Baffalo]

Civilians on the Enterprise: Not so much of a problem if they are mission specialists, but instead of just saying they are on board, they should have at least tried to do some decent stories about them.

See, I thought about this one time. Being so far from the center of power, you'd need big, multipurpose ship and you wouldn't always want entirely military crews. If you put a few civilians aboard, like say a judge to handle judicial issues on colonies without a judge, the Enterprise would basically be charting territory and helping out the colonies that might not be able to afford or have need for full-time officials. How many small towns in the US call for the FBI when they get some murders that are beyond their capacity to handle? That would make excellent use of the Enterprise as she seems to have been configured. A colony can expect the Enterprise on her next rotation and get the onboard specialists to help, be it a medical problem, judicial, or other. Maybe some fields are dying and they don't know why, so they get the Enterprise to help out on her next stop by.

[sc_owl]

Civilians on the Enterprise: Not so much of a problem if they are mission specialists, but instead of just saying they are on board, they should have at least tried to do some decent stories about them.

See, I thought about this one time. Being so far from the center of power, you'd need big, multipurpose ship and you wouldn't always want entirely military crews. If you put a few civilians aboard, like say a judge to handle judicial issues on colonies without a judge, the Enterprise would basically be charting territory and helping out the colonies that might not be able to afford or have need for full-time officials. How many small towns in the US call for the FBI when they get some murders that are beyond their capacity to handle? That would make excellent use of the Enterprise as she seems to have been configured. A colony can expect the Enterprise on her next rotation and get the onboard specialists to help, be it a medical problem, judicial, or other. Maybe some fields are dying and they don't know why, so they get the Enterprise to help out on her next stop by.

You see, the problem with that is that it makes too much sense

TNG had the potential to be so much more than it was. Shame really.

[Connor MacLeod]

the civilians on the starship didn't bug me, at least in context. Early season 1 and 2 Trek was a time of optimism. It was about exploration and discovery and how good and great the Grand Federation ideals were, you had all that stuff about the social evolution of man and all that. Things might get dangerous, yes, but they didn't expact to be fighting any major wars. (Danger is inherent in life of course, so in a sense it probably dosn't matter whether you're on a ship or on a planet in that regard.) Having families and stuff on board makes sense because its hard on families to be separated like that.

Also, remember that back in the early days the "saucer separation" was still in use. And more or less it was a good idea for taking the civvies out of the way if things got dangerous. (Not a perfect idea of course, since it doesnt account for things like ambushes, surprise, or any case where you might simply not have enough time to do that. This being trek, that could happen quite often, but they could always just detach it before knowingly going into an unknown or dangerous situation. right. Right?)

But then, for whatever reason, they didn't want to use the Separation anymore (it happened what, twice? Three times?) and they put in some clumsy retcon as I recall (the power generation of the Saucer was vital or some sillines.) So no more saucer. I could have overlooked that (although ti would have made more sense if there had been some damage that had forced them to keep the two permanantly connected or something), but they left the families onboard throughout teh series. Which, honestly, is when it got stupid. Q comes in and they learn the galaxy is still a nasty place. Hell the latter seasons of TNG pretty much confirm that. There was ample time and reason to think "hey, let's review this idea, and offload our passengers. It's not safe to keep them around anymore". But.. they didn't. Even though they didn't bother revisiting this idea in DS9 OR voyager (I don't remember many, if any, civilians serving onboard Voyager initially.)

In the end, it all could have been handled far better than it was.

[Stofsk]

But then, for whatever reason, they didn't want to use the Separation anymore (it happened what, twice? Three times?) and they put in some clumsy retcon as I recall (the power generation of the Saucer was vital or some sillines.) So no more saucer.

I don't really see that as a clumsy retcon. Most every other Starfleet vessel we see, the impulse engines have always been a part of the saucer section. Look at the original Enterprise and the refit, the Excelsior, and the Reliant (well in the Reliant's case, they have nowhere but the saucer section to put the impulse drive). I think the Ambassador had its impulse drive either on the neck between saucer and secondary hull. It makes sense to me that when the saucer section is attached, its impulse drive's fusion reactors would provide a substantial amount of the ship's power, even if the impulse drive on the neck seems to be the primary one. Trade-offs should be acknowledged. For me, if they had said there is no disadvantage to separating the saucer section, then I'd always think why they don't separate more often, particularly if they know or believe they will be going into a fight.

In any case, I believe the out of universe reason why they don't separate the saucer is that a) it cost too much and b) it's a pretty dumb idea when you think about it - two of the Enterprise's main phaser strips are on the dorsal and ventral surface of the saucer section. Remove it and you also remove a nice chunk of the ship's armaments. It's a good idea though when you need to do an emergency evacuation (and it should be noted too, that the escape pods are primarily located on the saucer section as well).

[Darth Tedious]

Worf: Never really had too much of a problem with his character, although I didn't like the angle with him and his son. I think it would have played out much better had his son been older and already serving in the Klingon Defence Forces. There was an episode where a Klingon officer is posted on the Enterprise, and I think it turns out to be Kurn. Could have been an interesting multi-episode arc had the officer been Worf's son.

Worf was about 24 years old at the time of the Farpoint mission. He couldn't have a son that old.

[Baffalo]

the civilians on the starship didn't bug me, at least in context. Early season 1 and 2 Trek was a time of optimism. It was about exploration and discovery and how good and great the Grand Federation ideals were, you had all that stuff about the social evolution of man and all that. Things might get dangerous, yes, but they didn't expact to be fighting any major wars. (Danger is inherent in life of course, so in a sense it probably dosn't matter whether you're on a ship or on a planet in that regard.) Having families and stuff on board makes sense because its hard on families to be separated like that.

Also, remember that back in the early days the "saucer separation" was still in use. And more or less it was a good idea for taking the civvies out of the way if things got dangerous. (Not a perfect idea of course, since it doesnt account for things like ambushes, surprise, or any case where you might simply not have enough time to do that. This being trek, that could happen quite often, but they could always just detach it before knowingly going into an unknown or dangerous situation. right. Right?)

But then, for whatever reason, they didn't want to use the Separation anymore (it happened what, twice? Three times?) and they put in some clumsy retcon as I recall (the power generation of the Saucer was vital or some sillines.) So no more saucer. I could have overlooked that (although ti would have made more sense if there had been some damage that had forced them to keep the two permanantly connected or something), but they left the families onboard throughout teh series. Which, honestly, is when it got stupid. Q comes in and they learn the galaxy is still a nasty place. Hell the latter seasons of TNG pretty much confirm that. There was ample time and reason to think "hey, let's review this idea, and offload our passengers. It's not safe to keep them around anymore". But.. they didn't. Even though they didn't bother revisiting this idea in DS9 OR voyager (I don't remember many, if any, civilians serving onboard Voyager initially.)

In the end, it all could have been handled far better than it was.

That comes back around to TNG having a shitty engineering rating. In fact, just because I have absolutely nothing to do with my time anymore, I'll now list all the engineering failures I could find. Now, before you read, please understand that this list is mostly comprised of TOS, TNG and VOY episodes, because I've seen them and know enough about them to know the exact details of how each failure happened, while DS9 and ENT I don't know that much about. So I don't feel comfortable simply judging an episode without seeing it. Also, this is ONLY failure of Starfleet equipment, not equipment from another alien race or equipment that failed due to damage or trickery. So TNG: All Good Things doesn't make an appearance even though it's Starfleet equipment that causes the problem.

Misunderstood Science and Engineering

• TOS: The Ultimate Computer
• TNG: Where No One Has Gone Before
• TNG: Datalore
• TNG: We'll Always Have Paris
• TNG: Unnatural Selection
• TNG: Remember Me
• TNG: The Nth Degree
• TNG: Genesis
• VOY: Spirit Folk

Transporter Accidents/Malfunctions

• TOS: The Enemy Within
• TOS: Mirror, Mirror
• TNG: Hollow Pursuits
• TNG: Data's Day
• TNG: Realm of Fear
• TNG: Rascals
• TNG: Second Chances
• VOY: Non Sequitur
• VOY: Threshold
• VOY: Tuvix
• VOY: Macrocosm

Holodeck Accidents/Malfunctions

• TNG: The Big Goodbye
• TNG: Elementary Dear Data
• TNG: Who Watches the Watchers
• TNG: A Fistful of Datas
• TNG: Ship in a Bottle
• VOY: Alter Ego
• VOY: Worst Case Scenario
• VOY: Latent Image
• VOY: Bride of Chaotica!
• VOY: Flesh and Blood

Failure of Safety/Security Safeguards

• TNG: 11001001
• TNG: Contagion
• TNG: Peak Performance
• TNG: Evolution
• TNG: Conundrum
• TNG: Starship Mine
• VOY: Heroes and Demons
• VOY: Projections

Failures by Unknown Beings

• TNG: The Child

Miscellaneous Engineering Failures

• TNG: Disaster
• TNG: Relics
• VOY: Twisted
• VOY: Dreadlock
• VOY: The Swarm

This is not a complete listing or even entirely accurate for each listing, but I believe it proves the point