I was a sophomore in college when Star Trek: The Next Generation aired. Most of the guys in my suite watched the premiere episode, and then sampled a few after that. Then, the guy who owned the TV wanted to watch basketball instead, and after a few attempts to find a place to watch Trek, I sort of gave up. Two years later, though, I had an off-campus apartment and TV, and I often hosted Star Trek parties; first with 3 or 4 people, and eventually with more like 30. I also lurked on rec.arts.startrek during that time. Lots of great memories overall, but, as this review reminds us all, there was a lot of suck during the first season.
When a show runs as long as this one, and when it hits the heights Next Gen [from here on referred to under the approved abbreviation, TNG] eventually does, it’s easy to focus on the great moments and ignore the awful ones. In the weeks to come, I expect I’ll be reminding myself over and over of the Borg and the totally bad-ass time loop episodes and Locutus and the fact that Tasha Yar eventually dies. But we can’t just skip ahead. We’re nerds, for god’s sake, and some things, like continuity and completism, are sacred. —Zack Handlen
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Yikes yes, there are some shoddy episodes in S1--and even plenty in S2. While dating my now-wife in college, we hosted two "Star Trek and Pride & Prejudice" nights, where we invited everyone over for one TNG episode and one segment of the A&E P&P. But on the first night we took a friend's advice and watched some soul-crushingly bad Wesley Crusher episode that I can't quite remember right now, and I never quite lived it down. Poor "Encounter at Farpoint" . . .