#tng thoughts

The whole time you get the feeling that something weird is going on but it's only in the end that we understand what happened and how this man killed an entire race for his wife's death.

And what should picard do now? What punishment would even fit the crime?

I love how we finally got a wesley centric episode again and it has so much character stuff! For the first time we can very clearly see his insecurities about being a teenage prodigy who everybody expects so much from.

Wesley is literally a seventeen year old who places his entire self worth in the adults around him respecting him and seeing him as equal. He works himself to exhaustion with constantly being on the bridge in dangerous situations, doing school work and being a teenager all at the same time. And then his mom was away from him for an entire year too.

I like how they kinda contrasted him with Stubbs as who he could become if he kept going like that. Stubbs sees himself in wesley and in some ways it's very accurate with how fixated he is on his project because he worked on it his entire life and would now rather die that give it up.

1. Worf and Will have the best comradeship (would Worf consider it friendship? hmmmm). Their scenes are few and far between, but I love how they push each other.

2. Speaking of Worf, WHY IS HE SO NEGATED? He has by far, the most interesting story, past and present, but instead it's always Data. I have nothing against Data, but Data didn't deserve quite that much focus.

3. Well, Wesley still annoys me, but at least he's limited to Plot Exposition Fairy rather than Savior Boy of the Starship Enterprise. Also, he seems realistically flawed this season. 

4. The writers are better at writing romance when they aren't focusing on the romance itself. Like Deanna and Will. It's so obvious they are comfortable with one another and understand each other, and have quite the history, but the minute the writers go to Very Special Romance Moment, the cheese factor becomes unbearable. 

5. I LOVE that Wesley's first crush/love/whatever was a shape-shifter! 

6. This show is giving me way too many crack ships. Will and Guinan, The Doctor and Worf, Worf and Mrs. Troi! It needs to stop it!

7. I was disappointed when I read Whoopi didnt get the Security Officer Position she asked for when Crosby left, but I think putting Worf there is an excellent and intriguing idea. Also, I can't wait to find out more of Guinan's backstory.

8. TOS might have killed off hundreds of red shirts, but at least it brought home that space and exploring isn't safe. This show still feels too sanitized, which is why I enjoy having Q and the Borgs there. Q brings chaos and the Borgs bring danger and darkness. Also, sometimes this crew can get really full of themselves, so it's nice when they get knocked down to size.

9. I am NOT attached to these characters yet. At least not in the way I was to TOS. I'm slowly starting to appreciate them, and their little quirks and follies, but I don't love them wholeheartedly yet. 

The most obvious is the Trio of Wesley, Will, and Jean-Luc, who were supposed to symbolize Gene's journey from young adventurer to outgoing and slightly hot-headed lover to wise and almost-anti romantic philosopher. Now, Gene was an alcoholic, diabetic, and very VERY self-centered and extremely controlling man (over his work, not his family--he was too much of a workaholic to be interested in family) in real life. Yet, aside from the workaholic and lover aspects, and having keen open-minds, I don't connect these characters to Gene (or at least what I've read about him). If they do represent him, they represent the very best, and least problematic, parts of his personality and life. 

It's in the supporting guest characters that I see Gene's "real" personality come out (real in quotes cuz I didnt know him, just going by what's out there): the competitive, bombastic, egotistical father who neglects his son, the Greatest Thinker of Them All who romances Women (but doesn't see them as people) and lets his ego get in the way of a dignified death. 

Also, even the shift in values. TOS is about as intersectional as a show could get back in the late 1960s, considering the network interference, and constant cast bickering. TNG seems more narrow in focus: yes it's has diversity in both cast and crew, but the main focus is on male characters. In Trek Nation, we're told very nicely that by the time TNG got on air, Gene had an ego, and this focus on predominantly white male characters (DESPITE having multiple and unlimited opportunities to expand out) to me is a sign that Roddenberry took himself for granted. It was okay to leave out other stories that still needed to be told, because he had achieved...something...