STAR TREK

[Henry R. Kujawa]

Today I was SO worn out, I did something I can hardly believe...  With very few exceptions, I have not watched STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION since it was first-run (24 YEARS ago).  So far today, I have just watched the first 14 episodes in a row!!!

 

    You know what's funny?  The show is actually fun to watch in a sort-of tacky way.  Some of the character quirks are amusing, before they became really annoying.  And I'm reminded of some of the early relationship dynamics, which, it seems to me, got totally screwed over the longer the show was on the air.

 

    Like-- it's obvious Picard & Beverly are attracted to each other.  WHY did they spend most of the run not having this go anywhere?  Then there's Will Riker & Deanna Troi, who the moment they meet are like a really bad, awkward retread of Will Decker & Ilia.  They're so stiff at first it's unbelieveable.  I think all the acting got 10 times better after the 2-hour pilot.  Anyway, the story that introduces Lwaxana was a hoot, and also showed that, despite whatever the hell the problem is, Will & Deanna do somehow care for each other deeply.  So... WHY didn't it EVER go anywhere (until the 2nd feature film?).  Both Wesley & Data are far less annoying here than they later became.

 

    Strange but true:  while I saw the show from the first episode (and taped every single one of them), my Mom never saw it until somewhere in the 3rd or 4th season.  And when she did, she got HOOKED, big-time.  She started watching it every time it was on.  Since they got to running the stories twice a week, that means, while I saw each story ONCE, she saw each one FOUR TIMES!!!

 

    At some point, she got around to seeing reruns of the 1st season.  I always remember walking thru the dining room, where she spent most of her time sitting watching the small tv on the table, and noting she was watching the 2-hour pilot.  And she looked at me and says, "This is the DUMBEST story I've ever seen!"  That's after having seen dozens (maybe a hundred or more) later ones.

 

    I've noted I have a lot more tolerance for "bad" films when I can't sleep, and that may account for my being able to sit thru so much of this today.

 

    It's a shame that my favorite woman on the show's 1st season, Tasha, got killed off suddenly when Denise Crosby announced she wanted to quit the show.  She may not have been my favorite kind of woman as far as face or personality, but I have a feeling I might have gotten along with her.  By the episode "Angel One", she seemed to be loosening up a lot.  I can't understand the complaint about her "not having enough to do".  Her movie career sure didn't take off...  (Doesn't that seem to be a running thing in the 80's and beyond?  People quitting successful shows and then regretting it?)

 

    A few times early-on, I found myself thinking how this might have gone if Paramount hadn't been so cheap.  After the tremendous success of STAR TREK IV, the push was on to finally do a new tv series.  But because the actors' salaries kept getting bigger and bigger by then, the decision was made, purely monetary, to do an entirely new series, with CHEAPER actors.

 

    What stands out is the thought that the "cruise ship" version of the Enterprise was said to be a brand-new ship fresh out of dry dock (just like at the end of ST4).  And the "battle bridge" seen in Ep.1 was clearly the bridge from the movies.

 

    I liked how about 10 episodes in, you finally saw a rectangular hallway (like on the old show).  Those octogonal vertical halls from the movies get on my nerves.

[Philip Portelli]

The first seaon was rough and uneven. It got good in the second and great in the third.

Funny that Riker had to grow a beard to be taken seriously. Plus the second seaon uniforms are more dignified and less pajama-ey!

[Kirk G]

I think  one of my favorite things from the second season or so, (when Will Ryker has grown a beard)  is the more relaxed and causual attitude of the characters.   It's obvious that some time has passed, hense the beard, but it's more evident than ever when Will walks into a meeting room and rather than walking around the chair, casually throws one leg over the back and sits down, almost like he's always done that!

[Kirk G]

High points of the series:

The defection of Esign Ro Larin.

Picard and his brother brawling and bawling in wine fields of France after Picard has been throughly USED by the Borg the episodes before.

The two part episode that is the War with Borg (when Picard becomes Locutus)

Diana and Jordie trying to keep from laughing when Data adopts a beard.

The first half of the two part "Reunionification" story with Spock.

The entire guest appearance of Engineer Mongomery Scott.

 

Biggest opportunity passed up: In STNG: "First Contact" movie....when Stephen Cockrum is revealed to be a drunk and scared about making the test flight.... why didn't they give his black female companion (name I've forgotten) the opportunity to prove that 'behind every great man is a woman'...and allow HER to have made the historic flight...indicating that history has forgotten her, and honored the man instead.  Would have been a GREAT message for women's lib and put men in their place.  Too bad paramont chickened out on doing this.  It sure felt like it was going there...

[ClarkKent_DC]

It's a shame that my favorite woman on the show's 1st season, Tasha, got killed off suddenly when Denise Crosby announced she wanted to quit the show.  She may not have been my favorite kind of woman as far as face or personality, but I have a feeling I might have gotten along with her.  By the episode "Angel One", she seemed to be loosening up a lot.  I can't understand the complaint about her "not having enough to do".  Her movie career sure didn't take off...  (Doesn't that seem to be a running thing in the 80's and beyond?  People quitting successful shows and then regretting it?)

I don't know ... did Denise Crosby regret leaving Star Trek: The Next Generation?

 

As for the complaint about not having enough to do, I can understand it. Acting isn't a 9-to-5 job, and any given actor might think being part of an ensemble when you have only one two-minute scene in any given episode because there are 11 cast members plus guest stars to include isn't what you signed up for.

 

That said, I'm still baffled by Sherry Stringfield, who quit NYPD Blue in its first year to join ER in its first year, but left in the third season -- and was contractually blocked from acting on TV for the duration of her original contract. She rejoined ER in the eighth season and quit again four years later.

[Kirk G]

Oh, I'm pretty sure that she wasn't  happy with the parts she was playing on STTNG.   Some might have compared her to the classic Ohura... "Hailing frequencies are open"  (the intergalactic switchboard operator).

So, when she said that she wanted to leave, the producers needed to write a logical reason for her departure.  To kill off the character may seem drastic, but look at the depth of the original character, and how  little she was changing from week to week.   She definitely seemed more interesting after she left.

I love the episode or two where she comes back (either through a trick of time-travel, or by the entire timestream shifting and the Enterprise B showing up, needing a tactical officer and captain before long.

But I thought the development of her daughter as a chief villain in league with the Romulans was just awful. Imagine a race of black haired militaristic Romulans willingly being led by a BLONDE offspring from the humans.  I just couldn't buy it, but it was a clever way to allow her to return as a guest star on a hit series.

 

I wonder how the rest of the crew felt about her frequent returns?

(Other than appearing in Pet Semetary, I don't recall any other appearances in the movies, do you?)

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Tasha Yar was a redshirt, plain and simple. But then again, maybe not so plain and simple after all. If you look at just the episode in which she was killed, she beams down to the planet, gets offed, and (except for the memorial service at the end) that’s it, just like any other redshirt from the original series. The difference is, because she was featured throughout the entire first season, we got to know her and, I feel, her death vicariously lent all those other redshirts a bit a dignity and gravitas.

I saw Denise Crosby in in “The Red Shoe Diaries.” Considering her character slept with an android, it’s real easy to imagine that to be one of Tash Yar’s Holodeck fantasies, just as I consider the execrable Moby Dick starring Patrick Stewart to be one of Captain Picard’s holodeck adventures. If you watch it with that in mind, it’s really quite enjoyable!

[Philip Portelli]

I believe that she was in 48 Hours.

Tasha's memories were invoked in Season 2's "Measure of a Man" where Data's rights as a sentient being are put on trial and Season 4's "Legacy" where they meet Tasha's younger sister, Ishara.

Denise Crosby appeared in Playboy but was that before ST:TNG? Because I remember it being advertised as featuring Bing Crosby's grand-daughter than any Star Trek reference.

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

(Other than appearing in Pet Semetary, I don't recall any other appearances in the movies, do you?)

She was in Deep Impact, and I remember seeing her in a number of TV shows. Most recently Southland playing one cop's wife (she's a cop as well)

[Derrick Ferguson]

I could go with your take on situation if it wasn't for the fact that Denise Crosby knew going in that TNG was an ensemble show.  So how much screen time did she realistically expect to get with 10 other actors in the cast?  But then again, we don't know what the producers told her and they might have deliberately mislead her about her character's development to get her to sign up.  It could well have been like a story I read where the producers of Gilligan's Island tried to get Raquel Welch to sign up for the show by telling her it was about a famous movie star who gets stranded on a deserted island with six of her fans.

ClarkKent_DC said:

It's a shame that my favorite woman on the show's 1st season, Tasha, got killed off suddenly when Denise Crosby announced she wanted to quit the show.  She may not have been my favorite kind of woman as far as face or personality, but I have a feeling I might have gotten along with her.  By the episode "Angel One", she seemed to be loosening up a lot.  I can't understand the complaint about her "not having enough to do".  Her movie career sure didn't take off...  (Doesn't that seem to be a running thing in the 80's and beyond?  People quitting successful shows and then regretting it?)

I don't know ... did Denise Crosby regret leaving Star Trek: The Next Generation?

 

As for the complaint about not having enough to do, I can understand it. Acting isn't a 9-to-5 job, and any given actor might think being part of an ensemble when you have only one two-minute scene in any given episode because there are 11 cast members plus guest stars to include isn't what you signed up for.

 

That said, I'm still baffled by Sherry Stringfield, who quit NYPD Blue in its first year to join ER in its first year, but left in the third season -- and was contractually blocked from acting on TV for the duration of her original contract. She rejoined ER in the eighth season and quit again four years later.

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Denise Crosby also appeared in a movie now known as Tennessee Waltz but originally released as Black Water. Part of that movie was filmed in front of the house in which I grew up and was living at the time. Julian Sands was there for those scenes, but Denise wasn't in them. This movie appears to have the Mississippi River just outside Nashville.

[Kirk G]

I had forgotten about her role in Deep Impact.  I thought that was a great movie and her snap decision to save the baby made good sense... it was a good role for her, and one was wasn't expected at the moment.

 

I never ogt the impression that the STTNG producers had always intended her to be an esign Red Shirt.  But I guess you could view her that way.

That makes her repeat appearance in the last two part series finale even more strange.  I especially like that time jumping Picard gets it wrong, and gives a security order to Mr. Warf instead of her... ruffling her feathers a bit.  It was a good bit, and Picard never lets on that he knows she's destined to die soon.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Kirk G said:

I never ogt the impression that the STTNG producers had always intended her to be an esign Red Shirt.  But I guess you could view her that way.

I agree; that's strictly my interpretation.