Re: Sci-Fi gets "Ghost Whisperer," "Star Trek: TNG," "Charmed," "Highlander,"

Anim8rFSK wrote:
> In article <oYGdnStU9-tb9oLVnZ2dnUVZ_umdnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>  jewahe <j.hanvey@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>> PV wrote:
>>> "Obveeus" <Obveeus@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
>>>> The Next Generation, being the best of the Star Trek series, is most 
>>>> certainly not 'crap'.
>>> Except that TNG isn't even the second best Star Trek series (if you
include
>>> TOS), and most of it *is* crap that doesn't survive rewatching. *
>> Except that it isn't. It is the best of the ST series.
> 
> Third best.  Fourth, if you count TAS.
>> TOS was too much a product of its times. Some of the episodes have 
>> withstood time, but it's overall look and language dates it too much. 
>> What's more, the series often became tiresome with its 
>> monster-of-the-week repetitions.
> 
> We'll have to agree to disagree.
>> DS9 was incredibly inconsistent with plot and character, and too often 
>> descended into soap-opera plotting.
> 
> It's last season was awful, and it's finale a crime against humanity, 
> but overall it was much better than any Trek since real Trek.
>> VOY, of course, might as well have been a stand-along series, without 
>> any regards to the established universe. When the plots weren't just 
>> plain inane, they were too much of a soap-opera. And the characters
were 
>> very inconsistent, annoying, or useless.
> 
> Yes
>> ENT, like VOY, discarded the established universe and just couldn't 
>> figure out what it wanted to be about.
> 
> It wanted to be about crap, and succeded spectacularly.
>> TNG, at least, attempted to be consistent (both in its own universe and

>> the greater ST universe), broke new ground in many of the plots and 
>> devices, and distinguished itself effectively from the past
incarnations.
> 
> I disagree.  Almost every time they started something interesting, a bad

> case of 'our writers are idiots' destroyed it.
>> While I'd agree that Seasons 1 - 2 were weak (suffering from turnover,
a 
>> writers' strike, and the normal growing pains) even many of those 
>> episodes resonate with events that are going on in today's world. By 
>> Season 3, the show had found its voice and direction, and started 
>> consistently producing extremely good and entertaining television.
> 
> Granted one is weak.  Two is better by virtue of less Crusher.  But it's

> last two seasons produced some of the worst shows ever put on 
> television.  
> 
> I doubt there are more than 3 or 4 watchable TNG eps in any given
season.
> 
> Whenever it comes on and I catch it by accident, I watch for 3 or 4 
> minutes until I say "oh, this is a bad one" and turn it off.
> 
> I doubt there are more than half a dozen TNG eps I wouldn't classify 
> that way.  The last one I watched again was RELICS, and it suc***bed to 
> 'our writers are idiots'
>> One of my biggest complaints about DS9 and VOY, in fact, is that they 
>> ran many of the themes introduced (and often done extremely well) in
TNG 
>> into the ground, and never distinguished themselves sufficiently from 
>> the series. These themes mostly revolve around the exploration of 
>> individual "species-ness": Data's quest for humanity, Worf's quest for 
>> Klingon-ness, etc...these stories repeat ad infinitum in the arcs 
>> followed by Ba****r, Dax, Torres, Seven, Tuvok, etc.
>>
>> The biggest weakness of TNG is that it did tend towards preachiness 
>> (especially in S5, when the actors were allowed to introduce their pet 
>> causes into the show), the insistence of keeping Troi (and her mother) 
>> as an active cast member, and the reliance on too much techno-babble.
> 
> Agreed.  So it's last 3 seasons were bad.  So:  Bad: 1,2,5,6,7.  Good: 
> 3,4.
>> As far as re-watchability goes, I can sit through a lot more TNG 
>> episodes than I can DS9 or VOY episodes - and I often don't have the 
>> desire to watch episodes of the later series at all.
> 
> Agree, Voyager and Enterprise have no repeat value except to laugh or 
> howl.
> 
I raise it to ten or so, but agree with the other points.