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Kids and spandex tell the truth
Aug. 25th, 2020 09:16 pmI received the complete box set of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-Ray for Christmas… and we've just started watching it.
I have been surprised. Firstly, it looks *amazing*. The things have been very well remastered, and there is so much detail on the screen! Unfortunately, it does throw the ropey scenery into sharp relief. But there are finely-textured costumes that I originally saw as featureless blurs. And the computer interface/starship design holds up incredibly well.
What surprises me far more is that the episodes are a lot better than I remember them. There is purpose in them, there are interesting questions posed and interesting answers given. It's just all a bit… amateurish. Several of the plots needed a decent beta and a bit of whatever the television equivalent of copy editing might be. We just watched 'The Big Goodbye', in which Picard and the gang are rescued from a holodeck, but Wesley and the team who are earnestly wrestling with the mechanisms are somehow out of sight and earshot when the holodeck door opens and the villains walk out. I have no particular quibble with the holodeck characters walking off the holodeck—later, it will be properly established that they can't, but for this episode, it's fine. But nobody from the crew comes running to see what is going on—that's bad plotting. Gotta think it through.
Hideous costumes abound. The crew are carrying off their spandex very well, but the guest stars generally seem to get draped in something cheap and glittery (honourable exemption for Lxwaxana Troi's low-backed dress, which is partially elegant). And I feel so sorry for poor Deanna—I think her costumes look even worse in Blu-Ray than they did originally. Yet she started out in a proper Starfleet uniform. Sigh.
Essentially, the writing and production teams had good ideas. They just weren't very good at realising them. Clunky dialogue, rubbish pacing, and very flaky on the plot details. But the heart is there. I'm still glad I originally found the show somewhere in season 3, but if anyone wanted to watch it now, the Blu-Ray version is a pretty thing to see. And I must say, Patrick Stewart looks *fine*.
I have been surprised. Firstly, it looks *amazing*. The things have been very well remastered, and there is so much detail on the screen! Unfortunately, it does throw the ropey scenery into sharp relief. But there are finely-textured costumes that I originally saw as featureless blurs. And the computer interface/starship design holds up incredibly well.
What surprises me far more is that the episodes are a lot better than I remember them. There is purpose in them, there are interesting questions posed and interesting answers given. It's just all a bit… amateurish. Several of the plots needed a decent beta and a bit of whatever the television equivalent of copy editing might be. We just watched 'The Big Goodbye', in which Picard and the gang are rescued from a holodeck, but Wesley and the team who are earnestly wrestling with the mechanisms are somehow out of sight and earshot when the holodeck door opens and the villains walk out. I have no particular quibble with the holodeck characters walking off the holodeck—later, it will be properly established that they can't, but for this episode, it's fine. But nobody from the crew comes running to see what is going on—that's bad plotting. Gotta think it through.
Hideous costumes abound. The crew are carrying off their spandex very well, but the guest stars generally seem to get draped in something cheap and glittery (honourable exemption for Lxwaxana Troi's low-backed dress, which is partially elegant). And I feel so sorry for poor Deanna—I think her costumes look even worse in Blu-Ray than they did originally. Yet she started out in a proper Starfleet uniform. Sigh.
Essentially, the writing and production teams had good ideas. They just weren't very good at realising them. Clunky dialogue, rubbish pacing, and very flaky on the plot details. But the heart is there. I'm still glad I originally found the show somewhere in season 3, but if anyone wanted to watch it now, the Blu-Ray version is a pretty thing to see. And I must say, Patrick Stewart looks *fine*.