Star Trek: The Next Generation
Encounter at Farpoint parts 1 and 2 - Some English guy is reading the "space, the final frontier" speech! That's the TMP theme! That's a different Enterprise! It's all familiar but...different!?
We start with Picard looking out a window and then the camera is really shaky as he walks around Engineering. Why was it so shaky? I don't know, but there's a lot happening here so I don't think I can recap everything! We're quickly interoduced to Captain Picard, Counselor Troi (she senses a powerful mind!), Data the robot (he doesn't know what "snoop" means which seems weird), Worf the Klingon, and Tasha Yar is there too I guess. A big fence in space stops them and Q appears, saying "thou" and "art" a lot. He freezes a secruity guard just by looking at him and Troi shouts "HE'S FROZEN!" in the first hilariously bad Troi moment of many. It's actually a pretty good start though as we go right into the action of the episod before the first ad break. Q switches to various different outfits through human history, talking about humans being a violent childrace. Worf asks to CLEAN UP THE BRIDGE. Q disappears and Picard decides to seperate the saucer (they sure got that in early) at warp speed and says "NOW HERE THIS" for the first time.
They try to outrun Q's flying orb thing but it can go faster than them. Worf doesn't want to run from a fight because he's a Klingon but Picard rightly tells him to shut up. It's a ship with families on it (even a kid Vulcan!) so they all go into the saucer (under Worf's command) while Picard and the others go to the Battle Bridge. And there's the first appearance of the legendary Miles O'Brien! The theme music plays again as the saucer seperates. It's a very impressive looking sequence. Picard surrenders to Q and eveyrone looks shocked. Kirk never would have done that!
Picard, Data, Yar and Troi are transported to a post nuclear courtroom full of dwarves. Troi says this isn't an illusion, it's all real. There's a guy who keeps shooting a gun for attention and Q comes flying in wearing an awesome judge's outfit. It's 2079 so hopefully we'll all live long enough to see this happen for real! One of the dwarves is really into ringing a bell! Q freezes Yar and it looks hilariously bad (Troi's acting is also still hilariously bad.) The trial goes on and Picard's all sassy saying there's no charges against his crew. Q forces him to plead guilty but Picard asks for them to be tested instead. Q agrees that Farpoint Station will be their test. They're sent back to the Battle Bridge and O'Brien doesn't even know they were gone. He fell asleep I guess.
Now, finally, half an hour into the episode, HERE'S RIKER. Holy shit he looks young. He meets with the excellent named Groppler Zorn and asks how farpoint station became so impressive so quickly. Some apples magically appear. Riker's the man! He meets with Doctor Crusher and her annoying son Wesley. Picard brought Wesley's father's body home. A happy memory. There's also a guy with a hairband over his eyes named La Forge. Riker introdcues himself to Picard as "Riker, W.T." which is kind of awesome? Picard shows him a video of Q which uses all the same camera angles the show did, somehow. Picard is really cold to Riker and forces him to manually reconnect the saucer. O'Brien smiles because Riker's got the RIGHT STUFF. Riker tells a story about not letting his Captain beam down to a dangerous mission. Picard orders Riker to stop him from making an ass of himself with children. It's a bit weird!
George expositions about his VISOR. Data talks to a really old Doctor McCoy who's gone all southern again because he's 137 and says "boy" a lot. He talks about Vulcans and tells Data to treat the Enterprise like a lady while nice music plays. It's a cute scene thanks to the viewer's affection for McCoy, but the make-up and the way he says "boy" so much is distracting.
We're into part 2 now. Worf nearly shoots a hole in the viewscreen when Q appears on it. Troi talks to Riker in his HEAD and it's really cringeworthy. Even Troi gets in on the exposition explaining to Groppler Zorn that she's only half Betazoid. She senses pain and loneliness. The second half of this episode is really bad, folks! Picard makes a comment about the Ferengi eating people.
Riker DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO ASK THE COMPUTER WHERE DATA IS. Apparently that's a new fucntion of Galaxy Class starships. He goes into the Holodeck to find Data because we need to introduce everything in this episode. Data can't whistle and definitely has emotions. They walk around the holodeck for ages and Wesley falls in water. What does this have to do with Farpoint Station?
Riker's away team investigate the station and Troi senses pain again. She's really bad. Everyone walks around tunnels for a while. Wesley rides the turbolift to the Bridge and Picard's like "WHAT THE HELL" until he sees Beverly. Then things get weird! He's all like "your son!?" and it REALLY seems like they were planning to make Wesley Picard's secret love child. He lets Wesley onto the Bridge and we get to see it through Wesley's eyes (it looks the same.) A huge weird ship shows up and Picard asks if it's the Ferengi. It fires on the old city on the planet but not Farpoint. The old city looks like something out of TOS.
Q shows up again when Picard locks phasers on the ship. Riker and Data find Groppler crying in his office. He's beamed away by someone. Q keeps going on about how hard this puzzle is to solve. But actually it's just really boring? Picard goes to Beverly and asks if she wants to leave the ship but she doesn't. It's another awkward scene that could have been left out.
Riker's team goes to the other ship and it looks like the tunnels below Farpoint. Troi sense emotions AGAIN and it's really wearing thin. They find Zorn being tortured. Picard finally figures out what's going on: the spaceship is alive and so is Farpoint. The ship turns into a space jellyfish right when he figures it out. Was it listening to him? Q admits this was too simple a puzzle. It really was. The two jellyfishes are in love! Picard frees the Farpoint jellyfish. Groppler was forcing it to be a space station, the jerk. The two jellyfish touch tendrils (ooh err!) and fly off together for space sex. Fucking Troi's all "I feel great joy!" as if we can't figure it out from the tendril touching. Q disappears but won't promise not to return. Picard says "let's see what's out there!" episode over.
Imagine it's 1987. The Voyager Home came out the year before and it was great and you've never loved the original crew more. A new Star Trek series with an ALL NEW CREW arrives on tv! You're not sure about it, but you give it a shot. And you get two hours of space jellyfish. I can see why a lot of Trekkies hated TNG from the start.
TO BE FAIR, the episode isn't all bad. The first part is pretty decent! The Q stuff is considerably better than the Farpoint Station stuff. Yes he's another variation on the familiar original series "godlike alien judging humanity" but John de Lancie does a great job playing the character (even without the humour Q will eventually be associated with.) Parick Stewart does his best acting of the episode playing off him. The saucer seperation may feel a little unnecssary but it's an exciting sequence. And Q freezing people is fun. But the second half of the episode is pretty bad. Everything involving Farpoint Station is bad and boring. This is supposed to be a huge test for humanity but it's actually really easy to figue out what's going on! The space jellyfish look stupid. And the episode introduces a million things: not just all the regular characters (and Q) but also a five minute scene on the holodeck, McCoy's cameo, an explanation for Geodie's VISOR, Wesley being annoying...there's too much stuff slowing the episode down.
As far as the characters go, Picard is quite good. He has some weird moments (anything with the Crushers) but it's nice to have a Captain being presented as intelligent and thoughtful and trying to avoid violence against a superior foe (though it's not like Kirk actually shot people for no reason either.) Patrick Stewart is a great actor and always compelling to watch. I quite liked Riker too though obviously I'm biased because I love Riker. Worf wasn't intended as a main character at first but Michael Dorn makes an impression in the few lines he has. Data is prety different from the Data we all remember but Bret Spiner is already very good at playing a robot. On the other hand, Troi is terrible. Just terrible. Marina Sirtis completely overacts in every emotion sensing scene and it becomes embarrassing to watch. Wesley...I know Wil Wheaton was young but the character was annoying. He just was. Yar seems quite ropey too.
So yeah, it's not the best start. But the good thing about it being thirty years old(!) is that I know it's going to get better!
(I'm waching the HD remastered episodes on Netflix by the way and they look great.)
SCORE: 5/10