Were all of the seasons great?
I've seen many episodes but not from the very beginning. Are there any seasons to avoid?
shareThe first season is pretty ghastly, I'm afraid. The second season is a little better; about halfway through, the actors really find the cores of their characters; Picard suddenly becomes CAPTAIN Picard, for instance. But it's not until the third season, with the return of Dr. Crusher, that the series really finds its heading & truly moves forward.
sharewow, I did not know that. Was Riker the main character in the first two seasons or was it just a mish-mash of episodes without much direction?
shareThere didn't seem to be any main character early on, and the crew hadn't quite gelled yet. Geordi was a helmsman, with a couple of other actors-of-the-week appearing as engineers, for example. I can see why Denise Crosby asked to be written out, as Tasha & Worf pretty much shared the same duties, making at least one of them redundant.
Part of the problem was that they were using quite a few scripts for an earlier proposed revival of the original series that never came about; as a result, they were retreading the same ground, but not as well. At the same time, they needed to establish their own identity, but without alienating the built-in audience from TOS days. The relationship stories were fairly embarrassing during that first season, but would happily get better in subsequent seasons.
Although I will say that the final episode of the first season "Conspiracy" was a very effective "invasion from within" story that had some genuinely creepy moments. I've never understood why the series didn't follow up on it, as it had a somewhat open ending.
By the second season, there were very good episodes, such as "The Measure of a Man" in which Data's individuality & personal freedom are at stake: is he a sentient being, or just hardware to be used, taken apart, studied by Starfleet? Data starts to become the character we know from the later seasons; we also get the beginnings of the Geordi-Data friendship, and Data's love for Sherlock Holmes. And there's also the introduction of the Borg.
Everything isn't quite there yet in the second season, but they're clearly marking out their own territory & identity by then. The so-so episodes sometimes hearken back to the first season, but are almost never as egregious. I can rewatch & enjoy much of the second season; but I avoid rewatching the first season.
Maurice Hurley in an interview claimed "Conspiracy" was part of a mini episode arc that would eventually introduce the Borg which were originally intended to be insect like creatures and not cybernetic beings.
Season 1 episodes were very "TOS"ish and not in a good way.
Thanks for that information! It would have been an interesting different direction.
shareAlthough they never really made Riker the main character, I did get the feeling that he was the "new Kirk" and Roddenberry, if he were running the show, might have made Riker the real No.1 character instead of Picard's Number One.
Owlwise is correct: season one has some good stuff, but it's mostly a slog.