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Absolutely agree with you. Neil's father honestly believed that he was doing everything for his son, without ever having the self-awareness to see that he was using his son to make up for his own sense of failure, of being cheated of the life he wanted but never could get. He came across as seeing Neil more as an extension of himself, rather than being his own person. All unconsciously, of course.
And yes, Keating wasn't "encouraging rebellion for its own sake" at all. He was making his students aware that they actually had some agency in their own lives, and that it's not wrong to explore that. Would some of them make mistakes? Of course! It's part of the process of becoming your own authentic person, instead of simply, unquestioningly living a life that's been planned & programmed for you. And as you point out, more than once Keating gently but firmly reminded them to keep their wits about them, to think as well as to feel. He genuinely did want the best for them.
That doesn't bode well, I fear. King's Mister Miracle may have been an excellent Tom King story, but it was a terrible New Gods story, the antithesis of everything Jack Kirby poured into his Fourth World work, which was clearly one of his most personal projects, dear to his heart & soul. And DuVernay, while a gifted enough director on her own creations, simply made an awful hash of A Wrinkle in Time.
The scene of Frank on the phone with his mother when Margaret returns from Tokyo to announce her engagement is actually heartbreaking. His one line about Margaret just pretending to be his friend, "the way Dad used to," spoke volumes & really humanized Frank. That would have been a perfect departure point for a more 3-dimensional portrayal.
To me it represents the blasé, superior attitude that the genetically enhanced human beings had about themselves. They were all so sure of their innate, engineered superiority, that nothing really excited or worried them. Going to Titan was just another ordinary day to them. They're all portrayed as being practically flat in emotional tone, so accustomed to thinking of themselves as the masters of their world, self-made gods if you like, that they've lost most or even all of their basic human passion. The business suits worn on what we would consider an awe-inspiring journey visually symbolizes that almost narcissistic ennui. Perhaps a warning about how much of being human could be lost in trying to "improve" humanity.
I absolutely agree with you, SteveRes.
Roy's experience is emotionally a religious or spiritual one: he's seen the light & he must follow it. His life has been utterly transformed. He MUST be true to that, or his remaining life will have no meaning. So much of human art, culture, thought is the result of people having had such experiences & then pursuing their call, no matter what the cost. It's something that washes away one's previous life. How could Roy have gone back to what he had been living, knowing for the rest of his life that he'd given up a transcendent experience that would have remade him? It's the Hero's Quest: a person is called from ordinary life to go out into the unknown, face unimaginable mysteries, survive them, and finally return with a great boon for all of humanity.
In more than one, although the Jesus episode referred to in my previous post speaks directly to your question. Sidney had no love for Flagg's behavior or attitude, but he recognized the psychological damage that drove Flagg, and pitied him for it.
I always found Sidney to be ten times the man & human being that Flagg was. As Sidney said to Flagg, in the episode where the bombardier thought that he was Jesus, "You're a victim too, Flagg." And he was. Flagg was an emotionally damaged little bully boy driven by fear. Sidney was a compassionate, mature adult.
I suppose that's possible. But I dislike the current trend of reducing human beings to pathologies & syndromes. It doesn't do justice to the rich complexity of their humanity.
From the days when they made movies that were sheer, exuberant, unabashed FUN!
I'm old enough to have seen TOS when it originally came on, and I still appreciate the best of its stories … but I welcomed TNG, admiring it in part because it took the best of TOS & went forward with it. And to me, it's still the most rewatchable of all Trek.
Abrams' films strike me as the most expensive fan fiction ever made … and bad fan fiction, at that. The fan-made TOS episodes that used to be shown on YouTube -- are they still there? -- actually did their best to maintain the tone & approach of the series, and on a miniscule budget, too. I'd take them over Abrams' reboots any time.
My quarrel with Enterprise was that it looked back, not forward. and Star Trek was always about looking forward. The smartest thing TNG ever did was to jump forward from TOS by several decades. That's one of the reasons I deeply dislike the Abrams reboots (aside from his trying to turn it into Star Wars-lite, because TOS was "too cerebral" in his own words). A new film series shouldn't have gone back to Kirk & Spock, it should have gone forward to new, unexplored possibilities.
Guinan was probably at her best in the I, Borg episode, when her amused, I've-seen-it-all demeanor was shattered by her hatred for the Borg & her willingness, even eagerness to kill. It was interesting to see that side of her; I wouldn't have minded seeing a touch of it more often. But many of her scenes could have (and I think should have) been given to Troi.
Great choices, and I agree with them!
The Inner Light is at the top of the list for me. I also have a real affection for the Riker episode Frame of Mind, because of my love for head-trip stories (DS9 was great for that sort of thing).
Additionally, The Best of Both Worlds & Darmok, for sure. (I imagine that a select list of favorite episodes would make for a revealing personality profile for each respondent.) Let me think a little more … :)
I'd almost forgotten about Conspiracy, the one real bright spot of the first season. A pity they never followed up on its open ending.
Oh, definitely! While I can understand that a guest star's character may only appear once, and sothey'd want to focus on that character, all too often it was at the expense of the regulars, as you note.
And you're right about First Contact. With Picard so filled with revenge that he killed former crew members who had been assimilated, it should have been Dr. Crusher calling him on it. Yet Worf got a great moment toward the end, reacting to Picard's accusation of cowardice with "If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand!" Dr. Crusher should have gotten a similar moment.
A rather lovely Irish setter, wasn't it? :)
I liked both Dr. Crusher & Troi, I just wish they'd been given more depth & more to do. For me, there was never enough sense of personal history, as there was for many of the other characters. Even the ship's barber, Mr. Mott, had a distinct & engaging personality!
Yes, that's more difficult, isn't it? Perhaps when she had to take the Enterprise into the corona of that star to evade the Borg? She handled that well.
But what she needed, it seems to me, were some episodes that centered on medical ethics. There was that story about trying a dangerous experimental procedure to help Worf regain his mobility, as well as her raising the issue of genocide in the episode with Hugh. But even in those, she wasn't as forceful as I would have liked. (I can easily picture McCoy's reactions!)
It might have been interesting for her to insist on some risky procedure and have it go irreparably & horribly wrong, fatally wrong. And then to see how she dealt with it afterward. Sometimes future medicine came across as just a little too magical & all-powerful. That hampered stories for her in the capacity as a doctor.
Oh, definitely!
I also liked the episode where she woke up as a Romulan aboard the Romulan ship. It would have been interesting to see her carry some of that attitude back with her to the Enterprise!
If Wesley had been more of an average kid, smart but not a genius, eager and determined but still wet behind the ears, it would have been interesting to watch him grow. He needed a mentor on the ship, as Riker was originally supposed to be. And he needed to make some really bad mistakes along the way, face some hard decisions of his own, and learn from them. That at least had potential. But as you say, he was there mainly to satisfy the younger fans … and they're the ones who disliked him the most.
When Troi got a rare episode where she had to make hard decisions, she was good. Same with Dr. Crusher. But neither of them got enough strong stories, or even strong moments. All too often, female guest stars got better stories than they did.
Suzie Plakson's K'Ehleyr only got two appearances, but she was memorable in both of them. I wish she'd been at least a recurring character on the series -- she had strength, sarcastic wit, and could hold her own with anyone.
This, exactly. There might have been a small handful of decent episodes in season 2 (such as "The Measure of a Man"), but the actors & writers were still trying to find the core of the characters. Picard seems lightweight in the first season; somewhere in the second season, he suddenly becomes the strong, compassionate, determined captain that we know from then on. And once they begin to explore Worf's Klingon heritage & develop Klingon culture, he becomes far more interesting as well. Even the various alien races encountered for a single episode suddenly start becoming more interesting, or so it seems to me.