Star Trek TNG: Season 1
Last night I finished watching the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was great to see the origins of the new Enterprise crew and re-watch a few episodes that I saw when I was a kid. I was kind of skeptical of this new crew as I love the Original Series but after some episodes, they are starting to grow on me. I've known that Commander Riker does not sport a beard this season but in one episode ("Angel One"), we get to see his furry chest! :)
For those who don't know, I'm new to the Star Trek franchise and wasn't much into it in my younger years. I've seen occasional episodes in all the series and seen a couple of movies but it never drew me in much. My late third, Kevin McKenzie was a Trekkie and kind of planted the seeds to get me into it. After he died, my friend Shane who was also a big Trekkie joined our household in 2009. He took me to see the new Star Trek movie and we loved it! Obviously I was very naive on the characters and lore of the Original Series that I was asking Shane a ton of questions. It was then that he gave me some discs of downloaded episodes of TOS and I started to watch them from the beginning slowly. After that, I watched the Animated Series and the first six movies. Overall, I started to understand the popularity of the Star Trek franchise and why so many bears were into it. I'm finding that watching the series from the beginning makes it more interesting and I can follow it better than watching a random episode and not knowing the characters and history.
Here are some notable episodes from Season 1:
"Justice" coming from a religious background, I was puzzled as Picard complains to "god" that, "There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute, even life itself is an exercise in exceptions". I just think it's an unfair critique of "god" and misses opportunities to get into the philosophical debate on moral absolutes and the justice of God.
"Skin of Evil" was one of the first episodes I ever saw in the early 90's though I remember not actually seeing Lt. Tasha Yar get killed. This was the first time I have ever seen the full episode. I never realized that she would be killed off so early in the series that I thought it would happen in the 2nd season or 3rd as the latest. It's too bad, I actually liked Tasha Yar and could see a potential love interest for Worf given that they specialize in fighting. I always describe the villain in this episode, Armus, as "Darth Vader if he was covered in oil or most of him melted". It'll likely be one of my favourite episodes.
"Conspiracy" I saw the last half of this episode in the summer of '93 and maybe once more years later. The best part is when Riker and Picard use their phasers on Lt. Commander Remmick and his head explodes!
Time to start Season 2. Let me know what your thoughts, favourite episodes, etc. from Season 1 of TNG in the comments section.