Star Trek: La nueva generación

I love TNG so much. All the characters are superb and Captain Picard is the best Captain ever. My favourite episode is always have been The Inner Light. 10/10.

The occasional campiness of the 1960's Star Trek series was not at all evident in Star Trek: The Next Generation, arguably the best science fiction television series to ever be aired. It's funny TNG wound up so brilliant, considering the first two seasons were a bit iffy in terms of quality. The show ended up the ultimate representation of Star Trek, with an immensely engaging crew with a great sense of camaraderie, intelligent and intriguing stories, and special effects that were excellent by television standards.

With the exception of Wil Wheaton, the cast was uniformly superb. Patrick Stewart had a lot to live up to as a successor to William Shatner's Kirk. With his magnetic presence and wonderful acting chops, he's crafted a very different individual from Kirk, and probably my favorite Trek character, period. Jonathan Frakes made for a likeable, intriguing Commander Riker, who's occasional rowdiness reminded me a bit of good old Kirk. Brent Spiner is simply terrific as the android, Data, who aspires to be more human. I can't imagine anyone else in the role, which is probably the highest praise you could give to an acting performance. Michael Dorn excelled as the tough Klingon Worf, Levar Burton was immensely likeable as chief engineer Laforge, and rounding out the cast were the series' two sexy and smart women, Marina Sirtis as Counselor Troi and Gates Mcfadden as Dr. Crusher (the latter of whom looks even more beautiful now than she did in her first season on TNG).

The series has had a barrage of standout episodes, whether it was with suspenseful ventures into the unknown (the first appearance of the Borg) to the ultimate cliffhanger in The Best of Both Worlds, The Next Generation was an exercise in masterful storytelling and vivid characterization. Since then, three shows have spawned from Trek lore: Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. I have only seen one episode of Enterprise (and clearly, it didn't make much of an impression on me), but I had sporadically watched DS9 and Voyager, enough to know neither of them were overall quite as compelling as TNG (the only aspect they definitely had over TNG were in the sets and visual effects). For me, that's rather odd, since I often have a preference for a TV series that follows through a central storyline, as both DS9 and Voyager have, but it simply goes to show how each stand-alone episode of TNG made an impression.

When the TNG series premiered in 1987, it wasn't greeted well by many of the old-time Trek fans, including myself. It didn't help matters that one of the earliest episodes, "The Naked Now" was a superficial retread of the classic "The Naked Time" from '66. The new episode should have served as a way of spotlighting several of the new crew, but all it did was show them all in heat. I wasn't too impressed. What did work was keeping the central theme of exploration (something lost in the offshoots, DS9 & Voyager). The new Enterprise was twice as large as the original, with about a thousand personnel aboard. Capt. Picard (Stewart) was a more cerebral, diplomatic version of the ultimate explorer we had known as Capt. Kirk. Again, Picard wasn't too impressive in the first two awkward seasons, as some may mistake his caution for weakness. The Kirk-like first officer Riker (Frakes) was controlled by Picard, so the entire crew of Enterprise-D came across as a bit too civilized, too complacent for their own good. It's interesting that this complacency was fractured by the most memorable episode of the first two years, "Q Who?" which introduced The Borg. All of a sudden, exploration was not a routine venture.

Other memorable episodes of the first 2 years: the double-length pilot, introducing Q; "Conspiracy"-an early invasion thriller; "Where No One Has Gone Before"-an ultimate attempt to define the exploring theme; "The Big Goodbye"-the first lengthy exploration of the new holodeck concept; "Datalore"-intro of Data's evil twin; "Skin of Evil"-death of Tasha Yar; "11001001"-perhaps the best holodeck story; and "The Measure of a Man"-placing an android on trial. Except for "Q Who" the 2nd year was even more of a letdown from the first. Space started to percolate in the 3rd season. I liked "The Survivors"-introducing an entity resembling Q in a depressed mood, and "Deja Q" with both Q & Guinan squaring off, as well as other alien beings. A remaining drawback was the 'techno-babble' hindering many scripts, an aspect which made them less exciting than the stories of the original series. As Roddenberry himself believed, when characters spoke this way, it did not come across as naturalistic, except maybe when it was Data (Spiner), the android. The engineer La Forge (Burton), for example, was usually saddled with long, dull explanatory dialog for the audience.

In the 3rd year, truly innovative concepts such as the far-out parallel-universe adventure "Yesterday's Enterprise" began to take hold, topped by the season-ender "The Best of Both Worlds,part 1" in which The Borg returned in their first try at assimilating Earth. After this and the 2nd part, the TNG show was off and running, at full warp speed. There are too many great episodes from the next 4 seasons to list here, but I tended to appreciate the wild, cosmic concept stories best: "Parallels"(s7); "Cause and Effect"(s5); "Timescape"(s6); "Tapestry"(s6); and the scary "Frame of Mind", "Schisms" and "Genesis." There's also the mind-blowing "Inner Light"(s5), "Conundrum" and "Ship in a Bottle"(s6), "Second Chances." The intense 2-parter "Chain of Command" was almost like a film, and the great return of Scotty in "Relics" was very entertaining, though it showed you can't go home again. The show also continued to tackle uneasy social issues, as in "The Host", "The Outcast", "First Contact" and "The Drumhead" as well as political:"Darmok", "Rightful Heir", "Face of the Enemy" and "The Pegasus." The series ended on a strong note, "All Good Things..." a double-length spectacular with nearly the budget of a feature film. But it wasn't really the end. A few months later, an actual feature film was released "Star Trek Generations"(94). It's rather ironic that the TNG films couldn't match the innovation and creativity of the last 4 seasons of the series. "Star Trek Insurrection"(98) for example, is a lesser effort than any of the episodes mentioned above.

I love this series so much. I like the characters, how they interact with each other and just the plot alone. This is pure genius. Going on adventures with the crew and having a bit of humor along the way. The acting is supreme and the soundtrack is nice too. I ❤ this series very much and can only recommend it !

This is an interesting, thought provoking, and most of all entertaining series. Gene Roddenberry not only gave us a "Wagon Train to the Stars," but he gave us interesting stories reflecting the great values our society holds as truths. I know that "some" episodes were not that good, but that can be said of any series that has a long history. For the most part this program exceeds the mark of excellence in writing and entertainment. The delivery of the writing by Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner et. al. truly brought the Star Trek future to life. The casting of this program is wonderful!

I would hope that anyone with the desire for interesting intelligent science fiction would find this program enjoyable. If a person today is ONLY seeking an action packed thrill ride, then perhaps they may not find the value in Star Trek. But I have loved the program from the first day I watched Captain Kirk in "The Man Trap" from 1966. Since then I have watched the development of Trek with an open mind. I believe that ST-TNG to be the best incarnation of all Trek programs, to date.

In this day and age of terrorism, and threats of war, it would be nice if we could apply more of the philosophies from the possible future of this series. Maybe if more people watched this program the world would be a nicer place!?!