Star Trek: The Next Generation is finally being put out of its misery. 
Here's hoping that this week's episode, "The Enterprise develops a mind of
its own" is better than some of the stuff they've done this season.  Next
week is a pretty interesting sounding one which features the return of
Ensign Ro.  She is to be sent to infiltrate the terrorist group we met on
Deep Space Nine for the past couple of weeks. 

Following that will be the series finale. It is a two hour show and it
should be run everywhere in the USA the week of May 23-29.  Word from
channel 50 in Detroit is that it will be Wed May 25 6-8 in the afternoon. 
Channel 36 in Toledo says they will show it Mon May 23.  No information on
the time, but I'm assuming it'll run from 10 to midnight.

The movie featuring the TNG cast and Captain Kirk is in production now and
is going to be out around Thanksgiving.  The next Trek series starts next
winter.

Has anyone heard about the "favorite TNG episodes marathon" that's also
supposed to be this month?  What are your nominees for best episode?

71 responses total.

Why would Channel 50 be showing it from 6-8 on a *Wednesday Afternoon*?
Where did you get this information?

Um, because they can't preempt Fox programming to show it,
and they can't put it in the regular slot because it's
two hours long?  It's either 6-8 PM or after midnight.
(That, or they have to preempt their precious little
10 O'Clock News, and you know they'll never do that!)

I got this information from a friend who said he got it from the channel
50 programming department.

My nominee for best episode is "Yesterday's Enterprise".  A really neat
way to bring back Tasha Yar.

But, there *is* nothing to stop them from showing it in the "regular"
time slot.  Putting it on Saturday from 12-2 or Sunday from 5-7 wouldn't
effect anything out of the ordinary.  And this is *certainly* the
cast with no Detroit Sports playoffs to prempt Fox programming.  I should
call channel 50.  Anybody closer to Southfield, so I don't have to make a 
long distance call?

I'm not sure that channel 50 won't be running the TNG finale on memorial 
day weekend also.  The first time the finale will be on channel 50 is 
May 25 a few days before memorial day.  The last hour long episode will
Saturday May 21.  

The finale will also be broken up into two one hour segments which you can
expect to see on channel 50 September 10 and September 17 if they reserve
the regular TNG time slot for all the scheduled reruns.

That can't be right.  It's DS9 which has the "new" episode on Saturday,
rerun on the following Sunday.  This is the schedule for TNG:

In article <2qkqld$sts@agate.berkeley.edu> Michael L. Brown,
brown%vidiot.UUCP@cs.wisc.edu writes: >174   4/30/94  274 
47829.1       Bloodlines >175   5/07/94  275             Emergence >176  
5/14/94  276               Preemptive Strike >177a  5/21/94 
747          All Good Things...

"Bloodlines" premiered on 50 this past Sunday, the 8th.  This means "Emergence"
on the 15th and "Preemptive Strike" on the 22nd.  This doesn't mean "all
good things" couldn't be on the 25th, but if 50 sticks to their "normal"
schedule, then "Strike" would be rerun on the 28th (the last hour long
episode.)
 
(As to the above dates, these are the dates Paramount releases them.  Channel
50 has *always* shown Star Trek a week later.  Why?  You got me.  To
coorborate, here are the dates for DS9 -- also a week "earlier":

In article <2qkqpe$sul@agate.berkeley.edu> Michael L. Brown,
brown%vidiot.UUCP@cs.wisc.edu writes: > 41   4/30/94  441             The
Maquis Part II > 42   5/07/94  442             The Wire > 43   5/14/94 
443             Crossover > 44   5/21/94  444             The Collaborator >   
  5/28/94  412R not given  Vortex >      6/04/94  432R not given  The Alternate
> 45   6/11/94  445            Tribunal > 46   6/18/94  446             The
Dominion

The pattern has been that the episodes go up on the satellite on a
Saturday, the date listed on Mike Brown's lists.  The official week in
which the stations are supposed to show the episode is from the Monday
after the satellite date until the Sunday eight day later.  Channel 36
runs the episode at 10:00 Monday night a couple days after the satellite
unless there's a Tiger or Pistons game.  I usually don't count on 50 for
new episodes, so I stand corrected on my assumption that 50 shows new
episodes on the Saturday in which they are current.  You seem to be saying
that 50 shows new episodes on the Sunday in which they are current and
show them again on the Saturday two weeks after the satellite date.

"Preemptive Strike" is the last hour long episode.  "All Good Things..."
is the two hour series finale.

Correct.  "Bloodlines" premiered on 50 on the 8th.  It will be rerun on
the 14th. 

 
 they're gonna kill shatner...huzzah...
 

Be nice to the old man, Matt.

 
 Why? Sympathy?
 

Last chance before the big TNG Viewer's Choice Marathon!! 

After Chris (chanur) Bichler and I brainstormed to pick out our list 
of "Grade-A" episodes, we eliminated the following 20 as unlikely to be
voted into Saturday's marathon by the fans:

Darmok; Sins of the Father; The High Ground; Lower Decks; Starship Mine;
Tapestry; I, Borg; Ship in a Bottle; Parallels; The Pegasus; 
Premptive Strike; Frame of Mind; Ensign Ro; First Duty; The Emissary; 
Sarek; Family; Brothers; Renuion; The Wounded.

We took 3 more off the list when we decided to eliminate the ones
that are just too cerebrial to be remembered by the masses:

Inner Light; Who Watches the Watchers; First Contact.

The last 3 were really hard to part with: 

Cause and Effect; The Offspring; Face of the Enemy.

And our final predictions for the top five were....  <drum roll please>

Yesterday's Enterprise - Alternate reality, Tasha returns, action-drama
Relics                 - Scotty likes Geordi, old bridge noise returns
Q Who                  - Q meets Guinan, we meet the borg, cool cube ship
Deja Q                 - Q naked, Guinan stabs Q, 10 sundaes, Data laughs
Measure of a Man       - Picard vs. Riker, Guinan helps, Data forgives

Watch this afternoon to see if we're right!

Not bad, but I still think "Sins of the Father" will make it in.
Go Worf!

2 out of 5.  Ugh!
Best of Both Worlds (parts 1 and 2)
Yesterday's Enterprise
Inner Light
Relics
Frankly I would treat Best of Both Worlds as one episode and add Face of the 
Enemy to the no. 5 spot but I guess they only had 5 Hours.

I was very happy with the winners -- I think they spanned a good many of
the key aspects of Trek's mass appeal (which I guess one would expect from
the selection process).  Of course, I had my own favorites, and some of
these I wouldn't have even thought of, but seeing them all together was
good, I think.  Chalk up one satisfied viewer...

im in Nh, it shows locally on the 28th, form 2-10 including top 5, premier, and
 ye olde grande finale. who/what were the winning episodes in your neck of the
woods? -fuz ps: mail me

My vote for the best episode of STNG goes to _The Inner Light_. I t was
an excellent example of good SF. It didn't need the Star Trek universe
to exist in. _All good things..._ tonight was very well done.

I thought "All Good Things ..." was just great.  I loved the Enterprise
with 3 nacells!  It looked like it could kick some butt!

Those were some serious phasers!!!  Sliced and diced those Klingon ships...

And it was about damn time the Federation figured out cloaking technology,
after capturing several Klingon ships oh, I don't know, a hundred years
ago...

Actually the federation had a trety with the romulans that prevented the
federation from using clocking technology....also Talk about phasers that thing
acted like those ships didn't even have shields!...now that's power...Btw, I'm
new to this conference.

Oh, another hokey treaty excuse?  Bah.  The Federation gets it butt
kicked by cloaked ships and they can't cloak?  Jeez.  I'm glad they
said the hell with it and used cloaking technology, then.

Well since the romulans were conquered by Klingons there was no treaty so they
could then use cloacking technology...

 
 Ricker looked an awfull lot like Orsen Wells...
 But the Enterprise finally kicked butt! HUZZAH!!

 Fairly good episode...except for some small flaws...

  So what were the flaws?

 
 Tasha Yar looked way to old...
 A few others, that I dont remember at the moment...
 

The biggest flaw in my opinion was the fact that the future Enterprise
creates the rift, then goes away, then comes back to find that it has
grown and is now visible.  If the rift really is getting bigger as one
goes BACKWARD in time, going FORWARD from its point of origin shouldn't
result in growth; i.e. there should have been nothing there when they went
back.

Yes, I agree. The rift shouldn't have existed in the future. But then again,
it's a rift in *time*, so who knows what it would do in the future.
Answer: The writers know. :-)

Yes, the episode had minor flaws, but very few glaring ones. What impressed
me more was the job the continuity people did.  They managed to weave in
all sorts of subtle details from past episodes to create a very believable
future history. If you listen to data talk in the future sequences, he
uses contractions. Picard mentions in passing Jeordi's wife, "Leah", who
has to be  Leah Brahms. The fact that the Romulans have been conquered
so it's ok for the Feds to use cloaking tech. Tech that is standard stuff
in one time period, is "highly experimental" in another. There were others
that I can't remember off hand. Each very subtle, but they helped weave
together a complex world.

And they killed off Troi, thank goodness.  (I loved Q's dig at her
inane "psychobabble").  It was like the writers used Q to voice some
of the criticisms of the show.

Actually Troi's death had to do with the book Imzadi...in the future sequence
they used parts of Imzadi in the Conversation like about troi's death...how
much riker missed her and such...

Who the hell reads the books?  I thought we were discussing then TV
show...

I think a lot of people read the books, Kent, that's why they keep
printing them.  Could you explain about Imzadi, jwp?

Sure, people read the books, but for me, true Star Trek applies only to the
TV shows.

        Pattie

Well, it's fine with me if you want to discuss ST books, but I'd prefer
an item for that purpose was entered rather than sidetracking the TV
show discussion.

I'm pretty sure I set out NOT to get flamed but to bring up a point...I was
mearly saying that they kept up with the future as it was portrayed in the
books...that is all...And the book pretty much told of riker and troys relation
and about her death..

Speaking for myself, I thought the finale was pretty good.  Plenty of back-
ground stuff, the seriously upgraded Enterprise, Q being his usual sarcastic

self...and this is supposed to lead directly into the movie.  Now how does
Kirk fit into this?  "The trial never ends," Q had said...ah, well, we'll
know around Thanksgiving!

here's one thing i don't get:
i think the final episode gave us a good picture of how data "developed"
in his seven years on the enterprise (and beyond).
but from my understanding, data had been in starfleet for something
like 15 years (or more) before he joined the enterprise.
so how come he's so stupid? i mean, in 15 years, you'd think he'd
hear "burn the midnight oil" at some point...
looking back at the first couple seasons, there's a lot of stuff data
didn't know.
anyway, i could be wrong about data being in starfleet for fifteen years,
but if i'm not, i think data was pretty stupid those first few years.
i hadn't thought about this until i saw the final episode, seeing his 
three "personalities" juxtaposed like that

Easy rationalization:  He had no friends at the academy and didn't begin
to be exposed to informal language until he got to the Enterprise.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss