TNG update!

[anghraine]

So, J and I are actually (as of May 1st!) well into season 2 of TNG. I had much stronger memories of TNG than TOS because ... uh, I grew up with TNG re-runs, and had a lot of affection for Picard as a kid, etc. But part of the reason I was so shocked by loving TOS as much as I did was because it felt so different in ambitions and even politics than I remembered from TNG, and especially in structure and focus. I'd heard people talk about the overlooked ensemble quality of TOS or how McCoy gets balanced narrative attention to Kirk and Spock or whatnot, and then I marathoned the whole thing as an adult and was like "...uh, so this is like 70% the Kirk and Spock show, TNG was way more about the ensemble unless I'm completely misremembering." But it had been a long time, so I was curious about how TNG would register as an adult with more information about the production etc.

By and large, I do strongly prefer TOS despite the comfort food quality of TNG, but I am really enjoying parts of TNG. Data is endearing, but in these more infamously flawed first two seasons, a lot of the show is honestly carried by Riker and Troi for me. J and I keep joking about how Picard is so often in his quarters or indulging himself elsewhere that Riker actually runs the ship, and in general we've felt that everyone would be better off if he just was the captain. It's like... okay, so in my PhD program, there was this graduate student organization that helped with a lot of coordination and such, but the actual president of the organization was a bit of a self-indulgent flake. My best friend in the program ended up becoming the vice-president, and did basically all the real work of holding it together and whipping it into a useful shape. Said vice-president is now J's girlfriend, so he has this context, and I keep being like "ah, looks like GSO Vice President Riker is doing the real work AGAIN."

Meanwhile, early TNG Troi is not only charming and compelling, but less constrained by the whims of the plot in terms of her abilities and what information she's allowed to convey (though this is getting worse at this point, unfortunately, and at times people just ignore her powers for no reason). But she's actually the most interesting character to me, and when she gets good scenes, they're among the most enjoyable. I like her with Riker though I like her more with K'Ehleyr, or Tasha back in the beforetimes, and while it's hilarious to me that so many problems could be solved by working with literally any of the many Vulcans on the ship, I do enjoy the very different way that the telepath/empath role becomes a psychological one. And she should be the third in command, actually.

But anyway, something I'd heard a lot about was how Riker is Kirk 2.0 in TNG, and I occasionally see some (not very good) attempts to force him into that role in TNG, but ultimately? Holy shit, no. I love them both, but they are very different men. Riker is very successful as Riker but completely fails at being Kirk—and does not benefit from occasions when TNG tries to force him into a Kirk role (say, I love "Haven" for Troi and Lwaxana, but when it's trying to be "Amok Time," he just makes me miss actual Kirk in actual "Amok Time", much as Picard/his lawyer ex in "Measure of a Man" made me miss the amicable respect between Areel and Kirk in "Court Martial"). There are a lot of reasons that I feel they're very different—too many to easily sum up, actually. But the biggest is probably Riker's straightforward, natural warmth and genuine good humor, and his comfort with occupying a kind of "masculine ideal" role, particularly but not only for Wesley (who is fine, btw). I think that Kirk is a far more deliberate, performative, and philosophically-driven person who is very much less comfortable with that kind of masculinity being projected onto him, and more comfortable tailoring his persona to the occasion. Even in silly episodes from both shows, the difference seems very marked. Like, say—

RIKER: Yes, I find you very attractive.
BEATA: You attract me like no man ever has.
RIKER: It's not my function to seduce or be seduced by the leader of another world.
BEATA: It's not the reason.
RIKER [obviously attracted]: No, it's not.
[They go off to have what seems mutually enthusiastic and enjoyable sex that doesn't directly impact the mission; they're just really into each other.]

KIRK: Then it's a device. You do use tools.
SYLVIA: It gives only form. You're teaching me substance.
KIRK: You haven't changed your mind? You won't return home?
SYLVIA: My home is here with you. A billion worlds of sensation to pick and choose.
[They kiss, and she reads his mind]
SYLVIA: You are using me! You hold me in your arms and there is no fire in your mind. You're trying to deceive me! It's here, like words on a page. You are using me.
KIRK: And why not? You've been using me and my crew.

Honestly, I think Pulaski is much more McCoy 2.0 than Riker is Kirk 2.0, and I've gradually come to like Pulaski quite a bit better than McCoy, tbh. I wish she'd stuck around longer! Muldaur is fantastic, and even within a single season, it's not unsympathetic to her, while being less forgiving of open bigotry. She has a clear arc of needed maturation that I've actually found enjoyable. And she also gets to be the voice of medical ethics and gut decency in the way of McCoy that was always his best quality, so given the treatment of female characters in TNG, I definitely appreciate that she's not made worse than him, either.

Comments

[elperian]

TNG was the first ST show I ever watched, and I've been musing about going back to it after TOS at some point because I'm sure I would get more out of it after watching TOS and also I'm just more immersed in the canon now. It has some standout characters, moments, and episodes for me - Guinan and Ro Laren are two of my favorite characters in all of ST, even if they are relatively small parts in TNG - and I appreciate now how the show had a heavy lift to carry on the legacy of ST while being the first ST show post-TOS.

[anghraine]

I can respect the ways in which it (sometimes) tries to deliberately distinguish itself from TOS—e.g., there's an episode where this guy goes on about how the TNG bridge crew are like family, but it was funny to me because they seem so much more like friendly co-workers than the ride or die for a lifetime relationships of the TOS crew. The Picard-Riker and Picard-Troi relationships in particular feel so Normal Professionals after TOS. Data fills a sort of Spock-ish position and so does Troi, but neither of them are like him in fundamentals at all, Riker only resembles Kirk in the most superficial of ways, Picard isn't analogous to anyone at all, etc. And some things are genuinely better—I prefer TNG's handling of Klingon culture (helped by getting them out of brownface >_>), TNG understands how Pulaski can and needs to grow while still loving her in a way that TOS only sort of gets at with McCoy (tragically she's only in one season ;_;).

Unfortunately, I find it painfully very much less ambitious thematically (one might say politically!) than TOS almost across the board, in a very complacent 80s neoliberalism way. TOS episodes are not always aware of what issues they're really dealing with but usually are and, by the standards of that kind of show at the time pushed the envelope a lot harder than TNG, IMO. A bunch of TNG episodes seem bizarrely oblivious to the real social issues created by their own premises and hyper-individualized in a deeply frustrating way), with very much more of Roddenberry being high on his own fumes. I enjoy plenty of episodes, but they feel much more tightly linked to the TOS movies than TOS itself in ... vision, I guess, and there's a lot that's just really difficult to reconcile to TOS at all.