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Star Trek TNG: 125-126 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-27 12:00:08
Edited:
2026-01-08 02:35:59
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Episodes: Conspiracy, The Neutral Zone

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Files

Comments

Forkbeard83

Can't remember if i put this under Close Encounters, but an alien contact movie to check out if you haven't already is Fourth Kind, with Mila Jovic. its an interesting one, and will defiantly give George opinions.

Ca$hWednesday

What third party could possibly have taken out those outposts... i wonder ;) Also, "Conspiracy" is the crown jewel of Season 1.

Robert Cooper

Some notes: "Conspiracy" was based almost entirely on a studio note. Gene hated the idea, so he spent a bunch of money and made it as horrific as he could so the studio would fuck off. "The Neutral Zone" -- the plot with the Romulans is really the B plot here. It is a really subtle set up for...aah.... big things that happen in Season 2 and especially 3. You really don't even put it together until season 3, by which time you forgot it even happened. It does kind of mess with the timeline. The Eugenics Wars were in the 90s and Wold War 3 in the early 21st century, so it does seem weird that these people would be "us" as much as they are. Also, a "mess of greens" would mean mustard, collard, or turnip greens, usually cooked with a ham hock.

Michael Bauer

When Simone says season 2 has one of her favorite episodes overall, I think I have a pretty good idea which one that is, and I wholeheartedly agree. The first perfect example of why TNG is still my favorite show. Can’t wait!

GAB

"To expatiate on" means to speak or write in detail about something.

GAB

Seasons 6 and 7 of TNG overlap with seasons 1 and 2 of DS9. Seasons 1 through 5 of Voyager overlap with seasons 3 through 7 of DS9. However, there's no particular reason to watch the episodes in strict broadcast order. There is some character overlap, but this doesn't extend to stories, unlike in the CW Arrowverse, for example.

JD Nevesytrof

"What....is THAT?" George confirmed for space racist. (spacist)

Spacedone

Season 2 is a marked improvement but it still has its fair share of poor eps. It has some of my favourite episodes and also my single-most hated episode. :D I think the general consensus is BTB vs ATB for TNG (and DS9 too). if you know, you know...

R. Chang

Season 1 has good points, for sure, but I think it's pretty widely accepted that it's the worst TNG season. And not by a little bit. By a lot. Season 2 is a significant improvement and then seasons 3-6 are just consistently good to great. Season 7 is a mixed bag because they knew it was their final season and they took some wild swings. Some paid off and others really didn't. When I've done a rewatch of this series by myself, I watch maybe 10-12 episodes from season 1, 15-16 from Season 2 and then pretty much everything from 3-6.

Spacedone

Also: "I'm just going for a Shatner." Sounds like a comment about his singing.

R. Chang

For sure. Gotta be Shades of Gray, right?

Mastervodo

I love Sssssssspace.... fuck! Wednesdays! I want Simone, on a random movie, to be like, "Hey everybody! And welcome to.... "Ssssssspace... FUCK! I'm Simone and this is George and this iswherebweblahblahblahyeah ".

R. Chang

Has Simone seen Lower Decks? I know that's a ways off if they really do the full Star Trek journey, but man, she's going to love it if she hasn't.

Spacedone

This is a suggestion for a reaction for the far far future (after you've done Deep Space 9 at least) but I think you'd really enjoy Babylon 5. It was one of the first scifi shows to have a full multi-season storyline and character development worked out in advance and to go into some very dark places. Both DS9 and B5 are set on a space station and they arrived at almost exactly the same time. The reason that two (initially) similar shows with a similar premise arrived at the same time is that Paramount essentially stole the idea from B5's creator when he was pitching the show years earlier and developed their next Star Trek show from the idea. They were sued over it and settled out of court.

Thall

The more I rewatch Star Trek, the more I recognize all the actors that had roles in basically every single show! Like the Romulan is Gol Dukat. It's a fun little easteregg hunt

Dan

It's difficult to imagine that an ethical/utopian-ish future society would really consider those revivable cryonics patients "dead" any more than we would really consider someone "dead" today if their heart had just been stopped due to an accidental electric shock.

Paul T Hewes

Lower Decks was brilliant Star Trek.

Darin Foat

There are a couple of real world reasons why a lot of actors ended up playing multiple alien roles on Trek. Normally the Screen Actors Guild has rules about how often the same actor can appear in different roles on the same show. They want to encourage productions to hire new actors and spread the work around. But those rules are waived if the actor is playing a character in heavy prosthetics, and is unrecognizable. Also, once they made a cast of someone's face, it was easier to create new prosthetics for that actor. The actor who probably appeared as the most different species is Jeffrey Combs, who played 5 different alien races, and once played two different characters (of different species) in the same episode.

Jomero

Even though I used the phrase "stinkiest of stanks" to describe Season 1, it's true it's not terrible. Simone is right in that future seasons are much better by comparison. Horny Roddenberry as well as converted-unused TOS scripts (which they used for some S1 episodes) are purged from the system beginning around Season 3. The actors and writers have figured out the characters a lot better by then. New elements are introduced that are less campy and silly. It's just a different and more refined vibe later on. So, going back to S1 can be a bit jarring for many. And Season 2 does indeed have some really, really good episodes as well.

Dan

In general I think George is being over-pessimistic re waking up in a Star Trek future - there seems to be lots of opportunities to catch-up on education and actualise yourself - the whaleologist from ST 4 seemed like she was doing ok. Also Star Trek have the magical universal translator, but even in the absence of that I think we can assume that automated translation to/from current-ish English won't be a problem given the vast amounts of material to train AIs on. Cryonics isn't a preserve of the rich (by developed world standards) - it's fairly affordable, but the big caveats/considerations are: 1. Physical location - if it takes too long to get to you that might affect what can be preserved. This can be quite a limitation. 2. Cause of death - some won't allow for freezing. 3. Whether , even in the best conditions, it'll actually work and leave you in a revivable state. (Some grounds for cautious optimism.) 4. Whether you'll make it into the future (some previous issues here as mentioned in the episode - modern setups seem more financially/legally robust and it's not actually that difficult or expensive to just keep topping up liquid n2 - power cuts aren't the big issue you might imagine). But a lot can happen in a hundred years. 5. What will happen to you in the future. In a Star Trek future I'd expect to be treated pretty well. But in a more Bobiverse/Matrix/Terminator/etc future that's a lot more questionable - and you might not have the option of a quick death at that point.

Michael Bauer

I've definitely watched "The Neutral Zone" at least 7 or 8 times in my life, but it's only now that I realize the nods to TOS's brilliant "Balance Of Terror" episode: i) Outposts have gone silent close to the Romulans ii) There's a weapon of extraordinary power that destroyed the outposts ii) Nobody has seen the Romulans (TOS: ever / TNG: in over half a century) iii) There's a bridge-officer who is really prejudiced against Romulans Neat :)

Greg Johanson

If you want continuous stories you will love ds9

Jpsynergy

Star Trek day. Time to see what my guy Jean-Luc Picard is up to. Being awesome, being bald, those are my guesses.

Cartoons ReAct

Knowing George's pop culture knowledge I'm almost sure he knows whats coming but doesn't know is from Star Trek.... xD

akaTheBAY-AY-RON

Regarding the Romulans announcing "we're back" and how yes, that was clearly meant for the audience. One thing to keep in mind is this episode aired in 1988. The last time the Romulans were seen on screen was TOS in 1968, so a full 20 years for Star Trek fans who've only seen them in old re-runs, and even then, I think they were in only 3 episodes. But for the watch schedule here on patreon, they were seen only a few months ago. So still fresh. So I think it hit hard for fans at the time because they were a staple in Star Trek lore, even tho not used that much, haven't been seen in decades, and the Ferengi missed the mark at being this show's big bad as they were kind of seen as a joke. I think some fans saw it as recycling old stuff due to poor ratings, but since they weren't over exposed in the original series it didn't feel too "recycled" either.

Doug

George sneezing at the exact wrong time to miss the head pop was too good

Solus

So, from my understanding and what a friend of mine has told me because he knows the lore a lot more than me is that the Romulan ship that showed up is so much bigger than the Enterprise that the Enterprise can fit within the middle space of the Romulan ship.

gfixler

Captain Rixx, the blue guy with the ridge down his face, is played by Michael Berryman, who's been in a lot of films. He has an unusual look, because he was "born with hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, a rare condition characterized by the absence of sweat glands, hair, and fingernails." I went with with a close friend 20 years ago to Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors, a convention of horror movie stuff and fans in LA. My buddy was going to meet Bruce Campbell, and I got their picture together. Anyway, as we were nearing the doors to the convention hall, from the parking garage, Berryman was coming out, to go to his car, and I didn't recognize him, but did notice his unusual look. As he passed us, and I nodded hello, my friend said something like "I didn't know they let FREAKS in here." and my heart went up into my throat. I couldn't believe my buddy would attack someone like that over their looks, like a teen from a Steven King book, but then Berryman turned around and went right into character, doing the next line from whatever film it was, and I said "Oh, fuck me, it's from a movie." My friend is a horror movie buff. Mr. Berryman came back and chatted with us for a few minutes, laughing about their little roleplay moment, super nice, happy to spend some time with a fan in a parking garage, while I was just standing to the side, buzzing with adrenaline and flop sweating.

Alex Macdougall

It's measure of a man! Measure of Man is her favourite from season 2. Cause its all our favourites from season 2.

Jomero

Oh, and George, if you're hoping for some more story threads that go beyond just a single episode or two, the TNG series will disappoint you. Deep Space 9 will be the first trek series that contains much longer plot threads beyond just an episode or two. And the writers had to fight for it (they were originally told "Don't make it more than three episodes." but they rebelled and stuck to their plan anyway).

Chris Davies

There are a few series that are better from an overall standpoint than The Next Generation, like Babylon 5 or Deep Space Nine. However even now almost 40 years later, The Next Generation still has most of the best single episodes ever made in television. We start to get those episodes sprinkled around the less impressive ones starting with Season 2 and up to Season 6.

Stu84

Thats an amazing episode but my personal fav is from Season 2 and thats "Q Who"

Thomas Yanez

This season George has established, in exquisite detail, how much he does not like A/B-story type episodes. Now he can just relax and watch the rest of the series run, hopefully... 'cause they are going to keep coming.

Henchmen21

Meh I disagree about season 6 being considered good. The writing for season 6 & 7 I consider poor not only because they were splitting the writing duties between TNG & DS9 but when people lament the writing of the first two seasons you can at least say it was growing pains and they were still finding their footing with the show and characters. Seasons 6 & 7 don't have that excuse.

Matt O'Keefe

Too bad Simone didn't remember that swedes took out both the Romulan and Federation outposts.

Opti_Frog

The Romulan Bird of Prey introduced in The Neutral Zone is probably my favourite ship design in all of Star Trek. ❤

Andrew

Simone laughs exactly like Data! Maybe she's an android. 🤯

Angela's invisible airfryer (corey)

As for the "we're back" line not feeling impactful, you also didn't go almost 30 years without hearing about them like the original trek fans did. That's always been my guess but I wasn't a trek fan till the 90s so idk. And yea, seasons 1 and 2 don't suck but 3+ are far better. Google the phrase "growing the beard" lol.

dys

The season finale is basically "Lecturing At the Audience: The Episode", but it's one of my favorites from season 1. I think the A and B plots tie together quite well thematically, with the Romulans wondering how far humans have come in 50 years while we have this example of how far they'd come in the last 400.

WastedPo

I think George is 100% correct that the "Neutral Zone" episode would've been better served if either plotline had been given its own dedicated episode. I'm also glad to hear (from the pre-show discussion) that he's enjoying TNG, even though we haven't even gotten to the second season yet.

KnittingHaven

I was thinking of doing a Babylon 5 rewatch soon, but worried the politics might be a little too on point currently

Keith Jones

A mess of greens is a Southern specialty in the US. My usual batch takes a couple of days. Collard greens, mustard greens and kale. Start with onions and some form of smoked pork, jawls or smoked trotters or whatever you have. Add stock and seasonings, salt cayenne and whatever ;and then steam the greens down covered for a few minutes, a handful at a time. Once they have softened, simmer for three or four hours. You can serve them then, or rest in the fridge overnight to improve flavor. I like mine with a dash of vinegar based hot sauce.

R. Chang

ok. You're free to disagree. I think season 6 is solid.

gfixler

I disagrees with George's idea that people from the past, woken up in the present, would be useless to society. I've worked with, been served by, and been governed by so many people from the present who I'm absolutely certain have better counterparts from the past, even if we went all the way back to Roman times. Philip J. Fry excluded, of course.

Eversharpe

George is ignoring the historical value of being able to speak to someone who really lived through events. Imagine we find some Roman frozen in the alps and we somehow had the tech to bring them back. They could tell us what the hell those dodecahedrons are for.

lalaland

Ah yes. Because the 21st century has record keeping as bad as ancient Rome on parchment... It's not like we literally record everything all the time. We'd have a lot less questions about ancient Rome if they had smart phones and cameras everywhere. Even in the 80s when the show was happening people had cancorders and you know, tv news existed.

gfixler

I can't believe George and Simone have never heard of country music sensation, L.Q. 'Sonny' Clemmons.

gfixler

1. lock the door, disable the wall panels, so the people from the past can't mess with things. 2. it's kind of adorable how much L.Q. Clemmons likes Data immediately. He was basically like "Wow, a robot? Well alright, then, we're BFFs now." 3. Why is no one interested in people that were frozen for 370 years? That feels like it could be the most interesting thing in a different episode. People would want to ask about life back then, and what they think of things now. I'd want to show them all the cool things from the future. The whole thing here was like "People from centuries ago? Sigh, all right, let 'em on board, I guess. We'll find somewhere to put them for now." It's weird. Their mission is new life, and old life is a kind of like new life in this case. 4. 2023's average is 1.94 children per family, which means, if that rate held, there would be around 750 people at the last level, if I'm doing the math right, and I'm probably not (1.94¹⁰). If that is the right math, and every offspring had 5 children, then it would be more than 9.7M at the last level. Mathletes, correct me if I'm wrong.

Zero Cochrane

I'm going to keep saying this whenever it's relevant, but the Documentary called "Chaos on the bridge" explains a lot of the head scratching questions present in the early seasons. The documentary is free on you tube.

Robert Elliott

The reference to “greens” is three main types Turnip Greens, Mustard Greens and Collard Green usually cooked with sausage or/and ham. As far as people from the past where did all of our science, math and astronomy come from? Just a thought.

John

This was great. These are two of my favorite episodes from season 1. I also want to point out that one of the Romulans was an actor from In the Heat of the Night 1967, a movie I strongly recommend

Opti_Frog

Oh yes, a callback to TOS, i believe.

gfixler

Tasha had to leave because there was just no one left for her to hit on. Very sad.

gfixler

I liked the surprise over "boob tube," because I hadn't noticed that phrase slipped out of common use long ago. Parents back then would say "You're not spending all day in front of the boob tube! Go outside!" Another one was "couch potato," which was even a board game in the late 80s.

gfixler

I never realized that an entire location at the front of the saucer (if you know you know) and a certain character wasn't even in the first season! It's like how I was surprised Chekhov wasn't in season 1 of TOS. I never noticed way back in the day. This season feels very bridge heavy. I feel like later seasons move a bit more into the rest of the ship, although, if you've ever explored the ship on MineTrek, now defunct, sadly, you know that we never see the overwhelming majority of the ship. It is colossal.

Pearl Jam

At the end of Symbiosis as Picard and Krusher are exiting the Cargo Bay, Tasha waves goodbye to the camera, knowing she’ll be killed off in the next episode.

Angzarr

Well, there is KIND OF a follow-up... the idea for this species lived on, sorta, it just became very different. So different that it didn't make sense to connect it with this episode anymore. My understanding is that the idea that started as these aliens evolved into the B***, who ended up filling the role instead. And I'm thankful that it did!

Angzarr

Considering that he dislikes bathing so much, it's weird that Worf became the voice of Neutragena T/Gel Shampoo!

Angzarr

Frozen people would be of no use in the future? Tell that to Robert Johansson! Seriously George, you need to read "We Are Legion, We Are Bob" and the sequels. SO good!

Ben Schwartz

I'm just hoping that they stick with it for the whole show's run, because the seasons get better and better later on... Season 1 is just a taste.

Ben Schwartz

I think it's funny that Simone made herself out to be a big Trek fan, but as the season progresses, it seems clear she really doesn't know anything about Star Trek post-TOS. Maybe in later seasons she'll start to remember.

Ben Schwartz

And it's just as obnoxious lol... I wish I could control the sound mix.

Allan

Well hasn't she said she tends to skip the first couple seasons on rewatch, so her memory of those is kind of spotty? I'm pretty sure TNG is the one she considers her Trek, the one she grew up watching the most. She didn't really know much about TOS until they watched it on here, but she references stuff from TNG, DS9, and VOY now and then.

BubblyRainbows

It is a very cool design, but personally I've always been partial to the Klingon Birds of Prey.

Beginning_of_a_new_era

Hope you watch more ghibli movies like princess mononoke or the boy and the hero. Or the silent movie flow won a Oscar for best animation

Simon Pegged Me

In the Heat of the Night is a classic. I hope they enjoy reacting to it.

Simon Pegged Me

Good points. They were on a delicate diplomatic, possibly military mission, which should have precluded the involvement of senior officers, but except for Geordie, the executive officer, the chief medical officer, the tactical/security officer, the operations officer, and the ship's counselor, all, were called to deal with unexpected visitors. In TOS, when this happened, Kirk, at least, called down to the history division to have a junior officer specializing in the visitors' time period take responsibility for their reintegration period. And, come on, Riker. Picard said specifically he did not want the cryo-babies to disturb him during this important mission, and dude shows up on the bridge? You couldn't post guards, or confine them to the guest lounge or restrict their access to comms, engineering, the armory, anything?

Cinebinge

We normally record next week's episodes the same day as last week's recording is posted. Last, this and next week's however were preshot as i (George) am out of town for a week. Same reason for the double winner poll 2 weeks ago. So yeah when this was recorded, last week's post wasn't posted yet. Same goes for next week's post. After that, it will be back to usual weekly schedule.

Morion Williams

Queen of the damned (Ann Rice Vampire) Repo the Genetic Opera (Gothic Musical) God Bless America (funny thought provoking, better than falling down) 10 Thing I hate about you (Obvious, said you guys where going to) I now pronounce you chuck and larry (death by laughter) Animatrix (Really cool animated sci-fi) A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Cool and sad Sci-fi) IQ (Awesome Romcom) Mighy Ducks (Feel good sports comedy) A score to settle (Good Nicolas Cage Action) Real Steel (Feel good family action comedy)

Lintrinsic

That's because that was the last scene Denise Crosby shot. They filmed the episodes out of order. Not because the character sensed her impending doom.

Lintrinsic

Thar sounds like Beta canon, so probably not a spoiler. Was just saying to my bro he'd probably make a great diplomat or negotiator or do well in a society where they still have money like the Ferengi or Orions.

Lintrinsic

I often warn reactors to maybe dial back their expectations for S2's finale, then crank it back another few notches, mainly because big season finales weren't the thing they became later, not just in Star Trek. And partly because it's what my Mum used to call "cheap week" when I was growing up. And I'll say no more than that.

Lintrinsic

I've said before, it's not that S1&S2 are bad. It's that the show finds it's feet in season 3 due to a number of factors. Roddenberry stepping back, other departures and additions to the production team. Moving away from the TOS 3 lead format to more of an ensemble, it becoming an ensemble lending itself to changes in the filming schedule giving actors more free time, the writers strike that mired season 2 leading to them opening up script submissions in season 3. Others have mentioned the documentary Chaos on the Bridge, that's probably relatively spoiler free after season 3 of TNG. There's also a series called the Center Seat that's fascinating, unfortunately they do montages of future episodes that spoil stuff so beware. It covers TOS all the way to Enterprise and I think the TNG movies.

Pearl Jam

Ah, that rings a bell. Thanks for the correction!

Chase Lonnergan

Damn right Voyager has the most badass captain! Janeway is the GOAT! Best captain in the franchise! Ah yes, the season finale. The most condescending, anti-capitalist, Marxist, completely un-self-aware nonsensical bullshit in all of TNG. God, I hate this episode.

David N

Is that a man in the star trek mini skirt uniform at 33:48? Maybe its a short haircut and some rockin thighs but if it is I don't remember this ever being shown before.

Brian Moore

Skants are seen on several men in the first season, especially in the pilot episode IIRC.

Gryff

1:11:05 Everyone is penniless, George. Money doesn't exist... 1:13:00 Its not defined but analyzing context clues leads me to believe he is referring to Collard Greens. 1:14:36 "Low mileage pit wolfies, and help them build a memory." Find two fun loving young women and have a good time. Party, drink, play music all night. The kind of stuff that got him to 'rich musician with exploding liver' stage.

lalaland

so what he said is correct then.

Gryff

Technically no, but arguably yes. The Federation being currency free is what makes everyone penniless, as well as the fact that the Penny hasn't existed for hundreds of years lol

lalaland

how can it be arguably yes, the dude is literally penniless as both you and George have stated.. also, CLEARLY hes laughing at the rich guy realizing he has no money. which, again, is literally whats happening.

erosennin

There's a great book about a scenario of someone being frozen in our time and thawed up 130 years from now and finding himself in a very different situation than he thought. The frozen people are now owned by a company and are revived as sort-of-AI in a computer with no body to be trained to control networks of manual labor robots. They have no rights, no possessions and can be deleted if they are deemed unsuitable for the task. Very entertaining, interesting and funny book called "We are Legion (We are Bob)". Won a bunch of Sci-Fi awards too I think.

gfixler

Definitely, but walking the MineTrek ship for hours—and getting literally lost so bad several times, I had to float through the decks finally out of the ship to figure out where I'd been—it felt like I'd never really known the ship in the show. It's so monstrously bigger than my perception from the show. Here are some things in the MineTrek ship: • pod on top of ship with bridge was supposed to be able to separate, too, so it has command quarters, lounges that double as crew quarters, weapons and computer rooms, a secondary captain's quarters, etc. • not just some holodecks, but like dozens of them, some small, some huge. • not just Beverly's medical center, but practically a floor, like a hospital wing, with an infectious disease center, etc. • not just some random workout areas, but at least a third of a large deck of courts of all types, and a Parrises Squares arena. • many astrometrics labs, some that feel a bit like Cerebro from the X-Men, with a walkway out into a spherical room. • a place called The Grotto, which looks like the lobby of the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville. It's several decks high, and like a warehouse in size, right in the middle of the ship, with regular ship hallways passing it on all sides, opening up on one side to it, and walkways and bridges, trees everywhere, and a little mountain with a bar inside it. • a whole zoological area, practically a whole deck, with huge cells for animals, and a big research lab. • theaters, several, with stadium seating, and hallway style entryways that tunnel through the middle of the seating. • huge cargo elevators up through the middle of the ships, visiting most decks, that connect various cargo areas, one of them stories high, and most of a deck in size, with tunnels and rooms everywhere. • we saw the engineering area, with the "pool table" Geordie was always at. That's there, but it branches out to a huge engineering section that goes all over the place. • thousands of quarters, from quaint to large family dwellings with many rooms. • not just Ten Forward, but a "Forward" on every deck, and lounges dotting the perimeter of many decks, and little breakrooms for crews to eat in all over. • the escape pods are all there—every one you see on the hull in the show is in the ship—and there are little hallway networks that connect nearby ones, so you enter one doorway from a main hallway, and it changes look inside, and branches off down other hallways to different pods, which are all also modeled out, with seats and computers and cargo holds, and there are tight walkways around them where they can be serviced from outside, too. • miles of Jeffrey's tubes and turbolifts, connecting every area of the ship, with little tow areas here and are there that the turbolifts can move out of the way and wait for when they're called, and computer rooms all over the place the Jeffrey's tubes let out into, with ladders through hatches into other areas. • massive sections for computer core stuff, through most decks, with terminals in rooms all over. • a whole botany area that's huge, like walking into a Walmart, with stories-high greenhouses, labs, etc. • the original plans had the idea that dolphins would live in big tanks, and use their powers to help the ship navigate. There are Sea World-sized tanks, tubes, catwalks over them, lounge areas that overlook them, and they're at the front edge of the ship, with windows looking out, which were on the original plans, too. • the entire captain's yacht, never used on the show, which is the big oval on the bottom of the ship, and also separates and can fly away for away missions and vacations. It's fully specked out, with quarters, mess, computer rooms, etc., several decks high, and you can walk from the ship interior down a loading ramp into it. • all three shuttle bays, including the two we saw on the show (2 and 3), and shuttle bay 1, specked out, but too colossal for the show, it was 3 stories high, and literally the size of a Walmart, with dozens of shuttles, and base around the entire perimeter. There are helper vehicles, like forklifts all over, and the room is so large, it has the equivalent of 3, large, 3-story buildings inside it—office buildings—with a lot of space around each. There are large shuttlecraft-sized lifts in the floor that lower down to another room the same size, which stores many more shuttles, and is like the garage where they're all worked on. • there's a neat idea in the shuttlecraft garage, modeled out and explorable, where the shuttlecraft is basically a carrier, and the stuff in the back is a pod that slides in from the back. They had one put together, an empty one (just the bridge and shell on the back a pod could slide into), and several example pods, including a medical one with beds and labs, a trooper one with seats all over, and a weapons locker, a standard one, like we saw on the show, with ladders up into shallow bedroom areas, and several more. • the clamshells on the bottom, visible in the show, are awesome doors that open, and you can go into those sections, with the clamshell doors beneath you. This is where a ton of cargo is supposedly loaded in. • there are walkways and ladders up through the nacelle arms, and the nacelles have offices in them, for people who work on the nacelles, or maybe who monitor them. You can make a long trek up flights of stairs in weird directions, and end up in an office, overlooking the whole interior of the nacelle. I think that was shown in an episode at one point. • there are stairways up through the spine connecting the two halves of the ship, and doorways out onto the decks. It feels like you've found the parking garage stairs. Oh, and there are obvious lines throughout all the areas where the halves separate, and tucked away, sliding panels that would come out to close off sections that are exposed to are the ship halves split apart. It's all so amazingly well thought out and designed. • every deck has brigs, little med bays, dotting the hallways. You're never too far from being able to get medical help (not seen on the show, because everything was always diverted to Beverly's one office), or to be able to lock up someone who's causing trouble, or for security to get their hands on weapons. • so much more. I once set my walking speed to what felt about right, and just walked the perimeter of deck 10, the largest deck, and I think it took me 20 minutes just to go around once. That's just the perimeter of just that one deck, and there were tons of hall ways interior to that, just on that deck. I played in there every night, while watching movies, just wandering, and discovering more and more random things, and I think I maybe saw 75% of it? I mean... colossal. I just got the feeling the whole time I was wandering, that this was a different place. We never got to see this ship, because it was a TV show, and they just didn't have this enormous budget. They tried, but everything was kept small. Beverly fixed all the hurts in a few rooms. They always went to the same couple of holodecks. They always used the same two shuttle bays. They would throw in another room here and there, like a little room of the week, but to wander this place, none of that ever gave me the sense of scale it should have. It felt like a medium sized ship, except for exterior shots. MineTrek made it feel like New York City, like you could wander for weeks and not see it all, and keep finding new things you didn't expect. The ship I saw was the third version, and they'd been working on them for a decade. That server is now defunct, because the team had a falling out, but there's a new TrekCraft one I haven't been keeping up with, which is building another whole Ent D, and looks even better. I don't know if it's still going, because some build videos I just found stop 2 years ago, and there was a ton left to do, but hopefully they've kept going. It's the closest I've come to being able to walk the decks of my favorite ship.

John Smith

According to TOS, much information about the late 20th and early 21st centuries had been lost. Now it's possible that by TNG some of that info had been found again; but still, directly interviewing people of that time would be of great historical interest.

John Smith

That's true for awhile, but I'd argue that season 7 is (in its own way) just as bad as season 1.

John Smith

Yeah... from what I've heard, that speech was forced into the episode by show runner Maurice Hurley because, "Kids watch this show." As one of those 80's kids, I always wanted to give Maurice a good hard punch in the face for how patronizing and demeaning he was being to us "kids".

dys

Princess Mononoke is my favorite Ghibli movie but they've said before they have to be really cautious with them because Ghibli copyright complaints have gotten whole channels taken down.

John Smith

I don't think he's objecting to A/B-story types in general, just when the two halves don't join up very well. I happen to agree with this view. In 1x26 the two halves were almost completely unrelated. I think it's fair to object to that fact.

John Smith

And here we get into a major disagreement among fans - how good or bad is DS9? Personally, I can't stand the show. Until recently, I ranked it as the worst series in the franchise; the only thing that changed that was me trying to give Discovery a chance. Now, DS9 is second worst, and I feel rage at whoever rubber stamped "Star Trek" onto Discovery.

John Smith

Again, please don't name episodes that George hasn't seen yet. There are plenty of ways to potentially spoil future episodes without directly talking about them, and it would be nice if we all tried to avoid that.

John Smith

Wow... how do you survive without sweat glands? Your body is constantly creating heat, it has to go somewhere.

John Smith

Lower Decks has a brief mention of Clemonds in the background of one episode.

John Smith

It costs money to redo an opening sequence, even if it's just one credit.

John Smith

That's the explanation on Memory Beta, but from a physics standpoint, it doesn't make any sense. Even if something "threw" the cryo-pod ship out of the Solar system at several hundred kilometers per second (a ridiculous speed for a craft meant to orbit Earth) it would take thousands of years to reach even the nearest stars.

Joe Concepts

This early season they leaned a little too heavily on the present being forgotten and backwards, and everyone from the past is stupid. Which, yeah, I get criticizing humanity, but they go overboard sometimes here. Like, isn't there an episode where they suggest people barely speak French any more? In later episodes and other Trek series, some older cultural things still do exist. If we can still appreciate Shakespeare today, why act like modern art and music is abandoned. Seems like a snobby attitude like suggesting music from the 1800s is all high art and the 20th century is all junk.

MacGuffinStuff

I'm a week late, catching up, but I just had to say one thing, wow The Neutral Zone was giving me Battlestar Galactica (the newer version). Just the "we're back" thing and I thought even the Romulan ship kind of looked like a gigantic version of a Cylon Raider. I was expecting Ron Moore to be a writer on this because I know he wrote a good amount of both TNG and DS9 episodes, but no. I still don't think it's a coincidence though, lot of Battlestar feel to the A plot in my opinion. Anyway that's a digression, just thought it was interesting as a fan of Battlestar Galactica, not bears or beets though.

MacGuffinStuff

Holy shit I knew I recognized the musician in the finale, that actor, Leon Rippy, was in a ton of great shows and movies (and Maximum Overdrive, so bad it's good), Deadwood, Young Guns 2, too many to remember, but I also recognized him for a small part in The Color Purple, which is a movie I had commented about in the season 2 opener because of Whoopi Goldberg, who was amazing in that movie, but I deleted the comment because it was long and winding about underrated movies with mainly minority casts. LIFE, with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence was the main movie I was referring to, it's insanely, criminally underrated, pun intended, more people need to see this movie.

Marcus Hicks

Wow, my memory must be shit. I had it in my head that "Measure of a Man" was in Season 1.

Lord Joe

All this Plot A vs. Plot B talk is a bit annoying. There are over 1,000 people on the ship. Can't they all have lives while the bridge crew is carrying out a mission? You have to slow down a bit; this is Star Trek, and its audience is perfectly capable of following several things at once. Besides, this style of storytelling makes life on such a large spaceship much more real.