This episode has the rare distinction of having been adapted from an already-published Star Trek novel, The Wounded Sky, by its author Diane Duane and by Michael Reaves, who would go on to co-create the cult cartoon series Gargoyles. If you need another reason to power through, the events of “Farpoint” are also revisited in TNG ’s excellent series finale. What makes “Farpoint” worth watching is the way it establishes each member of the crew and their relationships with each other (Fontana’s work), and the introduction of the fan-favorite antagonist Q (John de Lancie, a Roddenberry addition), who would go on to star in some of the series’ best episodes. It’s over-acted, over-scored, and sadly indicative of the rest of Season One. In college, my friends and I once watched through it and took a drink each time we would have turned it off if it weren’t called “ Star Trek ,” and we got hammered. “Encounter at Farpoint” is not a good episode by any stretch. “I forgot,” Fontana was quoted as saying, “working for Gene Roddenberry always costs me money.”) (This allowed Roddenberry to skim a handsome slice of her royalties.
Then, at the eleventh hour, Roddenberry informed her that the episode would be two hours after all, and that he would write a “prequel” story to tack onto the beginning of her script and pepper callbacks to it throughout the episode. Dorothy “D.C.” Fontana, story editor on The Original Series and producer on The Animated Series, was tasked with writing the episode, and was told to aim for 90 minutes. Pike wanted a movie-length event, but Roddenberry insisted that the first episode be a standard one-hour affair. Production of The Next Generation was tumultuous from the very beginning, as series creator Gene Roddenberry and Paramount executive John Pike wrestled over the running time of the series premiere. Be kind to yourself and check out these ten episodes from the first two years to get the highlights and the important plot points, and then go boldly into Season Three with your head held high and your spirit unbroken. If you are the kind of viewer who absolutely needs to watch every episode of a show in order, the first 48 hours of your journey are going to be a test of your endurance, where the good episodes are outnumbered by the mediocre, the embarrassing, and the straight-up offensive. They are the result of a production so strife-ridden that it inspired an entire documentary called Chaos on the Bridge.
Premiering in first-run syndication from 1987 to 1994, The Next Generation (or TNG ) was the first Star Trek TV series to become a mainstream cultural phenomenon while it was still in production (rather than in reruns), and penetrated the public consciousness in a way no Star Trek has since.īut before you go Binge Mode into its 178 episode run (available on most major streaming services), heed this warning: the first two seasons of TNG are not good.
With the new series Star Trek: Picard now in full swing, it’s only natural that viewers might want to check out its predecessor, Star Trek: The Next Generation.