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tater · 01-06-11, 01:24 PM

I've seen every TNG episode. I think TNG was pretty terrible SF compared to, say, the 500+ SF books I've read.

The notion that it explores societal reaction to technology, or even current events through the "safe" lens of fantasy/SF is marginal at best, IMO—at least the claim that it does so "well."

The plots are remarkably predictable. Races are pretty much universally stereotyped (and stupid—look, its the planet of the bartender people! (you can tell because they have a bottle opener on their foreheads, and they can instinctually mix drinks)).

They have techno-problems, then in the last few minutes they make up a new technology to fix it. Crap like the "prime directive" is simply crap (and inconsistently applied, like everything else in ST). After the first season of TNG, virtually every single later problem could have been solved in seconds using technology they made up in season 1, then forgot about. I won't even get into the absurdity of time travel, but suffice it to say that time travel hopelessly breaks a SF universe.

01-06-11, 01:24 PM	#39
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	I've seen every TNG episode. I think TNG was pretty terrible SF compared to, say, the 500+ SF books I've read. The notion that it explores societal reaction to technology, or even current events through the "safe" lens of fantasy/SF is marginal at best, IMO—at least the claim that it does so "well." The plots are remarkably predictable. Races are pretty much universally stereotyped (and stupid—look, its the planet of the bartender people! (you can tell because they have a bottle opener on their foreheads, and they can instinctually mix drinks)). They have techno-problems, then in the last few minutes they make up a new technology to fix it. Crap like the "prime directive" is simply crap (and inconsistently applied, like everything else in ST). After the first season of TNG, virtually every single later problem could have been solved in seconds using technology they made up in season 1, then forgot about. I won't even get into the absurdity of time travel, but suffice it to say that time travel hopelessly breaks a SF universe.