Announcing the Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch here at Tor.com!
I’ll be your host, Star Trek novelist/editor/comics writer/critic/whatever Keith R.A. DeCandido and for the next several months, I’ll be providing you with notes, commentary, and trivia about each episode of the first Star Trek spinoff series.
The Next Generation cemented Star Trek’s presence in an entirely new generation of fans and ran for seven years. As such, there’s a lot more to explore and each episode will be broken down into the following categories (though not every category will be in every episode):
Captain’s Log: The plot of the episode.
Thank You, Counselor Obvious: Troi stating the obvious, as she is tragically wont to do.
Can’t We Just Reverse the Polarity? The Next Generation did love its technobabble, and this section will provide some of the technobabbliest.
No Sex, Please, We’re Starfleet: Romantic and sexual encounters the crew has—or doesn’t have….
The Boy!? What did Wesley Crusher do this week?
If I Only Had a Brain: Data’s progress in trying to become human.
There is No Honor in Being Pummeled: Worf getting his ass kicked, as he was wont to do.
Welcome Aboard: The episode’s notable guest star(s).
I Believe I Said That: Quote of the week.
Trivial Matters: Odd bits of trivia regarding the episode, some of it possibly even interesting.
Make It So: My opinion of the episode. You’ll probably want to skip this bit….
Each episode will then get a warp factor rating of 1-10, where 1 is dreadful and 10 (or, infinite in this case) is awesome. There will also be pictures, under which I will provide extremely poorly written captions.
The Rewatch kicks off Monday, May 9th and will continue twice a week on Mondays and Thursday, covering one episode a day. Stay tuned for our kick off on Monday, “Encounter at Farpoint.”
Keith R.A. DeCandido has been writing or editing Star Trek fiction since 1999 in novel, short story, eBook, nonfiction, and comic book form. The most recent were a novella in the Seven Deadly Sins anthology, a couple of one-shot comic books for IDW (the Jellico issue of Captain’s Log and the Klingon issue of Alien Spotlight), and the novel A Singular Destiny, which was both the followup to the Destiny trilogy and the lead-in to the Typhon Pact series. Follow him online at his blog or on Facebook or Twitter under the username KRADeC.
This looks like it could be a lot of fun. And didn’t I see a rumor somewhere that Netflix was going to be bringing the Star Trek series to their streaming services soon? Because if so, that would be a great way to follow along / catch up.
If Warp 1 is dreadful, I’d hate to see an episode running on impulse power.
Can’t wait! This is some tightly-packed nostalgia for me.
Sounds great! Looking forward to reading this!
This will be fun.
Yay! Do want! Next Generation was the series that got me started on Star Trek, and it remains my favorite.
Beren, I heard that rumor too. The internet (based on Google results) seems to think Netflix streaming Star Trek will be available come July 1, and that it will be every TV episode of every series. Fingers crossed!
Last I knew it was going to be every episode of every series starting in July, with the exception of Deep Space Nine, which is going to be coming later in the fall.
Based on my Netflix Watch Instantly searches, they have the structure already set up – with each series already set up with episode count and all the seasons compiled into one large mass (I’m not sure how I feel about Netflix doing that – it seems good for a shorter series, but has been a pain to scroll to a specific mid-series episode of Top Gear).
I kind of want you to wait until Netflix has it up and running, but I’m already missing the ST:TOS rewatch.
KRAD,
I can’t think of a better person to do this Rewatch. This is going to be awesome!
Ooh, ooh, ooh! Tell me you’ve read/listened to Wil Wheaton’s Memories of the Future!
It’s not a boring memoir or creepy tell-all book, Wil does silly episodes recaps, nerds-out over minutia like the true Trek fan he is, reminisces about shooting the episodes, and cries over his ugly jumpers.
(I bought the paperback from Lulu, but it’s also available in the Kindle store and he has also made a brilliant free podcast of the book available too!)
I’m looking forward to this. TNG was a very good show in my (somewhat inaccurate) opinion. That and DS9 are my favourites Star Trek shows.
Isn’t the AV Club already doing this?
Fantastic! Looking forward to reading.
A score of warp 10 should be reserved for the Voyager episode Threshold. And as in the game Asteroids, a maximum score wraps back around to zero.
Oh, this looks to be great fun! I can tell by your proposed categories that you have the right spirit and atttude for the whole thing! Make it So!
It sorta reminds me of how on usenet, the re-read of A Song of Ice and Fire required each of its discussion leaders to rate each chapter on the gore-o-meter, measured in whatever so many out of five goblets of blood (or gobbets of flesh), the sex-o-meter, measured in
whatever so many out of exposed nipples and the humor-o-meter, measured in a quantity of droll japperies.
Cool, I’ll be tuning in. I watched the eps when they originally aired and now I’m working through the DVD collection since the latest packaged seasons coming out in Australia is significantly cheaper than what was available before. Engage!
I used to be addicted to this show once upon a time, but I haven’t seen a single episode in years. Ought to be interesting to read some of these reviews and catch up on an old classic–mothersmuckers, has it been that long?!
Not to be nitpicky, but shouldn’t the Data category be “If I Only Had a Heart”?
Last year, my old workhorse of a VCR popped it’s clogs and went to a better future, hopefully not with Tasha. This meant I wasn’t able to play any of my old Next Gen vids. I realized I hadn’t watched most of them in years anyway, so I got the lot on DVD and watched from start to finish. I’d forgotten how good the best episodes are!
It’s been an extra pleasure to find someone reviewing these anew. I found this site only a few days ago, and I stayed up till 4.00am reading all the reviews and the replies too! Great fun!
Thanks.
I don’t know anything about AV Club, but the reviews here are top notch and slightly less acerbic than Opinionated’s, though I enjoy his take too.
Funny, I bought all the DVD sets and never bothered to watch them (except DS9). Then, in my first week of having an iPad and a Netflix account I become addicted to Trek again. Must be the convenience of streaming video, because the quality ain’t all that great. That being said, I’m really enjoying watching TNG again. I started out watching my favorites, but then I found this blog and now I have an excuse to watch them all from start to finish again. Including the worst episode of Trek of all time (“Sub Rosa,” anyone?) Anyway, glad to be aboard even if I’m a bit late. I may have a thing or two to say about some of these gems (and duds).
I have a question. It has never been clear to me throughout this rewatch is if each episode is assessed in isolation and succession or in light of the entire series? That has never been clear to me. And I wonder if my misunderstanding has detracted from the efficacy of this rewatch. But I have always wondered that-because I seem to assess episodes in light of the entire series. (Granted, I haven’t watched every episode.) But, I am familiar it. And I wondered if this reqatch was proceeding according to the whole series or ep-by-ep.
I was reading the watches yesterday (6/20/2015) and now they’re gone, for every season and series. Please tell me it was a glitch!
It’s a glitch, Chris from Tor.com has already said on FB that they’re working to fix them. if you can find in your browser cache the URL for the latest rewatch you read, load up that one, then go to the “next” button at the end of it.
Why is Data “If I Only Had a Brain”? That’s the scarecrow; as the tin man Data requires a heart.