Tuesday, March 09, 2010

BEST OF STAR TREK TNG part two

And the finish:




5. Parallels. - WORF IS NERVOUS. One has to see the episode to understand the context of the scene, but Troi is now Worf's wife in a parallel stream of time that our Worf has jumped to. and he rounds the corner of his own room just in case she's indecent. To see the tough Worf acting the clown shoe once again, always good for a laugh.



4. The Inner Light. - PICARD HAS HIS FLUTE ONCE MORE. A great episode really. Picard is captured by a probe that shoots him to another world and he lives a whole life as a different person. Completly embracing this new life as a father, grandfather, loving wife and friends. And then he realizes that the probe was sent to tell someone about the planet's dying race to which he was the recipient. He awakes on the Enterprise and only 25 minutes have passed. But he percieved it as decades he just lived in his mind. He's shaken up. The probe is brought on board and inactive, but inside was one object, his flute he learned to play on that planet. Music and an instrument from a long dead world. He holds the flute close to him and begins to play. We the audience weep like babies.



3. Relics. - SCOTTY RECREATES THE TOS BRIDGE. Scotty is a man out of time. Trapped for 75 years in a transporter, he emerges in the TNG universe, decades beyond anyone or anything he knows. So what does he do? He gets drunk and recreates the old iconic TOS bridge on the holodeck and drinks a toast to his friends, long gone. Just orgasmic Trekking.



2. Darmok. - PICARD TELLS THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH. Really, this whole episode is my favorite. Picard is stranded on a planet with a race he cannot communicate with but learns that they speak through metaphor. They share stories over the campfire, and Picard recites one of the oldest stories ever, the Epic of Gilgamesh. Historically orgasmic.




1. Best of Both Worlds part one. - PICARD IS ASSIMILATED. I think everyone recites this as their favorite moment and its likely the moment that saved STAR TREK. Had this not happened, there might not have been a DS9, Voyager or anything else. Everyone had quit watching TNG, but then heard of this episode with a killer cliffhanger. I was the same. I watched it in a re-run that summer and was so geeked and hooked to the show from that point on. It set the bar quite high and made for one of the best sequals of the TNG era movies.

Okay, next time: WORST of TNG lists!

T

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