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And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was

WTF are you talking about? ST:TNG is the only Sci-Fi show from my childhood that stands the test of time. There were some hokey episodes to be sure but the underlying theme of humanity exploring the cosmos, under a semi-abundance economy where we've moved past the need for greed and work instead towards self-improvement and discovery? How can you not like that?

TNG explored themes as diverse as brinkmanship (The Defector and The Enemy), individual liberties (The Measure of a Man), paranoia driven by external fears (The Pegasus and The Drumhead, a massively underrated episode that seems downright prescient when one contemplates current events in the post 9/11 world), terrorism (The High Ground), eugenics (The Masterpiece Society), the morality of deadly force (The Most Toys), veterans/PTSD (The Wounded, Family, and The Hunted), old age (Half a Life and Sarek), torture (Chain of Command), revenge (Reunion), and betrayal (Preemptive Strike).

Those are just the issue episodes that come to mind. TNG could also do action (several of the aforementioned, plus Power Play, Conundrum and Starship Mine), first contact (First Contact, Darmok), and even comedy (Deja Q).

Some of those episodes were better than others but I dare say that they're as good as anything that's on television today and were light-years ahead of their peers in the 1980s and 1990s. TNG was at its best when approached as a character and issues driven drama; in that respect I think it set a standard that is never going to be equaled in television Sci-Fi. It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas. Even the genuinely scary episodes of TNG (The Best of Both Worlds can still send shivers down my spine) never left you feeling depressed and melancholy. The only other show from the 1980s that I can still re-watch is Magnum PI, for a lot of the same reasons when I thi

It's a cousin to V'ger.

Not to mention the giant ones in space.

So if it's just the instructions explain Reg Barkley's experience in Realm of Fear ? http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...

As for the boobies, did you not see TOS? They might not have shown as much skin as now, but they were pushing it for the times. Gene Roddenberry was no prude in that sense.

Low-cut tops and miniskirts weren't Roddenberry's doing. Watch the two pilots - the women are clothed from the neck down and wear pants.

As for the boobies, did you not see TOS? They might not have shown as much skin as now, but they were pushing it for the times. Gene Roddenberry was no prude in that sense.

Low-cut tops and miniskirts weren't Roddenberry's doing. Watch the two pilots - the women are clothed from the neck down and wear pants.

I been here to long I read that as Romulan numerals

According to this you won't, they used the lowest quality equipment and instruments they could find to create a punk sound. It was released on a soundtrack album, but I expect that it won't sound much better than it does here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... A bacteriophage /bæktr.i.ofed/ (informally, phage /fed/) is a virus that infects and replicates within a bacterium.

Not all bacteria are bad. The point is, it's a virus as I said, it's destructive, it replicates, and goes well with the whole 'phobe 'phile suffix thing.
Also, http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...

Your turn to enlighten me further.

Why can't they report this stuff using the standard classifications of planets? /me ducks

These guy shave apparently never watched Star Trek

Or, maybe they have and are just ripping off Roddenberry's ideas.

Due to relativistic effects, our ability to accelerate to and then to maintain safe flight (such as your ship not being annihilated by hitting small particles of matter) at the higher velocities is very challenging,

That's why you have to put a deflector array on the front of your ship.

Or, you could make a big ablative shield out of ice.

They really call it VULCANDEATHGRIP? As I recall (and Memory Alpha confirms) the "Vulcan death grip" does not exist, it was merely a ruse used to fool the Romulans. Given the code name I surmise that the ability to crack VPNs doesn't exist, the NSA just wants us to believe that it does.

Next they'll be telling us that if they go "by the book, hours will seem like days". We see through your clever wordplay, NSA!

P.S. Deal me in for the Tuesday night fizzbin game. I want a piece of that action!

We all know there's no such thing as the Vulcan Death Grip.

My bag contained all 3's. Wonder if it's a sign.

Deep Space 9 got into that at least a little bit. Homefront (S4E10) involves the president of the Federation who is not a human, but is apparently democratically elected and based in Paris. The episode never goes into detail about how the civilian government is structured, but between the president and the scenes with Sisko's father, it provides much more of a picture of civilian life than Star Trek usually does.

The episode is "Fortunate Son", season 1 episode 10. Directed by LeVar Burton (who has apparently directed a lot of Trek since his days on TNG). http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...

Of the handful of Enterprise episodes I've seen (most, unfortunately, from season 1), it was one of the better ones. I'm told the show got better in later seasons but I have never seen anything from later than mid-season-2. It's not *all* dross, though.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik... "Guinan was the mysterious bartender in Ten Forward, the lounge aboard the USS Enterprise-D. She was well known for her wise counsel, which had proven invaluable many times. She was an El-Aurian, a race of "listeners" who were scattered by the Borg. Q, however, once suggested that there is far more to her than could be imagined. "

Or consider Vincent's sometimes influential role in Eureka's Cafe Diem:
http://eureka.wikia.com/wiki/C...
"Cafe Diem is the cafe of Vincent, on the main street of Eureka. It's the place where everybody meets to eat one of Vincent's extraordinary meals or have a cup of his signature "Vinspresso". "

James P. Hogan in "Voyage From Yesteryear" provides other examples of why some people wait tables in a gift economy -- even when robots could easily do it.

Also, in a post-scarcity future many undesirable aspects of any tasks can be engineered out. Tables might be built of materials that were easy to clean. Cleaning cloths might be super-absorbent. You might wear technology that made taking orders easy. You boosted immune system would make catching disease from a diner unlikely. And so on...

See Bob Black on this:
https://www.whywork.org/rethin...
"Liberals say we should end employment discrimination. I say we should end employment. Conservatives support right-to-work laws. Following Karl Marx's wayward son-in-law Paul Lafargue, I support the right to be lazy. Leftists favor full employment. Like the surrealists -- except that I'm not kidding -- I favor full unemployment. Trotskyists agitate for permanent revolution. I agitate for permanent revelry. But if all the ideologues (as they do) advocate work -- and not only because they plan to make other people do theirs -- they are strangely reluctant to say so. They will carry on endlessly about wages, hours, working conditions, exploitation, productivity, profitability. They'll gladly talk about anything but work itself. These experts who offer to do our thinking for us rarely share their conclusions about work, for all its saliency in the lives of all of us. Among themselves they quibble over the details. Unions and management agree that we ought to sell the time of our lives in exchange for survival, although they haggle over the price. Marxists think we should be bossed by bureaucrats. Libertarians think we should be bossed by businessmen. Feminists don't care which form bossing takes, so long as the bosses are women. Clearly these ideology-mongers have serious differences over how to divvy up the spoils of power. Just as clearly, none of them have any objection to power as such and all of them want to keep us working. "

Or listen to or read "The Skills of Xanadu" by Theodore Sturgeon:
https://archive.org/details/pr...
https://books.google.com/books...

Why do people host dinner parties for friends when they involve "work"?

Why do people knit when they can buy machine-woven cloth for less than that of the raw yarn?

In some ways, waiting tables and preparing food are far more important jobs than most of what most people do for "paid" work these days... As Bob Black wrote in the above-linked essay:
"I don't suggest that most work is salvageable in this way. But then most work isn't worth trying to save. Only a small and diminishing fraction of work serves any useful purpose independent of the defense and reproduction of the work-system and its political and legal appendages. Twenty years ago, Paul and Percival Goodman estimated that just five percent of the work then being done -- presumably the figure, if accurate, is lower now -- would satisfy our minimal needs for food, clothing and shelter. Theirs was only an educated guess b

Of course you gotta be really die-hard to watch that Voyager series...
It will probably all start with a run-down shopping mall, using partially decommissioned airforce bases (like the Presidio) will come later...

Tritium was used in the matter-anti-matter engines. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...

Uh, Majel? http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...

Until tablet operating systems implement window management more sophisticated than the MS-DOS-era "all maximized all the time" model,

This made me think of Star Trek and their 'PADDS', where you'd see leadership running around with several of them on their desks.

Is there any reason that we couldn't put enough storage into a phone-type device to hold all of a person's important documents, then utilize relatively cheap tablets in a distributed computing mode using short range networking sort of like bluetooth?

The way I'm picturing it each device has enough processing power to display video on it's own screen, and enough synchronized cache that a user can use at least 6-10 documents without having to constantly fetch them from the central device. Ideally you'd only look at the screen of the central device in an emergency, and I'd make it rather thicker than modern cell phones for longer battery life. If you're doing something that's actually computationally expensive, as long as it can be paralleled all the devices pitch in what they can.

Or you wait until you get home and it syncs to your home server to re-compile the latest linux kernal and all it's associated packages. ;)

Long answer: what do you think would happen if ET did exist, had a spaceship, was feeling a bit nefarious, and manifested itself as a booming voice from the sky? How hard do you think it would be for ET to convince the world's populations that it is in fact god (especially given the technological advantage), then instruct them to do whatever the hell it wants? ET could be sitting up there in his nice comfy space ship, literally playing god, watching us wage war over each other because it makes for better prime time TV then that shit he's getting on his interstellar space channels.

Sort of like this?

They work just fine, thank you.

Author is a philosopher (i.e. bullshit artist), "a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos and Culture" and currently working on "a book about art and human nature".

Ergo, space+art+culture = Star Trek.
And as he is reaching for the lowest common denominator to hang his foregone conclusion on (and then wail on it until that straw flies out of that argument) - so Kirk as an imaginary opposite to an imaginary "Spockian" atheist.
Because that's what's recognizable to most people through cultural osmosis.

Who ever heard of Sybok as an opposite to Spock, right?
Oh... wait... That's the story where Kirk is the logical atheist and a Vulcan is a religious fanatic... oh...

They developed sentience

It's such a shame that humanity lost both electrical fuse and seatbelt technologies sometime between the 21st and 23rd centuries.

Because it gained inertia compensators instead, without which you'd be shaken to death rather quickly. Remember, that these vessels could go from stationery to full impulse speed in few seconds. Such accelerations normally would turn you into a liquid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

Those were not electrical fuses that were missing in the circuits as they were plasma conduits. You may have noticed they were all "glowing" when active, which does not signify electricity. Maybe they could have improved this, but hey, it was just a TV show.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...

The machines have found proof that we have an immortal painter living who's been changing names throughout history!

I can see why the BBC might reject it, dealing with Nazis running everything, but syfy? Must require too much thought for them.

It might simply be that whatever it was that was pitched to these two networks just wasn't very good (too expensive, bad casting, bad screenplay, etc.). Or maybe they just saw this as a worn-out meme.

I can see why the BBC might reject it, dealing with Nazis running everything, but syfy? Must require too much thought for them.

It might simply be that whatever it was that was pitched to these two networks just wasn't very good (too expensive, bad casting, bad screenplay, etc.). Or maybe they just saw this as a worn-out meme.

Well as long as they don't spontaneously exhibit signs of evolving into living organisms I don't see what else could go wrong.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tamarian_language?file=Tamarian_written_language.jpg

This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Is Where: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...

We Are Headed: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt07...

Never Forget: https://tinyurl.com/poorwesley...

They want control of your mind.

This isn't about entertainment at all - the end 'game' is the battle for your mind!

The Mind Has No Firewall | by Timothy L. Thomas. Parameters, Spring 1998, pp. 84-92.
http://pastebin.com/JdkqxBAa

So...something like this?