ST:TNG, All good things..., Episode 725

It's... over. It's finally... over.

Well. The Next Generation, that is. There is, of course, Deep Space 9, Voyager, Enterprise, The Original Series, Original Series movies, Next Generation movies, Star Trek 2009... this... trek through the stars continues...

The final episode of TNG is satisfying. It is arguably some of the better storytelling in the series, ably combining the components from the early seasons with the later, and even beyond. The finale was about perspective, that is, showing the progression of the show from the perspective of what the writers started with, and where they wanted to go. And even though the "moving through time" styled episodes had been done multiple times, this one seemed to finally get it right.

As for how I feel about TNG at the end... I feel that it got away with a lot. As I've mentioned, watching TNG as a kid had a kind of wondrous feel to it, in that my child-like wonder happily devoured the treknobabble that drove the plots and explained away why they couldn't just shut the damn holodeck off. I didn't understand any more when I was young than I do now, but damned if there wasn't a good reason if Geordi or Data said so.

Watching as an adult... I had to actively suspend my disbelief for much of the time. Maybe that's because there have been other great shows in the Star Trek franchise and the scifi genre in general that focus much more on gritty realism and character-driven plots. By comparison, some of the episodes of TNG, even in the latest seasons, were absolutely intolerable. And I feel that they were largely due to mistakes that the writers made early on, either by ignoring certain character traits, or not developing them enough in order to make their importance feasible later. Why is it that episodes featuring Reginald Barclay, a secondary guest character, are often far and beyond those focusing on Deanna Troi? Why is Riker's most distinguishing character trait after the second season his beard? Why isn't every episode about Data? (kidding*)

I look at shows like Battlestar Galactica, and think about how so much of its early praise was on how "retro" it seemed compared to the shiny, warp-nacelle'd universe of Star Trek. Spooling the FTLs? How ancient does that sound! Phones with cords? Oh my! But what if BSG didn't have those points of comparison? What if we didn't have the ability to hold it up to the fantasy scifi universe that TNG developed so well (if a little haphazardly)? Would it still stand on its own? Or would we wonder why these people on an old spaceship are having illegal boxing matches?

(I think BSG was a great show, and could easily stand on its own, but my point is that much of its groundwork had already been laid, and by the same writers and producers, no less. I think the early seasons of BSG learned from some of TNG's mistakes. And then they ran out of ideas.)

As TNG was airing at a relatively formative time in my life, it inhabits a sort of sense of a science fiction "golden age" for me. The craze that surrounded TNG was precedented only by that of Star Wars, and TNG was airing on a weekly basis. As I mentioned before, my family had Star Trek nights of the week, of which I have fond half-remembered memories, and probably have a lot to do with where I'm at now in my life. Watching through, and flaws notwithstanding, I can understand the phenomenon... there are moments in the show that are hard to describe, that resonate in my imagination, get inside my brain, and set up shop.

That's why, after 8 months of watching this show, I feel the same despondent, bottomless sadness after 178 episodes that I do after watching the short 13 episodes of Firefly I've watched and rewatched so many times. Sad, yes, that it's over, and that I have to appreciate it for what it was and move on.... but also because that golden age is simply gone. We live in the future, friends, and unfortunately, the future doesn't sell. As someone said, we stopped dreaming (www.youtube.com).

That's sort of why I love the science fiction genre as much as I do. More often than not, the stories are lackluster, the characters wooden, and the writing... well, you probably get what you pay for on a SyFy original movie's budget. It really isn't about that, though.

I feel that TNG demonstrated that sometimes it's better to ask the question, rather than worry about some of the answers.

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* Sort of. My favorite Data quote, still.