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VaBeachGuy

The first 2 seasons

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I've been watching the first 2 seasons of DS9 the past few days and while the first 2 seasons weren't the best of the 7, I must say that the first 2 seasons of DS9 were far superior to the first 2 seasons of TNG. It's downright painful to watch some of those early TNG's lol.

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We just finished watching DS9 all the way through with our 9 year old son (who just LOVED it btw! Woot! Another Niner!)

 

Now we are watching TNG with him, and while he is enjoying many of the episodes, it is so obvious that DS9 was the better series right off the bat, even to him. We're in Season 2 right now and Data is really emerging as the talent in the ensemble. He's also finding Worf's character interesting because he got to know him so well on DS9.

 

Season 1 of TNG is pretty bad, except for a few bright spots. Season 2 is better, Troi is greatly improved, Tasha is gone and I sort of like Dr. Pulaski (when she's not being a turd to Data).

 

Do you have a copy of the Entertainment Weekly that came out when TNG went off the air and Generations came out? We do, and it ranks all the episodes of TNG (1-178) and the first two and a half season of DS9. Just reading the synopses of the episodes makes it glaringly obvious that DS9 was good in a way that TNG was not during its first two seasons.

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Yeah, TNG's first 2 seasons did have a couple of really good episodes. "The Big Goodbye", "The Neutral Zone", "Elementary, Dear Data" and "The Royal" are the first ones that come to mind. But for the most part, when I pull out my TNG DVD's I start with season 3.

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Agreed. Seeing those old TNG episodes, either from my collection or in rerun form, makes me cringe a bit when I see how stiff all the acting was and how serious they were all trying to be. I do believe that Ira and Ron had most of the seven years already flushed out in their heads, for the most part and because of that, had a much clearer picture of where they wanted DS9 to go. I've just recently completed my DS9 collection (Season three) and have been mildly surprised at how well produced those first three seasons really were. Especially in season two into half of season three, we got to see the background laid out for the remaining 4 seasons with bits and hints of things to come that really were not that clear until you have a chance to see the entire seven years laid out. It's amazing to me how a piece of dialog or mention of a scene in seasons four through seven had a reference to an earlier season that at first made no sense but became abundantly clear as the pieces all began to fall into place. All credit to Ira, Mike and Ron for that splendid achievement.

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I know what you are saying but for me, how I feel about them now isn't as important as how I felt about them when they were first running; those were 'good ole days' that I wouldn't trade for anything.

 

Same for quite a few TOS or any other series episodes that haven't aged well, that doesn't take away from all the fun they once were.

 

Some say the new Trek is going to replace original Trek and that may be true but it'll nave take away my memories of all the good times.

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I'd have to say my memories of the series are better in some ways re the earlier ones, than say the last few. The latter kind of blur on me-but, then, I was not so much into DS9 after it stopped production. Would like to see them all again, though.

Edited by Voyager recruit

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Yeah, TNG's first 2 seasons were pretty painful!

 

DS9 did have a surprisingly good start, but really, there are only a handful of early eps (Duet immediately comes to mind) that can stand up to the greatness of season 4-7.

 

I personally thought VOY had the best first season, a few gems in 2 and 3, and became amazing in 4-7.

 

I'm probably in a minority here, but I thought ENT had a fairly strong first season. Well, I liked it anyway.

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I'm probably in a minority here, but I thought ENT had a fairly strong first season. Well, I liked it anyway.

 

Actually, I agree. I think Enterprise had the strongest first season of any of the more modern Treks. In fact, I think it was all pretty strong and didn't really have that awkward "getting to know you" phase of the other series. Which is why it is so surprising to me that it wasn't as well received and was ultimately nixed. Especially since that fourth season was the best season yet!

 

I like the way TOS did it: joined the mission already in progress. There wasn't really any back story as to how the crew came together and I'm pretty sure we didn't start in on their first mission. They all just were.

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Yeah, TNG's first 2 seasons were pretty painful!

 

DS9 did have a surprisingly good start, but really, there are only a handful of early eps (Duet immediately comes to mind) that can stand up to the greatness of season 4-7.

 

I personally thought VOY had the best first season, a few gems in 2 and 3, and became amazing in 4-7.

 

I'm probably in a minority here, but I thought ENT had a fairly strong first season. Well, I liked it anyway.

In general, not counting TOS, all of the other series didn't really get "going" until about their 3rd season. Maybe 4th for Voyager. With Voyager, I just never really liked the Kazon episodes. So the early seasons were sort of ruined for me whenever the Kazon showed up (for the most part).

 

When TNG first aired, I watched every episode the day it aired up until May of 1988. At that point I took a short break until late 1990 (or so) to go into the Army. I may have seen a few episodes here and there but in general I didn't get much time for TV. About the only show I can fully remember seeing while I was in Texas is Quantum Leap.

 

All of that said, some of those early TNG's were pretty bad but I didn't mind. It was new Star Trek and that's all I cared about.

 

As for you being in the minority about Enterprise, I don't know if you are or not but I was blown away by season 1 Enterprise when it first aired. Back then I was working nights and didn't have a TiVo so I didn't see them seem them "first run" on TV, but I was downloading them every week off the internet. So I never missed an episode.

 

I just finished re-watching all 4 seasons of Enterprise and it was a really good series, I'm left feeling ripped off (again) at not getting a full 7 seasons.

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