Recently a tweet on Twitter asked for a top 5 list of episodes from season 3 of Next Generation. ‘Great,’ I thought, ‘there’s some cracking episodes in that season I’ll easily come up with my top 5! ‘
Yeah, turns out that wasn’t as easy as I thought. There’s just too many brilliant episodes in that season! Yeah I know, what a problem to have right? So I agonized for some time over episodes like Sins of the Father, The Defector, Yesterday’s Enterprise, The Offspring, The Enemy, Who watches the watchers, Best of Both Worlds part 1, A matter of perspective and so forth. I finally whittled it down and tweeted my list. Within half an hour I regretted some choices as I remembered how much I loved other episodes. (I love Tin Man but didn’t put it on my list? What the heck?!)
The main takeaway I got from this (apart from the pizza I was waiting for while I made the list… luckily they were busy so I had more time to think) was that I love season 3 of TNG a lot. I remember it well when it started and it seemed like the show stepped up a level from seasons 1 and 2. (Not to disparage those seasons, they got me into Star Trek in the first place after all!) But despite those fond memories, I hadn’t rewatched the this season that much. Episoded here and there, with friends or for research for a 10Backward episode sure, but… But what if I did a full season watch through? Really looked at all the episodes together, the season as a whole and most importantly, rewrite my list with the season fresh in my mind?
So that’s what I’m going to do. I have started and from the off, I had so many thoughts (and lovely people on Twitter asked if I’d recount the experience as I went) that I thought I’d blog the rewatch as I go. This is my intro post and following this I’ll put up my thoughts on Evolution. I hope people find it fun or interesting.
For reference, my top 5 that I submitted
5 A Matter of Perspective
4 Who Watches the Watchers
3 The Defector
2 Yesterdays Enterprise
1 The Offspring
So let’s boldly go (sorry, couldn’t stop myself) into a season from 30 years ago!
(With thanks to TrekFanBill for inspiring this)
3 of us from 10Backward visited the UK trek convention known as Destination Star Trek over the 19th to 21st October 2018. Here we discuss our experiences and thoughts of Day 1, including Doug Jones being dubbed, Walter Koenig forgetting the Psycorps, roadside picnics, car park undressing and much more! We are joined by special guests, Rob Chapman (@TrekkieRob on twitter), Nick Loven (@nrloven) and Kevin Stanley (@freelancekevin)
In the latest 10Backward, we take a look at the classic episode, The City on the Edge of Forever. As well as discussing the episode, we also consider Harlan Ellison’s original story and the changes made between page and screen.
In the second part of our journey through season 1 of Enterprise, we continue looking at the characters and discuss our highlights of the season. Sadly Richard makes no further Bowie impressions though.