Quote Originally Posted by russdm View Post

My Trackers: Episode Quality, Series canceled/kept, Idiot Ball (Technology), Idiot Ball (Common Sense), Kick Gene Roddenberry Out, Everyone is a Moron (More than one person in the episode is holding an Idiot Ball and more than one at the same time as well), How Insufferably Smug the Federation/Our Cast is

What are your suggestions, playgrounders?
I'm not sure doing a canceled/kept per episode would really be worth it.

Kick Gene Roddenberry Out, is a bit of a waste too. For everything you want to blame on Gene, he also did all the good things. Gene wanted the handy-capable main cast member(Geordi La Forge) at a time when that was not done much on TV. Also it was not just Gene, like five people really had hands in ruining the first couple years of TNG.

I might suggest:

*Missed Chances- TNG is a great example of a show that often had great ideas...and then never went anywhere with them.

*80's Flashback and 90's flashback- it's sure funny to see such things now.

*Money Matters- A fun one, as as soon as a character says no moneu...a character then buys something with "credits". Dr. Crusher BUYS some fabric in Encounter at Farpoint, no less.

*Troi Troubles- So...they state that she is an empath with a range of at least a kilometer or two. Sometimes they renumber to have her use her ability...but most often they forget.

*Data's Emotions- It's said all the time that "Data has no emotions"....ok, but then why does Data ACT like he has emotions. Data is very curious, but then maybe curious is not an "emotion". Data cares for the ship and crew....but "care is an emotion". Data also gets surprised, confused, and countless other things that sure seem like "emotions" .

*Family Fun - So....the Enterprise has families on it, and that is just a horrible idea. The ship can be called into battle, or worse just get attacked out of the blue. But OF COURSE we never see a photon torpedo blow up classroom 1 and kill a bunch of kids. And even worse, every so often everyone on the ship de-evolves or something, but the show just skips the horror of little Billy and Sally becoming frogs or whatever.

*Clunky Allegories- Star Trek CAN be so great at this......but TNG fails way more often them not.

*Surprisingly Timid- TOS had plenty of raw, powerful, emotional stories. THG....well, not so much. Far too often is was just too timid. If you want to "show" us something....then show us, don't dance around it.