• 09 Nov, 2025 *

Today is a grab bag.

I am finishing up my next adventure and preparing to run a minimum viable version of it at PAX Unplugged. I am tempted to make my own Fishtown for my upcoming Break!! campaign, and I owe you all a debrief on my recently concluded Mythic Bastionland campaign. I also am co-running an experimental megadungeon using Worlds Without Number with my pal.

This is none of those things.

I am rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation right now for the first time since it aired and I found that many of the more venerable watch guides recommend skipping the entire first season and most of the second.

That is not for me. I love dumb nonsense and goofy Star Trek. Give me a baseball episode for no reason or detective cosplay.

Here is what I watched of S1 thus far, spoilers unmarked. To be clear: this is an old show and like any media is a product of its time.

Star Trek: TNG What I Watched

1 and 2: Encounter at Far Point

Required watching for later, introduces the ship, the crew and Q. Some of it has not aged well. I don’t enjoy this episode but Q is a fun jerk.

5: The Last Outpost

this feels very fantasy coded and is probably skippable so let’s say, it’s okay. There’s an old wizard-coded guy who likes Riker and some Sun Tzu quotes. Ferengi behaving badly. Why did they have to make them like this (the gender stuff)?

6. Where No One Has Gone Before

skippable, Wesley is a very special boy here but I like The Traveler. The show really emphasizes Wesley as Prodigy which is probably why fans were so mean about that kid.

9. The Battle

I enjoyed the idea that Picard has old enemies that desire vengeance, the illegal technology, and the immediate laying out that the Federation is questionable and more an idea of an egalitarian utopia rather than being one, a theme that is better explored on DS9 but has its roots all over TNG. I am glad I watched this one.

10 Hide and Q

This was skippable but I enjoy Q and temptation as a theme can be a good time.

11. Haven

Crystal fantasy visions and a weird arranged marriage. Truly bizarre, especially all scenes with Deanna’s terrible chaos mom.

12. The Big Goodbye

Pulp detective episode in the holodeck. Fun and watchable. Why is it here? Who knows.

13. Datalore

First appearance of Data’s brother, otherwise the plot with “the crystal thing” was very weird. Eh, I only watched it because I like the actor who plays Data getting to be BadData.

In Closing

Yochai said I should just watch 1-2 and then go to Measure of a Man (let’s be real he’s probably right) but I like stupid stuff and boy does S1 have some silly nonsense. Haven’s crystal fantasy polycule-coded ship was a whole mood.

#startrek