30 Day Sci-Ci Challenge -- Day 13

Favorite Flavor of Star Trek -- The Next Generation

This was the Star Trek I grew up with. I used to watch it with my dad, and we went to all the TNG movies together. We also got all the episodes on VHS when they came out. I remember 2 episodes came on each tape, and we got one each month. When one would arrive we would watch it right away, and then put it on a shelf. That shelf still has all the tapes on it. It's a nice collection, and since it's complete I'm quite proud of it.

I love all of Star Trek, even Enterprise, but none of the series get to me the way TNG does. It was the last installment of Trek that was directly created by Gene Roddenberry and I think it shows. Yes it's nice and alittle too perfect. That's how he viewed the future! He actually believed that technology and science would better all humanity and launch us to the stars. With TNG he had to recreate Star Trek, and by placing it about 100 years after TOS it needed to be even better. Where TOS has more militaristic, but idealistic about civil rights, TNG had to be more diplomatic and broad in all forms.

Kirk would shoot first and ask questions later, and we love him for it. Picard would ask questions, then have some tea, then tug on his shirt, then discuss those questions with about 25 people, and then come up with a reason not to shoot. It was a lot more talking and a lot more thought, but it was GREAT television. It was a future you wanted to live in. The Enterprise-D was not a military ship armed for war as it was in TOS. It was a ship of exploration. The crew had their families on the ship, and the living quarters of even the lowest ranking folks were larger than Captain Kirk's were in TOS.

TNG was truly showing how perfect things can be in the future if we all just would stop fighting over stupid things. Imagine how great the world would be if you could ask for Tea, Earl Grey, Hot whenever you wanted it?