Here I continue my review from Part 1 (https://trakt.tv/comments/178380). As before, the dividing line between Part 1 and Part 2 of "Encounter at Farpoint" is the scene between Data and Admiral McCoy in the corridor.
Boy, are there some out of place scenes in this half. Number one on my list is when Picard goes to Sickbay and (more or less) asks her to transfer off his ship. That wasn't the time to go apologize for yelling at Wesley, either. Thanks to Andrew Bloom, I know why so much of this episode felt wrong, though: The target length of script was in constant flux throughout the writing process. Constantly adding and removing scenes doesn't help anyone trying to write a cohesive teleplay, that's for sure.
Now, a word about Troi: Mon Dieu is her character awful. Blank-faced monotone suits no one, especially a new character the audience is (I guess?) supposed to like. I don't like Troi at this point in the series. She doesn't get that much better later, but she does improve.
Actually, Q was disappointing as well. I almost said in my review of Part 1 that Q's playfulness didn't come through, but deleted that paragraph because I realized on reflection that it actually does, sort of. In Part 2, though… Q is just obnoxious. Showing up on the bridge and disabling Picard's command of his own ship isn't so much playful as it is mean. Though depicted later on as being a, er, being of his (its?) word, this early incarnation of Q seems entirely too ready to go back on promises already made.
More than anything, from a production perspective, I was surprised at the lack of variety in spaceship-alien corridor sets. While it makes sense that both aliens would have similar internal structure, there was very clearly only one set constructed. The different lighting used for the one in orbit didn't conceal it, and the camera work didn't even try. For a project as important as putting Star Trek back on TV, one might rightly expect higher production values. (I am, of course, watching the remastered Blu-ray. The redone visual effects are really nice—the team did an amazing job making the giant aliens look good in HD—but the move to HD was less kind to physical sets.)
Ultimately, I found Part 2 (or the second half, I suppose, since I only have the full-length Blu-ray release of this episode and not the two-part broadcast-syndicated version) slightly better than Part 1, but still rather "meh". I gave this half 6/10 instead of 5/10 only because 1) giving both halves the same rating is passé and 2) I was rounding up from 5.5.
Review by dgwVIP 10BlockedParent2018-06-08T04:44:30Z
Here I continue my review from Part 1 (https://trakt.tv/comments/178380). As before, the dividing line between Part 1 and Part 2 of "Encounter at Farpoint" is the scene between Data and Admiral McCoy in the corridor.
Boy, are there some out of place scenes in this half. Number one on my list is when Picard goes to Sickbay and (more or less) asks her to transfer off his ship. That wasn't the time to go apologize for yelling at Wesley, either. Thanks to Andrew Bloom, I know why so much of this episode felt wrong, though: The target length of script was in constant flux throughout the writing process. Constantly adding and removing scenes doesn't help anyone trying to write a cohesive teleplay, that's for sure.
Now, a word about Troi: Mon Dieu is her character awful. Blank-faced monotone suits no one, especially a new character the audience is (I guess?) supposed to like. I don't like Troi at this point in the series. She doesn't get that much better later, but she does improve.
Actually, Q was disappointing as well. I almost said in my review of Part 1 that Q's playfulness didn't come through, but deleted that paragraph because I realized on reflection that it actually does, sort of. In Part 2, though… Q is just obnoxious. Showing up on the bridge and disabling Picard's command of his own ship isn't so much playful as it is mean. Though depicted later on as being a, er, being of his (its?) word, this early incarnation of Q seems entirely too ready to go back on promises already made.
More than anything, from a production perspective, I was surprised at the lack of variety in spaceship-alien corridor sets. While it makes sense that both aliens would have similar internal structure, there was very clearly only one set constructed. The different lighting used for the one in orbit didn't conceal it, and the camera work didn't even try. For a project as important as putting Star Trek back on TV, one might rightly expect higher production values. (I am, of course, watching the remastered Blu-ray. The redone visual effects are really nice—the team did an amazing job making the giant aliens look good in HD—but the move to HD was less kind to physical sets.)
Ultimately, I found Part 2 (or the second half, I suppose, since I only have the full-length Blu-ray release of this episode and not the two-part broadcast-syndicated version) slightly better than Part 1, but still rather "meh". I gave this half 6/10 instead of 5/10 only because 1) giving both halves the same rating is passé and 2) I was rounding up from 5.5.