Your Most Hated TNG

[Riedquat]

It's so long since I've seen most of TNG that the memories of even the bad ones are long enough ago (I only usually re-watch if I happen to turn the TV on and there happens to be an episode playing, which means I've not seen most of the first couple of seasons of TNG since they first aired in the UK), so I can't pick any out.

Overall the only episode of any Trek that's really annoyed me was Dear Doctor. Partially because I found it pretty offensive in its own right, partially because you get people defending it. At least you don't get any defence of Code of Honor, and Sub Rosa only gets a little from people who manage to put it in the "so bad it's good" category.

[Frustration]

The sex candle one is truly dire but at least it occasionally hits that it's so bad it's funny tier.

The irony is that they recruited a woman to write that script so that the Crusher-centric episode wouldn't be stereotypical... and they got a Gothic sex/romance ghost story.

[TGLS]

The sex candle one is truly dire but at least it occasionally hits that it's so bad it's funny tier.

The irony is that they recruited a woman to write that script so that the Crusher-centric episode wouldn't be stereotypical... and they got a Gothic sex/romance ghost story.

No, there was just miscommunication on what stereotype they wanted to avoid.

"We don't want a stereotypical episode with Crusher"

"You got it pal! I don't think anyone's done a Gothic Romance in Star Trek ever!"

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The sex candle came to mind because it is strictly fantasy metrics but I mean it when I say that she can hold her own in a drama.

[Frustration]

TNG was never really comfortable with having women be the focus of the stories. Troi and Crusher were dreadfully underused. What we got of them was sometimes terrible, but often pretty good - the problem was that we got so little.

[CMWaters]

TNG was never really comfortable with having women be the focus of the stories. Troi and Crusher were dreadfully underused. What we got of them was sometimes terrible, but often pretty good - the problem was that we got so little.

And some would probably think that their stories couldn't hold up to most anything featuring Ro Laren, especially the debut ep.

[Frustration]

Yeah, Ensign Ro was great - at least partly because her character wasn't 'nurturing' and was both assertive and somewhat abrasive; both Crusher and Troi were nurturing and concillatory. That was a large part of the problem - they could only write well for female characters who weren't stereotypically feminine, but most women ARE.

I consider B5's Ivanova and Delenn to be good examples of well-written female characters, who were truly strong precisely because they didn't feel the need to act like exaggeredly-stereotypical men in order to be so.

[clearspira]

TNG was never really comfortable with having women be the focus of the stories. Troi and Crusher were dreadfully underused. What we got of them was sometimes terrible, but often pretty good - the problem was that we got so little.

Problem is, I, and many others, disagree with this statement. What we got from Troi and Crusher wasn't often ''pretty good'' at all. The trope ''A Day In The Limelight'' on TVTropes even used to be called ''The Good Troi Episode'' due to just how god-damn rare it was to get a good performance out of her. And Chuck clearly thinks of her in the same category as Neelix given how often he insults her.

Crusher's problem is the opposite. She's beige. She's just there. She's not memorable enough to have
a trope named after her. Y'know... at least Troi had the episode where she was turned into a Romulan. I can't even think of a good episode that stars Crusher. Dr Pulaski, for all of her faults, had more long term potential than Crusher ever did - they just spectacularly botched her execution.

[CMWaters]

Crusher's problem is the opposite. She's beige. She's just there. She's not memorable enough to have
a trope named after her. Y'know... at least Troi had the episode where she was turned into a Romulan. I can't even think of a good episode that stars Crusher. Dr Pulaski, for all of her faults, had more long term potential than Crusher ever did - they just spectacularly botched her execution.

"Remember Me" and "Suspicions"?

[Madner Kami]

Crusher's problem is the opposite. She's beige. She's just there. She's not memorable enough to have
a trope named after her. Y'know... at least Troi had the episode where she was turned into a Romulan. I can't even think of a good episode that stars Crusher. Dr Pulaski, for all of her faults, had more long term potential than Crusher ever did - they just spectacularly botched her execution.

"Remember Me" and "Suspicions"?

I'd add "High Ground", "Cause and Effect", "All Good Things" and "Attached" to that list. Crusher tends to be more a catalysator, a facilitating character, rather than taking center-stage to drive the plot in most episodes, but there are a number of episodes where Crusher's presence is anything but beige.

Similarly Troi. She's kind of the butt-monkey because writers are notoriously bad in regards to understanding implications or working with concepts they are not interested in, so she gets relegated to "I sense fear" in a population whose planet is about to explode. Unlike Geordi and Crusher, Troi kinda always needed to be worked in, as she was part of the bridge-crew, so writers who didn't care for her had to work her in somehow. But then again, you have "Loud as a Whisper", "Face of the Enemy", "The Offspring" and "Timescape".

We're making the mistake of taking the overemphasis of bad character-uses as being the only thing there is. Yes, Troi and Crusher were often used as eye-candy, "give 'em a line so their salary is justified" or ending up eating the lowest strata of a writer's particular sex-based views, but that should never detract from the highpoints of the characters (if they exist).