Star Trek TNG: Season 3 Bench Watching

Seemed like a good idea to rewatch Star Trek TNG on Netflix. Started from Episode 1, and right now, I'm two thirds of the way through season 3. 

It's an interesting watch. The stories mostly hold up. Only a couple duds in Season 3, where the plot feels rushed, or the stories don't make sense. Overall, I like it.

The look of show is really strange. It looks more like the original Trek than anything they've produced since. There's the weird ui on the computers. The orange black and purple layout of things, but I can get past that.

The first appearance of the Borg made it through an entire episode without mentioning assimilation. And that line about "punishing" the Enterprise crew for self defense felt weird. I have this image in my head, these days, when I think of the Borg, and that's not it. Still entertaining, though.

And if you're paying attention, the way they reuse sets every couple of episodes really takes you out of continuity. Like, for example, how the re-use that same "alien spaceship" set over and over and over again. Or, the one I like to call "alien city #3," which has been in 35 of the 60 episodes I've watched so far. It even looks like a few of them are throwbacks to the original show, which, actually, is kind of cool. Like the interrogation room in Measure of a Man, for example.

But, perhaps the thing I find most jarring about it, watching it now, isn't really anything having to do with the story, or the plot, even the acting. Rather the makeup the characters wear doesn't survive modern television sets especially well. I find myself thinking as I go about all the orange lipstick everyone, even the men are wearing through the whole show. And don't even get me started on the hair. You've either got space hippie hair, or people that look like they should be in a Bryan Adams video. 

A couple episodes back, Teri Hatcher made an appearance as Transporter Operator who gets seduced by sly alien scoundrel, which was funny. It was such a small part, was hoping to see her more.

And Maria Sirtis is not an attractive woman, I'm sorry.  But it is interesting, how she was played up like a sex symbol at the time. All I can think of, really, is how generous old tv's must have been to her.

Anyway, it's a good 170 hours or so of some pretty decent television, if you've got nothing better to do.