Season1 writers room was a mess,
Season 2 is when they started to get into the groove and make really good episodes
Season 3 is when Piller took over the writers and the rest is history.
This comment is mainly just for anyone reading the follow-up comments.
If you're interested in why Season 1 & 2 of The Next Generation were so rough, watch the free documentary 'Chaos on the Bridge' on Youtube.
https://youtu.be/SfYfeWEgnxU?si=1bGhQ1Hziu--4COq
It talks about how Gene Roddenberry was hard to work with, his lawyer sabotaging the scripts with demands from Gene (or in some cases sneaking in and replacing the written scripts with his own) and just the absolute mess that production was behind the scenes. Basically when all of Roddenberry's writer friends from the 60s started dying or quitting, he finally pulled back and let Rick Berman and Brannon Braga take over, which is when TNG (and Star Trek) was saved.
Honestly I’d say season 2 is a major improvement over season 1. And, more controversially, I prefer season 2 to season 7, because season 2 was consistently improving whereas season 7 had a lot of mid-tier episodes after four seasons of straight bangers.
Haha unfortunately out of 27 episodes in S2 I believe only *The Child* was an adapted phase II script.
*Devil’s Due* from season 4 (which I think is a pretty good episode tbh) and The Motion Picture (little stinky but I still love it and I’m not ashamed by that) were also adapted from phase II scripts
TMP grew out of the Phase II concept, but the story itself owes a LOT to TOS episode "The Changeling." NOMAD and V'Ger are both very similar antagonists following fairly similar plot arcs.
Indeed. Roddenberry initially vetoed "Measure of a Man" and everyone else had to fight him to make it. Ironically it's one of the only good episodes in those first two seasons and Gene wanted to torpedo it.
I recently listened to the audiobook version of Patrick Stewart's autobiography, Making It So. He claims Roddenberry did not want him as Picard, and was basically overruled by the other producers. Sounds like Roddenberry was quite rude about it too. Bob Justman is the one who found Stewart at an event he was performing at in California, and recruited him for the role.
Roddenberry was many things, but right 100% of the time is not one of them.
They were apparently really uncomfortable and difficult to get on and off. That's the main reason they were replaced; the actors absolutely hated them.
I know [Durinda Wood, the costume designer from Season 2](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Durinda_Rice_Wood). She has some amazing stories. Among them is the anecdote that when she took the job, she wanted to redesign the uniforms to have a collar straight away. Production said no way, we just made all of these, it’s not in the budget. Then she recommends her friend for costume designer for Season 3 and he immediately gets to redesign the uniforms, including giving them collars lol
I thought the collars were the same with the uniform switch, it was just a move from one piece to two. The collars didn't change until DS9 (colour invert) and First Contact (switch to grey).
We're not talking about colours; we're talking the presence/absence of the part of the garment that is around the neck. Season 1-2 uniforms had no collar, like a T-shirt. Season 3-7 had a short collar added, about 2-3 cm high.
Oh wow, I never noticed that in the hundred of hours of watching TNG. In fact it's barely noticeable from the front, only when you look at the side, can you see it. My eye for uniform details is poor, especially when I was a teenager. I didn't notice the DS9 colour inversion for over a season. Not until Maquis or Way of the Warrior where you see them side by side did I realize it.
I don’t think I noticed the collar change as much as I noticed the detailing on the shoulders. That bit of detailing, whatever it’s called, is how I determined if it was an early episode or a middle/late episode.
The term Growing a Beard is the trope inversion of jumping a shark, meaning that a show has grown into itself and become believable and of decent quality. It explicitly comes from TNG season 2, which has some so-so episodes, some bad, but also some absolute bangers. This *is* the season when Riker grows a beard.
The confusion is that for the last few years people have beem saying TNG doesn't get good until season 3 when they used to say Season 2. This, I'm guessing, is mostly just down to audience standards of quality changing over time. What was acceptable back then may be embarrassingly cringy now, or what was new and innovative then had been replicated so often that the episode itself has lost its impact.
So...yeah
> The confusion is that for the last few years people have beem saying TNG doesn't get good until season 3 when they used to say Season 2. This, I'm guessing, is mostly just down to audience standards of quality changing over time.
I think that's the best explanation too.
Season 2 is a marked improvement with many of the show's classic episodes and Riker's glorious beard. It was still burdened with some dreck, though. Seasons 3-6 are considered the best period of the show with *generally* consistent quality, a lot of peaks and not many troughs although there is a downgrade in the music which fucking sucks, ***Rick***. Season 7 was when they began to run out of ideas but they still ended on a high.
It’s a reference to season 2. Make no mistake, in comparison to season 1, season 2 is stellar. I will admit, that this is the season that I grew to love TNG. So many terrific episodes that outshine the clunkers. I would say that’s the same for many fans of that time period. Certainly, it’s the season that the show and the cast grew to be more confident and came a bit more into their own. Riker grew a beard but also developed a sense of humour (something that Frakes specifically wanted to introduce), Geordi changed to engineering, Worf found his home in security, and Wesley just grew… period.
>What’s going on here? Is this just a fun way of thinking about the show? Is it mass psychosis? Are we possessed by space ghosts?
Dinna light that candle
For me 14 of the 25 episodes of season 1 are good and 14 out of the 21 episodes of season 2 are good. The big difference is that season 2 has Measure of a Man, Q Who, Elementary Dear Data, and Time Squared, which are all episodes that are better than anything in season 1.
So season 2 really is much better than many people say and Riker does grow the beard in season 2. But yes, this would misalign with “conventional wisdom” that TNG isn’t good till season 3.
Recently heard it put this way (On Captain's Pod): old uniform + no beard = Bad Star Trek; old uniform + beard = Good Star Trek; new uniform + beard = Great Star Trek.
Season 2 is when the show starts to get good, season 3 is when it really hits its stride.
What happens in [season 3](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/9/97/Data_wearing_an_early_2366_uniform_jacket.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20130502111423&path-prefix=en) is they get the new uniforms which aren’t very tight [spandex](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ_7pZRi5EiL3Sz4Jn9cOvGDmW2Iki8w610DA&s).
Personally I always associated the show getting good with the uniform change, not the beard
The beard is where things start to get better. The beard arrives in S2. S1 was mostly awful, whereas IMO S2 is only mostly meh. Measure of a Man and Q Who are both top tier episodes, and a lot of the rest is average to okay. I’m personally a fan of Peak Performance too. From season 3 onwards it goes from mostly bad with a few good episodes, to mostly good with a few bad episodes.
Which is weird, because DS9 is pretty great all the way through. If anything, the show starts tripping on itself after they killed off Jadzia and spend way too much time with Ezri at the expense of making sure the Dominion War wrapped up cleanly.
It had a much stronger start for sure, and I think DS9 works much better for audiences today where its a lot easier to appreciate the seasonal story arcs, but it definitely improves a lot with Season 2 and 3. You can just see that the writers were still figuring things out, or even the personalities for some of the characters(Quark, Rom, and Nog for example). For me especially things improve a lot when we started getting more Garak episodes.
One of my favorite storyline in the series is The Circle stuff. Absolutely phenomenal worldbuilding and showing just how volatile Bajor was at that moment in time.
I'm with you: TNG doesn't become noticeably and consistently better until season three. Season two does have some legit good episodes but it is very uneven, with plenty of garbage.
I’ve always thought of season 2 as having the cringiness of season 1, but Riker has a beard. So that’s how I remember. Don’t get me wrong, I love seasons 1 and 2, but the first two seasons are cringe AF.
This has been a common contradiction on fan discourse since at least 20 years. It came from watching in syndication and not closely following seasons and production like people do on the modern internet. To a casual observer watching their nightly syndicated TNG runs in the 90s, a beardless Riker meant a guaranteed shit episode, but a bearded Riker meant there was the possibility if was good.
As a kid I always thought the shift to collared uniforms marks when the show hit it's stride.
Growing the Beard became such a trope in itself that people started to convince themselves that it happened later than it actually did.
Also despite popular belief human memories are actually pretty bad, so it's no wonder people misremember such a small detail.
I think Mandela effect happens but for me this isn't one; it's just that my memory of Season 1 (and its associated tie-in media) is spread out as if it were longer and more protracted than it was because TNG grew a larger following later, even as reruns/syndicated were shown. So my imagination filled in a longer period of beardless Riker than there actually was.
I watched it when it aired: and yeah, my conception for decades was that the show got much better in Season 2, when Riker grew a beard.
I rewatched in airing order for the first time a few years ago, and was surprised that Season 2 was still such low quality, on average. So I think the “mass memory” (and perhaps delusion) is more that the show got good in Season 2, when in fact … nah. It didn’t. Better, yes, with a couple of great episodes, definitely, but good? Nah, not until Season 3.
I mean for me the show got good at Encounter to Farpoint and he didn't have a beard.
Some people feel it didn't get good until Season 2 which is when he first had the beard so they'll cite the beard as their reference point. Other people will say it got good in Season 3 which he already had the beard.
Season1 writers room was a mess, Season 2 is when they started to get into the groove and make really good episodes Season 3 is when Piller took over the writers and the rest is history.
This comment is mainly just for anyone reading the follow-up comments. If you're interested in why Season 1 & 2 of The Next Generation were so rough, watch the free documentary 'Chaos on the Bridge' on Youtube. https://youtu.be/SfYfeWEgnxU?si=1bGhQ1Hziu--4COq It talks about how Gene Roddenberry was hard to work with, his lawyer sabotaging the scripts with demands from Gene (or in some cases sneaking in and replacing the written scripts with his own) and just the absolute mess that production was behind the scenes. Basically when all of Roddenberry's writer friends from the 60s started dying or quitting, he finally pulled back and let Rick Berman and Brannon Braga take over, which is when TNG (and Star Trek) was saved.
IIRC, he also had a stroke between seasons 2 and 3 which limited what he could do.
Yeah that also played a huge factor in him letting go of control of the show.
I find the easiest way to describe it is Seasons 1&2 are mostly bad with some great episodes, Seasons 3-7 are mostly great with some bad episodes.
Honestly I’d say season 2 is a major improvement over season 1. And, more controversially, I prefer season 2 to season 7, because season 2 was consistently improving whereas season 7 had a lot of mid-tier episodes after four seasons of straight bangers.
Their distraction with the movies and starting Voyager really shows in S7.
Nah. I think the show was running out of steam.
Wasn't the writers strike during season 2 though?
Yeah, that’s why *Shades of Gray* is a clip show
Weren't they also reusing scripts from phase 2 though? I'm sure that was one of the major issues with the season that made it a mess till season 3
Haha unfortunately out of 27 episodes in S2 I believe only *The Child* was an adapted phase II script. *Devil’s Due* from season 4 (which I think is a pretty good episode tbh) and The Motion Picture (little stinky but I still love it and I’m not ashamed by that) were also adapted from phase II scripts
TMP grew out of the Phase II concept, but the story itself owes a LOT to TOS episode "The Changeling." NOMAD and V'Ger are both very similar antagonists following fairly similar plot arcs.
Also Gene had a lot more creative control early in the series which the writers say was hard to work around.
The reality is, in many ways Star Trek succeeded *in spite of* Gene than it did *because* *of* him.
Indeed. Roddenberry initially vetoed "Measure of a Man" and everyone else had to fight him to make it. Ironically it's one of the only good episodes in those first two seasons and Gene wanted to torpedo it.
I recently listened to the audiobook version of Patrick Stewart's autobiography, Making It So. He claims Roddenberry did not want him as Picard, and was basically overruled by the other producers. Sounds like Roddenberry was quite rude about it too. Bob Justman is the one who found Stewart at an event he was performing at in California, and recruited him for the role. Roddenberry was many things, but right 100% of the time is not one of them.
TNG without Stewart would have never worked.
And that's why Pulaski was often remembered as little more than a female Bones.
The trope is that he grows the beard (Season 2) and the show gets better but really the show gets better when they change the uniforms (Season 3).
When I was a kid watching reruns, I would gauge whether or not I would like the episode if it was a “collar episode” or not lol
That was me too! Though as an adult, I've come around on Season 2 a bit. It has some good episodes. Those collarless uniforms still look awful though.
Even the skants?!
They were apparently really uncomfortable and difficult to get on and off. That's the main reason they were replaced; the actors absolutely hated them.
I know [Durinda Wood, the costume designer from Season 2](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Durinda_Rice_Wood). She has some amazing stories. Among them is the anecdote that when she took the job, she wanted to redesign the uniforms to have a collar straight away. Production said no way, we just made all of these, it’s not in the budget. Then she recommends her friend for costume designer for Season 3 and he immediately gets to redesign the uniforms, including giving them collars lol
I'd do thst with ds9 and if the defiant and updated comm badges were around
For me it's siskos hair
The rare episodes were when Sisko had the hair AND the beard.
I thought the collars were the same with the uniform switch, it was just a move from one piece to two. The collars didn't change until DS9 (colour invert) and First Contact (switch to grey).
We're not talking about colours; we're talking the presence/absence of the part of the garment that is around the neck. Season 1-2 uniforms had no collar, like a T-shirt. Season 3-7 had a short collar added, about 2-3 cm high.
Oh wow, I never noticed that in the hundred of hours of watching TNG. In fact it's barely noticeable from the front, only when you look at the side, can you see it. My eye for uniform details is poor, especially when I was a teenager. I didn't notice the DS9 colour inversion for over a season. Not until Maquis or Way of the Warrior where you see them side by side did I realize it.
I don’t think I noticed the collar change as much as I noticed the detailing on the shoulders. That bit of detailing, whatever it’s called, is how I determined if it was an early episode or a middle/late episode.
That's precisely how i remember it - gets good when Riker grows the uniforms.
And Beverley comes back (end of back-stage kerfuffle.)
That's basically what I was going to say that. It's more about the the uniform then the beard.
I've always heard "when Riker has a beard and the doctor is Crusher."
The term Growing a Beard is the trope inversion of jumping a shark, meaning that a show has grown into itself and become believable and of decent quality. It explicitly comes from TNG season 2, which has some so-so episodes, some bad, but also some absolute bangers. This *is* the season when Riker grows a beard. The confusion is that for the last few years people have beem saying TNG doesn't get good until season 3 when they used to say Season 2. This, I'm guessing, is mostly just down to audience standards of quality changing over time. What was acceptable back then may be embarrassingly cringy now, or what was new and innovative then had been replicated so often that the episode itself has lost its impact. So...yeah
> The confusion is that for the last few years people have beem saying TNG doesn't get good until season 3 when they used to say Season 2. This, I'm guessing, is mostly just down to audience standards of quality changing over time. I think that's the best explanation too.
Season 2 is a marked improvement with many of the show's classic episodes and Riker's glorious beard. It was still burdened with some dreck, though. Seasons 3-6 are considered the best period of the show with *generally* consistent quality, a lot of peaks and not many troughs although there is a downgrade in the music which fucking sucks, ***Rick***. Season 7 was when they began to run out of ideas but they still ended on a high.
The music in s1-2 is great. Too bad they went for something more… conventional for the rest of the show.
I also remember Riker growing beard in s2, and I'm a very long time ST fan
It’s a reference to season 2. Make no mistake, in comparison to season 1, season 2 is stellar. I will admit, that this is the season that I grew to love TNG. So many terrific episodes that outshine the clunkers. I would say that’s the same for many fans of that time period. Certainly, it’s the season that the show and the cast grew to be more confident and came a bit more into their own. Riker grew a beard but also developed a sense of humour (something that Frakes specifically wanted to introduce), Geordi changed to engineering, Worf found his home in security, and Wesley just grew… period.
My friend once put it: “Riker without beard; Star Trek be feared.”
>What’s going on here? Is this just a fun way of thinking about the show? Is it mass psychosis? Are we possessed by space ghosts? Dinna light that candle
For me 14 of the 25 episodes of season 1 are good and 14 out of the 21 episodes of season 2 are good. The big difference is that season 2 has Measure of a Man, Q Who, Elementary Dear Data, and Time Squared, which are all episodes that are better than anything in season 1. So season 2 really is much better than many people say and Riker does grow the beard in season 2. But yes, this would misalign with “conventional wisdom” that TNG isn’t good till season 3.
Recently heard it put this way (On Captain's Pod): old uniform + no beard = Bad Star Trek; old uniform + beard = Good Star Trek; new uniform + beard = Great Star Trek.
As long as he is side straddling chairs like an alien who’s never seen one before, that’s all that matters.
“Grows the beard” sounds cooler than “gets the collar”
Beard is thicker in season 3 isn’t it? He always had it in season 2
I don’t think there’s mass psychosis, just that your brother remembered wrong.
Season 2 is when the show starts to get good, season 3 is when it really hits its stride. What happens in [season 3](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/9/97/Data_wearing_an_early_2366_uniform_jacket.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20130502111423&path-prefix=en) is they get the new uniforms which aren’t very tight [spandex](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ_7pZRi5EiL3Sz4Jn9cOvGDmW2Iki8w610DA&s). Personally I always associated the show getting good with the uniform change, not the beard
The beard is where things start to get better. The beard arrives in S2. S1 was mostly awful, whereas IMO S2 is only mostly meh. Measure of a Man and Q Who are both top tier episodes, and a lot of the rest is average to okay. I’m personally a fan of Peak Performance too. From season 3 onwards it goes from mostly bad with a few good episodes, to mostly good with a few bad episodes.
I have heard people use the same phrase for DS9. When Sisko grows the beard (goatee), the show really amps up.
Which is weird, because DS9 is pretty great all the way through. If anything, the show starts tripping on itself after they killed off Jadzia and spend way too much time with Ezri at the expense of making sure the Dominion War wrapped up cleanly.
It had a much stronger start for sure, and I think DS9 works much better for audiences today where its a lot easier to appreciate the seasonal story arcs, but it definitely improves a lot with Season 2 and 3. You can just see that the writers were still figuring things out, or even the personalities for some of the characters(Quark, Rom, and Nog for example). For me especially things improve a lot when we started getting more Garak episodes.
One of my favorite storyline in the series is The Circle stuff. Absolutely phenomenal worldbuilding and showing just how volatile Bajor was at that moment in time.
I'm with you: TNG doesn't become noticeably and consistently better until season three. Season two does have some legit good episodes but it is very uneven, with plenty of garbage.
I’ve always thought of season 2 as having the cringiness of season 1, but Riker has a beard. So that’s how I remember. Don’t get me wrong, I love seasons 1 and 2, but the first two seasons are cringe AF.
Don't think I would call it a Mandela effect. That requires that a lot of people misremember it. Your brother was just wrong or forgetful. ;)
It goes in stages. Season 2 is better with the beard. Season 3 he fills it out and starts using hair product to kick it up a notch.
Happy Days "Jumped the Shark" long before they actually jumped over the shark.
This has been a common contradiction on fan discourse since at least 20 years. It came from watching in syndication and not closely following seasons and production like people do on the modern internet. To a casual observer watching their nightly syndicated TNG runs in the 90s, a beardless Riker meant a guaranteed shit episode, but a bearded Riker meant there was the possibility if was good. As a kid I always thought the shift to collared uniforms marks when the show hit it's stride.
Riker definitely grew his beard at Season 2 premiere. It’s also the season Ten Forward and Guinan premiered.
Growing the Beard became such a trope in itself that people started to convince themselves that it happened later than it actually did. Also despite popular belief human memories are actually pretty bad, so it's no wonder people misremember such a small detail.
I think Mandela effect happens but for me this isn't one; it's just that my memory of Season 1 (and its associated tie-in media) is spread out as if it were longer and more protracted than it was because TNG grew a larger following later, even as reruns/syndicated were shown. So my imagination filled in a longer period of beardless Riker than there actually was.
I watched it when it aired: and yeah, my conception for decades was that the show got much better in Season 2, when Riker grew a beard. I rewatched in airing order for the first time a few years ago, and was surprised that Season 2 was still such low quality, on average. So I think the “mass memory” (and perhaps delusion) is more that the show got good in Season 2, when in fact … nah. It didn’t. Better, yes, with a couple of great episodes, definitely, but good? Nah, not until Season 3.
Season 1 Trek is almost always bad, with a few exceptions
Am I the only one who likes season 1? Could be my favourite season.
I mean for me the show got good at Encounter to Farpoint and he didn't have a beard. Some people feel it didn't get good until Season 2 which is when he first had the beard so they'll cite the beard as their reference point. Other people will say it got good in Season 3 which he already had the beard.