PATRON TAKES - All Good Things (TNG SERIES FINALE) | Star Trek Journey 326

Temba, his arms wide!

On Netflix the final TNG episode 26 is called “Retrospective.”The episode is hosted by Jonathan Frakes and it is an in-depth look behind the scenes of the show. It is well worth a look. The only issue is some spoilers about the TNG film “Genesis”.

No credit rage back in the day, as we were used to the commercials spoiling plots. And months of press before hand likely spoiled Tasha and Q returning.

Just remember folks, without saying what it brings, the "Picard" series is out there. But that's so far away from this! There is still part of me that wished they could have just ended TNG all together with this finale. There are good things that come after, but there would be something "pure" about letting that be the last we see of the characters. But I know, these days fans don't want any characters and shows to ever die.

Now you guys can catch up on a bunch of RLM TNG content ;)

Rewatching the top 10 would be a great reaction .. that is what we all are doing watching you two

Rewatch? "And that's it, after over a decade, we've finally watched all of Star Trek..." "What now?" "...Wanna go again?"

On the subject of re-watches and how it would fit in with the Patreon channel, I think a great format for that would be a monthly poll. Perhaps the Patreon can vote on a shortlist of episodes you guys think deserve a revisit. Or do it by theme. So for example, “this month we want to revisit a scary episode for Halloween. What scary episode deserves a re-view” etc

Pulaski is one of those things that you can enjoy FAR more on later watch throughs of TNG. Watching it blind, everyone hates her. She rubs you the wrong way with stuff like the data hate, and you just want Crusher back the whole time. But once you know how the whole show plays out, and that she's only in season 2, she's a lot more tolerable. The more times you watch the show, the easier it is to appreciate what she had to bring to it.

Alright, TNG Series retired, DS9 Series at bat, Generations Movie on deck, Voyager Series in the hole.

We didn't even called it being "spoiled" back then. It was a "teaser". They told us the guest stars and we got excited. Spoiler culture is new. It didn't exist back in the 90s. We LOOKED for leaks and info because it made us MORE excited to watch the show.

I really enjoyed the finale more this time around than I did when I first saw it, and I think seeing it through your eyes helped. So, thank you for that! I'd be interested in seeing you do a rewatch, but to be honest, I'd probably only check in on the episodes that were favorites. I don't think I have it in me to rewatch the entire thing again for another few years at least.

I don’t know Alex you look like you were really trying to hold of the tears when the Enterprise flew off into space one last time.

You guys are on point going production order but employ you do not start DS9 season 4 until you watch Generations.

Ensign Gates is played by Joyce Robinson (her name is currently Joyce Agu). If Alex is going to continue as President of her fan club, he ought to know. 😉

In the reaction video, you shouted out Endgame right at the beginning. You were right! The Russo Brothers said the direct inspiration for MCU Avengers: Endgame was TNG All Good Things! They were fans!

I would totally be down for a series rewatch. We could finally have real discussions without having to worry about spoilers.

When I saw this when it originally aired most people knew a lot about the episode before it aired because they did a lot of promotional stuff and back then as fans we ate it up because we didn't have the internet to give us content about the stuff we liked anytime we wanted like we have today. I specifically remember a 30 or 60 minute long special they aired a few weeks before the finale which interviewed a lot of the cast and showed a number of behind-the-scenes shots of various parts being filmed beforehand. We knew that the episode was about Picard going through time, we knew he went back to the Farpoint mission with Tasha, we knew he appeared as an old man and met with some of the crew in the future. This was pretty normal for a lot of stuff back then. I don't think we tended to think about spoilers in the same way that it is common to do so now and hearing about the big guest star was something they went out of their way to advertise - it was a reason for people to want to tune in to see the show. It would be all over the ads, all over promotional stuff on Entertainment Tonight and similar stuff, all over TV guide and other magazine covers, etc. I think that we just didn't really think of this stuff as spoilers back then but more like getting a free sample of something to make us more excited to see the whole thing.

You know Alex, you could just NOT read the guest star credits 🤪 Honestly, before you guys I just tuned out all the credit listing and just watched the scene.

I would certainly be interested in a rewatch sometime in the future. You would bring your foreknowledge and a new light on the series.

In all seriousness, a thought occurred to me the other day for some entirely unrelated reason. Could you just... not read the credits? It would take a conscious effort of course, but I bet with a few episodes' worth of practice it would be possible. I was just thinking about how when I was a 12 year old watching this stuff I was never spoiled by the credits because I just didn't care enough to read them.

Any and everything is impactful if you watch it at the right age.

Ahhh, if only you hadn't seen the credits. The pops for each of the revealed characters would have been very memorable.

24:50 What if Lore secretly replaced Data, and everyone thought Lore is data in the future at Cambridge??

I was joking. This is the danger of putting things out there in the universe.

I'd certainly check it out if and when you guys do a rewatch of the show. Especially if you do it before diving into 'Nu Trek', which I.... will likely skip 99% of. On that subject, just an idea: What if your rewatch (if it's the full episode) is 'just' audio only, like an audio commentary? That way you could save some time editing and also could release it on YouTube as long as you of course do it in a way that they tolerate. I've seen others do it, and I've enjoyed that. The after-episode discussion may or may not be on camera.

I'd watch some episodes of a rewatch for sure. It would be interesting to see how your opinion changed of some of the earlier episodes knowing what you know now.

*Thirty years later* "Star Wars: The Acolyte really got me through those tough times growing up"

I think rewatches of certain "collections" of episodes could be interesting. Like watching all the Klingon politics episodes in a row, or all the Romulan episodes, or all the courtroom episodes, etc. It'd be an opportunity to directly compare episodes of the same type without having seasons-long gaps between them.

In case you ever looked it up, “Let’s make sure history never forgets the name Enterprise” is from, unsurprisingly, “Yesterday’s Enterprise”

Totally agree that it is a good Ending. But like you Guys, i am a sucker for more Slice of Life Stuff from the Crew. And i dearly miss Brocoli and Guinen. So good landing, but there was soo much Room for more.

And yes, a rewatch of TOS would be interesting. Not my favorite series, but with a bunch more Trek already in the bag, you might have some interesting contrasting takes against the first time around.

A rewatch would be interesting. Maybe not the entire show...but the highlight episodes of each season. Episodes like Yesterdays Enterprise, Measure of a Man or The Wounded or The Drumhead are better the second time around...or the tenth.

I have zero memory of ever noticing the opening credits for TNG as a kid.

Picards imposter game to the poker game in that episode. And seemed to consider joining it but ultimately didn't. So even his imposter wouldn't join in the poker game.

The last filmed scene with the entire crew was the poker scene at the end. The last filmed scene in the episode was shot the next day with the scene of Picard & Q billions of years in the past on earth.

While I grew genuinely fond of the TNG actors.....the main characters were placed under too many constraints. Roddenberry, whose various TV projects after TOS never got picked up after their pilot shows, clearly wanted TNG to be his statement and legacy. So he created characters that had 'evolved' beyond what makes characters deeply human. He wanted them to provide enlightened perspectives on different cultures, species, situations, ethical dilemmas, etc. That is not the same as characters who grapple with their human nature and overcome it. Once Pillar became showrunner, he and the writers did a good job of trying to find a balance. But they never completely overcame the initial character limitations.

I would LOVE to watch you guys have a head to head debate with Nicholas Meyer!

I believe you had to make a special arrangement with the actor/agent to not put an actor's name in the opening credits. Like, you specifically had to get their permission to save it for the post-episode credits.

Excellent idea to do these separately.

They started filming the movie immediately after this wrapped. So there wasn't much need for the goodbyes

I would love a rewatch with a real deep dive, writers, directors, camera work, behind the scenes stories, making of, script rewrites etc..

A rewatch sometime down the line would be an excellent idea. That's almost like the "next stage Trekkie" thing you have to do. You can now look back at the episodes from the lens that us longterm fans have and have a whole new perspective and really nerd out if you want.

The Nicholas Meyer rant was a great laugh.

I would also definitely be interested in a rewatch at some point, I am also here for the long haul and I am so looking forward to watching more of you Star Trek journey, DS9 is amazing and I think that Voyager is Fantastic and Enterprise is Great and I liked Discovery and the rest of new trek and can't wait to see you get through it all.

I would be interested in a rewatch! I don't know if the YT audience would love that. I have seen channels do rewatches (Doctor Who, as an example) and the numbers droppppp off. But Patreon is a different beast.

In my market where this was broadcast, the "next week, on the series finale of Star Trek TNG" type of promo commercials spoiled the guest actors and part of the plot. So I was not mad at the credits.

All Good Things is a good ending, I think. We're lucky that one of TNG's endings was good, at least. From what I've heard/read: Piller said that the finale had to be about Picard, Q, and time travel. The original script that Braga and Moore turned in was apparently a lot more character-focused, with the time travel stuff being basically a B-plot. And the final state of the script with a much bigger plot/threat-of-the-week focus was the result of a rewrite from Piller (that pretty much nobody liked). I wish we could have seen that original script.

YOU HAD MILD CRITICISMS OF MY FAVORITE EPISODE!? HOW DARE YOU!? SUBSCRIPTION CANCELLED! What's that? Oh, they're still watching DS9 and the TNG movies and then continuing with the rest of Star Trek? OK, subscription uncancelled.

When all three Enterprises are in the anomaly, the Picard we're following is on all three ships. His consciousness is jumping back and forth between them.

My pitch: Down the road, watch the IMBD top ten rated TNG episodes. And then explain why you agree or disagree with the average fandom consensus for each story. And make it crude and hilarious. 😂

If you do a rewatch I say you break the order and do arcs: Watch a Klingon Arc, a Barclay Arc, Romulus arc, etc etc. Maybe do a cluster of “favorite guest actors” (Half a Life tops my list). A time travel cluster. A Q cluster. A Geordi tries to get the girl cluster.

i never read any credits when I watched this. I don't think a lot of people did in the 90s. They were completely invisible to me as a kid though. Well not invisible, but I always cancelled them out of my perception. I would have been about 10 years old when All Good Things aired. I never paid attention to any credits ever. I was always annoyed that they were all over the screen obstructing my view of the show and the characters. They were just foreground foliage to me that I was always trying to look past and it was rarely ever legible to me. So nothing was blown for me ever.

Re : Credits. It was a different time but I don’t recall feeling anger or disappointment on seeing a name in the credit, just excitement. “Oh, X is in this episode!” It just wasn’t a “spoiler” in the modern sense. There will be some occasions in the future when names in the credits will irritate but most of the time it won’t.

So off topic, have you guys seen Patrick Stewart’s Christmas carol? Not as lively as the Muppets but if Dickens had made his story a play it would look like Stewart’s Christmas carol might be good for a reaction or just a watch

I’d definitely be up for a rewatch of select episodes, maybe even most of them, but definitely skip the stinkers. Not sure what a rewatch would add to Masks or Emergence…

I just realized there’s only 14 episodes of DS9 before Voyager premieres. Sad to see TNG go but excited for the next part of your guys journey!

When you watch a show like any of the Roddenberry and Berman era Star Trek shows, you know there was care and love that went into them. Hard to say that about most television shows today, except for occasional streaming shows, but even most of them are just BS.

To be honest, when I saw the opening credits for AGTs, I was giddy with delight. Spoilers like that didn't bother me back then. In fact, it made me want to watch it even more.

Josh, I think your assessment of how the last episode was written is probably far closer to the truth than we truly know.

I absolutely agree and understand what you mean by the blueprint. You recognize a great quality content, and you admit it's not exactly your thing. That is exactly how objective thinking works imo. You realize something is great even though you say it's not your favorite, while understanding your favorite is not everyone's favorite, nor necessarily the best thing ever created. Emotionally immature people usually feel if I don't like it it means it's bad, or that everyone has to like it just because I do. They don't realize their own taste is not an objective measure of quality.

I could watch a rewatch

I don't think I was ever bothered by credit spoilers. But I understand it can be an issue for people. Also I don't find ST6 banter annoying, but hilarious, even though I like the movie.

STRAIGHT to complaining! haha

No I may go back to 10 dollar level in December but staying for DS9 and Voyager, even though Star Trek 4 to me is Star Trek, I think Trek is far better as a TV show than a movie. As a Sherlock Holmes fan I have read Pastiches but because of the movies in Trek never read Meyer’s Holmes books, I worry what he would do to Watson and Holmes. Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered country are good enough but I am too….picky

For me Nicholas Meyer had a better vision of Star Trek than Gene Roddenberry and Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country show the potential of what TOS should have been but never got as good as those two movies but any time you shit on it you do it in a fun way so I still laugh along and don't mind.

Glad to see that they weren't saying it was the best episode ever- since it wasn't...in my view a C rating and OK