[furgooswft13]

I actually feel TNG lost a lot of humor and levity and amusing banter after season 2. I know I'm in an extreme minority when I say I prefer the first two seasons of TNG over the rest. Yes most of the great, classic episodes are from season 3 on, but the filler in between became much less enjoyable. Too serious and dour for the middling forgettable plots being presented. Picard smiled more in the first 2 seasons than the rest combined.

> Most of the Q episodes too

Those were the worst Q episodes though (granted "I am NOT a merry man!" might alone have made Qpid worth it). Q was at his best when he was taken seriously by the crew, not treated as an annoying but harmless diversion.

As far as DS9 ripping off B5, there are some surface level similarities, but in the end the shows and characters and plot are very different and since the usenet wars of the 90s seem like a lifetime ago I think the shows can stand on their own without bringing up JMS's butthurt.

I was more saying that B5 as well did not take itself too seriously in the day-to-day, despite the very serious and deep themes the show explored. That show had plenty of time for stupid jokes and amusing banter. A lot of people found the acting on it to be too cringe/soapy. Well maybe that's why I enjoyed TNG season 1-2 so much...

[laumars]

Aside from “Q who” all of the earlier Q episodes were terrible. But the later ones are much better at using him for comic relief without going into the realm of absurdity.

> As far as DS9 ripping off B5

Just to be clear, I wasn’t voicing my opinion when I posted that. I was just reporting on the speculation.

There’s more to the story than what I’ve posted too. Lots of hearsay published from people who were on the inside at the time too. I don’t think we’ll ever know for certain but personally I don’t think it really matter if DS9 took ideas or not anyway because (and as I said earlier) all art copies each other. It’s not like Straczynski invented SciFi.

> but in the end the shows and characters and plot are very different

Of course they are. Even if Paramount did steal ideas from B5 (and I’m not suggesting they did) Paramount would still have to write it in a way that differed otherwise they’d have been clearly open to litigation.

> I think the shows can stand on their own without bringing up JMS's butthurt.

Straczynski wasn’t butthurt. He was the one who argued against litigation and even defended some of the writers on Star Trek.

> Well maybe that's why I enjoyed TNG season 1-2 so much...

I’m guessing you’re a fan of TOS as well? It sounds like you’re more a fan of Roddenberry’s influence on TNG than his other writers.