[Ronan OF]

Folks.

From Monday 13th August Star Trek: The Next Generation returns to Freeview.

At 06.00 and 19.00 every weekday on PickTV (Channel 11).

It all kicks off with "Encounter at Farpoint, Part I"!

[Ronan OF]

Just a quick reminder for fans that this starts today. Repeat showing this evening from 7pm.

[Sylva]

Recorded it this morning, looking forward to watching it, I just have 13 episodes of TOS to get through, then all their films then I can get cracking on this bad boy lol

[theonlyweeman]

Was there a massive DOG advertising Star Trek on Sky Atlantic during the 6 AM showing? It was rather distracting during the 7PM one...

[Ronan OF]

There is the DOG on the top left of both screenings. Unfortunately it was the same for the Voyager airings a few weeks back too.

[DarthFader]

I guess it is like a free version of an app, you expect to see an advert or two.


PJ.

[Lowri]

I could perhaps put up with the DOG if I could taken advantage of it! As it is, it's just teasing me because I don't have Sky Atlantic; I think we should have our own freeview version! If their intention is to convert me to Sky then they're going to be waiting a very very long time!
It does help that I'm short sighted so I can't actually read the words, I think a white blur is preferable to reading the same words over and over

[theonlyweeman]

The DOG would be fine if it was dimmed like the Pick TV logo, but in it's current form it's too bright and distracting

[Muzer]

I use CBS Action (on Freesat) purely because the DOG, though bright, isn't too distracting because it's smaller than the Pick TV rubbish

[Ronan OF]

Actually, my 6am showing of "Encounter at Farpoint, Part II" yesterday had no Sky Atlantic ad in the corner of the screen!

I won't be watching today's episode until later.

[catsitter]

It was lovely to see this again. I never realised that O'Brien was in the bridge crew in this episode and it made the bridge scenes quite different for me this time around, imagining his opinions of what was going on. Also I noticed one of the other crew members was called Torres - any relation to Belanna, I wonder?

[Muzer]

I believe it was spelt differently. I might be wrong.

[Lowri]

Originally Posted by catsitter

It was lovely to see this again. I never realised that O'Brien was in the bridge crew in this episode and it made the bridge scenes quite different for me this time around, imagining his opinions of what was going on. Also I noticed one of the other crew members was called Torres - any relation to Belanna, I wonder?

I didn't realise O'Brien was part of the original crew either. I too noticed Torres, I had a very quick google and it doesn't appear that they are related, bridge officer Torres doesn't appear again apparently.
No Sky Atlantic DOG on the 7pm showing either

[Stella28]

Great seeing this again. TNG has always been my favourite.
Yesterday's episode "The Naked Now" was a good one.
Data made me laugh, especially when he fell over ala Del Boy. He's always been my favourite character.

[codename_47]

Don't think there's much point watching these now until they start showing the HD remasterings

(Which logically I imagine Sky Atlantic will do first...)

[carl.waring]

Oh dear More HD snobbery.

You were perfectly happy to watch in in the early 90s when HD wasn't even thought of; and your set will upscale the picture anyway.

Given that the re-mastered series isn't even fully released on BD yet, I suspect it will be a few years before they're shown on TV.

[Lowri]

I loved drunk Data! :-D Especially since traditionally mechanoids are immune to human afflictions. I'm laughing now thinking of his "Del Boy moment" :-D

I too think it's a shame that you won't watch because it's not in HD. To be fair they look a little dated, perhaps that's because they are . I can see that they would look awesome in HD but I think the look of them is part of the charm and it certainly doesn't affect the quality of the story in any way. Mind you, I would say that, I don't think my 9 year old CRT even knows what HD stands for

[Bester]

Originally Posted by carl.waring

You were perfectly happy to watch in in the early 90s when HD wasn't even thought of; and your set will upscale the picture anyway.

The DVDs are certainly watchable still, but even upscaled, they're not even in the same ballpark as the newly remastered episodes.

Like the TOS BD sets before them, the PQ of the TNG S1 BDs is immaculate. The effects were redone from scratch - there's no amount of upscaling that's going to compete with that.

If you're a casual viewer of the series then TV, and the DVDs are absolutely fine. If however, you want to watch the show in its best possible form, then there's no looking beyond the HD remasters.

That's not snobbery, it's just the way it is.

[Muzer]

Completely agree with Bester here. It is expensive, but it's definitely worth the money. It looks absolutely beautiful - as it certainly should given the amount of time and effort that's gone into it - props definitely go to CBS for doing that. Watching in SD is still perfectly fine, of course, but why bother watching all the episodes when you're just going to have to rewatch them again in HD - wouldn't it be a better experience to rediscover them "from scratch" in HD?

[catsitter]

They skipped an episode - "The Last Outpost". I wonder if it'll turn up later?

[codename_47]

I didn't mean it in a snobby "HD or nothing" way, more that I've seen some of the trailers and stuff for the HD remastering and they're spectacular, and given that I haven't watched TNG (and especially EARLY TNG) in a good few years, I thought that since I'm definitely going to watch it again when the HD's eps come out anyway, I can return to it rested and not over-watch the series in the meantime so it seems fresher when I do watch it.

Though one thing seeing the HD trailers has ruined is...the uniforms aren't supposed to be pink!!

[blueisthecolour]

Hum, no sign of the missing episode yet. Bit weird that they didn't show it.

I've got to say that I'm enjoying the season 1 a lot more than I thought I would. I think it's because I haven't seen the episodes very often. Very tempted to stop watching PICK and buy the remastered set (assuming it's available).

Yesterday's episode (Hide and Q) was fun but Riker seems to go through some pretty dramatic personality changes in a short space of time. I'll let the writers off though and say that his mind was being influenced by Q

[Ronan OF]

The bluray of season 1, in Australia has a release date of 5th September - as far as I know. So I expect that hat might apply to the UK release date too.

As for "The Last Outpost" being skipped. That was very strange indeed. PickTV showed Voyager then stopped at the end of season 2 (which happened to be a Monday). I wondering, and thi is just a guess, but skipping one episode of season 1 means that the total episode run goes down to 25 episodes, and fits nicely into 5 weeks - ending on a Friday.

Maybe they intend to show a season of the Original Series, Deep Space Nine of Enterprise after the first season of TNG...... or they could could continue with season 2!!

[Gordie1]

Originally Posted by carl.waring

Oh dear More HD snobbery.

You were perfectly happy to watch in in the early 90s when HD wasn't even thought of; and your set will upscale the picture anyway.

Given that the re-mastered series isn't even fully released on BD yet, I suspect it will be a few years before they're shown on TV.

I am of the same opinion, i wouldnt call it snobbery though.

When watched TNG originally on bbc2, i hated the blurry pic quality, it looked truly awful, but i put up with it because the narrative was good.

When they came out on DVD, i bought one of my favourite episodes on DVD, and was disapointed that the pic quality was just as bad as i remember.

Now, when i see TNG on TV with the added low bit rates they use on many channels, i can barely stand it, all those wishy washy pixels moving about, then the fact they have stretched the image across the screen, it is all but unwatchable.

I will be buying all the blu rays, as all problems mentioned above, are gone.

No snobbery involved, simply preference.

[catsitter]

Originally Posted by Gordie1

Now, when i see TNG on TV with the added low bit rates they use on many channels, i can barely stand it, all those wishy washy pixels moving about, then the fact they have stretched the image across the screen, it is all but unwatchable.

It isn't stretched across the screen on my tv - it is in the centre with a black line on either side. In other words, it is the right shape, it's just the tv screen which is too wide.