Fantastic, it's been a while since I had a discussion on this subject - let's cut each other's throat and no remorse afterwards!
Boring. Privileged. Most people are more interested in a nice cup of tea or the falseness of the holodeck.
The holodeck is only used on starships, to make up for the prolonged absence of real life situations outside the ship. As soon as they have the chance, they do live real experiences - actually they can't wait. And if the world was now a better place, a place where we do not have to struggle to survive, where diseases kill us, hunger kills, and the main purpose of human beings is waging war against each other, we could probably appreciate a good cup of tea. Which, by the way, they do not give a damn about when they find themselves in situations where more important events are taking place. Obviously, in the peace and calm of a looong voyage in a starship what should you do? What do you yourself do when you're on vacation with nothing special to do?
People like Kirk, Scotty, McCoy, would chafe in the next generation.
I see the next generation as a much needed evolution of the previous one, just like humanity should evolve...
And it was so bland.
Well, not quite...
Rarely were people shown to be less than perfect, to have quirks, to sometimes be silly or grumpy.
Now, are you sure we're talking about the same show?
A good day for Riker was blowing his trumpet, and character development was growing a beard.
And facing the fact that he really doesn't want his own ship to command, and doesn't know why, and that in spite of his many women he has no special one to the point that he falls in love with a creation of the holodeck, etc...
Even Q, who was the most outrageous character on the show, rarely went farther than making a mariachi band appear on the bridge.
He was supposed to be fun (and fun he was), not to be the devil...
Dwight Schultz, I forget his character's name, stood out precisely because of his quirks. And what happened to him? Sent to counseling.
Actually, he was sent to counseling because of his incapacity to relate to other peopèle, his deep unhappiness, his addiction to the holodeck, not because of his peculiarities. Individuality is totally OK, they have a Klingon (a Klingon, for crying out loud) on board....
The Federation was one heck of a boring place to be.
Or a civilized one, with lots of flaws, but constantly striving to improve.
Check Babylon 5 for a sci-fi portrayal of people who are believeable, rounded, with foibles, quirks, and sometimes mistake prone, characters who try and often succeed but sometimes fail, who learn and grow.
Like, for example, Troy when she lost her empathy? Or Data when he created and lost a daughter? Or Worf when he discovered he had a child?
You can take Picard from season 1 and he is no different from season 6. Where was any growth or development?
Except for accepting the fact that he could be human in front of the crew, and getting over his problem with children, and learning that the federation is far from perfect, and reestablishing the ties with his family, and overcoming the nightmare of having been assimilated by the Borg, and all the other thousand things that make the character grow slowly and realistically instead of using melodramatic plot twists?
And by the way, I'm very curious: could you please tell me about the character development Kirk and his friends underwent in the course of the various seasons?
The point is, next generation was very delicate and polite, too much for some, probably, OK for others...
