Reliving the Best

If you've been following my TNG Flashback reviews, you know that I've nearly reached the end of the second season. The timing was intentional, as the third season is being released on Blu-ray next week. This also means that this week was the traditional one-night-only movie theater screening of two episodes. Last night, The Best of Both Worlds -- the classic third/fourth season cliffhanger -- was presented, edited together without interruption.

Of course, this cliffhanger was a high point for the series, and many would argue even for television at the time as a whole. Season ending cliffhangers were not especially common at the time, and it's likely that the success Star Trek: The Next Generation had here marked the beginning of the new wave of cliffhangers that are practically a given on one hour dramas (especially science fiction shows) today. I will get to actual reviews of the episodes themselves in time as I work my way through flashback reviews in the original air order of the episodes. For now, I just want to focus on the actual experience of watching the episodes.

Going to the theater for The Best of Both Worlds was definitely fun. The place was certainly more full than it was for the first- and second-season episode screenings of months past, and the audience was more lively. Still, it would have been impossible to top the circumstances under which I originally saw both of these episodes back in 1990.

Part 1 ran in June. I watched it at a friend's house, she and I in a small den, curled up on the couch and glued to the TV. Neither of us realized that her parents were out in the family room, around the corner, also watching the exact same thing. At least, we didn't realize they were watching it until the words "To Be Continued..." appeared on the screen, when my friend's mother let out an anguished wail at the realization that we'd all be waiting three months to see what happened next. It was kind of like Darth Vader's "NOOOOOOOO!" at the end of Revenge of the Sith, had that moment actually been cool and powerful rather than stupid and laughable.

That was a memorable moment, but nothing compared to what Part 2 would be. That episode aired in September, and coincided with the fall Star Trek convention in Denver. This wound up be the first Star Trek convention I ever attended. I had so much fun that I kept going to all of them, spring and fall, for nearly 10 years until I took the job at Decipher that moved me away from Colorado for a time.

I went to so many of these conventions, seeing so many guests and having so many great experiences, it's hard to remember what happened when. I couldn't tell you today who the guest actors at that first StarCon in 1990 were. But what I do still remember to this day was Saturday night at 5:00 pm, when the main event room hosted "The Best of Both Worlds, Parts I and II," back-to-back on the big screen. Being a syndicated series, new episodes were downloaded on a satellite feed to local stations a week in advance, and some intrepid StarCon employee had a dish to intercept that feed and record the episode. So, simultaneously with the 6:00 PM Saturday airing of the season premiere on local TV, all the attendees of StarCon crammed into the main event room to watch the commercial-free version prepped from the earlier feed.

So my first "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" experience was even bigger than last night's movie theater screening. I watched it in a large hotel ballroom stuffed to standing room only, with thousands of energetic Star Trek fans. We cheered, applauded, groaned, and laughed along with every great moment. And while I think it was obvious even then that Part II didn't quite live up to the amazing set-up of Part I, it was still a hell of a lot of fun. It's 23 years later (yikes!), but I easily tapped into that wonderful memory last night when I saw it on the big screen.

My final season 2 flashback review will be coming soon, and then, just as soon as I pick up my copy of the season 3 Blu-rays releasing next week, I'll be forging ahead into the season where Star Trek: The Next Generation got truly and consistently good.