Why is no one on Star Trek: TNG ever surprised/shocked by anything?

[J Tyran]

Edit: I'm kinda amused by all the answers of "because they're well trained officers". A lack of emotion isn't good training - it's being a robot. Just ask the Borg.

Actually, good training is supposed to make you act like a robot. A well trained infantryman shouldn't need to think about how to fire a rifle, a well trained NCO shouldn't need to carefully consider how to deal with an ambush etc. Training, when done properly, makes such responses as automatic as possible because in a mortal crisis you can't trust yourself to be logical and rational otherwise. For example, while it might not seem rational, your best chance of surviving an ambush is to assault your way through it - that is, turn your entire element towards the enemy and go on the immediate offensive with all the firepower you can muster. From an individual perspective, that's a remarkably stupid idea because it has them advancing towards even greater danger with every pace thus the personal survival response has to be overridden.

Thus, if considering the idea of a well trained group of military personnel, a lack of emotion during a crisis for which they were trained is both desirable and expected. After the crisis is done (or appears to be done), an emotional response would be expected as the combination of the physiological response to the crisis as well as the exact events of said crisis ought to overwhelm anyone's emotional barriers.

I mean, if someone starts shooting at you and you have to shoot back and the events lead to wounds and death in close quarters around you and you don't want to cry when you're done, then you've got a god like control over your emotions or you have some sort of crippling mental illness.

Pretty much this, it applies to many forms of training not just military training. OP should listen to some of the cockpit voice recordings of stricken aircraft, they keep their cool and try to save the aircraft. Even to the extent of calmly working through checklists and procedures as the airliner with 150 people is falling to pieces around them as they plummet to the ground, some do panic but most dont and dont give up and even try to crash the plane where it would pose the least risk to the public when they realise its inevitable.

 

[BakedSardine]

Legitimately their entire lives are spent in a constant state of surprise. "Explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations" and all of that. Eventually you reach a point where you're so used to being surprised that you just roll with everything.

Pretty much this. It's the same reason an ER doctor can hack somebody's leg off to save them from bleeding to death, go casually eat a salad for lunch, and then come back and save some guy who just got shot in the chest.

Eventually you become desensitized and everything is normalized.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

that.... would explain the large amount of sexism I'm seeing on display. I got one female security officer who's suppose to be a tough cookie but she gets bested all the time, and Troi... and then theres troi.... aug.

Troi is... pretty much a walking ball of sexism. She's incompetent, useless, and prone to getting into trouble.

She gets slightly better in season 6 when someone finally makes her - not asks her, makes her - put on a proper Starfleet Uniform.

Of course, you never, ever want to let Troi take the Helm. It ends badly. Always.

 

[DrOswald]

So I actually just started watching this... and I have just one question.

Why are they never surprised?

Like I just saw some aliens pull a double cross and kidnap this broad RIGHT in front of Picard, teleport off the ship. Picard just casually reaches over and pushes the button thingy and goes to business. No fright. No "Holy Shit" nothing.

and it's not just picard. All of them. Why are they never shocked by anything? Why are they never surprised?

It was Tasha, right? You're still in season 1, right?

The show is bad, with the exception of a few episodes, until season 3. There is your answer.

Edit: You know what is even worse? The girl they kidnap, Tasha Yar? She grew up on a planet without a stable government in a particularly bad area. Her entire childhood was basically hiding from rape gangs.

And what does Picard do when a bunch of men kidnap this woman, men who have shown a dismissive attitude towards the rights of women? He decides to wait and see because he doesn't want to damage negotiations. Cause it's not like anything bad could happen to a woman who is kidnapped by men who view women as little more than things. And it's not like a woman who spent her entire adolescence running from and fighting off rape gangs would try to fight back, maybe by breaking a neck or two. Lets see the negotiations survive that.

 

[Thaluikhain]

that.... would explain the large amount of sexism I'm seeing on display. I got one female security officer who's suppose to be a tough cookie but she gets bested all the time, and Troi... and then theres troi.... aug.

Troi is... pretty much a walking ball of sexism. She's incompetent, useless, and prone to getting into trouble.

She gets slightly better in season 6 when someone finally makes her - not asks her, makes her - put on a proper Starfleet Uniform.

Of course, you never, ever want to let Troi take the Helm. It ends badly. Always.

And she takes one test, over and over until she passes, and then gets made a Lt Commander.

 

[2xDouble]

You people...


Smith was right.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Bara fucking nailed it here, speaking as someone who always believed in the optimism of the show, Roddenberry's ideas for the Federation in TNG were just counter what the made the series so inspiring in the first place if not horrific when thought about.

"Any emotion, petty or otherwise, is at the core of good drama and creates conflict between characters. But Gene didn't want conflict between characters. 'All the problems of mankind have been solved,' he said. 'Earth is a paradise. Now go write drama.'" - Michael Piller

Aw, thanks! ^^

And yeah, that was one of the quotes I was thinking of. So thanks for looking that up for me. ^^

To further the criticisms on Season One, a lot of the blame rests on Maurice Hurley, the director/showrunner for the first two Seasons. It's said he was responsible for a lot of the misogyny and some racism in the early seasons. Also I'm guessing the episode you're ranting about was "Code of Honor"? Yeah, IGNORE THAT. The director was fired immediately after it for a reason.

True. Although, to be fair, Troi never really gets much better. Even in the movies, she's still... well... I don't want to mention any spoilers, but yeesh.

But yeah, the extra bad stuff in season 1 is Maurice Hurley. Roddenberry was a jerk (as noted above), but he wasn't a misogynist. He was actually all about female empowerment - which is why Yar was the security officer in the first place.

Overrall, Season 1 is horrific save for ONE episode (Conspiracy, which I really like) and there are individual episodes in Season 2 that are good.

You can skip over to Season 3 if you want, but PLEASE watch "The Measure of a Man" and "Q Who?" first. The former is a fantastic story and just short of being among the series' best. The latter introduces the Borg and finally sets up Q right.

quoted so you get an alert on this message

See, I don't suggest skipping seasons 1 and 2, even though they're awful. For one thing, they seed a lot of important plotlines that get picked up (and used better) later in the series.

For another... WE had to suffer through them! So much all who come after us!

 

[bz316]

Everyone seemed pretty shocked/shaken in "The Most Toys" when it looked like Data died in a faked shuttlecraft explosion. Hell, the entire B-plot was the crew (mostly Geordi though) trying to come to terms with his "death" before they found out he was actually kidnapped.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Oh, does it count when people are getting angry at Wesley for no reason?

In the first one with Lore in it:

Spoiler

Yar asks if they can trust Data now that his identical twin Lore, who might be a bit dodgy, is around. There's an awkward silence, Picard says that they can, but it was an important question that needed to be asked.

Fair enough.

A bit later, Wesley says he won't go with Data, because it's really Lore pretending to be Data, and Picard yells at him for disrespecting Data.

 

[DrOswald]

that.... would explain the large amount of sexism I'm seeing on display. I got one female security officer who's suppose to be a tough cookie but she gets bested all the time, and Troi... and then theres troi.... aug.

Troi is... pretty much a walking ball of sexism. She's incompetent, useless, and prone to getting into trouble.

She gets slightly better in season 6 when someone finally makes her - not asks her, makes her - put on a proper Starfleet Uniform.

Of course, you never, ever want to let Troi take the Helm. It ends badly. Always.

And she takes one test, over and over until she passes, and then gets made a Lt Commander.

To be fair, the test wasn't actually meant to be a test. It was more like the TNG equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru. The point is not to test if the commander can solve the problem, but to teach the commander that sometimes there isn't a happy solution and that they might sometimes have to order their friends to die.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Actually, good training is supposed to make you act like a robot. A well trained infantryman shouldn't need to think about how to fire a rifle, a well trained NCO shouldn't need to carefully consider how to deal with an ambush etc. Training, when done properly, makes such responses as automatic as possible because in a mortal crisis you can't trust yourself to be logical and rational otherwise.

That's why I specified the difference between repressed emotion and lack of emotion.

Case in point - the infantry man you mentioned. He's supposed to reload his gun automatically, without question. Fine.

What he's NOT supposed to do is ignore his fellow infantry men being attacked. He's not supposed to stand and watch passively as other soldiers around him are killed or subdued.

But that is EXACTLY what the OP described. Picard watching calmly as one of his crew is kidnapped by hostile forces.

That is not a "well trained" response. A well trained response would have been to automatically draw his WEAPON and tell those attempting to kidnap an officer under his command to stop or be met with deadly force.

Good training is designed to make a person in Picard's situation not panic, but respond in a controlled manner - not to prevent them from responding at all. That's called freezing up.

 

[Thaluikhain]

To be fair, the test wasn't actually meant to be a test. It was more like the TNG equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru. The point is not to test if the commander can solve the problem, but to teach the commander that sometimes there isn't a happy solution and that they might sometimes have to order their friends to die.

Sure, and as soon as she knows that, she becomes a Lt. Commander. That's all that was required to get her to be equal third rank on the flagship.

 

[Mangod]

So I actually just started watching this... and I have just one question.

Why are they never surprised?

Like I just saw some aliens pull a double cross and kidnap this broad RIGHT in front of Picard, teleport off the ship. Picard just casually reaches over and pushes the button thingy and goes to business. No fright. No "Holy Shit" nothing.

and it's not just picard. All of them. Why are they never shocked by anything? Why are they never surprised?

If you want to know stuff about TNG, or just Trek in general, then I'd strongly recommend SF Debris' Opinionated Guide. They actually go into many of the problems with early TNG, and Voyager... oh, God, the plot holes in Voyager...

http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/e113.asp

 

[DrOswald]

I dunno....
This guy looks pretty surprised:

Or his brain could be melting. Either one works in my case.
That was my extremely limited knowledge of the series for the day.

captcha: Take an umbrella
Can captcha predict the weather now?!

I really like the idea of this guy just being really surprised about something. That would be the best overacting ever.

 

[tangoprime]

3. Yes, the show was written this way intentionally to cover for mediocre-to-bad acting. The better actors that proved themselves capable of more than generic TV soap opera shit were gradually given more emotive and conflicted direction -- Picard got tortured and marooned a couple times to let Stewart play freaked-out and panicked, the guy under the makeup got told to have Worf go over the edge with rage a few times, and so on. But they did have to limit this because incompetence is much harder to pull off for an actor than competence, and TV actors tend to be one step up from a high school drama club at best.

Exactly, my first thought to the OP's question was "because realistic shock/surprise takes acting ability?"

 

[DrOswald]

To be fair, the test wasn't actually meant to be a test. It was more like the TNG equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru. The point is not to test if the commander can solve the problem, but to teach the commander that sometimes there isn't a happy solution and that they might sometimes have to order their friends to die.

Sure, and as soon as she knows that, she becomes a Lt. Commander. That's all that was required to get her to be equal third rank on the flagship.

That wasn't all that was required. She had been an officer for about 12 years before hand, and presumably showed her qualifications though those years of service and experience. As far as I understand it, the entire decision was up to Riker and he felt this was the one thing she lacked. Though how anyone could ever think that Troi is qualified to command anyone is a mystery to me.

 

[Ninjamedic]

Aw, thanks! ^^

And yeah, that was one of the quotes I was thinking of. So thanks for looking that up for me. ^^

You covered my opinion, so there was nothing else to say other than adding the quote. Thank ye kindly.

True. Although, to be fair, Troi never really gets much better. Even in the movies, she's still... well... I don't want to mention any spoilers, but yeesh.

Spoiler: Late TNG Spoilers.

At least she finally got a uniform though.

But yeah, the extra bad stuff in season 1 is Maurice Hurley. Roddenberry was a jerk (as noted above), but he wasn't a misogynist. He was actually all about female empowerment - which is why Yar was the security officer in the first place.

Thank the Piller for Yesterday's Enterprise. Now THAT was a blaze of glory. It's a shame there was never a consistent female lead in the series, though at least we had Shelby in The Best of Both Worlds.

See, I don't suggest skipping seasons 1 and 2, even though they're awful. For one thing, they seed a lot of important plotlines that get picked up (and used better) later in the series.

For another... WE had to suffer through them! So much all who come after us!

True on both counts. Is it bad of me that I'm saving early TNG for when someone makes me sit through a series I hate?


Also, side rant, but I've always hated people defending the bad acting along with TMP as being "cerebral". BULLSHIT. Trek was never "cerebral", the best episodes were always:

-Sci-Fi Adventures with great concepts: Where No Man Has Gone Before, Yesterday's Enterprise
-Action Stories with great atmosphere and characterisation: Space Seed, The Doomsday Machine, Balance of Terror, The Best of Both Worlds, The Way of The Warrior
-Character-centered pieces: The Measure of a Man, Tapestry, Duet, The Visitor

 

[J Tyran]

Actually, good training is supposed to make you act like a robot. A well trained infantryman shouldn't need to think about how to fire a rifle, a well trained NCO shouldn't need to carefully consider how to deal with an ambush etc. Training, when done properly, makes such responses as automatic as possible because in a mortal crisis you can't trust yourself to be logical and rational otherwise.

That's why I specified the difference between repressed emotion and lack of emotion.

Case in point - the infantry man you mentioned. He's supposed to reload his gun automatically, without question. Fine.

What he's NOT supposed to do is ignore his fellow infantry men being attacked. He's not supposed to stand and watch passively as other soldiers around him are killed or subdued.

But that is EXACTLY what the OP described. Picard watching calmly as one of his crew is kidnapped by hostile forces.

That is not a "well trained" response. A well trained response would have been to automatically draw his WEAPON and tell those attempting to kidnap an officer under his command to stop or be met with deadly force.

Good training is designed to make a person in Picard's situation not panic, but respond in a controlled manner - not to prevent them from responding at all. That's called freezing up.

Its hard to say, I cannot recall the event the OP is describing but there could be reasons for a lack of obvious response. If she was transported off the ship running around the bridge with a phaser in hands isn't accomplishing much and neither would leaping into the transport beam.

We would have to see exactly which scene he was talking about to really decide though.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Also, side rant, but I've always hated people defending the bad acting along with TMP as being "cerebral". BULLSHIT. Trek was never "cerebral",

IIRC, after they made the TOS pilot, they were told not to make it cerebral.

The next few episodes like Where No Man Has Gone Before had the closest to that, then they got more actioney.

 

[Ninjamedic]

Also, side rant, but I've always hated people defending the bad acting along with TMP as being "cerebral". BULLSHIT. Trek was never "cerebral",

IIRC, after they made the TOS pilot, they were told not to make it cerebral.

The next few episodes like Where No Man Has Gone Before had the closest to that, then they got more actioney.

Given how TMP turned out, I can kind of see where they were coming from.