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Comment by vanderZwan | Hacker News Reader

> Watching older movies and TV shows is much more pleasant all around.

My girlfriend somehow grew up completely unaware of Star Trek, so I introduced her to The Next Generation last year and we've been watching it (rewatching in my case, but for the first time in over two decades) one episode a day.

It's so relaxing, in a way that almost no modern TV is. No end-of-episode cliffhangers or other mechanisms trying to make you binge-watch. We can just watch one episode to unwind, discuss it a bit if it's one of the better thought-provoking ones, and then go to bed.

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I feel the same way! My partner also hadn't watched much Star Trek before. During the pandemic, we watched all of Enterprise, Voyager, and now into DS9 (I had watched TNG so much when I was younger I wanted to start with my less-watched series). The episodes are calm, and the competence of the characters is refreshing as well.

Try the Stargate franchise, same era. Also Farscape (very good).

> My girlfriend somehow grew up completely unaware of Star Trek, so I introduced her to The Next Generation

> It's so relaxing, in a way that almost no modern TV is. No end-of-episode cliffhangers

That is not how I would describe Star Trek: the Next Generation. Every season ends with a cliffhanger.

Are you somehow forgetting that this is merely one out of the 26 episodes that make up a season, or are you cherry-picking?

I'm saying that cliffhangers are a major element of TNG and constitute a very deliberate part of its "house style". They are a small percentage of episodes, but if you made a list of what made TNG distinctive, "seasonal cliffhangers" would be on that list. As such, it's strange to remark on how the show lacks cliffhangers. It's notable for having them!

Words derive meaning from their context, and you're pulling mine out of theirs. The full sentence is:

> No end-of-episode cliffhangers or other mechanisms trying to make you binge-watch.

I'm talking about mechanisms that modern TV uses to trick people into watching a series many episodes at a time until they're too tired to go on. An end-of-season cliffhanger that was designed to ensure people would come back when the series returned next season after a long break from their weekly Star Trek watching habit is not at all the same thing. Nothing about TNG is attempting to make me, the viewer, binge-watch it.

In the case of me and my GF, since we know exactly when we are about to watch an end-of-season episode we just plan an extra hour for it that evening. That's it.

> No end-of-episode cliffhangers

Well, except for the season finale/openers from Season 3 on; but, yes, TV in general (even before streaming, DS9-VOY-ENT all show this trend within thr Trek franchise) has become less episodic since the TNG era.

I believe you mean more serialized. Episodic, defined as "containing or consisting of a series of loosely connected parts or events", is the opposite of what you mean.

> I believe you mean more serialized.

Yeah (I think the actual intent was “less episodic”, and I’ve corrected it to that, but same thing.)

>No end-of-episode cliffhangers

There are a handful of those in TNG. But only a handful.

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