I can understand that perspective, especially with an episodic show that lasted many seasons. It had ample opportunity to make some build-up.
However, I would say that also, with all new properties, even spin-offs of old ones, there is inherent risk and worry that there won't be more than one season. Often, you have writers trying to hamfist everything into that first season because they want their story actually resolved, even if it gets canceled. That feeling, on top of the difficulties of getting the series off the ground in season one, including a string of writers quitting because they couldn't get along with Roddenberry, and the cutting of a gay couple meant to be in the series, definitely speaks to the idea that the first season wasn't "in the bag" as it were, and there was risk if they waited, the show could get canceled.
This was also during a period where episodic television where one episode is completely self contained from all the rest was the norm and long branching stories between episodes really hadn't become the norm yet. X-Files would end up pioneering the coupling of a "monster of the week" format along with a larger story woven in.
Anyway, it's easy to speculate from here in the future, where we all revere the series as something amazing we grew up with. It had a troubled start, there were no guarantees, and it's hard to pin down why they chose to do things the way they did, especially with all the early infighting over writing.
I felt like it was a plot device to show how humans are capable of great things, not that they always are the best. Picard was always supposed to be the philosophical pinnacle we should desire to reach. I mean it's already a post-scarcity society where pursuit of wealth is viewed as a negative. I saw it as that humans and the Federation still had a long way to go, despite their successes, much like the USA in the 90s.
One after the first sentence, one after the second sentence, and then a stack of seven at the end. Totaling nine.
Even if you separate them out ignoring the first two as being separate instances of sarcasm, the last section is still an uneven number.
EDIT: People please don't downvote this person over misreading the number of /s in my post. Not justified. They made a simple mistake. You could just simply not upvote if that's how you feel.
Then there are other games that drop you into a Boss Battle right from the very beginning.
While not always, this boss will more than likely be the game's Big Bad, and usually also the Final Boss. If it can be beaten, either then the boss will be in its weakest form, or the player is in the A Taste of Power segment and soon will be depowered. Otherwise, it will be a Hopeless Boss Fight. If it's not the Big Bad, then it will likely be a Starter Villain.
Starting in medias res is really common, actually. Not just in games, I've seen plenty of media where it opens with a confrontation with the Big Bad who is going to be the Final Boss.
This is almost always because of some chump who wants to move up the corporate ladder and desperately needs something they can point at and say "Me, I did that." When it comes to applications, that's a lot harder to point at when what you did was fix some obscure bug that most people don't deal with.
No, this is middle management fuckwits who have nothing better to do angling for a way to get a better position.
The fact that this happens at Google just shows how they're no different than any other giant shitty corporation, because they've got idiots manning the controls who are more interested in moving up than doing a fucking good job.
Source: My sisters ex-husband who is a dipshit who works at Google and did exactly this while chasing a promotion.
I love the stock market. Line goes up and food becomes impossible to afford! Line goes down and we all lose our jobs! I love this fucking dumbshit criminal ponzi scheme of a system! /s
Hey, at least your conservatives aren't so dedicated to proving government doesn't work that they oust their own House speaker because he wouldn't shut down the government to prove government doesn't work.
Other than that, they're nearly as shitty. They're just not flat-out "we're breaking government to prove government is broken" yet. So far, they only seem to do that with the NHS. (I could be wrong, just looking from the outside, as a Yank)
I think a big part of the reason this was a theme in TNG was because it was supposed to get people in the '90's to reflect on whether the USA was actually the hero of the story that our history, politicians, and media tells us we are, or whether the idea that we're "more civilized" than other countries was a lie we spoon-fed ourselves.
I mean, it's an idea that sat with me most of my whole life. We are not the heroes of our stories, and a lot of the stories we tell ourselves are kind of a self-deception propaganda to justify why we have a higher quality of life at the expense of the rest of the world.
USA was at the time a country that promoted itself as one of the least violent and most civilized nations in the world. The US government was hiding behind "We don't cut criminals heads and hands off" as though we don't use psychological torture much more often on our own populace.
They can't really hide behind "our police aren't violent" so much anymore, because it was clearly always a lie.
Q isn't arguing in good faith because he wants to see humans "rise above it" as it were. It isn't fair, but it is a quick way to reveal if their most base impulses will take over when under pressure.
Q sees human society in TNG as on the path to becoming better than they already are, but thinks they need some prodding to make it there.
It's almost Nietzchian in a way. He wants humanity to leave the worst aspects of our culture which are holding humanity behind, and that takes effort and self-reflection and consideration. Q is trying to kickstart that self-reflection, consideration, and effort. He knows Picard is a good man and can do it. He definitely has a "thing" for Picard and I think it is close to love. It is why he chooses him.
He wants Picard to no longer simply be a real mensch, but a real ubermensch.
Sisko doesn't realize its a test to make humanity better, and just sees a Nazi arguing in bad faith.
I read The Second Sex twenty fucking years ago. It was written over 70 years ago.
Like, they keep acting like gender is performative is a new idea when it's absolutely old as living fuck at this point.
How long do we keep giving them to accept that this is clearly true and has value as a way to discuss a variety of subjects, from social expectations of what cisgender women are "supposed to look like" to why gender and biological sex are different things (on top of biological sex being a lot more vague than conservatives tend to think. protip: intersex people exist!)?
How long do they get to hide behind "It was a different world back then" when books written about this very subject come from that ancient fucking world they're always referencing for why they're such bigoted fucking shitheels.
They shouldn't get to hide behind "it was a different world back then" when a number of us who are older than this dipshit are familiar with these ideas already because these ideas existed before we were fucking born.
Maybe their stupid asses should have picked up and read a fucking book (that wasn't Mein Kampf) in seventy fucking years.
Anyway, it is sickening and ridiculous this far into the future this is still being discussed like its a controversial issue and not clearly fucking painfully obviously the reality of the situation.
I can understand that perspective, especially with an episodic show that lasted many seasons. It had ample opportunity to make some build-up.
However, I would say that also, with all new properties, even spin-offs of old ones, there is inherent risk and worry that there won't be more than one season. Often, you have writers trying to hamfist everything into that first season because they want their story actually resolved, even if it gets canceled. That feeling, on top of the difficulties of getting the series off the ground in season one, including a string of writers quitting because they couldn't get along with Roddenberry, and the cutting of a gay couple meant to be in the series, definitely speaks to the idea that the first season wasn't "in the bag" as it were, and there was risk if they waited, the show could get canceled.
This was also during a period where episodic television where one episode is completely self contained from all the rest was the norm and long branching stories between episodes really hadn't become the norm yet. X-Files would end up pioneering the coupling of a "monster of the week" format along with a larger story woven in.
Anyway, it's easy to speculate from here in the future, where we all revere the series as something amazing we grew up with. It had a troubled start, there were no guarantees, and it's hard to pin down why they chose to do things the way they did, especially with all the early infighting over writing.