[evil_genius_180]

I never thought you were being critical. As I said, you like what you like and that's all there is to it.

I will admit that TNG in the beginning was trying too hard to be like TOS. They tried a lot of the same themes and even some episodes that were almost a direct clone of TOS episodes. Then they even introduced Dr. Pulaski, who was supposed to be a 24th century McCoy, in season 2, which wasn't a good direction to go. Fortunately, she only lasted a season. Maurice Hurley, the show runner in season 1 and at least part of 2, had fired Gates McFadden, but he left during the second season, so she was able to talk the powers that were into returning as Dr. Crusher.

While the series had its good episodes in the first couple seasons, it's really in season 3 that it started getting really good, in my opinion. The series had come into its own by then. Also, Rick Berman was more in control of the show. He'd been a lower level producer in season 1 and had co-EP credits in 2, but he basically became the show runner in 3. That's when they quality went up and they were trying less to be a clone of TOS and more to do their own thing. So, yeah, there was a bit of a rocky start, but the series really came into its own and got into the groove of being a more 80s and 90s show than trying to be a 60s show.

The Enterprise-D is definitely not my favorite Enterprise. I like it, but I like some of the others better. Unfortunately, for the bridge, there just wasn't the budget to make it more grand. They wanted to have more stations and have even more of the rear ones manned all of the time, but there just wasn't enough room in the budget for the extras. You kind of get a sens of what they really wanted to do in Generations, where they had the side stations and more extras on the bridge. Really, the whole ship seemed more crowded in that film, more alive somehow. Though, Andrew Probert also envisioned the ship of having a crew of about 4000, but the aforementioned issue with the cost of extras necessitated having a crew a quarter that size. By comparison the TOS Enterprise was less than half the size and had a crew of 430, making it seem much more "packed."

When it comes to Enterprise designs, my favorite is the TMP Constitution class design. Second is the TOS one. After that it's the Excelsior class and Ambassador class, with the Galaxy, Sovereign and NX trailing behind those.