At the same time, Yesterday’s Enterprise needs some context. It doesn’t work quite as well in a vacuum.
Like why it was such a big deal that Tasha Yar finding out she didn’t exist in another timeline, why the Klingon war is such a horrible development, and why the Enterprise was willing to put itself on the line to send them back to change history.
Plus it’s also unusually gory for TNG. A couple of people die in quite violent and horrible ways, and they could easily be misread as being the standard tone for the show, rather than the exception.
The context is important, but all that needs to be said is that she is a main character that died in the first season. It’s actually the firsted episode with Tasha that I saw when Istarted TNG and how I’ve introduced others to the show. There’s no details needed, no history, just the knowledge that she is dead.
Beyond Tasha, I’d say there’s a lot of nuance in Yesterday’s Enterprise that calls for more context. You can’t know how wrong the wartime setting feels if you have basically no exposure to the uncorrupted timeline. A new viewer can certainly get by, but it’s a much better episode if you have some experience with the show already.
At the same time, Yesterday’s Enterprise needs some context. It doesn’t work quite as well in a vacuum.
Like why it was such a big deal that Tasha Yar finding out she didn’t exist in another timeline, why the Klingon war is such a horrible development, and why the Enterprise was willing to put itself on the line to send them back to change history.
Plus it’s also unusually gory for TNG. A couple of people die in quite violent and horrible ways, and they could easily be misread as being the standard tone for the show, rather than the exception.
The context is important, but all that needs to be said is that she is a main character that died in the first season. It’s actually the firsted episode with Tasha that I saw when Istarted TNG and how I’ve introduced others to the show. There’s no details needed, no history, just the knowledge that she is dead.
Beyond Tasha, I’d say there’s a lot of nuance in Yesterday’s Enterprise that calls for more context. You can’t know how wrong the wartime setting feels if you have basically no exposure to the uncorrupted timeline. A new viewer can certainly get by, but it’s a much better episode if you have some experience with the show already.