Sinnlos im Weltraum (Pointless in Space) is a German Language Gag Dub of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Created from 1995 to 1997 by Peter M. and a changing cast consisting of his friends, providing additional voices, it has by now reached a legendary status within the German internet community, spawning several Spiritual Successors.
Like its source material, it chronicles the adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew on the USS Enterprise - except that Picard is dangerously violent, Riker incredibly stupid, and Worf overly child-like, to name just a few of the deliberate Character Derailments the humour mainly relies on.
The lip sync is often incredibly good for an amateur work.
Sinnlos im Weltraum features examples of:
- Accent On The Wrong Syllable: Some of the guest characters do this, combined with Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness.
- All Women Are Lustful: All female crew members seem to be horny all the time. Might have something to do with the fact that all the males consider them
unattractive. - Deadpan Snarker: Picard.
- Catchphrase: Several.
- Riker: Raff ich net. (I don't get it.) and Ich will auch mal der Captain sein. (I want to be Captain too.)
- Geordi: Oder wie oder was? (see Verbal Tic)
- Worf (and apparently Klingons in general): Ihr seid alle so bös! (You are all so mean!)
- Picard himself has a wide assortment of phrases (mostly of the vulgar kind), so it's hard to pick a specific catchphrase. However, he uses the word Junge (boy) several times in each episode. When talking to subordinates, superiors, males, females, alien entities - absolutely any- and everybody.
- Camp Gay: Daniel (Q)
- Character Derailment: Deliberate. The main source of humour.
- German Humour
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Counselor Troi tends to be called the Kanzler (Chancellor). This is no allusion to Angela Merkel though, SiW was created long before her election.
- Manchild: Worf.
- Medium Awareness: Data ranting about how "it's time this fucking scene comes to an end" right in the first scene.
- Must Have Caffeine: Picard is crazy about black hot coffee.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: In spite of being an android, Data can't even perform the simplest mathematical procedures (like adding together single digit numbers) correctly.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Some of the guest characters do this, combined with Accent On The Wrong Syllable.
- Shout-Out: The name of the series might be a reference to Silent Running, whose German title is Lautlos im Weltraum ("Soundless in Space").
- Spiritual Successor: Lord of the Weed, as well as the Harry Potter Gag Dubs by Coldmirror.
- Techno Babble: Although the dialogues are much more silly and colloquial than in the source material, this trope also gets parodied sometimes.
- Too Dumb to Live: Riker!
- Trademark Favorite Food: Gummi bears for Worf, hot black coffee for Picard.
- Trope Maker: For Gag Dubs, as least as far as the German Language internet is concerned.
- Unbuilt Trope: What is so special about a Gag Dub, you may ask, there are TONS of these in the Internet. Keep in mind that this one was already created in the Nineties, only using a plain old (well, at that time cutting edge) VCR. It was initially just for the personal pleasure of the creators, with no plans for further distribution, internet or otherwise.
- The Unintelligible: The female Cardassian.
- Verbal Tic: Geordi's Oder wie oder was? (Or how or what?)
- Violence is the Only Option: Picard threatens just about everyone, to beat him or her up. (Due to the restrictions given by the source material though, we never see him actually doing this.)
