SFdebris

I've been going through TOS on Netflix of late (was a Trekkie for years yet never had actually watched all of them - did see the movies a lot, though). Chuck was right, it's hilarious how now, in HD on big screen T Vs, you can spot the stunt-doubles. I think Spock's double in the Mirror universe episode is so far one of my favorites.

@Silently Honest: Did you interpret my question as "when will he run out of Trek episodes?" Because that wasn't my question. After starting the most current version of the site (escaping the eleven-minute You Tube time limit and the legal hassles from playing copyrighted music), he started going back and remaking the old reviews, usually longer. My question was "when will he run out of those, as simply tweaking an episode takes less time than making a new one from scratch"?

Crackers don't matter

New Spoony and new Chuck on the same day? Must be my lucky day!

More exosquad Episode 5 to be exact.

As much as I love this show I have to agree with Chuck. The animation has not held up well. Granted you can say the same thing about most shows from this era but it does show. The story is still great though. It still surprises me how dark this show got at times.

The Omega Directive

All unauthorized personnel leave now

Omega superceeding the PD makes sense... It only really backfires due to all the PD worship as sacred

.. and Chuck finally says it

edited 20th Sep '14 9:41:13 AM by FrozenWolf2

So, I just watched the V reviews.

Throughout most of them I wanted to punch Robyn in the face multiple times. I get the feeling she should have been named 'Kimberly'.

... whats a name got to do with anything?

It's a reference to the previous name of the Damsel Scrappy trope.

Ah the Omega Directive, no spoilers here 'cause like Threshold, you can no more spoil this ep than you can spoil milk left in the sun.

Again it's an example of good ideas do not a story make. The '90s era "the truth is out there" trope of even the heroes having a hidden agenda.

When this ep first came out, even the die-hard trekies groaned at it's execution. And sadly this is yet another Science Is Bad episode.

Fun fact, Harry Kim is given a Borg "designation" by Seven of Nine, and gets demoted by her....Poor Dumb Harry...

From Doc Oho's blog:

It's amazing how two reviewers on two continents can come up with the exact same impression of Harry, Janeway, et al. What a show.

And Trek producers were bemused as to why the fans were upset with Voyager and Enterprise......

The one thing I sort of liked about the Omega Directive (and the show needed to do more) that Chuck sort of missed is that...

Well yes, interfering "for the sake of our spaceships" seems bad and all, but from what we're told on this episode, it ruins ALL FTL possible. Thus, if the explosion is bad enough, it's just the Federation that's getting stuck at home, but all people everywhere for the rest of time (as far as we know). Thus, if you let even a pre-warp civilization muck about with this particle, you'd be allow them to interfere with other pre-warp civilizations (in fact, it would lead to all civs being pre-warp permanently).

The show needed to do that more, question what happens when the prime directive bumps up against itself. Like if a system has two inhabited worlds in it, should anything be done. Or what happens if a pre-warp within federation space stretches out and runs into a Federation world.

Not a whole lot of stories to do there, but it could be an interesting plot or two.

The "Omega" could have been re-done.

The fatal flaw was the Flat Characters that were our "heroes". Deep Space Nine, Babylon Five, TNG and Star Trek had characters with depth. Sure there were misfires: Susan Ivanonva came off as the bastard child of Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres with an "Russian" stamped on her until the second season. Julian Bashir and Nog had a Neelix-like effect to some die-hard Trekkies. They got better with time and story arcs.

But as Chuck pointed out, the Voyager staff didn't know what to do with any character. Wasted potential, plot points that went nowhere, sigh What Could Have Been.

edited 20th Sep '14 4:49:30 PM by TairaMai

robyn was worse in the final battle....heck 80 percent of the characters were hit with the dumb stick in it

thank god for michael ironsides character

I have to ask why wasn't any real plan made for what to do with the characters. I seems like it would be a standard part of the pre-production process. Set up the story then set up characters and what their arcs will be during the story. How hard would it have been to take a few days go through all the characters and develop character arcs for them. They don't even need to be deep or long arcs just something to make sure there not wasted.

Alot of TV Shows don't do that because often they are initially signed in for only one season, and often the first season of a show is where you figure what works and what doesn't and the channel may have its own requirement. (See Early-Installment Weirdness) Planning for the series beyond the first season (And often the first few episodes of the season) is tantamount to dreaming for many shows because the scheduling between "Show is picked up" and "season 1 has to be finished" is brutal. Note that Voyager sort of did give one character an arc in season 1, Paris goes from hating Chakotay to... not so much?

TL:DR the reality of making a TV Show often makes fools of plans.

Ok i get that but still they could have done something. I'm not saying it has to be a major arc but something that fleshes out the character a bit and makes them useful to the show in some way. The thing with Paris and Chakotay seemed to disappear after the first few episodes. I'm not saying they should have been set in stone and they couldn't change things like they did by giving the Doctor a more prominent role after he became the breakout character of the early seasons.

Also while that argument is valid for most new shows this was Star Trek. The brand name alone guaranteed them a few seasons at least. And while this could be justified for the early couple of seasons there is no excuse for it in the later ones.

No argument there

But It's Trek's approach to always take the first season as an almost standalone test bed of what works and what doesn't. Compare TNG and DS 9's first seasons to the rest of the show.

The big problems were:

• The Troubled Production that was Caretaker. Sure the rough ideas were there, but then their lead left and Kate Mulgrew had to be rushed into the job. The sets were expensive.

• Unlike DS 9 and Babylon Five, Berman and Bragga didn't really get story arcs. Good plot points are tossed aside and minor plot points stretch across episodes.

• Rick Berman never wanted to take risks, Bragga was forced to crank out scripts when he should have been given a teammate or a break. Sf Debris is right, when paired with another more experienced writer Bragga is a force multiplier. When paired with Berman, B&B make junk.

• Jeri Taylor's Mary Sue Janeway caused the lead to irritate the fans. Neelix drove many fans up the wall. Both Kate Mulgrew and Ethan Phillips are great actors, and Jeri Taylor had no less that JMS of Babylon Five fame defend her. Outside of sci-fi she has a great rep, she may not even like Trek.

• Like with Gene Roddenberry and his "Roddenberry Box", the "no risks" and Jeri Taylor's Mary Sue Janeway hamstrung the show. They even used the same production numbers as TNG. Comfort food television as the Agony Booth put it. Yeah, comfort food as made by Neelix.

... I think if they had just stuck with a character for Janeway she wouldn't be remembered as the Captain that will murder you... unless they stuck with Zealot Janeway

edited 21st Sep '14 11:36:08 AM by FrozenWolf2

I can forgive a show having a less then amazing first season since as was said that is the learning what works faze of it. But to still have the same issues by season 3 or 4 is just sloppy. If B&B didn't want to take risks like DS 9 did fine, but that is no excuse for massive plot holes, insane characterization, or just plain stupidity. So many of their episodes could have worked and been fine if they had just gone over them and applied some common sense and logic to the stories.

And one more thing. Why did they keep Neelix around? I'm dead serious here, I've never been able to figure out why he was kept around when better characters like Kes were let go. It was clear from early on that no one liked him and by around season 3 or 4 he had become at best a glorified guest star. Why was he kept around and not let go.

edited 21st Sep '14 2:29:35 PM by Wilahelm02

Because Rick Berman was convinced that he'd found the new Spock or Data in Neelix. Same thing with T'Pol later on in Enterprise.

I'm completely baffled at how and dumbfounded that he thought Neelix would have any of the appeal that Spock or Data would have.

Nog, from DS 9? Maybe. Data or Spock though? Really?

Remember, Rick Berman is an idiot.