Star Trek

There is no general Star Trek thread.

This is a tragedy that must be remedied.

It's not over. Not yet.

Indeed. My dad and I just started watching reruns of the Original Series, mostly because we knew we were going to be entertained one way or another◊.

Best episode so far: "Mirror, Mirror"

edited 19th Jan '11 10:07:51 PM by Eschaton

So, I haven't watched Star Trek except for the new movie. And I have to ask: Should I go Picard or Kirk? or maybe Sisko?

edited 19th Jan '11 10:10:24 PM by juancarlos11

It's not exactly naive. And it can happen. But it's tough. And definetly worthwhile.

The first season of TOS just aired in Australia.

I always dismissed it as crap, but I have to say... it's probably the best series.

I couldn't decide between Kirk and Picard. It's been years since I've seen TNG. And I haven't seen enough of DS9 to comment.

But I think we can all agree: stay the hell away from Voyager and Enterprise.

It's not over. Not yet.

Yeah, I always hear stories about how bad Voyager and Enterprise are...

It's not exactly naive. And it can happen. But it's tough. And definetly worthwhile.

Voyager is so-so. The Doctor and Tom Paris are great, but the rest of the characters are... kinda shit, to be honest. And you will want to stab Neelix with a fork every time you see him. And the gimmick of being lost in space with no resupply or contact with Earth disappears extremely quickly.

edited 3rd Apr '11 3:56:47 PM by Medicus

It's not over. Not yet.

And Enterprise?

It's not exactly naive. And it can happen. But it's tough. And definetly worthwhile.

Mostly I've found Enterprise to be uninteresting and a poor realization of its concept. Other than the Vulcans being more assholish than logical, it feels like if you said it was happening at the same time as TNG I wouldn't be able to tell any real difference. I also feel that by already having an adaptive universal translator it make the character of Hoshi feel redundant. Mayweather gets around the same amount of screen time as Porthos. Tucker comes across as incompetent when he's supposed to be a genius. While my experience with Vulcans is limited as I mostly watched TNG T'Pol comes across as more bitchy than genuinely logical. Even after watching the whole first season I don't have a beat on Archer at all, he acts however the particular episode wants him to act with little to no internal constancy. I do like Phlox (except that one time he committed genocide), and Reed is my favorite character as feels most like a real person, has consistent characterization, and his less trusting nature works well with the feeling of being on the frontier.

Skip everything except Season 4. Do not watch the final two-parter.

Other than that, Season 4 has a couple of good episodes. They moved onto actually doing prequel stuff: augments are the subject of a three-parter, guest-starring Brent Spiner (Data). There a few episodes that explains the Klingon's head-ridges, sort of a love letter to canon-obsessed fans. And the first two episodes have Nazi Space Aliens and German-occupied US East Coast. Can't really go wrong with that.

As for the characters... Trip is the only one that doesn't suck, as long as he's not trying to get into T'Pol's catsuit. Which is about the only thing he does in the last two seasons. So, yeah. Pretty shit all around.

edited 19th Jan '11 10:39:03 PM by Medicus

It's not over. Not yet.

Skipping two whole seasons goes against my nature, but I won't watch the finale because if I wanted to see a TNG Holodeck episode I'd watch Fistful of Datas again. Also, I like Reed partially because he is consistent from episode to episode but also because blowing shit up is a goal I can get behind.

edited 19th Jan '11 10:46:32 PM by DracoDracul

Any episode with Shran (the Andorian) in it is worth watching... But I agree with this sentiment on the whole. Well... Any episode but the finale. Although, if one just skips any scene that shows Riker, it works pretty well.

edited 19th Jan '11 10:49:06 PM by Swish

the final two parter of ENT is good, imo. The last Episode though, well it turns out this was just falsified information by Section 31...

i still dream about what ENT Season 5 could have been with Manny Coto at the helm...seriously :/

edited 19th Jan '11 11:50:25 PM by 3of4

"You can reply to this Message!"

I liked that TNG episode "Lower Decks."

UN JOUR JE SERAI DE RETOUR PRÈS DE TOI

They've just started reairing TNG in Australia.

My god.

It's not over. Not yet.

What! Entreprise was absolutely awesome! Season 3 was a whole frakin arc and it was epic mix of diplomacy and high octane action. It was a series that finnaly got rid of those corny Trek fight moves in favour of commando style beat downs. Also the enterprise wasn't overpowered and so the fights were more interesting.

I hated Trip but probably beacuse he was a moronic southener that reminded me of Dubya. Heck Sfdebris bashes him all the time for his stupidity. Reed was stiff but he made it seem more realistic that they were serving on a star ship. Archer kept getting beaten up so much that it isn't funny. Mayweather got shafted throughout the series and I dunno if it's racist but the black guys in Star Trek are always getting beaten up.

DS 9 sucked balls as the characters were all up themselves and the Dominion were a bland enemy for the most part. I hated the Bajorans as a stuck up race and the religious parts ruined the story as a whole. It created too many plot holes like why couldn't Sisko just ask the Prophets to close the wormhole? The fights were way more one sided with the defiant clearing through everything like nuetrinos through a nebula.

Odo was arrogant, Sisko acted arrogant, Kira acted arrogant, Bashir acted arrogant, Worf acted arrogant. I mean the best character were the freakin secondary ones like Gerak, Dukhat and Quark. T He main cast sucked which is why on one cared when Guinan Jazdia died. But she was replaced by that annoying Ezri.

Being set up on a spacestation made it bring as they just stuck to same ol' instead of going to strange new worlds, and meeting new civilizations.

edited 24th Jan '11 6:29:23 PM by shinfernape

A wish is never free.

I am not surprised you hold those views, it's pretty common amongst hardcore Trekkies. Or Trekkers. Whatever.

I thought Enterprise was — for the most part — awful, and I haven't seen enough of DS 9 to really comment.

But from what I've read, DS 9 was a real departure from the norm. Less Monster of the Week episodes, move overarching storylines and political intrigue. But the religious parts, the parts I've seen, were shit. The Bajorans were probably one of the least interesting races they could have used for the series.

And it had some really good episodes. "In The Pale Moonlight" is probably the best one, but I haven't seen it. "Duet" I have seen, and it's pretty damn good.

I'm pretty sure they did do that.

edited 24th Jan '11 6:08:42 PM by Medicus

It's not over. Not yet.

@ Medicus No I've seen all the DS 9 eps and Sisko never did that. He kept himself distanced from the Prophets and the Bajoran orbs which could have helped out. For a guy who wanted to save Bajor I don't think he used everything at his disposabl.

The wormhole only closed when the Pah Wraith entered it and then re-opened after Sisko found the Orb of the Emmisary.

A wish is never free.

I'm pretty sure at one point a massive fleet of Dominion reinforcements were coming through the wormhole, and Sisko asked the Prophets to destroy them. And they did.

It's not over. Not yet.

Yes they destroyed the fleet but they didn't close the wormhole. Infact the whole thing was complained to be Deux Ex Machina.

A wish is never free.

Well it was a Deus ex Machina. Literally.

It's not over. Not yet.

I grew up on TNG and only after loving that series did I check out TOS, so I am by default a pro-Picard guy.

I appreciated DS 9 for what it was, but I wasn't able to catch every episode after about the fifth season and ended up in Continuity Lockout. When I dedicated myself to keep up with the last half of season 7 I found it to be a little melodramatic, the bad guys were making these "the Federation shall fall" speeches every episode.

Voyager was a fairly solid series until about the 5th season, and I think that's when it really started to wear itself out. Voyager ended up being a show about ideas more than story and characters, and years later reading about all of the behind-the-scenes issues I can see where that screwed over the show. Any Story Arcs past the third season were limited to recurring encounters with the local bad guy (Kazon, Hirogen, Malon... the Borg were the only long-term threat) and only the most subtle character progressions like Paris and Torres' romance got through.

Like a lot of shows not every episode was horrible but it didn't really try to push itself. Given that they were all alone they really should have tried to flesh out the lower deck crewmen, but only a half-dozen were even referenced in more than one episode (the Delany sisters, Ensign Wildman and Ensign Vorik). Kim and Neelix barely had anything worthwhile to contribute, which is why they had about 6 episodes dedicated to them each. Neelix in the early seasons had potential to be a very resourceful and sometimes devious character but was reduced to someone who tries to be everyone's friend but nobody likes (including the audience).

Enterprise had probably a higher quotient of bad episodes to good ones, but what I really liked was the effort they made to make space travel strange and scary and the characters raw and "uncivilized," in other words make Star Trek fresh again. The overt sexual tone ended up being what drove most people away, a lesson that Fanservice doesn't solve your problems. The Xindi arc, while not flawless, was what really gave Enterprise it's own voice. You really felt the ship was on its own and had a tendency to malfunction, unlike Voyager where everything remained shiny and polished. The fourth season was by far the best and the Terra Prime / Demons arc is probably one of the most satisfying two-parters in Trek history, I have a hard time not tearing up during Trip and T'Pol's concluding scene. But I think the grand finale kind of encompasses the problems with the series, it had potential to be great but a few misfires turned it into Snark Bait. Trips death was about the only thing I disliked about the episode, but since it was the cornerstone of the plot it's really hard to overlook it.

My Dad got Season 1 of Voyager for Christmas. It's his favourite series, for some reason.

The only reason to keep watching is Tom Paris and the Doctor.

And the whole selling point of the show — lost tens of thousands of light years from home, struggling to survive — is undone by the fifth episode, where they detect some anomaly and go and investigate. Really?

edited 9th Feb '11 2:59:49 AM by Medicus

It's not over. Not yet.

I grew up on The Original Series when it was in syndication. Loved it. Father hated it ... which probably made me love it even more. As I had a rather rough home life as a kid, it was a much appreciated escape.

The Next Generation had a rough first year. Everyone was wooden. Tasha Yar was horrible and her death was a mercy kill. Troi never worked out as a character. She either stated the obvious or sighed. Riker was trying to be Kirk but without the captain's chair, he couldn't pull it off. Wesley Crusher was Gene Roddenberry's ego unchecked and the worst character in the series. Picard was Spock as captain. Data was little boy lost. Worf was a repressed stuffed shirt. Oh, and I enjoyed the show. It got better as the years went on. The episode "Tapestry" really hit home and helped me deal with some really bad military experiences by pointing out they made me who I am. It is too bad that Paramount didn't see any sense (as in dollars and cents) of going beyond seven years due to their accountants saying they'd get less in syndication profits for each episode beyond seven years.

Deep Space Nine was a space show that didn't explore space. The Ferengi being the clowns of Star Trek hurt the show further. [Gene Roddenberry wanted the Ferengi to be the big villains of TNG as Klingons were of TOS but nobody would accept these Dumbo-earred characters as such.] Odo's make-up looked like the show spent ten bucks on a bucket of Playdough. I tried to give DS 9 a shot but it was too depressing and full of itself. Their "conflict" seemed forced and fake. And when they dived into the silly religious stuff, I said "enough is enough" and stopped watching.

Voyager was probably the worst of all the Star Trek shows. Forced-down-your-throat political correctness. The lame premise with even the lamer "rebels" joining the starship to get back to the Federation. "The Doctor" was about the only thing good about that show. 7 of 9 was pure fanservice.

Enterprise just never found its voice before I gave up on it. I gave it the best shot of all. I held weekly Enterprise potluck parties and they started off great. But it didn't live up to expectations. In fact, "Junkyard Wars" became the reason for the potluck parties to continue and later many guests left when Enterprise came on. And the oil scenes just made it weird watching it with the kids that attended the parties and even the other adults.

Star Trek (2009) movie was a nice tribute to the original series. A fun action movie as well. However, I don't know how well the next one will do. The first one was too much of a homage to the original and you just cannot keep doing that as it will get old quick. I wish them luck but do wonder if they can pull off sequels.

Star Trek: The Spider Galaxy http://www.TheSpiderGalaxy.com A TV show proposal.

What, no love for Tom Paris? I admit it's been years since I've seen the later seasons and I've only just started watching the first episodes again, but frankly he's the only character other than the Doctor that's worth the celluloid he was filmed on.

It's not over. Not yet.

Sorry, I don't even remember Tom Paris ... which pretty much sums up how much his character had an impact on me.

Star Trek: The Spider Galaxy http://www.TheSpiderGalaxy.com A TV show proposal.