Star Trek

We've made it to season 2. I like this show now that I've gotten into it. Still not the greatest, but it's still worthwhile.

Apparently the director Wil Wheaton likes to complain about screaming "CAPTAIN PICARD CONTROLS THE SKY, MAN!" at him was like that with everyone. Patrick Stewart has a story about some big shot where Picard would stare out as the camera pulls back to infinity (there was some dispute as to where the shot was and what episode it was), where just before calling action, the guy yelled, "PATRICK, I WANT YOU TO **** THE UNIVERSE'!"

It was The '80s, all of southern california was like that

Just reached season 3 of DS 9. Now the show's in full swing, and the Dominion has made its stance clear.

Almost through season three. Have to say, I don't get what they were trying to do with the Ferengi. Though from the very beginning, I don't think ANYONE knew what they were doing with the Ferengi from their first episode on.

What was the point to making them so sexist and repugnant? The only people out there who would come anywhere close to that representation in real life would have banned the show or just never cared about it anyway. They weren't making any useful commentary. Had to be mostly comedy.

And those ears . . . I would at least wear a damn hood if my ears were my turn-on zone. Why wouldn't a supposedly business savvy Ferengi cover up his weak spot?

@Journeyman, on the Ferengi... there are different theories:

• One is that Gene Roddenberry's own attitudes kinda seeped in. The series bible put a lot of mention of the Ferengi's sexual appetites and desires. So the sexism was from Gene's own sexism. Even for a progressive guy like him, he did have some sexist attitudes.

• Another theory is that the facepalm occured after The Last Outpost. All this effort was made to make them the bad guys and the big threat. The sexism was cranked up to make them the Designated Villain. And then the director and the staff have the actors run around like crazed gerbils. The damage was done by season two and they became comic relief instead.

edited 5th Apr '15 6:47:05 PM by TairaMai

I heard there was "miscommunication" that can be blamed for the bad characterization, but the only miscommunication I know of is that the script described them as "like Yankee traders" and the costume designer read that and thought "fur traders" meant the same thing.

I mean, the furs didn't help, but that doesn't explain the jumping and hooting and plasma whips.

If their ships were advanced enough, they'd still be a threat. The hooting . . . eh, unfortunate stereotype of most primitive tribal cultures, but not really anything at all. Those whips? They could be a threat. They didn't just hit people, they could shoot. The only reason they weren't a threat on that first episode was because the Last Outpost had energy absorption crystals all over it.

ETA: I'm noticing just how much Stargate SG-1 pulled from this franchise. The Ancients and Ori arc were straight out of DS 9.

edited 5th Apr '15 8:10:59 PM by Journeyman

The Ferengi fell into the trap of being strawman villains existing so much to be ridiculed that the writers forgot they had to be an actual threat. "Bad capitalists? Let's make them short, ugly, over the top trolls literally and metaphorically towered by our heroes!" They forgot the cardinal rule that weak villains endangering your heroes just makes for weak heroes.

Hell they could have easily railed against strawman capitalism and still made them dangerous by demonstrating how quickly and efficiently the Ferengi have acquired weapons, ships, and general power in the Alpha Quadrant at cost of screwing over a lot of people.

Countless people in debt slavery working for them, disaffected citizens from the major powers selling them secrets, genetic enhancements and surgeries legally/illegally being done all through their large financial resources (even though such work is having horrific side effects), etc. They could have been the Dominion before the Dominion, a large powerful block of cold bottom liners who gained a stronghold in the galaxy with their own twisted take on the IDIC philosophy: Endless Wealth in Endless Consumption.

Instead we got Women hating short guys with big ears and laser whips.

Quake III: Arena had a better villain, Sorlag was a Rich Bitch lizard woman who's winquotes reflected a mercenary attitude. She was like Scrooge and Cruellia De Ville had a love child raised by Sontarans. So yus, a video game beats a TV show. But then again a lot of media beat season 1 & 2 of TNG.

It's amazing that we got the Borg with all the suck of early TNG.

edited 5th Apr '15 8:48:43 PM by TairaMai

The film SG-1 was developed from came out in 1994, so it may have been coincidental. I haven't seen either the movie or the show (well I've seen parts of a few episodes), so I don't know how much of the mythos was established in the movie.

However, I do like to call Stargate Universe "Stargate: Voyager". Which is unfair, as the premise they share is totally cribbed from Lost In Space.

Also, there is legitimate contention between Deep Space Nine and Babylon Five. On the surface, two embattled frontier outposts facing unknown alien threats with a team of many different races, that came out very close to each other. Behind the scenes, I've heard that it's on record that the guy who created B5 pitched to Paramount and was rejected very shortly before they started developing Deep Space Nine.

The Ferengi were a mishmash of a bunch of interesting individual ideas but did not go together well: short, warlike, tribal, sexist, capitalist, twitchy and warships to rival the Enterprise. Planet of Hats is not a bad thing, because it gives you room to add nuance and variations that make individual characters to stand out. Quark and Rom were excellent examples of where you can take a single cultural trait and make it interesting. The Ferengi episodes of DS9 are somewhat controversial, but they got a lot of development by the end.

As for Stargate, the base premise is far from original and has roots all over classic sci-fi (Ancient Astronauts and Portal Network meets modern military in short). Star Trek itself has plenty of Ancient Astronauts, Precursors and the Guardian of Forever. What made Stargate SG 1 successful was how self-aware they were of sci-fi tropes, sometimes even mocking the Shakespearean gravitas that Star Trek indulged in.

edited 5th Apr '15 10:43:36 PM by KJMackley

JMS, on the B5 newsgroup, did get tired of the "Deep Space Nine stole B5!", but he admitted that the concept was pretty much cribbed from his notes.

Whereas Babylon Five was inspired by Lord Of The Rings, to the point that it's spoilers for the movies if you look closely.

Deep Space Nine had smaller arcs and only hit it's stride with the Dominion War arc. Turning the Klingons into bad guys was more for the ratings and story possibilities than something they planed out. Unlike Star Trek Voyager, the DS 9 writers knew how to grow characters (despite evidence of eps like Merridian and Move Along Home)

The Deep Space Nine team did crib story arcs to give the series scope. Because a space station is, stationary.

Both commanders were Shell Shocked Veterans, but one was single (and the actor had to leave), the other a single father who's status was part of his character.

Both grew apart, to the point that JMS was all "I ain't even mad" as DS 9 flourished and made some good Trek.

edited 5th Apr '15 11:00:51 PM by TairaMai

Story goes CBS actually did something similar with Gene Roddenberry by inviting him to several extended discussions on how he would do a spaceship sci-fi series on a television budget and, after exhausting all his personal notes, cordially dismissed him and created Lost in Space based on his production ideas. It's a not-quite-illegal way of taking someone's ideas without paying for them.

I've never seen Babylon 5, but I have a hard time imagining how two highly acclaimed shows with a similar premise would get that way solely by stealing from each other. The truth is there are just only so many stories you can tell within a certain genre without there being some overlap. DS 9 ran into their own fair share of Negative Space Wedgies.

IIRC Babylon 5 was originally intended to have a shapeshifter head of security. I think there's enough evidence to say with a high degree of certainty that DS 9 did actually rip off Babylon 5. And I say that as someone who completely prefers DS 9.

No, B5 had a "holographic" villain. A character in a "changeling net" who disguised himself as the station's commander. The head of security was meant to be a regular human.

Re: The Ferengi. I think that the DS 9 episode The Nagus was one of the only episodes where I liked how the Ferengi were portrayed. Ruthless and cunning businessmen, but knowing when to fold them. The Grand Nagus was actually interesting in this story, not the complete joke he became afterwards. I wished the Ferengi had had more episodes like that.

The Nagus was once presented as a kind of mob godfather, which I like.

I think there was a lot of pressure from somewhere, possibly Armin, for a more-even handed portrayal.

Well, Wallace Shawn does have great comedy chops.

Shawn's portrayal of the Nagus could be argued as what got the Ferengi redeemed in part. He was not a subtle character but he was at least hysterical.

Shimerman probably felt he had something to prove after portraying one of the first Ferengi, he was never comfortable with playing Quark really broad and so always tried playing him realistically.

The Goa'uld/Tok'ra are Puppeteer Parasites like the Trill, though the Goa'uld take over their hosts rather than share control. And the main arc after the Goas are defeated is about a cold war turned hot between two Ascended powers, the evil of which is represented by fire just like the Pah'Wraiths.

And almost none of that was present in the movie Stargate. The only part that was there was the Goa'uld being puppeteers. Goa'uld queens even look a Hell of a lot like Trill parasites.

If I remember correctly, the Go'auld were not even named in the Stargate movie, and Ra looked more like a Grey than anything. Also, he was supposed to be the last of his kind (I may be wrong, it's been some time since I watched it).

They weren't. And I specifically mentioned SG-1 at first. Someone else brought up the movie and I was stating that SG-1 barely had anything to pull from it. By the time SG-1 came around, DS 9 was already in its fourth or fifth season, and by the time the Ancient/Ori arc came along, DS 9 had already been off the air for several years. Plenty of time for the ideas to percolate. I shouldn't say that they DID swipe ideas from the show (You know what they say about research and theft after all) just that there's plenty of parallels to draw between them.

There was mention of comparison between the Trill and a parasite species?

I just remembered that the first time we saw the Trill was on the TNG episode where Beverly falls in love with one. Not only did they look totally different (they ditched the putty-face design when they cast Terry Farrell), but the worm part almost completely took over the host's mind and actions.