Star Trek

All the other series didn't gel until their third season. Enterprise got decent in season 4.

According to the commentary for The Bonding, when Ronald D. Moore first met Patrick Stewart on set and was introduced to him as a new writer, Stewart told him "remember, the captain doesn't do nearly enough screwing and shooting on this show."

I mean, I can see how it would be dull being the diplomat every week and little else, but wow.

And then we got Captain's Holiday out of it! And Stewart hooked up with Jennifer Hetrick (Vash) for a while. They even got engaged, though it went nowhere in the end.

Sometimes you just have to get crude and shock people into action.

Sometime around when I was posting that, I was watching the season three character analysis featurette carried over from the original DVD release, and right up front there was Patrick Stewart talking about how after two seasons Picard was settling into being the guy talking on the bridge and in the ready room and in the conference room and little else, and how he conferred with the writers and with Gene and they all agreed that he should have a little more action to him.

It's definitely one of those "foundation of the show" principles that needs to be adjusted over time. Riker's entire purpose was to be the man of action compared to Picard always being in a position to BE the captain.

Kate Mulgrew was in a similar situation where she was stuck mostly just as the captain on the bridge and disciplining the crew. "Counterpoint" was written via her request to have a more juicy story. Also, like Stewart at the end of season three, her contract with the show was in debate and the episode helped keep her on board.

I'm getting close to the end. Just finished episode 20.

Gotta say I've enjoyed this. It's my new favorite Star Trek, though that might change when I'm knee deep in Voyager and focused more on that one. There's definitely more redheads in this one than in TNG.

Okay, I finished Deep Space Nine. That was a shitty ending. At least Brooks fought them into letting him suggest he'd be back at Cassidy's side some day. Considering the non-linear aspect of the Prophets, I don't see why he couldn't come right back to her in that moment, after spending however long his education takes on their side.

Up until then, it was an awesome show. I didn't even really suffer through the first couple seasons. I went with the flow, felt the mood, and just worked my way through them. Anyway, onto Voyager tonight after catching up on the latest episodes of a couple other shows.

At least they had a leading man who could stay with the show. Michale O'Hare had medical problems that forced him to leave Babylon Five. Brooks got the chance to grow into the role.

But the idea of a hero Touched by Vorlons is very close to Babylon Five:

• Sisko exists because the Prophets in their Timey-Wimey Ball had him conceived after they met him.

• Sisko exists because of the Dominion War arc (indirectly) and because of the wormhole (his "mother" lives there).
  • Commander Sinclair became Valen and thus Sinclair is trapped in a "War Without End", has a similar arc.

• They could have had Sisko just go back to Earth or live happily on Bajor.
  • I liked the original idea of "Bernie Russel" reading the "script". They should have done that.

edited 25th Apr '15 6:06:37 PM by TairaMai

I never liked the whole "Sisko was conceived by the prophets" reveal. Too convenient and turns the whole thing into a predestined event instead of a malleable prophecy as it had been previously portrayed as.

"Picard is the best captain."

Sisko punched Q in the face. Your argument is irrelevant.

Sisko is the Bajoran Black Jesus. He could get away with that.

Honestly, the more I think about it after the fact, that whole religious angle just stunk. Especially since the only time it even impacted the bloody war was when the Prophets stopped the Gamma Quadrant armada from coming through.

That probably could have been done just as well by some Applied Phlebotinum getting involved with the sabotage on the deflector array.

It's the best example of Star Trek treating religion as something other than dark age superstition that only makes life worse for its followers, which is pretty significant.

I'll agree to that with the caveat that they took it too far in the other direction. Instead of making the religion real and based on creatures that, for all intents and purposes, ARE gods, they probably should have just created a religion with healthy, non-dogmatic tenets that actively helped its followers and encouraged them to be extremely useful to the show.

I mean, other than giving Sisko a connection to wormhole aliens and providing us with a few individuals who could have been from another species out there, what did the Bajorans actually DO? Not a Hell of a lot other than give us conflicts of the week and a worthless self serving Kai who died as badly as Jadzia in the end.

edited 26th Apr '15 9:14:50 AM by Journeyman

It's an exploration of the benefits and weaknesses of religion. They wanted to do a show with a lot of political intrigue, and manipulation of religion is a powerful force in politics.

I mean, look at the Republican party in the last 40 years...

I've been watching the pre Growing the Beard seasons of The Next Generation.

Most of them are not nearly as bad as the internet had suggested. There were a few early on which felt like warmed-over TOS plots (and a lot of the early-season sets look just as cheesy as TOS. Just got through "Arsenal of Freedom" and that jungle was bleh, the underground bits with Picard and Dr. Crusher looked good enough, though), but a lot of them were pretty on-point. Wesley's not nearly as bad as i remember. Sure there was one episode where his screwup had them all forced to bail him out (with the paradise planet with random death sentencing for any infraction), but any other character could have wandered into that just the same. Only one that grinds a little was when he was chosen by that alien from Tau Alpha to help with the super-drive stuff, but the scenery in that episode really made up for a lot.

Well, to be fair, Wesley was a kid hanging around Engineering. The Traveler could have had an affinity for kids and taken him under his wing just on that alone. It was a bonus that Wes knew what he was doing with warp engines. And the Stanley Kamel character was an arrogant prick anyway.

Rest in peace, Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Rand on TOS).

edited 3rd May '15 7:42:38 PM by lrrose

It's cowboy gold. I think of it as both sides unwilling to blow up "the pass", or "the bridge", or "the mine" without losing the very thing they're fighting for.

I don't mind the Prophet storyline as much as I did earlier. Part of it comes from reading up on the behind-the-scenes production and reading reviews by people (Darren Mooney) who do even deeper research. At the time, a lot of DS9's plot served no "story" purpose or just complicated things, and the religion stuff was an unwelcome change from TNG's formula.

It's different from, say, ENT, which trolled the audience with "Regeneration" but—lacking balls—had nothing to back it up with. It was just writers venting about a show they didn't want to be trapped in. As an adult, I see now that the DS9 writers were tweaking the nose and fandom and trying to get people talking. It's one of few "Deconstruction/Reconstructions" of fiction that I can entirely buy.

TNG could do anything with the Alpha Quadrant for most of its run. Enterprise had an established history to stay inside. Voyager was cut off from Alpha. Deep Space Nine had one other Trek show running against it at all times, but the moment they were the only game in the Alpha Quadrant, they blew it up. None of the other shows would have done that even if they could. Even TNG's biggest potstirrer was Romulans manipulating the Klingon Civil War.

Watching The Offspring:

"Captains log, blahblahblah, with Commander Riker away on leave..."

Oh, covering for a regular's unavailability with an awkwardly-inserted explanation, bleh.

...

*Riker walks into Ten-Forward, Lal grabs him and kisses him*

Oh right, this scene. Wait, wasn't he supposed to be absent this week?

"Commander, what is your intention toward my daughter?" "Your Daughter?"

Ahh, the whole point was to keep him out of the loop for this scene!

Although I don't think he appears in any other scene in this episode. I'm 34 minutes in and he's not back yet.

Frakes said he was so grateful that he had "The Offspring" as his first directors gig because Data stories pretty much always worked (similar to the Doctor stories in Voyager, juicy human-condition exploration alongside an actor who always brings his A game). He said the hardest one was "Cause and Effect" because the plot itself was so dense and the previous episode "The Outcast" had Riker in nearly every scene, compressing pre-production.

Ten years without Trek on TV.

Incorrect; surely they mean fourteen years.

edited 13th May '15 11:23:27 PM by HextarVigar

I think "These Are The Voyages..." could have worked better if it had run before the two-part arc wrapup and let that be Enterprise's finale. On the one hand, that means the event Riker threads into can't be Federation Day, but on the other, if memory serves that required a two-year time jump anyway.

It would have honored the past at the end, but let the show go out on its own terms.

Other ideas.

Seven of Nine's behavior makes it real easy to remember that she was assimilated as a child, and never really grew up as a Borg. She just got older and gained an obsession with their way of doing things.

The Riker bits in "Voyages" are the best bits. That's the dirty secret no one wanted to admit.

They were probably banking on more viewers tuning in to see the TNG regulars, though it had no effect in the end. My point is I would have done the same, if I were an executive.

edited 16th May '15 9:10:27 AM by johnnyfog