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The General Star Trek Thread of Earl Grey Tea, Baseball, and KHHHAAAANNNN
- Thread starter The Librarian
- Start date
Will they go to Netflix too?
not sure startrek facebook is simply saying available on iTunes to buy or amazon to buy but prime members get free streaming
benjipwns
Banned
I think one thing they did well with T'Pol even if it wasn't executed properly was placing her between the Vulcan dismissal of humanity and the crew. Given the leeway that she was supposed to be the first Vulcan to really serve with humans. I think they gave her a good enough arc fitting in ala Seven or Odo. (Despite the Trip stuff.)
My favorite outsider character arc is (obviously cliche but) Garak just because by the end of DS9 they basically all just accept him on the bridge of the Defiant and involved in all their plans even though Bashir is the only one you ever see socialize with him. And it just goes entirely unspoken except for someone maybe randomly going "Garak?!?" for half a second. (Then you go back and realize he's had moments to earn trust with not just Bashir but Worf and Sisko and...)
I could see some of using that in Shran.
I forgot to mention I'd think Shran would work also because of who was playing him. And his scenes with Archer were always pretty good. (I thought Archer and T'Pol had some good scenes too, coming off Janeway and Chatokay of course so...)
Sweet, wanted to check these out.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
T'pol may have worked with a competent actress in the role.
The Librarian
Banned
Tony Todd is going to be here in Wilmington on May 4th. Going to try to get an autograph. 
Escape Goat
Member
Tony Todd is going to be here in Wilmington on May 4th. Going to try to get an autograph.
I have no idea who that is.
The Librarian
Banned
Well, that's a shame.
Kurn.
Mr. Luchador
Member
She's the Vulcan representative. It's all about how she presents herself in the tight Lycra.
jetpacks was yes
Member
So, being a livelong Trek fan and never having seen Babylon 5 before, last month I started on a bit of a B5 marathon and nearing the end of S3 (so good) I wonder if any of the DS9 showrunners have said anything about the obvious influences of B5 in the years since the show has ended. There are more differences than similarities, but it's obvious that there was some copying going on.
The Librarian
Banned
None of the DS9 writers watched B5.
Sweet. Hopefully the hd remaster of Measure of a Man is the extended version they showed at the in-theater event, I've really wanted to see that again.
Escape Goat
Member
maybe, but character was very meh as well. You could say they chose the perfect actress
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Janeway was meh, but it had nothing to do with Kate Mulgrew. A good actor can work wonders.
StopMakingSense
Member
Candyman.
jetpacks was yes
Member
There are an awful lot of similarities though. I mean, what do you make this of [ur]this?[/u\
This part kinda blew my mind:
Just watched that episode.
Anyhow, sorry for the B5 talk. Was just curious about my earlier question.
Don't worry about it. Dax01 takes anything that makes DS9 look anything less than perfect very personally.
Never mind that at least one writer wrote for both (though it was on her way out of writing for Trek).
The Librarian
Banned
There are some questionable things that may or may not have been borrowed (like the name "Dukat"), but the writers on DS9 didn't watch the show.
I have a writer from DS9 saying they didn't watch B5. All you have is speculation.
And DS9 isn't perfect. Please don't falsely characterize me.
yeah but I honestly don't think Mulgrew made her more interesting. Acting was fine but it was still super-boring to watch
Why would they need to watch the show when they had access to the pilot script, artwork, series bible, character descriptions, and synopses for approximately twenty-two episodes?Robert Hewitt Wolfe said:
Apparently the actors were all told to be as unemotional as possible for at least the first few seasons to deflect any criticism that might be levelled at the show that a woman captain was making them all hysterical or some such nonsense.
Exactly. It's not even a matter of the writers but the producers and their overall direction and plan for the show. I don't even think there was any kind of concerted effort to directly rip it off or anything, but it's been a decade now, can we stop pretending they were saints just because they said so?
Never mind that it's absurd to think one writer speaks for the whole staff. Did he regularly poll them on the question? I rather doubt it. And if you were a writer working on DS9 would you admit to watching the very similar show on the other network? Probably not. It's too risky.
I think she does some good work in the last few seasons (especially the third). She's a little stiff in the first few seasons but it's not like she was given great material to work with.
Anton668
Member
The Librarian
Banned
So he's lying. Okay.
Holy shit. This is some conspiracy-level crap. :lol
I can't imagine anyone doing a better Vulcan woman portrayal.
Mr. Luchador
Member
Finished Season 1 of Enterprise.
Overall... it was OK. Some very good episodes, and some very average episodes. Can't really remember any terrible episodes. The last 4-5 episodes were a bit odd as they all sort of ran into each other, without actually being '2 parters', which was interesting. It made it seem more like it was a journey, rather than just random stories thrown into a pot and pulled out at random (which sometimes seems the case with Voyager and for the most part Enterprise).
I liked the way they referred back to previous episodes, which finally seemed to bring some life to the series and really helped sell the idea that what the crew was doing had ripple effects across the galaxy (for once).
As for the season finale, not totally sold on it, but I'll see how Part 2 goes.
Overall... it was OK. Some very good episodes, and some very average episodes. Can't really remember any terrible episodes. The last 4-5 episodes were a bit odd as they all sort of ran into each other, without actually being '2 parters', which was interesting. It made it seem more like it was a journey, rather than just random stories thrown into a pot and pulled out at random (which sometimes seems the case with Voyager and for the most part Enterprise).
I liked the way they referred back to previous episodes, which finally seemed to bring some life to the series and really helped sell the idea that what the crew was doing had ripple effects across the galaxy (for once).
As for the season finale, not totally sold on it, but I'll see how Part 2 goes.
My point was that could be telling the absolute truth. People asked if he was inspired by B5. He claims that neither he, nor anyone else on the DS9 staff ever watched an episode of B5 (which is a very strong statement, the kind a lawyer would ask you to stick to, but whatever).
But the conspiracy theory is based around the fact that JMS pitched B5 to Paramount shortly before DS9 was conceived. Nobody would have needed to watch a single episode, because the pitch gave them more material to steal than watching any episode could have given them.
Just to be clear, I don't doubt Wolfe's claim that nobody on DS9 watched B5, because I've heard before of writers being asked to avoid specific minefields. If they were hands-off on B5, they'd be less tempted to steal ideas, and in case of dispute they could honestly say they didn't know what the other side was doing.
Also, JMS has apparently said that he specifically does not accuse the DS9 writers of stealing. They're his peers and sometimes co-workers, and he thinks they're good people. He suggests that it could be possible that Paramount executives approached the DS9 creators and said "I would like a show about..." and then went on to describe the same thing JMS had just pitched to them, which they had previously pretended they weren't interested in. The DS9 creators don't believe that's how their meeting with the Paramount execs went down, but Paramount execs can be subtle and manipulative.
The Librarian
Banned
I haven't said anything here that is false. Also, to support Wolfe's claims, you can see in the DS9 companion that the Obsidian Order was originally supposed to be the Gray Order, but one night one of the writers randomly switched to an episode of B5 and heard they had a Grey Council, so they switched it.
Are you saying they were ordered to lie by lawyers? Because that's a pretty ridiculous thing to say. If they wanted to prevent something like that from leaking out, they would've asked all the writers of the show not to respond to that kind of question. Wolfe answered it directly, and he even said what show did influence DS9. Plus, if something DID get out about some sort of plagiarism, he could get nailed for lying.
wtf. There's no conspiracy in what I said. People protecting their asses maybe, but that's not a conspiracy.
And again, it's an absurdly strong statement considering that a writer of a first season episode (and one of the longest-serving Trek writers, from TOS all the way to DS9) wrote about 5 episodes of B5, which is about as many as any writer of B5 who wasn't JMS himself ever wrote.
You do realize that Wolfe wasn't a producer on the show? He wasn't involved in the early development. He's just one writer among many. I'd take his statements more strongly if he were talking about Andromeda.
And jesus christ no one's suggesting they outright plagiarized anything. Just that the show was probably somewhat inspired by what Paramount had seen of B5's development material (that no one disputes they saw).
The Librarian
Banned
The way you have to jump through hoops to justify your position is very conspiracy-like.
So? She only wrote one episode.
You're saying DS9 copied B5. That's basically plagiarizing, and that's been the sentiment on every single post you've made about the subject.
I have a writer on the show saying no one watched B5. All you have is speculation on your part. Bring up some hard evidence to support your claim. Otherwise you shouldn't be saying Wolfe is lying and/or wrong or somehow uninformed.
The Librarian
Banned
I haven't said anything here that's false to anyone's knowledge, dude.
I never said you did. But you jumped to a few conclusions about my intent.
You posted Wolfe's statement that nobody on DS9 watched B5.
I (jokingly) suggested that he wouldn't need to watch the show to steal ideas.
You concluded that I was accusing Wolfe of lying. But what I said was that he told the truth. If anything, I accused him of stealing ideas (as a joke, I don't honestly think he did).
That's even worse. It directly counters Wolfe's claim that nobody saw the show (although to be technical, maybe they didn't watch the show). And if B5 had no effect on them, why did they happen to accidentally hear that a name from B5 was based on a color, say "Oh crap", and then change one of their names? Grey is a pretty common color. And why wouldn't they stop to watch another sci-fi show if they happened to bump into it? Feeling defensive, were they? A bit guilty, perhaps?
I'm saying that absolute statements like "nobody on DS9 watched the show" (how does Wolfe know for certain what everyone watched?) sound exactly like the kind of thing lawyers coach their clients to say. You can't get "nailed" for lying. Lying is what keeps you safe. And he can talk about his influences, so long as his influences aren't the competition. In fact, it's better if he has piles of non-competing influences, that way there's no need to directly attribute anything to the competition. A good slimy lawyer would ask him to come up with some new influences if he didn't have enough real ones.
But I openly dismissed that line of thought as soon as I mentioned it, because I don't want to think the worst of these people, and because (as I said) I think the more likely explanation is that the Trek lawyers recognized that they were in a bit of an awkward position, so they asked the DS9 staff to keep their noses clean and avoid anything that can be construed as "stealing". That means no watching B5. That means that Wolfe knows that nobody was watching B5. That means that when they accidentally saw a little bit of B5, they quickly changed the channel, and deliberately moved their work a little bit farther away from what they saw.
But that doesn't mean that I'm not aware that DS9 was accused of cheating, and I'm not above a bit of lighthearted ribbing. Wolfe says he didn't steal a candy bar? That means he stole a steak. Tsk tsk Wolfe, you naughty cheater.
Fox Mulder
Member
Awesome, I've watched the whole series like two years ago, so remastered is a good way to do it agin.
The Librarian
Banned
I apologize if you were joking, but I honestly couldn't tell.
It doesn't counter anything at all to what I said, and as I explained it confirms it. Are you joking on the rest of your post again? Because if they didn't change it, people would be pointing to the "Gray Order" as further evidence that DS9 copied B5.
This all is essentially more speculation, but that makes more sense.
Also, people talk about other shows. Especially if you're in the business, and they were probably all huge nerds and knew about the other science-fiction shows going on.
SpoonyBard
Banned
To be fair, many Trek writers don't even watch Trek. Not even the episodes the write, they claim. But we can be sure that DS9 was influenced by JMS's plans for B5. And that Paramount basically created DS9 in response to Warner's B5, as they did't want other studios competing with their TV scifi marketshare.
The Librarian
Banned
The origin of DS9 started because there was money for another Trek series and the Berman and crew were thinking about it as far back as 1991. The original idea for DS9 was for it to be set on a planet, but that was abandoned because they found it was going to be too expensive.
jetpacks was yes
Member
Have you ever watched B5, Dax? I mean more than a few episodes. The name itself, the wormhole similarity, the ancient alien prophecy aspect, some of the names of characters, the whole corrupted government faction aspect, and the similarities between the Dominion War and the Shadow War... they can't all be pure coincidence. The shows are different enough, and arguably B5 owes way more to Trek than Trek owes to B5, but come on. There's something there and it's pretty obvious unless there's a severe Trek bias going on. That's all I'll say on the matter.
*goes on enjoying both shows*
*goes on enjoying both shows*
bunbun777
Member
I have been rewatching ST: TNG lately and I am currently going through season two. Just finished 'Samaritan Snare' and this part just got me. Thank goodness for youtube this is only 8 seconds....
LOL
Man I really love this show. Not a huge Star Trek fan but I really do enjoy the adventures of Picard and crew.
LOL
Man I really love this show. Not a huge Star Trek fan but I really do enjoy the adventures of Picard and crew.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Got my tickets for the "Best of Both Worlds" event on the 25th.
Henchmen21
Banned
Watch season 6 "Tapestry". You actually see it happen. Twice. Once with an actor playing a younger Picard and once with Patrick.
The shows have superficial similarities in the beginning but become grow in rather different directions and as a whole are very different properties.
Pancakes
hot, steaming, as melted butter slips into the cracks, drizzled with sticky sweet syrup OH GOD
Starting the final season of the TNG and I feel bummed out. I don't want this series to end, it's just been too much fun.
Are the movies any good btw? People like to shit on Nemesis I hear.
Are the movies any good btw? People like to shit on Nemesis I hear.
StopMakingSense
Member
Generations is lol. First Contact is a good romp. Insurrection is a lame two hour episode. Nemesis is just straight up lousy.