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The General Star Trek Thread of Earl Grey Tea, Baseball, and KHHHAAAANNNN

J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
FWIW, it seems like Ron D. Moore agrees with JoeMartin.
I've always felt that the experience in "Inner Light" would've been the most profound experience in Picard's life and changed him irrevocably. However, that wasn't our intention when we were creating the episode. We were after a good hour of TV, and the larger implications of how this would really screw somebody up didn't hit home with us until later (that's sometimes a danger in TV – you're so focused on just getting the show produced every week that sometimes you suffer from the "can't see the forest for the trees" syndrome). We never intended the show to completely upend his character and force a radical change in the series, so we contented ourselves with a single follow-up in "Lessons". (AOL chat, 1997)
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D

DeadTrees

Member
JoshuaJSlone said:
FWIW, it seems like Ron D. Moore agrees with JoeMartin.
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Hard to take this specific criticism seriously, considering Moore had no problem with resolving some of DS9's biggest upheavals via deus ex machina and "lol, it was all just a dream simulation", and considering the entire TNG crew has previously been turned into mind-controlled video game addicts, killed a bunch of innocent people while suffering from amnesia, nearly murdered each other out of REM sleep deprivation, and devolved into brain-damaged subhumans. None of which was ever referred to again.
 
G

Gary Whitta

Member
DeadTrees said:
Hard to take this specific criticism seriously, considering Moore had no problem with resolving some of DS9's biggest upheavals via deus ex machina and "lol, it was all just a dream simulation", and considering the entire TNG crew has previously been turned into mind-controlled video game addicts, killed a bunch of innocent people while suffering from amnesia, nearly murdered each other out of REM sleep deprivation, and devolved into brain-damaged subhumans. None of which was ever referred to again.
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Don't forget the transporter accident that turned them into little kids!
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
one of the reasons why i'm very happy they finally ended the picard-era crew after nemesis is that i can't help but think that the data->b4 transition would have been glossed over in future creative works just like all the aforementioned traumas.
 
J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
Stumpokapow said:
one of the reasons why i'm very happy they finally ended the picard-era crew after nemesis is that i can't help but think that the data->b4 transition would have been glossed over in future creative works just like all the aforementioned traumas.
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Worth noting that the Countdown comic series that was meant to act as a lead-in to last year's movie essentially did that--the B4 body showed up as "Captain Data". The post-Nemesis novels (which at latest are still years before Countdown) have basically had B4 narrowly escape disassembly since he's a less impressive fellow than Data was back at "The Measure of a Man", but they've basically ignored him beyond being something for La Forge to occasionally worry about.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
So in a recent interview Alexander Siddig goes off on the changes made to Bashir later in the show. Can't say I blame him. I didn't like the changes much either, and as the guy who has to act it out must have sucked.


http://trekmovie.com/2010/05/06/ale...nger-over-changes-to-bashir-character-on-ds9/

The new interview comes from our friends at UGO who cought up with Siddig at the Tribeca Film Festival, but resident Trek nerd Jordan Hoffman spent most of his time talking DS9. Siddig reveals that immediately after production ended on DS9 he went into a "cool stage" where he distanced himself from his time with Trek, but he "got over" that and he is now happy to return to the genre world in the UK series Primeval (see previous Trek story).

The most interesting stuff was regarding Siddig’s views on how in season 5 of Deep Space Nine the writer decided that his character was secretly genetically modified (in "Dr. Bashir, I Presume"). Siddig said he didn’t learn about the change in his character until the last minute:

on Thursday the script arrived – we started shooting on Friday. I was so shocked. You know you get the impression that maybe the producers sit down and talk about strategies and character arcs with actors but this thing came out of the blue and pissed me off so royally. It was a reaction to the fact that the character was genuinely unpopular in the early days. Because he was not fancy; I mean this is a time where 90210 was at the top of the charts in American TV and this guy was so not the hunk, he was the anti-hunk. He was the -

… He was a man of science; he was like half good looking, rubbish at pulling girls. I mean it was all the wrong kind of archetypes. And so they kept trying to do things to make it happen. Eventually they did the Bond thing (reference to “Our Man Bashir”) – they did the Bond thing before that actually. And that kicked it off. I have to say that I’m still pretty angry. Well, not angry . . .

I did it the only way that an actor can. I completely destroyed the lines that they gave me regarding the situation. Every time something came up that was to do with being kind of Data-esque – I mean, I couldn’t get away from the fact – I thought I was being a Data, which is what they wanted to do, they wanted to switch the characters from all the shows, which they ended up doing with Voyager …Well, it was a bit cynical at the end of the day. But I just fluffed the lines; well I didn’t fluff them completely I literally pinned the lines on the back of someone’s shoulder once, reading them. I wasn’t bothered even to learn them. I just pinned them around the office as if they were lines needed for daily modification. And they got the message and dropped it kind of.
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Freshmaker

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
Tobor said:
I couldn't agree more. That twist sucked. Granted, I don't know what else you could have done with him.
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What's weird is they seemed to be laying breadcrumbs for that very twist from season one onwards. The whole "Second in my class because of missing one question" thing blended into it quite well.
 
B

B.K.

Member
I didn't really mind that twist. Bashir was the most bland and uninteresting character on Deep Space Nine. That at least added a little depth to him.
 
B

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
thought it was pretty sweet, but by that point i was so on board with DS9 and blinded by my love of the characters that i just rolled with almost anything :lol
 
B

BorkBork

The Legend of BorkBork: BorkBorkity Borking
I like his transition throughout the series from bright eyed frontier medicine man to a slightly jaded cynical war hardened medic. But yeah, the genetically modified storyline was a dud.
 
M

maharg

idspispopd
That twist is second only to "ZOMG HE WAS A CHANGELING FOR A WHOLE SEASON AND IT DIDN'T MATTER" for stupid plot twist that came out of nowhere in DS9.
 
T

Tobor

Member
maharg said:
That twist is second only to "ZOMG HE WAS A CHANGELING FOR A WHOLE SEASON AND IT DIDN'T MATTER" for stupid plot twist that came out of nowhere in DS9.
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I don't know, the magic space mines still take the cake.
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
Freshmaker said:
What's weird is they seemed to be laying breadcrumbs for that very twist from season one onwards. The whole "Second in my class because of missing one question" thing blended into it quite well.
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I also liked how it tied in to the near-impossibility of him defeating a telepathic assassin with his mind. And how he loved tennis, and could've gone pro, but one day he just stopped for no apparent reason and regrets it.

It was like he changed from being a quitter who somehow wins to being somebody powerful but reserved, who doesn't like who he is and didn't want anyone to see, who messes up (even when it's not deliberate) because he's guarded and second-guessing his appearance.

I do think that they missed a big opportunity in that they just made him a superman after that, instead of building him into a uniquely flawed character after the reveal.

And they definitely should've given Siddig more than a one day heads-up. Even if they were just throwing ideas around to try and make his character better, they could've given him more than one day of notice.
 
J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
maharg said:
That twist is second only to "ZOMG HE WAS A CHANGELING FOR A WHOLE SEASON AND IT DIDN'T MATTER" for stupid plot twist that came out of nowhere in DS9.
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I love how the uniform transition actually became a clue as to how long he'd been gone. :lol
 
benjipwns

benjipwns

Banned
:lol at the description of Voyager's finale in this article:
http://scifiwire.com/2010/05/6-classic-sci-fi-tv-shows-ruined-by-their-freaky-finales.php
Why It Makes the Whole Series Unwatchable:
The final episode takes a leap forward several decades, 10 years after the Voyager has successfully returned home. Apparently Captain Janeway isn't satisfied with the 23 years she spent mucking around wasting her time learning the exotic mysteries of the universe. She acquires the power to travel back in time. That's all logical so far. What she does next isn't. Rather than go back and tell herself to, say, never get on the Voyager in the first place, or simply not to jump to the other side of the galaxy, Capt. Janeway meets her younger self right after getting all stuck and screwed up. Naturally, getting her younger self out of this situation is much harder than nearly every other time-travel scenario imaginable. The twin Janeways must work together to travel through a transwarp hub, destroy it and save their parents' marriage using wacky identity switching.

Watching first-run episodes of Voyager provided a pleasant foray into the outer realms of space and the imagination, probably like what happens in Stephen Hawking's mind when he smokes weed. Now that it has been revealed that the whole thing is erased by a dumb captain who couldn't find the freaking transwarp hub the first time around, the series is different upon rewatching. All of their adventures and experiences are erased by time-traveling Janeway. One just wants to scream "Turn around and look for the hub! Why would you embark on a 75-year journey without first poking around for a faster way?!" After all of that, you'd think they would at least show why Janeway was in such a huff to save 16 random years of her epic journey. However, upon finally arriving in Earth's orbit, the show fades to black. Before going back in time to fix her mistakes, we're surprised Janeway didn't develop a serious heroin addiction, just because she could.
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Z

Zenith

Banned
didn't it ever occur to them why 7 of 9 was there if Endgame was meant to take place just after the Voyager pilot?
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
Zenith said:
didn't it ever occur to them why 7 of 9 was there if Endgame was meant to take place just after the Voyager pilot?
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The Voyager ending didn't erase the entire show.

Voyager successfully made the estimated 75-year trip in 23 years. 7 years of TV, 16 years worth of potential plot for novels and movies. But then Future Janeway decided that 22 deaths, including Seven of Nine deciding to wear a red shirt one day, Chakotay dying of emo, and Tuvok going senile from lack of incest, was too high a price to pay in order to bring her crew home safe and sound and let Harry become a Starfleet Captain and let the Doctor marry a human and let B'lana buy and sell seats on the Klingon High Council as favors to her friends. She decided that it had been a serious tactical error not to risk the lives of her entire ~150-man crew by fighting her way through 50 Borg cubes in a vain attempt to reach and examine what at-the-time appeared to be a bunch of wormholes in the hope that one of them might be usable to get home sooner. Remembering that the very first episode of Voyager killed off Voyager's original First Officer, Chief Engineer, entire medical staff, and numerous others, forcing her to replace them with an assortment of Maquis, holograms, and Talaxians. Anyone and everyone who died in Voyager's seven seasons on TV was considered expendable to Janeway, but not Seven/Chakotay/Tuvok.

So Future Janeway went back in time to the 7th year of Voyager's trip and erased the unaired 16 years (along with her future self, paradoxially), trying to force Voyager to march through the Borg stronghold by giving them enough future military technology to obliterate the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant and trigger a war which destroys the Federation, and yet telling them not to use it against the Borg in any meaningful way. Rather than simply coming back to tell Seven to stop wearing spandex and wear some damn body armor on away missions, and bringing along some Vulcan bitches (26 years older than their temporal counterparts who are stuck in the Alpha Quadrant) who'd rather do it with the sexy young Tuvok of the past than a brain damaged one of the future, at the cost of having to do 3-ways with themselves when Tuvok eventually gets home. But nah, if you're gonna break the Temporal Prime Directive, you might as well blow massive holes in the time-space continuum for purely personal gain instead of carefully measured tweaks that make things better for everyone.
 
J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
Well said, ruby_onix. :lol It was no "These Are the Voyages...", but Admiral Janeway's actions do come across as pretty awful. I'll also add this which I've said elsewhere:
On top of that, what about all the missions they now didn't do during those years? Back with Season 5's Night I was complaining how Janeway was second-guessing her decision to destroy the Caretaker. They'd helped a shitload of people through those four years. I presume they would've over the next 17 years, too. Now they're boned.
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G

Gary Whitta

Member
I was watching a TNG episode last night, I think it was "The Offspring", and I actually saw a Picard facepalm happen in its full real-time context. It actually made me LOL, it's the first time I'd seen one since it had become immortalized in JPG form and it seemed very odd in its new post-ironic context. Internet has ruined Star Trek for me confirmed!
 
Fox Mulder

Fox Mulder

Member
Speaking of TNG, I finally got around to beginning a run through of it. While I thoroughly enjoyed DS9, TNG is boring as shit so far.

It's funny seeing the Ferengi portrayed as monkeys and the shitty special effects, but it hurts to see Worf as an under fed woman that sucks at fighting. Even what they did with Yar was pointless, as it was only season one. Why the hell would I even care at this point?

The awful character development and episodes so far just makes me respect DS9 even more.
 
B

B.K.

Member
If anyone cares, Best Buy has Star Trek Blu-Rays on sale for $10. I wanted to get Wrath of Kahn, but it was sold out.
 
M

Mama Robotnik

Member
Gary Whitta said:
I was watching a TNG episode last night, I think it was "The Offspring", and I actually saw a Picard facepalm happen in its full real-time context. It actually made me LOL, it's the first time I'd seen one since it had become immortalized in JPG form and it seemed very odd in its new post-ironic context. Internet has ruined Star Trek for me confirmed!
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Hang on, I thought the facepalm came from Deja Q?
 
G

Gary Whitta

Member
bkfount said:
Speaking of TNG, I finally got around to beginning a run through of it. While I thoroughly enjoyed DS9, TNG is boring as shit so far.

It's funny seeing the Ferengi portrayed as monkeys and the shitty special effects, but it hurts to see Worf as an under fed woman that sucks at fighting. Even what they did with Yar was pointless, as it was only season one. Why the hell would I even care at this point?

The awful character development and episodes so far just makes me respect DS9 even more.
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TNG doesn't get good until Season 3.
 
M

maharg

idspispopd
And it's never good in terms of character development (except in some very isolated bursts). That's not what TNG is about.
 
G

Gary Whitta

Member
Mama Robotnik said:
Hang on, I thought the facepalm came from Deja Q?
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The facepalm I referred to was this one:

picard-facepalm.jpg


And only an episode apart, "A Matter of Perspective":

riker-facepalm.jpg


Deja Q is within that batch of episodes too, in fact all three are on the same disc on the DVD set. Season 3 is like the facepalm season!
 
X

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
bkfount said:
Speaking of TNG, I finally got around to beginning a run through of it. While I thoroughly enjoyed DS9, TNG is boring as shit so far.

It's funny seeing the Ferengi portrayed as monkeys and the shitty special effects, but it hurts to see Worf as an under fed woman that sucks at fighting. Even what they did with Yar was pointless, as it was only season one. Why the hell would I even care at this point?

The awful character development and episodes so far just makes me respect DS9 even more.
Click to expand...
DS9 had the advantage of 5+ years of TNG for writers to get established and iron things out in terms of how to write a ST episode/series. TNG had nothing but TOS 18 years prior and a few movies to try to build something from and reestablish the Star Trek name/franchise, yet still be different as its supposed to be something new and different from the original. DS9 also didn't have Roddenberry around, who would have likely changed a lot of how DS9 started out.
 
M

maharg

idspispopd
Also, the first season was trying to poorly adapt a bunch of scripts written for the series that eventually became The Motion Picture. They weren't very good scripts and they were written for Kirk as captain.

I still get a kick out of the Riker/Decker Betazoid/Deltan Troi/Illia mapping.
 
B

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
yeah, i think it's really unfair to compare TNG to DS9--almost as unfair as it is to try and compare the complexity of TOS to TNG. at least to me, there was a very steady maturation from series to series for those first three shows.
 
E

Escape Goat

Member
Mama Robotnik said:
Gotcha. Don't forget the ultra rare, behind-the-scenes facepalm.

palm1.jpg


(No silly lines on the uniform, so its at least season three.)
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Nerd alert: but its Season 1. Troi never had that hair past 1.
 
R

Rahul

Member
Been watching the shows with the girlfriend who had never seen them in their entirety. We did TNG in January/Feb, DS9 through March/April and are now halfway through season 2 of Voyager.

Watching these shows again after roughly 10 years is really interesting. I remembered the character of Garak as being very complicated and never fully explained, but today it seems like they were going for that but messed up in some places (specifically the episodes where Garak's claustrophobia or emotional pining appear). On the other hand, I remembered the Kai Wynn political intrigue as being boring compared to the giant space wars of DS9, but found it entirely the opposite today. I guess it's attributable to not being a teenager anymore.

One thing's certainly struck me though, and connects a little to the discussion going on here about how some of the episodes don't seem to have any meaningful impact: I would love a contiguous Star Trek shaped after The Wire.

I can imagine it now: a concise 5 season Star Trek show focusing on the politics of the Alpha Quadrant and centering on both figureheads and nobodies from both sides of the conflict, each season dealing with different locations and characters. I want to see what happens at Starfleet HQ, but I also want to know what it's like on the planets in the Badlands caught in the crossfire. And I want vital, permanent, unexpected consequences to befall anyone, be it captains of starships or omniscient alien races. I want the Song of Ice and Fire edition of Star Trek.

But I guess we'll never get that since the "epic space war" element of Star Trek just won out over the "political intrigue" part.
 
M

maharg

idspispopd
Rahul said:
I can imagine it now: a concise 5 season Star Trek show focusing on the politics of the Alpha Quadrant and centering on both figureheads and nobodies from both sides of the conflict, each season dealing with different locations and characters. I want to see what happens at Starfleet HQ, but I also want to know what it's like on the planets in the Badlands caught in the crossfire. And I want vital, permanent, unexpected consequences to befall anyone, be it captains of starships or omniscient alien races. I want the Song of Ice and Fire edition of Star Trek.

But I guess we'll never get that since the "epic space war" element of Star Trek just won out over the "political intrigue" part.
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Oor... you could just watch Babylon 5.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Rahul said:
I can imagine it now: a concise 5 season Star Trek show focusing on the politics of the Alpha Quadrant and centering on both figureheads and nobodies from both sides of the conflict, each season dealing with different locations and characters. I want to see what happens at Starfleet HQ, but I also want to know what it's like on the planets in the Badlands caught in the crossfire. And I want vital, permanent, unexpected consequences to befall anyone, be it captains of starships or omniscient alien races. I want the Song of Ice and Fire edition of Star Trek.

But I guess we'll never get that since the "epic space war" element of Star Trek just won out over the "political intrigue" part.
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Closest Star Trek will get is DS9 which had a ton of politics in it.
 
A

aceface

Member
Jacobi said:
Have you guys tried them? I must say I'm curious how shirtless Kirk and Pon farr smell
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No, they were way too expensive, like $30 each I think? Pon farr is a perfume aimed at the ladies.
 
W

whatsinaname

Member
I want to start watching Star Trek. (I've just seen a few episodes while channel surfing and the new movie) What would GAF recommend I start with & what can I skip? My local library has The Original Series, Animated Series, TNG, DS9, Voyager.
 
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