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

Slayven

Member
3? I count barely even 1. The last few seconds of "Booby Trap". His misplaced defense of said episode to the real Leah in "Galaxy's Child". What's the third one you speak of?

The two you mentioned and the when he fell in love with the woman by viewing her logs.
 
I'd like to go to one of these but probably won't be able to.



The two you mentioned and the when he fell in love with the woman by viewing her logs.

Ah. I tend to forget most episodes post season 5.

Well, it's not really like they had a lot to work with in S1. I'm not as down on it as some people, but it really lacks stand-out episodes. At least in the good way.

I'm with you on S1 not being as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Is it rough around the edges? Sure. It was the first season when the characters and feel of the show hadn't been nailed down yet. A lot of shows back then were like that since back then most shows were allowed to breath before being cancelled unlike now. They didn't have to strike it big immediately or else.

The s1 event should have just been Encounter at Farpoint.

Yeah I mean how stupid were these people not to use the premiere episode on the anniversary of it's beginning. It's an obvious choice but it's obvious for a reason.
 

maharg

idspispopd
I'm with you on S1 not being as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Is it rough around the edges? Sure. It was the first season when the characters and feel of the show hadn't been nailed down yet. A lot of shows back then were like that since back then most shows were allowed to breath before being cancelled like now. They didn't have to strike it big immediately or else.

Nah, I don't think that's true at all. It just seems that way because you don't know of or remember the ones that got cancelled. SF TV in particular back then was a killing field.

TNG lasted its growing pains because it was, from the start, pretty fantastically successful. All those Trekkers had been waiting so long for something new on TV and they gobbled it up. 27 million people watched Encounter at Farpoint.
 
Nah, I don't think that's true at all. It just seems that way because you don't know of or remember the ones that got cancelled. SF TV in particular back then was a killing field.

TNG lasted its growing pains because it was, from the start, pretty fantastically successful. All those Trekkers had been waiting so long for something new on TV and they gobbled it up. 27 million people watched Encounter at Farpoint.

Huh 27 million isn't that high when you consider that viewership was a lot higher back than since cable had yet to really skewer viewership like it did in the 90's and on.

And I do remember what It was like back then. TV show's (of any genre) were given more opportunity than now since a lot less money was at stake. Yes SF was a niche market then...just as it is now. If TNG were to premiere today, it wouldn't last 3 episode. That's not a condemnation of the writing but a statement on how cutthroat it has become today.
 
If TNG were to premiere today, it wouldn't last 3 episode.
I don't know and also think that is is impossible to know. If it came out today, it would be different. I'd bet the "cut-throat" business demands would lead toward a crew of teeny-bopping humanoid eyecandies that would spend half the time on the show updating the status in their personal logs (but I don't know).
 
I don't know and also think that is is impossible to know. If it came out today, it would be different. I'd bet the "cut-throat" business demands would lead toward a crew of teeny-bopping humanoid eyecandies that would spend half the time on the show updating the status in their personal logs (but I don't know).

Lol you just described Abrahms Trek.
 
No it doesnt

Yes it does. The oldest guys on there were Urban & Pegg and they're only late 30s/early 40s. The majority of the plot was Emo Spock against Douchebag Fratboy Kirk. If you think that the cast wasn't specifically chosen due to their appeal to the teen set than I don't know what to say.
 
TNG didn't even get good until the third season, so why are they showing off the second season? They're the Pulaski episodes for shits sake!

I completely understand why they're not doing a season one retrospective though...Oy...
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Too bad I probably won't be able to catch a screening this time around. Then again, it'd probably be better if I just put that 15 dollars toward buying the set. lol
 
YES.

FEk4l.png
 

Boerseun

Banned
Yes it does. The oldest guys on there were Urban & Pegg and they're only late 30s/early 40s. The majority of the plot was Emo Spock against Douchebag Fratboy Kirk. If you think that the cast wasn't specifically chosen due to their appeal to the teen set than I don't know what to say.

+1

Star Trek reboot was just terrible on all fronts. Not bad enough to outright kill my love of the franchise though (thus unlike Crystal Skull or Episode 1). I just try to forget it ever happened and enjoy my Next Gen DVDs.
 
After falling back in love with the TNG blus, want more Trek. Haven't seen DS9 since it was on; how are the DVDs? Shoddy or totally do the job?
 

Rinoa

Member
You got it wrong. He didn't write Darmok, he directed it. Along with a lot of Trek including "All Good Things..."

Ah, I assumed he wrote it. Still RIP to him and that was a legendary ep.

+1

Star Trek reboot was just terrible on all fronts. Not bad enough to outright kill my love of the franchise though (thus unlike Crystal Skull or Episode 1). I just try to forget it ever happened and enjoy my Next Gen DVDs.

They can do whatever they want with TOS. As long they don't reboot/touch TNG ever!
 
Yes it does. The oldest guys on there were Urban & Pegg and they're only late 30s/early 40s. The majority of the plot was Emo Spock against Douchebag Fratboy Kirk. If you think that the cast wasn't specifically chosen due to their appeal to the teen set than I don't know what to say.

The original casts of the original Treks were about same in their 30's and 40's so lets not get ridiculous. If anything they chose them based on looks but age difference was not that big.
 

Boerseun

Banned
To be honest, I could have done without the TNG movies. Their storylines could easily have been worked into a Season 8, after which Riker would have departed the Enterprise to captain the Titan, with Troi following him, making for a separate show. While Season 9 would have seen Picard retiring mid-season, only for Data to take over the captain's seat of the Enterprise. That way we would never have gotten the abominations that were Voyager and Enterprise (or the horrible HORRIBLE movie reboot).

Just imagine - you could have had three shows running at once - TNG, DS9 and Titan. Any feature films could have mixed the casts of all three shows, and featured stories that would then have had repercussions on television, again across all three shows.

But okay, it's too late for that sort of thing now. Just wishful thinking! *sigh*
 
To be honest, I could have done without the TNG movies. Their storylines could easily have been worked into a Season 8, after which Riker would have departed the Enterprise to captain the Titan, with Troi following him, making for a separate show. While Season 9 would have seen Picard retiring mid-season, only for Data to take over the captain's seat of the Enterprise. That way we would never have gotten the abominations that were Voyager and Enterprise (or the horrible HORRIBLE movie reboot).

Just imagine - you could have had three shows running at once - TNG, DS9 and Titan. Any feature films could have mixed the casts of all three shows, and featured stories that would then have had repercussions on television, again across all three shows.

But okay, it's too late for that sort of thing now. Just wishful thinking! *sigh*

The uneven at best quality of Voyager, Enterprise and the movies had absolutely nothing to do with them not being extended TNG seasons. Didn't you notice that Season 7 was substantially weaker than the show in its prime?

The writers had started to suck, and the power structure was set at that point. TNG season 8 would have been pretty bad, and any spinoff shows would have been terrible.
 

maharg

idspispopd
The uneven at best quality of Voyager, Enterprise and the movies had absolutely nothing to do with them not being extended TNG seasons. Didn't you notice that Season 7 was substantially weaker than the show in its prime?

The writers had started to suck, and the power structure was set at that point. TNG season 8 would have been pretty bad, and any spinoff shows would have been terrible.

Everything started falling apart when Gene died. Power vacuum was filled with people who didn't give a shit. Except Ronald Moore, who still took it in some pretty ridiculous directions because of his obsession with spirituality.
 
Everything started falling apart when Gene died. Power vacuum was filled with people who didn't give a shit. Except Ronald Moore, who still took it in some pretty ridiculous directions because of his obsession with spirituality.

I don't see how you can make such a statement. Ira Behr, Ron Moore, and Michael Piller absolutely did care. You can see it in the DS9 Companion and the DVD extras. The entire writing staff of DS9 put a lot of effort and love into the show, and you can tell.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
I think he's talking more about Enterprise and Voyager. DS9 was able to succeed where it did because Berman and Braga were focused on Voyager and DS9 was allowed to go a bit wild. Berman (by choice) only took a minimal role in the show, pretty much glancing at it, and giving his OK, Other than Berman being part of the very early concepts for the show, and vetoing Behr's stupid "it was all a dream" finale, I don't think he really did anything as far as DS9 goes.
 

Boerseun

Banned
The uneven at best quality of Voyager, Enterprise and the movies had absolutely nothing to do with them not being extended TNG seasons. Didn't you notice that Season 7 was substantially weaker than the show in its prime?

The writers had started to suck, and the power structure was set at that point. TNG season 8 would have been pretty bad, and any spinoff shows would have been terrible.

There was no reason to do the movies aside from doing more movies. Their content could easily have been shifted to TV shows. With my idea you would have the shows everyone loved and you could still make the movies and maintain a box office presence if you wanted to.

Which season is weaker is clearly subjective. I keep seeing people here rating Season 4 above Season 3, when the earlier season was clearly better (in my subjective opinion). Seasons 5 and 6 were again stronger than 4 or 3. Season 7 I'd put somewhere in the middle, probably on par with 4.

I reckon the shake-ups I suggest could have given the writers the refresh they needed.
 

maharg

idspispopd
I don't see how you can make such a statement. Ira Behr, Ron Moore, and Michael Piller absolutely did care. You can see it in the DS9 Companion and the DVD extras. The entire writing staff of DS9 put a lot of effort and love into the show, and you can tell.

What Forester said. DS9 was an accident.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
I think he's talking more about Enterprise and Voyager. DS9 was able to succeed where it did because Berman and Braga were focused on Voyager and DS9 was allowed to go a bit wild. Berman (by choice) only took a minimal role in the show, pretty much glancing at it, and giving his OK, Other than Berman being part of the very early concepts for the show, and vetoing Behr's stupid "it was all a dream" finale, I don't think he really did anything as far as DS9 goes.
Berman forced them to go half episodic, half serial. Which is why they'd have random wacky adventures while this war that's threatening the heart of the federation was going on.

Remember when Worf had to deal with some kind of civil war on Risa? Yeah... :p
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Berman forced them to go half episodic, half serial. Which is why they'd have random wacky adventures while this war that's threatening the heart of the federation was going on.

Remember when Worf had to deal with some kind of civil war on Risa? Yeah... :p

Can't blame that episode on anyone but the writer of that episode. DS9 had many great one-off episodes.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Can't blame that episode on anyone but the writer of that episode. DS9 had many great one-off episodes.
I guess so. It's still weird when they're off having adventures with their future children or Jake is off on a retconned parallel universe adventure when this war is going on in the background.

Then again, I suppose life in America was fairly banal during WW2... so maybe that's fine.
 

maharg

idspispopd
I guess so. It's still weird when they're off having adventures with their future children or Jake is off on a retconned parallel universe adventure when this war is going on in the background.

Then again, I suppose life in America was fairly banal during WW2... so maybe that's fine.

I'd be shocked if they had to twist their arms that hard to get standalone episodes anyways. For Trek it was a very involved arc, but it really didn't actually have that much substance to it. Especially to support 4 or 5 24+ episode seasons.
 
Berman forced them to go half episodic, half serial. Which is why they'd have random wacky adventures while this war that's threatening the heart of the federation was going on.

Remember when Worf had to deal with some kind of civil war on Risa? Yeah... :p

B5 had its one off episodes too (although probably not as random as DS9). It's nice to have a break in the arc once in a while.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
I'd be shocked if they had to twist their arms that hard to get standalone episodes anyways. For Trek it was a very involved arc, but it really didn't actually have that much substance to it. Especially to support 4 or 5 24+ episode seasons.
I seem to remember in the Companion that Behr or Moore was disappointed that they had to make the compromise. I never did watch The 4400, but you can see that Moore take the opposite approach in BSG at least.

B5 had its one off episodes too (although probably not as random as DS9). It's nice to have a break in the arc once in a while.
I honestly can't remember - when JMS decided to write every episode in S3 and S4, did they have episodes like... random dude thinking he was King Arthur showing up out of nowhere?
(That was Michael York too, wasn't it? lol)
 

maharg

idspispopd
I seem to remember in the Companion that Behr or Moore was disappointed that they had to make the compromise. I never did watch The 4400, but you can see that Moore take the opposite approach in BSG at least.


I honestly can't remember - when JMS decided to write every episode in S3 and S4, did they have episodes like... random dude thinking he was King Arthur showing up out of nowhere?
(That was Michael York too, wasn't it? lol)

I think BSG still had a fair amount of filler. Only the first (short) season is pretty much non-stop. B5 from late S2 to the end of S4 is pretty much the only case I can think of of a 20+ episode season show going full speed for most of its run (Late Delivery From Avalon is a pretty notable divergence). Obviously even it had a couple of exceptions, but they usually found a way to tie it in.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
I think BSG still had a fair amount of filler. Only the first (short) season is pretty much non-stop. B5 from late S2 to the end of S4 is pretty much the only case I can think of of a 20+ episode season show going full speed for most of its run (Late Delivery From Avalon is a pretty notable divergence). Obviously even it had a couple of exceptions, but they usually found a way to tie it in.

Well, I think BSG had its own fair share of problems that I can't really remember the filler episodes. lol

I do just remember B5 trucking it during the Shadow/Civil War parts of the show anyhow. There were still some bottle episodes, but yeah, they tied in fairly well.
 
Fuck! Lwaxana appears in DS9

*groans*

More than once!

Finished up an episode of DS9 S7 tonight that I had watched halfway before but didn't finish. Been into a lot of Fringe lately. I still intend to finish watching DS9, but
Jadzia's
death just got me so down that I couldn't really bear to watch more for a long while.
 

Cheerilee

Member
There was no reason to do the movies aside from doing more movies. Their content could easily have been shifted to TV shows. With my idea you would have the shows everyone loved and you could still make the movies and maintain a box office presence if you wanted to.

I reckon the shake-ups I suggest could have given the writers the refresh they needed.

The reason TNG did movies instead of season 8 was (like everything) because of money. The Trek actors (especially Picard) were getting more and more famous and costing more and more money with every season. They couldn't afford to keep the cast we all loved. They needed to ditch the veterans and replace them with rookies.

So, move Ensign Ro to DS9 (and then recast her as Major Kira)? Check.
Dump Wesley into another plane of existence? Check.
Send Dr Crusher off to Starfleet Medical again? Check.
Move Worf to DS9? Check.
Dump the Rikers onto the Titan? Check.
Dump Picard because he costs too much? Check.
Dump Data because he costs too much? Check.
Dump Geordi since they've dumped everyone else? Why not.
Keep Barclay? Sure.

Now who do we get to replace Picard? I know, let's have our first female Captain. Kate Mulgrew looks good. We'll call her Janeway.
And who could ever replace Worf? Why not a Vulcan, we haven't had one of those in a while. A Black Vulcan. Tim Russ is always great, we'll call him Tuvok.
Riker? Let's make him a Native American former-Maquis badass. Beltran, Chakotay.
Crusher? Picardo, the holographic Doctor.
Geordi? ... a Klingon Engineer! A female Klingon Engineer! Oh man this is getting crazy.
Not quite awesome enough. We need a Wesley. Let's bring back Nicholas Locarno!
Not quite nerdy and robotic enough. Let's hire an Asian!
OMG OMG... I just had the best idea ever... Neelix.

That's season 8 of TNG. It's Voyager. Apparently behind the scenes, Voyager Season 1 was sometimes referred to as Voyager Season 8. Because Voyager was supposed to be the next stage of TNG. No more of this "space station" nonsense. Voyager was "real" Trek. The writers didn't need a shake-up to get good. They had plenty of shake-up, and they mostly got worse.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
That's season 8 of TNG. It's Voyager. Apparently behind the scenes, Voyager Season 1 was sometimes referred to as Voyager Season 8. Because Voyager was supposed to be the next stage of TNG. No more of this "space station" nonsense. Voyager was "real" Trek. The writers didn't need a shake-up to get good. They had plenty of shake-up, and they mostly got worse.
The thing is, when you work on Trek for almost 20 years, you probably aren't going to have new ideas. Heck, even Moore couldn't work with Berman and Braga anymore, and Moore and Braga were basically inseparable pre-Voyager/DS9.

Remember that they even tried to bring back Behr to help them with Enterprise and that meeting ended with "creative differences".
 
Fuck! Lwaxana appears in DS9

*groans*

Interesting point about episode Fascination was made in SF Debris... it's actually worse than The Naked Now, even though it's a 3rd season DS9 ep, and The Naked Now was one of the very worst TNG season 1 episodes.
 
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