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Discuss Star Trek and everything about it

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At the start of the new year I've started watching Stark Trek again. I've watched all of the series twice except for DS9 and the original, because its just before my time and I was never able to get into either.

What are your thoughts about the franchise?

I went through Voyager earlier this year and a lot of it was easier to watch than I remember 15 years ago. Some of it was still laughably awful, but after the second season it got better in my opinion.

I've always found it interesting that Kess left at the end of the third season, almost as abruptly as Yarr did in the Next Generation. Looking up the reasoning people said drugs, others say the writers had nothing available for her writing wise. Re-watching that third season, they really didn't have anything for her. She was barely in it other than episodes where she was unconscious or played a completely different role as if she was a guest star in one of her only starring episodes.

Now I'm on DS9 from start to finish for the first time. I just started season 3 and my interest dropped off a cliff in the second season. The character driven nature just doesn't seem to be enough for me right now. I hear it gets much better, but the third season kicks off with them getting a ship and going into the worm hole.

Almost making it a completely new series with the same cast. I know when an aircraft carrier gets new jets, the captain and crew of a naval vessel fly their jets, completely abandoning their own posts with no one in charge. It just seems odd.

I also find myself enamored with the Mirrorverse. I've always been wrapped in it since seeing A Mirror Darkly on the Enterprise series. Watching DS9 they made a reference to it, so I had to watch the TOS to see more and learn about it. I really like the one off episodes where anything can happen.

I can't be the only Doomer that has thoughts, opinions, loves, hates and laugh ats about the Star Trek universe.

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I watched the original Star Trek before The Next Generation was conceived. I also read all the James Blish versions of the TOS stories in paperback. It seemed really weird at first watching the first few TNG episodes, then I really got into it. Lots of cool stuff in TNG but the one episode I hate is where Beverly Crusher falls in love with the Ghost. That was as bad as having to watch an episode of Murder She Bloat or something. :p

I've seen most of the films except the first one in the theater when they were released. Actually there's a couple others I'm not sure if I saw them in theater or not.. hmmm. I think most memorable of the movies via theater viewing was The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country. Good fukken times. Khan was damned awesome and I've since watched it on DVD a few times.

I'm a big fan of Deep Space 9. I thoroughly enjoyed DS9 from start to finish and it was a bummer to see it end. Such an awesome cast and stories in the Deep Space 9 series. I need to watch it all again soon. Some good laughs in there too.

Voyager was ok and there was times I thought they should leave Janeway on some planet and give somebody else the command. Kes leaving didn't bug me at all unlike when Tasha Yar left TNG. Yar I liked and Kes not so much from what I remember. It's been ages since I watched Voyager. I recall watching Voyager and then either DS9 or TNG and then Sliders or some other sci-fi show all back to back. Now TV is infested with Swamp People and other junk shows. We need a new Trek series for fuck sakes not more reality crap.

Enterprise I never really got into that much. It's the only Trek series I never watched from start to finish. It was on during a time when I wasn't into watching anything at all. Guess I should watch the whole thing soon, now that I think about it. haha.

It was sometime in 2014 or so that I finally got to see the animated series. I don't remember it ever being on TV. I thought some of it was really good. The animation is pretty olde school but I like olde shit like that anyhow. It's certainly worth checking out.

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I got into Star Trek when I was 8. It's so burned into my mind that I regularly dream about it even when I haven't watched it in months. People seem to pick up really quickly that I like Star Trek, even when I don't talk about it much. I get a lot of random trek loot from people - sometimes because they were walking by a garage sale and saw something for 25 cents.

The animated trek is notable for being one of the only cartoons from the 70s with any kind of intelligence. Even with crappy Filmation budgets and some cheesy ideas it still manages to be better than just about everything on for kids before The Real Ghostbusters.

They should try making another Trek movie that isn't just about a cranky bad guy trying to blow everybody up. Might be fun.

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The past few weeks I've been copying the Original Series Blu-Rays to a more convenient format, and have watched a handful of them during the process. Compared to first seeing them on poor quality 1980s-era cable TV, this is like watching them for the first time. Actually, I don't remember seeing all of them before, so I really am watching some of them for the first time. I'm liking the remastered episodes, because unlike some other franchise with "Star" in its name the new effects don't alter characterization or add CGI aliens doing something funny in the background (or foreground) for the fun of it while simultaneously claiming this was the author's intent all along and trying to destroy all evidence that the "unremastered" versions ever existed. (The episodes as they originally aired are also on the Blu-Rays. I'm pretty sure this is the reason I bought the discs and a player in the first place, as only the remastered episodes are on the DVDs.) I'm not the only one (re)watching them at the moment: Planet Of Hats

TNG is the only series where I've seen every episode, and I'm pretty sure I saw everything during its original run except for a handful of season 7 episodes (which I saw not long after the final episode, I think). I never got into DS9 and stopped watching somewhere in the first or second season, but I'm also thinking this was a mistake and may have to revisit it sometime. I think I've seen less than ten Voyager episodes in their entirety. I've seen parts of Enterprise episodes, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen an entire one. :-P

I don't think I was even aware of the Animated Series until the late 1990s. Apparently a handful of episodes are pretty good and I may have to get ahold of them sometime ("More Tribbles, More Troubles" is already on the TOS Blu-Ray set, although I haven't seen it yet)...

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I've been a fan of Star Trek since a kid, I grew up watching The Next Generation, and kind of managed to see most of Voyager, barely saw the first season or so of Enterprise before giving up on it. At some point, I managed to find and watch both Deep Space Nine and The Original Series.

In my opinion, Voyager and Enterprise both are total shit and I'm not bothering with them anymore. The Next Generation is good, but the characters are mostly bland... Deep Space Nine and The Original Series are on the top of their games, almost entirely excellent throughout and a large part of that is that the characters are all well-developed with good interactions among them.

I actually got TOS on Blu-ray a couple months ago, and I've watched all of it since then. I love the new effects, they did them very tastefully and in spirit of the original show. Nothing feels out of place. The presentation is excellent on the Blu-ray, even on the bad episodes. Given the quality of the film at some points, it can sadly go between being crystal-sharp in 1080p to being blurry, but I hardly fault it.

Likewise, I have them only on the older DVDs, but I started watching The Next Generation again. The first season... I'm pushing through it. Just saw the fourth episode where the Ferengi are introduced. It is hard to believe this series went onto greatness, but I'll get there. Still debating whether I'll watch Skin of Evil again; I've actively avoided it in the past, Tasha Yar was one of my favorite characters and for her to be killed off so pointlessly is painful to me.

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I've been a casual Star Trek fan, I suppose, watching the original series and TNG whenever it's on TV. I've seen very few of the movies all the way through: Nemesis, and the two newer ones. Nemesis was okay, but kinda dumb.

I have a book on the history of the show, which I find slightly more interesting than the show itself.

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I've only seen a few episodes of Yoyager by accident such as one about a dream of a raven and the other about a evil holographic AI or something of the like.

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Voyager always pisses me off. It has some good episodes, but it keeps trying to be a continuation of the 7th season of TNG when it should be more like Battlestar Galactica. They don't have supplies; the ship should be broken all the damn time. Janeway is also so poorly written even Kate Mulgrew thinks she's insane.

Enterprise pisses me off for trying to be Voyager. I was happy to see it break that pattern in the last two seasons.

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Aliotroph? said:

Voyager always pisses me off. It has some good episodes, but it keeps trying to be a continuation of the 7th season of TNG when it should be more like Battlestar Galactica. They don't have supplies; the ship should be broken all the damn time. Janeway is also so poorly written even Kate Mulgrew thinks she's insane.

Enterprise pisses me off for trying to be Voyager. I was happy to see it break that pattern in the last two seasons.


Do you mean because Enterprise went on that season long journey into the expanse? I was pretty captivated by it the first time I saw it, but the second time it didn't have the same effect on me.

Interesting Kate Mulgrew felt Janeway was insane. Any particular reason why? Just that she was poorly written?

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I love TNG. Only got into it a few years ago, but it was a love at first sight kind of thing. The episode in particular was "Frame of Mind" where Riker is preparing for a play where he plays an insane man, and the play starts becoming his reality. It's really an excellent show, especially for the often subtle social commentary. Picard and the others are often faced with moral dilemmas and watching them figure out the best way to deal with it always entertains me.

Oh, and the Borg are awesome. First Contact was easily the best movie, for me at least.

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Last year I watched TOS completely and this year all the movies and the animated series which was quite good to be honest. I plan to watch TNG this summer but I got problems finding time to watch all episodes.

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This is a must see which i truly enjoyed lately ;

http://www.startrekcontinues.com/episodes.html

They are able to mimic the original lighting, the original colors, they have a full set, and even the original VFX are replicated in a superb manner. A lot more fun to watch than star trek + modern really bad renders. (meant towards the remake and not TNG)

The story lines seem to be based on the original series.

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geo said:

Interesting Kate Mulgrew felt Janeway was insane. Any particular reason why? Just that she was poorly written?

Lots of reasons. Poor writing is the general reason, but there are lots of examples where Janeway is anything from a narcissist to a sadistic murderer.

Consider Tuvix (the episode), where she executes Tuvix (the person) in order to bring back two crew members. That whole episode had problems though.

In Scorpion, she makes a deal with the Borg. Virtually everyone is against it, and as everyone said it would, the Borg turn on them in the end. She completely disowns Chakotay for not agreeing with her plan. This is one of two times she allies with another species, otherwise considering it an absolute offense of the Prime Directive or whatever. The other time she went into it at the behest of her crew, and appeared to have intentionally sabotaged it just so she could say she was right about alliances.

A special side note for the end of Scorpion and the following episode, The Gift, where she decides Seven of Nine is now her abductee. Her pet project. Like it or not, Borg have individual rights. This is something we've already tackled in The Next Generation episode I Borg. Seven is held against her will and forced into this role as a crew member aboard Voyager, where she experiences a great deal of prejudice and hate from the crew. Janeway does little to nothing to deal with the crew's behavior.

In Equinox, she completely loses it. She attempts to seize command over Ransom's ship and his crew on an incredible leap of logic, referencing a directive that allows captains to take command of a fleet during combat operations. After he decides she's nuts and leaves, she goes on a quest for revenge. In this quest, she not only unnecessarily risks her entire ship and crew, but her interrogation of an Equinox crew member very nearly gets him killed. It was her intention for him to die, and that man only survived because Chakotay had a conscience and the writers remembered he existed.

In The Thaw, she's rather sadistic about shutting down a sentient program. She seems to use his nature as a murderer as an excuse. She taunts the program as it expresses fear at its inevitable demise.

There are, of course, more examples, but these are probably the most notable ones.

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geo said:

Interesting Kate Mulgrew felt Janeway was insane. Any particular reason why? Just that she was poorly written?

Because she was fucking insane. Have you watched the show? Terrible character.

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Technician said:

Because she was fucking insane. Have you watched the show? Terrible character.


There's only one way to prove insanity....

A Tripod website from what I assume is 1999: http://alternative-quadrant.tripod.com/janeway.htm

Yeah I watched the show, she's just as crazy as the other captains. She's probably the strongest female in Star Trek history.... well other than a guest star.

They're all just so bat shit crazy. Tasha Yarr talking about the rape camps. Major Kira going nuts over the slightest thing, but at least now she's mellowed out to someone even keeled by the third season. DeeAnna crying and yelling all the time. I'm happy with Hoshi, Dax, Kess and Ohura doing nothing but sitting in a chair in the background... the Harry Kim role.

I'm at the point now in DS9 where they've got purple under their uniforms.

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geo said:

Yeah I watched the show, she's just as crazy as the other captains.

Compared to Kirk, Picard and Sisko? HAHAHAHAHA!!! They all had development, matured in their series. Janeway just went on dubious moral crusades that endangered her crew and whole civilizations to uphold Kenneth Biller's her personal morality that would fluctuate at her convenience. And at the end of the day, even if her decisions came off as heinous, the show would still lick her asshole and called it butter.

The only other captain that could possibly compare is Jonathan Archer, but he's just stupid.

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maturity is a very personal, relative, or cultural opinion when it comes to physically adult humans with no sad mental condition.

In T.O.S. the acting was kind of forced and over acted at many times to maintain this sense of power, the men who know their deal, and responsibility during even the weirdest old school scenes. Many of the alien settlements their woman really seem to be the normal looking-good types, the manipulative types, or the type with a bit of extra to it. The human emotional level is usually limited in some way or another. (in my opinion.) the characters (even tough over-acted) just seemed to be slightly limited in range and confined by etiquette, mature men and woman.

In T.N.G. they used every healthy every-day human his or her emotional range to its fullest. They are not insane to show normal human emotions, usually you need to have some mental issue if one can not stand, see, or hear, emotions without thinking they are weird or abnormal. Diana (Marina Sirtis) really mastered that aspect to clearly show she is in a lot of mental stress with her special emotion based powers. And Sir Patrick Steward masterfully acted a sturdy head strong military man trying to hide his weakness or emotions, which proves to be against his human nature because he cant maintain that at all times. every main bridge, med-bay, and engineering actor in T.N.G. really nailed the humanity. nothing crazy or immature there. Even when Picard reaches a state in which Q starts to admire him for it, he remains a human with emotions.


anything after that i truly watched but it left me so cold i could barely maintain more thoughts than ; 'it was O.K. but not great.'

but yes, sadly anything after T.O.S. and T.N.G. takes a nose dive be means of writing and actually not the actors. Well ignoring the 'enterprise' series. Scott Bacula shows he tried hard, but the show is kind of against all odds. clearly a 'lets probe the audience its interest' kind of show.

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DS9 was my favorite, and Sisko is my favorite captain. Heartless when he had to be... making decisions no one else wanted to make. Sisko was one of the best lead characters in the entire franchise.

It helps that Avery Brooks is batshit crazy in real life. You watch interviews of all of them: the rest are eccentric, but Brooks is on another fucking planet entirely. He can play piano like a sonofabitch, though.

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On the whole, I would have enjoyed DS9 a lot more if I hadn't found the whole Bajoran thing so boring. Blah blah resistance, blah blah Prophets, blah blah Bajoran government. But it admittedly got really good when they introduced the Dominion stuff.

And Voyager is underrated, I think. It doesn't hold a candle to TNG, but there's some damn fine episodes. Janeway wasn't all that bad of a Captain btw.

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Technician said:

Compared to Kirk, Picard and Sisko? HAHAHAHAHA!!! They all had development, matured in their series. Janeway just went on dubious moral crusades that endangered her crew and whole civilizations to uphold Kenneth Biller's her personal morality that would fluctuate at her convenience. And at the end of the day, even if her decisions came off as heinous, the show would still lick her asshole and called it butter.

The only other captain that could possibly compare is Jonathan Archer, but he's just stupid.


Janeway did become a mother in a way. All of the captains had fluctuating morals. Perhaps its more prevalent with Janeway, or its because people hate what they want to.

Seven was a good foil for having heinous actions that Janeway would then yell at her about. Maybe the writers realized Janeway be crazy, so they made Seven worse.

I think both Archer and Janeway were put in stupidly bullshit circumstances while TNG feels very sterile. Both the previously mentioned captains have had moral delemas, one stuck to her morals, assembled an alliance and I'm pretty sure that Archer became a pirate for an episode. It was almost the same circumstance too.

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DoomUK said:

On the whole, I would have enjoyed DS9 a lot more if I hadn't found the whole Bajoran thing so boring. Blah blah resistance, blah blah Prophets, blah blah Bajoran government. But it admittedly got really good when they introduced the Dominion stuff.


Agreed. After watching their society for 2 seasons, they mobbed and murdered people, almost assassinated someone. They're just a really big cult of religious thugs poorly cast as the weak and downtrodden. I went in not liking them, but ever Bajoran episode I sank deeper and deeper into hatred.

DS9 never showed us what it was like and its television. Don't tell us, show us. We never get to see in DS9 that the Cardassians are cruel, we just hear about it from Bajorans.

I think the Duet episode was probably the best in terms of hearing both sides. Too bad the Cardassian turned out to just pretending to be so evil to get killed. He wasn't really evil.

Maybe they'll get more into it later. I watch the Mirrorverse and I see how evil the Terrans are. I watch TNG and remember when a Cardassian interrogated Picard. I just don't see that with DS9.

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