Star Trek discussions

[CBM]

9 minutes ago, RHhe82 said:

 

I can agree with these sentiments. I respect TOS, but I have never watched it through. There are decent ideas, but far too often execution is so lacking, it's hard to forgive the passage of time. I mean, I hate it when people pass on judgments for past attitudes based on 2020s morality, but sometimes TOS can be really cringeworthy.

 

But I don't really like Discovery or Picard, either. I don't hate them, there are some things I really like in those. For instance, I really liked the character of Lorca in the first season of Discovery - until he was totally destroyed by the writers with a high school grade plot twist. Gone was the PTSD renegade captain, in was the cartoon evil space Trump with all the "Let's make the empire great again"-speeches. It always seems the same with DSC. They show some potential and promise early in the season only to squander it later on with silly plots dealing with threats to whole existence and by treating Burnham like a superhuman that can do no wrong (and even when she does, she's rewarded in the end for it anyway, let Saru suffer consequences of actually trying to do right). Compare it once again DS9: it had a lot at stake, but not the whole universe. There was a war against the Dominion, but if the federation had lost (and it can be argued it was pyrrhic victory in the end) then all would have happened was that federation would have fallen under new rule, that's it.

 

Picard suffers from the same ailment than Discovery. It showed promise, but the writers had to be edgy with torture porn scenes and in the end they resort to Marvel Avengers: Age of Ultron -kind of doomsday laser monster trope stupidity.

 

Lower Decks I actually kind of liked. I really hated it when the trailers first came out, and it did take a couple of episodes for me to warm up to it. I don't consider it canon, but rather a fan project borrowing elements from a familiar Trek universe.

I can agree with you on lower decks ... if seen in that light it might be ok

 

and yes discovery did show promise and that made the disappointment all the more severe for me when it quickly span out of control.... discovery is the reason I never tried to watch picard or lower decks at all ... I couldnt bear another knife in the hearth

[Naarok0fkor]

 

[Liberation]

7 hours ago, CBM said:

well I refuse to watch the Picard series as it seems to serve just one purpose... to destroy Picards legacy

 

I can respect that and as @RHhe82pointed out, some of the scenes are way too brutal for Star trek really. But despite being a TNG era fan boy, I do find it pretty intriguing and want to watch more, considering it is in the same time era as TNG was (just 20 years later), although very different. I was completely thrown by a Starfleet officer saying "fuck" for the first time I must admit.

 

Burnham is cool probably 75% of the time, and then she starts waxing on abit too much and I just wish that time could be invested in the rest of the bridge crew tbh.

 

I've never watched lower decks.. I feel like I should.

[Somniac]

Big trekkie here. I've even been to a convention! Although I didn't dress up, lots of people did and clearly made a huge effort. I saw Levar Burton, Brent Spiner and Denise Crosby give talks, and I listened to Patrick Stewart give a surprise last minute talk from outside the auditorium. This was at the NEC in Birmingham, 2019. The prop museum was awesome and the auction quite entertaining to watch.

 

For me TNG, DS9, and movies 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8 are the best. I really like quite a lot of Voyager too, something I have to remind myself of because the few truly bad episodes of the series take up too much space in my memory. Enterprise too, has its moments, though they are fewer.

 

I thought Discovery started out with promise, but you can count me among the people who don't like it. I was surprised by how much I was enjoying Picard, but I felt like the season finale was a bit of a cop out and I don't know how much I'm looking forward to season 2 now. I will give it a chance just to be fair.

[RHhe82]

1 hour ago, Liberation said:

But despite being a TNG era fan boy, I do find it pretty intriguing and want to watch more, considering it is in the same time era as TNG was (just 20 years later), although very different. I was completely thrown by a Starfleet officer saying "fuck" for the first time I must admit.

 

I was also put off by "sheer fucking hubris". It felt even more off-putting than the "fucking cool" uttered in Discovery.

 

Additionally it somehow bothered me when the characters were either smoking (or vaping) and drinking booze in Picard. On the other hand, in DS9 I have absolutely no qualms with Miles O'Brien and Julian Bashir getting wasted together, and I'm also reminded of Sisko ranting about how it's easy to be a saint in paradise (in Earth) and that on the outer rim of federation space people are struggling.

 

That said, I'm also interested in seeing the 4th season of DSC and the 2nd season of PIC -- Discovery has a track record, but I'm hoping to see they finally get it right. With Picard I would have liked the first season more if not for small grievances and the Marvel plot. PIC season one fell little less flat than each individual season of DSC. I just wouldn't want to take yet another streaming service to see them. Discovery used to be a Netflix show here in Finland, and Picard and Lower Decks were Amazon Prime shows. I think that Paramount doesn't offer the required service in Finland (or Europe in general) as of yet, which is a bummer anyway.

 

 

[Liberation]

Ah crap, didn't realise that Discovery got pulled from Netflix and added to pluto.tv for Europe! Have to look into that I guess, but I've missed 3 episodes already, unless they have a on demand option. You can buy the episodes directly from amazon, but I'm not going to do that.

 

 

[Redneckerz]

On 12/4/2021 at 1:32 PM, Liberation said:

I know this is an old argument, which was better etc etc, but I've always viewed them as very different things, I like star wars but it is just generic scifi which anyone can watch. While star trek I feel you have to be "a bit more" into scifi to appreciate or like. (Same with other scifi tv programs)

They are very different from one another but i understand what you are saying here. Star Trek in my eyes explores themes that are unusual to sci-fi. They deal with race, with social issues, but also explores sci-fi themes on a scale that still makes them impossible to do in real-life, but believable (See: Zefram Cochrane and the Warp Drive in 2063.)

14 hours ago, CBM said:

What about the Q?

 

In TNG S6E15 (tapestry)... it is suggested that the Q acts as the divine entity for the human race, making us get reborn in to new lives until such time that they think we are ready to become Q ourselves ... similar to what some religions already think.

 

so are the Q really ... "god"  in the star trek universe?

The Q aren't really gods, they are more of an extradimensional being that lives on a different plane of existence.

 

In much the same way Starfleet are gods to other, non-warp drive races, the Q is a god to Starfleet... that is to say, they aren't really gods at all, but just possess a kind of skill or technology far beyond what the host race is currently having.

 

The Founders from DS9 are also capable performing god-like efforts but its not like they are gods whatsoever.

21 minutes ago, Liberation said:

Ah crap, didn't realise that Discovery got pulled from Netflix and added to pluto.tv for Europe! Have to look into that I guess, but I've missed 3 episodes already, unless they have a on demand option. You can buy the episodes directly from amazon, but I'm not going to do that.

 

 

I am absolutely dreading that they remove DS9 before i get the chance to finish watching it.

[Liberation]

34 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

I am absolutely dreading that they remove DS9 before i get the chance to finish watching it.

 

I've not check the original stuff tbh, I assumed it was all still there. But I bought them all on DVD boxset, or blu ray in TNG's case, during lockdown last year.

 

But Discovery seems to have been the victim of that "Paramount +" thingy in the states, they're happy for people to see them for free, just not on netflix it seems. Anyway...

Going back to the gods thing, I was thinking about that at work today. Star trek imo tries to disprove any such notion of a "gods", whether it's the Edo, Bajoran's or another race (TNG "masks" being another example). For whatever Race that believes in a god, there is a scientific explanation, or at least some ST tech babble nonsense.. To explain that they're just more aliens, and not gods.

That's my interpretation anyway.

[wolfmcbeard]

Enterprise deserved a season five, change my mind.

[Apprentice]

58 minutes ago, wolfmcbeard said:

Enterprise deserved a season five, change my mind.

It had but the conservative TV-audience didn't like it, so it was cancelled.

 

Personally I say that the heydays of Star Trek are way behind us. The Next Generation was a good series, started out with storylines that were intended for Phase II but from the third season, it really gotten better and still has one of the best episodes ever made for television even if you remove the Star Trek aspect of it. Deep Space Nine was a bit darker and introduced the concept of an open war within the Trek universe, which was unthinkable if Roddenberry was still alive and had some particular good episodes (Waltz, Far beyond the stars).

 

Voyager was a hit and miss. Too many (freelance) writers were able to roam freely with the series and the characters which ultimately resulted in a lack of coherence, except for the coffee but did Kathryn Janeway ever fiddled her com badge except for Dark Frontier ?? There isn't an episode in the series that really stands out. Enterprise started slow and really gotten its momentum during the fourth season, where stories would take two or three episodes which was the kind of pacing the series needed. I consider season 4 of Enterprise to be the best, except for the last episode which they were contractual obliged to make.

 

If I have to choose between Discovery and Picard, I choose Picard. Discovery only has the name but has nothing to do with Star Trek. With some minor alterations, it could've been set in a different universe, name The Orville, Babylon 5, Star Wars, etc though I am wondering what the Pike spin-off is going to do. Picard is in that respect better but mainly because of Patrick Stewart but certain things such as "JL" !?!? I really can't image Riker saying that . . .

 

In overall, it's nice entertainment but in general it's not that memorable anymore. Both George and Gene had a good idea but other people have taken it to greater heights and unfortunately we've lost those people . . .

[BluePineapple72]

Watching TNG and DS9 concurrently right now. While I do love the characters and adventures of TNG a whole lot, I do find that Deep Space Nine feels more homely in a way; with the station being in a fixed point in the galaxy, we really get to see the development of Bajoran space and the politics throughout it. It's really interesting. Love seeing O'Brian show up in supporting roles in TNG when he has episodes of his own on DS9 too.

 

Though I am in Season 5 of the latter, and only in Season 3 of the former (my roommates and I are watching DS9 together, they've already seen TNG), so I'm further ahead with it.

 

All that aside, I personally think Klingons are the best alien species. I find that they're just so damn cool. Worf is also a genuine treat to watch. 

[leejacksonaudio]

[wolfmcbeard]

7 hours ago, Apprentice said:

Enterprise started slow and really gotten its momentum during the fourth season, where stories would take two or three episodes which was the kind of pacing the series needed. I consider season 4 of Enterprise to be the best, except for the last episode which they were contractual obliged to make.

Yeah, s4 is where the good stuff is, there are good episodes early on such as Shuttle Pod One or Dead Stop, and I did like most of the episodes of season 3, but the finally just felt wrong, it was obvious to me that there were plans for five in the works, I think they even had a few already in the works or done even, but it just felt so underwhelming.
The TNG episode it was tied to wasn't a bad one, don't get me wrong, but just seemed like such a weird choice.

 

 

7 hours ago, Apprentice said:

Deep Space Nine was a bit darker and introduced the concept of an open war within the Trek universe, which was unthinkable if Roddenberry was still alive and had some particular good episodes (Waltz, Far beyond the stars).

I'm rewatching it, into s2 already, season 1 is a little meh imo, but that's how it usually is with just about any show as it goes on.
But it is a great series overall and is worth watching at least once.

[Azuris]

5 hours ago, BluePineapple72 said:

 

All that aside, I personally think Klingons are the best alien species. I find that they're just so damn cool. Worf is also a genuine treat to watch. 

 

Yes, they're pretty cool.

 

Saying so, when i was young (i am a child of the 90s) and seing and hearing their Name in the original Series i was thinking: "Ahh, Space Mongols" .

Later when i found out about a Movie called Wrath of Khan it was clear for me, that somebody was obsessed with Mongols as a strong Civilization with strong Leaders and took them into Space^^

 

[snapshot]

bout the only thing i remember of it

the riker maneuver

[Lippeth]

7 hours ago, BluePineapple72 said:

Watching TNG and DS9 concurrently right now. While I do love the characters and adventures of TNG a whole lot, I do find that Deep Space Nine feels more homely in a way; with the station being in a fixed point in the galaxy, we really get to see the development of Bajoran space and the politics throughout it. It's really interesting. Love seeing O'Brian show up in supporting roles in TNG when he has episodes of his own on DS9 too.

What I love most about the setting of DS9 is that episodes set elsewhere tend to cut back to the station for a good B story, or even just to give more depth to the main story. It really helps with pacing and B stories are often just as good or better than the main story going on.

[Redneckerz]

12 hours ago, Liberation said:

That's my interpretation anyway.

And what about Lwaxana Troi? Unpopular opinion (?!) incoming, but i find her the most annoying character in the classic Star Treks.

• She is constantly manipulating
• Always needs to be in the centre of attention
• Most episodes end up with her getting a ceremony or some other stage where she is once more the centre of attention
• Even most of the crew visibly do dread meeting her

I suppose Majel Barrett does an excellent job here in achieving annoyance to the point even the crew shows that, but i also think she is so out of place whenever she appears.

[Lippeth]

I think Lwaxana adds a good dynamic to the show. While most everyone is well mannered and professional, throwing her into the mix is almost like another Q to a lesser degree. Breaking social norms, stealing all the attention, and adding low stakes drama and conflict to help the ship untuck its shirt, so to speak. If she was a show regular I would agree that she's too much, but having her appear every once in a while is a fun deviation for me. Even just Picard and Deanna's reaction to her makes it worth the appearance, and the mud bath scene with her and Worf is also a stand out moment.

[Ichor]

On 12/6/2021 at 2:04 AM, CBM said:

What about the Q?

 

In TNG S6E15 (tapestry)... it is suggested that the Q acts as the divine entity for the human race, making us get reborn in to new lives until such time that they think we are ready to become Q ourselves ... similar to what some religions already think.

 

so are the Q really ... "god"  in the star trek universe?

 

Q is basically the Mxyzptlk of Star Trek.

[CBM]

12 hours ago, Apprentice said:

If I have to choose between Discovery and Picard, I choose Picard. Discovery only has the name but has nothing to do with Star Trek. With some minor alterations, it could've been set in a different universe, name The Orville, Babylon 5, Star Wars, etc though I am wondering what the Pike spin-off is going to do. Picard is in that respect better but mainly because of Patrick Stewart but certain things such as "JL" !?!? I really can't image Riker saying that . . .

good to know that atleast picard isnt worse than discovery... however, it would also be very difficult to make something worse than that

 

EDIT

 

looking at various clips from Picard and my CRINGE meter was on RED ALERT... not from the shoddy visual as the case is with TOS but because how much NOT STARTREK it is

 

stand-off space fights

mary sue being the most important person in a show named picard

crying olympics

cloned ships

space octopus

riker being gunhoe and playground like.... my ship is more powerfullish than yours nanana

picard being a totally different person

 

the not-really-romulans must be thinking... what kind of kindergarden is this and they would be right

 

oh god

 

Im sure there are many more things that just screams noooooooooo

Edited December 7, 2021 by CBM

[Naarok0fkor]

1 hour ago, CBM said:

good to know that atleast picard isnt worse than discovery... however, it would also be very difficult to make something worse than that

 

EDIT

 

looking at various clips from Picard and my CRINGE meter was on RED ALERT... not from the shoddy visual as the case is with TOS but because how much NOT STARTREK it is

 

stand-off space fights

mary sue being the most important person in a show named picard

crying olympics

cloned ships

space octopus

riker being gunhoe and playground like.... my ship is more powerfullish than yours nanana

picard being a totally different person

 

the not-really-romulans must be thinking... what kind of kindergarden is this and they would be right

 

oh god

 

Im sure there are many more things that just screams noooooooooo

How about a very small & very british actor who's having trouble speaking french in a supposedly 2 meters tall french captain role....He almost also always starts a scene by pulling down his spandex suit with both hands because the fit is too tight... 

[CBM]

44 minutes ago, Naarok0fkor said:

How about a very small & very british actor who's having trouble speaking french in a supposedly 2 meters tall french captain role....He almost also always starts a scene by pulling down his spandex suit with both hands because the fit is too tight... 

a better fit could have been found for his role, especially considering he never really did care about his role ...

 

however, my problem with the Picard series is the way the role of Picard is destroyed... that is bad nomatter what actor played him

[Naarok0fkor]

30 minutes ago, CBM said:

a better fit could have been found for his role, especially considering he never really did care about his role ...

 

however, my problem with the Picard series is the way the role of Picard is destroyed... that is bad nomatter what actor played him

They should have gone for a french actor...& get rid of Q...& counselor Troy...

[CBM]

41 minutes ago, Naarok0fkor said:

They should have gone for a french actor...& get rid of Q...& counselor Troy...

I kind of liked Q and Troi... well... she added comic relief... I guess she IS a bit of a jar jar binks though

 

Q as a godlike being, toys with the federation

[Eurisko]

4 minutes ago, CBM said:

I kind of liked Q and Troi... well... she added comic relief... I guess she IS a bit of a jar jar binks though

 

Q as a godlike being, toys with the federation

 

I love Q too. I met John De' Lancie a few years back. He was the complete opposite of his character, quite miserable actually. 

 

 

[RHhe82]

21 minutes ago, Eurisko said:

 

I love Q too. I met John De' Lancie a few years back. He was the complete opposite of his character, quite miserable actually. 

 

 

Never of course met De Lancie, but it was funny seeing him in Breaking Bad some years ago. Nothing like Q there.

 

Anyway, I just wanted to slip back in and corroborate when someone said about ENT’s fourth season: I totally agree. I was lukewarm on ENT, especially its second season was such a slog. Then we hit the third season, and I’m suddenly invested. And then we get the fourth season where it really hits its stride, I’m really sorry it didn’t get renewed for season 5. It could have been such a great entry in the franchise after all. Too bad the finale left a bit sour taste in the mouth.

[Somniac]

Around the time Enterpise ended was really the grey years of Trek though. Both Insurrection and Nemesis were mediocre films that didn't do well commercially compared to their predecessors (especially First Contact or The Voyage Home), in Nemesis everyone looked like they didn't want to be there. The franchise was basically a walking corpse by the early 2000s from what I recall. 

 

For all the things I don't like about it, I do have to give credit to JJ. Abrams' reboot for revitalising Trek so that we could get things like Discovery or Picard, even if they have been flawed. The thing is, what makes Star Trek so great to me is how well it does just simple dialogue - two characters talking in a room can be the pivotal and most dramatic point of an episode. The sci-fi elements are sometimes a complement for the core plot. They do the best courtroom drama I've ever seen in The Next Generation. I feel like that "less can be more" approach is missing from the newer films and series, the subtlety and dynamics of the writing aren't there.

 

 

[CBM]

after enterprise ended, startrek was beginning to die and Kurtzman has been killing it off for good and then reanimating its SJW crossdressed corpse with discovery, picard and lower decks...

 

But we still have the memories... atleast those that don't watch Kurtzman trek.

The Orville shows promise and could perhaps in time continue the legacy atleast in spirit.

[Naarok0fkor]

3 hours ago, CBM said:

I kind of liked Q and Troi... well... she added comic relief... I guess she IS a bit of a jar jar binks though

 

Q as a godlike being, toys with the federation

Vincent Price would have been great in that role...

[CBM]

9 minutes ago, Naarok0fkor said:

Vincent Price would have been great in that role...

perhaps :-)