Star Trek

[Haijinx]

5 hours ago, VileTerror said:

Lexxxxxxxxxxxx!  Yes!

Freaky Canadian-German softcore antihero borderline-offensive nearly-nonsense science fiction!

 

The other two series I really like from that era are Farscape and Stargate SG-1.

I liked SG-Universe which I guess is an unpopular opinion in SG fandom.  

[VileTerror]

I only ever remember feeling like Stargate Universe was -just- about to start getting compelling when the plug got pulled.  Up to that point, it felt a little like it was too much build up without any pay off.

[Fortuneteller]

11 hours ago, Marine X said:

Trek has evolved over the years in some ways that make it hard to be a fan of all its versions.

TOS was a classic and always will be what hard core fans will judge any new Trek against, what they were able to do, in a show that ran in 1966-1968, was astoundingly groundbreaking. They created a solid World of politics and Alien cultures that was very believable and engaging. Add lots of Cowboy diplomacy and you have a Classic, even if CBS didn't see it at the time.

 

When they announced ST: The Next Generation, I thought it was a horrible idea.... Shows what I know. It took a while for it to find it's place Story wise, but once it did I believe that it set a new bar for SciFi on television as far as Writing and Production. Great Cast and Crew.

 

I was actually looking forward to Deep Space Nine when they announced it. The Berman Era yeilded the most Unappreciated Series of the Catalogue. It was very much Anti-Trek Trek as the Characters were always in turmoil with each other. The serialized format of the show was a breath of fresh air after TNGs monster of the week format and made the series my favorite.

 

Voyager is not a bad Series, period. But is it a great Trek show, not sure. Was it the female Captain that made people not respond well to it? probably ( although it had good viewership numbers, no one apparently watched/liked it, hmmm ). I liked it for what made it different, no Star Fleet to call in, and whether to still hold to those values, tough to do sometimes. Villains that were ruthless, the Vidians , the Kazon, the Hirogen, Species 8472 and of course, The Borg. Does not get a lot of credit for the fact that Voyager is a small ship a long way from Home.

 

Enterprise was going to be an uphill battle from the word go. It was going to be hard to accept that communicators were all they had in an era of smartphones. That at launch, Enterprise didn't have Phasors, only torpedos. That Shields were not yet available, and probably the most jarring, No Federation of Planets, Vulcans were usually an antagonist and our primary enemies for the series are groups never before mentioned in Trek Lore even though it takes place before TOS. Some didn't like Scott Bakula. I thought that although the story seemed to keep exposing what it would really be like to explore space before you really had friends and acquaintances out there, most viewers just would bring up a laundry list as to why TNG or TOS were so much better. Guess I preferred a change of direction instead of another Cookie Cutter show, that's really all.

 

Discovery started slow but is doing well in creating a whole new narrative in an era we know little about, much like Enterprise, but not trying as hard to be realistic, instead being very Creative with there direction. the fact Saru's species is considered a delicacy is very wierd. I like it, can I keep it?

 

Star Trek: Picard. I guess we'll see, soon.

 

Star Trek: First Frontier, guess we'll see it and then judge, they have got a great team from what I hear, and are in uncharted waters, could be the Feature film producers need to hire these guys.

 

The films....... All good for different reasons and to different degrees. Wrath of Kahn and First Contact are my 2 Favorites, followed by Voyage Home, Search for Spock, and Generations. The other films are good, just not something I would rewatch as much. To me, the movies are like an extended TV episode and I have episodes I like better than some of the Features.

 

Kelvin Timeline: Probably was the best way to reboot without stepping on a million toes, and It allows for their to be some uncertainty as to the way things would play out.

Understanding that half the original cast is no longer with us, and even TNG, DS9 and STV casts are getting long in the tooth it was inevitable. I enjoyed them in that context and will continue to see what the come up with.

 

To answer the OP: I am a Science Fiction fan and Star Trek fan, not that I consider them 2 different things. I also liked Lexx which was comedic but also SciFi, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Invisible Man on SciFi Channel and Sliders. I could fill a page full of books and Movies, but my all time favorite is still Gattaca, such a great movie with the SciFi  elements very subtle and the story very to the front.

 

I think I need a new keyboard....

What is that? A level headed and sensible comment about Nu Trek? I really respect this comment because it looks at the Trek series as a whole and realises that all of them are different from one another and that one is not ''the superior star trek''.

Your points about Disco are spot on, It was a slow burn to begin with, much like every Star Trek TV show was in it's first season. I'd add to that, that in my experience from what i've seen, the ''STD haters'' stopped watching after episode 2 and just continue to blindly hate. As was said in the earlier comments in this thread.

Fwiw, the only trek shows i didn't enjoy were TOS and TNG. Boring shows that i use to put me to sleep at night. Like if there's one thing that's guaranteed to make my eyes feel heavy and droopy, it's Shatner monologing.

[Marine X]

13 hours ago, Haijinx said:

19 hours ago, VileTerror said:

The other two series I really like from that era are Farscape and Stargate SG-1.

I liked SG-Universe which I guess is an unpopular opinion in SG fandom.  

I agree on those as well, can't believe I forgot to name drop Farscape. SG1, Atlantis and SGU were all good but one of my favorite things was the 200th episode when they were trying to help Brainstorm a TV show concept...

 

 

Edited January 21, 2020 by Marine X

[Apparition]

After watching the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, I highly recommend it.  It's a very different short of show compared to anything before, but it's intelligently written and uses a few different threads from The Next Generation era to pull together something new.

[Haijinx]

Thanks Apparition.  Tbh I've been looking forward to this one.

[ShardWarrior]

On 1/23/2020 at 4:14 AM, Apparition said:

After watching the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, I highly recommend it.  It's a very different short of show compared to anything before, but it's intelligently written and uses a few different threads from The Next Generation era to pull together something new.

I liked Picard as well.  Very nice setup for the first season.  Calling it now - Spiner will return as (non flashback) Data season 2 or 3.

[Dreamboat]

I went on a mission to watch all (live-action!) Trek shows starting about three or so years ago. I started at TNG since that was the first one that popped up on Netflix, though I skipped Season 1 as I'd already tried to watch it years prior and just couldn't manage it. I think the middle seasons contain probably some of the best episodic television I've ever seen. Later seasons don't quite reach that zenith again, but I still thought they were good.

DS9 is the one I'd pick as my favourite if I was forced to. TNG had the highest highs, but DS9 to me was the most consistently good. Also, it had *two* great double acts in Quark & Odo/O'Brien & Bashir - how can any other series compete?

Voyager....yeah. Not great. There were some good parts - The Doctor and 7of9 were great together and their episodes were always a solid watch - but I wasn't that big on Janeway, who seemed to always be switching between a regulation stickler, a maverick, compassionate and vaguely murderous. Also I was pretty disappointed about how the draw of her character was how she reacts to this completely unique situation and what decisions she'll make that may not fall in line with Starfleet ideals, but the series ends as soon as they reach Earth and we don't get to see any kind of dialogue with Starfleet Command over the actions she's taken. Obviously the point of the show is "they're trying to get home" and it's not about what will happen afterwards, but still, some kind of epilogue would have been nice. Neelix sucks. Also man, people sure aren't fazed at all by anything that happens to Kim, huh?

I didn't hate Enterprise. In fact, I quite liked a lot of it. Archer was whatever, pretty middle of the road captain, but I thought the crew in general was pretty decent. Disappointing that Sato and Mayweather don't really get developed that much, Mayweather moreso, when compared to the trinity of Archer, T'Pol and Tucker. It does have Jeffrey Combs as a recurring character again, though, so that's cool! Shame about that truly abysmal last episode.

Finished up with TOS towards the end of last year. Thought it was hit or miss; when it's really good, it's really good ("Balance of Terror" was the episode that fully convinced me in S1) and when it's bad, it's really bad (here's to another terrible final episode). Again, I was surprised at how little fleshing out characters like Uhura and Sulu get given how iconic the TOS crew are. In Sulu's case I guess part of that is George Takei not being around for a lot of the show, but even when he is he's not exactly given much to do.

In amongst all this I watched the first season of Discovery up until the mid-season break, and didn't continue. I was already plugging away at Voyager at this point and decided I could only handle one Star Trek show I wasn't getting much out of. I might check out Picard, but only after a loooong break from the franchise.
The third Abramverse entry is a pretty great Fast & Furious movie.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Dreamboat

[VileTerror]

"The third Abramverse entry is a pretty great Fast & Furious movie."

Nailed it.

[VileTerror]

Just watched the first episode of Picard.

I like where this is going.  I like how they're giving some broad stroke world building.  I -really- like Patrick Stewart's performance.  I like the dreams.
Not so hot on the flimsily-justified "twins" thing.  I can handle that in a setting where quantum physics has been tackled, that a single cell can be used to manufacture something bigger . . . but why twins, other than a plot contrivance?

[Redlynne]

6 hours ago, VileTerror said:

but why twins, other than a plot contrivance?

Underinformed writers?

[ShardWarrior]

18 hours ago, VileTerror said:

but why twins, other than a plot contrivance?

Perhaps to have redundancy in case of technical issues?  There are any number of reasons for it and I am sure we will be finding out why.

[Rooster Gold]

Just cut the cord its over.

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Rooster Gold

[ShardWarrior]

18 hours ago, Rooster Gold said:

Just cut the cord its over.

To be fair this same thing has been said for every incarnation of Star Trek since TNG was first announced.  This is one of the great things about the Trek IP - it has something for everyone.  The newer stuff may not be to our liking or it may be our new favorite.  Fans have their favorite series, ship, Captain, episode etc.  Picard and Discovery are not any different.

[ShardWarrior]

On 1/20/2020 at 7:18 PM, Haijinx said:

I liked SG-Universe which I guess is an unpopular opinion in SG fandom.  

I liked it too.  I was sad to see it get cancelled.  I soooooo wanted to see where they went with this.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHmr80Bf0zg

 

I remember being blown away first time Destiny did a sun dive in "Light".  Loved the music in this scene.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhAYMnLso2k

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by ShardWarrior

[Haijinx]

5 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

I liked it too.  I was sad to see it get cancelled.  I soooooo wanted to see where they went with this.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHmr80Bf0zg

 

I remember being blown away first time Destiny did a sun dive in "Light".  Loved the music in this scene.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhAYMnLso2k

 

I really liked how they actually plausibly put in the standard Sci Fi teen genius trope in a less contrived manner.

 

It shared some concepts with voyager (lost far from home, mismatched crew, etc)  

 

The destiny falling apart added some tension, while they struggled to understand it.  

 

It seemed a smart, undervalued show imo.  Unfortunately I watched it first before the other Stargate stuff and I just couldn't get into those after. 

 

[Widower]

Oi, if you're going to talk about Stargate, make a thread for it. If you do, I'll throw in my forthcoming adventures in rewatching SG-1. :P

 

Picard was promising. If nothing else, the first episode left me considering paying to watch the rest of it, which is something Discovery didn't do.

[WanderingAries]

On ‎1‎/‎11‎/‎2020 at 6:23 PM, Haijinx said:

Some of the characters in Discovery are really good.

 

Those first few episodes though are jarring

Michael is Jar-Jar what?

[Heraclea]

During my long medical treatments, I watch a lot of Turner Classic Movies.  (It's the only commercial free station they get at the clinic, and the ads on daytime TV are just too depressing to endure.)

 

To watch TCM consistently is to be constantly reminded that there was a time when people were uncomplicatedly patriotic, had hope for the future,  believed in democracy, trusted government, and tried to do good.  (There's also quite a bit of casual racism, and sexist nonsense about the scandal of divorce; so it goes.)   

 

I've worried about the constant drumbeat of paranoid themes and conspiracy theories in popular culture since the days of The X-Files and probably before.  But watching TCM does help you focus on what makes Star Trek Star Trek, and what's wrong with unsatisfying versions.  Good Star Trek is utopian, optimistic, and otherwise values oriented towards a vision of human and social goodness.  Bad Star Trek has been tainted with conspiratorial thinking and is full of flawed characters and an untrustworthy and dishonest Federation.  It's the failure to get it that makes more recent incarnations unsatisfactory.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Heraclea

[ShardWarrior]

46 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

Good Star Trek is utopian, optimistic, and otherwise values oriented towards a vision of human and social goodness.  Bad Star Trek has been tainted with conspiratorial thinking and is full of flawed characters and an untrustworthy and dishonest Federation.  It's the failure to get it that makes more recent incarnations unsatisfactory.

Totally agreed.  How the Federation is behaving on Picard is truly jarring to me.  Trek has been in slow decline since Roddenberry died IMO.

[Rathulfr]

48 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Totally agreed.  How the Federation is behaving on Picard is truly jarring to me.  Trek has been in slow decline since Roddenberry died IMO.

Although I agree with you mostly, I don't think the decline has been slow.  It happened almost immediately after his death.  You can see it in the latter seasons STNG and DS9.  While rogue Federation officers have been a staple of the show since TOS (never trust a Commodore), we begin to see Federation conspiracies and shadow governments almost immediately post-Roddenberry.

 

Basically, Roddenberry held a firm position on his utopian vision for the show, even to the dismay of many writers who thought the restrictions on certain kinds of conflict (such as among the crew or intra-Federation) pre-empted certain staples and tropes of television drama.  But once Roddenberry was gone, that position eroded pretty quickly under Berman, and eventually disappeared altogether by the time of STV.

 

Edited February 4, 2020 by Rathulfr

[ShardWarrior]

14 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

Although I agree with you mostly, I don't think the decline has been slow.  It happened almost immediately after his death.  You can see it in the latter seasons STNG and DS9.  While rogue Federation officers have been a staple of the show since TOS (never trust a Commodore), we begin to see Federation conspiracies and shadow governments almost immediately post-Roddenberry.

That's fair.  Just seems to me it is much more overt in modern incarnations than it was back then.  I am really not digging how the Federation and Starleet are portrayed on Picard.

[Haijinx]

4 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

That's fair.  Just seems to me it is much more overt in modern incarnations than it was back then.  I am really not digging how the Federation and Starleet are portrayed on Picard.

Parallels the increasing distrust in goverment (in the usa at least)

 

 

[ShardWarrior]

37 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Parallels the increasing distrust in goverment (in the usa at least)

I agree.  It is pretty much in-your-face obvious that is what they are going for.  But at least to me, that is not the Federation or Starfleet as Roddenberry envisioned.  By the 25th century, humanity has moved beyond that.  Every time this trope has come up on Trek over the years, it has turned out to be some rogue element and any loss of faith in Starfleet or the Federation was restored.

[Haijinx]

6 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

I agree.  It is pretty much in-your-face obvious that is what they are going for.  But at least to me, that is not the Federation or Starfleet as Roddenberry envisioned.  By the 25th century, humanity has moved beyond that.  Every time this trope has come up on Trek over the years, it has turned out to be some rogue element and any loss of faith in Starfleet or the Federation was restored.

I guess its the whole should science fiction show a brighter future, should it reflect a darker one and how should the mirror it holds up to our world reflect?

 

My take is that Roddenbury wanted to show a sort of humanity ascendant thing where the Federation is a sort of Norman Rockwell of the 25th century.  Using it to highlight the sorts of injustices of the 1960s as beneath us.   Bright future, fairly clear mirror but a 2 dimensional one perhaps.

 

Maybe that's an outgrowth of the era of sci fi it had its roots in.  

 

Depending on the eras since like cyber punk, post punk, dystopian hells, etc, I guess the intrepations since GR died have been all over the but gradually trending towards darkish future with a funhouse mirror.