The Star Trek Thread
Re: The Star Trek Thread
If I remember right Arena was based on a short story by Frederic Brown, except instead of a lizard guy the opponent was a tentacled beach ball. Almost wonder if the bit with Pinback and the alien in Dark Star was a callback to that. I could have sworn that there was a radio adaptation on Dimension X or something similar but I can't find it. Anyway, same dude who wrote that two sentence horror story about the last man on earth hearing a knock at the door, which I'm pretty sure inspired the doctor who episode from my sig, except with less dick butt. Funny old world.
Re: The Star Trek Thread
The idea that space explorers wouldn't know a bunch about space.
Like someone on a 18th century sailing ship going, "there's an iceberg ahead!" "In English, genius?"
Like someone on a 18th century sailing ship going, "there's an iceberg ahead!" "In English, genius?"
Re: The Star Trek Thread
Sharkey wrote:If I remember right Arena was based on a short story by Frederic Brown, except instead of a lizard guy the opponent was a tentacled beach ball. Almost wonder if the bit with Pinback and the alien in Dark Star was a callback to that. I could have sworn that there was a radio adaptation on Dimension X or something similar but I can't find it. Anyway, same dude who wrote that two sentence horror story about the last man on earth hearing a knock at the door, which I'm pretty sure inspired the doctor who episode from my sig, except with less dick butt. Funny old world.
I like SNW fine the way it is, but I do keep thinking it would be interesting to follow TOS's template of just having a bunch of SF authors do freelance work on it. I'm sure Charlie Jane Anders could write a great Star Trek script. Charles Stross hates Star Trek, but he liked TOS and I bet he could write a script that addresses what he hasn't liked about the subsequent series.
Re: The Star Trek Thread
Ortegas is quickly becoming a favorite for me. I really relish her interactions with Pike, it echoes one of my favorite Disco dynamics of Lorca and Tilly.
She manages to pull off the whippy helmsman role without feeling super unprofessional, similar to how Tom Paris managed to walk that line. May just be Pike’s “no bad ideas” style of McLaughlin Group officer meeting, but you can see how Ortegas will always bluntly state her opinion, oblivious to the propriety of rank.
You can also tell that Ortegas is not a character who would ever disobey a direct order, contrasted with Singh, who definitely would if she felt it was the wrong call. I liked Singh’s arc in this one, going from voicing fear to projecting hope, even through she doesn’t believe it herself. That’s some good space dilf parenting right there.
I more broadly appreciate how the crew is able to voice strongly dissenting opinions without throwing out ultimatums, something Disco always has trouble with. I think in Disco, it’s because the emotions and drama always have to be at 11, so every disagreement must a blowout. Here, they get the perspectives on the table and Pike has the last say. It’s kind of a return to the TNG “hyper-competent office culture” vibe.
A few visuals I loved in this ep:
The Gorn ships signalling to each other, particularly the combination of the visual and the sound work. The more weird and alien they can make this species, the better.
The light streaking on the black hole:
She manages to pull off the whippy helmsman role without feeling super unprofessional, similar to how Tom Paris managed to walk that line. May just be Pike’s “no bad ideas” style of McLaughlin Group officer meeting, but you can see how Ortegas will always bluntly state her opinion, oblivious to the propriety of rank.
You can also tell that Ortegas is not a character who would ever disobey a direct order, contrasted with Singh, who definitely would if she felt it was the wrong call. I liked Singh’s arc in this one, going from voicing fear to projecting hope, even through she doesn’t believe it herself. That’s some good space dilf parenting right there.
I more broadly appreciate how the crew is able to voice strongly dissenting opinions without throwing out ultimatums, something Disco always has trouble with. I think in Disco, it’s because the emotions and drama always have to be at 11, so every disagreement must a blowout. Here, they get the perspectives on the table and Pike has the last say. It’s kind of a return to the TNG “hyper-competent office culture” vibe.
A few visuals I loved in this ep:
The Gorn ships signalling to each other, particularly the combination of the visual and the sound work. The more weird and alien they can make this species, the better.
The light streaking on the black hole:
Re: The Star Trek Thread
Loved, loved this ep of Strange New Worlds. It was like the perfect ep.
Re: The Star Trek Thread
Mothra wrote:Loved, loved this ep of Strange New Worlds. It was like the perfect ep.
I had a feeling the team on this show was strong enough to know how to follow a serious episode with a silly one. I was not disappointed.
We watched Amok Time first, and SNW does its usual bangup job of making an episode that's standalone and doesn't require you to brush up on TOS first but which throws in a lot of nice little references in case you do.
Learn better typography, future.
Re: The Star Trek Thread
Welp, just finished season 1 of Voyager. I've seen maybe 15-20% of Voyager, so I decided to go through all of it in order finally.
As is tradition, I will now summarize every episode, TNG s8 style.
Caretaker (Pilot):
Janeway releases a man from prison. Janeway traps her crew 70,000 light years from Earth.
Parallax
Voyager becomes trapped in a black hole and shoots it to escape. The Doctor continually shrinks.
Time And Again
An entire planet is destroyed because of Voyager. A child repeatedly accuses Janeway of being a demon.
Phage
Neelix has his lungs ripped out. Janeway lets the guy who stole them keep them.
The Cloud
Voyager almost kills a Space Cloud in order to get coffee. Janeway meets her Spirit Animal, which in a tremendous feat of foreshadowing, is a lizard.
Eye of the Needle
Voyager talks to a suspicious Romulan through a tiny wormhole. He dies.
Ex Post Facto
Paris does his best Riker impression and fucks a married woman and then is accused of killing her husband by her. A dog is the key witness.
Emanations
Harry Kim fucks over an entire species' religion by not keeping his mouth shut. Voyager fafs around until Harry Kim rescues himself by killing himself.
Prime Factors
A race of pleasure seekers offer to fuck everyone on board. Tuvok and B'Elanna break the law and rob them.
State of Flux
Seska robs Neelix to make Chakotay mushroom soup. She turns out to be a Cardassian spy.
Heroes and Demons
The Doctor goes to play out Beowulf on the holodeck. Freya, a fan character added to the story, falls in love with him.
Cathexis
Tuvok desperately tries to get Voyager to fly into a dark matter nebula. Chakotay's spirit randomly possesses other crew members to stop him.
Faces
B'Elanna is kidnapped and is split into two people; one pure Human, one pure Klingon. The Klingon escapes by promising to fuck her captor.
Jetrel
Neelix meets Robert Oppenheimer. No, really, that's how the shows writers referred to the episode.
Learning Curve
Tuvok tortures some Maquis by making them run 10 kilometers with 10% increased gravity after climbing up and then down the entire ship. Some cheese infects the ship itself with a virus.
All in all, still less insane than TNG s1. Nobody caught and cooked and ate anyone onboard Voyager.
As is tradition, I will now summarize every episode, TNG s8 style.
Caretaker (Pilot):
Janeway releases a man from prison. Janeway traps her crew 70,000 light years from Earth.
Parallax
Voyager becomes trapped in a black hole and shoots it to escape. The Doctor continually shrinks.
Time And Again
An entire planet is destroyed because of Voyager. A child repeatedly accuses Janeway of being a demon.
Phage
Neelix has his lungs ripped out. Janeway lets the guy who stole them keep them.
The Cloud
Voyager almost kills a Space Cloud in order to get coffee. Janeway meets her Spirit Animal, which in a tremendous feat of foreshadowing, is a lizard.
Eye of the Needle
Voyager talks to a suspicious Romulan through a tiny wormhole. He dies.
Ex Post Facto
Paris does his best Riker impression and fucks a married woman and then is accused of killing her husband by her. A dog is the key witness.
Emanations
Harry Kim fucks over an entire species' religion by not keeping his mouth shut. Voyager fafs around until Harry Kim rescues himself by killing himself.
Prime Factors
A race of pleasure seekers offer to fuck everyone on board. Tuvok and B'Elanna break the law and rob them.
State of Flux
Seska robs Neelix to make Chakotay mushroom soup. She turns out to be a Cardassian spy.
Heroes and Demons
The Doctor goes to play out Beowulf on the holodeck. Freya, a fan character added to the story, falls in love with him.
Cathexis
Tuvok desperately tries to get Voyager to fly into a dark matter nebula. Chakotay's spirit randomly possesses other crew members to stop him.
Faces
B'Elanna is kidnapped and is split into two people; one pure Human, one pure Klingon. The Klingon escapes by promising to fuck her captor.
Jetrel
Neelix meets Robert Oppenheimer. No, really, that's how the shows writers referred to the episode.
Learning Curve
Tuvok tortures some Maquis by making them run 10 kilometers with 10% increased gravity after climbing up and then down the entire ship. Some cheese infects the ship itself with a virus.
All in all, still less insane than TNG s1. Nobody caught and cooked and ate anyone onboard Voyager.
Re: The Star Trek Thread
I actually want to talk seriously a bit about Voyager, and why I consider it to be a show that had a lot of potential but failed to live up to that potential. No, I'm not talking about how the writers ignored photon torpedo limits and didn't play up the "stranded and low on supplies" angle enough. Though that's also a problem.
I'm talking about how absolutely batshit inconsistently the writers wrote the characters, especially Janeway.
Now, before I go any further, I want to say that I actually like Kate Mulgrew a lot and think she did a terrific job with the material she was given. It's not her fault that Janeway is written so consistently inconsistently.
Here's a prime example:
So what actually happens in this ep is we meet the Vidiians for the first time. The Vidiians are a race that is suffering from a disease called "The Phage" an infection that attacks and eats organs and flesh. It is basically impossible to cure. The Vidiians have insanely advanced medical tech though and basically survive by harvesting organs from other species and grafting them onto themselves to keep themselves alive. It's horrific and they remain one of the worst and most terrifying villains in Star Trek.
So the crew is exploring an asteroid and a Vidiian ambushes Neelix and shoots him with a gun that steals his lungs. They keep him alive with holographic lungs but he can't move at all and has to be restrained. Meanwhile they track down the Vidiian that stole them and learn that he has already grafted the lungs into himself. Janeway gives a big angry speech about how basically they've forced her into either killing him to save Neelix or letting Neelix die, and since she's Starfleet she can't justify killing someone to save someone else.
DOES ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR AT ALL???!?!?!?111
The big episode that everyone always talks about when they talk about Voyager is the moral quandary in "Tuvix" when a transporter accident (these make the best episodes, no really, both TWO RIKERS and MIRROR UNIVERSE were transporter accident eps) merges Tuvok and Neelix into one new person, who names himself Tuvix. Long story short, Janeway has to decide whether to keep this new person or kill him in order to bring back both Neelix and Tuvok. She kills him and brings back both her crew.
Now, regardless of whether or not you agree with her actions in these episodes, the point I'm making is that they stand in stark contrast to each other. In one ep Janeway absolutely refuses to kill, in another she kills even when the Doctor refuses and she has to do it with her own hands.
This is just one example of how all over the place the writers were. And no, it's not just limited to Janeway, but she gets the worst of it by far being the Captain. Tim Russ, Tuvok's actor, even commented on it. In the episode where he robs the pleasure seekers he breaks the rules and then two episodes later he's spouting how procedure and rules are paramount. It's like the writers didn't really understand what the fuck they were doing with these characters.
I'm talking about how absolutely batshit inconsistently the writers wrote the characters, especially Janeway.
Now, before I go any further, I want to say that I actually like Kate Mulgrew a lot and think she did a terrific job with the material she was given. It's not her fault that Janeway is written so consistently inconsistently.
Here's a prime example:
Phage
Neelix has his lungs ripped out. Janeway lets the guy who stole them keep them.
So what actually happens in this ep is we meet the Vidiians for the first time. The Vidiians are a race that is suffering from a disease called "The Phage" an infection that attacks and eats organs and flesh. It is basically impossible to cure. The Vidiians have insanely advanced medical tech though and basically survive by harvesting organs from other species and grafting them onto themselves to keep themselves alive. It's horrific and they remain one of the worst and most terrifying villains in Star Trek.
So the crew is exploring an asteroid and a Vidiian ambushes Neelix and shoots him with a gun that steals his lungs. They keep him alive with holographic lungs but he can't move at all and has to be restrained. Meanwhile they track down the Vidiian that stole them and learn that he has already grafted the lungs into himself. Janeway gives a big angry speech about how basically they've forced her into either killing him to save Neelix or letting Neelix die, and since she's Starfleet she can't justify killing someone to save someone else.
DOES ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR AT ALL???!?!?!?111
The big episode that everyone always talks about when they talk about Voyager is the moral quandary in "Tuvix" when a transporter accident (these make the best episodes, no really, both TWO RIKERS and MIRROR UNIVERSE were transporter accident eps) merges Tuvok and Neelix into one new person, who names himself Tuvix. Long story short, Janeway has to decide whether to keep this new person or kill him in order to bring back both Neelix and Tuvok. She kills him and brings back both her crew.
Now, regardless of whether or not you agree with her actions in these episodes, the point I'm making is that they stand in stark contrast to each other. In one ep Janeway absolutely refuses to kill, in another she kills even when the Doctor refuses and she has to do it with her own hands.
This is just one example of how all over the place the writers were. And no, it's not just limited to Janeway, but she gets the worst of it by far being the Captain. Tim Russ, Tuvok's actor, even commented on it. In the episode where he robs the pleasure seekers he breaks the rules and then two episodes later he's spouting how procedure and rules are paramount. It's like the writers didn't really understand what the fuck they were doing with these characters.
Re: The Star Trek Thread
Friday wrote:transporter accident (these make the best episodes
Re: The Star Trek Thread
"The Animal"
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Re: The Star Trek Thread
holy shit losing it
Re: The Star Trek Thread
There's a video where someone asks people to describe Deep Space 9 characters (Odo, for example) without mentioning their species, ethnicity, rank, or station. They are able to do this successfully. Next, they're asked to describe a Voyager character - Chakotay, for example. They are unable to do this.
Tom Paris was originally supposed to be the Riker-style womanizer, but the writers decided the actor didn't fit the role, so they wrote that part out.
A lot of Voyager characters have no defined personalities other than being annoying. Chakotay's entire character being is the guy who sits next to the captain. He's not even the captain's closest confidante, because that's Tuvok (because Kirk had Spock). Tuvok's entire deal is being a Vulcan, Ensign Kim's entire deal is being an ensign, Neelix is annoying and a reverse Quark (what if the quirky alien civilian was a super nice guy instead of a bad guy), and the Doctor is crotchety because Bones was crotchety.
Paris does his best Riker impression and fucks a married woman and then is accused of killing her husband by her. A dog is the key witness.
Tom Paris was originally supposed to be the Riker-style womanizer, but the writers decided the actor didn't fit the role, so they wrote that part out.
A lot of Voyager characters have no defined personalities other than being annoying. Chakotay's entire character being is the guy who sits next to the captain. He's not even the captain's closest confidante, because that's Tuvok (because Kirk had Spock). Tuvok's entire deal is being a Vulcan, Ensign Kim's entire deal is being an ensign, Neelix is annoying and a reverse Quark (what if the quirky alien civilian was a super nice guy instead of a bad guy), and the Doctor is crotchety because Bones was crotchety.
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Re: The Star Trek Thread
JD wrote:the Doctor is crotchety because Bones was crotchety.
I think he had a perfectly believable performance for someone who was told they wouldn't have to work with customers being forced to work with customers full time.
Re: The Star Trek Thread
I actually have a lot to say about DS9's characters and why every other TV show ever written is terrible by comparison because they don't have Garak, a gay, charming character who gets to vaporize people constantly and tries to commit genocide.
Oh, and Dukat, a straight charming character who gets to vaporize people constantly and has already committed genocide, tries to commit genocide, and spends most of his time justifying his actions so well that the audiences at the time (and still to this day) think he didn't do anything wrong.
My point is that while you're not wrong that VOY characters are bland by comparison, it's not fair to compare them to DS9, a miracle show that transcends all other TV and stands in the same tier as Game of Thrones s3-5 and Breaking Bad.
Instead, be fair and compare it to TNG characters in order to realize that VOY characters are bland and uninteresting.
Oh, and Dukat, a straight charming character who gets to vaporize people constantly and has already committed genocide, tries to commit genocide, and spends most of his time justifying his actions so well that the audiences at the time (and still to this day) think he didn't do anything wrong.
My point is that while you're not wrong that VOY characters are bland by comparison, it's not fair to compare them to DS9, a miracle show that transcends all other TV and stands in the same tier as Game of Thrones s3-5 and Breaking Bad.
Instead, be fair and compare it to TNG characters in order to realize that VOY characters are bland and uninteresting.
Re: The Star Trek Thread
I'm familiar with the characters just through cultural osmosis but would you believe I've never really watched this show? I get that people who are into it are way into it but I watched the pilot a little while back and the only thing I strongly felt about it was disappointment that it wasn't just two hours of a gay lizard and a nervous dork hitting on each other. Is there some kind of master list of must see episodes or a recommended entry point? I acknowledge the possibility that it just might not be my jam, which is something I had to accept after the dozenth time I tried to watch Farscape. How the fuck I'm not all about the campy adventures of space crims and a bunch of gross muppets when that sounds like something that was made with me specifically in mind. Like, all it's missing is a trashy juggalette to push all my buttons. Shit, it might actually have one of those for all I know and I probably still wouldn't like it. Anyway, DS9 sure sounds appealing on paper and I'm hopping I just happened to catch a crappy cross section of it back in the 90s.
Re: The Star Trek Thread
just two hours of a gay lizard and a nervous dork hitting on each other.
Sadly, Rick Berman and his rampant homophobia (which also affected VOY and TNG) nipped this in the bud. As soon as the queer audience began to pick up on the very obvious romantic angle to Lizard and Dork's interactions, Berman literally issued an ultimatum that they could no longer have their famous lunches. After season 3 or so they vanish entirely. He then later made a lady Cardassian fall for Garak in order to make SURE that there were no gays here.
However, Andrew Robinson (Garak's actor) continued to play the character as gay and confirmed so in interviews.
Berman is also responsible for numerous sexual harassments, including making Tasha Yar feel so goddamn uncomfortable on set that she quit. It's actually one of the things that RLM does that annoys me, because they perpetuate that "Crosby left to pursue a movie career and look how THAT turned out WAAAHHH WAHHHHH" fucking crap, even with the entire (not an exaggeration) female cast of TNG confirming that Berman constantly was a harassing shithead sexist asshole who yes did make their jobs and Crosby's job a fucking misogynistic nightmare.
Basically, everyone who breathed a sigh of relief when Roddenberry died so TNG could finally be free of misogyny breathed a sigh too soon. Berman took up that mantle and boy howdy did he continue on the proud tradition.
At least RLM takes Berman out for a ride every once in a while, but it's very strange to me that Mike, who has consistently bashed Berman since he was still doing Plinkett videos, cannot put two and two together as to the reason why Crosby left. Berman even walked up to her and ripped off her combadge after she quit. He's a massive fuckhead.
Uh. Anyway.
DS9 is a slow burn. Just like GoT and Breaking Bad, there's no real "master list" of episodes that I can direct you to. Each episode builds and builds. I will say the early seasons are not as good as the later seasons, but that's true of TNG, GoT, and BB too.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: If I was to compile a top ten list of my all time favorite Star Trek episodes across all shows, 9 out of 10 of them would be TNG and only 1 would be DS9. And yet I consider DS9 the superior show. TNG has amazing, truly SS tier eps, but also has a bunch of middling crap and outright "Troi gets raped again" eps. DS9 is really more the sum of its parts.
Re: The Star Trek Thread
TNG also has Sub Rosa.
I don't know what that means for the show, but it means something.
I don't know what that means for the show, but it means something.
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Re: The Star Trek Thread
"Am I a Bond girl now?" hahaha holy shit
Anyway, DS9...
It gets better as the series goes on, which was part of why I too had a bad opinion of it at first. IIRC the running gag was that the Series really picks up after Sisko's hair migrates from his head to his chin.
Unfortunately however, in one of the greatest crimes in Trek history, Berman quashes the incredible Gashir bromance - to the point of blatantly forcing a girlfriend on Garak. Yes, that does happen; be prepared for that level of letdown.
Also Berman was routinely bullying women cast members over pay and just because he's a gigantic asshole, and since the cast signed on for 6 seasons, the 7th can be patchy at times because these underlying tensions fucked with the show in many ways large and small. Most notably in Terry Farell calling Berman's bluff that she wouldn't find work anywhere else and noping the fuck out.
There was a long stretch where Berman was too busy fucking over various episodes from TNG's later seasons to really care about the dumb ole soap opera where no one goes anywhere though, so there's a great couple seasons of DS9 there.
Anyway, DS9...
It gets better as the series goes on, which was part of why I too had a bad opinion of it at first. IIRC the running gag was that the Series really picks up after Sisko's hair migrates from his head to his chin.
Unfortunately however, in one of the greatest crimes in Trek history, Berman quashes the incredible Gashir bromance - to the point of blatantly forcing a girlfriend on Garak. Yes, that does happen; be prepared for that level of letdown.
Also Berman was routinely bullying women cast members over pay and just because he's a gigantic asshole, and since the cast signed on for 6 seasons, the 7th can be patchy at times because these underlying tensions fucked with the show in many ways large and small. Most notably in Terry Farell calling Berman's bluff that she wouldn't find work anywhere else and noping the fuck out.
There was a long stretch where Berman was too busy fucking over various episodes from TNG's later seasons to really care about the dumb ole soap opera where no one goes anywhere though, so there's a great couple seasons of DS9 there.
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Re: The Star Trek Thread
Friday was quicker on the draw than I was.
But, yes, fuck Rick Berman. He's a huge part of why Star Trek ended up going to shit. Not all of it, but goddamn did he ever do damage.
But, yes, fuck Rick Berman. He's a huge part of why Star Trek ended up going to shit. Not all of it, but goddamn did he ever do damage.
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