Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[AmpleApricots]

Same, TOS is cool. Also the chemistry between Kirk, Spock and Bones is magical. It does really look bad in HD though, you can see how the sets for example were painted with little attention to detail because you wouldn't be able to see that shit on the tube anyways. Also the terribly cheap wigs on the alien women of the week. And of course everything technical on the sets looks like parts that came directly from radioshack because they probably did.

It has aged though and if you can't enjoy 60s camp consciously and need your TV shows serious, you can't enjoy TOS. Maybe it's not quite possible if you haven't grown up with it.

 

[Man vs persistent rat]

Maybe I've just seen too much old Doctor Who, but shitty sets almost go hand-in-hand with good conceptual sci-fi. They may as well be an indicator of quality if you're still being expected to watch it nowadays, since the enduring appeal clearly isn't in the effects.

TOS is surprisingly serious-minded/charming in light of a lot of recent mean-spirited/snarky sci-fi writing.

 

[AverageAnimeWatcher]

Deep Space Nine is the other side of the coin from The Next Generation. I think it's probably the better series, but it's a fairly radical departure from Star Trek in a number of ways, and (again, controversial statement here), while I do think it's Trek at it's best, I think in some ways it also heralded the eventual destruction of the franchise. I'll explain!

Speaking about DS9 there is something I love with episodes like in the pale moon light and Section 31 made me think about something.

As much as I love Picard and the TNG enterprise cast, they were never put in a situation were the only way to win was to to compromise their morals.

I like section 31, not because they are edgy and act like assholes as ST;D seems to think, but because it made me question if truly good men like Picard only get to act like angels because people like Sisko get to do the hard choices they never would. Which I why I love his "It's easy to be an angel in paradise" speech.

As powerful and terryfing as the borg was, they never put out to the utopian ideals of the federation to the test, the same way the dominion did. So, while Picard just had to defeat an evil Borg Queen in a movies, Sisko had to question himself if Falsifying evidence, murdering criminals and an ambasssador to fool a superpower to joining them in a war effort, and maybe even dooming also them in the process was worth it.

Picard would have never made that choice in his place. Would he had found a third option to save everyone, or would he have doomed the alpha quadrant just to keep his conscience clean? I don't know, and that's why I liked it.

Ultimately I think both TOS and TNG represented the best of humanity and the spirit of Trek, but DS9 was all about the angels trying to stil be angels in hell, that is, in complex and harsh situations that didn't have easy answers, and for that I wholly recomend it.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

Same, TOS is cool. Also the chemistry between Kirk, Spock and Bones is magical.

It really was, and it's why the trio of them basically *became* the face of Trek. Yeah, people liked Sulu, Chekov, Scotty, and Uhura... But it was those three that made the show.

TNG got some amazing two-man chemistry... Picard-Data, Picard-Worf, and Geordie-Data. But it never managed a three-man band like that.

And of course Picard-Q. Those matchups were always so good. Over the top and silly, but in a good way.

Speaking about DS9 there is something I love with episodes like in the pale moon light and Section 31 made me think about.

As much as I love Picard and the TNG enterprise cast, they were never put in a situation were the only way to win was to to compromise their morals.

I like section 31, not because they are edgy and act like assholes as ST;D seems to think, but because it made me question if truly good men like Picard only get to act like angels because people like Sisko get to do the hard choices they never would. Which I why I love his "It's easy to be an angel in paradise" speech.

As powerful and terryfing as the borg was, they never put out to the test the utopian ideals of the federation to the test, the same way the dominion did. So, while Picard just had to deal with an evil Borg Queen in his movies, Sisko had to question himself if Falsifying evidence, murdering criminals and an ambasssador to fool a superpower to joining them in a war effort, and maybe even dooming also them in the process was worth it.

Picard would have never made that choice in his place. Would he had found a third option to save everyone, or would he have doomed the alpha quadrant just to keep his consicence clean? I don't know, and that's why I liked it.

Ultimately I think both TOS and TNG represented the best of humanity and the spirit of Trek, but DS9 was all about the angels trying to stil be angels in hell, or in comples situations that didn't have easy answers like in wars, and for that I wholly recomend it.

Oh, I don't disagree with any of what you just said, only that I think it's kind of sad that we've never been able to do Trek-without-the-grit again since.

 

[AverageAnimeWatcher]

Oh, I don't disagree with any of what you just said, only that I think it's kind of sad that we've never been able to do Trek-without-the-grit again since.

Oh sure, my intent wasn't to debate you. I loved your post, and I just used a quote of yours to explain why I love DS9 so much.

I think DS9 did deviate from the utopian formula but it also had a purpose for doing so beyond going grimdark to be cool and edgy. They did it mostly to test those ideals, and that's something Bad Robot's trek doesn't seem to get.

In the end, what made trek so special, I think was that it was overall hopeful in contrast to those other, dime a dozen, doom, and gloom sci-fi shows.

Even other great sci-fi franchises aren't as optimistic. Doctor Who loves to show how screwed and miserable humanity will be in the future in many episodes (ex bad wolf, the beast below, Utopia, etc) and Star Wars, like its name, implies, is based on the premise that the galaxy, and humanity, will always be fighting each other never truly achieving peace.

Yet, Star Trek says the future can be great, something we can dream to reach if we strive to be the best version ourselves. I think we need more of that. I agree.

 

[UnKillFill]

as for the rest, might be fake, but considering how the first leaks turned out...

Spoiler: end of season spoilers

>Bruce Maddox is modeled on Donald Trump. He is the key antagonist this season, even though he just starts out as being a mysterious creator of Dahj who Picard is searching for.

Wait... Bruce Maddox? As in the douchy guy from Measure of a Man who tried to and failed to prove in court that Data wasn't a person? What a bizarre call back. That dude was never a scheming villain, just some self-entitled egghead. What he wanted to do in the episode wasn't even evil, just possibly misguided with some potentially bad implications (slave race) and he was an ass about it. Are they even going to get the original guy back?

Since Picard is obviously a dud, how about Riker?

 

[Intelligent Calcium]

I'm probably the odd one out here but I recommend against using any viewing guides. I think watching "bad" episodes/movies, and finding out why they're bad, is part of the experience. Seeing Worf angrily smash a lute against a tree, a 60-year old Uhura perform a "seductive" fan dance, Janeway and Paris turn into newts and Quark become a tranny for fun and profit is a big part of what makes being a Star Trek fan so much fun for me. A lot of nice character interactions are hidden away in the lesser episodes as well, so if you skip too much it will inevitably diminish your understanding of the characters.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

Apparently Midnight’s Edge is foolishly hearing about ViscomCBS selling Star Trek go NBCUniversal now that Seth McFarlane is at Universal now.

Now explain to me why ViacomCBS would foolishly given them up?

 

[Fluoxetine Man]

You'll know when it airs because you will hear hundreds of jokes about Ensign Tendies going on away missions for szechuan sauce.

View attachment 1112866

Woah Woah Woah Woah, a cute female alien with visible tits?! Don't the animators know it's *Current Year*! She needs a bean mouth and a round, shapeless body redesign stat!

 

[UnKillFill]

I'm probably the odd one out here but I recommend against using any viewing guides. I think watching "bad" episodes/movies, and finding out why they're bad, is part of the experience. Seeing Worf angrily smash a lute against a tree, a 60-year old Uhura perform a "seductive" fan dance, Janeway and Paris turn into newts and Quark become a tranny for fun and profit is a big part of what makes being a Star Trek fan so much fun for me. A lot of nice character interactions are hidden away in the lesser episodes as well, so if you skip too much it will inevitably diminish your understanding of the characters.

I half agree with you. But viewing guides *are* still somewhat useful, both for getting new people into Trek, (Because let's face it, there are a lot of bad Trek episodes even in the good shows, and a lot of them tend to be early on.) and also for skipping the bad stuff as a seasoned fan while re-watching (If you can't be assed to remember what the good and bad episodes are)... But I do believe that if you end up becoming a Trekkie, it's worth going back at some point and seeing everything. Except for STD, and I guess now Picard.

Side note, @MembersSchoolPizza 's rundown of all the various iterations of Trek was fairly on point, but I wanted to weigh in about the movies:

I never liked the whole "Even Trek Movies are good, Odd Trek movies are bad," line... (Even before Nemesis utterly sank that notion.)

I'm not the biggest TOS show fan, but I would actually say that all 6 of the original TOS movies- Including both Star Trek (I): The Slow Motion Picture, (my personal least favorite of the 6, and the one I would say to skip if you were going to skip any.) and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (The one that most people hate, and even I will qualify as "So bad it's good"), are worth watching at least once.

"Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" is a good movie, and an essential watch if you actually care about the overall story of these films, as it's the middle part of an otherwise well-written trilogy. It just has the misfortune of being sandwiched in between Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, (One of my personal top 5 favorite movies of all time.) And Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home i.e. the one with the whales... Which is a hella-dumb fun stereotypical 80's movie that a lot of people who aren't me love more than anything... (Ok, so I don't like it as much as most people seem to, but I still say it's worth watching... And there's a decent chance you'll like it more than I do...)

Fun fact: The (pedo) dad from silly Christian show- 7th Heaven was a major character in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and the (probably not pedo) mom from same silly show 7th Heaven was the Bond Kirk girl in Star Trek IV... Funny coincidence if you ask me.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

Yet, Star Trek says the future can be great, something we can dream to reach if we strive to be the best version ourselves. I think we need more of that. I agree.

The trouble, then, is that once you reach the summit, there's nowhere to go but down. Utopia is inherently unrealistic, but that's not it's real problem- it's real problem is that it's fucking boring, which is why we have to tangle with goo monsters and nebulous clouds of space-magic every week. That's why DS9 had to go darker; if you want an extended plot that involves the Federation and meaningful conflict, you need that meaningful conflict to reach the Federation.

 

[AverageAnimeWatcher]

The trouble, then, is that once you reach the summit, there's nowhere to go but down. Utopia is inherently unrealistic, but that's not it's real problem- it's real problem is that it's fucking boring, which is why we have to tangle with goo monsters and nebulous clouds of space-magic every week. That's why DS9 had to go darker; if you want an extended plot that involves the Federation and meaningful conflict, you need that meaningful conflict to reach the Federation.

I agree that perfection makes for boring storytelling, In fact, that's why I praised DS9 in my other post.

But my point isn't saying that Utopias are realistic or that everyone should be perfect paragons of goodness, but that I miss the Star Trek that inspired people to become doctors, and scientists, and engineers.

I personally doubt we will ever reach a summit because perfection is an unreachable goal, and we will always find ways to be better. Even the utopic federation has room for improvement. but I digress.

Maybe the future won't ever be perfect, but that doesn't mean we can dream or strive for a better future and even get as close as we can get, and that's something Star Trek did do great: inspiring people.

 

[Intelligent Calcium]

I half agree with you. But viewing guides *are* still somewhat useful, both for getting new people into Trek, (Because let's face it, there are a lot of bad Trek episodes even in the good shows, and a lot of them tend to be early on.) and also for skipping the bad stuff as a seasoned fan while re-watching (If you can't be assed to remember what the good and bad episodes are)... But I do believe that if you end up becoming a Trekkie, it's worth going back at some point and seeing everything. Except for STD, and I guess now Picard.

Yeah that's true, you gotta build up some confidence in the franchise before going all-in on stuff like Move Along Home.

I never liked the whole "Even Trek Movies are good, Odd Trek movies are bad," line... (Even before Nemesis utterly sank that notion.)

I think people started including Galaxy Quest into that to make it work again, but no idea if anyone cared enough to work the JJ movies into it.

The trouble, then, is that once you reach the summit, there's nowhere to go but down. Utopia is inherently unrealistic, but that's not it's real problem- it's real problem is that it's fucking boring, which is why we have to tangle with goo monsters and nebulous clouds of space-magic every week. That's why DS9 had to go darker; if you want an extended plot that involves the Federation and meaningful conflict, you need that meaningful conflict to reach the Federation.

But don't go too dark and conflict-focused or you might get an STD.

 

[Megaroad 2012]

Been watching the TOS movies again and came to this conclusion:

Best sequence in all of Trek is the table sequence in Undiscovered Country when the crew has to intracact with the Klingons.

 

[Overly Serious]

Thank you for so many helpful replies. Special gratitude to @MembersSchoolPizza for the long and detailed overview.

I watched, amongst other episodes, The Thaw which @intelligent-calcium recommended and it was required some level of theatre-tolerance to enjoy but it was good. And I am so far agreeing with @UnKillFill that Voyager seems "fine for what it is". I'm curious about this comment, though:

Voyager - skip it. There is one outstanding actor in it, which makes me kind of sad to snub it given his performance, but the series was not very good.

Who is the outstanding actor, in your opinion? The reason I ask is not because I think there are no good actors, but because I think there are several. Jerry Ryan is actually a fine actress. A fact which may be somewhat obscured for some by her amply ticking all the boxes for someone you could suspect was cast for their looks. The scenes of her calling out Janeway on not letting her choose to return to the Collective are very good, imo.

I can certainly see there being lots of scenes where the cast aren't given the chance to do great acting, but when they are I think some of them shine. Kate Mulgrew (who I henceforth will be calling Katherine Hepburn in Colour of KHiC) is pretty good if a little Shakespearean at times. Which isn't necessarily a fault so much as the show not always knowing whether it wants to be art-y drama or slice of life from moment to moment.

Tuvok (think that's his name) though what is the matter with him? Whenever he's being dramatic he just sort of rotates around like a plank of wood.

Planet of sexy nazi women!

Episode reference please. *ahem*

Discovery - Skip it. Forget it exists. It is terrible beyond redemption. There are one or two episodes I would actually hesitatingly call "good", and there are a couple of good actors, but it's not enough to redeem the trainwreck. Also, regardless of what they tried to do, it feels far more like it's in the Abrams timeline than the Prime timeline.

Alas, as I said I watched some of this. I felt it wasn't awful - it definitely had some good acting in it and decent moments. I liked the twist with the captain. I guess a lot of what people hate about it only applies to true fans who can see the ways it doesn't fit with Star Trek in general and get annoyed by that? Which didn't apply to me as I had only seen some Trek casually prior to it. Also the writer or director said in interview that the Klingons were an analogue for Trump Supporters so that didn't exactly help.

Janeway and Paris turn into newts

What?

Quark become a tranny for fun and profit

WHAT?

As regards the DS9 discussion I've kicked off, I always had two impressions of it. One that it was a more realistic, deeper take on Star Trek. Two, that it was heavily ripped off from Babylon 5 and that the writer of B5 had previously sent them his proposal, they turned him down and then used his ideas for it. That left a sour taste in my mouth as a huge fan of B5. I probably would think it's good if I had the time to do it justice but right now, more feeling like some casual watching. Other than Thaw, I pretty much just started with the Scorpion two-parter as that seemed a fun one where things get going. I find Janeway's second in command very irritating, btw. The guy with the eyebrow tattoo. Not a bad actor or anything, just unlikeable.

 

[Intelligent Calcium]

WHAT?

Pretty sure he went full bottom surgery but Federation medicine is so advanced that Bashir just grew him a new dick at the end of the episode so Quark didn't have to join Section 41%. Not posting the conclusion to Threshold because that episode is a downward spiral that everyone should experience for themselves. People love to shit on these episodes, and they're not wrong, but I think they're fun to watch at least once to see how bad it gets.

I find Janeway's second in command very irritating, btw. The guy with the eyebrow tattoo. Not a bad actor or anything, just unlikeable.

Chakotay becomes more enjoyable once you know that the advisor they hired for all the Native American stuff was a scam artist who just fed them bullshit.

 

[AverageAnimeWatcher]

As regards the DS9 discussion I've kicked off, I always had two impressions of it. One that it was a more realistic, deeper take on Star Trek. Two, that it was heavily ripped off from Babylon 5 and that the writer of B5 had previously sent them his proposal, they turned him down and then used his ideas for it. That left a sour taste in my mouth as a huge fan of B5. I probably would think it's good if I had the time to do it justice but right now, more feeling like some casual watching. Other than Thaw, I pretty much just started with the Scorpion two-parter as that seemed a fun one where things get going. I find Janeway's second in command very irritating, btw. The guy with the eyebrow tattoo. Not a bad actor or anything, just unlikeable.

I watched some of Babylon 5 (up until season 2 episode 1) and the whole of DS9, so I might be able to advise you there.

For casual viewing, Voyager and TNG are the best, because they are designed to be, mostly, stand-alone stories. Easy to digest without needing to bing a whole season.

As for DS9, once you get to it, IMHO, it doesn't require as much commitment as B5 does. As you know, B5 started it's season wide arch since episode 1, so every episode had hints and heavy foreshadowing, but DS9 didn't become heavily "episodic" way until the dominion arc. In fact, much of its early episodes are classic "standalone science/philosophical problem of the week" trek. Especially the first few seasons.

 

[GethN7]

Having seen most of Star Trek, I'd have to say the best episodes in all versions are the ones that ask questions about human nature.

TOS is dated, yes, but it had some really good episodes that really delivered in the societal morals department. It's episode about the futility of racism was the perfect mix of subtle and on the nose, and rather brave considering it was made in the sixties.

TNG had some crap in the first two seasons, but "The Measure of a Man" is still an excellent episode, and all the more "this is you, humanity, think about it" episodes still stand up even now.

DS9 had a darker take on this. TOS and TNG were far more optimistic we could move beyond our worst traits, but DS9's human nature episodes had the audacity to say "sometimes even our best is going to be morally grey, can you live with that?" A bit divisive, especially given how it seems to defy Roddenberry's original vision, but still compelling to ponder.

Voyager had some good episodes in this regard, like how that had to make a holographic clone of a Cardassian Mengele to get a cure for a disease made, and while the episode ended on a crap note, it did ask a good question: "do we throw the baby out with the bath water when bad people make good things?" The show was mostly crippled by bad writing in general though.

Enterprise was a bit lackluster in this regard, though still had some decent content when you stripped away the dumb story arcs they tried.

Not even gonna touch the trash fire that is Discovery.

 

[L50LasPak]

I believe I've waited long enough to mention this but this feels like a good firing point. But, @GethN7 does it again. Burn him and me down if you think he's full of shit. Otherwise I'm thinking Balance of Terror next.

Star Trek The Original Series "A Taste of Armageddon" episode review

Before I do this review proper, I just want to add I've always loved the Star Trek episodes where diplomacy of some sort was the focus of th...

gethn7.blogspot.com

 

[AverageAnimeWatcher]

One thing I will say about Voyager is that for all the reputation DS9 had about being the darkest Star Trek, Voyager imho had the most depressive episode of everything I've watched of Trek so far.

"Course Oblivion" wouldn't be out of place as an episode of The Twilight Zone.

There isn't a single trace of hope there.