Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[BScCollateral]

That's actually true. Heard it about Scrubs....

Cyril ninja'd me about Barney Miller, but former submariner and streamer Jive Turkey approves of Down Periscope (1996).

 

[GethN7]

The Doctor is a great character and has a really good arc throughout. If you like him, I’d say it’s worth watching for that.

That's one of the high points of Voyager. The Doctor (a few episodes aside, and that was mostly the fault of crap writing) was a great character and Robert Picardo swung for the fences even with the shittier scripts.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

Actually, that's quite credible. You live in a world where there is a bunch of things that were considered science fiction, but you know them in a more grounded form. As a result, when you realize people a few hundred years back imagined the same future, only they has a much cheesier and silly view of the world you live in, it is not beyond the realm of reason you might be intensely amused at the naivety of your ancestors to the point you become a bemused fan because it's, in your eyes, a tongue firmly in cheek thing to enjoy.

Oh for sure, it would be amusing but using my holodeck time for playacting hokey 50s TV chars? Nah. Although you could tell Kate Mulgrew had fun as Bride of Chaotica.

 

[Cyril Sneer]

They tried to make him Top Gun/Tom Cruise in Star Trek but it comes off as cringe as its poorly done. Only boomers who grew up in the 50s get all those Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers references.

Or geeky kids who are fascinated by history...

Really, I don't think it's implausible at all. To build on what @Flexo and @GethN7 mentioned above, look at how popular Fallout's 50s-inspired alternate-history post-apocalyptic future setting is (also, one gets the sense that, in Star Trek, there really hasn't been much in the way pop-culture on Earth since at least the Eugenics Wars).

I respect that idea but never gave enough fucks about Nick to care personally.

What's weird is that despite having the same actor and more or less the same backstory, Locarno, at least in my recollection of "The First Duty" came off as someone who actually could be genuinely dangerous, while Paris, despite supposedly being the designated Bad Boy of the Voyager's crew, always felt more like Fonzie from the later seasons of Happy Days (i.e. a fundamentally decent, upstanding chap tenuously hanging on to his reputation as a sleezy lout by virtue of wearing a leather jacket and riding a motorcycle).

Locarno, in contrast... well, just look at this guy. He's basically an embryonic T-1000:

In addition to having a fine Soulless Death-Stare, he's also a preternaturally talented pilot with a suitably massive ego who is sufficiently charismatic and/or intimidating enough to first convince his fellow cadets to secretly practice an illegal and extremely dangerous flight display and then, when this results in the death of one of their number, to cover up the truth from the Academy authorities and maintain tight group solidarity (at least until Wesley Crusher proves to be more afraid of disappointing Captain Picard than whatever Locarno might do to him). At the last moment, too, he reveals an unexpected kernel of honor, stepping up before the tribunal and successfully demanding that they assign all responsibility for the incident to him, in order to save his fellow cadets' future Starfleet careers.

Paris, in comparison, seems like a pale shadow of the same character, with all of the moral ambiguity and darker aspects of his personality scrubbed away, in short, all of the things that made him really interesting, which I guess is of a piece with how Voyager's premise of a Federation starship fighting to survive in savage and unknown space was sanitized beyond all reason by the producers.

 

[Flexo]

Cyril ninja'd me about Barney Miller, but former submariner and streamer Jive Turkey approves of Down Periscope (1996).

Oh I love Down Periscope.

Thx for the recommend on Barney Miller (and @Cyril Sneer) I'll check it out sometime.

EDIT:

Or geeky kids who are fascinated by history...

Really, I don't think it's implausible at all. To build on what @Flexo and @GethN7 mentioned above, look at how popular Fallout's 50s-inspired alternate-history post-apocalyptic future setting is (also, one gets the sense that, in Star Trek, there really hasn't been much in the way pop-culture on Earth since at least the Eugenics Wars).

What's weird is that despite having the same actor and more or less the same backstory, Locarno, at least in my recollection of "The First Duty" came off as someone who actually could be genuinely dangerous, while Paris, despite supposedly being the designated Bad Boy of the Voyager's crew, always felt more like Fonzie from the later seasons of Happy Days (i.e. a fundamentally decent, upstanding chap tenuously hanging on to his reputation as a sleezy lout by virtue of wearing a leather jacket and riding a motorcycle).

Locarno, in contrast... well, just look at this guy. He's basically an embryonic T-1000:

View attachment 1321063

In addition to having a fine Soulless Death-Stare, he's also a preternaturally talented pilot with a suitably massive ego who is sufficiently charismatic and/or intimidating enough to first convince his fellow cadets to secretly practice an illegal and extremely dangerous flight display and then, when this results in the death of one of their number, to cover up the truth from the Academy authorities and maintain tight group solidarity (at least until Wesley Crusher proves to be more afraid of disappointing Captain Picard than whatever Locarno might do to him). At the last moment, too, he reveals an unexpected kernel of honor, stepping up before the tribunal and successfully demanding that they assign all responsibility for the incident to him, in order to save his fellow cadets' future Starfleet careers.

Paris, in comparison, seems like a pale shadow of the same character, with all of the moral ambiguity and darker aspects of his personality scrubbed away, in short, all of the things that made him really interesting, which I guess is of a piece with how Voyager's premise of a Federation starship fighting to survive in savage and unknown space was sanitized beyond all reason by the producers.

Bonus joke SFDebris pointed out on a recent video: Tom Paris' incident that got him kicked out of starfleet didn't kill anyone, but then in a later episode of voyager, he admits that it did kill someone. So at some point even the writers forgot the two were different characters.

 

[Cyril Sneer]

Oh I love Down Periscope.

Thx for the recommend on Barney Miller (and @Cyril Sneer) I'll check it out sometime.

Coincidentally, I've been thinking about checking out Down Periscope for a while now. Will definitely have to get on that now with your recommendation.

 

[Flexo]

Coincidentally, I've been thinking about checking out Down Periscope for a while now. Will definitely have to get on that now with your recommendation.

Avoid the trailer, it really does give away a lot - salvaged only by the fact that everything is out of order to keep you from grasping context.

Really solid comedy from a time that is now lost.

 

[GethN7]

Or geeky kids who are fascinated by history...

Really, I don't think it's implausible at all. To build on what @Flexo and @GethN7 mentioned above, look at how popular Fallout's 50s-inspired alternate-history post-apocalyptic future setting is (also, one gets the sense that, in Star Trek, there really hasn't been much in the way pop-culture on Earth since at least the Eugenics Wars).

What's weird is that despite having the same actor and more or less the same backstory, Locarno, at least in my recollection of "The First Duty" came off as someone who actually could be genuinely dangerous, while Paris, despite supposedly being the designated Bad Boy of the Voyager's crew, always felt more like Fonzie from the later seasons of Happy Days (i.e. a fundamentally decent, upstanding chap tenuously hanging on to his reputation as a sleezy lout by virtue of wearing a leather jacket and riding a motorcycle).

Locarno, in contrast... well, just look at this guy. He's basically an embryonic T-1000:

View attachment 1321063

In addition to having a fine Soulless Death-Stare, he's also a preternaturally talented pilot with a suitably massive ego who is sufficiently charismatic and/or intimidating enough to first convince his fellow cadets to secretly practice an illegal and extremely dangerous flight display and then, when this results in the death of one of their number, to cover up the truth from the Academy authorities and maintain tight group solidarity (at least until Wesley Crusher proves to be more afraid of disappointing Captain Picard than whatever Locarno might do to him). At the last moment, too, he reveals an unexpected kernel of honor, stepping up before the tribunal and successfully demanding that they assign all responsibility for the incident to him, in order to save his fellow cadets' future Starfleet careers.

Paris, in comparison, seems like a pale shadow of the same character, with all of the moral ambiguity and darker aspects of his personality scrubbed away, in short, all of the things that made him really interesting, which I guess is of a piece with how Voyager's premise of a Federation starship fighting to survive in savage and unknown space was sanitized beyond all reason by the producers.

One of the Voyager novels tried to fix Paris by giving him a similar Locarno style backstory, but while it was a nice character rehabilitation, it would have been nice had it been canon, as the guy in the actual show is a bland ripoff.

 

[Tookie]

Paris, in comparison, seems like a pale shadow of the same character, with all of the moral ambiguity and darker aspects of his personality scrubbed away, in short, all of the things that made him really interesting, which I guess is of a piece with how Voyager's premise of a Federation starship fighting to survive in savage and unknown space was sanitized beyond all reason by the producers.

Maybe future prisons are truly rehabilitative and fixed him.

 

[Stoneheart]

i miss when star trek wasnt retarded...

 

[Love Soze]

Oh I love Down Periscope.

Thx for the recommend on Barney Miller (and @Cyril Sneer) I'll check it out sometime.

EDIT:


Bonus joke SFDebris pointed out on a recent video: Tom Paris' incident that got him kicked out of starfleet didn't kill anyone, but then in a later episode of voyager, he admits that it did kill someone. So at some point even the writers forgot the two were different characters.

Huh? In Caretaker he says:
"PARIS: I'll tell you the truth, Harry. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut and I was home free. But I couldn't. The ghosts of those three dead officers came to me in the middle of the night and taught me the true meaning of Christmas. So I confessed."

 

[Meriasek]

Oh I love Down Periscope.

Thx for the recommend on Barney Miller (and @Cyril Sneer) I'll check it out sometime.

EDIT:


Bonus joke SFDebris pointed out on a recent video: Tom Paris' incident that got him kicked out of starfleet didn't kill anyone, but then in a later episode of voyager, he admits that it did kill someone. So at some point even the writers forgot the two were different characters.

It even killed three officers, apparently. I read that the writers felt that Nick was too irredeemable to get him onto Voyager, which is kinda stupid considering that he owns up to his deeds at the end. Some have claimed that the main reason for not bringing back Locarno proper was that they'd have to pay royalties to the writers of The First Duty, so they wrote a Donut Steel version and ended up with the same actor.
I liked Tom Paris, he was always the relatable guy. His uniform apparently had padded pecs to make him look more muscular. In STD they'd have a padded gunt and a club foot.
I'm generally quite fond of Voyager since it was the first one I regularly saw on TV when it came out, so I have a soft spot for it. Lots of really bad episodes, but also some really good moments. Great premise, but extremely lackluster execution.
Same for Enterprise, really. I liked the style, look, and premise of the show, but the writing just wasn't the best at times to say the least.
Nothing beats DS9 and TNG, though.

 

[Flexo]

Huh? In Caretaker he says:
"PARIS: I'll tell you the truth, Harry. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut and I was home free. But I couldn't. The ghosts of those three dead officers came to me in the middle of the night and taught me the true meaning of Christmas. So I confessed."

It even killed three officers, apparently. I read that the writers felt that Nick was too irredeemable to get him onto Voyager, which is kinda stupid considering that he owns up to his deeds at the end. Some have claimed that the main reason for not bringing back Locarno proper was that they'd have to pay royalties to the writers of The First Duty, so they wrote a Donut Steel version and ended up with the same actor.

Pardon me. You're both right. I had gotten confused on the error. In the episode Drive, Torres says Paris was expelled from the [Starfleet] academy. And Chuck points out no he wasn't, THAT was Locarno. The show did explain that Paris graduated.

That's what I get for sobering up.

 

[Meriasek]

Paris had a holoprogram in which he wrenched on old cars and he wanted to add spoilers to a spaceship.
He also broke the transwarp threshold, trooned out into a frog and banged the Captain, and later banged the moodiest bitch aboard the ship while being the Trek-universe equivalent of a Trekkie.
He's a pretty cool guy. Unlike Harry Kim, who would have been beamed into space by Janeway for even trying to be half as a awesome.
And even Tom Paris isn't half as cool as the Doctor.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Paris had a holoprogram in which he wrenched on old cars and he wanted to add spoilers to a spaceship.
He also broke the transwarp threshold, trooned out into a frog and banged the Captain, and later banged the moodiest bitch aboard the ship while being the Trek-universe equivalent of a Trekkie.
He's a pretty cool guy. Unlike Harry Kim, who would have been beamed into space by Janeway for even trying to be half as a awesome.
And even Tom Paris isn't half as cool as the Doctor.

The Doctor and Tom did have some great back-and-forth too.

 

[Dr. Sexbot]

Paris had a holoprogram in which he wrenched on old cars and he wanted to add spoilers to a spaceship.
He also broke the transwarp threshold, trooned out into a frog and banged the Captain, and later banged the moodiest bitch aboard the ship while being the Trek-universe equivalent of a Trekkie.
He's a pretty cool guy. Unlike Harry Kim, who would have been beamed into space by Janeway for even trying to be half as a awesome.
And even Tom Paris isn't half as cool as the Doctor.

The Chad Tom Paris versus the Virgin Harry Kim. Times rarely change.

 

[Meriasek]

The Chad Tom Paris versus the Virgin Harry Kim. Times rarely change.

Janeway's reactions to
Harry "Cuck" Kim making a minor mistake:

And to Tom Paris kidnapping her, trooning her into a frog and populating an alien planet with her:

Yeah, ok, no more jabs at "Threshold". We all know it's a shitty episode.

/edit: Yeah, I'll go fix the images later. Probably.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Unlike Harry Kim, who would have been beamed into space by Janeway for even trying to be half as a awesome.

Just gonna leave this here:

 

[Meriasek]

Just gonna leave this here:

That's Harry "Cuck" Kim for ya.
Tom Paris would have ordered the computer to do a point-to-point transport to the holodeck so he could bang her in the backseat of a Camaro. Janeway would have promoted him to Lt.-ComMANder the next day.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

That's Harry "Cuck" Kim for ya.
Tom Paris would have ordered the computer to do a point-to-point transport to the holodeck so he could bang her in the backseat of a Camaro. Janeway would have promoted him to Lt.-ComMANder the next day.

I can almost hear his smooth talking
"Trust me Seven, this is totally the traditional way to do it..."