Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

Midway through second watch of TNG season 2 and just finished The Royale
"The Royale" is another episode which gets shit on. It tries to be bad, and viewers aren't sure how to take it.

"I will welcome death when it comes." Imagine being marooned in whatever shitty Elmore Leonard book was lying around.

DS9 realized the joke a lot better, when mobsters took over Vic's lounge.
 
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I wonder what they would have done with Pulaski if they kept her on past S2, she really grew on me by the end of it.
I agree with this. I didn't like Pulaski at first but by the end of S2 I wish she had stayed. Not like Crusher got anything spectacular besides becoming the ghost rider.
 
Guess I need to watch both again....
It is a bit funny because DS9 does a few enemy-mine style plots. Quark & Odo trapped on a planet. I'd even argue Rocks & Shoals is closer to the film though necessarily truncated.
 
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It is a bit funny because DS9 does a few enemy-mine style plots. Quark & Odo trapped on a planet. I'd even argue Rocks & Shoals is closer to the film though necessarily truncated.
Mind you, I'm not a big ds9 fan.

@JamesFargo

Now you're giving me some incentive to watch ds9...
 
I agree with this. I didn't like Pulaski at first but by the end of S2 I wish she had stayed. Not like Crusher got anything spectacular besides becoming the ghost rider.
Like Geordi, I couldn't tell you a thing about Bev's personality, except that she likes dance and aerobics.🙄

"The Host" was one of Gates' better performances, so it's unfortunate that she molested Riker.

"Ethics" is kind of interesting (plastic barrels toppling our proud Klingon!) because the amoral doctor gets results. "Nothing Human" was more up-front about the Mengele comparison. It's the same dilemma, though: History will remember Russell as a miracle worker, and Crusher as a Doubting Thomas who stood in the way of progress, which is a hard pill to swallow.
 
Like Geordi, I couldn't tell you a thing about Bev's personality, except that she likes dance and aerobics.🙄

"The Host" was one of Gates' better performances, so it's unfortunate that she molested Riker.

"Ethics" is kind of interesting (plastic barrels toppling our proud Klingon!) because the amoral doctor gets results. "Nothing Human" was more up-front about the Mengele comparison. It's the same dilemma, though: History will remember Russell as a miracle worker, and Crusher as a Doubting Thomas who stood in the way of progress, which is a hard pill to swallow.
It's also interesting that Picard actually argued for Worf's suicide. Not to look for technicalities, but an actual argument for it.
 
A question for all Trek fans out there; Do you have favorite episodes (can be from any of the seriesesess) and why? Did it hit you in the feels? Or did you just like hoping to catch Jerri Ryan's or Miriana Sirtirs's nipples through their tight outfits?
I'm gonna go for some of my more obscure favourites

TNG- Remember Me, given that has been a bit of discussion about Bev, I thought i would shout out her one good episode. I love the sense of uneasiness the whole episode has and how the mystery slowly unfolds.

Frame of Mind, Is actually quite similar to Remember Me but with Riker as the main character and is a bigger mindfuck.

DS9- The Ship, I love the ending of the episode where Sisko realizes that he could have gotten what he wanted with fewer deaths if both sides could have just trusted each other. That female Vorta also does things for me, even though she looks like Jeffrey combs in drag.
 
That female Vorta also does things for me
She keeps calling time-out on the bombardment to offer Sisko refreshments. Like "The Ship" is a Sonic drive-in, and she's a waitress on roller-skates.

theship3.jpg
 
I never watched much of TOS because it always felt hokey. Entertaining at times but hokey.

TNG was different for me. My favorite episode is Measure of a Man that decides in a trial whether or not Data is a sentient being. Riker’s argument to Data being an object is compelling but Picard’s impassioned speech about Data being a person convinced me. It also showed how ordinary people can be ground up by a mostly uncaring system and it’s those close to you that will help you come out intact.
To back up what james Fargo said...tos is supposed to be cheesy/hokey.. that's part of the charm..and the (good) stories shine past the cheesy.
 
To back up what james Fargo said...tos is supposed to be cheesy/hokey.. that's part of the charm..and the (good) stories shine past the cheesy.

I’ll have to try to watch it again with that in mind. Last time I saw it was 15 years ago. Currently I’m going through DS9 off and on. Definitely like Quark and Captain Sisko. O’Brien is also a great character in any show.
 
Chuck goes off on the shit way the Prime Directive was handled during the TNG era in his look at Masterpiece Society. One of the fun times when you hear him really get pissed about something.
 
I never got the hate for Enterprise. It's not good, but it's not Voyager and later seasons of TNG.

Still, I gotta wonder, did no one point out some of the weird decisions?

Berman "So. Like. The intros gonna be rock and roll!"

Studio Head "Good, good. Trek orchestra stuff is kindof dating us."

Berman "Yeah, they'll be like it's been a loooong road!"

Studio Head "I thought this was a prequel?"
 
A question for all Trek fans out there; Do you have favorite episodes (can be from any of the seriesesess) and why? Did it hit you in the feels? Or did you just like hoping to catch Jerri Ryan's or Miriana Sirtirs's nipples through their tight outfits?

Personally, the episodes from TOS I love: "The Conscious of the King" Kirk doesn't have to chase the girl.. she comes onto him...just so she can kill him later. The main plot though is how we would deal with someone who had to make decisions like Kodos (the "executioner") Everyone vilified him...but he was faced with an ultimate Koybyashi Maru. Our perceptions of people we deem "monsters" can change when we find out what few options they were left to face. Plus, the 19 year old, blonde girl hitting on Kirk gave us a lot of innuendos that amazed me got past the network censors 50 years ago.. they are that obvious.

"A Private Little war" is an interesting summation of the cold war and its effects on cultures who get sucked into it.. And Kirk did not get the girl...nor did he actually win...but he didn't loose either.

"Return of the Archons" Roddenberry was an avowed atheist. Rumor has it, he had tried to write episodes where Kirk, Spock and McCoy literally kill the God of Abraham.. This was one of those attempts trying to slip it in sideways IMHO
I've always loved "Conscience of the King", a truly amazing episode that stands the test of time. I also really liked "The Doomsday Machine" because of Windom's performance.

In TNG I was always a sucker for the mystery episodes. "Schisms", "Clues" and "Cause and Effect" immediately spring to mind. But an episode with a lot of heart is "The Defector".
 
In TNG I was always a sucker for the mystery episodes. "Schisms", "Clues" and "Cause and Effect" immediately spring to mind. But an episode with a lot of heart is "The Defector".
Schisms is specially terrifying when you consider that all those people claiming to have been abducted by aliens back in the 20th or 21st Century (and even before that), where in fact telling the truth but nobody could help them because "aliens aren't real!".
 
I never got the hate for Enterprise. It's not good, but it's not Voyager and later seasons of TNG.
Voyager was consistently bad, but Enterprise was bland.


Still, I gotta wonder, did no one point out some of the weird decisions?

Berman "So. Like. The intros gonna be rock and roll!"

Studio Head "Good, good. Trek orchestra stuff is kindof dating us."

Berman "Yeah, they'll be like it's been a loooong road!"

Studio Head "I thought this was a prequel?"
The studio wanted a band to show up and play in the mess hall every episode. A real one. Like it was that Las Vegas show with James Caan. But gosh that was a terrible theme song. Sickeningly saccharine, lyrics on the nose like a red rubber ball that squeaks when you squeeze it, and it already felt dated in the pilot episode. The promos before the first episode had a different song, I don't remember what it was, but a lot of commentators wished they had used that one.
 
Voyager was consistently bad, but Enterprise was bland.



The studio wanted a band to show up and play in the mess hall every episode. A real one. Like it was that Las Vegas show with James Caan. But gosh that was a terrible theme song. Sickeningly saccharine, lyrics on the nose like a red rubber ball that squeaks when you squeeze it, and it already felt dated in the pilot episode. The promos before the first episode had a different song, I don't remember what it was, but a lot of commentators wished they had used that one.
I know it put off long time fans. But the instrumental intro was apart of how the franchise had gotten typecast.

It's just so ironic that something that was supposed to be new and fresh was long and old. :lol:
 
If I made an animated Trek it wouldn't be fucking Lower Decks. It would be Warship Voyager, where Janeway uses science and engineering to conquer her way home, not unlike Living Witness.

And a whole season devoted to Year of Hell.
Y'know I was thinking the other day of a potential Trek show, but how to make it cool and fun. I liked what Voyager did where it assembled it's crew, kinda like in Mass Effect. So here's my pitch:

The Federation suddenly falls to pieces. In a matter of days, all alliances are shattered. Any ship currently out in space is on their own. "No man is an island" doesn't apply. Over the course of weeks, these ships, whether on their own or in small flotillas, have formed tribes. They all have to become self-sufficient. Starbases are claimed quickly; territories are plotted out; skirmishes break out. Allegiances aren't to races anymore, they're to ships.
So The Enterprise has to go around and reunite the ships and attempt to form a new Federation.

Whaddya think?
 
Y'know I was thinking the other day of a potential Trek show, but how to make it cool and fun. I liked what Voyager did where it assembled it's crew, kinda like in Mass Effect. So here's my pitch: The Federation suddenly falls to pieces.
At this point, anything Star Trek does will be unfavorably compared with something else. BSG did the flotilla of ships. Andromeda had the Federation in tatters. B5 did the formation of a Federation, as did Star Trek under Brannon Braga (your mileage may vary).
I just heard Lower Decks is getting another season? Why?
It's the best-rated of the Trek shows on TV.

I suspect the others are some kind of tax dodge. RLM called it: the more money they lose, the more they write off in taxes.
 
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