Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[Inventor of the Telephone]

A good chunk of that was because Jolene Blalock was a genuine airhead.

She had admirable grooming habits though. He buttocks were probably the cleanest surface in the quadrant.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I literally taught that when I rewatched it, "Omg, Keiko was a bitch the very first time she showed up." the next episode she tries feeding Miles some garbage fished out the bottom of the ocean for breakfast.

Oh god, that scene was used in a German spoof of Star Trek called "Sinnlos im Weltraum" ("Senseless in Space"), it was basically people dubbing new dialogue over TNG episodes, which was a fucking riot.
In their version of the episode, Keiko forces Miles to eat placenta... and given how much of a pest she was, it's not even that far away from the original...

This all sounds like making up for Joleen's piss poor active that oozed so much emotions they kinda went "She had emotions all along, it was planned!"

While yes, Humans irritate Vulcans they never acted so overtly annoyed and curt about it as much as Joleen did. I can imagine many early take trying to direct her to be colder and then eventually just giving up to get their damn shots.

Until her, Tuvok was the most nagging Vulcan in the series but he still managed to come off as impassionate and logical even while being pitted against the irritation tsunami that is Neelix. (Except that one time where he choked him like a bitch on the holodeck.)

You'd think it's easy to portray an emotionless character like a vulcan, but when you compare Tuvok and T'pol, it becomes pretty clear that it's actually something that needs quite some work. Tim Russ really nailed that performance.

This is still the most baffling thing about Voyager, Enterprise and to some extent early DS9 before it got to do its own thing. The people in charge of these projects were very experienced, especially by the time of Enterprise, yet they continually greenlit really idiotic ideas, allowed bad writing on the shows and clearly didn't work hard enough to motivate their actors. There's this whole air of complacency as if the producers really didn't care about the success of the show and would have rather been making something else. To this day I still don't know why a lot of good ideas for Voyager and Enterprise got left on the cutting room floor or ignored completely and none of the producers have spoken much on the topic. The Rick Berman meme is kind of dead now that everyone despises Discovery so much, so I guess I won't hold my breath on ever getting an explanation.

I'd assume they kinda ran out of steam. Sometimes, they'd also get bogged down during the creative process. They'd start with a rather intriguing idea, but the more they explored it, the more it fell apart.
Overall, I think they should have been more bold with their decisions for the show. This was back in the day when shows were very episodic and I have a hunch that it would have been worth a shot to attempt more multi-episode arcs. It never really feels like Voyager progresses through the galaxy and their interactions with other species (ie: almost every episode, they meet a completely new one) are oftentimes too much like what you'd expect in TNG. I think it would have been nice to -for instance- have the Voyager enter the space of an interstellar nation, that stretches over a wide area and have them interact with them for a couple episodes. Within those episodes, have a couple 2-parters or even 3-parters to set up more complex storylines. Flesh out these species, their society and have fun with that. The problem with Star Trek in general is that most species end up being a "planet of hats" things. It's not like there weren't a few interesting species in Voyager, like the Vidiians (That's some nightmare fuel, not just their appearance, but that whole "high culture ravaged by some terrible disease" background), the Malon (basically space India, when it comes to littering), the Hierarchy had only a few episodes, but I still kinda liked them... even the Kazon had their moments. I think it would have been interesting to explore that stuff and the Voyagers interaction with those species a lot more.

They played it too safe and conventional and the show's quality suffered... also, they really didn't know how to keep some characters consistent (Janeway) or give them something meaningful to do (Kim).
But they gave us many great episodes with Seven, the Doctor or Seven and the Doctor, so I at least have to give them that.

 

[Flexo]

I'd assume they kinda ran out of steam. Sometimes, they'd also get bogged down during the creative process. They'd start with a rather intriguing idea, but the more they explored it, the more it fell apart.
Overall, I think they should have been more bold with their decisions for the show. This was back in the day when shows were very episodic and I have a hunch that it would have been worth a shot to attempt more multi-episode arcs. It never really feels like Voyager progresses through the galaxy and their interactions with other species (ie: almost every episode, they meet a completely new one) are oftentimes too much like what you'd expect in TNG. I think it would have been nice to -for instance- have the Voyager enter the space of an interstellar nation, that stretches over a wide area and have them interact with them for a couple episodes. Within those episodes, have a couple 2-parters or even 3-parters to set up more complex storylines. Flesh out these species, their society and have fun with that. The problem with Star Trek in general is that most species end up being a "planet of hats" things. It's not like there weren't a few interesting species in Voyager, like the Vidiians (That's some nightmare fuel, not just their appearance, but that whole "high culture ravaged by some terrible disease" background), the Malon (basically space India, when it comes to littering), the Hierarchy had only a few episodes, but I still kinda liked them... even the Kazon had their moments. I think it would have been interesting to explore that stuff and the Voyagers interaction with those species a lot more.

They played it too safe and conventional and the show's quality suffered... also, they really didn't know how to keep some characters consistent (Janeway) or give them something meaningful to do (Kim).
But they gave us many great episodes with Seven, the Doctor or Seven and the Doctor, so I at least have to give them that.

Just quoting myself again:

I quoted it before on this thread, I'll recite it from memory here, the interview Ronald D Moore did where he talked about Voyager some.

It's not about the fun - it's not about the camp.

It's about being serious.

And as I've stressed before on here as well, being serious doesn't mean you can't laugh or have fun either, it just means you treat things seriously.

You don't even have to do a war, all you have to do is hold to voyager's fucking premise. Like, ok, instead of year of hell, let's do "year of silly." One season (or a 2 part episode) where Voyager has to go through Talaxian controlled space and each episode they get into sillier and sillier situations that amount to largely side-quests of fun. Know how you make it work? You sell it based on the premise. You have Janeway bitching about something like "I can't stand these hedgehogs! I wish we could be rid of them!" "I know, Captain, but we don't have Starfleet to repair the ship. We need those parts, yada yada."

That's what always annoys me about it more than anything. You could do a swap of actors and 99% of the stories would work just as well in TOS or TNG - them being separated is that irrelevant.

The best parts of voyager were always the parts that actually dealt with the premise for this very reason. 7 or 9? (besides being a fine piece of ass) Totally unique to the show and not really doable anywhere else (since in those you could just ship her off to a federation therapy center). Same with the Doctor. An actual character arc built around the fact that they HAD to keep this guy and work with him. Scorpion 1 & 2? Masterpieces because it worked upon Voyager being alone.

They didn't have to make it gritty and war-torn all the time, they just had to keep it consistent to the set up. They could even had consistent stand-alone A plots, as long as they went with character arcs and long running B plots that looked at the struggle and adaption of a ship stranded.

But they didn't.

That's what always annoys me about Voyager. Enterprise was largely doomed from the start. Kelvin is a waste. Discovery should have been post-Voyager from the start and Picard is another waste. Voyager is by far the show of all them which had the most potential, the most set up, and squandered it all. It is the BIGGEST disappointment.

It's amazing how great Voyager could have been, and how weak it ended up being.

 

[ditto]

Voyager's worst actor was Robert Beltram, but he's the only cast member I can name who wasn't exceeding his character's limitations. Even Garrett Wang made Ensign Kim interesting and he spent his time playing his clarinet.

Beltram is a wierd case because I think he can act, but chose not to. But most of the timeChakotay was like a step dad or substitute teacher always deferring to momma Janeway.

You'd think it's easy to portray an emotionless character like a vulcan, but when you compare Tuvok and T'pol, it becomes pretty clear that it's actually something that needs quite some work. Tim Russ really nailed that performance.

Was excited to see Tim Russ in the first mirror DS9 episode, but he only got one line and never appeared again
Tuvok was easily the best non-TOS Vulcan. Probably helped that Russ is a trekkie IRL.

 

[L50LasPak]

Probably helped that Russ is a trekkie IRL.

Renegades is pretty damn good by the way. He shows his devotion to the franchise quite a bit in that.

 

[XYZpdq]

catching some DS9 on cytube
I get "because it would make for boring tv", but it seems like it would have been a lot more effective in a lot of circumstances for people to just ignore Wynn altogether and just be like "oh you said something? that's neat I'm busy"

 

[ditto]

I get "because it would make for boring tv", but it seems like it would have been a lot more effective in a lot of circumstances for people to just ignore Wynn altogether and just be like "oh you said something? that's neat I'm busy"

I forgot just how early in DS9 that Winn was effectively neutered. After Shakaar becomes First Minister she is little more than a nuisance until the series finale.

 

[XYZpdq]

I forgot just how early in DS9 that Winn was effectively neutered. After Shakaar becomes First Minister she is little more than a nuisance until the series finale.

>second spoiler
as much as the turn things took near the end annoys people I'll always love at the end when even the space demons think she's a worthless cunt

 

[Miller]

The Rick Berman meme is kind of dead now that everyone despises Discovery so much

Also the shitty RLM takes always portray the facts differently. There's a long discussion between Berman and Braga years after ENT ended and while we all know that Berman wanted to respect Roddenberry's vision, he also had to answer to CBS at the end of the day.

catching some DS9 on cytube
I get "because it would make for boring tv", but it seems like it would have been a lot more effective in a lot of circumstances for people to just ignore Wynn altogether and just be like "oh you said something? that's neat I'm busy"

It would have been hard to ignore Wynn since she was quite important to the religious side of the Bajorans.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Jeri Taylor wasn't the only one who wrote for Janeway. She had a completely different vision about Janeway from the other writers of the show, so of course any time somebody else wrote for Janeway, she came off as a completely different character every other episode.

Speaking of Jeri Taylor, I want to talk about the TNG episode The Outcast because she wrote this unintentional red-pilled episode. It's the episode where Riker bangs an ugly tranny named Soran. Soran comes from a race that "evolved" into trans-sexuality and considers sexual dimorphism to be a degenerate evolutionary throwback. Throughout the episode, Soran becomes curious about the sexes and asks about gender roles such as why Crusher wears makeup and asking about genitals. She falls in love with Riker when she admits that she identifies with the female gender despite the cultural taboo. She gets arrested and forced to undergo a trans sexual re-education procedure to make her have the correct sexuality.

Now, I'm aware she wanted to write an Oscar Wilde story, but according to New Text literary criticism (regular college English classes that everyone has to take), I only have to consider what happened on screen. What we have in this episode is the J'naii society considers trannies to be the next step in evolution, which is really just propaganda given how severe the J'naii court reacted to Soran. The court uses the force of law to make her take hormones to fix her sexual preference so that she fits into society, not necessarily because it's in patient's interests. What are trannies doing today? Glorifying the tranny lifestyle while stigmatizing traditional gender norms. Becoming a transsexual is incentivized in progressive society as a way to quickly improve social status such as Mags Visaggio not getting fired for being incompetent or Jonathon Yaniv who has his own Lolcow section. The end result is the creation of an extremely sexually repressive society because Da Science has determined that males and females are barbaric.

Jeri Taylor, like Paul Verhoeven in Starship Troopers, fucked up her message so hard that she ended up showing the exact opposite of her creative vision.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that Riker is literally a member of the Cis-hetero patriarchy.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

I remember that episode and I thought the idea that the species "evolved" into genderless freaks was just propaganda pushed onto the populace by the headfucked upper classes who engineered the genderless society.

Because evolution went from sexless ameobas and single celled organisms to more complex organisms with dual sexes for a fucking reason. There are no environmental pressures I can imagine that would cause this shit, only societal ones enforced by insane ideologues.

 

[L50LasPak]

Also the shitty RLM takes always portray the facts differently. There's a long discussion between Berman and Braga years after ENT ended and while we all know that Berman wanted to respect Roddenberry's vision, he also had to answer to CBS at the end of the day.

The Rick Berman hate comes from more places than just the RLM crowd. SFDebris has been ragging on him for years, but there are also vintage Ex Astris Scientia, Agony Booth and even TV Guide reviews that throw shade on the guy. Then again Wil Wheaton also hates him so the man can't possibly be all bad.

My best guess is that Rick Berman at the end of the day thought and acted like what he was, a producer, which for the record he's a pretty damn successful one regardless of the ultimate quality of Voyager or Enterprise. If anything his biggest sin to me is one of complacency, but even I have to acknowledge at the end of the day that he had an easy job to get complacent in.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

I remember that episode and I thought the idea that the species "evolved" into genderless freaks was just propaganda pushed onto the populace by the headfucked upper classes who engineered the genderless society.

Because evolution went from sexless ameobas and single celled organisms to more complex organisms with dual sexes for a fucking reason. There are no environmental pressures I can imagine that would cause this shit, only societal ones enforced by insane ideologues.

Which is why it's fundamentally silly that people think it's a LGBT rights episode. It's intended to be that way, but it doesn't actually depict the Trans society in a good light. It also happens to be an anti-feminist story since Soran's feminine characteristics get erased at the end of it.

 

[UnKillFill]

They basically use the equivalent of gay conversion therapy to make the freak conform to the rest of the asexual planet. It's a really muddled message.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

They basically use the equivalent of gay conversion therapy to make the freak conform to the rest of the asexual planet. It's a really muddled message.

And yet here we are 3 decades later and it's suddenly become scary relevant.

 

[los pepes]

Speaking of Jeri Taylor, I want to talk about the TNG episode The Outcast because she wrote this unintentional red-pilled episode. It's the episode where Riker bangs an ugly tranny named Soran. Soran comes from a race that "evolved" into trans-sexuality and considers sexual dimorphism to be a degenerate evolutionary throwback. Throughout the episode, Soran becomes curious about the sexes and asks about gender roles such as why Crusher wears makeup and asking about genitals. She falls in love with Riker when she admits that she identifies with the female gender despite the cultural taboo. She gets arrested and forced to undergo a trans sexual re-education procedure to make her have the correct sexuality.

Now, I'm aware she wanted to write an Oscar Wilde story, but according to New Text literary criticism (regular college English classes that everyone has to take), I only have to consider what happened on screen. What we have in this episode is the J'naii society considers trannies to be the next step in evolution, which is really just propaganda given how severe the J'naii court reacted to Soran. The court uses the force of law to make her take hormones to fix her sexual preference so that she fits into society, not necessarily because it's in patient's interests. What are trannies doing today? Glorifying the tranny lifestyle while stigmatizing traditional gender norms. Becoming a transsexual is incentivized in progressive society as a way to quickly improve social status such as Mags Visaggio not getting fired for being incompetent or Jonathon Yaniv who has his own Lolcow section. The end result is the creation of an extremely sexually repressive society because Da Science has determined that males and females are barbaric.

Jeri Taylor, like Paul Verhoeven in Starship Troopers, fucked up her message so hard that she ended up showing the exact opposite of her creative vision.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that Riker is literally a member of the Cis-hetero patriarchy.

There's a lot of that when you look back on 90s Trek. Especially TNG, when it tries to get its most insufferably preachy ends up creating some pretty unintentionally based plots. The whole episode with Admiral Satie was clearly supposed to be about muh McCarthy but anyone watching it the past decade can't help but notice the uncomfortable parallels as we see leftism purity spiraling itself into oblivion. Your average day on resetera matches the intellectual horrors of that episode, let alone when something truly nuclear happens like everyone ignoring the local tranny screeching and playing a video game they have declared haram.

The more openly political attempts at messaging from the show have certainly not aged well.

 

[Dr. Sexbot]

IIRC you're bringing up late season episodes where they are trying to patch over earlier missteps. I certainly don't believe the showrunners had the above in mind from the start considering all the other evidence of unplanned things.

The only thing those dipshits had planned for her was the decontamination scenes.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Jeri Taylor, like Paul Verhoeven in Starship Troopers, fucked up her message so hard that she ended up showing the exact opposite of her creative vision.

What message would that be in Starship Troopers?

 

[White Devil]

What message would that be in Starship Troopers?

To be fair, Verhoeven claims he never got past the first chapter of the book. The screenplay itself is practically a blatant rip off of the anime OVA that came out ten years earlier.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

To be fair, Verhoeven claims he never got past the first chapter of the book. The screenplay itself is practically a blatant rip off of the anime OVA that came out ten years earlier.

Some people think the fascist undertones are unintentional in Starship Troopers and I was wondering if that might be the case here.