Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[Captain Syrup]

Joe Bishop must be pissed

Joe Bishop? The Rat Packer guy?

 

[XYZpdq]

I barely watched "Friends" growing up. I remember that my parents liked it (they liked it so much that they had the soundtrack on cd. That was actually a pretty good soundtrack iirc.)

Anyway, I've actually re-watched a few episodes of 'Friends' recently... and, I really didn't think it was *that* bad.
I'll admit, I don't particularly feel the need to see any more episodes, but 'Friends' is still infinitely better than what passes for a sitcom in the "current day," decades later. (Bazinga!)

Semi-related, "Frasier" still totally holds up when it comes to 90's sitcoms. I would consider fighting anybody who disagreed, but you couldn't hit me anyway because I'm a sp..sp...spooky ghost. XD

fraiser is mostly good until that thing happens, then it's only sorta okay
but it busts out literally a Captain Eo reference at one point so kudos for the deep cut

I thought something similar. Ferengi episodes in DS9 reminded me of British sitcoms like Fawlty Towers: where a very flawed character is put in a hectic situation and has to find a solution. Yet not everything is played as 100% comedy - there is some degree of depth and even a small dose of tragedy to the main character. I like this a lot.

yeah like how by the end of DS9 Quark ends up some rogue Ferengi Fundamentalist operating on the fringes of known space while his brother literally is Nagus
it's sort of noble in its own odd way

I'm going to have to defend Lwaxana she does the job she's supposed to do; put our otherwise stoic cast on the backfoot. Watching them squirm because she out-ranks them is a change of pace. She isn't shy about waving her ceremonial dick in everyone's face. Picard is used to moralizing? Now he's got to carry her luggage. Troi has a sane, orderly life? Lwaxana asks her why she isn't married yet. And as she tells Odo, her ostentatious personality is a front that covers up her depressing life like with Timicin or her dead baby. She actually has more depth than half of the cast members.

DS9 does a great job retconning Lwaxana to not be a colossal waste of time in way The Tragic Lwaxana TNG Episode only wishes it could

 

[Captain Syrup]

Anyway, I've actually re-watched a few episodes of 'Friends' recently... and, I really didn't think it was *that* bad.

"Frasier" still totally holds up when it comes to 90's sitcoms.

I want to go back to the nineties, using black magic if necessary.

Trivia: Lisa Kudrow appeared on Cheers, before being cast as Roz on Frasier. The producers re-casted the role, citing chemistry issues. Lisa was crushed, but as luck would have it, she was later cast as Phoebe on Friends.

 

[Grand Wizard Wakka]

New Disco season seems like the same thing as the last season. The entire season arc about solving the mystery of a single space anomoly. All these new shows have seasons that if you cut out the shitty filler would have been a single episode, MAYBE a two-parter, of TNG or DS9. Same thing with Picard. Pretty sure the entirety of S1 could be edited down to 1-2 hours and be better for it. And frankly, dedicating an entire season to some shitty single premise is boring. I miss space adventures, like some sort of trek in the stars.

 

[UnKillFill]

fraiser is mostly good until that thing happens, then it's only sorta okay
but it busts out literally a Captain Eo reference at one point so kudos for the deep cut

Well yeah... Frasier sucked by the end, but then again so does everything, especially these days. The majority of it was still particularly solid.

To bring this back on topic:

Because of this silly skit that some shitty awards show had made, the entire main cast of Frasier have *all* now officially appeared in something at least vaguely Trek-related at some point. Kelsey Grammer wasn't in this, but he had already been in a particularly decent episode of TNG years earlier.

 

[Quantum Diabetes]

Joe Bishop? The Rat Packer guy?

View attachment 2614968

There’s a Colonel Joe Biship in “Expeditionary Force”, a series much cooler than Star Trek: Michael Michael Michael. He loves cheeseburgers and Fluffernutters.
Inevitably there will be a bad movie or Amazon series but for now the books are great.

 

[Miller]

New Disco season seems like the same thing as the last season. The entire season arc about solving the mystery of a single space anomoly. All these new shows have seasons that if you cut out the shitty filler would have been a single episode, MAYBE a two-parter, of TNG or DS9. Same thing with Picard. Pretty sure the entirety of S1 could be edited down to 1-2 hours and be better for it. And frankly, dedicating an entire season to some shitty single premise is boring. I miss space adventures, like some sort of trek in the stars.

Yeah and by the time the show hits its season finale, the "big bad thing" is not the same thing anymore. In STD season 2, the plot was originally about the Red Angel but by the end of the season it was about an AI that wanted to become an AI. Picard Season 1 started with "Romulans bad" and it ended with "Reapers from another galaxy want to exterminate all biological life in the MW.

 

[Pork Packer]

Yeah and by the time the show hits its season finale, the "big bad thing" is not the same thing anymore. In STD season 2, the plot was originally about the Red Angel but by the end of the season it was about an AI that wanted to become an AI. Picard Season 1 started with "Romulans bad" and it ended with "Reapers from another galaxy want to exterminate all biological life in the MW.

Also Picard season 1 ended with the uber-chinned womanchild who decided on a whim to commit total galactic genocide, including everyone she had ever known and the people who had been helping and protecting her during the series, solely out of spite and the desire to impress a few dozen robots she never met before reluctantly backpedalling when told this would be unnecessary, not receiving any consequence whatsoever or being subject to even the mildest reproach despite being a willing and unrepentant party to the attempted murder of trillions

Which coincides with discovery turning what is a literal super-space-hitler from the mirror universe into a strang girlboss who everybody loves despite still openly being an evil piece of shit to everyone around her.

Basically the only thing nu-trek loves more than generic universe ending crisis plotlines is spinning petty genocidal monsters who are objectively and enormously more evil than Khan, Gul Dukhat, the Borg, and fucking Armus as being tragic and sympathetic and loveable heroes/anti-heroes solely because of the main characters' utterly inexplixable affection for them.

Which just goes to show how even when you get past the insufferable wokewashing used to guarantee positive media coverage and to smear those who criticise this garbage, the writing is just monumentally, insultingly, obscenely bad even by the standards of trashy mindless sci-fi media and shitty fanfiction combined.

The franchise built on "seek out and preserve new life even from yourself and your own good intentions" has turned into "intergalactic planetary holocaust and the slaughter of countless innocents is fine and dandy, so long as you are on the side of the protagonist, and you dont even have to apologise for it" and if you question this new direction you are a nazi who hates progress.

Sorry for the tangent I just randomly remembered this grotesque trope nu-treks writing team have fallen in love with and had to get it off my chest.

 

[AnOminous]

Well yeah... Frasier sucked by the end, but then again so does everything, especially these days. The majority of it was still particularly solid.

What I'd love to see, and what we'll never see, is a Star Trek series made like a Vince Gilligan series, where they start out with a definite beginning, middle and end, and at least a general concept of what direction the characters' story arcs will go in, and where it ends when the story ends.

What we'll continue to get, though, is a bunch of episodic crap going absolutely nowhere, where it gets a diminishing return of hype for each new shitty Soy Trek series, degeneracy like Lower Decks, and they just keep making new seasons until it goes completely off a cliff and they give up.

I'll note that while TOS was shamelessly episodic (as were almost all TV series at the time especially genre fiction), it was also written by some of the best SF writers of all time. Other than Twilight Zone and a very few other iconic series, having scriptwriters whose names would be known to the average viewer was not a thing.

 

[kaien]

What I'd love to see, and what we'll never see, is a Star Trek series made like a Vince Gilligan series, where they start out with a definite beginning, middle and end, and at least a general concept of what direction the characters' story arcs will go in, and where it ends when the story ends.

Which was basically the idea behind Babylon 5, and I'm interested to see if anything comes of remaking that.

 

[Haffhart]

Which was basically the idea behind Babylon 5, and I'm interested to see if anything comes of remaking that.

In Current Year, on The CW, with "New Ideas" Blended in? Original creator or not, don't count your shows before they've premiered.

Babylon 5 Reboot Will 'Blend New Ideas' Like Westworld and Battlestar Galactica, Creator Says - IGN

Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski has addressed his decision to develop a "from-the-ground-up reboot" of the beloved 90s space opera series.

www.ign.com

 

[HumanHive]

In Current Year, on The CW, with "New Ideas" Blended in? Original creator or not, don't count your shows before they've premiered.

Babylon 5 Reboot Will 'Blend New Ideas' Like Westworld and Battlestar Galactica, Creator Says - IGN

Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski has addressed his decision to develop a "from-the-ground-up reboot" of the beloved 90s space opera series.

www.ign.com

Tranny Minbari were originally gonna be a thing, right?

 

[Great President of McHell]

In Current Year, on The CW, with "New Ideas" Blended in? Original creator or not, don't count your shows before they've premiered.

Babylon 5 Reboot Will 'Blend New Ideas' Like Westworld and Battlestar Galactica, Creator Says - IGN

Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski has addressed his decision to develop a "from-the-ground-up reboot" of the beloved 90s space opera series.

www.ign.com

Judging by what Sense8 was like I'm not hopeful.

 

[Calandrino]

Not to mention-one of the complaints that voyager should have had Starfleet-Maquis infighting is just dumb-most Maquis are federation citizens and many are former starfleet, the conflict that caused tensions is tens of thousands of light years away and it’s one ship, the maquis are also only a fourth of the crew. People expecting some sort of dynamic struggle within a single ship didn’t pay attention to what the show actually set up.

Maquis were introduced on DS9 specifically so that they could be used on Voyager. It surprised me to learn that because I agree with you, it seems inevitable that the conflict would be dropped within a few episodes.

 

[Ishtar]

The Maquis work much better in DS9-as DS9’s premise-an intersection point and frontline between different polities and cultures allows for that sort of plot.

Compare that to something like thirty former federation citizens in the delta quadrant making trouble and not you know working with the people that will help them get home for some reason.

If the Maquis were planned to be used for voyager, than frankly it was piss poor planning as the two premises just don’t mesh at all.

 

[Great President of McHell]

The Maquis work much better in DS9-as DS9’s premise-an intersection point and frontline between different polities and cultures allows for that sort of plot.

Compare that to something like thirty former federation citizens in the delta quadrant making trouble and not you know working with the people that will help them get home for some reason.

If the Maquis were planned to be used for voyager, than frankly it was piss poor planning as the two premises just don’t mesh at all.

I don't think Voyager planned anything, I remember reading that they set up the second caretaker in the pilot for the sole reason of bringing them back if the lost in space premise didn't go over well. Speaks to how little faith they had in that show even at the very beginning.

 

[Ishtar]

I recall they planned to actually go back to the alpha quadrant in the sixth season, and they had to be convinced out of that.

Voyager was always the flagship of the network, and so there was a lot of pressure for it not to collapse.

DS9 on the other hand was ignored-if it hadn’t been the dominion war plot would not have happened.

All that said, I have a soft spot for voyager and it does have good episodes/fairly solid fourth and fifth seasons, with standouts scattered throughout the show elsewhere.

It also introduced a lot of interesting antagonists/concepts-from the viidians to the hirogen, to various new forms of FTL travel, and the doctor and seven(with Janeway as a close third) are the best actors of the show.

Could it have been better? Sure, but I’m not sure how you’d keep it “Voyager” in tone and flavor-and not make it entirely TNG lite(which it wasn’t even if that was the original intent) or misery porn.

 

[Pork Packer]

Ya know, now that you mention it.....what are the odds nu-trek isnt going to take one more step towards the generic "gritty and grim sci fi dystopia" mush it has been so desperately trying to become and resurrect the Marquis as its designated cyber punk Resistance™ group against the tyranny of the TrumpBrexit Federation and KlingonRussia infiltrated Starfleet?

I mean honestly the only reason I can think of why they wouldnt do it is because its something that was actually inadvertently sorta foreshadowed in old-trek by that bizarre post dominion war voyager episode with some batshit bajoran trying to resurrect the Marquis for seemingly no reason despite cardassia being a smoking ruin, and we all know by now that nu-trek goes out of its way to ignore any and all continuity or link with old-trek that could be used to justify its horseshit plotlines due to the uncaring ineptitude of the writing team*

*i.e. the scuffed reapers in picard which instead of drawing from previously established evil AI plotlines and concepts in-universe that would fit near perfectly like V'ger or the Exo III androids, decided to just randomly crowbar in continuity breaking omnipotent-god robots and the corresponding super-duper powerful anti AI romulan ninja woman cult who despite being so powerful and wide reaching and influential for the entirity of recorded galactic history were never mentioned or referenced before in any capacity despite how common AI and rogue AI and even godlike AI was for the past half century of Trek and how little a shit was given about them by the Romulans.

 

[Great President of McHell]

It also introduced a lot of interesting antagonists/concepts-from the viidians to the hirogen, to various new forms of FTL travel, and the doctor and seven(with Janeway as a close third) are the best actors of the show.

It really feels like the doctor and seven are the only things holding voyager together at some points, so many bland nothing characters on that show but at least those guys were almost always great, especially when they were together.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Because of this silly skit that some shitty awards show had made, the entire main cast of Frasier have *all* now officially appeared in something at least vaguely Trek-related at some point.

You can tell David is not used to technobabble. He is struggling to keep up.