Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

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Phalanges Mycologist said:
It was a send off to the actress more than anything, to get 7 they had to kill off someone else Garret Wang was the fore runner for that (and 7 fit's Harry Kim's roll even better) but he somehow got voted one of the sexyest people on TV so they kept him because the studio didn't want to let him go, so they looked at it and decided Kes was nearly useless for plot so killed her off instead but she was supposedly really popular with the cast (again apart from Mulgrew) but she was showing early signs of instability.

I'd have liked them to have had a series where 7 was slowly becoming less Borg, and taking over harry's bridge roll naturally and having to play a game of hide and seek with the collective to get out of Borg space, but back then Trek had an aversion to story arks that lasted longer than a 2 parter.
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Afaik, that got debunked when Wang came forward and said that Kes was written out, cause Jennifer Lien became increasingly difficult to work with, given that her mental stability and drug issues got out of hand. Supposedly, he was never at risk to be replaced.

But speaking of blandy Kim, I think he's a bit like Wesley, in that people are sorta supposed to identify with him? Maybe?
The writers really dropped the ball with him, even Chakotay's rodeo-clown-indian-identity is better developed than Kim is. When the most memorable moment of a character is turning down sex with 7 of 9, you got problems.
 
The problem with Harry Kim and, to a lesser extent, Chakotay is that the writers didn't know what to do with them, and didn't seem to give a flying fuck about trying to figure something out. Chakotay at least got some characterization with the whole Injun schtick, despite how horribly divergent with reality the hack stereotype was.

Harry Kim got nothing abuse, and abuse does not make a character.
 
BONE_Buddy said:
The problem with Harry Kim and, to a lesser extent, Chakotay is that the writers didn't know what to do with them, and didn't seem to give a flying fuck about trying to figure something out. Chakotay at least got some characterization with the whole Injun schtick, despite how horribly divergent with reality the hack stereotype was.
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Harry got some great hookups. One time the aliens of the week gaslit him with false DNA to suck out his life energy. Seven tells him to remove his clothes for sex in one episode, and he nopes out for some reason.. The other one was the hot chick from the xenophobic generation ship, which was a great episode. They went with "well, he's attractive," which fits with the story that they kept Wang because he was sexiest man of the year or something. When they tried to explore his ethnicity, we learn the Kims never got over one child policy. Tuvok was at least thoroughly Vulcan and well explored, but Kim was 90s Asian American, with the same hangups. At least in Endgame he gets his own ship, but it's a faggotty refit of the Equinox class hahaha. Edit: And he really did fit the Asian overachiever stereotype, as in alternate universes and timelines he designs runabouts, or saves Voyager in a glacier. And that second one is a great feature episode for any character.
 
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Phalanges Mycologist said:
RDM dropped out of the writing team because they couldnt make story's last over multiple episodes even in part.
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Well, when your writers are trash and only know how to craft a single narrative loop, you get Picard STD VOY.

Each time the loop is completed, the stakes have to get higher and less believable.
BONE_Buddy said:
Chakotay at least got some characterization with the whole Injun schtick
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Character? More like a square and hard punch to the face for Beltran.
 
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Drag-on Knight 91873 said:
It doesn't really matter considering Sulu isn't a Japanese surname.
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I've never thought about that before, where is it from? or was it just made up for the production.

Also it's interesting that they put a Japanese crewman on the bridge in a important roll there was still a fair bit of anti-japanese sentiment post war when trek was first created. Let alone a Russian where there was more active and growing negative sentiment and Uhura a black woman as a senior station cheif - 60's Trek did diversity better than modern trek at a time when it was hard to do and you didn't even think about it because the characters where people not just token inserts with all the dimensionality of a bit of used toilet paper - sorry the thought just occurred to me.
 
JamesFargo said:
Character? More like a square and hard punch to the face for Beltran.
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Chakotay is a Mexican in redface. He should've been replaced with a more interesting character as first officer, but wooden plank Beltran wanted to keep the easy paycheck. Cultural appropriation doesn't count when it's spic on savage I guess. And these days Beltran gets to make con panel appearances and complain about seven years of steady work.
 
Phalanges Mycologist said:
I've never thought about that before, where is it from? or was it just made up for the production.

Also it's interesting that they put a Japanese crewman on the bridge in a important roll there was still a fair bit of anti-japanese sentiment post war when trek was first created. Let alone a Russian where there was more active and growing negative sentiment and Uhura a black woman as a senior station cheif - 60's Trek did diversity better than modern trek at a time when it was hard to do and you didn't even think about it because the characters where people not just token inserts with all the dimensionality of a bit of used toilet paper - sorry the thought just occurred to me.
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Sulu is named after the Sulu sea since Roddenberry didn't want to pick a specific ethnicity (despite being the very first weeb in history). Much like Worf later on, the point of the crew was to show that today's enemies could become tomorrow's friends.

Roddenberry.jpg
 
Drag-on Knight 91873 said:
Much like Worf later on, the point of the crew was to show that today's enemies could become tomorrow's friends.
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Oh I know that but it just hit me how diverse the crew was for the time and how unnoticeable it was they always came off as people first if you know what I mean rather than the shoe horning that they do today
 
I don't really feel bad for people bitching on Picard/Strange New Worlds/Discovery at this point, its like watching a dumb kid put his hand on a stove and getting burned over and over again. Q's back? So what? His character arc was concluded three decades ago.

The analogy made earlier in the thread that Q was like a kid with an ant colony was wrong in so far that by the end of TNG Q had a mild respect for Picard and began mentoring him, in his own way. Q was fine as he was and the memberberries shit was played out years ago.

Star Trek was solidified and burned out in the mid 2000s. It didn't need reboots or shitty shows made by hack writers focusing on the current year topics that will age like milk. Let it die and be happy it happened at all.
 
Hot Dog said:
The analogy made earlier in the thread that Q was like a kid with an ant colony was wrong in so far that by the end of TNG Q had a mild respect for Picard and began mentoring him, in his own way. Q was fine as he was and the memberberries shit was played out years ago.
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The real tragedy of how badly Q has been brought into this mess is that his TNG plot starts by him trying to punish humanity for the sins of a few and wanted Picard to speak on behalf of humanity as a whole like he was responsible for things that happened centuries ago. Oh, the irony. Picard tried to convince him many times that they have moved on from the past, which they couldn't change, and were ready to evolve.

Except, they didn't. Through the show, he showed them that they weren't yet ready for the future. First, humanity as a whole wasn't when he introduced them to the borg. He proved them they had became arrogant and despite they claimed they were "learning" and exploring new worlds and were open to new things, they probably thought that they had peaked and have reached perfection.

And second, when he proved Picard that he still had some regrets about his youth that he still wished he could have changed, meaning, he didn't fully accept himself with his flaws and didn't understand that the man he is is the result of the man he was. Picard used this to defend humanity, but wasn't able to do it about himself. This alone proves how well Q understands humanity and our flaws and how through centuries of slaughter and misery, we became what we became during ST time.

Mike Stoklasa is right: these people only know Star Trek for the memes. They probably think all of Q is the mariachis episode.
 
Q is as much advocate for humanity as he is judge, he's also a mischevious Imp. Basically a trickster god, he enjoys toying with Picard because Picard is self righteous, assured, and fun to needle, in a way Sisko isn't-Picard will fight to keep his composure when pressured, Sisko will just punch you-as Q learned.

Of course, people who have not watched any Trek at all, would not know this.
 
Q's visits always had a point and were meant to ground the hubris that humanity developed in the post Khitomer Era, where they were largely insufferable self justified assholes.

I thought the jury was out on if Q gave the Federation an early warning by introducing the Borg to them or if he made the Borg aware that the Federation was out there and there was a huge section of space waiting to be assimilated. If that introduction never occured humanity probably would have been done for, and at the beginning of the episode Picard was arrogant but was humbled by the end. Probably a bit of both. Q as a character seems to work well when he has both wimsy and menace to his presence,

TNG is one of the few TV shows where I can genuinely point out that they nailed the ending, by first actually having one (unlike TOS, which had to wait until ST6) and revisiting a theme introduced in the very first two episodes. It was perfect.
 
Shamash said:
Q is as much advocate for humanity as he is judge, he's also a mischevious Imp. Basically a trickster god, he enjoys toying with Picard because Picard is self righteous, assured, and fun to needle, in a way Sisko isn't-Picard will fight to keep his composure when pressured, Sisko will just punch you-as Q learned.
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The later revelation that Sisko is a literal demigod adds new layers to that moment.

Like now you can fan-edit into the subtext that Q felt more of Sisko's punch than he thought he should have and it clued him into the fact there was more than there seemed to this human. The Q and the Prophets probably have some non-compete treaties between them so Q decided it wasn't worth the possibility of riling them up and left their little child alone.
 
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