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Star Trek - The Next Generation

Started by dr_christian_troy, March 02, 2020, 12:50:03 PM

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dr_christian_troy

Quote from: Mobbd on March 04, 2020, 11:23:52 AM
It's why you join Starfleet.

Because you only live once, even in Star Trek, and you might like to get some betentacled alien action in before settling down on some nice but ultimately boring asteroid with your One True Betazoid Bae?




I am proud of my contribution to this conversation.

Riker and Troi: intergalactic swingers.

Picard however seems DEEPLY repressed at the best of times.

New folder

Quote from: bgmnts on March 02, 2020, 01:04:21 PM
The night terrors episode had me slightly shitting it during the floating sequences. I love Troi as a character, but yeah some of her episodes are duffers.

LaForge gets on my tits a bit, and I think the writers deliberately tried to make Wesley Crusher irritating to the point of murder fantasy. Why they did this, I do not know.
Riker are great, anytime Riker has that shit eating grin I can't help but laugh. And yeah I wasn't expecting him to actually shag Bebe Neuwirth, it was odd, that must violate the prime directive surely?

Worf is the main man though, and for good reason. Any episode involving Klingons is gold.

Bev Crusher is a bit boring and she has only had two episodes I can remember; the one where she slips into a time thing and the ship's crew slowly disappears, and the one where she is captured by bastard rebels who are using teleportation technology that is tearing their insides apart. Beyond that, window dressing.

Data is fine but christ I am getting sick to death of his "what is humour?" shite, still waiting for that emotion chip.

Picard is obviously the bees tits and anything he says or does I react to with awe.

My favourite episode so far is 'any episode with Q in it'.

This is a pretty good summary

Quote from: bgmnts on March 02, 2020, 11:16:43 PM
Qpid was a bit disappointing to be honest, which is weird because it's a Q episode.

Although I do like Qpid myself -- it doesn't take itself all too seriously, which fits Q's personality rather well

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse


Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Chairman Yang on March 02, 2020, 09:24:58 PM
I love Pulsaki, she's the only one in the first 2 seasons allowed to have any rough edges.
I really liked her too. She was interesting to have around and I'm slightly bummed they brought Crusher back (but only slightly).

Das Reboot

Decloaking Delurking to add little of interest...

Maybe it's linked to the chaos that Roddenberry presided over - as detailed by Ant Farm Keyboard - but some decisions over the crew's roles seemed ill-thought out for the first series. Worf being the obvious example; he spent most of season one skulking around the science stations and taking the odd sly look at Yar bent over the Tactical station filling in for Yar/La Forge/Data when Riker took them off on an away mission. If Denise Crosby hadn't got so cheesed off just saying "Hailing frequencies open, sir" every week, would Worf have been developed as much?

And I've always been miffed about why the show was launched without a permanent chief engineer. Plot device #1 of any Trek is to have a technology that could quickly remedy a particular situation break down or fail to prolong a resolution, with a chief engineer on hand to supply and resolve the Treknobabble.

I loved TNG when it started showing on BBC2 when I was about 10-11 and I revisited it about five years ago - though I skipped seasons 1 & 2, mainly because things distinctly began to gel from season 3 onwards (Yesterday's Enterprise being a particular favourite) and I hated those collarless uniforms. But now I'm thinking of giving them another go.

Currently working my way through the first series of Voyager as I only caught the occasional episode when it came out and struggled to maintain interest (the same applied to DS9, though I resolved this after my return to TNG). I think Voyager tries to channel the frontier spirit of TOS, with mixed results. I'm mainly intrigued how it deals with the Borg - who were easily the best badass aliens invented by TNG era Trek - though I've heard claims that Voyager ruined the Borg as they had to defeat them on a regular basis. The concept of Species 8472 is interesting though.

The incredibly minor thing that's bugging me is why Starfleet never bothered to name a starship Voyager until the 24th century, surely it should have been on its -C/-D/-E incarnation by then? Or is the letter thing just a quirk afforded to the Enterprise and, um, the Defiant?

Lemming

Quote from: Das Reboot on March 05, 2020, 09:59:18 PM
I loved TNG when it started showing on BBC2 when I was about 10-11 and I revisited it about five years ago - though I skipped seasons 1 & 2, mainly because things distinctly began to gel from season 3 onwards (Yesterday's Enterprise being a particular favourite) and I hated those collarless uniforms. But now I'm thinking of giving them another go.

There's a couple of really good episodes in the second season of TNG. Time Squared, The Emissary and A Matter of Honor are all good and The Royale is one of the coolest concepts TNG ever did.

QuoteCurrently working my way through the first series of Voyager as I only caught the occasional episode when it came out and struggled to maintain interest (the same applied to DS9, though I resolved this after my return to TNG). I think Voyager tries to channel the frontier spirit of TOS, with mixed results. I'm mainly intrigued how it deals with the Borg - who were easily the best badass aliens invented by TNG era Trek - though I've heard claims that Voyager ruined the Borg as they had to defeat them on a regular basis. The concept of Species 8472 is interesting though.

Voyager's Borg episodes are mixed, but Seven is pretty much the best thing to come from the entire concept of the Borg and there's a few really cool episodes dealing with people who have been de-assimilated (or only partially de-assimilated). The Borg Queen also mercifully doesn't show up too often, so most of the time when the Borg appear they're a terrifying leaderless hivemind like they were in TNG.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: Das Reboot on March 05, 2020, 09:59:18 PM
Maybe it's linked to the chaos that Roddenberry presided over - as detailed by Ant Farm Keyboard - but some decisions over the crew's roles seemed ill-thought out for the first series. Worf being the obvious example; he spent most of season one skulking around the science stations and taking the odd sly look at Yar bent over the Tactical station filling in for Yar/La Forge/Data when Riker took them off on an away mission. If Denise Crosby hadn't got so cheesed off just saying "Hailing frequencies open, sir" every week, would Worf have been developed as much?

Worf's lack of a permanent station, as well as Wesley being available to cover Geordi is probably partly down to the fact that they were supposed to separate the saucer to protect all the civilians and children anytime the Enterprise encountered anything more dangerous than a space spider with 7 of its legs cut off, which would require a few spare BOffs around the place to run both bridges. They stopped doing that pretty quickly because it interrupted story flow. I think they only did it three times in 7 seasons in the end.

What I found very odd is that they never bothered with a Chief Engineer until they moved Geordi down there. One also wonders if O'Brien would've been a permanent fixture on the bridge if they'd kept saucer separating.

Quote from: Das Reboot on March 05, 2020, 09:59:18 PM
The incredibly minor thing that's bugging me is why Starfleet never bothered to name a starship Voyager until the 24th century, surely it should have been on its -C/-D/-E incarnation by then? Or is the letter thing just a quirk afforded to the Enterprise and, um, the Defiant?

Letter thing is only seen on the Enterprise, presumably because of how famous Kirk's one was. Neither of Sisko's Defiants have a letter, and both have a different registry number to the Constitution class Defiant from the 23rd century.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

What sort of name is 'Crusher' for a physician? Doctor Crusher should be the name of some pro wrestling heel, or one of the contestants on Robot Wars.

Bashir isn't much better. Sounds too close to basher.

Malcy

Quote from: dr_christian_troy on March 02, 2020, 02:32:10 PM
Also, the episode where Picard is forced to go on holiday and instantly gets harassed by that Ferengi twat is farcical. Then he meets Vash and it all goes a bit Indiana Jones for about 10 seconds.

Star Trek Online managed to add more to that episode and tied it in to the Enterprise episode where they find what is basically a TARDIS and it's really good.

Plus that episode has the joke Riker plays on Picard with the looking for a shag statue. Brilliant. Think that's the one Max Grodenchik who plays From in DS9 pops up as another Ferengi.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: Malcy on March 06, 2020, 10:43:45 PM
Star Trek Online managed to add more to that episode and tied it in to the Enterprise episode where they find what is basically a TARDIS and it's really good.

I honestly didn't like that arc in STO. We just kind of tell the Nak'uhl tough shit and leave them there with a dead sun, because Captain Future Guy said it's the agreed on timeline. Even though the Tholians had obtained the thing they used to destroy the sun through a temporal incursion. (Actually, is it explained why they destroy the Nak'uhl sun? I don't think it is) If it had been up to me, I'd have been solar slingshotting back a few days to be in position to blow the fuck out of the Tholians before they had a chance to use the Tox Uthat.

And the Nak'uhl Governor was such a nice bloke too. Well until the player character, like a dickhead, told him his star was being destroyed by a quantum phase inhibitor that our new buddy Kal Dano made.

Also, I know they needed the Tox Uthat in STO for the Battle of Procyon V, but I preferred the idea of Picard destroying such a dangerous thing as he did in the episode rather than secretly stashing it away with the risk that someone can nick it (like the Vorgons try to).

grainger

Quote from: Lemming on March 05, 2020, 10:08:33 PM

The Borg Queen also mercifully doesn't show up too often, so most of the time when the Borg appear they're a terrifying leaderless hivemind like they were in TNG.

Oh really? I didn't know that. I had caught some truly abysmal Voyager Borg scenes involving the Queen, and it just made me hate her[nb]Not in a "villain I love to hate" way, but in a "having villains in Trek is totally stupid" way.[/nb], and the show, even more. I had no idea there were non-Queen Borg episodes in Voyager. I may have to check them ot. Although having said that, I hate other aspects that I saw - assimilating planets by ferrying individuals to their ship, conventional bridges with the Borg manually operating controls. Utter drek.

grainger

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on March 05, 2020, 10:38:10 PM

One also wonders if O'Brien would've been a permanent fixture on the bridge if they'd kept saucer separating.


No. He didn't even have a name in Farpoint. He was just the no-name bridge crew member of the week. It was retconned in All Good Things that it was O'Brien, but it basically wasn't[nb]I mean, I accept in retrospect that it was O'Brien, as it doesn't break anything to do so, and indeed it adds slightly to the proceedings, but he wasn't intended to be a regular. It just sort of happened, and the role grew over time.[/nb].

grainger

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on March 06, 2020, 11:31:04 PM
I honestly didn't like that arc in STO.

I am not familiar with STO, but it sounds well shit.

But I have to admit, I tend to get itchy the more stuff gets added to a franchise. Movies, prequels, spin-offs. The more they add, the more it clashes with how I imagined the world in question works, and then it just pisses me off. Sometimes this is because they've contradicted what we've seen on screen, other times they've contradicted what I've seen in my head. Star Fleet has thousands of starships (DS9)? Fuck off. Earth has had grimdark cyberpunk cities all along (Picard)? Oh please.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: grainger on March 06, 2020, 11:43:44 PM
I am not familiar with STO, but it sounds well shit.

Storywise it has better arcs than that. The ending to the Iconian War is really good, for example. But since they spent half the game's life building up to the Iconian War it's kinda feeling rudderless now that it's done. Design issues and engine limitations mean it's a very old-fashioned mindless MMO affair of "go here. Kill X enemies. Kill super enemy. Win." It has the effect of making the player character lack agency.

I still get enjoyment from it 10 years on from launch, but it's basically just a virtual starship delivery system at this point.


dr_christian_troy

I've just started to dip into Enterprise and immediately enjoying it. Perhaps it's related to an instant fondness of Scott Bakula and times spent adoring Quantum Leap years ago.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: dr_christian_troy on March 07, 2020, 01:19:58 PM
I've just started to dip into Enterprise and immediately enjoying it. Perhaps it's related to an instant fondness of Scott Bakula and times spent adoring Quantum Leap years ago.

I spent 2 and 3/4 seasons wanting to punch him in the face before I gave up on it to be honest. The entire crew is actively dislikable, imo.

grainger

My memory of the pilot was of Archer[nb]He was originally going to be called Jeffrey Archer, unfortunate fact fans![/nb]being racist about Vulcans. I couldn't be bothered watching a character arc where he was obviously going to get a bit less racist as the show went on, like that was some amazing character journey. For this and other reasons, I didn't even make it through the pilot. Given how utterly obsessed I had been with TNG just a few years before, Berman and Braga really trashed the franchise.

Schmo Diddley

Yeah enterprise was a real honker. Awful acting, particularly Scott Bakula. Imagine Patrick Stewart watching his hammy acting and putting his foot through the telly.

There was a real small time parochial vibe about most of the characters. Chippy and bitter at the vulcans, the Texan engineer guy being the worst. Terrible ambassadors for humanity.

It all felt low budget and low ambition. No attempt at the sort of allegory or philosophy that is Star Trek at its finest. Just seemed to be constant antagonism.

The writing was bad, both in terms of the dialogue but also episode plots. One of the worst being Terra Nova - the first colony outside our solar system stopped transmitting and they couldn't be bothered finding out about them until they happened to be nearby months into the journey? Surely it would be the first mission.

Sin Agog

Enterprise felt very linked to the Dubya era of American politics.  More than slightly xenophobic with a down-home cowboy vibe.  The aforementioned Texan engineer Trip even looked like a blonder GWB.  It honestly did get better, though, even if the Jolene Blalock objectification was arguably even more pronounced than 7 of 9.  I'm glad Riker and Troi came back in Picard.  Their complete undercutting of the entire Enterprise series would have been quite a nasty swan song for the characters.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: Sin Agog on March 08, 2020, 03:00:37 PM
Enterprise felt very linked to the Dubya era of American politics.  More than slightly xenophobic with a down-home cowboy vibe.  The aforementioned Texan engineer Trip even looked like a blonder GWB.  It honestly did get better, though, even if the Jolene Blalock objectification was arguably even more pronounced than 7 of 9.  I'm glad Riker and Troi came back in Picard.  Their complete undercutting of the entire Enterprise series would have been quite a nasty swan song for the characters.

I remember the last episode before they went into The Expanse (season 2 finale, I'd imagine) where Fucker Tucker was going on about how they didn't have to go along with all this "Vulcan non-interference crap." to get to the Xindi. I was waiting for a screen caption saying "this is an unsubtle allegory for the War on Terror", just in case the audience were too stupid to pick up. And then about 3 episodes into season 3 we had religious suicide bombers. Season 3 awkwardly stumbled between an uncompromising search for WMDs and still trying to be Star Trek and having to show a peaceful, positive outcome, whilst T'Pol takes space crack and fucks Trip. And then it ended with them being dumped in 20th century earth to fight Space Nazis. But some people try to tell me that it's no worse than the first 2-3 seasons of TNG. Yeah. Sure.

Quote from: Schmo Diddley on March 08, 2020, 02:25:51 PM
Yeah enterprise was a real honker. Awful acting, particularly Scott Bakula. Imagine Patrick Stewart watching his hammy acting and putting his foot through the telly.

There was a real small time parochial vibe about most of the characters. Chippy and bitter at the vulcans, the Texan engineer guy being the worst. Terrible ambassadors for humanity.

I could've lived with that if:

1) Within the narrative it hadn't basically been all the Vulcan's fault and Archer was in the right.

2) There had been proper progression from it. But there wasn't.

I remember the episode where T'Pol sent coded messages to a Vulcan ship, the crew found out, and Archer had Tucker & Hoshi decode and translate it. Turns out it they were personal messages. Tucker, tbf, was fucking mortified about it and very apologetic, although Archer couldn't have given less fucks, iirc. But instead of that having any lasting impact, they were just back to same shit the next episode. [nb]Other issues with this episode: T'Pol must clearly distrust Archer quite a bit considering she wouldn't ask him could she send some personal messages, and this was well into season 1. So she's not on the ship only five mintes. Nice atmos there, clearly. And they built a Vulcan snowman on the comet with ridiculously big pointed ears in episode too. That's not like making a Jewish snowman with a massive hooked nose or anything.[/nb]

I think there's another one where they encounter a planet with a newly warp-capable civilisation and at one point Archer is musing over whether Earth should establish a permanent diplomatic presense to help them make their first steps into space, and T'Pol points that the Vulcans came in to help Earth and are still there 100 years later. And Archer is kind of: "oh... I never thought you guys like that..." But again, he's back to spitting poison at her the next episode. No growth.

They sorta dropped it in season 3, and then 'explained' why the Vulcans were such dicks in season 4. Don't get me wrong, the explanation wasn't terrible and it's better that it exists than not. But it still vindicates all Archers cuntishness, and I don't quite buy that this society of super intelligent beings striving to utter logic would "lose" the teachings of their founding father in that way and allow someone like Administrator V'Las to happen. 

dr_christian_troy

Admittedly I've only seen the first episode of Enterprise so far, so I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for me to compare to other ST series. I loathe the theme music for starters.

grainger

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on March 08, 2020, 03:56:04 PM
the first 2-3 seasons of TNG. Yeah. Sure.

What? Season 3 is the best one. I mean, I like 1 and 2, but I can easily see why people hate them, but... 3?

grainger

Quote from: dr_christian_troy on March 08, 2020, 04:01:40 PM
Admittedly I've only seen the first episode of Enterprise so far, so I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for me to compare to other ST series. I loathe the theme music for starters.

The showrunners were so, so pleased that they had managed to secure the rights to the track, as well.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: grainger on March 08, 2020, 06:29:36 PM
What? Season 3 is the best one. I mean, I like 1 and 2, but I can easily see why people hate them, but... 3?

They're being Ent apologists rather than really detracting from TNG.

grainger

Hang on... so they didn't get less racist towards Vulcans as the show went on? I'm even more glad I didn't watch then.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

I gave Enterprise one season to wow me. There's an episode where Archer and Trip are marooned on Space Afghanistan and I realised suddenly that I didn't care whether they got rescued. And not in a "it's TV, of course there'll be a dating rescue" way. I literally. Did not care. If one or both of them were killed off never to return. That's when I knew the show was crap, and I'm very forgiving of new versions of franchises I like. Archer and Trip hating Vulcans could have worked, if Archer didn't go back and forth on it in every episode. He's got a reason to hate Vulcans, they held back his dad's fancy new warp engine. Getting out there in the Galaxy and becoming aware of the dangers while working closely with T'Pol should have seen him making steady progress towards letting go of that hate, contrasting with Trip who's just a racist. But no, that would have taken effort.

Ambient Sheep

I got about halfway through the first season of Enterprise (but only by muting the theme tune).  I did record the rest of the first season, but never got round to watching them.

Didn't bother with the other three.

Phil_A

Enterprise's failings can be put down to it being the most Berman-y of all the Trek series, as it's the one he had most creative input into. It's not to hard to extrapolate from that where that show's terrible politics were coming from.

dr_christian_troy

Despite watching TNG on Netflix, I caved and drunkenly ordered the blu-ray set online. It arrived yesterday and it's quite a lovely transfer. I'm looking forward to tucking into the commentaries mostly.

I think for now I'm going to continue exclusively with TNG, then go back to Voyager. Is it an issue if I watch DS9 after Voyager?

Malcy

Quote from: dr_christian_troy on March 09, 2020, 11:38:33 AM
Despite watching TNG on Netflix, I caved and drunkenly ordered the blu-ray set online. It arrived yesterday and it's quite a lovely transfer. I'm looking forward to tucking into the commentaries mostly.

I think for now I'm going to continue exclusively with TNG, then go back to Voyager. Is it an issue if I watch DS9 after Voyager?

No. The Maquis is the only thing from DS9 that appears in Voyager but TNG deals with it enough in a couple of episodes for all you need to know about them.