BigJKO

A Dedicated Thread For Talking About Star Trek Episodes

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I'm going to take the liberty of adding a few episodes I think you missed!

 

Faces - S01E14

The Thaw - S02E23 (I imagine this one is very divisive)

Tuvix - S02E24

Remember - S03E06

Future's End - S03E08/9 (two part time travel!)

Warlord - S03E10 (It's the one episode where Kes isn't boring)

One - S04E25

Drone - S05E02

Someone to Watch Over Me - S05E22

One Small Step - S06E08

Good Shepherd - S06E20

Muse - S06E22

Workforce - S07E16/17

 

 

I apologize for this, but OCD. Fourier series are a way of expressing periodic functions :( they aren't random, they repeat. Therefore, technobabble!

 

I think the point of the statement is that it appears random to a human, but it's in fact very carefully mathmatically calculated.

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As someone whose first Star Trek was Voyager, I think SAM's list is pretty solid, but I have such mixed feelings about your additions! On the one hand, "Someone to Watch Over Me" is amazing, like everything with Bob Picardo, but on the other, "Faces"?

 

Haha, well it's a season 1 episode so I'm not gonna call it great, but I liked it.

Even though the plot device used is perhaps a bit contrived, I think it's at least used in the service of a good idea, namely letting them explore the two split sides of B'Elanna's personality. Her Klingon side is angry for not being acknowledged that she's needed, meanwhile her human side is angry at her inner Klingon for existing at all. Then by the end, through having to work together, they of course realize they need eachother. It's not the most subtle thing in the world, but I think the idea behind it is stronger than those in a lot of Voyager episodes that are just about the alien/anomaly of the day. I also like Roxann Dawson's performance as both characters.

 

If you want to get into it though there's some weird stuff, like why don't they rescue anyone else from that place? It also does the Voyager sin of hitting the reset button at the end.

 

Which other ones don't you like? I'm curious!

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I apologize for this, but OCD. Fourier series are a way of expressing periodic functions :( they aren't random, they repeat. Therefore, technobabble!

 

Oh it makes absolutely no sense, but it's what Data actually says.  My favorite bit of technobabble is the thing that makes the transporter work, the Heisenberg Compensator.  And then there's this gem from the Rascals episode:

 

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I think the point of the statement is that it appears random to a human, but it's in fact very carefully mathmatically calculated.

 

This. And in case anyone takes it out of context, that clip of Riker talking technobabble is an intentional joke - he's distracting a stupid Ferengi to buy someone time elsewhere.

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This. And in case anyone takes it out of context, that clip of Riker talking technobabble is an intentional joke - he's distracting a stupid Ferengi to buy someone time elsewhere.

 

It's a joke both for the audience to laugh at and some self referential humor at the silly gibberish the writers are forced to come up with.  Despite (or perhaps because of) how goofy it all is I like the technobabble.  Voyager has a ton of it, which is probably one of the reasons I liked the show more than most.  It also contains what is considered by many to be one of the worst and most scientifically flawed episodes of any Star Trek series, Threshold.  It involves the Tom Paris breaking the Warp 10 barrier and hyper evolving into a lizard like creature and has this bit of dialogue:

"Maybe we've been looking in the wrong place. What if the nacelles aren't being torn from the ship; what if the ship is being torn from the nacelles?"

"The hull of the shuttle is made of tritanium alloy. At the speeds we're talking about, that alloy could depolarize..."

"And create a velocity differential! The fuselage would be traveling at a faster rate of speed than the nacelles!"

"That means we just have to set up a depolarization matrix around the fuselage!"

 

Of course, a depolarization matrix around the tritanium alloy to prevent a velocity differential!  It's so obvious!

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Yeah, exactly. (I knew you understood it, SAM :))

 

After hearing about this, whenever we were floating an idea, Dan and I started just writing [tech] wherever there was a puzzle element or dialogue explainaway that we hadn't figured out yet!

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There was a period in my life when every time I put on Voyager it was a rerun of the Tom Paris Becomes A Fish episode. I liked that episode, because it involved a creepy transformation, which even then I understood as utter bollocks.

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Which other ones don't you like? I'm curious!

 

I took a while to think about it. For me, "Faces", "Tuvix",  "Warlord", "Drone", and "Workforce" aren't very good. "Future's End" just doesn't do it for me, but I know it's in a grand tradition of time-travel episodes, of which VOY has more than its fair share. The rest of your list is excellent, especially the Seven of Nine love.

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I took a while to think about it. For me, "Faces", "Tuvix",  "Warlord", "Drone", and "Workforce" aren't very good. "Future's End" just doesn't do it for me, but I know it's in a grand tradition of time-travel episodes, of which VOY has more than its fair share. The rest of your list is excellent, especially the Seven of Nine love.

 

I mostly agree with that.  I liked certain parts of Tuvix, although I was hoping for some kind of long term repercussions for Janeway.  I also recognize the same things about Future's End, but I found it largely ridiculous.  One and Someone to Watch Over Me I liked a lot as well.  I thought One Small Step was good, but kind of misplaced.  Robert Beltran (Chakotay) was pretty outspoken during the show's run about how he wasn't satisfied with a lot of the things the writers did with his character.  In the case of that episode, I agree with him.

 

On another note, I've started watching DS9 again.  I'm mostly following Gormongous' list (feels weird to be on the other side of the list thing) and I have to say I'm enjoying the show a lot more this time around.  The themes are larger and more complex, something I recognized when I first saw the show but just didn't care for at the time.  Not to say that TNG and Voyager are simple by any means.  Voyager seems more focused on individual, personal themes while DS9 is more social, worldly themes.  TNG is a mix.

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Before I forget, I'm going to add one DS9 episode to Gormongous' list specifically for BigJKO.

 

Defiant - 3x09

 

That is all.

 

Yeah, I leave that one out because it never does anything for anyone who hasn't watched TNG. I do want to hear BigJKO's reaction now.

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Dammit, I'm going to have to make my own copy of the list now with all these extra episodes in (was there "Demons" as well?) so I don't miss them!

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I took a while to think about it. For me, "Faces", "Tuvix",  "Warlord", "Drone", and "Workforce" aren't very good.

Yeah, I get that. Maybe I was trying too hard to come up with more episodes :D. All of them have something about them that I like though. For example, I don't enjoy the actual character of Tuvix but the resolution to the episode stuck with me. Star Trek usually doesn't go there.

 

Anyway, enough about that. I've started rewatching TNG (it's been ages since I saw that too), and I noticed how "The Haunting of Deck 12" was basically just a remake of "Lonely Among Us", heh.

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Dammit, I'm going to have to make my own copy of the list now with all these extra episodes in (was there "Demons" as well?) so I don't miss them!

 

I suggested Demon because it's a precursor to another episode on my list that depends on you having seen Demon first.

 

I watched the DS9 episode Rules of Acquisition today and man, the Ferengi are the worst.  I don't mean that they're not amusing to watch, I mean they are terrible people...aliens...whatever.  An entire culture that's not only centered around money, but one in which women aren't allowed to wear clothes, leave the house, or own anything.  I cringe to think of the MRA idiots who would watch that and cheer.  Star Trek is weird at times because it's simultaneously the best and worst thing.

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I watched the DS9 episode Rules of Acquisition today and man, the Ferengi are the worst.  I don't mean that they're not amusing to watch, I mean they are terrible people...aliens...whatever.  An entire culture that's not only centered around money, but one in which women aren't allowed to wear clothes, leave the house, or own anything.  I cringe to think of the MRA idiots who would watch that and cheer.  Star Trek is weird at times because it's simultaneously the best and worst thing.

 

I happened to be over at my friend's apartment when she watched it about a week ago (damn, SAM, you watch fast). I actually think it's pretty good, the episode, for being as explicit a takedown of institutional sexism as the nineties could manage. Having a woman ask why over and over, and having excellent actors playing intelligent and articulate men who just say, "Because I said so," was gratifying.

 

But yeah, there are people out there who actually buy into Ferengi philosophies as anything less than absurd to the point of parody. The world's a weird place.

 

 

EDIT: The only problem I really have with such takedowns, of which DS9 has more than a few, is that they always have to happen to goofy alien cultures because HUMANITY SOLVED ALL THEIR PROBLEMS TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO GUYS GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER

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I happened to be over at my friend's apartment when she watched it about a week ago (damn, SAM, you watch fast). I actually think it's pretty good, the episode, for being as explicit a takedown of institutional sexism as the nineties could manage. Having a woman ask why over and over, and having excellent actors playing intelligent and articulate men who just say, "Because I said so," was gratifying.

 

But yeah, there are people out there who actually buy into Ferengi philosophies as anything less than absurd to the point of parody. The world's a weird place.

 

I agree it's a good episode for doing that, but like so many sci-fi shows, no real change gets made at the end.  Not that I would expect it to but it would have been nice to see some larger effect.  After all, one of the Ferengi involved was the leader of the entire species.  (And I know that change actually does happen later but I haven't gotten there yet)

 

And I'm going fast because I'm skipping a lot of episodes.  I'm also watching a lot of them on my Nexus 7 while I do other things so I end up going though several episodes a day.

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I agree it's a good episode for doing that, but like so many sci-fi shows, no real change gets made at the end.  Not that I would expect it to but it would have been nice to see some larger effect.

 

Yeah, that's somewhat similar to what I said in my edit. The aliens are learning about these things for the benefit of the audience, so lasting change is rarely ever achieved. It's a flaw of most "modern-day issue as defining characteristic of alien race" episodes in Star Trek. Like, there's an episode in the next season where Nog ruins a date for Jake because he's an appalling sexist like the rest of his race, they have a fight over it, and then they make up, without even mentioning the cause of the fight. I don't know, it sucks to have something pull its punches.

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This is a really dumb observation, but the intro to DS9 is super boring.  Shots of the station with credits over it gets old quick.  Granted, it's better than TNG with names floating in space as the Enterprise zips around, but I think Voyager has the best.  Those scenes of planets and stuff are actually nice to look at.  Watching it pass through a blue cloud, the reflection in a planet's rings, the shadow it casts when backlit.  I still think it's pretty, even now.

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Yes. I had some memories of liking the intro as a kid but seein it now.. dear lord it's boring. At least TNG had the brilliant music. The music is good here but so slow that the whole thing becomes such a drag..

Don't have any memories of the Voyager intro. Look forward to that!

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On the other hand, the DS9 intro does reflect the series, ie BORING. I'm about to move onto season 3, hopefully it'll start picking up.

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I watched Tribunal last night.  As I was watching the Cardassians and their crazy legal system, I started getting upset.  This feeling felt familiar, then I realized it was because it's the same kind of upset I get when I read internet comments.  In the Cardassian legal system, the verdict is always known because the defendant is always guilty.  There's no way to reverse this decision, the purpose of the trial is to show the guilt of the defendant and give them a chance to publicly confess before they are executed.  This is basically every internet argument and it drives me nuts.

 

It's strange that Star Trek is becoming more relevant and topical to me now than it was when the show first aired.  I guess that's a trait of good sci-fi, but it's also depressing because it shows we haven't really learned anything since then.  In a lot of ways its worse.

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Yeah, I did enjoy the Kafka-esque elements of Tribunal. It got a little slow in the second half, and O'Brien didn't have quite the same gravitas as Picard in his "four lights" episode, but overall it was pretty cool.

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Just watched Civil Defense. I liked it. Kinda goofy but good fun and not boring. It's like they decided, ah.. hell let's deflate all the ominous seriousness out of Gul Dukat once and for all. That moment when he realizes the system has turned on him was pretty good. Quark and Odo's stuff was also pretty good.

Now it's onto.. The Defiant!

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