BigJKO

A Dedicated Thread For Talking About Star Trek Episodes

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I probably have a higher level of tolerance for the "cheese" factor in TNG because of when I started watching it.  I didn't start watching it until it had been on a season or two, so I was probably 11 or 12, that perfect age to watch/read a lot of cheesy crap and love it anyways.  Like, the very first episode I ever saw of TNG was The Royale, which in hindsight is probably not a very good episode, but I have incredible fondness for it because it was my introduction to all the characters.

 

I watched the first few seasons as reruns, only catching the middle and later seasons as they first aired.  By the time I saw the first few episodes, I was already used to what the show looked and sounded like after it had found its stride.  I still dislike the costumes worn during the first two seasons with the stripe through the black shoulder parts, as silly as that is.  I also really didn't like Dr. Pulaski.  Partly because she was constantly talking down to Data, but also because young me had a crush on Dr. Crusher (pardon the pun).  In general though, I can only handle so much camp and there are a few episodes of Star Trek that cross that line for me.

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I ended up liking Pulaski way more than most people. It was interesting to have a more cynical voice among the generally optimistic crew - kind of a Bones figure. She provided contrast. I totally get why she wasn't popular, though, and I definitely agree that her beef with Data was, um... heavy-handed.

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I definitely agree that her beef with Data was, um... heavy-handed.

 

Yeah, I think this is the most obvious fault with Pulaski. Most things in science fiction are standing in for something else, so when you have a character claiming that an android (which looks like a human, acts like a human, and is played by a human) isn't human, there isn't much room for subtlety. It's just having a character denounce a surrogate minority "inhuman" and leaving it there.

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Pulaski could have been an interesting character, but as I recall, they never gave her any traits other than "grumpy" and "doesn't like Data." Not much to hang a character on there.

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I ended up liking Pulaski way more than most people. It was interesting to have a more cynical voice among the generally optimistic crew - kind of a Bones figure. She provided contrast. I totally get why she wasn't popular, though, and I definitely agree that her beef with Data was, um... heavy-handed.

 

The Pulaski character was designed to mimic Bones and her relationship with Data was supposed to echo that of Dr. McCoy and Spock so you picked up on the intention.  I think the problem is the Bones type character doesn't really fit in with TNG.  Spock never strived to embrace his human side whereas Data made that his life's goal.  McCoy's criticism of Spock being unfeeling is a product of Spock's decision to act that way.  Pulaski's criticism of Data sounds more like "you can never be more than you are and what you are is garbage".

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Also, the best McCoy and Spock interactions are those when there's an underlying sense of friendship. It falls down when he's just being a total jerk, like in "The Tholian Web." (Which, as nifty as the Tholians are, is a bad episode.)

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I probably have a higher level of tolerance for the "cheese" factor in TNG because of when I started watching it.  I didn't start watching it until it had been on a season or two, so I was probably 11 or 12, that perfect age to watch/read a lot of cheesy crap and love it anyways.  Like, the very first episode I ever saw of TNG was The Royale, which in hindsight is probably not a very good episode, but I have incredible fondness for it because it was my introduction to all the characters.

 

I liked that episode a lot too, you got to see the characters in a different light for pretty much the first time (excepting mind control or strange alien viruses forcing them to act wierd)

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The Pulaski character was designed to mimic Bones and her relationship with Data was supposed to echo that of Dr. McCoy and Spock so you picked up on the intention.  I think the problem is the Bones type character doesn't really fit in with TNG.  Spock never strived to embrace his human side whereas Data made that his life's goal.  McCoy's criticism of Spock being unfeeling is a product of Spock's decision to act that way.  Pulaski's criticism of Data sounds more like "you can never be more than you are and what you are is garbage".

 

Yeah. I wonder what would have happened had they given her character a season or two more to really develop - it doesn't help that season 2 of TNG doesn't have the strongest writing in a lot of places - but, you know, hindsight. At the end of the day, Pulaski clashes with TNG's way more aspirational tone, and I don't blame them for swapping her out.

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Did anyone here watch Star Trek Continues?

I'm not that into fan made stuff, but I agreed to watch an episode and it was better than I expected. It probably helps that they're emulating TOS and not any of the other series though.

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Enjoying the TNG episodes greatly, though I am noticing a melancholy tinge to the best episodes. Especially the endings tend to lave me a little sad and contemplative, so my mood is all over the place while making my way through them.

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There are some light hearted episodes but for the most part TNG's pretty serious and contemplative.  Voyager has a bit more feel good sci-fi in it, while DS9 is even more serious than TNG because it's main storyline deals with invasion and war.

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And that DS9 plot, for the most part, can't just take off into the next new thing.  The fixed locale really help conveying more serious issues because it forced good writers to deal with stuff that happened earlier in the plot.

 

My favorite Startrek episode by far is that DS9 episode where

Sisko recounts the story of him trying to fabricate evidence to get the Romulans into the war against the Dominion.  Really good twist on both technical detail--the forgery itself was meant to fail, it was the assassination of Romulans with damaged forgery that's meant to trigger the involvement--and character level--Sisko doubling down on his involvement by saying he would do so again if given the same opportunity.  Just amazing.

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My favorite Startrek episode by far is that DS9 episode where

Sisko recounts the story of him trying to fabricate evidence to get the Romulans into the war against the Dominion.  Really good twist on both technical detail--the forgery itself was meant to fail, it was the assassination of Romulans with damaged forgery that's meant to trigger the involvement--and character level--Sisko doubling down on his involvement by saying he would do so again if given the same opportunity.  Just amazing.

 

Yeah, "In the Pale Moonlight" is such a standout for the entire franchise, but it's unfortunately a standout because i) it's such a huge deviation from what Star Trek usually is, which means that ii) it's not very useful to show to newcomers because they lack the context. My other favorite DS9 episode is "Far Beyond the Stars," which is absolutely spectacular television but incredibly confusing to anyone who tunes in just to watch some Star Trek.

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OOhhh yeah that was a powerful episode as well.  Another hard hitting episode, but in more hopeful flavor than the darker tone of "In the Pale Moonlight".  But still definitely really awesome.

 

You can tell that I'm more of a cynic when it comes to world politics as I favor "In the Pale Moonlight" slightly above "Far Beyond the Stars" :P  Only slightly though, both so damn good.

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Some days I can't stop seeing that Romulan guy saying "it's a fffaaaaake!" in a loop, like a bad song that I can't get out of my head.

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There are some light hearted episodes but for the most part TNG's pretty serious and contemplative.  Voyager has a bit more feel good sci-fi in it, while DS9 is even more serious than TNG because it's main storyline deals with invasion and war.

 

I think there are about equal numbers of light hearted, serious, and just plain campy episodes of STNG. Unfortunately, when you distill Next Generation down to the "best" episodes, that's where you're left with mostly the serious ones.

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I think there are about equal numbers of light hearted, serious, and just plain campy episodes of STNG. Unfortunately, when you distill Next Generation down to the "best" episodes, that's where you're left with mostly the serious ones.

 

You're probably right.  When I think about TNG, I don't really consider the weaker episodes and most of the strong ones are serious so that's what the show as a whole is to me.

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The original Star Trek had some great moments of wit. I watched "The Naked Time" again last night.

 

 

"Please, not again."

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Hello all, slowly making my way through this mega thread from the beginning so I dont rehash any previous conversations. I have watched every episode of TNG and Voyager most of Enterprise, but I too found DS9 difficult, however the chat has convinced me its worth another shot.

Does anyone know a good source to stream these things? If you know an illegal way to access this content pls do not PM with it, it would insult my very delicate moral fibre and my federation principles.

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Does anyone know a good source to stream these things? If you know an illegal way to access this content pls do not PM with it, it would insult my very delicate moral fibre and my federation principles.

 

For a while I was using the Chrome extension Hola to access the US version of Netflix, as they have some of the TV shows streaming there whereas the UK version doesn't. As far as I'm aware this is entirely legal since you still require a legitimate Netflix account, but it may or may not be against their TOS if that bothers you. I imagine other methods of spoofing your IP would work just as well as Hola, and once the playback of a particular episode has started you can switch it off so that you have your full bandwidth available.

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Whoops, I'm part way through watching Secret Asian Man's recommended season 7 episodes of the Next Generation and I've just realised I missed the new additions to season five. It's a good job continuity is pretty loose in this show, because I'm now going to jump back two seasons.

 

For the record I've been very much enjoying the episodes in SAM's guide to TNG, and heartily recommend it to others. I may well move on to Gormongous' list of DS9 episodes afterwards, but... I dunno, I think in some way TNG will always be my favourite. I still feel like it might be the one that defines Star Trek the most to me. My conception of what a show dealing with ethics and philosophy and odd hypotheticals through science fiction should be is still mostly informed by how the Next Generation did it. It's been a joy to rediscover some of the key moments that made that impression on me, and even some new ones I apparently never saw the first time around.

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Ty for the help gwardinen, I got it to work.

First off, im only 6 eps in and im already sick to death of watching slow panning shots of that fudging ugly ass space station. Wow, I had really forgotten how bad that intro is.

Secondly, Dr Bashir IS super annoying, he's like if you took all the bad parts of Barkley and Riker and mushed them together into a super stalker.

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They had some trouble nailing Bashir down in early DS9, he gets way, way better. DS9 starts weak and ends up being the best trek series they ever made.

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