BigJKO

A Dedicated Thread For Talking About Star Trek Episodes

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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.

 

Agreed. DS9 starts out as "TNG but they stay in one place" and remains that way for almost three seasons, ranging from decent to poor in quality. It's only once they contact the Dominion that the show finds its own voice as something different (and, again, better in my opinion) than TNG's vision of idealistic but staid sci-fi. Likewise, Bashir languishes as a flirty idiot, because why not introduce a character through his failed romances and conversations with strangers, until the writers start building him out as a person to complement his relationship with O'Brien, and then he becomes one of the stronger characters on the show.

 

DS9's a grower, not a shower, and I can say from experience, as someone who watched both series all the way through for the first time as an adult, that anyone who's soldiered through the two frankly terrible first seasons of TNG can do the same with DS9 and be rewarded just as much.

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The exact moment DS9 gets good is when Sisko shaves his head. That's the signifier. Does Sisko have hair? Skip it.

 

(There are actually some pretty decent early episodes, and Move Along Home deserves a watch if only because, until Threshold came along, it was literally the most embarrassing Star Trek episode ever written)

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Agreed. DS9 starts out as "TNG but they stay in one place" and remains that way for almost three seasons, ranging from decent to poor in quality. It's only once they contact the Dominion that the show finds its own voice as something different (and, again, better in my opinion) than TNG's vision of idealistic but staid sci-fi.

 

This is my problem with the show.  I think it's good, I just don't think it's good Star Trek.  What I mean by that is I would have liked it more if the show wasn't set in the Star Trek universe.  Keep the characters and plots (mostly) the same, just don't make them have anything at all to do with Star Trek and I think the show would have been much better.  Maybe it gains something by having a continuity to expand from with characters and races that are somewhat familiar, but it really just does it own thing with those anyway.  There were several times that I had to remind myself that it was a Star Trek show and not another franchise altogether. 

 

And to be clear, I'm not opposed to the idea of a show going in different directions and trying new things.  But I feel that DS9 went so far beyond the borders of what I'd expect from Star Trek that it was mostly unrecognizable as such.  Whether that's good or bad is a matter of opinion.

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And to be clear, I'm not opposed to the idea of a show going in different directions and trying new things.  But I feel that DS9 went so far beyond the borders of what I'd expect from Star Trek that it was mostly unrecognizable as such.  Whether that's good or bad is a matter of opinion.

 

I mean, I understand your point, but personally I think that it's important for DS9 to be Star Trek. A central question of DS9 is what happens when a utopia has to fight for its existence and what does that even look like. The answer, of course, is that people fail and fall, but the utopia survives them. The important point here is that I don't think it would have been nearly as difficult or interesting a question to answer if there weren't literal decades of Roddenberry-style optimism against which it has to set itself.

 

Looking at another Ronald D. Moore "politics on a spaceship" joint, one of Battlestar Galactica's early and enduring weaknesses is that it has a lot of trouble getting its viewers to view holding onto democratic principles as a rational decision for its characters. Because its setting is sufficiently removed from our real-life experience that our actual politics are practically a non-issue with it, most people that I've known have had no problem agreeing with the most radical characters' stance in BSG that a military dictatorship or some other authoritarian system is the appropriate response to a near-extinction crisis, a flaw in audience framing and character motivation that requires several charismatic actors to stump constantly for democracy as a matter of course, just to raise its profile among the available options.

 

I think DS9 works because it doesn't have to worry about that. Star Trek pre-DS9 might be a little dull, but it's still enjoyable and memorable, which makes the Federation something for which people are justified to be defending in DS9, occasionally through compromise or hypocrisy, rather than just a pie-in-the-sky ideal that doesn't have any grounding in the characters' actions.

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I understand your point as well.  I'll totally acknowledge that it is interesting to take a perfect notion and put it to the test.  When push comes to shove, will we hold our ideals?  Or do we do whatever it takes no matter the cost?  I also realize that none of those questions have any weight without the setup put in place by TNG of what the Federation is like.  It gives meaning to the war and the actions of those in it.  And admittedly this is the kind of thing that sci-fi in general really excels at when done correctly.  I just felt like it wasn't really Star Trek apart from having Klingons and Cardassians and Ferengi and a bunch of other things that were previously seen in other Star Treks.  I feel like if I replaced all the Star Trek specific races and visuals while changing nothing else, I'd have mostly the same show.  That's of course an entirely personal opinion and I'd never begrudge anyone enjoying Star Trek in whatever way they want.

 

And as an aside to your comment about BSG, that's one of the reasons I couldn't get into that show.  I could never identify with any of the characters and felt like none of them were redeemable.  That and I fucking HATE shaky cam.  One thing I really like about Star Trek's visual effects is that they're slow and deliberate so that you always know exactly what's going on.  I could never follow any space battle in BSG because that camera was moving around so much I had no idea what was happening.

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And as an aside to your comment about BSG, that's one of the reasons I couldn't get into that show.  I could never identify with any of the characters and felt like none of them were redeemable.  That and I fucking HATE shaky cam.  One thing I really like about Star Trek's visual effects is that they're slow and deliberate so that you always know exactly what's going on.  I could never follow any space battle in BSG because that camera was moving around so much I had no idea what was happening.

 

Have you seen the updated effects for the TNG blu-rays? It's almost a "what could have been"  scenario for sci-fi digital graphics, if fake realistic shaky-cam effects hadn't taken over the industry in the early 2000s.

 

I understand your point as well.  I'll totally acknowledge that it is interesting to take a perfect notion and put it to the test.  When push comes to shove, will we hold our ideals?  Or do we do whatever it takes no matter the cost?  I also realize that none of those questions have any weight without the setup put in place by TNG of what the Federation is like.  It gives meaning to the war and the actions of those in it.  And admittedly this is the kind of thing that sci-fi in general really excels at when done correctly.  I just felt like it wasn't really Star Trek apart from having Klingons and Cardassians and Ferengi and a bunch of other things that were previously seen in other Star Treks.  I feel like if I replaced all the Star Trek specific races and visuals while changing nothing else, I'd have mostly the same show.  That's of course an entirely personal opinion and I'd never begrudge anyone enjoying Star Trek in whatever way they want.

 

Yeah, I honestly think it's a matter of preference, possibly linked to what Star Trek you saw in what order, which defined for each of us what Star Trek actually is. I watched VOY first, so DS9 was kind of a revelation, both in terms of cast dynamic (VOY is a couple of powerhouses, mostly Bob Picardo and Tim Russ, batting against whatever softballs the rest of the cast is throwing, plus Kate Mulgrew doing her own thing) and in terms of a strong plot for the entire series with something meaningful to say about Star Trek. The end of season five and the first few episodes of season six represent the limits of what Star Trek can be for me. Compared to it, TNG is a bit too stately and impersonal at times. I've watched it all twice, but I think it really is just diff'rent strokes.

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I might be super later on this but, have you guys watched Cracked's After Hours show on Star Trek and how its actually a dystopian society? It's obviously written to be funny but, they actually come across some pretty interesting points.

 

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To my dismay, I'm rapidly nearing the end of the Next Generation episodes SAM recommended. I'm thinking I'll move on to Gormongous' DS9 suggestions, but something occurred to me - there's no remaster available for DS9, is there? I'll probably have to watch it in the crappy quality Netflix has.

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That is, sadly, the case. I hope they do a remaster someday, but who knows. 

 

If they act on fan feedback, they'll probably do Voyager before DS9, because it's more popular (which is insane).

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I wouldn't expect DS9 to ever get a remaster. That being said, it doesn't look horrible.

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So I watched "All Good Things...", the series finale of the Next Generation. I'm a little melancholy now that it's over, but I was struck by the fact that the episode itself is actually not that sentimental, for a finale.

 

It definitely hits some good notes for a finale, with the nostalgia of the beginning of TNG timeline (and the inclusion of Tasha Yar again - it really seems like the producers decided it was kind of a mistake to have killed her and found ways for her to be in the show later on) and the cross between a "what if" and a "Jimmy went on to be President" epilogue in the future timeline. You get to be reminded of where the characters came from, and where they might go to, but it doesn't devolve into schmaltz at any point.

 

Actually, there's very little sense of an ending in the episode at all. Even the very last scene, which certainly seems to be somewhat of an opportunity to gather the main cast together to say goodbye to them, is actually as much of a beginning - the beginning of Picard being more socially at ease with his comrades - as it is an ending. There's no intimation that the Enterprise's journey is coming to an end, and in fact the text of the episode is quite the opposite - the trial continues, the journey continues, humanity must continue to grow.

 

When I compare this to what I remember of the DS9 finale, for example, there's a definite difference in tone. The DS9 finale feels like an ending, it feels like goodbye. As I recall, there's even a lengthy emotional scene with a song playing which is basically about how relationships end and how we should hold onto our happy memories while the camera pans over the cast. The Voyager finale, while not as sentimental in my memory, was also a genuine ending - the end of their long voyage home.

 

I wonder whether this is the influence of Gene Roddenberry. I've heard a lot of things about how he affected production of Star Trek while he was alive, and I know there's division among the fans about how much of his legacy survives in the later shows. I'm not necessarily saying that all of Star Trek needs to be as optimistic as the Roddenberry era stuff often was, but I think part of me is glad that the Next Generation kind of stretches into this infinite bright future. It's sad at times, and difficult, but in the end the captain and crew of the Enterprise overcome each challenge as it comes, and we're given no reason to believe they won't continue to do so after our time with them.

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I really enjoyed the "and the journey continues" feel. Comparing it with seeing Star Trek VI when I was younger (which ended with a pretty definite end to the point of having signatures of all the stars in the credits) I think they both have their pluses in minuses, but I like it the TNG way. Of course, I'm also the same person who hasn't watched the final episode of Boston Legal after all of these years because I can still imagine it keeps going if I don't see the end :)

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The actress that played Tasha requested to be written out of the show. I think she was afraid of being stuck in the role for years to come? There are some interviews out there with her where she explains what she was feeling at the time. Obviously the terms of it all were amicable, since they kept figuring out ways to bring her back.

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Weird, had no idea about Tasha's actress wanting that.

 

Watching some of the season seven extra features, and it turns out they had a live orchestra to score every episode with! No reused music save the theme, there's just genuinely an orchestral soundtrack to every TNG episode. That's crazy, and explains why it's one of the few TV shows that I've actually consciously enjoyed and savoured the music in.

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I was curious about that and just did some reading, apparently she felt like her character was getting sidelined and really underplayed as the first season went on and asked to leave because of that.  She wanted more interesting things to do with the character than what she was getting.  That's part of the reason that she returned in various incarnations (past her, playing Tasha's daughter, etc). 

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Weren't most of the characters kinda underplayed by that point? That's such a bizarre thing to say in the first season of any TV show.

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The interview I was thinking of: part 1 and part 2

 

Relevant quote:

If you had the chance, today, knowing what you know now, to make that decision again, would you make the same choice?

Crosby: Yes. For me, I was miserable. I couldn’t wait to get off that show. I was dying. This was not an overnight decision. I was grateful to have made that many episodes, but I didn’t want to spend the next six years going “Aye, aye, captain,” and standing there, in the same uniform, in the same position on the bridge. It just scared the hell out of me that this was what I was going to be doing for the next X-amount of years. I think you have to take your chances. I was really young. I didn’t have to make house payments or put kids through private school or support people. I was free to make those kinds of decisions. I’d been in acting school really dreaming of playing all kinds of different things. Whether it’ll happen or not, you don’t know, but you’ve got to give yourself a chance. God forbid you go through your life thinking, “What if?”

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Just watched Generations. I was expecting, given the prevailing poor perspective on it and the way my tastes and sensibilities have developed in the time since I first saw it, to find it had aged poorly.

 

I actually didn't experience that much at all. There are a few hokey moments and odd decisions (why does Data have luminous highlighter yellow tears?) but overall I still enjoyed it. Perhaps it's just that the Star Trek films (pre-Nemesis) were a big part of my childhood. Perhaps it's because I've seen it several times before so my brain just tunes out the dodgy parts, or finds something else to focus on. Whatever the case, I had no real problems with the film - it was far from excellent, but it was certainly the right side of decent for someone who has affection for Star Trek, the original films and the Next Generation cast.

 

That said, though, it did remind me that almost none of these films actually feel like Star Trek. They're mostly just sci-fi action films that happen to be in the Star Trek setting. As an example, almost no time was devoted to the actual concept of the Nexus, whereas in an actual TNG episode that would be the whole point of the story - it would be used as an allegory for examining aspects of the human condition. In Generations, we quite quickly skip over the idea of Picard's struggle with legacy and aging and death in order to get back to the action, and once the action is over we have a couple of token lines about what we leave behind not being as important as how we live. That sounds like a good lesson to learn, Picard! Why couldn't we have explored that a bit and learned with you rather than dossing about on a mountain, repeatedly falling off things?

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This doesn't really add anything to the discussion, but I feel the same way about Generations. It's not great, but I don't hate it either. It's a pretty average Star Trek movie.

 

I also agree with your sentiment about how the films generally miss the point.

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It's pretty deeply flawed, but Generations is my favorite TNG movie. Granted that is starting from a baseline of "they're all pretty bad and not Star Trekky." I think a lot about it could be fixed with a re-edit, most notably changing the near end so it doesn't look like Picard chooses to come out of the nexus needlessly stuck under a boulder. 

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After all the talk I went back and rewatched Generations, it seemed star trekky as hell, techno babble, weird disjointed dream like sequences. And after all the discussion about the films making Picard the new Bruce Willis, this one seems to flow in the same vein as the series. In the finalle fight scene picard gets battered about and doesn't do a good job when it comes to physicality. Kirk aqquits himself better because thats what he did in TOS.

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A lot of people were upset at Generations because of how Kirk went out.  They felt it wasn't a suitable ending for the character.  I never much cared for Kirk to begin with so that part never bothered me.

 

I agree that none of the Star Trek movies are very good Star Trek, almost entirely because they're movies and have to appeal to a broader audience, thus the popcorn action movie feeling.  However, in the context of a sci-fi action movie that happens to take place in Star Trek world, I like agree with tberton and like First Contact the most.

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Weird, had no idea about Tasha's actress wanting that.

 

It's not quite true. Crosby was, most of all, disappointed by her character and character arc. Which was understandable seeing how the male counterparts of the bridge were featured while Yar essentially got the "warrior woman" treatment. However, she was satisfied with the center stage cameos she snatched in later seasons. The wikipedia entry on Crosby omits any source for the quote, but it seems like she was of the opinion that Tasha Yar had to die for her to get the "best episodes".

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With hindsight, that's probably true. From what little I've seen of the start of TNG, Tasha was pretty boring. Whereas she's given quite a lot to do in the later cameos, particularly Yesterday's Enterprise. Her as a Romulan was also sort of boring, though. For them being such a major antagonist in so much of TNG, I never really felt like they figured out how to portray Romulans interestingly. With the possible exception of the episode with Troi disguised as a Tal Shiar officer, which had a few good moments of weird Romulan inter-departmental paranoia.

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