BigJKO

A Dedicated Thread For Talking About Star Trek Episodes

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I'm really unsure how I feel about this new jacket Picard has in season 5. It's pretty sweet but doesn't fit at all

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New "crews" ... the historic anthology rumor plot is thickening.

 

That's honestly a little bit disappointing to me. Every Star Trek series that I have loved has come from close familiarity with the individual members of a given crew and their relationships with each other. If it just becomes a sci-fi anthology show set in a shared universe, it caters to the parts of Star Trek that are historically the weakest and have aged the worst.

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Also am I the only one that thinks that trailer has really oddly low production values? It's not unlike that Heroes reboot they tried, in which the trailers looked like fan films.

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Yeah, it looked basically as good as the opening of TNG from 30 years ago.

I actually think it looks worse.  Looks like a tech demo, just ultra all-the-effects.

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That's honestly a little bit disappointing to me. Every Star Trek series that I have loved has come from close familiarity with the individual members of a given crew and their relationships with each other. If it just becomes a sci-fi anthology show set in a shared universe, it caters to the parts of Star Trek that are historically the weakest and have aged the worst.

 

I'm just as sceptical as you are. Treating Star Trek as history has its perks, but it sounds as if that means the focus turns away from the personal, the individual, the emotional.

 

I still see circumstances under which the idea could work. There are many ways in which that character familiarity can still be achieved to a degree. From the ever popular overarching time travel plot to age prostetics and extremely long lived alien races (among them the Vulkans of course). And depending on character development focus and episode-per-season ratio, deep familiarity can well happen within a single season (Firefly, anyone?). Lastly, I wouldn't be opposed to the idea that e.g. they'd switch back to crew one in season 3 – or maybe even switch between crews in different time frames within a single season. A lot of things are possible here, and the more I think about it, the more startreky it sounds to me. :mellow: / :wacko: / :blink:

 

 

Also am I the only one that thinks that trailer has really oddly low production values? It's not unlike that Heroes reboot they tried, in which the trailers looked like fan films.

 

Not sure what the standard for teaser trailers like that is. The effects are pretty darn bad though. Not that I'd care about effects. :)

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I am saving all my hype for cast announcements and actual scenes of the show. The crews thing has me a bit concerned, but what if its like two ships one klingon and one federation fighting side by side in the dominion war. <3

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I'm almost done with season 5 and I just really wish Dr. Crusher never came back after season 2, she's such a terrible character.

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I never really had a problem with Dr. Crusher.  I agree that she's not interesting enough to carry an entire story by herself but I prefer her to Dr. Pulaski.

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I never really had a problem with Dr. Crusher.  I agree that she's not interesting enough to carry an entire story by herself but I prefer her to Dr. Pulaski.

Yeah I think my main reasons for liking Crusher were related to my dislike for Pulaski

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She has a few good episodes, as does troy, but writing for female characters in Star Trek was still pretty weak. Not that it's super awesome now, but at least it improved some.

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My favorite Troy moments are the ones that take her outside the role of Counselor, such as the episode Disaster when she's essentially left in command of the ship and is motivated to become a full officer in a later episode, or any time she loses her cool and actually gets mad.  Part of my dislike for Troy heavy stuff is that her mother is also often involved in the story and outside of a few moments I can't stand her.

 

The female TNG character I most wanted to see more of was Ensign Ro.  I felt she was far more interesting of a character than the regular women.  She had a strong personality and determination but was pretty underutilized on the show in my opinion.  Guinan was also pretty interesting but I understand them not being able to get Whoopi all the time.

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My favorite Troy moments are the ones that take her outside the role of Counselor, such as the episode Disaster when she's essentially left in command of the ship and is motivated to become a full officer in a later episode, or any time she loses her cool and actually gets mad.  Part of my dislike for Troy heavy stuff is that her mother is also often involved in the story and outside of a few moments I can't stand her.

 

The female TNG character I most wanted to see more of was Ensign Ro.  I felt she was far more interesting of a character than the regular women.  She had a strong personality and determination but was pretty underutilized on the show in my opinion.  Guinan was also pretty interesting but I understand them not being able to get Whoopi all the time.

Kira was originally supposed to be Ro but the actress turned down the role.

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Kira was originally supposed to be Ro but the actress turned down the role.

 

Yeah, Michelle Forbes was also offered more recurring roles on TNG (and Voyager, apparently) but turned those down, too. She was really afraid of torpedoing her career by being associated too strongly with a long-running "niche" TV series and I think she's said in interviews that that fear was a mistake to act upon, in hindsight.

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Kira was originally supposed to be Ro but the actress turned down the role.

 

Yeah, I remember finding that out and feeling pretty bummed because I thought it would have been a really clever and awesome use of the character.  I felt the same way about Nicolas Locarno from the TNG episode The First Duty who was supposed to be on Voyager but was changed to Tom Paris to avoid paying royalties to the TNG episode writers (both Locarno and Paris were played by Robert Duncan McNeill).

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Yeah I think my main reasons for liking Crusher were related to my dislike for Pulaski

 

I remember quite liking Pulaski far more than Crusher. 

 

  Part of my dislike for Troy heavy stuff is that her mother is also often involved in the story and outside of a few moments I can't stand her.

 

I've really warmed on Lwaxana over the years.  She's intentionally boisterous to the point of annoying, but she's also arguably one of the characters who is most full of life and love.  And, for Star Trek, she's the rare example of an older (Majel would have been around 60 at the time) woman who's not just still sexually active, but vibrantly so (something not nearly as common as a male character being so, but of course this was also concurrent with Golden Girls, so there's that).

 

As much as I love TNG, I tend to agree with some criticisms I've read that the crew as a whole is just kind of too perfect and harmonious at times.  Characters like Lwaxana and Pulaski introduced some badly needed discord and conflict.  Very few characters actually unsettle Picard, and Lwaxana was the best at that. 

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I remember quite liking Pulaski far more than Crusher. 

 

Pulaski was ostensibly an interesting character, but the writers made the mistake of giving her an aggressive one-sided rivalry with Data, a well-established and well-liked character who had no control over the reasons why Pulaski disliked and mistrusted him. Having a new character berate another, who responds in turn with the guilelessness of a child, is a great formula to make the former hateable.

 

I like Lwaxana, too, but I think that's because I was more familiar with her from DS9 first, where she is a kind and sympathetic character as well as being an over-the-top extrovert.

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Deanna, eventually, has become a favorite of mine. Evidently the concept was fairly one dimensional. It was when Sirtis' own deeply sardonic personality poked through the façade of Troi that she had her very best moments. Sensing emotion, she could have used it as a superpower. She seldom did. I would love for her to return as an experienced badass 'aggressive diplomacy' captain with a lot less ethical concerns about using her Betazoid abilities.  :eyebrow:

 

Concerning Pulaski: In a way, she was a McCoy type doc, and Data was her Spock. I forgive the character a lot, but her fault may just have been that she wasn't original enough. Diana Muldaur was well chosen for the role, and she really got everything out of Pulaski that could ever gotten out of her.

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Pulaski was ostensibly an interesting character, but the writers made the mistake of giving her an aggressive one-sided rivalry with Data, a well-established and well-liked character who had no control over the reasons why Pulaski disliked and mistrusted him. Having a new character berate another, who responds in turn with the guilelessness of a child, is a great formula to make the former hateable.

 

 

Concerning Pulaski: In a way, she was a McCoy type doc, and Data was her Spock. I forgive the character a lot, but her fault may just have been that she wasn't original enough. Diana Muldaur was well chosen for the role, and she really got everything out of Pulaski that could ever gotten out of her.

 

The McCoy-Spock dynamic was what the writers were trying to recreate with Pulaski and Data, but it just didn't work as well this time around.  McCoy was cantankerous and grumpy about pretty much everything and Spock acted like a sounding board for him.  Pulaski really only seemed to want to dump on Data, and for things that, as Gormongous said, were largely out of his control.  Spock choose to follow the Vulcan path, Data was forced to.  It paints her as strangely bigoted in contrast to the rest of the crew.

 

Going back to Lwaxana, I dislike her less now than I did before.  While I admire Majel Barrett's acting in that role, I still find the character irritating enough that I'd rather not watch most of the episodes with her in them.

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The McCoy-Spock dynamic was what the writers were trying to recreate with Pulaski and Data, but it just didn't work as well this time around.  McCoy was cantankerous and grumpy about pretty much everything and Spock acted like a sounding board for him.  Pulaski really only seemed to want to dump on Data, and for things that, as Gormongous said, were largely out of his control.  Spock choose to follow the Vulcan path, Data was forced to.  It paints her as strangely bigoted in contrast to the rest of the crew.

 

Going back to Lwaxana, I dislike her less now than I did before.  While I admire Majel Barrett's acting in that role, I still find the character irritating enough that I'd rather not watch most of the episodes with her in them.

Yeah despite McCoy constantly talking about Spocks blood, there was always a sense that he respected him and was just ribbing Spock because he knew Spock wouldn't return fire.

 

Pulaski comes off as anti-machine and it often seems like she is being cruel to a child.

 

I love watching Picard and Odo squirm when Lwaxana is around :) Its also so good when she talks to the computer, which she also did the voice for.

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I love watching Picard and Odo squirm when Lwaxana is around :) Its also so good when she talks to the computer, which she also did the voice for.

 

She's is so good as the computer.  I remember thinking at one point that it was such a shame she passed away before she her voice could be recorded for a GPS navigation system.  I would love to have the Enterprise computer give me driving directions.

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I like Lwaxana, too, but I think that's because I was more familiar with her from DS9 first, where she is a kind and sympathetic character as well as being an over-the-top extrovert.

Yeah, Lwaxana is great in DS9. I think it's just a side effect of it being a better-written show.

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Deanna, eventually, has become a favorite of mine. Evidently the concept was fairly one dimensional. It was when Sirtis' own deeply sardonic personality poked through the façade of Troi that she had her very best moments. Sensing emotion, she could have used it as a superpower. She seldom did. I would love for her to return as an experienced badass 'aggressive diplomacy' captain with a lot less ethical concerns about using her Betazoid abilities.  :eyebrow:

 The Earl Grey podcast did a really great imagining of a TNG episode involving Barclay, Ro and Worf going to the Mirror universe. Well worth a listen - baddass interrogator Troi would fit in very nicely.

 

http://trek.fm/earl-grey/135

 

Re. Lwaxana, I really liked how Dark Page gave some background to the OTT facade and her obsession with Deanna settling down. It fleshed out a character who had only really been comic relief (Half A Life notwithstanding).

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