Star Trek: The Wrath of Fans

[john]

Just watched “Retrospect,” season 4 episode of Voyager, which I’ve never seen before. Features a thinly veiled rape analogy involving Seven of Nine, with the outcome that she has had a false memory, thus makes a false accusation, the guy involved ends up dead and Seven expresses remorse for the first time because she caused his disgrace and death. What the actual fuck.

[DaveSumm]

2 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Yeah - I mean, again, I'm pretty new to all thinks Trek, but I recently watched The Trials and Tribble-Lations episode of DS9 and learned that Klingons apparently were originally just slightly big and mean humans. The message of that episode seemed to be "don't take this kind of stuff too seriously" and that's probably going to be the best approach to Star Trek as a whole, from what I've seen.

Fans in general were pretty happy with Worf’s response: “We do not discuss it with outsiders”. But then Enterprise had a three episode arc explaining those Klingons ... a bit much perhaps, but it was nice to tie things up I suppose, giving at least an attempt at a consistent 40 year story. 

Then Discovery said “Haha lol let’s change them again lmao”.

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, john said:

Just watched “Retrospect,” season 4 episode of Voyager, which I’ve never seen before. Features a thinly veiled rape analogy involving Seven of Nine, with the outcome that she has had a false memory, thus makes a false accusation, the guy involved ends up dead and Seven expresses remorse for the first time because she caused his disgrace and death. What the actual fuck.

That sounds about right for Voyager. By a cubic light-year, the most badly-written show of the franchise. Nothing made fucking sense in that show and for every good episode they had, they had five that were terrible and twenty that were just deeply mediocre.

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Fans in general were pretty happy with Worf’s response: “We do not discuss it with outsiders”. But then Enterprise had a three episode arc explaining those Klingons ... a bit much perhaps, but it was nice to tie things up I suppose, giving at least an attempt at a consistent 40 year story. 

Then Discovery said “Haha lol let’s change them again lmao”.

 

Into Darkness changed them first, but there was no real need for Discovery to do it as well, especially as they then recanted and reversed a lot of the changes in Season 2.

It's one of those things where you can tweak the design but outright changing it is just pointless. Picard basically did that with the Romulans, and in fact seemed to explain why some Romulans have ridges and others don't (something people have scratched their heads over since TNG). 

[Jaxom 1974]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

I mean, between them the original series, movies and The Next Generation did generate three brick-thick books called A Nitpicker's Guide to Star Trek (the only reason there weren't more is because Paramount kicked up a fuss about them using a painting of the Enterprise-D on the cover). Massive plotholes is something all incarnations of Trek have in common, so I see the new series following in that grand and honourable tradition.

Gods, that was a fun series of books.  All four of them. Liked what the author did with the X-Files too...though that was, as far as I know, just one book and only covered the first four or so seasons...

[red snow]

13 hours ago, Werthead said:

I mean, between them the original series, movies and The Next Generation did generate three brick-thick books called A Nitpicker's Guide to Star Trek (the only reason there weren't more is because Paramount kicked up a fuss about them using a painting of the Enterprise-D on the cover). Massive plotholes is something all incarnations of Trek have in common, so I see the new series following in that grand and honourable tradition.

Yeah, the time travel alone is a nightmare throughout trek. It doesn't stop me watching the shows but i do think it's a sign of lazy writing and a little bit disrespectful to the fans who take it very seriously and support the franchise and staff involved by buying loads of additional shit and attending conventions. Your average viewer who rolls with plot holes is unlikely to do all that.

13 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Yeah - I mean, again, I'm pretty new to all thinks Trek, but I recently watched The Trials and Tribble-Lations episode of DS9 and learned that Klingons apparently were originally just slightly big and mean humans. The message of that episode seemed to be "don't take this kind of stuff too seriously" and that's probably going to be the best approach to Star Trek as a whole, from what I've seen.

Now, please no spoilers for the end of DS9 in case he dies, but out of all the new Trek shows, how is there not a Garak series being floated out there? He's just the best idea I've ever seen in Trek, and he elevates every episode he's in. Screw Picard, give me older Garak as a tailor spy with his buddy Bashir along for the ride!

Have you watched enterprise and discovery? That makes a hard to swallow Klingon pill from trials and tribbleations almost impossible.

I think farscape (or more recently legion) is the best way to go in a "Don't take too seriously" as they are so trippy the whole thing could be a hallucination. And TBF the ds9 episode clearly set itself up as "this is camp fun". I've yet to see any indication that's meant to be the case in discovery but again the show is arguably more concerned with the new film audience so the drones won't even register for them as being incongruous.

And garak is great, particularly with bashir in tow. I like how everyone knows he's a spy but he keeps up the "I'm just a tailor" wink, wink element. I think the cardassians are one of the better alien races (star trek not kim clan) and would like to see them appear in the shows again. Picard has a history with them too.

[john]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

That sounds about right for Voyager. By a cubic light-year, the most badly-written show of the franchise. Nothing made fucking sense in that show and for every good episode they had, they had five that were terrible and twenty that were just deeply mediocre.

The way we’re watching it, 8 to 10 episodes a season, it’s mostly enjoyable enough (although there was a paucity of people on the internet willing to list top episodes from the first two seasons ).

Retrospect started off quite well, there was some good drama with the crew rallying around Seven and then beginning to doubt her account as evidence emerged. It was just quite flabbergasting, especially from a 2020 viewpoint, that they would have the upshot of an assault storyline being that the supposed victim became more human by learning from her mistaken accusation. Wikipedia tells me that Bryan Fuller was preoccupied with the idea of false memory, he’d heard some academic had lost their job because of it, and wanted to write a story exploring it.

[sifth]

Yea Garak was just the best. Every DS9 episode with that character was just pure gold. To this day, I still say not making Garak a main character in season 4, was the shows biggest mistake. I'm not sure if they couldn't afford him or if Andrew Robinson turned them down, but i do know they were planning to make him into a main character in season 4 and even had him in the opening credits for the original broadcast for The Way of The Warrior as one. 

[Werthead]

Alexander Siddig and Andrew Robinson are doing a series of Bashir/Garak Zoom meetings at the moment. They're quite entertaining. More characters join in as it goes along (Jake in Episode 2, Kira in Episode 3, Quark in Episode 4).

[Caligula_K3]

7 hours ago, red snow said:

Yeah, the time travel alone is a nightmare throughout trek. It doesn't stop me watching the shows but i do think it's a sign of lazy writing and a little bit disrespectful to the fans who take it very seriously and support the franchise and staff involved by buying loads of additional shit and attending conventions. Your average viewer who rolls with plot holes is unlikely to do all that.

Have you watched enterprise and discovery? That makes a hard to swallow Klingon pill from trials and tribbleations almost impossible.

 

I saw Season 1 of Discovery, but haven't watched any other Star Trek shows other than DS9 (and a few episodes of TOS and TNG here and there, along with the Abrams movies and the one where they go back in time to save the whales). I took the point of the Klingon line from Trials as being "look Trekkies, we know you all want uber consistency across all of these series, but sometimes we just want to change things up, and that's cool." So I'm not bothered by Klingons looking different in different shows; well, as long as they're cool. In Discovery, the Klingons were just lame, but not because of their design.

From what I understand (and I could be wrong), DS9's willingness to mess with canon is one of the things that led to it being considered a better show. I hear that they, for example, completely redid the Ferengi society from what it was in TNG, making them much more fleshed out and less of a caricature.

100% agreed that the Cardassians are the best villains (and then not quite so villains) in Star Trek that I've seen, though the Dominion is also pretty great. It definitely helps that Garak is such a delight from the beginning of the show, and that the Gul Dukat actor is fantastic as well. But even in season 1, when most DS9 episodes were pretty bad, the show always got a shot in the arm when it focused on even minor Cardassian characters. Meanwhile, every time a Romulan appears on screen I want to fall asleep...

 

[sifth]

25 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I saw Season 1 of Discovery, but haven't watched any other Star Trek shows other than DS9 (and a few episodes of TOS and TNG here and there, along with the Abrams movies and the one where they go back in time to save the whales). I took the point of the Klingon line from Trials as being "look Trekkies, we know you all want uber consistency across all of these series, but sometimes we just want to change things up, and that's cool." So I'm not bothered by Klingons looking different in different shows; well, as long as they're cool. In Discovery, the Klingons were just lame, but not because of their design.

From what I understand (and I could be wrong), DS9's willingness to mess with canon is one of the things that led to it being considered a better show. I hear that they, for example, completely redid the Ferengi society from what it was in TNG, making them much more fleshed out and less of a caricature.

100% agreed that the Cardassians are the best villains (and then not quite so villains) in Star Trek that I've seen, though the Dominion is also pretty great. It definitely helps that Garak is such a delight from the beginning of the show, and that the Gul Dukat actor is fantastic as well. But even in season 1, when most DS9 episodes were pretty bad, the show always got a shot in the arm when it focused on even minor Cardassian characters. Meanwhile, every time a Romulan appears on screen I want to fall asleep...

 

You’re gonna hate the Picard show then, since it’s mostly about Romulans. 

[Caligula_K3]

5 minutes ago, sifth said:

You’re gonna hate the Picard show then, since it’s mostly about Romulans. 

I did watch an episode and it definitely wasn't for me. It didn't help that I have no attachment to Picard/Data.

I am very excited to watch these Garak/Bashir Zoom episodes when I'm done DS9 though...

[sifth]

12 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I did watch an episode and it definitely wasn't for me. It didn't help that I have no attachment to Picard/Data.

I am very excited to watch these Garak/Bashir Zoom episodes when I'm done DS9 though...

To be fair, the Picard show does sort of retcon a lot of things about Picard and Data. He and Data were never that close on TNG to be honest. Geordi was always Data's best friend, with Riker not too far behind him; while Data and Picard were usually just causal friends at best. Beverly Crusher and Guinan were always Picard's closest friends on the Enterprise.

[Ran]

3 minutes ago, sifth said:

To be fair, the Picard show does sort of retcon a lot of things about Picard and Data. He and Data were never that close on TNG to be honest.

The films placed Picard and Data much closer together, I think, which is what I assume Picard is riffing off. Behind the scenes I think it had to do with Stewart and Spiner being the most popular actors on the show, so they got more face time in the films.

[sifth]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

The films placed Picard and Data much closer together, I think, which is what I assume Picard is riffing off. Behind the scenes I think it had to do with Stewart and Spiner being the most popular actors on the show, so they got more face time in the films.

Yea, I do often get the feeling the creators of Picard never saw any of TNG aside from the Borg episodes and mostly just watched the movies.

[Aemon Stark]

1 hour ago, sifth said:

Yea, I do often get the feeling the creators of Picard never saw any of TNG aside from the Borg episodes and mostly just watched the movies.

Kinda disagree, at least insofar as bringing up characters like Bruce Maddox represented a pretty deep cut. 

Picard has some pretty great world-building, but it is true that the overall plot doesn't quite hang together. It has far too many threads and far too much going on for a 10 episode limited season. 

For some reason, the current brain trust at CBS (and I use the term very loosely) seems to think no one interested in Trek has ever watched DS9 let alone heard of the Cardassians. This is despite their seeming obsession with Section 31 as a concept, a plot element developed only on DS9 in any significant way. And I don't really get it, because I'm pretty sure no one was clamouring for yet another AI vs "organics" plot, let alone knowing how Bruce Maddox's career ended up. Discovery, of course, had the whole "control" plot which reminded me of a stripped down version of everything with the Replicators on Stargate: SG1. 

I guess we'll find out what Lower Decks is really like in short order. 

[sifth]

29 minutes ago, Aemon Stark said:

Kinda disagree, at least insofar as bringing up characters like Bruce Maddox represented a pretty deep cut. 

Picard has some pretty great world-building, but it is true that the overall plot doesn't quite hang together. It has far too many threads and far too much going on for a 10 episode limited season. 

For some reason, the current brain trust at CBS (and I use the term very loosely) seems to think no one interested in Trek has ever watched DS9 let alone heard of the Cardassians. This is despite their seeming obsession with Section 31 as a concept, a plot element developed only on DS9 in any significant way. And I don't really get it, because I'm pretty sure no one was clamouring for yet another AI vs "organics" plot, let alone knowing how Bruce Maddox's career ended up. Discovery, of course, had the whole "control" plot which reminded me of a stripped down version of everything with the Replicators on Stargate: SG1. 

I guess we'll find out what Lower Decks is really like in short order. 

To be honest I sort of forgot Bruce Maddox was even on Picard.

 

They introduce him and kill him off so quickly, I think it just slipped out of my mind, plus the fact that he's played by a different actor doesn't help matters. I mostly said my comment, because Picard did some pretty stupid things, like turn 7 of 9 into Ellen Ripley, which I felt was a massive disservice to the character, let alone reduce Picard to an idiot who gets chewed up for things that weren't his fault half the time.

The fact that the Romulans suddenly hated AI's never sat well with me either. They encounter Data all the time in TNG and never show any extra hatred or prejudice to him. In fact I think the Romulans even mention their own AI program in one episode of TNG, but I don't recall the exact episode off the top of my head.

On one hand, I'm sort of happy we wont see any Cardassians in New Trek, if the new Klingons, Romulans and Borg are any indication, CBS would find some way to ruin the Cardassians. At the end of the day, I'd just be happy if New Trek gave us some good stories, preferably ones that didn't always require violence to solve the problem of the week. I know I said this before, but i think every episode of Picard, had at least one person get killed, for some daft reason.

[RumHam]

1 hour ago, sifth said:

 

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The fact that the Romulans suddenly hated AI's never sat well with me either. They encounter Data all the time in TNG and never show any extra hatred or prejudice to him. In fact I think the Romulans even mention their own AI program in one episode of TNG, but I don't recall the exact episode off the top of my head.

 

It was The Defector, where the titular defector tells Data he knows romulan cyberneticists who would kill to get close to him. Like Werthead said Star Trek has always had shitty continuity between episodes.

One thing I'm not clear on re: Picard, that Romulan Zat Vash mythology expert who was assimilated after seeing the AI "warning" freaked out early on when she met Soji and said something like "are you the one who dies or the destroyer" implying she recognized her and her sister. 

But then it turns out the "warning" was not a prophecy at all but a message from a super advanced AI civilization meant for other AI. So Soji's wasn't in it. So what the hell was that romulan woman talking about and why did meeting Soji freak her out? 

There's a lot of stuff like that in picard ("it's a stormy planet always clouded" but then it isn't.)  It's one thing if they retcon some stuff from previous shows, but a ten episode season of a show should at least be internally consistent. 

[sifth]

3 minutes ago, RumHam said:

There's a lot of stuff like that in picard ("it's a stormy planet always clouded" but then it isn't.)  It's one thing if they retcon some stuff from previous shows, but a ten episode season of a show should at least be internally consistent. 

Weren't the the Romulans able to identify the planet, just by it being stormy and having two blood red moons in the sky? You'd think that might limit it to a few hundred or thousand worlds, but certainly not enough info for a 100% match. Space is a rather big place after all.

[RumHam]

Just now, sifth said:

Weren't the the Romulans able to identify the planet, just by it being stormy and having two blood red moons in the sky? You'd think that might limit it to a few hundred or thousand worlds, but certainly not enough info for a 100% match. Space is a rather big place after all.

I don't remember. I know Nerek followed them like, halfway? but then they made a jump or something? 

[red snow]

5 hours ago, Ran said:

The films placed Picard and Data much closer together, I think, which is what I assume Picard is riffing off. Behind the scenes I think it had to do with Stewart and Spiner being the most popular actors on the show, so they got more face time in the films.

That and them wanting to force a Kirk and Riker dynamic - especially with Data dying. It's a bit on the nose and I can understand why the show avoided it