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Star Trek: The Wrath of Fans


Derfel Cadarn

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It always bothered me that Jadzia wasn't in the finale flashbacks. 

54 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Now to decide if I should do a greatest hits watch of TNG...

I'd argue most of it is quite watchable, you really just need a list of like the 20% of episodes to skip. 

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I think that comes down to how much of a preference you have for serialised vs episodic. The ongoing story for DS9 is strong enough to sustain me through all the episodes, but TNG is almost purely episodic so I only have patience for the best of it. 

Obviously a lot of Trek lovers are going to be the opposite to me in terms of preference which is one of the big reasons for disappointment in new Trek.

Non Trek comment that feels related, especially given the DS9 conversations - I've seen people talking about Babylon 5 again recently and I really wish I could get through it. I've tried twice and the combination of effects and either acting style or quality (I'm not sure if it's bad or just not to my taste) is just more than I can handle. I made it halfway through the first season the first time, then halfway through the second on the second.

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31 minutes ago, RumHam said:

It always bothered me that Jadzia wasn't in the finale flashbacks. 

 

If I'm remembering right, they got in trouble for using a picture of Terry Farrell in an earlier season 7 episode, which is why they didn't put her in the final.

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1 hour ago, karaddin said:

Non Trek comment that feels related, especially given the DS9 conversations - I've seen people talking about Babylon 5 again recently and I really wish I could get through it. I've tried twice and the combination of effects and either acting style or quality (I'm not sure if it's bad or just not to my taste) is just more than I can handle. I made it halfway through the first season the first time, then halfway through the second on the second.

Season 3 and 4 are the best continuous storyline of anything.  It's really elevated far above anything you're seen from the first two seasons.  You have to get through season 2 Sheridan's naive phase first, but that makes the arc of the character all the more interesting.

Part of the feeling you're getting is that given the minuscule budget they pushed the dialogue and acting to be like that you'd see in a stage play.  It was a deliberate choice.

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4 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Season 3 and 4 are the best continuous storyline of anything.  It's really elevated far above anything you're seen from the first two seasons.  You have to get through season 2 Sheridan's naive phase first, but that makes the arc of the character all the more interesting.

Part of the feeling you're getting is that given the minuscule budget they pushed the dialogue and acting to be like that you'd see in a stage play.  It was a deliberate choice.

Both times I tried it was with the knowledge that I wasn't at the peak of the show and I was just trying to get through to that point. I'm even ok with stage acting etc in that context, but obviously there's something in this that's failing to activate that context for me. First time I tried was well before effects were anything like what they are now though, I think it was around 2005 so we're talking Farscape was only relatively recent, I'd watched all of Lexx and probably first season of Battlestar at that point.

I can't imagine the huge improvement in sci fi production values the last few years would help me.

Part of the recent chatter I saw included a clip on YouTube of one of the "big" moments and the style was instantly bothering me again. It was

Spoiler

The Mimbara backing the station against Earth forces arriving to relieve the commander I think? The Earth forces back down.

 

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2 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think that comes down to how much of a preference you have for serialised vs episodic. The ongoing story for DS9 is strong enough to sustain me through all the episodes, but TNG is almost purely episodic so I only have patience for the best of it. 

Obviously a lot of Trek lovers are going to be the opposite to me in terms of preference which is one of the big reasons for disappointment in new Trek.

 

No. Absolutely not. While I'm sure you could find fifteen or so weirdo Trekkers who complain about the long form stories, the classic fans hate this drek trek because it's J.J.'d to hell and back. Time was you didn't have to bring I KNOW WHAT THAT IS to every TV promo to get people even mildly interested.

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16 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

No. Absolutely not. While I'm sure you could find fifteen or so weirdo Trekkers who complain about the long form stories, the classic fans hate this drek trek because it's J.J.'d to hell and back. Time was you didn't have to bring I KNOW WHAT THAT IS to every TV promo to get people even mildly interested.

Eh, but doesn't everyone also dislike Voyager and Enterprise? That's at least the impression I've gotten from the internet over the past few months, especially reading the comments on AV Club episode reviews of DS9. From the sounds of it, Trek has always been really inconsistent, JJ tone or no JJ tone.

As for TNG, I really don't think I have the patience to watch even 80% of it and go through another 7 seasons. DS9 was great, but at times it could be a real slog. Like @karaddin says, without serialization, I think I'd bounce hard off of Picard and co. So I'd rather watch the top 20-25%.

 

 

 

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Maybe it's a generational thing. When I was young we didn't get to pick which episodes we wanted to watch. 

DS9 was always looked at sideways for taking the shine off Starfleet in the days when the internet was new, Voyager for being dumbed down (LOTS of technobabble that puts the 'no' in technobabble). That being said, it was Trek fans who kept watching those shows, kept them airing. Trek fans. Not subscription whales.

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Quote

It always bothered me that Jadzia wasn't in the finale flashbacks. 

Money issues. If they put Jadzia in the flashbacks they'd have to pay the actress, and Rick Berman wasn't prepared to do that (he and Farrell had had a massive falling out) because he was a petty prick.

32 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Eh, but doesn't everyone also dislike Voyager and Enterprise? That's at least the impression I've gotten from the internet over the past few months, especially reading the comments on AV Club episode reviews of DS9. From the sounds of it, Trek has always been really inconsistent, JJ tone or no JJ tone.

No-one hates Star Trek like Star Trek fans. Possibly even more than Star Wars and Doctor Who fans hate Star Wars and Doctor Who.

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1 hour ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Eh, but doesn't everyone also dislike Voyager and Enterprise? That's at least the impression I've gotten from the internet over the past few months, especially reading the comments on AV Club episode reviews of DS9. From the sounds of it, Trek has always been really inconsistent, JJ tone or no JJ tone.

As for TNG, I really don't think I have the patience to watch even 80% of it and go through another 7 seasons. DS9 was great, but at times it could be a real slog. Like @karaddin says, without serialization, I think I'd bounce hard off of Picard and co. So I'd rather watch the top 20-25%.

This is like 35%, I think you'd loose a lot of good stuff if you whittled it down to 25%

 

 

1.1 - Enounter at Farpoint - Not really good, but important
1.5 - The Last Outpost - Terrible, but you should at least watch a bit of it for Shimerman's first appearance as a ferengi. 
1.23 - Skin of Evil
1.25 - Conspiracy

2.3 - Elementary, Dear Data
2.13 - Time Squared
2.16 - Q Who

3.2 - The Ensigns of Command
3.4 - The Survivors
3.4 - Who Watches The Watchers
3.7 - The Enemy
3.10 - The Defector
3.13 - Deja Q
3.15 - Yesterday's Enterprise
3.16 - The Offspring 
3.17 - Sins of the Father
3.16 - Allegiance 
3.19 - Captain's Holiday 
3.22 - The Most Toys
3.26 - The Best of Both Worlds I

4.1 - The Best of Both Worlds II
4.2 - Family
4.7 - Reunion 
4.8 - Future Imperfect
4.9 - Final Mission - if you don't hate Wesley
4.11 - Data's Day
4.12 - The Wounded
4.13 - Devil's Due
4.14 - Clues
4.15 - First Contact
4.21 - The Drumhead
4.26 - Redemption I

5.1  - Redemption II
5.2 - Darmok
5.3 - Ensign Ro
5.5 - Disaster
5.6 - The Game - if you don't hate Wesley
5.7 - Unification I
5.8 - Unification II
5.9 - A Matter of Time
5.14 - Conundrum
5.18 - Cause and Effect
5.23 - I, Borg
5.25 - The Inner Light
5.26 - Time's Arrow I

6.1 - Time's Arrow II
6.10 - Chain of Command I
6.11 - Chain of Command II
6.12 - Ship in a Bottle
6.16 - Birthright I
6.17 - Birthright II
6.24 - Second Chances
6.25 - Timescape
6.26 - Descent I

7.1 - Descent II
7.4 - Gambit I
7.5 - Gambit II
7.11 - Parallels
7.15 - Lower Decks
7.16 - Thine Own Self
7.24 - Preemptive Strike
7.25 - All Good Things I
7.26 - All Good Things II

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12 minutes ago, RumHam said:

This is like 35%, I think you'd loose a lot of good stuff if you whittled it down to 25%

5.6 - The Game - if you don't hate Wesley

Out of all the unbelievable premises to ever be thrown out there on the myriad Star Trek shows; the possibility that Wesley Crusher could land Ashley Judd as a girlfriend is by far the most preposterous.

Truly Dr. Sheldon Cooper was correct, Wesley is the Jar Jar Binks of Star Trek.

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

No-one hates Star Trek like Star Trek fans. Possibly even more than Star Wars and Doctor Who fans hate Star Wars and Doctor Who.

See I don't believe that. At the end of the day all the fans want are well told stories. The sad truth is all 3 of the franchises you mentioned are stuck in the past and rely on memberberies, call backs and recreating things we already saw. They don't want to simply come up with new stories in the same universe, the way 90's Trek did.

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1 hour ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Eh, but doesn't everyone also dislike Voyager and Enterprise? That's at least the impression I've gotten from the internet over the past few months, especially reading the comments on AV Club episode reviews of DS9. From the sounds of it, Trek has always been really inconsistent, JJ tone or no JJ tone.

So in that regard the things Kurtzman touch are breaking with the old tradition by being consistently bad, aren't they? :P

Joke aside, I dislike Discovery and Picard because they have no redeeming qualities to me whatsoever. The tone is far too cynical, the writing gives you aneurysms if you think more than 3 seconds about any of it and it doesn't even look like Star Trek. So why should I watch something that has Star Trek in the name pretty much only to milk the brand and makes me feel horrible while at it?

Voyager looked right and had the right tone, even if 95% of the episodes are completely forgettable and it completely squandered its premise. Enterprise suffers similarly like Discovery at the beginning by trying to hard to cater to what it perceived as what a modern audience wants, even though it at least attempted a lot more to fit into existing Star Trek canon instead of being ashamed to be a Star Trek show and pretend to be something else (and yes, which is ironic, given that the Enterprise producers at the beginning dropped the Star Trek name for that exact reason). While Enterprise got a lot of hate back in the days nowadays people seem more regretful that it was cancelled just as it was beginning to find its footing in the last season.

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2 hours ago, karaddin said:

Both times I tried it was with the knowledge that I wasn't at the peak of the show and I was just trying to get through to that point. I'm even ok with stage acting etc in that context, but obviously there's something in this that's failing to activate that context for me. First time I tried was well before effects were anything like what they are now though, I think it was around 2005 so we're talking Farscape was only relatively recent, I'd watched all of Lexx and probably first season of Battlestar at that point.

Try watching Blakes 7 first? Another great show, but obviously made on a miniscule budget using 1970s tech, and if that doesn't recalibrate your sense of production values, I'd reluctantly suggest giving up on B5.

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1 hour ago, RumHam said:

This is like 35%, I think you'd loose a lot of good stuff if you whittled it down to 25%

  Hide contents

 

1.1 - Enounter at Farpoint - Not really good, but important
1.5 - The Last Outpost - Terrible, but you should at least watch a bit of it for Shimerman's first appearance as a ferengi. 
1.23 - Skin of Evil
1.25 - Conspiracy

2.3 - Elementary, Dear Data
2.13 - Time Squared
2.16 - Q Who

3.2 - The Ensigns of Command
3.4 - The Survivors
3.4 - Who Watches The Watchers
3.7 - The Enemy
3.10 - The Defector
3.13 - Deja Q
3.15 - Yesterday's Enterprise
3.16 - The Offspring 
3.17 - Sins of the Father
3.16 - Allegiance 
3.19 - Captain's Holiday 
3.22 - The Most Toys
3.26 - The Best of Both Worlds I

4.1 - The Best of Both Worlds II
4.2 - Family
4.7 - Reunion 
4.8 - Future Imperfect
4.9 - Final Mission - if you don't hate Wesley
4.11 - Data's Day
4.12 - The Wounded
4.13 - Devil's Due
4.14 - Clues
4.15 - First Contact
4.21 - The Drumhead
4.26 - Redemption I

5.1  - Redemption II
5.2 - Darmok
5.3 - Ensign Ro
5.5 - Disaster
5.6 - The Game - if you don't hate Wesley
5.7 - Unification I
5.8 - Unification II
5.9 - A Matter of Time
5.14 - Conundrum
5.18 - Cause and Effect
5.23 - I, Borg
5.25 - The Inner Light
5.26 - Time's Arrow I

6.1 - Time's Arrow II
6.10 - Chain of Command I
6.11 - Chain of Command II
6.12 - Ship in a Bottle
6.16 - Birthright I
6.17 - Birthright II
6.24 - Second Chances
6.25 - Timescape
6.26 - Descent I

7.1 - Descent II
7.4 - Gambit I
7.5 - Gambit II
7.11 - Parallels
7.15 - Lower Decks
7.16 - Thine Own Self
7.24 - Preemptive Strike
7.25 - All Good Things I
7.26 - All Good Things II

Thanks for this amazing list! Super helpful. I've already watched Encounter at Farpoint (a few years ago, I tried to watch TNG and didn't get far) and I think I'll excuse myself from ever watching that episode ever again (space jellyfish), but will check out the rest of these for sure. I recently watched an episode about Data and whether or not he was sentient which was pretty good.

I do find the debates over what the true Trek tone should be to be interesting, especially since DS9 was considered to be too unTreklike in its day and since it could also be criticized for drawing on older shows to sell itself: seasons 1-2 in particular are full of characters from TNG. There also seems to be a lot of contradiction in the criticisms of Discovery, as being on the one hand too nostalgia driven (T'KUVMA!!!) but on the other too much doing things that make it not Trek. I can see how both criticisms can co-exist, as someone who watched Discovery season 1 but didn't love it; but I do wonder if there's any Trek that could be made that would please all fans.

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46 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I do find the debates over what the true Trek tone should be to be interesting, especially since DS9 was considered to be too unTreklike in its day and since it could also be criticized for drawing on older shows to sell itself: seasons 1-2 in particular are full of characters from TNG. There also seems to be a lot of contradiction in the criticisms of Discovery, as being on the one hand too nostalgia driven (T'KUVMA!!!) but on the other too much doing things that make it not Trek. I can see how both criticisms can co-exist, as someone who watched Discovery season 1 but didn't love it; but I do wonder if there's any Trek that could be made that would please all fans.

Well for starters DS9 had the decency of being a sequel series and not a prequel. "Spock had a human sister this whole time................didn't you know". Writing like that reminds me of the tv show Powerless, "Come see the adventures of Bruce Wayne's cousin..................because he has one now". Because Discovery is a prequel, literally every character from TOS they asspull back into the plot has to be played by a new actor and this has resulted in various degrees of success. It also results in having to cover a period of their life that for some reason was mysteriously never talked about in TOS or any other show/movie. 

At least when TNG and TOS asspulled a main characters sibling into existence, they usually only kept the person around for 1 episode, they didn't make them into a main character to try and sell a new show. Discovery is like if the writers of Voyager for some reason wanted to make Janeway, Riker's sister. I personally think it's better for her to stand on her own, rather then in the shadow of another character, but that's just me. 

Also with the exception of Worf and the Chief, along with any characters from TNG connected to them, there weren't that many characters from TNG who returned to DS9. Picard, Riker's clone, Troy's mother and Q are the only ones I can think of and with the exception of Troy's mother, all the others only appeared in one episode each and never were never seen again. Can you really say this is the case for Discovery?

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Jace I said it was one of the reasons, not the only reason. Its a complaint I've seen a lot about the new Treks whether it's one you share or not. Obviously there are other reasons and I'm not dismissing them to acknowledge a bunch of people dislike the serialisation. It's a complaint I see a lot about current TV shows generally too.

I have no idea what the fuck "subscription whales" is meant to mean in the context of picking the best episodes to watch. There's no increased cost to only watch the episodes considered the best than there is to watch the entire series and a hell of a lot less of a time investment. Of course cherry picking episodes wasn't a thing when you couldn't easily or cheaply acquire only the episodes you wanted, and couldn't find a list of episodes considered good because you just got to see it in TV when it aired. But you have access to all that shit now, why in the hell should you not avail yourself of it? 

Farscape is my favorite show ever (I don't think it's the best, it's just my favorite) but it has some stinker episodes and I don't rewatch those either.

2 hours ago, felice said:

Try watching Blakes 7 first? Another great show, but obviously made on a miniscule budget using 1970s tech, and if that doesn't recalibrate your sense of production values, I'd reluctantly suggest giving up on B5.

I tried Blake's due to Farscape being heavily inspired by it, but bounced off the first episode. I think that was a middle of the night attempt though and not really a proper try like I gave to B5 so might be worth a proper try.

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1 hour ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I recently watched an episode about Data and whether or not he was sentient which was pretty good.

Sounds like The Measure of a Man. I think it's generally seen as one of the first really good TNG episodes.

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Subscription whales has no context to picking your favorite episodes. I called people who watch new trek whales because they pay for CBS all access. They are weak minded rubes who are getting got by a network that used to put the show on for free. And they can't even be bothered to attempt to make the offings coherent, let alone quality, because they don't need to. Them whales will keep on paying. What is it, $120 a year? For network fucking television.

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