Star Trek

[mykpart]

I have watched an enjoyed every Star Trek series since the original. But I just couldn't get interested in Enterprise, even though I really like Scott Bakula. I do feel that each new series was not quite as good as the one before it. Is it just burnout, or do other Trek fans feel the same way?

[SeattleGirl]

1. I only really got into ST: The Next Generation

Yeah, I watched the original, and DS9, a little bit of the one after that (sorry, I'm tired, can't remember the title of the show).

TNG was the best, I think, because it was intelligent overall. (Sorry if that sounds snooty; I just like shows with brains, though good fall-on-the-floor-laughing shows are great.)

[mykpart]

3. Yeah, I think TNG was really better than the original.

I didn't like DS9 at first, but by the third year I was hooked, especially with the religion aspect of it. It got a little lame toward the end, though, with the shape-shifters and all. I liked Voyager OK too, but this last one is just boring.

[SeattleGirl]

7. Voyager!

Thanks. I just could not remember the name of that series.

[NMMNG]

2. I liked TNG best, and TOS second

I just couldn't get into any of the other series for some reason. :shrug:

[Oeditpus Rex]

4. I was really looking forward to 'Enterprise'

but it was a big disappointment. It just didn't seem... "old" enough. :shrug:

[mykpart]

5. Is the Star Trek phenomenom over?

I can't imagine any more series.

[Oeditpus Rex]

6. Might be kinda cool to see

"Star Trek: Starfleet Academy."

Y'think?

[Tikki]

30. I've been saying this... the only way to get a new....

...audience for Star Trek is to get the 15~25 year olds introduced to a Star Trek of their own....

The Star Fleet Academy is the best way to do this...

...also, featuring the importance of the Sciences at the Academy will help.....


Tikki

[Robert Cooper]

44. except there are no new stories for this (or are there?)

How many times could the kids swipe a spacecraft and get into trouble?

How many phaser battles are they going to fight?

How many "strange new worlds" are they going to explore (hoo hum)?

Didn't "90210" do all the rest of the teen heart-throb/getting into trouble stories?

Now if they all end up getting inducted into the military prematurely because the war (whatever war) is going badly for the Federation, fighting a pointless war no one understands and no one can stop, following orders from an idiot federation president and his torture-minded VP, well, you get the picture: think of the clash between their idealism and the depraved orders they're given, perhaps switching sides, etc.

Nah, it would never sell.

[billyskank]

8. Everybody says TNG is the best of the spin-off series

but often I don't see it. I watch some of them, especially the early ones, and they're really cheesy. It often makes me cringe.

And it had Wesley Crusher. Come now, that was a crime against sci-fi.

[SeattleGirl]

9. The first year WAS pretty cheesy, but after that

it got so much better. They did some really good episodes, like "Measure of a Man", where Picard had to "prove" that Data had rights just like humans, and the one where Data created an android child. Those are two of my favs. Too bad you aren't closer, billy -- I have all of the episodes on tape!

Edited to correct spelling.

[billyskank]

11. If you will permit me

I think that TNG is highly thought of here because so many of its plots and concepts agree with our liberal sensibilities. Those two you cited certainly do.

Voyager tends to get ripped to shreds, here and other places, but I think it had some fantastic episodes. Particularly "Equinox," which showed Jayneway to be a very flawed leader. Picard, by contrast, is just a bit too perfect.

And don't get me started on Riker...that character just made me want to :puke: He was too smarmy by far.

DS9 was a bit more grown up in the way that they all stayed in one place, so story lines had to be followed up. They couldn't just have an adventure and then piss off somewhere else with nothing more said. Unfortunately, having recently discovered Babylon 5 I now realise that they largely ripped it off when they made DS9. :(

I think Voyager suffers mostly because everyone was tired of Star Trek by that time. We'd seen it all before, we know all about the Federation and Star Fleet principles, the Prime Directive yada yada yada. It wasn't different enough. Enterprise promised to be different but in the end it wasn't, so it got canned.

[AllegroRondo]

13. I found the Data character ironic

if you look at the earlier seasons, the actor playing him did a poor job of playing an android. But he got much better as the series went on. The character, however, got much better at being human while the actor got better at being an android.

[lakemonster11]

10. I think DS9 was the best, by far.

It had the best writing, the best acting, the most complex and compelling characters, and the best storylines (just ignore the first couple of seasons--they were still in TNG-mode, and it didn't suit them).

TNG is a close second. It was the first Star Trek I ever watched. It was more of an episodic show, but still well-written and generally well-acted. I *love* Patrick Stewart, and there are some brilliant episodes. I think First Contact is a really good movie, even apart from Star Trek.

Voyager had a great premise, but the writers totally dropped the ball. I won't go into my patented Voyager rant here (consider yourselves lucky ;)), but I have very strong feelings on this subject.

TOS is the original (obviously), so it's hard to rate compared to the others. It's very dated now, but it had a lot of great ideas. I love Spock and McCoy.

Enterprise I know little about. While I think I've seen just about every episode of the other series, I've only seen a handful of Enterprise episodes. I liked that they chose Scott Bakula as the captain (I'm a big fan), but they irritated me (and a lot of other fans, I think) from the beginning by leaving the "Star Trek" part of the title off of the show and by choosing a pop song to play over the opening credits. They were supposedly trying to separate it from other Star Trek shows in order to bring in new fans who didn't consider themselves Trekkies (this is what I've heard), but I think it just alienated the fan base.

I did like the look of the show (especially the widescreen part), and there were some episodes that I enjoyed. I caught a few right at the end and it seemed like they were taking some pot-shots at Bush (there was some sort of storyline about a Vulcan leader who was faking a foreign threat in order to get his people to invade the Andorians). That definitely made my day! Overall, I guess it didn't really capture my attention, either.

[trogdor]

32. Go check out New Voyages

They have some 20-somethings, probably film students, who are (slowly) making new TOS episodes, about one a year. They've got backing and help from several old-time Trek people as well as Eugene Roddenberry. It has the original Trek feel, but the production technology has been brought up to date.

http://www.newvoyages.com

[trogdor]

33. Check out the CGI stuff they do

[Robert Cooper]

43. problem with link

It ended up sending me here: http://www.newvoyages.com/Icebox_com_files/Icebox.css, where I got the following message: The requested URL /Icebox_com_files/Icebox.css was not found on this server.

I like the graphic, wouldn't mind seeing the site.

[hfojvt]

37. I got so tired of DS9

it seemed more like a soap opera with its continuity and endless war. TOS was about exploring, finding something new and different with very little continuity except the main cast.
I found Voyager to be more like TOS. Of course, I probably did not see more than one season of Voyager, DS9 and maybe a couple seasons of TNG. They all mostly aired when I was in my no-TV phase. Also, TOS was one I watched as a 12 year old kid when Apollo was happening, so I have an emotional attachment to it, and its cast that never happened with the others, who seemed imitative.

[lakemonster11]

41. See, that's why I liked DS9

(the continuity, the endless war). I find the alien-of-the-week model a lot less compelling. To each his own, I guess :).

Now, what TOS did well (especially in the movies) where Voyager failed is that they did, like you say, have continuity in the main cast. My favorite part of TOS is the characters of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and their relationships.

While DS9 was all set in one place, a set-up that demanded both interpersonal and external/political continuity, Voyager was set up more like the Original Series. They tried to use the DS9 model by having huge story arcs about external relationships, but this just didn't work for a ship that was supposedly speeding back to Earth. Instead, they had the perfect opportunity to have alien-of-the-week episodes to explore various topics while they developed the long story-arcs about the characters' lives and relationships. I feel like they entirely failed at this.

They set up the series for interesting character interaction. The Captain recruited Tom Paris from prison to be her pilot; Chakotay, the first officer, was really the captain of the Maquis ship that Voyager was originally sent to destroy; B'Elanna was ex-Star Fleet, current Maquis; Tuvok was Janeway's spy on Chakotay's ship; Neelix and Kes were natives of the Delta Quadrant with issues of their own; Harry Kim was a young ensign on his first mission---suddenly, they're all stuck together for 70 years and have no way of contacting their family and friends at home.

But when it actually came to writing the series, the writers just dropped everything and made the characters nothing more than vessels for the external plot. There was little character or interpersonal continuity, and those character and interpersonal arcs that existed were routinely dropped without explanation. This, I think, is why Voyager has always been such fertile ground for fanfiction authors. Fanfiction thrives on gaps, and Voyager leaves so many of them.

The sad thing is that I really want to like Voyager. I really like certain episodes, I love the opening theme, and I like most of the characters (when they're behaving in a consistent manner). I think that's why I get so frustrated with the series.

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. RICK BERMAN IS A CRIMINAL!

In any just world, he would be condemned by the UN and forced to serve out a life sentence in some lonely, forgotten Turkish prison somewhere, for destroying what was the most perfect vision of humanity's future.

FUCK YOU, RICK BERMAN! FUCK YOU TO HELL!!!!!!

[dr.strangelove]

15. don't hold back

Wow!

[Deep13]

17. Who?

:shrug:

[Rabrrrrrr]

25. Rick Berman is the asshole useless uncreative shitbag who

singlehandedly destroyed Star Trek.

[Deep13]

26. Did he burn the studio down or something?

[Rabrrrrrr]

27. No, that would have better. Instead, he destroyed it creatively.

he's the fuckwad shitbrain who ended up as producer after Roddenberry died.

[Deja Q]

29. Short and concise, but for that I've got to say

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!! :loveya:

Berman is such a one-note hack.

He can't even make a movie worth a damn, though I'll give him a grain's worth for "Insurrection" which at least TRIES to expand its horizons whil being somewhat open to people unfamiliar with the franchise - a difficult task for ANY show trying to appeal to all on the big screen... but I never advocate for the lowest common denominator anyway...

But neo-trek seems to be his one-note show. It's the same boring drivel drama every episode. And I thought the original Battlestar Galactica (1979) was hammy and cheesy...

Even "The Defector", a story I still love, has some incredibly cringing moments of Picard acting like a total drama queen. Nobody in real life would act so dramatic for no less reason unless they were a weirdo like me! :D And ain't nobody like me is even remotely captain-like material.

OTOH, we did get Q (thanks to D C Fontana, rather, as she wrote the pilot that introduced Q to us... and she was behind the better TOS scripts and stories.). So TNG wasn't all bad. But then Q started leaking onto DS9 and Voyager as well, for every contrived reason imaginable, yuck...

[Rabrrrrrr]

31. And Berman's whole "Who wants plots with stories and thinking? Let's do

All War, All The Time!!!"

Fuck you, Berman, you miserable sack of shit.

And I'm with you on Insurrection - the best of the TNG movies, and the one closest to an actual Star Trek story.

Otherwise, what do we get? Borg War, Dominion War, Cardassian War, Klingon Civil War.

Rick Berman, may you rot in the lowest level of hell!

[trogdor]

34. That's too good for him.

He should be sent to the penal asteroid of Rura Penthe.

[edbermac]

14. New series idea - Star Trek: Hot Babes In Skimpy Outfits.

I'd tune in...:evilgrin:

[Deep13]

16. I liked it except for the horrible theme song.

TNG was good, but Enterprise had an edginess that I thought the others lacked. DS9 was lame-o and the only reason I watched Voyager was to see Jeri Ryan in a corset. Both went on far too long. What I find really cool is this new Battlestar Galactica,

[Call Me Wesley]

18. Lorne Green, isn't he dead?

How about these Cylons, or whatever they're called. How much reflection can anyone stand?

[Deep13]

19. Yes, but James Olmos lives on.

Greene died at age 72 (that's 110 for you and me!) Remember those Alpo ads?

The new show has James Olmos as Adama and the Cylons look like people, so they are real characters, not just things who exist only to be blown-up.

[Call Me Wesley]

21. I like James Olmos.

Might give it a try. ;)

But I just remember during High School, there was the Battlestar Galactica-fraction and the Star Wars-fraction. I was a member of the second one.

[Deep13]

23. I was 11 then.

And it was no contest. Star Wars was completely new and invented an entire new genre. It was original (except for the Russian and Japanese films Lucas ripped off.) BSG was ABC's way of saying, "We need one of those." Besides, the 'Wagon Train' concept was a well tread path and BSG episodes added nothing new to it.

[Call Me Wesley]

40. Honestly, I don't mind BSG.

Although I was always a little bit suspicious of my own theory:



:eyes:

[Call Me Wesley]

20. I do like 'Enterprise'

In my opinion, it was the best pilot ever while the others just tried to deal with too many people to fit in, which made it pretty hard on the story itself. TNG pilot (although TNG evoked my 'Trekkiness' again, after honorary Ensign Criusher went AWOL for a good reason) was just bad. DS9 was way more clever, and I liked this a lot. Voyager did need a long time to get really running with the basic story and crew.

So, yes, here's my rating:

1. DS9
2. TNG
3. Enterprise (Don't forget that they had to achieve the old look compared with the movies, not the TOS).
4. Voyager

TOS still is something special and won't be included in my rating.

[RogueTrooper]

22. Burnout yes

Cowardice as well: I think the people who made Star Trek ran scared of new Star Wars films. Whilst the three Star Wars film did not justify the hype ( including the crappy third one ) they did seem to knock the confidence of the Star Wars production peeps.

After watching The Phantom Menace the Star Trek team probably thought that they had dodged a bullet. That was until Stargate came along and MacGyvered them.

[demobrit]

24. Is there another Feature film planned ?

Would be nice if the "Next Generation" had an extension to their 5 year mission

[Deja Q]

28. I gave up during Deep Sleep 9. DS9 and onward were mostly plot rehashes

from TNG or even TOS in a few cases. Well, more often than not...

Besides, Babylon 5 came about before DS9.

"Enterprise" was lamentable. A dead horse. One that also puts the factoid made in TNG's "Relics" (a classy story, BTW) to shame - unless the Enterprise D computer preferred to think that Archer and his crew never existed (and I love that idea!)

And Trek was about exploration and moving forward. Not sitting like a lump next to an intergalactic highway known as a "first stable wormhole with yadda yadda yadda" to justify the ripoff concept. Never mind "Voyager", which is quite the opposite of real Trek's core beliefs!

Never mind how Voyager urinated on Trek continuity by violating Trek VI and shoving one-note actor Tim Russ (Tuvok) in with Sulu and the gang, which made me wretch...

But bermantrek was more or less sappy drivel melodrama with technobabble thrown in. This isn't sci-fi. It's petty soap operas in space with pyjamas as uniforms, no less!

BTW: A Sulu-themed TV series was in the works in 1994, but little rick berman threw a tantrum and as a result Sulu's show got nixed in favor of Voyager. Sad. I do not respect that self-aggrandizing twerp, to say the very least.

And rewatching TOS and TNG, I can tell you TNG has dated far worse even though it still looks better than TOS. TNG is sappy melodrama, going where everyone has gone before. Yawn.

Maybe $40 per season set, but definitely not the $120 Paramount wants!!

Looking at some of the interviews, I recall Jonathan Frakes telling us how better produced TNG is. While true, TOS's plotlines are still more inventive by far. And the jerkwad who played Harry Kim also took an opportunity to dis George Takei, merrily forgetting how the 1960s weren't nearly as tolerant of non-whites as 1998 was. I'd love to get a time machine and put him in the 1950s and see how he reacts. I doubt he'd like it. So many people don't seem to grasp that TV is always a product of its time. The prevailing mindsets of the time influence the product. Most people forget than in favor of how good the effects look. Never mind the taboos or predjudices of the time; the original Trek being far more valuable in its day than any spinoff was for the times they were made in. (and while I acknowledge TOS was produced because someont thought it would make money still doesn't discount all of the behind-the-scenes stuff that made Trek more than a typical run-of-the-mill show. Stuff that no spinoff has had to worry about.)


Of course, I can say TOS has the occasional plot or dialogue problem as well. But it's by far underrated compared to the series that replaced it. In terms of content AND context. (it was certainly the most intelligent show being aired in the mid-late 1960s, the competition of the time proving that fairly quickly too...)

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

35. Speaking of Trek, Micheal Piller just died (cross-posted in SciFi Group)

www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?id=33120

...
Michael Piller, co-creator of USA Network's The Dead Zone TV show and a veteran Star Trek writer/producer, died in the early morning hours of Nov. 1 after a long fight with cancer, the official Star Trek Web site reported. He was 57.

Piller suffered from an aggressive form of head and neck cancer, the site reported.
...

[miss_kitty]

36. It took me awhile, then I liked it

then the ending confused me. But by then I was probably messing around on my computer, and I am not good at multi-tasking.

I liked all The Star Treks, but I didn't watch TNG until the episode with the bugs that made that admiral strong enough to cold cock Riker.

It made syndication a treat-there were about 30 epis I had never seen

[RedCloud]

38. Make it so!

So they didn't. Luckily I caught on to the never ending Star Gate, which is always a minor let down, but hey maybe, just maybe, this will be the show where it all makes sense.

[Orsino]

39. Enterprise was very different, but I loved it.

The acting was better, maybe, than on any other series, and the characters were mostly three-dimensional. I loved the idea of a ship full of ordinary folks flying by the seats of their pants into the unknown. The small talk written into the scripts (for at least the first couple of seasons) was a big part of this effect. which I believe they carried off well.

TNG is probably still my favorite, but I was ready for a variation on the theme like Enterprise.

I wish they'd given Archer's ship its own name, though, and just called the series Prime Directive. It's as though the producers didn't trust us to watch anything not safely branded.

[redqueen]

42. I liked TNG the most... the original series was good too.

I haven't been able to get into any of the others, though. *sigh*

[Robert Cooper]

45. Voyager killed it for me

Endless stories cycles about 7 of 9, the lack of any real continuity or even a sense of reality when it came to mundane things (like captains going psycho and not being relieved, etc). Worse, they created the time-cops from the future federation governing time-jumping incidents (like, where have -they- been in umpteen time-jumping episodes and most especially the episode where McCoy destroys the federation).

DS:9 was probably the best story-arc of all. It came closest to Babylon 5 for continuity and grittiness and it handled some interesting issues and it had a real sense of humour, something I think Voyager lacked.

TNG was great for bringing Trek back to TV, for Picard, Data, and most of the cast (never much liked the Crushers, tho'). They got lost on the holodeck too often (and Voyager drove that plot into the dirt beyond belief - yank the plug and give it up). But periodic visits from Q and the Borg really kept the interest up during those other episodes that were a little more tedious.

I grew up on TOS. It's classic TV. It addressed issues everyone else was avoiding. Overall it was the best

I've watched all the series through the end of Voyager, but I gave up after that.

Until they can find someone who loves trek, and doesn't see it as a career-vehicle, they should let it rest in peace.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

46. I liked the original the best

There is only one Captain of the Enterprise and it is James T. Kirk. Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, and the rest were the characters that hooked me the first. I loved Captain Jean-Luc Picard and I think the details of some of the worlds in TNG such as those surrounding the Clingons, the Borg, and the Ferringhi were extremely well done. But I think the stories in the original were the most imaginative and probably the closest to what Gene Rodenberry had in mind, even though it was very low-budget. Peace to you all and that you know the joy of Landru.