Star Trek - Horizon

[Oberon]

Star Trek always seemed to struggle to find its place between the utopia that Roddenbery imagined, and the gritty sci-fi that became popular in the late 1990s, early 2000s. You can see the change in Deep Space Nine when the Dominion get introduced.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Star Trek always seemed to struggle to find its place between the utopia that Roddenbery imagined, and the gritty sci-fi that became popular in the late 1990s, early 2000s. You can see the change in Deep Space Nine when the Dominion get introduced.

Haven't gotten to DSN yet, but I can kinda see what you mean. At times, TNG is serious, but then in other episodes it just goes silly. Overall, I think the problem with ST I have so far is the lack of consistency. Things established in earlier episodes are broken just to fit some other episode.

There was one episode early in TNG where, I think it was Riker got killed, but he was beamed to the medlab in about 30 seconds and he got revived. That was explained by saying that if the patient got there in time and had no extreme injuries, the patient could be revived.

Ok, few episodes later, a woman dies, he is beamed almost instantly to the medlab. What does the doctor do? Check her pulse the old fashioned way and says she's dead. No "extreme" injuries, she didn't even use her fancy scanner! Just to make a plot for that episode (another soap opera BS) That is just lazy if you ask me.

See, I don't dislike ST "just because". I dislike what I have seen so far because it makes so little sense and there are so many other, better Sci-fi. Take the original Battlestar Galactica: Acting was better, things made sense, it didn't "bend the rules" to make a plot fit.

I DID enjoy TOS, it was good in the camp way. I mean, it was completely silly, but enjoyable.

I shall report back when I see more of ST. Over and out.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Star Trek always seemed to struggle to find its place between the utopia that Roddenbery imagined, and the gritty sci-fi that became popular in the late 1990s, early 2000s. You can see the change in Deep Space Nine when the Dominion get introduced.

The problem is viewers in general get bored with utopia episodes and look for something that brews trouble and drives plots, ergo the Dominion War for DS9 and Voyager, the Borg threat for TNG, and the Temporal War for Enterprise.

[Catfish]

The secret service says the Romulans are building a weapon of mass destruction.

Sounds familiar. Iraq in Space anyone



Apart from that,
while the original series was at least a bit more modern in military orders and status, and especially research and science, the new ST films resemble more and more a bad copy of the US military structure and its hardware..

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Haven't gotten to DSN yet, but I can kinda see what you mean. At times, TNG is serious, but then in other episodes it just goes silly. Overall, I think the problem with ST I have so far is the lack of consistency. Things established in earlier episodes are broken just to fit some other episode.

There was one episode early in TNG where, I think it was Riker got killed, but he was beamed to the medlab in about 30 seconds and he got revived. That was explained by saying that if the patient got there in time and had no extreme injuries, the patient could be revived.

Ok, few episodes later, a woman dies, he is beamed almost instantly to the medlab. What does the doctor do? Check her pulse the old fashioned way and says she's dead. No "extreme" injuries, she didn't even use her fancy scanner! Just to make a plot for that episode (another soap opera BS) That is just lazy if you ask me.

See, I don't dislike ST "just because". I dislike what I have seen so far because it makes so little sense and there are so many other, better Sci-fi. Take the original Battlestar Galactica: Acting was better, things made sense, it didn't "bend the rules" to make a plot fit.

I DID enjoy TOS, it was good in the camp way. I mean, it was completely silly, but enjoyable.

I shall report back when I see more of ST. Over and out.

I understand that, some of the plot-holes in ST you can drive a Borg Cube through, especially when it gets to Voyager and Enterprise...although to be fair the last season of Enterprise did try to tie things up a bit, but Trek was dying by then. TNG is a bit hit and miss, I think people cherry-pick the best episodes from it, things like 'The Best of Both Worlds' and 'The Inner Light' and forget the bombs like 'Shades of Grey' (a clip show) and 'Genesis'.
I must rewatch the original BSG sometime, got the boxset on the shelf...sitting next to B5...

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

The problem is viewers in general get bored with utopia episodes and look for something that brews trouble and drives plots, ergo the Dominion War for DS9 and Voyager, the Borg threat for TNG, and the Temporal War for Enterprise.

Yup, that is the problem. Bringing the Borg threat into TNG was a good move, it worked well...the Dominion war also worked quite well for DS9, in TNG they used the Borg sparingly, and in DS9, once the initial six episodes were done in season six then the war became an ongoing background thing which came up from time to time. Voyager brought in the Borg (and Borg 'implants') to try and boost ratings but wound up overusing them and nerfing them as a threat...and the Temporal Cold War in Enterprise was a badly written mess. So you have six of one and half a dozen of the other.
What I liked about the Dominion War in DS9 and indeed the Borg in TNG is that it wasn't just used for the battles and explosions but also it took a look at the ethics of war and struggle and how it changed people... In The Best of Both Worlds you have Picards guilt about being Locutus, Rikers unease about filling the captains chair, the friction between him and Shelby who is advancing up the ranks quickly, and the quiet unease that this time the Federation really is doomed. It also helped that at the end of Season 3 no-one was really sure if Picard was coming back or not.
In the Dominion War, well...there are two episodes that stand out for me in that particular arc and that's 'In the Pale Moonlight' and 'The Siege of AR558'. They are both quite dark episodes, quite the opposite of Roddenberys vision, and yet they are both very well made (especially 'In the Pale Moonlight') and well acted.

Originally Posted by Catfish

The secret service says the Romulans are building a weapon of mass destruction.

Sounds familiar. Iraq in Space anyone

Be worried when the Romulans are able to launch it in 45 minutes.

It is fairly true to the established canon of the Romulan War though, IIRC there was a major battle close to Earth. But to be honest the canon is pretty sketchy around it...it was going to be explored more in ENT but, as we know, that got canned before they got that far.

while the original series was at least a bit more modern in military orders and status, and especially research and science, the new ST films resemble more and more a bad copy of the US military structure and its hardware..

Agreed, even the uniforms on the Abrams trek look like a cross between a US military dress uniform and something from the Imperial Fleet from Star Wars:



Still...I admit...it is a bit better than the dress uniform that actually looked like a dress:

[Betonov]

Movies II to VI were the only time ST actually had uniforms.




Anything else was either work jumpers or pajamas

[Buddahaid]

I liked Enterprise far more than I thought I would mainly because it showed that Vulcans were more than cookie cutter robots with failings of their own, and the Andorians which I thought were brilliantly portrayed.

[Dowly]

I give up Oberon. Your loss.

[Catfish]

^ Really, do you believe anyone in the distant future (flying FTL ships) will still carry those ridiculous hats, even in his gala uniform

Of course a sabre would be appropriate. Or maybe some bronze cannons, for the phaser deck.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Catfish

^ Really, do you believe anyone in the distant future (flying FTL ships) will still carry those ridiculous hats, even in his gala uniform

Of course a sabre would be appropriate. Or maybe some bronze cannons, for the phaser deck.

Already been done:

[ikalugin]

I did like the uniforms from the TOS films. That said, the reason why I did like TOS series if because they didn't just spam American/Western types everywhere and had a Russian troll dude with his thick neck.