Star Trek (spoilers are likely)

[masako]

I assume that there are at least a few Trekkies/Trekkers here, on the Zeeb. In light of that, and the myriad of Trek-related things out there, I thought a sort of general Trek discussion thread might garner some interest.

Firstly, DS9 is the best series ever, and it's fine if you hold a very incorrect opinion that differs from that. Moving on...I have watched DIS and Picard, and I found the former to be dreadful in tone and overall Trek-like-ness. Picard was slightly better, but also very melodramatic and seemingly hell-bent on appealing to certain subsets of society rather than the wider public at large.

I haven't watched Lower Decks yet, but I've heard good things and maybe humor is what the franchise needs right now.

Which ones have you watched, and what are your thoughts?

[Moose-tache]

Firstly, DS9 is the best series ever, and it's fine if you hold a very incorrect opinion that differs from that.

Avery Brooks' monologue at the end of In the Pale Moonlight always sends shivers down my spine. You can tell this man has played Shakespearean kings. DS9 is the ultimate example of taking something light and optimistic and giving it a darker tonal shift, without ruining everything (looking at you, Rogue One!). DS9 and TNG are the only Star Trek properties that I will periodically re-watch all the way through.

I've had luke-warm reactions to the recent trilogy of films, and Discovery (what little I could sit through) was just awful. I don't think people should slavishly recreate the past, but it's clear that nobody involved in any of these projects took the time to go back and study what was good about the thing they're borrowing from. It's like somebody decided to make French food, but then they just sprinkled snails and brie on a corn dog because they don't know or care what French food is.

[Vardelm]

without ruining everything (looking at you, Rogue One!).

This is deeply offensive and your spurious opinion is completely without merit. I blow raspberries at you!

[zyxw59]

The first trek I watched in its entirety was DS9, and I absolutely loved it. I've tried watching TNG but I'm not a fan of the monster-of-the-week structure (it's great for watching random reruns, but not suited for bingeing). I watched Picard and Discovery, and appreciated having a season-long plot, altho they had nothing on DS9. Discovery season 2 fell especially flat for me, especially the end where

More: show

they came up with an excuse for nobody to have ever mentioned anything about the events of that season

I also watched about half of Voyager, but it has the same issue for me as TNG, and I only made it that far because I was spending a lot of time with nothing better to do.

[masako]

I've had luke-warm reactions to the recent trilogy of films

I actually like those...save for the light flares and reworking the timeline junk.

I also watched about half of Voyager, but it has the same issue for me as TNG

Really? The "being stranded in the Delta Quadrant" thing doesn't count as a continual story line for you? I happen to like Voyager more than TNG. Partly for the same reasons as you, but also, I think the producers, writers, effects teams, everyone...just got better at making a shiny show that was easily digestible for the audience. If you go back and watch the first three episodes of each; TNG, DS9, then VOY, you'll see that the sleekness and design simply got better.

As for ENT...they just couldn't get the writers heads around the notion of a "prequel", apparently. Klingons looking like TNG, Ferengi, Borg...just stick with Andorians and Vulcans. And I have to say this...no, I really do, the pandering to sex-appeal with T'Pol was so over-the-top that I found it distasteful.

However, I will say that the 4th season was tremendously better and was just too little, too late to save them from themselves.

More: show

they came up with an excuse for nobody to have ever mentioned anything about the events of that season

This, and this alone is why I think LD will end up doing well. It's not a prequel. They can mention anything that came before and it jives...it fits with anything fans might or might not already know. That's why DIS should NOT have been a prequel. They could have done so much. Just. So. Much.

[Yalensky]

Agreed with Masako on DS9, though for me TNG is a more nostalgic comfort to watch--even the bad episodes. The most "star trek" of the Star Treks.

My issue with VOY is that the overall storyline (the race to get home!) demands more serialized plots. The constant bogging down in planet-of-the-week style episodes just breaks that momentum and makes one wonder: why are you stopping everywhere???

DIS is meh for me. A perfectly fine show, but I'm just not attracted to it. Though I wasn't that bothered by the ending that you others are mentioning. I thought it was clever.

PIC for all its flaws had some nice callbacks: a bunch of people dressed in ridiculous utopian robes living in some pomo white compound in the Californian foothills is a trope straight out of the early seasons of TNG.

I have no opinion on TOS or ENT, nor on the reboot film trilogy. I view them as historical curiosities that have to be watched in order to count oneself a fan.

(And since it's already been mentioned: Rogue One is great.)

[masako]

My issue with VOY is that the overall storyline (the race to get home!) demands more serialized plots. The constant bogging down in planet-of-the-week style episodes just breaks that momentum and makes one wonder: why are you stopping everywhere???

I can't remember which episode, but this is actually addressed in the show by the Borg lady and Janeway. She says that stopping on every planet is inefficient and contrary to their stated goal of getting back to Earth, and Janeway basically gives her a "but we explore and stuff" speech that's meant to dissuade any grumblings about all the """hey, look, a new planet""" stuff that they do.

I mean...7 seasons of "I think I can (get back to Earth), I think I can, I think I can" would have been just as tiresome, IMHO.

PIC for all its flaws had some nice callbacks: a bunch of people dressed in ridiculous utopian robes living in some pomo white compound in the Californian foothills is a trope straight out of the early seasons of TNG.

Yeah, but it'd be nice if any of it actually had substance. The Romulan thing is just boring...mix it with the "XBs" junk, and I'm just not sold yet.

[KathTheDragon]

My issue with VOY is that the overall storyline (the race to get home!) demands more serialized plots. The constant bogging down in planet-of-the-week style episodes just breaks that momentum and makes one wonder: why are you stopping everywhere???

I can't remember which episode, but this is actually addressed in the show by the Borg lady and Janeway. She says that stopping on every planet is inefficient and contrary to their stated goal of getting back to Earth, and Janeway basically gives her a "but we explore and stuff" speech that's meant to dissuade any grumblings about all the """hey, look, a new planet""" stuff that they do.

I mean...7 seasons of "I think I can (get back to Earth), I think I can, I think I can" would have been just as tiresome, IMHO.

It was also mentioned early on that they'd need to interact with the locals to trade for supplies, and possibly technology to get them home faster. Plus there's the whole "upholding Starfleet principles" thing, so responding to direct calls for help and all that. I think between them that's more than enough reason for the planet-of-the-week thing.

[masako]

It was also mentioned early on that they'd need to interact with the locals to trade for supplies, and possibly technology to get them home faster. Plus there's the whole "upholding Starfleet principles" thing, so responding to direct calls for help and all that. I think between them that's more than enough reason for the planet-of-the-week thing.

True. What set's VOY apart from DS9 in the over-arching-long-term-plot department, is that IIRC, VOY had an abundance of two-parters. This made some of the story lines seem much more cinematic than those of DS9 and most definitely more so than TNG.

I'm still not confident that a sitcom-style show like LD can thrive in the Trek universe, but I am hoepful nonetheless.

[Raphael]

Trivial question: what's the correct French way to pronounce "Picard"? Specifically, is the ⟨d⟩ at the end supposed to be pronounced or silent? I ask because in the German dubbed version of TNG that I grew up with, the ⟨d⟩ is always silent, but in the original English version it seems to be usually pronounced, even if just barely.

[Ares Land]

Trivial question: what's the correct French way to pronounce "Picard"? Specifically, is the ⟨d⟩ at the end supposed to be pronounced or silent? I ask because in the German dubbed version of TNG that I grew up with, the ⟨d⟩ is always silent, but in the original English version it seems to be usually pronounced, even if just barely.

[pikaʁ], the (d) is silent.

Obligatory reference: what if he was from Paris?
https://twitter.com/Bouletcorp/status/4 ... 1525325824

[Raphael]

Thank you!

[Raphael]

Ok, now that I'm here in this thread, I might as well post some of my own thoughts on all things Trek.

I first discovered Star Trek as a teenager back in the 1990s, I think when I was 13 or 14. That age might seem a bit late by the standard of, say, US sci-fi fandom, but, you know, I was raised in a non-Trekkie educated German family in the late 20th century. At that time, among educated Germans who weren't Trekkies themselves, Star Trek was generally seen as stupid and worthless Kirk-kills-aliens stuff. See, for instance, the snide reference to Kirk in the lyrics of Nena's 99 Red Balloons. It took me a while to get over the skepticism I'd been raised with, but at 14, I was hooked.

I was, at first, mainly a TNG guy; for a while, I liked TOS, too, but I eventually decided that it was already too dated back then. Sure, today TNG is pretty dated, too, but I'm not growing up today, and TOS was already dated when I was growing up. After a while, I got into DS9 as well. Voyager? Ok, nice, but somehow it didn't hook me the way TNG and DS9 did. My favorite Trek is still a tie between TNG and DS9 - very different shows, but both pretty good.

You know how, apparently, in the USA, every middle- or upper class nerdy white guy goes through a period in his teens when he's a libertarian or an Ayn Rand fan? Didn't happen to me - not being from the USA, and growing up without the internet, at that age I didn't even know what either of those is. Instead, in my case, the probably weirdest thing that I seriously believed for a while as a teenager was that humans should follow Vulcan philosophy. Yes, really. I got over that eventually, but I'm still a bit pissed that Star Trek's writers are so often so hostile towards Vulcans. What's so threatening about a bit of rationality and level-headedness?

Eventually, when I was either 18 or 17 going on 18, I discovered zompist.com, was blown away, and found that the creator of that amazing website doesn't like Star Trek. I also found a link to Justin B. Rye's anti-Star-Trek rant. At that age, I was still easily enough impressed that I often simply copied the opinions of people I saw as cool, so this led to me disliking Star Trek for a while. But years after that, I decided that I could be aware of Star Trek's flaws and still like it anyway.

These days, however, to some extent I seem to simply have lost interest. I'm now a Netflix subscriber, which, at least in Germany, puts the entire classical TV Star Trek canon from TOS to Enterprise at my fingertips, but I find that I'm rarely ever interested in re-watching any of it, and even when I try, I often lose interest after a few minutes.

Enterprise could have been so great: constant tensions between three species about whom we know that they'll eventually form an interstellar federation. But it never lived up to its potential, partly, as masako said, because the writers didn't really get that they were writing a prequel.

As for modern Trek, I don't like what they did with the Klingons in Discovery, and I simply couldn't bring myself to care about the main plotline in Picard, but I love love love Lower Decks.

Oddly enough, although I'm generally very lukewarm on TOS, my favorite Star Trek movie is a TOS movie: The Undiscovered Country. Just great, IMO.

One final note: I think episodic TV shows, or "monster of the week" shows, are getting a bit too much of a bad rep these days. As Robert Delaney pointed out long ago, in an episodic show, if you don't like a plot, you can simply wait until the next episode; in a show that's all about long story arcs, if you don't care about the plot of one of the main story arcs, or, in the worst case, the main story arc, you're pretty much fucked.

[Ares Land]

While I'm here, how about doing the same?

I remember watching Star Trek V when I was 6 or 7. I just remember some kind of evil cristal thing at the center of the Galaxy and a scene with a shuttle on a reddish desert planet. (I wanted to rewatch it as an adult, but the reviews and a quick summary of the plot kind of discouraged me).

When I was 7, a failing TV channel was, I think, saving money by broadcasting endless TOS reruns and I just loved these.
My love affair kind of ended after discovering Star Wars reruns (Sorry, I'm afraid the '60s Enterprise sets just couldn't bet the Millenium Falcon), and when that failing TV channel I mentioned finally went bankrupt.
Other channels were still doing the same trick of endless cheap sci-fi reruns but I liked V a lot I never really cared for Cosmos 1999. (As an adult, I have a newfound appreciation for some of the set design and of course for its endless potential for parody, but even at 8 I couldn't really deal with the moon-sized plot holes.)

Then The Undiscovered Country was on TV and my mind was blown. I entirely agree with you Raphael, I still think it's a great movie! (I mean, can anyone beat the dinner party scene?)

Now, Star Trek was never big in France, and in those pre-Internet days that meant most of my Star Trek fanhood revolved around Generations, Search for Spock and The Undiscovered Country. Not to mention ST:TNG novels, which were sold by the truckload in supermarkets at the time.

I lost a bit of interest as a teenager, naturally, and Star Trek being largely viewed as something sort of ridiculous involving ears and pyjamas, I never could catch any more Trek on TV.

A few years later, I was able to catch up on what I missed through cable TV but it was, I'm sad to report, kind of a disappointment. I didn't like the TOS movies I'd missed; I think the series airing at the time were Enterprise and Voyager, and I didn't care for either. I did like the new Trek films.
I should try Picard sometime though! The preview did pique my interest; I love the idea of Romulans hiding in rural France.

I still owe Star Trek my lifelong interest in science-fiction, and I'm still a sucker for any good 'Space Navy' story.

(I was not surprised one bit when I learned one of my favorite sci-fi novel series, the Vorkosigan series, started out as Star Trek fanfic!)

[quinterbeck]

I've never been properly a fan of star trek, but it is fun to dip in and out of. My parents got hooked on Voyager when I was a teenager and watched the entire series through. I enjoyed watching the episodes with them.

My favourite Trek fact is that the writers of Voyager were split into two camps - some wrote Captain Janeway as a motherly figure, the others as more of an iron lady, and so Kate Mulgrew had to try to reconcile the competing approaches. To me it seems that made her a more 3D character (don't know if I'd have the same opinion watching it as an adult).

[rotting bones]

Writers hate Vulcans because their "philosophy" makes it difficult to write engaging characters. Viewers of Star Trek are in it for the drama. Seekers of precise analysis read scientific papers. Writing can be both educational and entertaining, but that doesn't quite fit the bean counter Vulcan aesthetic either, and I doubt most writers growing up before YouTube grasped the extent of that possibility anyway.

(In the real world, mortifying your emotions turns you into an instrument to be wielded by dissolute elites. I would support Vulcan philosophy in a world where that won't be an issue.)

[zompist]

Writers hate Vulcans because their "philosophy" makes it difficult to write engaging characters. Viewers of Star Trek are in it for the drama. Seekers of precise analysis read scientific papers. Writing can be both educational and entertaining, but that doesn't quite fit the bean counter Vulcan aesthetic either, and I doubt most writers growing up before YouTube grasped the extent of that possibility anyway.

That's an odd take, given the enormous popularity of Spock.

I agree with you that emotion helps a lot in narrative, and for that matter in life. But there's a whole trope of Emotion Suppression.

[rotting bones]

That's an odd take, given the enormous popularity of Spock.

I agree with you that emotion helps a lot in narrative, and for that matter in life. But there's a whole trope of Emotion Suppression.

The attraction of emotionlessness can stand on its own in, eg, goth fiction. In a melodramatic space opera like Star Trek, the writers have to draw out Spock's "human side" over and over again to make it work. This is what followers of Surak perceive as hostility to the Vulcan way of life. The writers are not opposed to using Vulcan characters for their own ends, only to Vulcans flourishing as Vulcans during their precious screen time.

I'm not deep into Star Trek fandom, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that getting Spock to break his shell is a common trope even in fan works. Writers on the show are constrained by having to put his stoicism back together again before the next episode.

[zompist]

I'm not deep into Star Trek fandom, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that getting Spock to break his shell is a common trope even in fan works. Writers on the show are constrained by having to put his stoicism back together again before the next episode.

I don't know, I haven't seen TOS in years. I think it was a rare event, which made it memorable.

In that era, shows were supposed to be standalone, so they could be seen or shown in any order. That's why nothing really permanent could happen.

Where I think you're mistaken is the idea that writers resisted or disliked Spock's emotionlessness. As I noted, it's an old trope. It's also a complement to McCoy's very human emotions. But more than that, writers like challenges.

[vegfarandi]

For what it's worth, I think Discovery has gotten steadily better each season, with the 3rd and latest being the absolute best.

I think the Mandalorian shows that being true to aesthetic and style makes a show like this more successful, not less, and for that reason, I do really wish that Discovery hadn't been so hellbent on revising what Star Trek should look like. But at least now that they are a 1000 years further into the future, they're free from the shackles of visual canon and really can get away with imagining a whole new future.

For anyone who hasn't yet started Discovery, you may just want to start with season 3, to be honest. At least Discovery has been true to one Star Trek tradition, which is that the first two seasons are always the worst of each series.