Star Trek: Classic or Dud?

Just started watching this cos from the start those recent pics posted were too good. Only finished 2 episodes and hate Wesley already. Picard is an amazing captain, looking forward to seeing his no-bullshit approach get tested by various weird space stuff. Q was in the first episode, and I kind of like him but also find him extremely annoying. Troi is so hot.

So far I'm halfway into season 2 - he does get *slightly* less annoying, and even helms a couple of okay episodes (Coming of Age and Dauphin)

It seems the writers eventually caught on why people hated Wesley, because the best Wesley episodes are the couple of ones in the later episodes which actually deflate/deconstruct his wunderkind characterization.

It makes me kinda sad for Wil Wheaton that Wesley became the poster boy for "irritating prodigy saves the day", because Wesley's hardly the most egregious example of that trope in genre TV, and Wheaton is not half-bad as an actor, it's just that the material he got didn't give him too many chances of showing that. I thought Jake from DS9 was much better example of what it would really be like a for an adolescent to grow up amidst all this crazy shit, he's basically Wesley done right, if you will.

Like the first thing he does when he weasels his way onto deck is sit in the captain's chair! Who does that? An idiot!

He is the super smart Eddie Griswold of space.

xp otm - they definitely learned some lessons about what not to do from Wesley when writing the Jake/Nog stuff. Often think about "The Visitor".

One of my favourite things about DS9, especially considering how stereotypical and corny the Ferengi originally were in TNG, is that they decided to give Wesley's character arc to Nog instead of Jake. The scene where Nog stands up to Sisko after Sisko has refused to recommend him to Starfleet Academy is one of best in all of Star Trek, it never fails to bring me to tears. Despite Star Trek's general humanist ideas, they still often fell for cliche of making each alien race have only one defining characteristic (Klingons are proud warriors, Ferengi are greed capitalists, Romulans are crafty manipulators, etc), so doing that scene where Nog challenges Sisko's preconceived notions about the Ferengi is tour de force for both the writers, and for Max Eisenberg and Avery Brooks.

I found Picard almost completely unlikeable in the first season. I didnt find Wesley as annoying as I expected? - imo the most annoying thing about Wesley was his Coogi sweater

Jake had a good character arc and a really good wardrobe arc.

http://33.media.tumblr.com/c910cfc07b51723690de215fd080d4ff/tumblr_inline_mwid92uAoU1rfufki.jpg

http://41.media.tumblr.com/68bd9373206fc0a084d2a4000ea86d0c/tumblr_n2zeg8EiyU1tqp225o3_500.jpg

https://rindastartrekds9.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/69c0414d23da51864c95b5642b8da9865e70af66.jpg?w=235&h=300

http://trekcore.com/gallery/albums/jakesisko/theascent_159.jpg

http://trekcore.com/gallery/albums/jakesisko/leave_behind_650.jpg

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/aliens/images/1/11/180px-Middle_aged_Jake_Sisko.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100502180323

You could definitely see the first season writers finding their footing with how cranky to make Picard.

is jake the only normal star trek cast character in all the series? every other main cast character is superlative or unique in some way.

Kasidy Yates? Harry Kim?

Poor Harry Kim. So boring.

i'd grant kasidy if she were main cast (but isn't she later revealed to be some kind of #1 badass smuggler or something?)
also wasn't harry revealed to be #1 badass trumpet player or something?

Well Jack is eventually revealed to be a #1 badass reclusive author so he would fall into the category of superlative individual.

Kasidy smuggled goods (weapons?) to the Maquis, but didn't seem exceptional except for the fact that she was also dating a Starfleet captain (or was Sisko still a commander?) at the time.

lol don't remember that about Harry Kim.

harry kim zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

<3 jake

Patrick Stewart was on nerdist podcast a month or two back, and he said Roddenberry had him do a reading of the intro voiceover IN A FRENCH ACCENT.

And they experimented with hairpieces (lol).

Just gonna leave that there.

:D

#1 reclusive author is more like how pappy sisko was #1 cajun restauranteur; more like the casual superlative of a lifetime of applied effort.
not the same as "i was illiterate two years ago. now i'm the first ferengi in star fleet. *drops mic*"

is jake the only normal star trek cast character in all the series? every other main cast character is superlative or unique in some way.

I don't remember O'Brien being superlative or unique in either TNG or DS9S? Sure, he's good at fixing things, but that's his job.

And I'm not sure if you count being a non-human as unique, but in DS9 Kira, Quark, and Dax are all fairly normal examples of their species too. Even with Sisko, the one thing that makes him truly unique (don't want to spoil too much for those who haven't seen DS9) comes to be because he happened to be the commander of Deep Space Nine when the wormhole was discovered. If Starfleet had happened to pick someone for Sisko's post, the same thing would've probably happened to that person.

This difference between TNG and DS9 actually makes sense if you consider their settings... Enterprise is the flagship of the whole fleet, so of course they're gonna pick unique, exceptionally gifted people to work there. Whereas DS9 was not remarkable at all before the wormhole appeared, and Sisko, Kira, Dax, Quark, and O'Brien were already there before that happened.

Bashir and Odo are normal though, but IIRC with Bashir this is addressed in the first episode: someone asks what such a genius doctor is doing on a remote space station, and Bashir says he's interested in "frontier medicine" or something like that. And with Odo we later find out there's plot-relevant reason why happens to be living near the wormhole.

"Bashir and Odo are not normal though"

Quark for whatever reason has the lobes of the Grand Nagus, though, and his and Rom's mom is like the only Ferengi feminist. Plus, he often ends up compromising his ur-capitalist impulses when making moral choices.

on TNG the superlativity is almost a given since it's the flagship and everyone is badass top-of-class unicorn etc...
so gonna assume even as support working stiff character on TNG O'Brien is some kind of engineering badass.

Kira was supposed to be Ensign Ro from TNG who was this singular badass.

The entire Quark family is revealed to be super-important in Ferengi politics. Dax's backstory is she was some badass super-important Klingon ambassador.

Also, it had to be Sisko at DS9.

Quark for whatever reason has the lobes of the Grand Nagus

Originally, that was only because he happened to be the one Ferengi doing business right next to the wormhole, and the Nagus was interested in the trade opportunities it provided. So like with Sisko, it was mere chance he happened to be there when the wormhole opened.

His mother is pretty exceptional, I'll grant you that.

As for compromising the capitalist Ferengi values, we see different Ferengi do it all the time... In TNG Bok compromises them due to his thirst for revenge and Tok does it because he lusts for Deanna and Lwxana, and in DS9 every member of the Quark's family goes against the Rules of Acquisition at one point or another, as does that female Ferengi in the one episode she appears in, and even the Grand Nagus eventually does it! So it doesn't seem like the Rules are so ironclad that going against them every now and then is a unique quality in a Ferengi.

so they're like the Prime Directive

Also, it had to be Sisko at DS9.

I don't think so...

(SPOILERS FOR DS9!!!)

The wormhole aliens exist out of time / can exist in any time they want to, so Sisko's "destiny" is something that happens retroactively, only after the aliens have first met him in the present. If it had been some other person commanding DS9, the aliens could've changed his past the same way they did with Sisko.

no way, man. he's THE SISKO...

Also

SPOILER!!!!!!!

Remember who his mother is!

kinda goes back to that whole history-rewriting jazz
liked that angle too with the evil wormhole gods, the sci-fi writer, and the mental institution

I really like the set design in this show. It's kind of throwing me off w the campy stories, they are super old fashioned. Some of them are right out of the 60s show. Picard is so cool at trying not to lose his cool.

Holodeck rules I can't wait to see more of that.

Also

SPOILER!!!!!!!

Remember who his mother is!

But this was part of the point I was trying to make: while inside the wormhole, the Wormhole Aliens exist outside of linear time. When they come out of it to our universe, they can appear in any time period they want to. So Sisko's "destiny" is something they created retroactively. From our causal point of view, they first become aware of Sisko only when he first travels inside the wormhole; during their meeting there, the Aliens realize they can use Sisko as a tool, and only after that do they make Sisko the "chosen one" by tampering with his poor mother. So Sisko didn't come to Deep Space Nine because of who his mother was, his mother was who she was because Sisko came to DS9. If Starfleet had chosen someone else to command the station, the Wormhole Aliens would've done the same fucked-up thing to that person's mother.

yup

Yeah that makes sense. Damn retconning wormhole aliens.

The fact that the Wormhole Aliens did what they did to Sisko's mom, and they're still considered to be benevolent, is one of the dodgiest moments in ST (alongside the Troi pregnancy episode). IIRC Sisko doesn't even react to it any ways besides some general "oh, the Prophets are weird" comment. I wonder, if DS9's regular writing crew hadn't been all-male, would someone have pointed out that maybe you shouldn't portray your supposed good guys as mental and physical rapists?

It's the writers who do the retconning... Maybe the writers ARE the wormhole aliens

Just reached "Contagion" in Season 2 of TNG rewatch. It's the IT Crowd joke! They just fix the problem by turning it off and on again.

lol

Made it through the 2nd Q episode. Man he sounds so much like an every person in an internet comment section argument. Still it's a lot of fun when he's around and there is guaranteed to be some crazy visual effects and fun conceptual shuffling of the decks.

Really digging the humor and pathos Patrick Stewart brings to his role. Little things like keeping people off the deck and getting pissed of when people interrupt him both make the world seem more real than the OST and make the captain seem more competent and worthy of respect for having to put up w the constant barrage of stuff messing with his ship in every way.

Data acting like Sherlock Holmes in that one ep was an easy mark but dang it was fun. Spock is still way cooler but Data is silly in a good way. I like how he turned down Q's offer to make him a human.

http://i.imgur.com/5tJfybD.jpg

Read that as "ethereal whining". :(

actually my new fb profile picture now ty

Ha you're welcome!

what episode is that from?

The Dauphin - Wesley romances young lady/light being/goggle-eyed fur monster

Played by Mädchen Amick!

Or her furry monster guardian is, I mean.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mädchen_Amick

Season 2, aired in 1989. This ep would have been shot right before the Twin Peaks pilot began production, right?

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121210010124/memoryalpha/en/images/thumb/c/c7/Anya,_teenage_girl.jpg/500px-Anya,_teenage_girl.jpg

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Dauphin_(episode)

ilx linker doesn't dig special characters