Star Trek: Classic or Dud?

Just noticed that complete Voyager and complete DS9 are on sale in the Apple TV store for $40 each. I never did see all of DS9, is this where I start?

Complete TNG is $50 and if anyone dares... Enterprise is $30

Ah shame no sale in the UK.

I’ve been very slowly watching DS9 for the first time. On season 3 now. No spoilers: it’s great. The stories themselves are of variable quality, but the crew (to my surprise) are just as much fun to hang out with as on TNG and TOS (and SNW!) and if anything the ensemble acting is better - fewer weak links like Troi and Wesley. Quark, the Ferengi, seems to be disliked but I like the actor and his stories have been pretty good!

I keep hearing how great it is, but struggle to get through S1

I didn't mind the first season, but it definitely gets better as it goes along. I skipped some in the first and second seasons. By season three it's still pretty cheesy, but it's totally hitting my "comfort food" baseline, so ultimately I don't mind whether it's a good episode or a bad episode. Ron Moore joins in the writing team in Season 3, characterisations are a bit sharper, and the story resolutions less predictable.

and bashir becomes less annoying

I remember another ilxor linking to a DS9 watch guide if you want to skip the standalone episodes and focus on the grand arc -- I can't be bothered to find it now but I'm pretty sure you can find others online.

Also I'd be hesitant to buy digital media ATM -- you're betting on the streaming service continuing to make it available, and given current trends, that's not a sure bet.

(FWIW, I don’t stream - I buy and download. Have plenty of disc space)

Yup, the way to go. (See also Bandcamp.)

TOS is on sale for $30.

(you can price alert all this stuff on https://www.cheapcharts.info - a totally essential resource if you buy digital)

When “permission to speak freely” is requested, a “with all due respect” will surely soon folllw

qft

they are playing darts on deep space nine

I just watched a really terrific third season DS9 episode called “Civil Defense”. It starts off like a bottle episode, and you think it’s going to be one of those boring stories where two frenemies get trapped in a room and Learn Valuable Lessons From One Another. But then it broadens out to other parts of the station and the stakes keep getting bigger and bigger in unexpected ways. If’s just a really fun action comedy episode, a little bit Die Hard, a little bit Paranoia: The Role Playing Game. Maybe my favourite story so far.

Yeah it's a really fun disaster episode! Totally genre but still entertaining, with some great Dukat scenery chewing.

Its funny, Dukat is a genuinely evil man but at times in the show I actually liked him despite this!

I love Dukat - so many actors get in that heavy kind of effects makeup & jthry ust bug their eyes & shout & overdo it but Alaimo’s so unbothered & just commands the hell out of every moment. you’d swear he was genetically a Cardassian irl lol

did not like how he was completely irredeemable yet then for a while they softened him up before returning him to full extra awfulness. also he was weird and creepy in the DS9 documentary. but yeah if you need yr scenery chewed, he's up to it

saw him as a disposable baddie in an episode of the a-team a few years ago and found it disconcerting

he is SO creepy in the doc, otm

It’s fun to see Andrew Robinson pop up in things like “Cobra”

mookie and VG otm, when he was creepy and grandiose I don't think he was necessarily acting

Okay meantime this new one is perfectly ridiculous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPCGkHjsK9M

yes! deeply silly

I watch DS9 randomly when it's on and catches my attention. I'm a sucker for ferengi subplots so I was excited to see a group of them teaming up to rescue quark's mom from the dominion the other day and wait a minute, that vorta's voice sounds familiar... it's fuckkin Iggy Pop!!! I had no idea he did that!

Ha that was a great short treks, loads of nice cameos, though I was a bit disappointed Garak didnt speak in his bit.

I just checked that Shimerman was in it because boy, his voice doesn't sound the same anymore!

they are playing darts on deep space nine

I love the way that people get Worf to try stuff, by vaguely appealing to some sense Klingon warriorhood, whether it's O'Brien and Bashir getting him to play darts or Guinan persuading him to drink prune juice.

Also the latter is the source of one of my favourite Worf/Quark scenes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSK55kLSlQU

(worf has yet to appear, tail end of season three)

lol, worf turned up in the very next episode

yesterday's ST:DS9 was Trials and Tribble-lations, classic for sticking the ds9 crew in the 60s uniforms

(oh, it's an extra on the tos series 2 dvds, which is why it's more familiar than the rest of ds9 (which i've not seen since it first aired))

deep space 9 repeats on Legend just carried on with their every-weekday schedule over the Christmas break so i am now 6 behind. this feels oppressive.

catching up on deep space nine and today cisco is dreaming that they are all working for a sf magazine in the 40s / 50s. includes all of nog, kira, quark, odo, worf etc without prosthetics / makeup. and it's all spoilt by the fact that cisco's glasses obviously just have plain glass in them.

ahem *Sisko

no, i mean the network guy 8)

Worf is the biggest surprise. i doubt i'd recognise him if i didn't know. (and probably Nog, probably because i've not seen them in anything else, unlike, say, armin shimerman)

The glasses exist! In here! Sisko created it! You canNOT destroy an idea of glasses!

can they not find fake glasses with a curve to them so they don't flash over all at once though? it just screams 'these aren't real'

listen though that episode is an all timer

^^^

damar as the shrink is also good

My favorite Trek thing ever, full-stop.

fucking holodeck episodes

ds9 holodeck episode where Nog deals with ptsd is one of the best, though

this was Vic the holo-singer match making between Kira and Odo by telling them both that the other was a hologram. really just a excuse for crooning. and to see Kira dressed up.

today's is Sisko being emissary, more garbage. "The Sisko has come, the circle is complete, the Sisko will know".

yea, ezri is here

also, they appear to be visiting the Star Trek rocks in Joshua tree

Just watched ds9 "Past Tense" episode where Sisko & Bashir accidently get sent back to 2024 - the Bell Riots would be coming to San Francisco in September of this year, the result of which will finally put mankind on the path to enlightenment. Or you know, Trump gets elected in November and humanity continues it's death spiral.

annoyingly the season pass has been lost for deep space nine and it didn't record 7.11 and 7.12 and i didn't realise in time to catch the repeats.

every other episode seems to be a vic fontaine episode 8(

I read somewhere Worf's "Irving Berlin" groan when Data sings blue skies is a clue he spent way more time getting music education with Vic than we thought.
I dunno, I like the idea better that Worf just randomly recognizes and hates Irving Berlin.

DS9 finished yesterday. Voyager starts on a different channel next week (i saw the second half of this during lockdown, but can't remember just how much)

pretty good: https://b3ta.com/challenge/startreksings/popular