Star Trek: Classic or Dud?

Never watched the original series much (wasn't alive at the time of the originals, don't recall seeing the reruns), but became a fan of the movies when they started. Fell into things fully when TNG began (watched from the first episode to the last) and still followed those films, though after starting with both Deep Space Nine and Voyager I gave them up fully in late 1995 and never looked back. Have a couple of the, ahem, 'technical manuals' around the place but that's about it -- the other books I've avoided. Have no costumes, have always avoided any kind of conventions general or specific, take cruel pleasure in laughing at Shatner's follies in the fifth movie, as should we all (the fake MST version is the only one to see, frankly).

Unsurprisingly, Picard is my fave (I was actually a Patrick Stewart fan already), but both Avery Brooks and Kate Mulgrew did excellent jobs in their Sisko and Janeway roles. Scott Bakula as Archer just scares me as a concept. TNG cast my favorite ensemble bunch, though I will give it up (oh yes) for George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy, Terri Farrell, Alexander Siddiq, Rene Auberjonois, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran and Robert Picardo. Data ist rad. And so forth.

note: star trek: the motion picture looked awful. but all the ones after that were awesome. how much cooler would next generation have been if they had those burgundy uniforms? kirk looked like the motherfucker in EVERY MOVIE wearing that shit.

ned: you think picard is tougher than picard. what. the. fuck. did you see wrath of khan? did you see that shit? he fucking kicked khan's fucking vinyl-chested ass. 'oh, yeah, you have genesis, khan but you don't have me. if you want me, you're going to have to come down here. you're GOING to HAVE to COME DOWN HERE!!!@#@@!$#'. you can say ANYTHING ELSE about kirk vs. picard, picard is smarter and more civil and professional or whatever the fuck, but nobody in their right fucking mind would say that he's tougher than motherfucking kirk. i am actually literally angry about this, so i need to calm down now. christ, i'm such a trekkie.

I thought it was Riker who had the twin. ;-)

that riker transporter twin episode is some stupid shit though.

original series: chekov...maybe, but that's stretching it. he kicks ass in the movies, he's just sort of useless on the show. but the original cast (chekov being a second series addition) is flawless.

next generation: RIKER RIKER RIKER, troi, that doctor who replaced crusher for one year, yar, data (come on, admit it. he's a super-advanced andriod and he can't understand common phrases? he thinks a 'lemon' is a literal lemon for god's sake. i'm sure the writers kissed each other for how fucking cute that was. anyway mudd's women were way smarter). and WESLEY. geordie would get on my nerves if he were played by anyone but le var burton, but he's a childhood icon and can therefore do no wrong.

deep space nine: the only memorable character besides the captain (who is cool) is quark the ferengi (who is also cool). but the rest aren't even fleshed-out enough to annoy me. wait, no, the short-haired chick with the ridges on her nose aggravates the piss out of me. and the doctor, god.

voyager: it has an indian. and an asian guy. and a black vulcan. and the captain is a woman. only as annoying as that new ghostbusters cartoon where one of the ghostbusters was in a wheelchair. like, what the hell?

evidence that kirk is the best captain: all series after that have had kirk ripoffs that are nowhere as good as kirk because they are not as cool as the godly shatner. like riker, or that really forgettable womanizer guy from voyager. i mean, what the hell, don't you just want to punch riker in the face? does anyone not want to? anyone?

All-time favorite episode is "Charlie X," where the Enterprise picks up some teenaged human waif from a planet, who then runs around the ship melting off the faces through telekinesis (?) of various crew members whenever he's teased or horny. What teenager couldn't identify with that?

I remembered TNG being great when I was 12, but I watched a few of them more recently and they were AWFUL, even the later ones. I think I might have quite liked Deep Space Nine later on, when they started having season-long story arcs, but I never saw enough of them to make sense of what was going on.

How come most of the crew are American yet NONE of them are chronically obese? (except Scotty who's - ahem - ""Scottish"")

In the 60s it was a bizarre mix of US military 'might is right' fascism and Hippy-dippy, 'why can't all nations hold hands?' idealism (though still managing to be sexist ~ Uhura the Captains secretary and Yoaman Rand (is that right) the Captains bit of [onboard] fluff. AND THATS IT SISTERS!)

It should have ended there as it ran out of ideas and people stopped watching it. But OH NO, they had to bring it back in the 80s with over-long, plodding bore-a-thon 'Next Generation' episodes that tapped into the touchy-feely / inner-child / New-Age nonsense that was on the go at the time. I mean - Counsellor Troi = WHY? She even sits on the bridge next to the Captain!! the message is in the 25th Century a bloody social worker is one of the most important jobs on a space ship.

But it was all so clinical and corperate and soul-less, advocating Pro-conformity and how you should be a good citizen. And too much sanctimonious liberal finger-wagging for my liking.

And it starred Whoopi Goldberg.

And how come all the baddies end up as the Federation's (UGH!) freind, taking tokenistic jobs as Navigators etc?

And why was it always so fucking BORING?

Another Star Trek I had over the other incarnations -- BETTER BACKGROUND MUSIC! Esp. that duh-dum-duh-dum-DUH-DUM-duh-dum theme whenever Kirk's ass was in deep ship.

On the other hand, Troi's mother was AWESOME.

And the original ST's music was Varese-influenced, hey? Hmmmm ... never knew that! Maybe I should go over to that "Who Opened Your Ears" thread in ILM and change an answer or two of mine :-)

Troi's mom was cooler than Troi, not more attractive! Aigh, my eyes!

troi: not attractive.

crusher: nuh-uh.

troi's mom: uh.

that guy who was troi's mom's butler or something and was the guy who played lurch in the addams family movies: mrowr.

question: who liked first contact? it was like a next generation episode, only like, cool. plus, supercool supporting cast with alfre woodard and the farmer guy from babe.

someone start a star wars thread so i can bitch about how much that sucks except for empire strikes back.

hey i just remembered something else i liked in next generation, although it's from that bastard movie where kirk dies (falling off a walkway! the fuck? he's saved the universe like two hundred times and he falls of a walkway and dies? fuck). um anyway, i liked when data said 'shit'.

Andrew L has not mentioned his great expertness in this area, for some reason. I know about it because I very briefly worked under him on a Star Trek magazine!

what's up with the star trek tos technique where just someone's eyes (usually kirk's) are lit, in a band, while the rest of the face/body is in relative darkness? was that sort of thing common?

FLOYD RULES. Actually I don't know what Floyd’s Barber Shop is... or was.

https://i.imgur.com/QoyJH2E.jpg

In Trek? absolutely! I recently watched ST: Nemesis and they did it even then on a closeup of Troi.

https://ascmag.com/blog/shot-craft/eye-lights

And, of course, the introductory soft focus for attractive female guest star/ Kirk's latest squeeze.

Another thing I've noticed is the sheer amount of make up everyone wears - especially McCoy!

So they had this great German cinematographer Karl Freund who worked for Desilu on I Love Lucy who figured out how to shoot a sitcom along with this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Daniels?wprov=sfti1 who also directed many, many episodes of another Desilu production, Star Trek.

FLOYD RULES. Actually I don't know what Floyd’s Barber Shop is... or was.

We never got that over here.

It’s kind of a US version of The Sweeney except...

I was bored and unwell and put the animated series on Netflix yesterday and watched an episode called The Jihad. It was the most baffling 20 minutes of cartoon show I think Ive ever watched.

- An alien shaped like a badly taxidermied cat gathers Kirk, Spock and a ragtag team of other aliens (ft: some wormulon dude, an amazonian with big tits, a lizard and a winged eagle thing)
- they are meant to be going to some "mad planet" to locate a holy relic bcs if they dont, the people of said planet will start a jihad bcs its stolen and will kill everyone for some reason
- oh and btw this planets atmos goes from 200Kelvin below to 200 above freezing and is covered in volcanoes and earthquakes but NBD
- nekminnit they are all on the surface just hanging out in this volcanic minus kelvin weather with NO PROTECTVE GEAR, amazon lady barely has anything on, no one is cold/hot/bothered in any way.
- amazon lady comments on how men are dumb but hey Kirk yr kinda hot wanna make out? She does this multiple times during the episode
- oh no a lava flow is heading our way, and we cant outrun it! Quick lets spend 10 minutes reconfiguring the energymotron or whatever to make our escape! Oh no its still going to outrun us. Never mind one of the crew can FLY and could have I dunno, picked them all up in his talons or something?
- they find the thingy theyre looking for but oh no its a trap! Eagle dude always does this
- by this point I gave up and I lost track of WTH was going on to be quite honest.

yesteryear is the only tas episode worth watching. maybe the clip of the holodeck too.

i had never seen the one before where kirk gives a dramatic reading of the constitution to a band of white mongol (?) liberty-worshippers

That one is kind of bad, despite that classic moment.

yesteryear is the only tas episode worth watching. maybe the clip of the holodeck too.

I like it because the episodes are shorter

Series two has started. Obviously took them a while to get Chekov's wig right, he looks ridiculous in the these early episodes.

There are some classics in the early part of Season 2.

Didn't Roddenberry go missing towards the end of season 2?

the gene l. coon era was the best -- he started doing the script-editing/showrunning when Miri was being filmed, stayed on until around halfway through season 2. he amped up the kirk/spock/mccoy dynamic and made the show more lighthearted.

Sounds about right.

that dynamic = "Earth people have moved beyond racism but Vulcans are fair game"

Roddenberry stepped back a bit after Miri in season 1, giving the main line producer/showrunner job to Coon. then later he pretty much abandoned the show when nbc gave season 3 a bad slot.

(xp) That reminds me, Kirk called Scotty a "stiff necked thistle head" at one point in today's episode.

Scotty was acting like a complete arse though, all gooey-eyed and lovestruck over this week's female guest star.

i saw the last 15 minutes of Apollo getting murdered

do they repeat the evening show the following morning or is it the same episode twice a day

I believe it's a repeat of the evening show.

Looking forward to the discussion once "The Gamesters of Triskelion" rolls around. Lowest of TOS for me, though "Cheeee-koooof" busts me up.

Thanks to more evening time at home, watched seasons 1-3 on blu for the first time. Enjoyed the new effects quite a bit. Noticed all sorts of things my younger self missed, thanks to the rapid watching. McCoy offsets his country doctor persona with a lot more harsh criticism than I remembered, and Kirk is sharper with Spock at times than needs be. The Federation bureaucracy exists pretty much to set arbitrary deadlines, hector, and not enforce the Prime Directive. Lots of disconnects between talk and walk - racism as mentioned above re: Vulcans, sexism is alive and well, money isn't the motivating force except when it is, etc.

But much great progressive stuff as well for its time - anti-war scripts galore, class warfare (The Cloud Minders), racism (Let That Be Your Last Battlefield might be too obvious, but it sure highlights the issue's stupidity), the bridge melting pot, Pike's Number 1 being Majel Barrett, etc. Overall, my nostalgia came out justified.

Next up, the animated series. Have seen only bits of one, so it's like a new season.

The guy who played Apollo was very good... and still alive at 91!

pretty sure i watched all of TAS as a kid, and have never seen it since

yeah Apollo was good and moving even if he was obv a bit of a douche

That guy was some kind of Next Charlton Heston or something.

Directed by Marc Daniels and co-written by Gene L. Coon, so all our favorites involved in that one.

Watching Mrs. Redd watch TNG and Seymour Cassel just showed up as a guest star of some sort.

Some kind of benign Charlie X episode, it seems.

Also, sorry if I’m late to the game, but what’s with Counselor Troi’s accent?

I don't think she changed her natural voice...

Also, why doesn't Worf's name start with a 'K'?

I just looked up the thing about Troi. She claims her speech was based on an Israeli friend, however her parents are Greek, which is what her character sounds like, and she grew up in London and actually has a Cockney accent.

it is a silent k

kworf

Not so much cockney as Tottenham, which is where Marina Sirtis grew up I think, sorry 'fink'.

watched some interviews. dang, i honestly didn't notice until now. though i guess her Troi voice does sound.. vaguely Gal Godot-ish

I always assumed she was trying to do some kind of variation of her parents' Greek accent, didn't know it was supposed to be Israeli.

Classic episode on right now, as some radiation, or somethin', turns Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and even Spock into doddery crotchety old geezers shuffling about forgetting what they just said.

https://i0.wp.com/www.tor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/st-deadly25.jpg

Part of the aging process being McCoy's accent getting more and more Southern.

https://www.powells.com/post/guests/did-people-used-to-develop-southern-accents-as-they-got-older

Does that still work in the 23rd century though?

pretty sure mccoy's got more southern because after he retired he would have spent more time drinking mint juleps on the veranda

Ha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rNoR8jnPRU