Star Trek: Classic or Dud?

roddenberry seriously hamstrung the show in the early seasons with his lunkheaded decree that there be no interpersonal conflict between the crew

yeah, it's odd to realize that roddenberry in some ways wasn't such a great influence on his own shows -- he had very little role in 'wrath of khan' because he was (kinda rightly) blamed for the boringness of the first movie, which also has pretty much no conflict or character interest going on.

TNG tried to do a spock and mccoy kind of conflict with that awful doctor who replaced crusher for a while, didn't they?

"that awful doctor" was in two of TOS series, once as love interest, once as the enemy

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Diana_Muldaur

yeah, so bummed that they never went back to it. strange in that it's the only star trek storyline i know of where you get the idea that the federation is a complex, political and morally questionable organization. stealth smack down on roddenberry's midcentury utopian idealism.

I love DS9 in part because they really get into the idea that the Federation isn't uniformly awesome, and even though the main characters remain Federation stans, they do allow characters to express some pretty OTM criticisms of it as a political entity.

Also, yes, the bugs-into-Borg as main bad enemy of TNG is confirmed on Memory Alpha. I love the Borg. They are way creepier to me than parasitic worms are.

OST & TNG are about equal in my estimation, most of the movies are fun & watchable, the other series I will probably never see.

To me ST was always about this sci-fi pacifism

You did notice that Jim Kirk interfered imperially in alien socities ALL THE FRIGGIN' TIME? And sometimes violently. He was like the Teddy Roosevelt of the cosmos.

prime directive is some massive bullshit anyway.

naw naw, prime directive is cool. it's capital punishment for visiting throbbing headvein planet that is wack.

did they ever revisit that planet in any of the other ST shows?

not that i know of. missed opportunities...

did they ever revisit that planet in any of the other ST shows?

No. Wish they did...

x-post

Back when Star Trek: Voyager was still taking unsolicited scripts I had a great idea as to whether the Prime Directive was applicable in reverse - would Star Fleet (or at least Voyager) allow itself to use tech so far ahead that it could violate the Prime Directive (especially once they used it to return to Federation Space).

Never got further than a plot outline, but it's one thing ST (in whatever show) never satisfactorily addressed. "Where No One Has Gone Before" sorta does it, but it's first season TNG and, well, you know...

i remembered that episode being kinda cool but just looked it up and hey, what do you know, it's a 'wesley saves the ship' episode.

I thought the new movie was okay, but not as a Star Trek movie. To me ST was always about this sci-fi pacifism and utopianism; the best TNG and original series TV episodes are the ones where they solve problems with their minds and/or trough negotiation, not with space battles.

perhaps, but most of the trek movies have been action-adventures that were light on the actual sci-fi stuff (except as plot devices).

the only truly science fictional trek movie was the first one, and people seem to hate that one.

also morbz has a point about TOS--for every episode where conflict was solved by understanding a rock monster's feelings or whatever there are another 3 episodes where Kirk & co totally violate the prime directive to kick some klingon ass.

In 2011, de Lancie will appear in Torchwood: Miracle Day, the fourth season of the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood (episodes of which were written by Jane Espenson and John Shiban).[3]

watched the squire of gothos last night.. great ep.

xpost -- If he actually appeared as Q...

Meanwhile, one of my favorite MST3K moments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26zkCWPLEZg

I think the moment Mike first appeared in mirror form and cackled maniacally the group of people I was watching it with went into 'it can't be' shock. Then he delivered "Your agonizer, please" and we were pretty much gone for the rest of the episode.

throbbing headvein planet

perhaps, but most of the trek movies have been action-adventures that were light on the actual sci-fi stuff (except as plot devices).

Well yeah, that's why I prefer the series (mostly TNG) to the movies. But to me, the new ST movie felt even more action oriented than the previous films. Also, it had some stupid attempts to make the series more "youthful", like the opening scene with the Beastie Boys, the green-skinned alien babe, the "extreme sports" scene with skydiving and swords, etc. I'd prefer ST to be ponderous and a bit suffy, not "cool".

"suffy" = "stuffy"

The Red Letter Media reviews of the TNG movies are as good as the ones they did for the prequels.

yeah i was gonna link to those - they're really good, especially if you're a trek fan

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/

xxxx-post to Tuomas

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the square, "stuffy" side of Trek! I kinda like how perversely dedicated TNG was to its anti-septic future at times!

...But even TNG had the borg to throw down with.

I was kinda disappointed when they introduced the "borg queen" character in First Contact. Kind of defeats the point of the Borg, no?

i remember ebert gettin a mad borg queen bone @ that movie

Yeah, the Borg queen thing was pretty stupid, especially if (as it was implied) she was the queen of all Borg and killing her stopped all of them. I guess Hollywood movies need to have one identifiable big baddie, having a race of anonymous baddies just isn't enough. (See also: the way that one Orc was promoted to the role of an "end-of-the-movie baddie" in the first LotR movie.) Also, her being the queen of all Borg made the victory in First Contact "cleaner": instead of defeating one Borg ship they defeated the whole race.

If you want to have an insect metaphor, it would've made more sense if each Borg ship had its own queen, and killing the queen only incapacitates that one ship.

the "extreme sports" scene with skydiving and swords, etc. I'd prefer ST to be ponderous and a bit suffy

thought this scene was pretty fun and dug the in-jokes. nod to sulu's inner swashbcukler in "the naked time" and red shirt guy bites the dust immediately!

whoops. just meant to quote the skydiving bit.

Good call Tuomas. I never liked the fact that Picard had been a bit borgy at one point, made them seem less scary and sinister in the sense that you could escape them. Queen Borg comes across as suppressed and horny. A very weird combination.

Alan N. otm re: skydiving. Tuomas OTM re: the Beastie Boys tho

yeah, beastie boys scene is kind of indefensible.

I am no defender but watching that scene in the cinema was pretty awesome.

I am rereading the Ebert review on first contact & he keeps calling them "Borgs." I thought the plural of Borg was Borg? What does the Federation style manual say on this?

not a star trek expert at all but clearly it should be "borg", as in the monolithic freakiness of "THE BORG"

hello!

ebert being inattentive to that pleasure in a positive review is frankly a black mark, but he earns back my goodwill in the nemesis review where he says "life is too short to sit through 10 movies in which the power is shifted around on these shields".

(that's the same review where he calls star trek "kind of terrific, once" which i think is a really touching, measured way to praise it while still declaring yourself Done with it)

anyway i thought the abrams star trek was fun--driving home from the theatre, i pretended my dashboard gauges measured cooler things--and the only way in which it was an ideological break from the last few TNG movies was that it wasn't directed and acted like a playstation cutscene, but it and the original series have different pretensions. the complaint about it being "youthful" sounds odd but is actually totally otm because half the weird lovable brink-of-camp atmosphere of the old movies comes from all the performers being puffy.

I feel more charitable towards abrams trek despite its utter non-trekiness mainly due to the utter
non-trekiness of the spinoffs from DS9 onward, but got to disagree with the Borg queen-hate.

Yes, there's a lot of narrative putty to make her stick but if you've ever been in a student group with
no discernible leader, you'd have to agree that the borg as dictatorship is far more believable than a bunch of dudes arguing over the fonts on the dorm party flyers.

we beg to differ

BOOM

3 of 12 thinks we should make potstickers for the bake sale
4 of 8 hearts potstickers!
3 of 5 hates potstickers!
5 of 8 is allergic to gluten
3 of 12 wonders if potstickers are gluten-free
3 of 5 ate all the potstickers

That's what a queen-less borg would be like.

i ate all the potstickers

They eat all our potstickers... and we fall back. The line must be drawn HERE!

don't think the idea with the borg was that they voted

i was okay with the queen as like an avatar or whatever of the collective consciousness, or maybe i wasn't, i haven't seen it in forever.

although i guess if you were a race with a single collective consciousness like a million-headed hydra that could never be defeated why would you combine it all into one chick someone could shoot, so yeah

Re-watching the new Star Trek film and a few thoughts--

-They half-ass the time travel stuff, kinda stupid.
-Agree with Tuomas that it feels more like an action-sf film than a true Trek film.
-love young McCoy and Spock.

It's a very enjoyable movie, but I think if we keep along these lines we'll end up with a franchise of X-Men 3's.

it's no squire of gothos.

I thought the idea of the Borg was that they were programmed with a basic set of instructions and precepts and axioms and what not so that they would all come to the same "right" conclusion on what to do in any given situation. Also that their trials and errors would be recorded and go into improving the heuristics of this code.

I don't really see anything hard to believe about a self-learning, self-adjusting hive mind other than one has never actually existed before (sci-fi!) whereas totalitarian dictatorships are well known by most everyone and existed in history and currently exist (sci-fi???).

So, in conclusion - fuck the Borg queen. On all levels. ;)