Star Trek: Classic or Dud?

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. ;)

Squire of Gothos William Campbell just died btw

(my dad knew him as a youth in Newark)

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

^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dULOjT9GYdQ&feature=player_embedded

The other day, for no reason at all, I started thinking about that DS9 episode where it's revealed Ben Sisko was actually a crazy man in an asylum in the fifties(driven mad by RACISM!), scribbling stories about a space station on the walls of his cell. I really liked this at the time, it retrospectively adds an extra layer of PKD-style weirdness to the whole show. But I'm not surprised they didn't develop it any further, as I think if they went down that path it would be like pulling on the string that unravels the entire Trek universe. I mean, where do you stop with something like that? Is he writing ALL of it, even fucking Voyager?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lHgbbM9pu4

They went back to it at the beginning of S7. It's not that DS9 exists in Benny Russel's head. The first set of Benny Russell flashbacks are just visions the wormhole aliens sent Sisko bc they are not linear and they speak in metaphors, etc. When they revisit it in season 7, it's the evil worm hole aliens who send the vision to try to keep The Sisko from doing what he needs to do to defeat them and reopen the wormhole. Also it gives Avery Brooks a chance to chew the living hell out of the scenery. But there's no suggestion that they intended the DS9 universe to be a product of another character's imagination a la Bob Newhart was dreaming/Lost was in purgatory, etc.

I liked how Armin Shimmerman played a Communist (or so it is implied) in that dream-50s ep - of course he usually plays a Ferangi.

As a kid, I was completely terrified by the episode where Riker is in an insane asylum. I've avoided it ever since.

Ha, I loved that one!

"But there's no suggestion that they intended the DS9 universe to be a product of another character's imagination a la Bob Newhart was dreaming/Lost was in purgatory, etc."

I read somewhere they were about to put in an endcap scene where he looks in the window and sees his true reflection as Benny, suggesting exactly that! But they backed out at the last second.

'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.'

That wasn't the Borg; that was RoboCop! And even then four directives were too much to handle.

The reflection scene was included in the first Benny episode.

but then... that means... ....

The whole episode was ambiguous and open to interpretation. There was a lot of blurring of what was reality and what was vision, so it could be interpreted any which was you wish.

Is DS9 worth watching all the way through? I gave up on it somewhere in the 2nd season in its initial run.

somewhere after 2nd season it turned into a war opera, and it wasn't terrible, but some of the producer guys later did the battlestar galactica reboot and 24, and they kind of recycled a lot of the material from DS9 in it, so if you've seen the new BSG or Kiefer fighting terrorists, that's kind of what DS9 was. Fine enough as religious war epic, but religious war epic doesn't exactly embody Trek very well.

not to say that the spirit of Trek was totally absent -- there was a sub-arc about the Ferengi turning from a society of Reagan Capitalists to Al Gore-ian Socially Responsible Entrepreneurs.

lol nice. I've watched some BSG (S1) & enjoyed it, but not sure that I want to see the same themes played out at a Trekian pace.

Yeah, BSG did war and politics much better, building on what was done in DS9. Still, DS9 ended up being my favorite ST series, even it does feel pretty dated now (though you can say that for pretty much all the ST series).

DS9 is all the dark, murky stuff that Star Trek tried not to wallow in...thats why I love it. The opening face-off between Sisko & Picard never stops being awesome no matter how many times I see it, and I think sets the tone for the whole series.

Was it really Picard, or Locutus? (I don't know why I'm challenging anyone on this because I've never seen the early seasons of DS9.)

it was Picard.

DS9 is all the dark, murky stuff that Star Trek tried not to wallow in...thats why I love it. The opening face-off between Sisko & Picard never stops being awesome no matter how many times I see it, and I think sets the tone for the whole series.

OTM

IIRC it was Picard shortly after he was unBorged, so he was really pissed off. Or maybe Sisko was pissed off bc Picard had something to do with the decision that led to Jennifer's death? Or both.

Benjamin Sisko is one of my favorite TV characters. I love him so.

Sisko is the shit. Love him.

TS:
Sisko with hair, without goatee
vs.
Sisko with hair, with goatee
vs.
Sisko with no hair, with goatee

no hair, goatee

sisko with fangs, sisko with glasses are the top siskos. but most of the time it's a pretty dull role.
weyoun, dukat have way more opportunities to ham it up.

buffy tvs also did an episode where buffy might be in a mental institution. at the end of the episode it turns out she really was insane and that the rest of the series was the illusion. then they never mentioned it again.

that was hysterical. they did it just to piss off fanboys I think.

Well then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXWEM4gZhg4

Bet that's not as good the Nimoy/Bad Brains video.

as good as

Youtube user kickslashspock

Sisko was one serious over-enunciator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS4L8owZinw

Jeri Ryan interviewed on the latest Nerdist podcast

just laughed hard at the end of "the return of the archons", when kirk talks a civilization-controlling computer into self-destructing, peers at the smoking husk, turns to the confused and frightened guards (newly liberated from the hypnosis they were born into), says "well, you're on your own now; hope you're up to it", and beams up.

earlier in the episode, while kirk is planning the coup, spock broaches the awkward subject of the prime directive and gets snapped at.

Shatner has a TV special (he directed!) where he interviews the other ST captains. Would like to see it just for Patrick Stewart's panic.

http://tv.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/arts/television/william-shatner-in-the-captains-review.html

would watch the shit out of that, although it's too bad he doesn't appear to interview them on his specially designed honesty couch.

oh, man. that looks great. picard in his 70s and looking good!

watched some hour long interview between shatner and nimoy a year or two ago. netflix had on dvd at the time and it was called trek talk or something dumb like that. LOADS of batshit stuff but my fave part was when they were talking about how they fell out with some of the cast. guessing that was just shatner, not aware of any nimoy beefs.

anyway, shatner's theory was that these "minor" characters - who were never the focus of the show bc they weren't part of the big three (kirk, spock, bones, duh) - had their egos inflated by fans at conventions. they no longer recognized their place, essentially. yeah, that must be it, shatner!!!

Hearing the engineer’s story, Mr. Shatner says, has cured him of his long-standing embarrassment about playing Capt. James T. Kirk.

so embarrassed was William Shatner that he did it for 3 tv seasons, 1 animated spin-off, 7 films, at least 2 computer games i can think of etc etc