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Star Trekkin' - Page 4

post #151 of 742
12/29/08 at 7:04am
Holy cow man, Devin launches himself on a Blaine-tastic voyage of endurance and discovery. I wish he'd do more reviews too but I'll pretty much try to read anything he writes about and Kirk and Co are newly ripe for this. Like the bible or Shakespeare ... or was it Oprah? ... said, cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
Because the original series is about excitement, adventure, and action. It's the old west, and high seas explorers. it's bigger than life. The Next Generation traded all that in for politics, hamhanded social commentary, and technological gobbledygook. It's boring and obtuse.
I think you nailed it Greg. The original series has charisma. In TNG only one actor has charisma and it wasn't enough to support hanging some dramatic meat from the goofyness of the skeleton.
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post #152 of 742
12/29/08 at 8:55am
Well Dev, you've done it, you're epic journey where no man has gone before has inspired me to do the same. Dad was always a fan off Trek but never really imbued it in me. Enjoyed much of TNG as a boy, never really got into any later series, but any of the Original Series Ive caught through the years Ive always enjoyed and meant to watch them all properly.

I'll try and keep up with your reviews as best I can by streaming the episodes in order off the CBS website. I look forward to taking this journey with chud considering Im probably one of the few round here who really wouldn't class himself as any kind of major Trekkie, but always had respect for the original Trek.

This should be fun.
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post #153 of 742
12/29/08 at 11:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Domingo View Post
Like I said, I'm not a big fan. I only have snips and segments of story and episodes, Borg, stuff like that. I always enjoyed Sean Luc. As for the original series, I've seen portions of episodes all my life.
Who? You mean Jean Luc, right? Bad nerd.
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post #154 of 742
12/29/08 at 11:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
Thanks for reminding me why I stopped reading Star Trek books early on. It sounds like they didn't get any better.
So, in the novels, they retconned Q being responsible for this episode? Kinda (really) lame.

Great Job, Devin. I hope that you'll add a special section for some of Bones' awesome quotes.
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post #155 of 742
12/29/08 at 11:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Domingo View Post
As a kid, why would TOS be more appealing than TNG?
As an infant? Louder.

As a toddler? More colorful. TNG's bridge was frigging TAN colored. It looked like a crappy IKEA showroom, or some other store your parents might drag you to.

Age 6 - now? What Greg said.
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post #156 of 742
12/29/08 at 11:45am
In the early 90's, if Paramount hadn't been so intent on wringing every dollar they could out of TREK, it might have been smarter to just stick with the one show, rather than spinning off into non-Enterprise centric ideas. Rotate new crew members in and out to keep the dynamic fresh [or make it fresh instead of stale, depending on your opinion of the TNG cast]. Plus they could blow up the ship every 5-10 years for excitement and force a fresh start. The show could go on forever, sort of like how they've been able to keep LAW & ORDER going since the late 80's [Though that show has had it's spinoffs as well]. Whether under the Berman helm this idea would have worked any better that what they actually did I can't be so sure. Good TREK, like TWILIGHT ZONE, is easy to write, but hard to write well.
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post #157 of 742
12/29/08 at 11:50am
But then we wouldn't have gotten Deep Space Nine, which is arguably a better show overall than TNG.
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post #158 of 742
12/29/08 at 12:20pm
Agreed. Though good swaths of what was good about DS9 storywise could have been transplanted to a ship-based show, as evidenced by in the introduction of the Defiant to DS9. Though... having characters as diverse and conflict oriented as Quark, Kira, Garrik, and Odo are harder to justify on a military ship where everyone is supposed to be working from relatively the same moral viewpoint.
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post #159 of 742
12/29/08 at 12:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by devincf View Post
They're still figuring Spock out here. Of course, they play him for laughs a lot later on too.
I guess that's true, but, having only seen the first season, I still feel like they never really got consistent about him. He got cooler, but they still seemed to be coming up with weird fucking definitions of "logic" as it suited the script. Sometimes it was fine, but other times you just want to strangle the guy.

As for the Peter David novel which basically uses Q as a big honkin' batch of plot spackle for all the unexplained stuff in the Star Trek universe...that works for me as well as anything. Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't do more of that on the show itself. "This makes no sense? A wizard, I mean Q did it!" Of course it's not really great, but what else are they going to do?

Not having seen it since I was in my early teens, I'll defend the third and fourth seasons of TNG as a fun show for kids. There was more action, more imagination, and it felt like they were weaving things into an actual continuity for a brief moment. Actually, the first season of TNG was closest to the original show, but it seemed campy circa 1987.
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post #160 of 742
12/29/08 at 12:52pm
Though I've kept a fondness for em, I haven't watched TOS in maybe 20 years, and if Day 1's a fair example this run is going to be fantastic. Now I know I'm going to have to watch along, despite an insanely shittastic schedule this month -- I foresee many late-night Star Trekkin' catch-up hours in my future (thanks for those links, folks).
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post #161 of 742
12/29/08 at 1:28pm
Great idea and I hope it reaches all it sets out to achieve.

I grew up on both TOS and TNG, always preferred the movies first of all but would push the TOS if I had to pick one, and I was born in 1983 fyi. The first episode I saw is still ingrained in my head, I was 6 or 7 and decided to watch along with my dad and it just happened to be Miri. Having rewatched it recently I know why its still stick there it plays much more like a good ep of the Twilight Zone.

And say what you will about Voyager, but it has the best theme of the TV shows if you ask me.

My rents still get the hallmark ornament every year, we have a big wreath thats about 5ft in diameter we put them on above the couch, its actually rather good looking.
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post #162 of 742
12/29/08 at 1:52pm
I've seen all the Trek movies, but never watched much of the original series. I've decided to watch along with Devin, and so far the show is good fun. Spock did look a little jaundiced in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" though. Glad to see they changed his makeup a bit for "The Man Trap."

Also, after seeing how young and toupee-free everyone is in TOS, it doesn't seem nearly as strange that the cast of the new Trek film is so young.
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post #163 of 742
12/29/08 at 1:55pm
Nimoy's yellow complexion is erratic throughout the show.

Sidebar: Ever meet anyone named Shatner, Nimoy, or DeForrest in real life? Me neither.
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post #164 of 742
12/29/08 at 2:51pm
awesome start. Love the baby clint howard heads.
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post #165 of 742
12/29/08 at 3:36pm
I love the response this nerdiest of the nerdy features is getting, viva la chud.
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post #166 of 742
12/29/08 at 3:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham View Post
Care to share?
'Doomsday Machine', for example.
Excellent. Every one I've seen so far benefits from the scrubbing and polishing. The original matte paintings were so very awful.
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post #167 of 742
12/29/08 at 3:43pm
I also lived through the period in which TNG was made. TOS is antiquated in ways that I find less distracting because I did not grow up watching shows like it. Subsequently, I've seen stuff like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Wild Wild West and you begin to see some of the same tropes. But I was at the height of my TV watching when I would occassionally tune into TNG, and it sucked.
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post #168 of 742
12/29/08 at 3:46pm
TNG was best when it got pulpy. "The Best Of Both Worlds," for example. But there's really no contest - TOS is the best, and if the film is a reboot, there's lots of stories there ripe for retelling.

Naveen Andrews IS Khan.
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post #169 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:05pm
Wow. I don't have time to read the whole thread, but you really will be going where no man has gone before. I am looking forward to your reviews, and everything else that goes along with it. Just don't kill yourself trying to accomplish this.
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post #170 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:35pm
I guess I'm in the minority. Even though I always enjoyed the family chemistry of Kirk/Spock/McCoy, I never really locked in with the cheesy sets, high-key cinematography and hammy acting...even though I certainly appreciate them now for what they are. I had seen most of TOS in reruns as a kid, simply by being a TV junkie, but I didn't really become a full-fledged TREK fan until TNG. TNG certainly started out on shaky ground (and the writer's strike didn't help that terrible second season) but when Part One of THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS ended, I really felt like STAR TREK was must-watch TV for the first time in the franchise's history. I know it's easy to make fun of TNG for its many round table conferences, tacky video effects and interstellar condominium set design but the show eventually found an overall groove (later bested by DS9, in my opinion) that TOS never had the opportunity to find for itself, as iconic as that show remains.
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post #171 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:40pm
I think TNG is hurt by there simply being so much of it. I mean, I can enjoy Spock's Brain for what it is. Also, Data always kinda sucked.
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post #172 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andre Dellamorte View Post
I also lived through the period in which TNG was made. TOS is antiquated in ways that I find less distracting because I did not grow up watching shows like it. Subsequently, I've seen stuff like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Wild Wild West and you begin to see some of the same tropes. But I was at the height of my TV watching when I would occassionally tune into TNG, and it sucked.
I think the first couple seasons of TNG weren't great but once they stated making use of the Borg, the holodeck, and Q, you got an entertaining show.
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post #173 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:47pm
I liked TNG as a kid. A lot. Now it's tough to sit down and watch. I could maybe do an ep from seasons 4-6. Not 1-2. That shit kinda sucked back then.
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post #174 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:49pm
It's possible. I just watched the first couple seasons sporadically, and then the finale. But Data, Riker, the Doctor, and the psychic always seemed like deadweight.
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post #175 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:50pm
Seasons 3 through 5 of Next Gen are probably the pinnacle. 1 and 2 were just awful and 6 and 7 seemed to be coasting along, but those middle seasons were as good as anything on network at the time.

Oh, and what happened between Seasons 5 and 6? Deep Space Nine went into production for its debut in 1993, thereby dividing the Star Trek team between two shows. It's no accident that TNG starting tailing off when DS9 started, and that DS9 didn't get really good until TNG ended.
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post #176 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Goldberg View Post
I think the first couple seasons of TNG weren't great but once they stated making use of the Borg, the holodeck, and Q, you got an entertaining show.
See, I thought of all three of those things as lazy writer's crutches. The holodeck and Q were excuses to make anything happen without justification, and the Borg remain a clear caricature of internet fandom.
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post #177 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:51pm
Q only appeared 8 times in seven seasons on Next Gen, so I don't think he was a crutch at all.
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post #178 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:52pm
Internet culture wasn't as much of a force during TNG's heyday, was it?
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post #179 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:52pm
He's still a (literal) God Machine.
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post #180 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
Q only appeared 8 times in seven seasons on Next Gen, so I don't think he was a crutch at all.
Having him recur at all was too many times. Although using him to bookend the series was pretty great.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Misfit View Post
Internet culture wasn't as much of a force during TNG's heyday, was it?
Well, UseNet culture. Trek was an important factor in the evolution of wired fan discussion, and it had to be unnerving to the writers to see their work so rapidly second-guessed.
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post #181 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:56pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
Q only appeared 8 times in seven seasons on Next Gen, so I don't think he was a crutch at all.
8 times?!?!? That's more than Jason Voorhees appeared in paramount movies.
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post #182 of 742
12/29/08 at 4:57pm
TOS had its own God Machines though too, right? I find it somewhat easier to watch Q dress up in silly costumes and taunt Picard than I do to watch Kirk and Spock dance around like puppets.
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post #183 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:01pm
The idea of an advanced race that doesn't think too much of these upstarts running around their galaxy is a good one, but if I presumed to write screenplays they'd be a lot more interesting than Q and the Squire of Gothos. They'd, you know, do stuff us puny humans don't grasp. Q sending the Enterprise to the Borg as a lesson was a neat idea, and the only one that springs to mind. And Q was good for laughs.

"Hello Worf! Eat any good books lately?"
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post #184 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:05pm
He's in less than 5% of the episodes. He's not really used as a deus ex machina, and two of his episodes are completely about his character. He's not overused at all.
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post #185 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by devincf View Post
8 times?!?!? That's more than Jason Voorhees appeared in paramount movies.
And correct me if I'm wrong but it's twice as many times as the Klingons appeared in all of TOS.
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post #186 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:10pm
I always like the God Episodes in TOS, because one of the show's central themes is the idea of free will. As cheezed as those episodes are, the show really taps into my love of defeating inequality by using one's intelligence.
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post #187 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:10pm
So this is becoming that thread?

I'll chime in that back when it was in first run I really loved TNG. But that show is horribly empty outside of the presence of Patrick Stewart. He elevated the show 90% of the time.

In fact, I own the Jean Luc Picard DVD collection and, outside of a few eps (chain of command), you can really toss the rest away.

TOS is more well rounded and contains more entertaiment, ounce for ounce, than TNG.
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post #188 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hammerhead View Post
And correct me if I'm wrong but it's twice as many times as the Klingons appeared in all of TOS.
Or in roughly 5% of the TOS episodes or about how often Q showed up in TNG.
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post #189 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andre Dellamorte View Post
It's possible. I just watched the first couple seasons sporadically, and then the finale. But Data, Riker, the Doctor, and the psychic always seemed like deadweight.

Agreed on Data, Riker and the psychic. The Doctor came across as deadweight but I blame the writers for neutering the character.

Another deadweight? The Doctor's kid.
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post #190 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seabass Inna Bun View Post
And Q was good for laughs.

"Hello Worf! Eat any good books lately?"
Yeah, Q's real "crutch" feature was to give the show a jolt of energy every time he showed up by razzing this bunch of stick-up-asses. Let's face it, we all would have watched a whole show of Q zapping around the galaxy, searching out pompous and humourless dickheads, and humiliating them. That show would be called "Animaniacs".

I'd like to get the scoop on exactly what Ron Moore contributed to TNG, and what he fought with the brass over.
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post #191 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:16pm
Fyi, you can instant watch the entire remastered 1st season of TOS on Netflix.
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post #192 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:18pm
You're just not going to convince me that one appearance a season is over-using a character.
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post #193 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by HBarr View Post
Agreed on Data, Riker and the psychic. The Doctor came across as deadweight but I blame the writers for neutering the character.

Another deadweight? The Doctor's kid.
Much of the cast was wasted by the writers. I feel particularly bad for LeVar Burton, who was always a likeable presence in the few occasions when they gave him a showcase. They even had a decent character angle for him--he was the nerdy tech guy before nerdy tech guys were...well, as big a cliche as they are now. But usually he was relegated to technobabble.
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post #194 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:22pm
TOS has the edge on characters, in that you've got the three (and sometimes just focusing on two) and then the supporting cast gets an episode or two every season. It's why the TOS movies are superior, they don't have to placate the supporting actors as much.
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post #195 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:24pm
They kinda goofed up Worf too. He was supposed to be this bad-ass, but whenever they wanted to show some character or race was a threat, they'd have them beat up Worf so we'd go "Holy crap, they beat up Worf! They must be tough!" But it happened so often that Worf turned into a wimp. Then they gave him his son and his stories turned into The Courtship of Kahless' Father. And then he started banging Troi, which made no goddamn sense whatsoever except to give both actors something to do on the show.
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post #196 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Prankster View Post
Yeah, Q's real "crutch" feature was to give the show a jolt of energy every time he showed up by razzing this bunch of stick-up-asses.
And that's what bugs me about TNG. They were all pretty much stuck up jerks. There was never that same sense of fun and adventure that you had with TOS.

Q was great for the comic relief...see the end of the episode where he loses his powers and is given them back by Corbin Bernson.

The Borg were good in small doses (which is why they came to suck because of Voyagers overuse of them)

As for dead weight...Riker, Troi (the psychic), and the Doctors Kid Wesley. I'm sorry I liked Data and the Doctor.
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post #197 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:43pm
Plus TOS always had great humorous reaction shots. You would have Kirk, Bones, and/or Spock giving each other sarcastic, knowing looks when comments were made. Those were almost like winks to the audience and I always loved those moments. They had nothing like that on TNG.

The most lighthearted moment I can think of in TNG was when Picard (again) draws a smily face in a frozen-in-time gas cloud and chuckles childishly. It stands out because it's so out of place for the overly somber series.

And the more I think about that, the sadder it is. Stewart has proven that he can bring the funny post Trek. Too bad the writers didn't know how to incorporate that into the show.
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post #198 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
They kinda goofed up Worf too. And then he started banging Troi, which made no goddamn sense whatsoever except to give both actors something to do on the show.
Speaking of which...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzFwgwE870g

I don't remember Worf and Dax being so rapey together.
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post #199 of 742
12/29/08 at 5:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by C.Swicegood View Post
So this is becoming that thread?
They all become that thread.
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post #200 of 742
12/29/08 at 6:00pm
See, I bought Worf and Dax because Dax wasn't some frail touchy-feely empath who'd once actually let Riker inside her. Besides, you get Troi, you get her mother, and who the hell needs that.
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