Random Star Trek discussion

This has been an interesting week. I’ve had two different friends who barely interact with each other say that Voyager was their favorite Star Trek show.

Time for some new friends.

This isn't surprising to me because a lot of younger fans (ie, those not old enough to haved watched Classic Trek in first run) are expressing the same sentiments. A lot of it probably has to do with them coming into the franchise with no expectations and can just enjoy it and even ENT for what it was.

As much as I've dogged Voyager in the past, it's biggest shortcoming isn't being outright bad, but playing it way too safe.

Or even those not old enough to have watched TNG in its first run. If you watched TNG and the beginning of DS9 before Voyager, you're likely to have the "wait a second, this is just TNG in the Delta Quadrant" thought, but if Voyager was your first series, there's no reason you'd react that way.

As someone whose first show was ENT....yeah, this is accurate. My UPN affiliate happened to have the series on rerun at 10 PM, so it was easily accessible to me as a new fan. I didn't have any problem with the show until I got online and started bashing on it in order to fit in with the cool kids

Fuck "not old enough to have seen TNG on first run" - I've had a student who didn't know Trek existed apart from the JJTrek movies!

See my signature.

Well they're both in their early/mid thirties.

For anyone who is interested, Pluto TV is airing a TOS marathon.

TIL that Shari Lewis co-wrote The Lights of Zetar.

That makes sense, then. Voyager would have been the Trek they grew up with, just like TNG was mine. And there is definitely an extent to which I will enjoy any given TNG episode more than a Voyager episode of similar quality, just because of the nostalgia factor.

Seems like there should be a good Photoshop in this somewhere, but I can't quite come up with it.

At this point, I always find something to like about every episode of Star Trek, even Discovery. It's just a matter of degree. I do think DS9 could over take TNG in my own personal ranking.

Rewatching "The Ensigns of Command" (TNG). The scene where the Sheliak are hailing back and Picard is delaying, and runs his finger along the top of the dedication plaque to dust it? I distinctly remember being 9, watching the episode in first-run, and thinking that pressing the Starfleet insignia in the plaque was a way for Picard to answer a hail.

Actually, that'd be a cool place to hide the self destruct.

"The Menagerie Pt.1" Pike says he's responsible for 200 something lives. Kirk mentions a few times that he's responsible for 400 something lives. That would explain how in SNW Pike has bigger quarters. By the time "The Cage" happens they have to make room for more people and the Enterprise gets some sort of interior refit.

3 Seconds of Every TNG Episode Is a Wild Way to Experience Star Trek

Not as many shots of Worf getting his back broken as you might expect.

Saw that the other day. There were some funny moments.

First clue Lorca was from the Mirror Universe?

Interestingly, since watching TNG was a weekly ritual in my family for the entire run -- and since there wasn't a great way to rewatch anything after 1994 until I was an adult -- the extent to which I can remember watching early episodes is a really good proxy for the formation of permanent memory.

There are only two Season 1 episodes that I can remember anything about: "Hide and Q," where I can just remember the visual of the planet's surface and something about Riker bringing people back to life, and the oil slick that ate Tasha Yar. (It's possible that the second memory isn't actually from seeing "Skin of Evil," but from the flashbacks in "Shades of Gray," although I think I remember the holo-Tasha scene from the end too.)

In Season 2, it gets a little more consistent, but from the episodes that aired in fall and winter of '88/'89 it's still mostly just scattered lines and images. There's a little bit of "The Child" that may actually have come from "Shades of Gray." Then from "The Outrageous Okona," Guinan's "I'm a 'noid, you're a droid" joke and Data's reaction, but nothing else, and from "The Dauphin," the scene where the guardian morphs into a monster, and also being attracted in a vague way to Salia (that episode's original air date was also right around the time I can first remember having a crush on a girl at school).

Then suddenly in Spring 1989, there's a string of episodes that I can remember pretty well -- "The Royale" (the image of Riker, Data and Worf going through the revolving door, and the bit with the dead astronaut); "Time Squared" (Future Picard in the shuttlepod, the two Picards, the Enterprise caught in the vortex); "The Icarus Factor" (mostly just Riker and his dad fighting with those stick things); "Pen Pals" (the image of the alien girl standing next to Data at his station); "Q Who" (Picard saying "magnify," Geordi counting warp factors as the Enterprise accelerated, the visual of the Enterprise firing torpedos behind it as it fled, and Q's "if you can't take a bloody nose" line, which I remember being indignant about); and "Samaritan Snare" (mostly just the line "we look for things to make us go").

Then in Season 3, it's nothing at all from "Evolution," the scene where Data fires a phaser at the aqueduct system in "The Ensigns of Command," then basically the entire plots of "The Survivors" and "Who Watches the Watchers," so from that point onward if I can't remember watching an episode in first-run, I assume it just wasn't a memorable one.

So apparently my permanent memory formation basically kicked into gear over the course of 1989.

Lucky you....not even nostalgia makes ENT watchable for me much anymore. Although I do still appreciate the moments of T'Pol T'Pwning Archer in season one

ENT is a weird animal.
No other Trek has that style. It's in its own weird little bubble.
TOS & TAS have the TOS style.
TOS movies have their own style.
TNG, DS9, VOY have their differences, but they all have that 90's Berman flavor.
The TNG movies have their weird darker style.
JJ Trek movies have their style.
DISCO and SNW follow the JJ style.
LD follows the TNG/DS9/VOY style.
PIC follows the TNG movie style.

ENT?
That's it.

Well...TMP is a bubble too.
That was supposed to be the look and flavor of "Star Trek Phase 2" but that died.
We get bits of that style in early TNG, but it goes away fast.

We really need that ENT based LD episode Mike McMahon hinted at.
It's really the only way to give that show real closure.
TATV didn't do it.

If the original series didn't closure (forget the movies), then ENT certainly doesn't deserve it.

It's not about ENT, it's about what WE deserve.
We deserve to heal. LD can heal us.

Star Trek Continues is about as close of a TOS series finale you're going to get.

If that's the case, then we deserve Paramount inventing a time machine, going back to 2000, and preventing Enterprise from ever existing.

If ENT doesn't get cancelled, we don't get the JJ movies, and we don't get DISCO and SNW.
ENT had to die so SNW could live, just like Gandalf the grey had to die to become Gandalf the white.

na.. there's several million square feet of space in the saucer alone, with crew quarters on three different decks. that's some piss poor interior (set) design for simply doubling up the crew racks.

McMahan had stated in interviews that he's a big ENT fanboy, so we may get that wish. I mean, they haven't done a proper time travel episode yet and I doubt they'll only leave that to the SNW crossover, so it'd be a peak opportunity to address that.

Honestly....yeah. I'm glad I got in on the tail end of that (thanks, 10th grade crush of mine and 9/11 ), but Trek could've taken a breather after VOY and nothing would've been lost.

Really wish we could've gotten a birth of the Federation type show under the current regime. Say what one will about Alex Kurtzman, I highly doubt any attempt he'd have made with the concept would've been worse than what we got. At a minimum, T'Pol would've been allowed to be a character and not a walking sex gag to pull out for what could charitably be called lulz.

Also re: time travel, it'd be hilarious if they traveled back to the point of the series where T'Pol still doesn't believe time travel is possible and she and T'Lyn have an argument about this, but we'd need Jolene Blalock to come outta retirement for that....sigh