Star Trek: Thread Space 9

[El Barto]

The Mirror Universe two parter was pretty boring.

I know Blob will say it was just an excuse to get Archer in the TOS garb and be on the original Enterprise and I agree.

That all felt so shoved in.

However it was nice to see the original ship shot in ways they couldn't do on TOS. Especially in flight and firing weapons.

Don't forget the catfight with T-Pol and Slutty Hoshi. Also, the intro was excellent. Partly because the alternative is the shit theme song, part of the reason the show never took off, in my opinion, and partly because it was kick ass. I liked the CGI Tholian, and the Gorn was alright. I always like when one of the doctors is Mengelized. Overall it was just more fan-wank, which is pretty much the entire season, but it was a better example.

Oh, and Slutty Hoshi.

[BlobVanDam]

I will second slutty Hoshi. 

I liked the CGI Tholian, but the CGI Gorn lacked the character of the original. It was fine though. I've always thought the dude playing the blue alien being interrogated did a great job too.

[Samsara]

Sadly, I think I'm done with Star Trek. I got into Trek with TNG's debut in 1987. I then backtracked and saw the original movies and episodes, and was a big fan, favoring TNG all the way through its run. I also really loved DS9, and how it differed from TNG, but was in the same continuity.

But I have to admit to being a bit less impressed by TNG movies, and to be frank, I thought Voyager and Enterprise really just...it was just Paramount grasping and trying to make Trek succeed. There were some good episodes, but for me personally, just nowhere near the same. And no, not a big fan of the alternate reality reboot films. I thought, and continue to think, that is a bad idea.

It bums me out, because I really don't have one iota of enthusiasm for the upcoming new Trek series. I wish I did. But when they announced that it was going to be on CBS' separate network that you had to pay extra for (not even sure if that is the case any longer), it just turned me off immediately. And while I've read headlines about casting and such, I just can't drum up any interest.   

[rumborak]

I actually have no expectations towards the new show. Maybe it'll be good, maybe not. I'll watch either way.

[PowerSlave]

https://www.startrek.com/article/head-to-the-beach-trek-style?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

[hefdaddy42]

What unicorn females are those for?

[PowerSlave]

What unicorn females are those for?

Yeah, what I was thinking as well. I got a big kick out of it, though.

[BlobVanDam]

What unicorn females are those for?

I had the same thought. Only one of those models looks like she knows what a Star Trek is, and I'm not saying which one.

[Kotowboy]

Star Trek TNG : Rascals.

It's not the best episode but I always find it funny in shows where adults revert to childhood and their clothes shrink to fit also.


logically - Picard, Guinan and Ro Laren should have re-materialised ( no pun intended ) with baggy adult clothing.

[Adami]

Fun fact about that awful episode.

Young Ghuinan was played by the same actress that played young Whoopi in Sister Act.

[Kotowboy]

I think Will Smith's son in Independence Day has played opposite him in a few diff things too. I think he was in Fresh Prince if i'm not mistaken...

[El Barto]

The young Picard was perfectly cast. The rest were easy, but he was pretty convincing, as I recall.

[Adami]

I think Will Smith's son in Independence Day has played opposite him in a few diff things too. I think he was in Fresh Prince if i'm not mistaken...

Yea, he played cousin Nicky.

The young Picard was perfectly cast. The rest were easy, but he was pretty convincing, as I recall.

I think that actor also played Picard's like nephew or something.

[PowerSlave]

The young Picard was perfectly cast. The rest were easy, but he was pretty convincing, as I recall.

I think that actor also played Picard's like nephew or something.

All these years of watching that show, and that never dawned on me.

[Progmetty]

Back to it:
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, damn good episode, depressing but good. I think this might be one of very few episodes that end on a sad note. It's been a few weeks since I've seen it so I'm sure I had more notes back then that I forgot about.
The Mark of Gideon, I couldn't gather if this episode had a pro or anti abortion rights hint, either way it was a very faint hint. The over-population theme is interesting and nightmarish, something I personally always found to be a scary thought but the episode didn't bother to spend much time on it, the whole thing was revealed and discussed only in the last few minutes.
That Which Survives, odd.. odd episode heh. Lots of mean spirited dialogue here haha

SULU: The Enterprise must have blown up. That would explain the high radiation readings, wouldn't it, Captain? If the matter - antimatter engines..
KIRK: Shall we stop guessing, Mister Sulu

SULU: Once in Siberia there was a meteor so great that it flattened whole forests and was felt as far away as
KIRK: Mister Sulu, if I'd wanted a Russian history lesson, I'd have brought along Mister Chekov.

Daayymmm!
And when Spock is left on the Enterprise, without McCoy or Kirk and with Scotty as second in command, it's surprisingly worse than Spock/McCoy situations!

SPOCK: Nine hundred and ninety point seven light years to be exact, Lieutenant.
SCOTT: But that's not possible. Nothing can do that.
SPOCK: Mister Scott, since we are here, your statement is not only illogical but also unworthy of refutation.

Ouch!

SCOTT: What you're saying is that the planet didn't blow up, and the captain and the others, they're still alive!
SPOCK: Please, Mister Scott, restrain your leaps of illogic.

Poor Scotty, right in front of everyone on the bridge too hehe

SCOTT: And maybe a wee bit more. I'll sit on the warp engines myself and nurse them.
SPOCK: That position, Mister Scott, would not only be unavailing but also undignified

AHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHA
That, gentlemen, was the very rare Vulcan-zing, the drummer missed a rim shot there.

SCOTT: I'm so close to the flow now it feels like ants crawling all over my body.
SPOCK: Mister Scott, I suggest you refrain from any further subjective descriptions.

Spock wasn't just cold in this episode, but a little mean as well, felt very uncharacteristic of Spock.

And a little of Kirk's good ol'sexism hehe, there's one entity they encounter on that planet and it's a woman, "Are there men on this planet?" is Kirk's question to her, less than a minute into their first conversation heh and "Are you lonely?" a little later

7 episodes left of ToS. I didn't have access to Netflix -for the series- til this weekend but I have had the movies with me on the hard drive so I went ahead and watched the first motion picture and it was something of a disappointment. I thought a movie made of the ToS would have been pretty epic in concept and execution, well at least in concept, but it was pretty dull. Nothing about this being a big production movie made it better than any average ToS episode. And that's what I primarily found this to be; an average ToS with the added disadvantage of being 2 hours long.

[El Barto]

Battlefield was a unique episode in a lot of ways. Even though the director did several episodes, this one had a really strange style that you never saw again. Lots of weird camera angles. Long shots of them chasing each other down the halls. Zooming in and out on the red alert lights as they flashed. Lots of long closeups, particularly during the self-destruct sequence. I also thought they did a nifty job hinting at the cultural revolution going on, with the non-Gorshin dude preaching to the crew about social injustices.

[El Barto]

I'd read a while back about the sequel to TMP that Roddenberry was developing. The crew was going back to 1963 to prevent the assassination of JFK. Naturally we're all glad Paramount promoted him out of the way at that point so we'd get good scripts. I read somewhere recently, however, a more accurate description of the plot. Seems that they go back, but to actually straighten out the timeline Spock has to assassinate JFK. Obviously a rehash of CotEoF, but this would have taken it a step further. They never had to kill Edith Keeler, as misfortune took care of her for them. It would have been interesting to see what would happen if Kirk had to push her off the roof or something. In this case, Spock the pacifist having to blow a man's brains all over Elm St. would have been fascinating. Yet he'd be able to rationalize it because he's Spock. And of course this would have led to the conspiracy theories that we have now, anyway.

Naturally I'm glad they went to Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer. Those two probably saved Star Trek as we know it. Yet this could have been a pretty good story if done by somebody else and in the 1 hour format. Make the EMH pop him, I say.

[BlobVanDam]

Yikes, I can't imagine a plot like that going down well. In TV you could maybe make it work, but not in Hollywood.

And Let That Be Your Last Battlefield is one of my favourite TOS episodes. I really love the way the episode plays out, and the way the two characters are shot against each other, before the reveal towards the end. Classic scifi allegory done in a clever way.

[hefdaddy42]

Trek ships redesigned as cars

I want the Warbird.

[Progmetty]

In this case, Spock the pacifist having to blow a man's brains all over Elm St. would have been fascinating. Yet he'd be able to rationalize it because he's Spock.

I think it would have been too dark for Star Trek, pretty epic though. It would have been something to see it and then see Spock weeping silently.

Yikes, I can't imagine a plot like that going down well. In TV you could maybe make it work, but not in Hollywood.

TV or movie, it would have been too dark for Star Trek as I said. Granted I've only seen TOS, season 1 of TNG and the new trilogy, so I don't know if Star Trek did get that dark at any point.

btw just saw the episode where Tasha Yar died.. meh.

[Orbert]

Tasha Yar's death on TNG was one of the worst things that that series ever did, and they did some cringeworthy things.

She wasn't just some redshirt who literally gets a couple of bummed-out looks and maybe a line by someone expressing vague disappointment, this was a main cast character, bridge crew, and her death was a throwaway.  That there's such a huge gap there is another discussion completely.  But Tasha's death should have meant something.  I think maybe the idea was that this was still First Season, they're still defining the show, and to take a death that should have been shocking and make it seem like it's no big thing... that was the shock.  But instead it came across like we weren't really supposed to be that bothered by it, so we weren't.

SPOILER!!  (Level: Medium)










Tasha comes back, in a way, and incredibly, it's pretty well explained, pretty well done overall.  It actually manages to make up for her original death a bit and make you feel better about how they treated her character overall.  She has a great scene with Guinan, who is always awesome, that turns out to be very important.

Then they brought Denise Crosby back again, this time as Yar's daughter somehow from the second appearance, and again it mostly works; she even gets to trade some good lines with Spock.  I was meh on Denise coming back yet again, but it worked well.  So she got to be in some of the worst TNG, and some of the best.

[BlobVanDam]

I hated Tasha Yar so much that I cheered loudly when she died so unceremoniously. It was a fitting death for an awful character. I don't recall her later episodes being that amazing either, but certainly better than the weak stuff we got in S1, but that goes for most later episodes.

[Orbert]

I wasn't a big fan, either, and I wasn't sure why the showrunners kept wanting to bring her back because I didn't think she was a widely beloved character or anything.  But I thought the first time back scored points for being done in a somewhat new and unusual way, and her second death was at least decent.  Her second time back, though, I thought her character was pretty cool.  I completely hated her, yet admired her, and I think it says something about how well the character was done for me to feel that way.  Spock bested her, of course, but she got a couple of good shots in.

[El Barto]

I thought Yesterday's Enterprise was solid and treated her very well. Good comeback. I thought Reunification was a fantastic episode where her character was passable and little more. She didn't add to it, but at least she didn't tank it. She does have that "oh, fucking Vulcans" facepalm moment, though.

And her death was a great lesson for actors in why you should never annoy TPTB. I think Terri Ferrel was the same story. You can go out with dignity, leaving for greener pastures, or you can be killed unceremoniously in a pool of black sludge.

edit:

I completely hated her, yet admired her, and I think it says something about how well the character was done for me to feel that way.

She was definitely a hard one to get a handle on, because she's simultaneously the awful Tasha and the unknown but typically devious Romulan. It was a good character and a great idea, but I don't think she did anything to actually sell it and make it stand out.

[ReaperKK]

I hated Tasha Yar so much that I cheered loudly when she died so unceremoniously. It was a fitting death for an awful character. I don't recall her later episodes being that amazing either, but certainly better than the weak stuff we got in S1, but that goes for most later episodes.

Me too. She is one of the main reasons the first season sucked so hard. I'm so glad they got rid of her.

[BlobVanDam]

I hated Tasha Yar so much that I cheered loudly when she died so unceremoniously. It was a fitting death for an awful character. I don't recall her later episodes being that amazing either, but certainly better than the weak stuff we got in S1, but that goes for most later episodes.

Me too. She is one of the main reasons the first season sucked so hard. I'm so glad they got rid of her.

Oh there were plenty of other reasons the first season sucked hard. But she certainly didn't help.

[Kotowboy]

Tasha Yar + S1 of TNG + Code of honour


Terrible Combo. It would have been a shit TOS episode.  i would not be surprised if it was a TOS episode that never got made. Even the dramatic music cues are extremely TOS.

[Orbert]

I thought Yesterday's Enterprise was solid and treated her very well. Good comeback. I thought Reunification was a fantastic episode where her character was passable and little more. She didn't add to it, but at least she didn't tank it. She does have that "oh, fucking Vulcans" facepalm moment, though.

I love that moment, and that whole scene.  Maybe I'm giving her character more credit than she's due because of it.  Spock tells her he's not going to cooperate because it's not logical, and after a beat, she's just "I hate Vulcans.  I hate the logic, I hate the arrogance..." and whatever else she said.  This is after they'd made the point that Vulcans and Romulans are actually related (thus the whole "Reunification" thing) and when TNG first re-introduced the Romulans, Troi said that "their belief in their own superiority goes beyond arrogance" so that whole thing just cracked me up.  Also because I could totally see her point.

Other than that, yeah, maybe Sela really was just Tasha with ears.

[Progmetty]

Thanks for the spoiler warning Orbert, the guys who came after you didn't take that into consideration!
I kid of course, this stuff has been out for decades and I don't expect people to be spoiler-cautious around here even though I do wish I wouldn't know but I chose to come here cause it's just fun to share thoughts and read others as I watch.
My feelings on Yar's death remains that of indifference, she's been in my "Dull and bland TNG characters" basket along with Crusher, Wesley, Riker and Troi, since three or four episodes into season 1. It could have been any of these and I would have had the same reaction. It occurs to me that Picard himself might have been on that list if Patrick Stewart wasn't such a good actor who brought much needed vibrance and life into the character.
I'm keeping an open mind to these characters future improvement though, since it seems unanimous that future seasons will be radically better than this when it comes to writing.

I've been binging!
The Lights of Zetar, Decent episode, wasn't really into the storm aliens thing. I think Memory Alpha is as close as TOS has gotten to prophesying the internet but didn't quiet nail it. A place where a lot of knowledge is stored but they came out short in making it a physical place that you need to actually go to so you can have access to information. Pretty cool still.
Don't really know why it would be considered a remarkable within TOS since they've mentioned repeatedly that the Enterprise computer banks have all existing knowledge within it.
Scotty being openly and madly in love played awkward since it didn't really look like Mira felt as hot about him, but I'll take it as it's a much needed break from the almost constant season 3 theme of Kirk falling in love every episode, which actually brings me to the next episode.
Requiem for Methuselah, "ffs Captain" is what Spock wanted to say on several occasions in this episode. Kirk is dumber than usual here, there's a deadly fever about to kill everyone on the Enterprise and an away team of Kirk, McCoy and Spock beam down to a planet where they know they'll find the material they need to make the cure. So urgency and worry about the mission at hand should have been the main feel of the episode but Kirk's attention and devotion shortly sways to a lady they find living with an eccentric man on the planet. And boy is Kirk in love! and the girl -who turns out to be an android- is confused since she never met other men before but nevertheless he forces himself on the girl a couple of times.
I get a feeling it's a Shatner problem or possibly a me problem, not sure. Since it seems to me what he projects as charming-handsome-gentleman really comes off as creepy-ass-mofo by today's standards heh, it really jumps at you a lot on this episode.
What makes this episode good is Spock, he found clues and understood what was going on with the man and woman of this planet early on and repeatedly tried to keep Kirk out of a dumb love triangle there. But more importantly we find out that Spock has a special version of the Vulcan mind-meld that could make his subject forget events which spock selects from the subject's memory. Spock felt for Kirk when he saw his Backstreet-boy-heartbroken state after they went back to the ship, for losing this week's love of his life and Spock helped him out even though it's an unorthodox method and definitely not in any Federation rule book.
Don't get me wrong though; I love Kirk and I enjoy Shatner's portrayal of him for the most part.

Then I watched another TOS episode and one TNG, they both had remarkable firsts for me so I'll keep them to a separate post for later.

[Kotowboy]

It could have been funny if they'd just met Sela and she was played IRL by Denise Crosby but they're all like : Wow you look a lot like Tasha - but other than that she has nothing to do with

Tasha at all.

Star trek re-uses actors all the time so it could have been a funny comment about that.

[rumborak]

I essentially think all post-death Tasha episodes are top-notch. Yesterday's Enterprise, Unification I&II, All Good Things... she only appeared in excellent episodes after her death.

[Orbert]

When Kes returned to Voyager after her "death", I forget what the episode was, but for some reason she was pissed off and all-powerful or something.  It was a pretty stupid episode.  I remember reviews saying that Tasha got a shitty death, but they brought her back and made up for it, while Kes had a pretty good original death, so they brought her back and fucked it all up.

[BlobVanDam]

When Kes returned to Voyager after her "death", I forget what the episode was, but for some reason she was pissed off and all-powerful or something.  It was a pretty stupid episode.  I remember reviews saying that Tasha got a shitty death, but they brought her back and made up for it, while Kes had a pretty good original death, so they brought her back and fucked it all up.

Well Kes didn't actually die, she just left the show as some powerful being, although it was a better episode than her return episode (Fury, I believe it was). But Kes was a crap character anyway, so whatever.

[El Barto]

Requiem for Methuselah had a great story and a terrible story. I'd have loved to see an episode dealing with Flint that didn't have that miserable failure of a robot love story. The concept of a man who's seen everything for 3000 years fascinates the hell out of me. The Man From Earth should have been a better version of it, but it had its other flaws. Jerome Bixby had a helluva concept with the eternal man, but always sought to do more with it than need be.

Metty: If you're not familiar with it you might want to check out TMfE. It's the same writer as Requiem and a retelling of the Flint character. For the most part it's pretty good, and certainly better than the ST version.

[BlobVanDam]

I barely even remember Requirm for Methuselah. Didn't realize it was the same writer as The Man From Earth, although I did watch it because of the Trek actors in it. Pretty good, although noticeably low budget.