Star Trek: Thread Space 9

[El Barto]

I've wondered for a while how you *write* a good captain ?

How do you write that the Captain has the best decisions and that the first officer doesn't ?

You could say that "Picard's choices are based on weighing up all the possibilities and trying to pick the best course of action for everyone and minimising loss ...or worst case scenario "

And that " Riker's choices are based on gut and training rather than experience and knowing that loss may inevitably occur "

It's interesting.

But how do you write that Picard is a good Captain ? You can't have all his decisions be right - obviously sometimes he has to pick the wrong move...

You have him fix his own mistakes out of a sense of responsibility. I don't honestly remember Picard ever mucking something up, though. Janeway was often saddled with guilt, though, which became a driving force in her character. The other thing is to make them generally upstanding people. There's a reason why Shatner and Stewart both looked to Hornblower as an inspiration.

[ReaperKK]

I just started watching metamorphosis yesterday which is Season 2 episode 9. Haven't finished it yet.

[PowerSlave]

I think that the fact that they were so over the top stupid added an extra element of danger. Same thing with the Ferengi when they were first introduced. They had an element of ignorance that made them a little more dangerous. However, it didn't take the writers long before some of those elements with the Ferengi were stripped away, or lessened to a great degree.

That could certainly be an interesting character device, but I don't think it worked the way they were presented (the Pakled, that is). We're used to seeing ruthless people with guns as the bad guys, and I like the idea of a simpleton in their place. It's an entirely different type of danger. That works well with children, for example, who can't comprehend the consequences of their actions. I think that might have come up in TNG, and it certainly did in TOS, and more successfully in VOY. The Pakled just came off as comic relief, though.

It kind of came up in TNG. I can't remember the name of the episode, but an alien presence started to appear to a little girl and everyone assumed that it was her imagination creating an invisible friend. The alien presence started throwing temper tantrums when it didn't get its way ect. ect...

It was an ok episode. Not great, and not bad.

[Progmetty]

Mister Spock, the women on your planet are logical. That's the only planet in this galaxy that can make that claim.

Captain Kirk

Elaan of Troyius, aka Lady Gaga visits the Enterprise.
Returning to TOS with this episode after a a month or so hiatus, I don't really know what to make of it.
I enjoyed watching it for the most part, the whole Elaan plot wasn't too hot but I loved the scenes of Kirk on the bridge, commanding his crew through the confrontation with the Klingon ship, it was pretty intense, well acted and directed.
I've trained myself to think of all red shirts as death row convicts who's sentence have been reduced to serving on the Enterprise, it's the only way I can make any sense of why no one shows a shred of grief when they get killed, Kirk and co seemed to get over the red shirt slain in this episode directly after they found him dead, not even in the next scene like usual.
Bit of interesting trivia on this one; it's the only Star Trek episode ever to be written and directed by the same person.

If I touch you again, Your Glory, it'll be to administer an ancient Earth custom called a spanking, a form of punishment administered to spoiled brats.

Elaan breaks everything in her room during her angry tirade, Kirk says something else that pisses her off and she reaches for something else to break but there's no more

KIRK: There are no more available, but if that's the only way you can get gratification, I'll arrange to have the whole room filled from floor to ceiling with breakable objects.

 

[El Barto]

I was just fine with the My Fair Lady story until the bit about the tears being a love potion came up. That's when it just turned silly.

And this one seems to have benefited from the new CGI in the remasters. The fight with the Klingon ship is actually portrayed in a meaningful way. Before it was mostly just implied.

[BlobVanDam]

THE FUCK IS THIS

https://trekmovie.com/2017/02/11/breaking-leaked-photo-of-a-crowd-of-klingons-from-the-set-of-star-trek-discovery/

[Adami]

Those aren't Klingons.















.........right? 

[PowerSlave]

As I've said before, every time I hear an "update" about this new show I get a violent urge to vomit. If that article is correct, it's just another reason to ignore the coming abomination.

[ReaperKK]

They can't screw it up that bad, it's got to be some other alien race.

[Kotowboy]

DS9 : Far Beyond The Stars.

Can't work out if Avery Brooks meltdown at the end is great acting or really over the top

Giving.....Shatner a...run...for...his.......MONEY !


Also Sisko must be going " My Dad is Admiral Cartwright who died 100 years ago and is also a preacher in 1920's America "

[El Barto]

DS9 : Far Beyond The Stars.

Can't work out if Avery Brooks meltdown at the end is great acting or really over the top

Giving.....Shatner a...run...for...his.......MONEY !


Also Sisko must be going " My Dad is Admiral Cartwright who died 100 years ago and is also a preacher in 1920's America "

Avery Brooks is generally awful. Most of them were pretty bad in that episode, but Brooks and Michael Dorn were the worst. It's too bad because it's a wonderful idea for an episode, but they're so bad at it that it's pretty much unwatchable in my book.

[El Barto]

Those aren't Klingons.















.........right? 

In the JJVerse movies they weren't trying to be Star Trek, so I can see why they'd change them up just to be different. I assumed these people were actually trying to make a new ST series, though. Guess I assumed wrong. I had kind of resigned myself to the idea that they might want to make this one a HBO-style drama, and sadly it seems that I might be right. The old Klingons aren't intimidating anymore, as we've been seeing them for 35 years. They had to reinvent them to make them more threatening.

[BlobVanDam]

I don't get it. I actually would have accepted TOS era Klingons, TMP era Klingons or TNG era Klingons all the same. Instead they went with none of the above and make up this crap. Why set it in the past of the prime timeline around a certain event if you're not going to give a shit about any established canon? Why even bother? This is making Enterprise look faithful by comparison.
I'd actually like those outfits if this was set post-Nemesis where there was the freedom to deviate, but there's no excuse for these generic fish people being passed off as Klingons. They could have made the existing Klingons equally intimidating without having them look completely unrecognizable.

[hefdaddy42]

Maybe they aren't really Klingons at all, but their lesser-known cousins, the Klungons.

[Polarbear]

I was actually fine with how the Klingons looked in Into Darkness. To me they looked like a midway point between TOS and TNG Klingons!

THE FUCK IS THIS

https://trekmovie.com/2017/02/11/breaking-leaked-photo-of-a-crowd-of-klingons-from-the-set-of-star-trek-discovery/

These don't look anything like The Klingons! Judging solely by the images, i would have guessed that they were Xindi. Never would have guessed they these things were actually Klingons.

[Kotowboy]

Obviously " because then there'd be no episode "...

BUT I always wondered why they never JUST ONCE have an alien invade the ship and Picard or whoever say " beam intruders to the brig / into space "...

It's a 24th Century Spaceship. Aliens get on board and over ride every security protocol immediately.

Same as that predictable song and dance whenever a prisoner casually escapes The brig / past security / past all force fields into a hangar / casually steals a shuttle / strolls out the door

and disables the tractor beam and transporter lickety split.

[PowerSlave]

https://nerdist.com/leaked-photo-claims-to-show-star-trek-discoverys-new-klingons/

Update on the "Klingon" picture. I'm still not feeling much better about the new show, but this seems like a good thing.

[Kotowboy]

Just watched TNG episode "Conundrum" again. Great episode.

I really like the reveal of "MacDuff". We the audience immediately know he's new but nobody else does. I love it.

I like any episode where they have to piece stuff back together again like "Clues" where they lost several days and Data has to lie to save the crew.




Also inb4 Barto informs me of everything that sucks about these 2 episodes.

[Dream Team]

Just watched TNG episode "Conundrum" again. Great episode.

I really like the reveal of "MacDuff". We the audience immediately know he's new but nobody else does. I love it.

I like any episode where they have to piece stuff back together again like "Clues" where they lost several days and Data has to lie to save the crew.




Also inb4 Barto informs me of everything that sucks about these 2 episodes.

No way, those were good.

[Kotowboy]

Let's just say Troi is the weakest part of any episode.

Especially if she's possessed.

Much prefer Guinan. But they used her sparingly. Which may be why she worked so well. Troi had a fit and fell down almost every week.

[El Barto]

Just watched TNG episode "Conundrum" again. Great episode.

I really like the reveal of "MacDuff". We the audience immediately know he's new but nobody else does. I love it.

I like any episode where they have to piece stuff back together again like "Clues" where they lost several days and Data has to lie to save the crew.




Also inb4 Barto informs me of everything that sucks about these 2 episodes.

No way, those were good.

I agree. Though Troi is the weak link in both.

[El Barto]

Upon further review, Conundrum begins with the brilliant strategic mind of Troi beating Data at chess. This might automatically move it to top of the stupidest episode ever list. 

[Kotowboy]

Well he does say she was following a pattern up until her final move - which he wasn't expecting..

So..if Data thinks you're playing a certain way then you suddenly deviate from it...

[El Barto]

Well he does say she was following a pattern up until her final move - which he wasn't expecting..

So..if Data thinks you're playing a certain way then you suddenly deviate from it...

You're never, ever going to be able to make that work, dude.

[Kotowboy]

I didn't write the episode. I'm just saying what was presented in the episode.

[King Postwhore]

She can't read an android and Data thinks like a computer,  multiple scenarios.

[Adami]

Eh. Kirk beat Spock too. Not as outrageous as Troi beating Data, but still pretty dumb.

[King Postwhore]

Using no logic always throws off a Vulcan. 

[rumborak]

That whole stuff was a bit of a staple for Star Trek, where they would occasionally shoehorn in the "but emotion and gut feeling beat it all in the end, because that's what makes us human" message. In the case of Data it established that despite his brilliance, he was still missing that jenesaisqoui, and thus he still had ways to go in his search for humanity.

Realistically, it made no sense. Especially Data would be painfully aware that humans aren't automata who just reel off a fixed behavior. So, him maneuvering the game to a point where a single "off script" move by Troi could mean he would lose, makes no sense.

[Dream Team]

That writer may not have had a deep understanding of how chess strategy works.

[BlobVanDam]

That whole stuff was a bit of a staple for Star Trek, where they would occasionally shoehorn in the "but emotion and gut feeling beat it all in the end, because that's what makes us human" message. In the case of Data it established that despite his brilliance, he was still missing that jenesaisqoui, and thus he still had ways to go in his search for humanity.

Realistically, it made no sense. Especially Data would be painfully aware that humans aren't automata who just reel off a fixed behavior. So, him maneuvering the game to a point where a single "off script" move by Troi could mean he would lose, makes no sense.

Absolutely.
They need to make a Star Trek episode that promotes outright robot superiority. The underlying message will simply be that all of us will eventually be replaced with robots that exceed us in every possible way, which is why we have a future where we spend all day in the holodeck and exploring space just for the hell of it.

[King Postwhore]

You nerd.


My bad, I spent this morning watching Star Trek 2 and 3. 

[BlobVanDam]

Nice combo. Now you have to at least rewatch 4 too.

[Kotowboy]

It's TNG's 30th this year.

I'd love it if there was a season's worth of un-used TNG episodes that they put out. I'd probably watch them without stopping

But I wonder if we'll get anything good.

Apart from Beyond being pretty darn good - we didn't really get much at all for Star Trek's 50th last year.

- - - -

I might have to watch Encounter At Farpoint on September 28

[El Barto]

I remember watching E@F when TNG first started. When it was done I thought "that was. . .different." Then they followed it up with TNN and CoH and I decided it was shit and stopped watching it. Not sure when, but at some point I got back into it and it was fine. Probably only a few months later, as Conspiracy and The Neutral Zone marked a change in tone for the series, and in season 2 they added a human character. I know once the Borg came along I was watching it quite regularly.