The Official Star Trek Thread

[Mr. Morden]

I just rewatched episode 25 of season 6, The Inner Light. The best episode ever imho. Unbelievably touching.

That was Season 5, not Season 6.

And I've always thought that DS9's "The Visitor" makes for an interesting companion piece to "The Inner Light".

[Mr. Morden]

I liked Behr as a showrunner, but usually wasn't all that into the big arc episodes that he wrote.  The arc episodes that he *didn't* write, like "Improbable Cause"/"The Die is Cast", "In the Pale Moonlight", etc., usually turned out better.

IMHO, Peter Allan Fields was the best writer DS9 had in the early years, while Ron Moore was the best they had in the later years.  While the credits don't actually reflect this, my understanding is that Moore did an uncredited rewrite of "In the Pale Moonlight" that changed the story substantially.  The earlier draft had a completely different framing device, set up around Jake investigating Garak for a news story.

[Mr. Morden]

Keep in mind, many fans hated the idea of having families on the Enterprise to begin with.  To then have one of the civilians be a teenage genius who helps the crew solve problems, who hasn't spent a day at Starfleet Academy, yet regularly outsmarts seasoned Starfleet officers, is named an "acting Ensign", is allowed to work on the bridge, sometimes sits in on meetings of the senior staff, etc…..ugh.

[Mr. Morden]

I've revised my original post, so it now shows my top picks for every episode I've seen thus far. I'm about 2/3 of the way through Season 6. From what I've seen, the show hasn't faltered at all.

I liked Season 3 the best.  Seasons 4 and 5 were also quite good, but then Season 6 is when showrunner Michael Piller left to go work on DS9, and (IMHO) the quality dropped off a little that year, and then dropped some more in Season 7.

[Mr. Morden]

I'm SO looking forward to all this! From what you guys are saying about season 3 and on, it's really going to be a unique experience. Q Who is the episode that introduces the Borg right? If so, I really can't wait. I first discovered Star Trek with the First Contact movie (and I was a kid!), so let's just say I really love the Borg. I can't wait to see Picard struggling with them once again, before he became as cynical and desperate as we see him in First contact.

Yes, "Q Who" is the episode that introduces the Borg.  The finale of Season 1, "The Neutral Zone", introduces this idea that several Federation and Romulan outposts have been destroyed been an unknown enemy.  The original idea was that this would lead into a new arc in the Season 2 premiere that would introduce the Borg.  However, because of the 1988 writer's strike, production on Season 2 was delayed (it's slightly shorter than the other seasons, for those who haven't noticed), and they had to scramble to write the opening episodes in a hurry.  So there wasn't any time to put together any kind of epic story arc.  The introduction of the Borg was delayed until later in Season 2…to "Q Who".

Also, the original concept for the Borg was that they'd be an insectoid race.  But that was deemed too expensive to do on a TV budget, at least in any remotely realistic looking way.  However, the "hive mind" concept from the insect world was retained when they switched it to a race of cyborgs.

[Mr. Morden]

Was there any other TV that was nearly as pro-gay as "The Outcast" in the late 1980s? I'm assuming no.

"The Outcast" aired in 1992.

L.A. Law was known for regularly doing gay-themed episodes during the late 80s and early 90s, with a total of 11 gay-related episodes, according to these lists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1980s_American_television_episodes_with_LGBT_themes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_television_episodes_with_LGBT_themes,_1990-1997

I should watch Quantum Leap's "Running for Honor" again some time.  It aired in January 1992, two months before "The Outcast", and dealt with the "gays in the military" issue that was hot at the time.  I haven't seen it since I was a kid, and don't know how well it holds up today.

[Mr. Morden]

I still say Season 3 of TNG was the best.  Interestingly enough, the writing staff in the mid-to-late years of DS9 included quite a few veterans of TNG Season 3 (Behr, Beimler, Moore, Echevarria).

[Mr. Morden]

DS9 is kinda like TNG in that the first 2 seasons aren't as good as seasons 3-6...

I liked DS9 Season 2 better than Seasons 3 and 6.

[Mr. Morden]

Season 3 maybe I can understand (although, I dunno, there's a real oversaturation of Bajoran storylines in 2 that just seem dumb), but Seasons 5 & 6 of DS9 are the shining seasons of that show IMO.

About half the episodes in the opening 6 of Season 6 were great (although the resolution of that storyline was a silly deus ex machina).  And there were a few other gems throughout the season, like "Far Beyond the Stars" and especially "In the Pale Moonlight", but there were also an awful lot of clunkers, like "Time's Orphan", "The Magnificent Ferengi", and the absolute worst episode of the series, "Profit and Lace".  The season also introduced the Pah-wraiths, who were a highly unnecessary and silly foil for the Prophets.

So yes, I preferred Season 2, when Peter Allan Fields was still writing on the show.  While they're not the *best* episodes of the series, yes, I enjoyed many of those Bajoran politics episodes.

I realize that *now* the mainstream opinion of fandom is that the show got much better after the introductions of The Dominion and Worf, but I'm old enough to remember when the show was in its first run, how there was certainly a faction of fandom back then who thought that this represented a departure from the show's strengths.  Tim Lynch was perhaps the most prominent such person on the interwebs:

http://timlynchreviews.wikia.com/wiki/Season_3_Wrapup

And I guess I'm somewhere in between Lynch and the more "mainstream" view: I probably like Seasons 4 and 5 the best, but after that, I'd probably go with 2.

[Mr. Morden]

Besides a few good episodes like "Q who", the season's ending was pretty dull. The last episode in particular was an utter mockery. It's easy to see they had to rush in to complete it.

Yeah, as noted earlier, Season 2 was the shortest because there was a writer's strike at the beginning of the year, thus delaying production.  By the time they got to the end, they only had a few days left in which to film the season finale, and so we got a clip show.

[Mr. Morden]

Season 3 was TNG's peak, IMHO.

"The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1" is great, though I think even better when viewed in the context of the time it was aired.  In 1990, Star Trek had never had a season cliffhanger before.  For that matter, season cliffhangers like that weren't as common on television in general as they would become later in the decade, so it was a bit of a shock to me when there were two minutes left in the hour with no resolution in sight…leading up to "Mr. Worf….fire".

And this was before the world wide web, so most people didn't have access to any filming spoilers in the lead up to Season 4.  All we could do is wait for three months that summer to see how the story ended.

[Mr. Morden]

For those who are interested in the behind the scenes stories, you might be interested in the William Shatner-directed ~1 hour doc "Chaos on the Bridge", which examines the rather turbulent behind the scenes shenanigans of TNG's first two seasons.  You can buy or rent it via Vimeo.  It might help you understand why there was basically 100% turnover in writing staff between Seasons 1 and 3. 

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4UAInrMiT4

[Mr. Morden]

Quark is a great character, but nearly every DS9 episode that uses Ferengi culture as the focal point of the plot is terrible (IMHO).

[Mr. Morden]

I'm open minded about it, but haven't really been that impressed by anything in the Trek universe since DS9 went off the air in 1999.

[Mr. Morden]

It's grown on me.  Definitely like it better now than when it first came out, though it's still not even my favorite currently running space-based TV show (that would be "The Expanse").

[Mr. Morden]

It's grown on me.  Definitely like it better now than when it first came out, though it's still not even my favorite currently running space-based TV show (that would be "The Expanse").

My friend watches Discovery and the Expanse and he loves them both. Have you seen DSC up to the most recent episode? I had been paying attention to all the theorizers but I was still shocked when they were finally revealed officially... I was also surprised by how quickly the plot moves along

Yes, I've seen up to the most recent episode.

[Mr. Morden]

The problem with serialized shows like this is that they so often start out with the writers seeming like they know what they're doing, only to go off the rails badly once it becomes clear how much the writers are winging it.  So yes, I enjoy it so far, but I'm guarded about how this storyline is going to develop.

I'm now actually kind of hoping that the Discovery crew never gets back to their own reality (until perhaps the end of the series).  Would be interesting to see it become something like Star Trek: Sliders, where they hop from one reality to the next over and over.

OTOH, I read someone on another forum suggest their own theory for how this season might end in a frustrating reset button: The Discovery returns to their own reality, but goes back in time to just before the Battle at the Binary Stars, and does something to prevent both the conflict with the Klingons and Burnham's mutiny, clearing the way for Burnham to get promoted to captain of the Discovery.

[Mr. Morden]

Latest episode was OK.  Unfortunately, I now think it's more likely than ever that the season will end with a time travel reset button, where much (all?) of the season is erased from the timeline by them going back in time and preventing the Klingon conflict from ever happening in the first place.

[Mr. Morden]

link

That story is two months old, and I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Tarantino will be removed from the project following the Uma Thurman allegations, plus renewed controversy about his defense of Polanski:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/movies/tarantino-thurman-interview.html

[Mr. Morden]

I watched all of Season 1 and it showed some promise throughout much of its run, but I ultimately ended the season quite disappointed.  Not sure if I'll bother with Season 2.  The Expanse remains by far the best space-based show of this decade, and Discovery doesn't hold a candle to it.

[Mr. Morden]

Btw, we're also going to get a new show about Picard's later years:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/aug/04/patrick-stewart-to-reprise-role-as-star-treks-jean-luc-picard

[Mr. Morden]

Isaac could play the son of Tuvok, or Alexander, the son of Worf (the original actor of Alexander has sadly died not long ago at a young age).

That actor only played Alexander in one episode though.  Brian Bonsall and Marc Worden are still alive.

[Mr. Morden]

Man, that finale was pretty awful.

[Mr. Morden]

Since I guess we're posting TNG memes now, you guys should check out my new favorite Youtube channel, "Ryan's Edits".  Some hilarious (short) TNG videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgPy2kU9nEk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7oWXooPT80
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csbSoyzOjm0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HqSH2HYA8g

[Mr. Morden]

Definitely not the worst I've seen, but yeah, pretty blah.  Not really notable enough to spend much time talking about.  Star Trek in general hasn't been very good since the 20th century, IMHO.  I'm just marking time until December, when we get the season premiere of Season 5 of The Expanse.