The Official Star Trek Thread

[Marokai Backbeat]

Seen all the movies, all of Voyager, DS9, and Enterprise, and watch TNG infrequently. I respect the Original Series, but have no real love for it. I tend to view TNG as incredibly overrated and don't care for it much either.

But yeah, Voyager.. A constant disappointment.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I really liked the 2009 movie and everything, but the trailer doesn't leave me very excited. That trailer is barely recognizable as Star Trek.

And yeah, the title is super dumb, and the reason that it's super dumb is also super dumb.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Calling DS9 generic sci-fi action is selling it criminally short. Hell, calling Voyager or Enterprise that is even unfair. TNG was lightweight and too one-note for my taste.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Seasons 3 and 4 of TNG were the high point of the entire Star Trek franchise IMHO.

Everything that immediately followed was far from being crap, but this is certainly were Trek peaked in terms of having a consistent streak of high-quality writing and storytelling.

I really cannot understand how a person would think this when DS9 exists. Hell, Enterprise told better long-running stories than TNG did. By virtue of telling them at all.

Anyway, good on you for getting into Star Trek, Lefty. You'll never enjoy TNG more than when you've watched nothing but TNG.

[Marokai Backbeat]

How DS9 disrespects Picard is really the perfect set up for what DS9 turns out to be and is precisely the intent of the episode; Sisko doesn't like Picard, and the lofty values of the Enterprise simply aren't practical in situations where people are stuck dealing with complicated sh**t on a starbase day to day. It's meant to give you a taste of what DS9 as a series shapes up as; it wants to throw the established tone of Star Trek (the lofty idealism and obsession with being by the rulebook) out the window. Over time, DS9 does this incredibly well. (Sisko will also become an incredibly badass leader over the years.)

Even though DS9 starts by disrespecting probably the most popular Trek (sigh) it ends up being the most respectful series of the franchise; due to the structure of DS9's episodes it really dives deeper into a lot of the universe and tells a compelling seasons-long story.

Though if you really are married to the TNG structure I can see how Voyager would immediately strike you as more interesting, since Voyager tried so hard to ape TNG's mojo (so hard, I would argue, that it damages the show's potential super hard) and generally has an episode-to-episode structure just like it.

[Marokai Backbeat]

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.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Antonio if you're willing to give the Ferengi more of a shot, DS9 does a really great job with them. To the point of their society being significantly reformed by the end of it and the Ferengi characters of the cast are amazing standouts. (Slightly spoilery but whatever. It's how they get there that matters.)

[Marokai Backbeat]

Mulgrew is a phenomenal actress, but her characterization is pretty all over the place for a long time. I remember her talking a lot about this in recent years; the producers of the show kept her performance under an incredibly close eye and she was basically constantly fighting with the writers over how Janeway was portrayed. Notice how her hair styles constantly change? She used to be infuriated by how often the producers kept altering her appearance. By Season 4 they were finally letting her have more control and the writing for most of the characters in general was a lot more even.

Voyager is a lot weaker than, say, DS9, but it's still pretty good. It gets a lot of sh**t for having to put up with so much executive meddling, but I think Voyager has more great episodes than TNG does.