The Star Trek Thread, Phase II

"The Schizoid Man"

It's that time of the season to have Brent Spiner stretch himself as a character actor. Overall it's pretty good but I don't find it to be as effective as it could have been. Looking at the notes of the previous drafts with Graves/Data holding the crew hostage and trying to kill Picard, that could have taken the character of Graves a little to far and I like that in this final version it's he who catches himself instead of having Kareen do that for him. Also, Dr Selar, I'd hit that. Illogically. Shame we never see her again but we keep hearing about her in following seasons. It's kinda nice to see the few times in Trek that there are actually more doctors on the ship besides the CMO.

It makes sense what with the Galaxy-class having it's huge complement of 1,014 -- families, research scientists, literally covering all mission profiles from exploration to diplomacy to combat, etc -- one Doc just wouldn't cut it.

trevanian wrote:

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

UGH! But Netflix only has Remastered Trek, doesn't it? You can't intro someone to Trek with that shit! That shit is terrible! The CGI effects look WORSE than the 40 year old low budget ones.

there are still a few folks fighting over this new fx thing on trekbbs, I went over and checked a couple days back. Fewer folks on the side of the angels (most, like me, left in disgust over biased moderators who let the gushers have reign), but nice that some still fight the good fight against nimrods who positively SWOON over the TOS-R work (and coincidentally, they all love TheAbramsThing too.)

My main issue is that it's disrespectful, in my opinion, to the men who sweated hard each week to get out decent sci-fi effects on a weekly basis with a shit-show budget. This isn't even a case of the creators going back after the fact and fixing what they couldn't do, like the TMP Director's Edition -- it's years after the fact and being done on the whim of (admittedly well-meaning) guys like Mike Okuda, which essentially turns it into licensed fan fiction. Even if it was done well (which it wasn't) it's bizarre as hell -- moon landing photoes in the Enterprise's computer banks in "The Cage"? That scene was shot in 1964!! It's bizarre!! It removes the show from the context of the time it was made, which is IMPOSSIBLE to do with TOS. You can't have the garish costumes, colourful lighting, and talk about how brave the show was to tackle racism, Vietnam, etc. and then alter the show to REMOVE it from a late sixties context!!

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

It makes sense what with the Galaxy-class having it's huge complement of 1,014 -- families, research scientists, literally covering all mission profiles from exploration to diplomacy to combat, etc -- one Doc just wouldn't cut it.

Which is why given the ship's compliment and size there are more shuttle bays and transporter rooms. One thing that always irked me was how it always seemed like there was only one sick bay but according to MA there's supposed to be three. I never heard that addressed before, it would be absurd to only have one when the ship can separate.

Pick up the official Ent-D blueprints by Sternbach. Ship has a lot of rooms. No bowling alley though, so the NCC-1701 has that over it.

"Unnatural Selection"

Actually not too too bad. The only thing I really did not like was the aging gimmick which brought some very bad make up work (the experience apparently was enough to convince Mauldar to leave after the season and never do sci-fi again). The aggressive antibodies was a pretty cool concept but I think they could have taken a different route with how it attacked virus/people rather than simply accelerating their age . In season one it would have been Wesley who solved the problem, instead it's Chief O'Brien (first significant guest spot here) and I can believe it even without knowing where his character would go. It's a rip-off solution from a TAS episode but the way O'Brien handles the situation is somewhat more believable.

Throughout the episode I kept wondering when Picard was going to give a speech about why genetic engineering was banned and it never came. Turns out the ban wasn't established until much later according to MA so I'm just gonna assume those scientists are dealt with after the episode's end.

Also, I just noticed that in that redone CGI footage for "The Cage", when they do the zoom in to the bridge, they've fucked up the orientation of the room. The turbolift is at the BACK of the bridge, (it's that little circle off the bridge on the model), the viewscreen, since it ISN'T a window, does NOT face directly forward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmEuXsa4z_Q#t=0m56s

Those fucking assholes!

Srsly, the little CGI people annoy me more. Blech.

"We're all in outer space, Jerry, and we're in color. NBC claims to be the first full-color network, so let's prove it for them. When you light the sets, throw wild colors in – magenta, red, green, any color you can find – especially behind the actors when they're in a close shot. Be dramatic. In fact, go overboard. Backlight the women and make them more beautiful. Take some chances. Nobody can tell you that's not the way the future will look. How can they? They ain't been there yet."
-- Robert Justman, instructing the DOP on how to shoot Star Trek

"It's not bland enough."
-- Rick Berman, most days

Berman Era was homogenous earth tones.

"A Matter of Honor"

It's no "Heart of Glory", but it's still a pretty good episode as far as exploring Klingons go. Not much Shakespeare Klingon beyond Brian Thompson's family issues which comes off like a prelude to the stuff with Worf. Only issue is Kargan being such an idiot, even though Riker points it out it's still pretty flimsy. I notice that during the first two seasons the writers try to go around the thing with the Klingons being allies and make them antagonists in some fashion. "Heart of Glory" has renegade Klingons, this one has a lousy leader ready to attack on the Enterprise for a flimsy excuse and later in the season we'll have 23rd century Klingons who still thing the Federation is the enemy. Kinda glad this pattern was pretty much abandoned after this season.

"The Measure of a Man"

TNG's defining moment. No silly action stuff, all the characters shine, Patrick Stewart perfects the grand Picard speech, O'Brien is established as a fun recurring character, pure sci-fi cerebral drama, ect. It's an episode that really plays to the strengths to the show. Shit, it even uses the silly "fully functional" moment from "The Naked Now" to great effect.

If only the rest of the show was this consistently good. Next up is doe-eyed Wesley falling in love with a furry monster.

Looking back on my TNG reviews I would say that if the show had one problem, it was consistency. The closest the show got to a consistently good quality level was seasons 3 and 4.

I'm currently reading a DEEP SPACE NINE novel called Hollow Men by Una McCormack. It's a follow-up to "In the Pale Moonlight" about Sisko and Garak attending the first Allied talks on Earth, with a subplot about a latinum shipment arriving on the station. It does a really great job of getting inside the heads of the characters and meanwhile helps bridge the characters from where they are in "Inquisition" and "In the Pale Moonlight" to where they are in "His Way".

Sykes Journeys Through the Delta Quadrant (VOY Season 4 Reviews)

"Vis á Vis"
Is Tom Paris just a magnet for bad episodes? I swear this must be the worst VOYAGER has been since "Threshold". It's at a "Spock's Brain" level of terrible, but without the high level of camp fun that makes "Spock's Brain" enjoyable. It takes half an episode of nothing happening before we get to the point (Paris switches bodies with an alien) and then another half an episode before the ending (they switch back) and there's nothing interesting to any of it. The alien doesn't even have a motivation for switching bodies -- he doesn't want to take over the ship or steal any technology, he's just there to take Tom's life, and he sucks at it and is easily found out. This is a terrible GNDN episode.
# of Crew: 137 Total -- 121 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 1
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 11
# of Gel Packs: 46
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 62,205.5 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 10
Oh, I forgot to mention -- the alien villain of the week has a "coaxial warp drive" that folds space, allowing a ship to cross vast distances in the blink of an eye. Before we find out he's a villain Tom begins to work on altering one of the shuttles to incorporate the technology. It totally works, then we find out the guy is a villain and the technology isn't mentioned again - ever. So we abandoned it because he was evil? Either the entire crew are idiots, or the writing staff is.

"The Omega Directive"
And then we get this, a glorious episode of classic Star Trek that, if anything, should have been a two-parter instead of "The Killing Game" so it could give its ideas a chance to breath, especially since I'm sure we'll never hear about any of this ever again. The Janeway/Seven conflict was great, but I think the main thing I liked about this episode (other than it's interesting ideas about science and religion and the dangers of both) is that the crew is on a Mission for the first time in ages and it gives everything and everyone such a great focus that the average episode where we wander into a problem doesn't have.
# of Crew: 137 Total -- 121 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 1
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 11
# of Gel Packs: 46
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 62,185.9 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 10

"Unforgettable"
This review practically writes itself. This episode isn't just forgettable, it's laughable, terrible, stupid, pointless, and again GNDN. I can't believe it's the same writers as season 1's "Prime Factors" because it's just awful. What a waste of my time. Essentially a woman who Chakotay cant remember comes onboard saying he fell in love with her and then forgot her, then they fall in love again, then she forgets him, doesn't love him, leaves, and he forgets her, all thanks to some pretty shit tier technobabble. It doesn't help that they don't have the least bit of chemistry.
# of Crew: 137 Total -- 121 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 1
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 11
# of Gel Packs: 46
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 62,003.9 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 10

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

Looking back on my TNG reviews I would say that if the show had one problem, it was consistency. The closest the show got to a consistently good quality level was seasons 3 and 4.

To celebrate almost getting caught up on my articles, I watched a TNG ep today on 'flix. I hadn't seen THE DEFECTOR in over a decade, but I remembered it was among my favorites for a long while (actually had some nice music moments.) It was still very enjoyable, but the problem I remembered about it resurfaced as I watched ... the show has an enormous number of plot similarities to Diane Duane's Trek TOS novel MY ENEMY MY ALLY, which had been published pre-TNG. I'd hate to think Ron Moore owes his career to another writer (he had only sold one to them at this point, and THE DEFECTOR is what got him on-staff at TNG), but it is VERY close at times.

Think I'll watch a few more in the next week or so. Maybe ones I don't remember too well, or maybe just ones that have Jones scores.

Or you could catch "Shades of Gray".

:*kh*:

From what I remember the third season was the best of the seven where everything came together and worked very well.

"The Dauphin"

Structurally the episode is fucked and Wesley ranges from being a total dork to being an ass then to being sensible. Teenage love can be a bitch but it feels too unnatural here. Rob Bowman tries his best (I like that moment where a scene opens with a shot of the starfield window on the bridge and then pans to Worf as he roars, it's such an offbeat moment) but the script is too fucked. And that silly monster costume, looks too cheap even for TOS. What waste of a simple premise.

"Contagion"

If you could name another change that happened between this season and the first it's that it's less wussy. Killing 1,100 people in the teaser. What balls. Overall pretty good, despite some very silly moments such as Geordi being raped by a turbolift.

I don't know if it is because of all the 'probe' jokes in PAUL, which we just watched, but your Geordi/turbolift line had me streaming tears just now. That's practically the only thing I remember about that episode.

Youtube has a ton of videos of that scene, remixed and such. It's so absurd.



And from the same episode...



Guy doesn't get a break.

And his Velma from Scooby Doo impression is always a hoot.

Today is the 45th anniversary of Star Trek!



And Roddenberry's original 1964 pitch: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/misc/40_years/trek_pitch.pdf

45 years, and look where we are now

Hilly wrote:

45 years, and look where we are now

Never saw that before. Very good, especially that it's nuTrek free.

There's a decent vid, which I've likely linked on the old site, about DS9 feauring Dunbar's Theme from Dances with Wolves. Though that one above does a good job linking the Enterprise's, the crossovers etc.

45 years though. Quite incredible.

The DS9 fan trailer right? Yup, quality.

FS linked this on facebook so I thought I'd link it here: http://www.lcarscom.net/rdm1000118.htm

It's a very honest interview with Ron Moore circa 2000. I remember reading the first two parts on a different website but I never heard of the additional parts after them so quite a lot of stuff is revealing.

After reading it I asked "Why is this guy not running Trek?" It should be this guy calling the shots, not a bunch of geeky Star Wars fans who think Trek is all about phaser fights and explosions. Kind of like how Berman regarded Kirk as a prototypical 60s hero. BTW, that's just a flat out stupid undermining statement for him to make, maybe he should have bothered actually trying to watch that "silly campy TV show" that is the reason he had the job for 18 years in the first place. Berman, at least that silly little 60s show had writers behind it who actually gave a fuck about their work.

"The Royale"

Is the original script online somewhere? Because from what I read it was originally going to be much weirder, surreal and humorous before Maurice Hurley rewrote it and basically turned it into typical Trek which is why Tracy Torme left after S2 because this was a blow to him and he gave up. Cast and crew were excited about the episode over the drafts and when Hurley finished the rewrite everyone was let down. Even during post production Ron Jones was told by one of the producers that the show was a disaster and that he could score it however he liked.

And yeah, it sucks. Crew enters a 20th century casino. They can't escape. Search the place, find a corpse, find out they're in a novel and escape by playing along with the narrative. The end.

There HAD to be more to it than this. So if anyone knows where to find the original script online let me know cuz I'm curious.

Best thing about the episode was this image:



Feels very TOS just seeing this 20th century revolving door in the middle of a void. In a perfect world this would have been an episode penned by Joe "Weird as Fuck" Menosky. It was not meant to be. Also...




Riker's beard rules.



"Time Squared"

Another weird as fuck entry. I remember first seeing this and being intrigued and creeped out. I like the subtle make-up they used to give the duplicate Picard a very unnatural look and Dennis McCarthy gives a very unsettling atmospheric score complimenting the off nature of the show. It feels like it's leading up to something interesting but when it ends its like... Okay, what happened? And it just ends with the characters not knowing what the fuck happened. There's the idea that future Picard was brought back so that the present Picard would know he would have to make a different choice. But the thing with the vortex is still a big question mark. Apparently it was supposed to be Q revealing it was all him in the beginning of "Q Who" but that went nowhere. Even if that happened it still makes the ending of "Time Squared" feel unfinished. TNG should be episodic. It's kind of like how "The Naked Now" had the time warp ending, feels out of place but was supposed to be the set up for "Tomorrow is Yesterday" being the next episode. Doesn't matter, still feels unnecessary at the end.