The Star Trek Thread, Phase II

In hindsight, "The Royale" has an interesting idea that makes me think of the last scenes in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.

But it's boring as fuck.

As much as Season 2 is an improvement over Season 1, it's still all over the goddamn place, due to the squabbles in the writing room and the Guild Strike.

I think a lack of confidence is really what brings it down. Roddenberry (and/or his lawyer) constantly rewrote while being drunk. Hurley dumbing down stuff like "The Royale" because he thought it was too weird for Trek. Then you got a guy like Piller who doesn't bullshit and actually works with you on it. Though the issues between him and Melinda Snodgrass was unfortunate.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

In hindsight, "The Royale" has an interesting idea that makes me think of the last scenes in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.

But it's boring as fuck.

I don't thing Torme ever acknowledged it, but the 2001 angle has always seemed very much a part of his notion for the story. I've never gotten all the way through the episode, myself.

"The Icarus Factor"

Papa Riker stirs shit up. The Japanese Power Ranger fight is kooky. Okay episode.

O'Brien is already more awesome than a majority of the main cast.

*Riker and O'Brien see Kyle Riker and Pulaski kiss*
Riker: "They know eachother.!"
O'Brien: "No kidding. I know her and we don't do that."

"Pen Pals"

And so the Prime Directive of TNG is established and I agree with Pulaski that turning a blind eye to a civilization facing armageddon is flat out callous. Another Data episode penned by Melinda Snodgrass, it's no "The Measure of a Man" but it shows again that she writes Data best. Her writing of Data shows him to be more human than any of the characters because of his compassion alone. He breaks the rules and owns it because he knows what bullshit the prime directive is in this case.

Another good O'Brien moment.

*Riker enters the transporter room*
Riker: "O'Brien, take a nap. You didn't see any of this and you're not involved."
O'Brien: "Right sir, I'll just be standing over here dozing off."

Actually it's not the lines, it's how Colm Meany delivers them. Comes off as a guy you genuinely wanna hang out with at a bar. Preferably Quark's.

Just set up a YouTube channel that will primarily focus on music from soundtracks. Here's a track from "Q Who" by Ron Jones.

Yes.

I have this suspicion about O'Brien in TNG -- a lot of the arbitrary "rule" Roddenberry set up in TNG were mainly confined to the regulars -- no conflict between regulars, the regulars mustn't do this, etc (which I always thought was so odd because conflict in the Trinity was the MAIN dynamic of TOS, but anyhow) -- so I always thought the writers used O'Brien as an out because he wasn't technically a regular, for example, they could NEVER have featured a regular in O'Brien's role in "The Wounded", can you imagine?

I'd say with Pulaski they got away with it, despite the odd crediting she functioned as a regular.

Worf comes close too especially in episodes like where he flat out refuses to donate his blood to an injured Romulan.

Speaking of Romulans:

Yeah Pulaski wasn't technically a regular and I think the excuse with Worf was that he was an alien.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

Yeah Pulaski wasn't technically a regular and I think the excuse with Worf was that he was an alien.

Kinda racist in a way. But this is a franchise where every member of a species acts the same way, so...

Well, except for humans.

Quote :

“I was taking the Star Trek theme”—meaning the literary theme, not any musical melody—“and making it romantic,” Jones says. “Here they’re going out onto the frontier but then a beloved crewman dies and the whole thing means nothing because they’ve lost this person they loved. It’s like a bugle call—I did a lot of Veterans Day things in drum and bugle corps and we’d have taps where one trumpet would be over here and another one over there. It’s a traditional thing where one trumpet would echo over the other, so I did that like we were burying a soldier here. We were able to do so many things that you can’t get away with all in one episode. She starts to smile and talk about everyone, and as it gets more human I put oboe on it and it becomes more like a human theme and not a pre-recorded projection.”

"Q Who"

Q: "That was a difficult admission. Another man would have been humiliated to say those words. Another man would have rather died than ask for help."
Picard: "I understand what you've done here, Q, but I think the lesson could've been learned without the loss of 18 members of my crew."
Q: "If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires, both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."

The first genuinely good Q episode. Yeah, I prefer this interpretation of Q having become concerned with humans and their accelerating through space and as a people faster than anticipated, trying to see that this species reaches its potential without sticking their head up their asses (like most of Season 1).

"Samaritan Snare"

Ugh. Besides the the Picard/Wesley subplot, fuck this one.

"Up the Long Ladder"

"Sometimes, Numbah One, you just have to...bow to the absurd."

Yeah, that's kinda how I feel here. I really love that moment too with Picard having a good laugh, it's nice to see the character loosen up over time and see more to him in this season (although he reverted back to dickery in the previous episode).

Did a little experiment. For the episode "Booby Trap" Ron Jones used a heavy electronic score for the climax with Picard manually driving the Enterprise out of the asteroid field. Naturally Rick Berman hated it and so it was decided to use older music from the episode "Where Silence Has Lease". I thought it would be fun to use the original track with the final footage. Dialogue is dodgy as a result but overall this is how the music would play out in the scene. Do you think it works or agree with Berman that it might be a bit much? I like the original cue, however I think the music from "Silence" surprisingly works well, it's a good use of tracked music. So I don't have much of a preference, they both work in a different way.

It might make me an Internet Villain, but I agree with Berman. This music is way too over the top for the situation and performances. The music is making the situation out to be way more dynamic and action packed when really this scene is more about the tension of "will they/won't they" make it out, and careful/tricky maneuvering, whereas Jones' music sounds like a more high pitched situation, like being chased through the asteroid field by enemy ships at high impulse, although it works well at 1:02-1:08

I like the sound, prefer that style than the music we got late on. Maybe over the top in places but it seemed to add a bit of tension. More lively to pit it mildly.

"Manhunt"

Semi-sequel/Semi-rehash of "Haven". Feels half-assed, and apparently Tracy Torme admitted he gave little effort to this because after Hurley's treatment of "The Royale" he no longer gave a shit and just coasted until the season was finished. It really shows. Things like the ending are EXACTLY the same as the ending in "Haven" with Mrs. Troi teasing Picard about thinking of her b00biez in the transporter room.

By the way, I'm pretty sure Picard was thinking of b00iez throughout the episode.

"The Emissary"

The Worf centric episode of the season 2. It's not "Glory" and the subplot with the 20th century Klingons is not that interesting. It does a very good set up with the arc between Worf and Suzie Plakson's character. Dorn and Plakson have very good chemistry, too bad she gets killed off in her next guest appearance. Gotta admit, he's got good taste in women (well, weeping Troi is an exception).

23rd century Klingons, MP.

Well, I managed to get in 2 DS9 episodes, finally.

Sykes Goes to Quark's (DS9 Season 6 Reviews)

"His Way"
I have never understood the apparent hatred an apparently large portion of the fanbase has against Vic Fontaine. I doubt I ever will. I have never seen it satisfactorily explained, people on the Internet just dislike him. The closest I ever heard to rational argument was that he took up too much screentime in such a late and crucial phase of the series and wasn't important enough to the main story for the time spent on him.
Frak that. Vic is a great character, for the primary reason that he is FUN. Which is part of the point of this episode. Sometimes I feel like Trek fans are a little too much like Odo in this installment, closed off and agitated, allergic to fun and emotion, unwilling to even try to talk to girls (ba-dum-ch!).
Anyways, this episode is fantastic and fun, and immensely satisfying after the four seasons of frustration between Odo and Kira. That scene on the Promenade leading up to the kiss is fantastic.
And the music! Man, what a time.

"The Reckoning"
This is a good episode that apparently a lot of people don't like. What they don't realize is that it's the necessary middle step between "Rapture" and basically the whole of Season 7. Which makes it good, but is also part of the problem. Because while Sisko's relationship with the Prophets had been developing gradually and well throughout the show, the Pagh-wraiths had gotten one Season 5 episode and 1 dialogue reference in Season 1. So we have this episode to bring us all back to speed and where we need to be, and while it's good and effective (especially the sfx work) and has some interesting stuff to say about faith, the parts on Sisko and Winn and the Prophets all feel like recap, the stuff about the Pagh-wraiths and the Reckoning feel underdeveloped, and you get a very major sense that this episode is MAINLY about setting things up and putting them off for later, basically serving as a reminder about all this shit.
That criticism aside, it IS a good episode, I just wish there had been a bit more to the final Ben/Jake Sisko scene in the Infirmary on the subject of Jake sabotaging Kosst Amojan's efforts from within to save his father, which is basically Jake finally accepting his father's place in the Bajoran mythos.

People don't like Vic? What the fuck is wrong with them?

He should introduce them to his friend Frank, and his friends. They'll like him plenty after that.

If I recall, hatred on the OS for example towards Vic is based on his sexism and the fact people don't like that type of music.

Personally Vic is the bomb.

The only thing for His Way is I was never one for the Odo/Kira thing. If I remember my companion book even Auberjonois and Visitor weren't too keen on it. Like it didn't need to be done.

Yeah, Auberjonois and Visitor thought Odo/Kira should remain unrequited, but Behr knew that Odo was gonna end up going back to the Great Link and that therefore he had to lose something for that choice to be poignant, therefore Odo and Kira had to get together -- and I can't disagree with that reasoning.

It's sound enough. Admittedly that first viewing of their farwell on the Founders homeworld was kind of emotive (even if there was a good chuckle with Quark and Odo's farewell).

I really like "His Way" and thought it really opened up new stories for S7 and it felt right for it to happen at that time. That moment on the pomenade was great, also dug Quark smiling as they kissed as if he was thinking "well done Odo" that he was happy for the guy.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Did a little experiment. For the episode "Booby Trap" Ron Jones used a heavy electronic score for the climax with Picard manually driving the Enterprise out of the asteroid field. Naturally Rick Berman hated it and so it was decided to use older music from the episode "Where Silence Has Lease". I thought it would be fun to use the original track with the final footage. Dialogue is dodgy as a result but overall this is how the music would play out in the scene. Do you think it works or agree with Berman that it might be a bit much? I like the original cue, however I think the music from "Silence" surprisingly works well, it's a good use of tracked music. So I don't have much of a preference, they both work in a different way.

I think it is a helluva improvement,but it still fails, because the visuals are so static.

It kind of reminded me of ST III, the scene where the klingons sneak up on the E but the E fires first. Watch that scene without sound and you'll fall asleep, because the staging is dead and the camera movement/editing is mundane, but the Horner music makes it work (to whatever degree it DOES work.) Then compare that with the Reliant sneaking up on E scene in TWOK, which has a bit of moving camera and some really nice camera angles and editing, and you can see that works even w/o the Horner music.

TNG seems a little off when the music is driving,because the show is so placid-looking (there's a fight with the guest star and O'Brien near the beginning of THE HUNTED that is so poorly done, you'd think they had 7thgraders shooting the action.) But I'd rather they erred on the side of Jones (or my fave, Chattaway's TIN MAN score) than the wallpaper/a-c noise combo.

I think that's it -- the show itself is so static and placid that bombastic music feels out of place. Which is funny because it has The Most Bombastic theme out of all the shows.