Star Trek: ...And The Neckbeards Shall Post

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unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Does DS9 start as strongly as I think or am I just biased by how much I enjoy the later seasons?

The pilot/first episode drags a bit with the whole Sisko explaining linear existence to the Prophets, but then the next few episodes are really great. Almost reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica. The only upset so far is Captive Pursuit because I've seen it a few times before and because it seems like a very TNG-esque episode.

I've really only watched Season 4 onwards. Everything before that, I've seen episodes here and there.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 04:56

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# ? Jun 11, 2024 22:27

8one6: May 20, 2012; When in doubt, err on the side of Awesome!

unlimited shrimp posted:

Does DS9 start as strongly as I think or am I just biased by how much I enjoy the later seasons?

The pilot/first episode drags a bit with the whole Sisko explaining linear existence to the Prophets, but then the next few episodes are really great. Almost reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica. The only upset so far is Captive Pursuit because I've seen it a few times before and because it seems like a very TNG-esque episode.

I've really only watched Season 4 onwards. Everything before that, I've seen episodes here and there.

There are a couple of weak episodes in season one but I'd still recommend watching it all the way through.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 05:01

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

8one6 posted:

There are a couple of weak episodes in season one but I'd still recommend watching it all the way through.

If nothing else, see Duet. One of the best episodes of Star Trek ever made.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 05:27

Ms Adequate: Oct 30, 2011; Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling

Cythereal posted:

If nothing else, see Duet. One of the best episodes of Star Trek ever made.

Yeah, that's the episode where you see that DS9 is serious poo poo.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 05:35

Delsaber: Oct 1, 2013; This may or may not be correct.

If you watch only one bad episode in season one, make sure it's Dramatis Personae. It's worth it just for the clock scenes and Avery Brooks' hilarious scenery chewing. Might be the first time he really cut loose like that, too.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 05:43

Kibayasu: Mar 28, 2010

As little as most of the first two seasons of DS9 mesh with the later episodes it's still easily the most consistently strongest first two seasons between TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 05:46

Sash!: Mar 16, 2001

I am Tosk

# ? Feb 27, 2015 05:46

jng2058: Jul 17, 2010; We have the tools, we have the talent!

The thing about DS9's first two seasons is that its almost a different show than in seasons 3-7. The long term plot, to the degree there is one, revolves almost entirely around Bajor and the Cardassians. Then at the end of Season 2, BAM comes the Jem'hadar and the Dominion and much of the Bajor stuff goes into the background from then on out.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 05:57

shadok: Dec 12, 2004; You tried to destroy it once before, Commodore.
The result was a wrecked ship and a dead crew.; Fun Shoe

unlimited shrimp posted:

Does DS9 start as strongly as I think or am I just biased by how much I enjoy the later seasons?

No, DS9 was pretty strong right out of the gate, not least because a lot of the writers and crew had been working on TNG for years, and DS9 got the benefit of that experience right from episode 1.

In contrast, I find the first season of TNG totally unwatchable. It stutters to life for a couple of episodes in S2 and it doesn't actually get consistently good until season 3.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 06:08

thexerox123: Aug 17, 2007

shadok posted:

No, DS9 was pretty strong right out of the gate, not least because a lot of the writers and crew had been working on TNG for years, and DS9 got the benefit of that experience right from episode 1.

So what happened with Voyager, then?

# ? Feb 27, 2015 06:12

David D. Davidson: Nov 17, 2012; Orca lady?

thexerox123 posted:

So what happened with Voyager, then?

They wanted to play it safe. Whenever that happens expect lots of suck.

David D. Davidson fucked around with this message at 07:25 on Feb 27, 2015

# ? Feb 27, 2015 06:13

shadok: Dec 12, 2004; You tried to destroy it once before, Commodore.
The result was a wrecked ship and a dead crew.; Fun Shoe

thexerox123 posted:

So what happened with Voyager, then?

You can't fault either Voyager or Enterprise on production values. They looked fine, the effects were great, the production was high quality. The writing was flat and the episodes were uninspired because the showrunners were imposing their understanding of what "Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek" was onto the writers, and sucking compelling storytelling right out of the scripts.

So much of what made DS9 great came out of situations when Ira Behr and Ron Moore knew what Rick Berman didn't want them to do, but they also knew that he was too busy working on Voyager to stop them so they did it anyways.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 06:32

jng2058: Jul 17, 2010; We have the tools, we have the talent!

You've got to factor in burn-out, too. Some of the writers from Voyager had been working Trek since TNG and they were just out of ideas.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 06:37

thexerox123: Aug 17, 2007

shadok posted:

You can't fault either Voyager or Enterprise on production values. They looked fine, the effects were great, the production was high quality. The writing was flat and the episodes were uninspired because the showrunners were imposing their understanding of what "Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek" was onto the writers, and sucking compelling storytelling right out of the scripts.

So much of what made DS9 great came out of situations when Ira Behr and Ron Moore knew what Rick Berman didn't want them to do, but they also knew that he was too busy working on Voyager to stop them so they did it anyways.

Oh, yeah, the production values are good... I definitely meant in the writing.
I guess I was just trying to point out that DS9 could have easily gone another way, ESPECIALLY with writers and producers from TNG involved.

Edit: I just saw Ira Steven Behr's beard for the first time. Why.

I feel like this just underscores the fact that we were lucky to get the good decisions that we did get with DS9, instead of the storytelling equivalents of that beard.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 06:40

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

That's not a beard, that's a bij.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 07:13

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Voyager and Enterprise had the weight of being tentpole shows of a failing network. That had a massive effect on the shows which led to a lot more network fuckary and 'playing it safe.'

# ? Feb 27, 2015 07:19

Angry Salami: Jul 27, 2013; Don't trust the skull.

One should remember that only a handful of UPN's shows in 1994 even lasted a full season, and Voyager was the only one to get a second. It is somewhat understandable given what a mess the network was that they were fairly risk-adverse when it came to the only show they had that was even close to succesful...

# ? Feb 27, 2015 07:36

The Dark One: Aug 19, 2005; I'm your friend and I'm not going to just stand by and let you do this!

Cythereal posted:

The British never seriously supported the Confederacy. The Confederacy really wanted the British to support them, and hoped their cotton industry would be enough to rope them in, but the British decided to start importing their cotton from India instead.

This seems to do a good job of summarizing the commonwealth view:

The National Post posted:

Thus, while mid-19th-century Canadians likely disagreed with Davis� stance on human bondage, they welcomed him as a leader who had experienced exactly what they had long feared: A ruthless, all-out invasion by the armies of the United States.

So, for the few months until the chilly Canadian weather sent Davis back home to the land of cotton, he found himself feted as a celebrity.

A Montreal printer, John Lovell, allowed Davis and his family to live in his mansion. At the Theatre Royal, he was welcomed with a standing ovation and peals of Dixie, the South�s unofficial anthem. And, in July, when Davis journeyed to Lennoxville, Que., to visit his son at college, his train was greeted by cheering Canadians.

�I thank you most kindly for this hearty British reception, which I take as a manifestation of your sympathy and goodwill for one in misfortune,� he told the crowd in an impromptu speech.

Canada was only six days old then, and it would soon go on to achieve everything Southerners had hoped for the Confederacy: A nation stretching from sea to sea, a transcontinental railroad and the reassurance of 150 years of secure borders.

Davis told the crowd of new Canadians he hoped they would �ever remain as free a people as you are now.�

�I hope that you will hold fast to their British principles, and that you may ever strive to cultivate close and affectionate connection with the mother country. Gentlemen, again, I thank you.�

# ? Feb 27, 2015 08:07

Wheat Loaf: Feb 13, 2012; by FactsAreUseless

thexerox123 posted:

So what happened with Voyager, then?

I believe there's a passage in Piller's unpublished book about the making of Insurrection which explains that many of the problems with Voyager were the product of a massive over-correction of perceived "problems" with DS9, based on the results of fan surveys; that it was too dark, that the plot was too complex, that the characters didn't seem to get on, that they were willing to compromise their principles.

I suppose you could say they wanted TNG, except with no interesting characters and no meaningful stakes. With that in mind, you can't say Voyager didn't deliver.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 10:16

The Bloop: Jul 5, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

Wheat Loaf posted:

I suppose you could say they wanted TNG, except with no interesting characters and no meaningful stakes. With that in mind, you can't say Voyager didn't deliver.

It's just that, BoBW and a few other eps aside, the crew of Voyager had much higher stakes than the good old Ent D ever did. In theory. On paper. For like one episode. I think the worst thing about VOY is the wasted premise. If it was just life aboard the USS Intrepid in the Beta Quadrant boldy going, then no big, but they set up this great thing - someone knew what they were doing - but their premise didn't even survive the freaking pilot without being seriously compromised, and it really would have made a great series.

Star Trek: Wasted Potential

# ? Feb 27, 2015 13:09

Apollodorus: Feb 13, 2010; TEST YOUR MIGHT

Wheat Loaf posted:

I believe there's a passage in Piller's unpublished book about the making of Insurrection which explains that many of the problems with Voyager were the product of a massive over-correction of perceived "problems" with DS9, based on the results of fan surveys; that it was too dark, that the plot was too complex, that the characters didn't seem to get on, that they were willing to compromise their principles.

I suppose you could say they wanted TNG, except with no interesting characters and no meaningful stakes. With that in mind, you can't say Voyager didn't deliver.

If you haven't read Piller's MS about making Insurrection, called Fade In, you really should. Any Trek fan will appreciate what he says about how the show got made and why certain things came out the way they did.

Also, you get to read about how Patrick Stewart sees Picard as the starship captain equivalent to Don Bradman

# ? Feb 27, 2015 13:30

McSpanky: Jan 16, 2005

Apollodorus posted:

Also, you get to read about how Patrick Stewart sees Picard as the starship captain equivalent to Don Bradman

I suppose this means Kirk is Babe Ruth in the analogy?

e: dammit where's the worms emote

McSpanky fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Feb 27, 2015

# ? Feb 27, 2015 13:39

Delsaber: Oct 1, 2013; This may or may not be correct.

bull3964 posted:

Voyager and Enterprise had the weight of being tentpole shows of a failing network. That had a massive effect on the shows which led to a lot more network fuckary and 'playing it safe.'

Yeah, I feel like this is a pretty important point that gets lost pretty often. TNG and DS9 were able to do what they did largely because they ran in first-run syndication, which was probably already on the way out by the time Voyager happened. Syndication may not have made Voyager any less mediocre as I think a lot of that was the fault of the studio in addition to the network, but Enterprise may have lasted longer, maybe even the full seven years, if it had been a syndicated series. Being tasked with propping up an ailing UPN alongside a weakened Buffy and, uh, whatever else they had at the time, probably doomed the show before it began.

I'm actually struggling to name a single other UPN show from that era. Jake 2.0? I don't know.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 15:42

shadok: Dec 12, 2004; You tried to destroy it once before, Commodore.
The result was a wrecked ship and a dead crew.; Fun Shoe

Delsaber posted:

Yeah, I feel like this is a pretty important point that gets lost pretty often. TNG and DS9 were able to do what they did largely because they ran in first-run syndication, which was probably already on the way out by the time Voyager happened. Syndication may not have made Voyager any less mediocre as I think a lot of that was the fault of the studio in addition to the network, but Enterprise may have lasted longer, maybe even the full seven years, if it had been a syndicated series. Being tasked with propping up an ailing UPN alongside a weakened Buffy and, uh, whatever else they had at the time, probably doomed the show before it began.

I'm actually struggling to name a single other UPN show from that era. Jake 2.0? I don't know.

Veronica Mars, America's Next Top Model and WWE Smackdown. UPN passed on American Idol.

But the problem really wasn't the network as much as the showrunners. TNG did what it did because (season 3+) it was guided by Michael Piller, despite Gene Roddenberry's interference - which was gradually diminishing. Ron Moore's famous IGN interview sheds a lot of light on that time, when Rick Berman was becoming the torch bearer of the Roddenberry vision but wasn't yet The All-Powerful Trek Guy.

Somewhere there's an alternate universe where Michael Piller didn't burn out on Star Trek, and Voyager was executive produced by Piller and Moore, and it was amazing.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 16:23

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

It really sucks that Star Trek died before cable really got their poo poo into gear and started pumping out quality niche programming.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 16:45

CharlieWhiskey: Aug 18, 2005; everything, all the time

this is the world

In that universe, there is no Battlestar Galactica, but a good Voyager gets 9 seasons and 3 movies. Patrick Stewart wins an Oscar for a scene where he cries while carrying Janeway's body off a Borg-modified shuttlecraft and gently rests it on San Francisco soil after a decade long journey.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 16:50

thexerox123: Aug 17, 2007

New York Times is reporting that Leonard Nimoy died

# ? Feb 27, 2015 18:19

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

thexerox123 posted:

New York Times is reporting that Leonard Nimoy died

Just came here to report this

See you later, Space Cowboy

# ? Feb 27, 2015 18:22

Apple Jax: May 19, 2008; IDIC 4 LYF

thexerox123 posted:

New York Times is reporting that Leonard Nimoy died

83 isn't that old. I though Vulcans were supposed to have long lives! I usually don't care about actor's deaths but this is one I was really dreading for a while.

His was the most...human.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 18:23