Topic: Ten Forward - The Star Trek Topic

@LN78 yes i have seen it and the remastering was awesome shame it will never happen because VCBS say it's too expensive which too be fair given how much would need to be done and the hours of the series there is i wouldn't be surprised if it was very expensive

Actual Star Trek news! Strange New Worlds sounds rather interesting and there’s a Nickelodeon show for the kids that could be a great way to indoctrinate your children and force them to enjoy Next Generation with you.

@nessisonett

I saw the trailer and don't mind admitting that I chuckled more than once.

@RogerRoger Jokes aside, it could be a good way to get younger viewers invested in Trek, which is always welcome. And it’s the Trollhunters showrunners so it could always go down a more Clone Wars route than a strict kids show.

@nessisonett Yeah, I've always been for a bit of diversification. I got into TNG as a single-digit kid, but then I was a boring 90s kid who didn't have access to any Fortnights or MyFace. I think the younger generation today is way more in tune with a lot of the messages in traditional Trek, so anything that provides them access to that is welcome in my book.

And besides, me having grown up into a thirty-something manchild means I could go for a fart gag in a cartoon every now and again. Best of both worlds!

@LN78 Same here. I haven't read reviews from too many mainstream critics, but fan sites are being very positive about it, apparently because it's stuffed with in-jokes and references from 90s Trek in particular (and most people running Trek fan sites grew up in that era).

I saw its opening scene (embedded below) and smiled at the general tone, but didn't laugh.

Am curiously hopeful, or hopefully curious. Should it eventually pop up on a service I have access to, I'll give it a look-see, but I'm in no major rush.

Christopher Eccleston’s recording 12 new 9th Doctor audio stories for Big Finish. Brilliant!

@nessisonett ...surely you mean "Fantastic!" right?

@RogerRoger Ah yes, I forgot about that catchphrase!

@nessisonett It's the same with Star Trek, I like tracking the catchphrases. You had "Fantastic!" then "Allons-y!" then "Geronimo!" and then "Shut up!" for the Doctors since 2005, just like you had "Make it so!" then "Do it!" and then "Let's go!" for the starship-based captains since 1987 (poor Sisko never got a catchphrase, alas... Pike and Kirk say "Punch it!" in the Kelvin Timeline movies, but we all know what that's a blatant reference to, thank you Mr. Abrams).

@LN78 I’ve been watching Heroes weekly when it airs on BBC Two, I was about 6 when it first aired but I’m amazed at how much I remember from when it was first on. Hadn’t realised how long ago it really was and also somewhat confused that I was allowed to watch it! I have to say, it really does start well, that pilot is one of the best I’ve seen alongside Lost and it’s a shame that both shows ended up going rather off the rails over the years.

@LN78 Peter Capaldi shows up in the most random of places. I was somewhere recently where The Vicar of Dibley was playing in the background, and I did a double-take when I suddenly realised that the (again) young and handsome love interest for Dawn French was the Doctor.

I'm one of those people who was never into Star Trek. I always found it reminiscent of a Saturday morning cartoon - not so much in a bad way as I loved my Saturday morning cartoons, but in that they would have a lot of moral or ethical stories that didn't get very dark or in depth, and everything would be reset at the end of the episode. There is something quite comforting in watching TNG for that reason.
My partner enjoys Star Trek more than me and watched it all at the time so we did a little watch through of the shows and I was pleasantly surprised by some of the Voyager episodes. I think, in general, that show was more interesting to me since it had a clear concept setup and there was a sense of danger in their journey.
Deep Space 9's only saving grace was Quark, in my opinion, as it was a bad ripoff of Babylon 5.

Don't even get me started on Star Trek: Enterpise. How did that show last so long? Why is the doctor so instinctively detestable?

@Vahla_Hanesh As a huge fan of Voyager (my favourite of the shows, so-close-it-might-as-well-be-a-tie with The Next Generation) it's great to see somebody else praising an oft-dismissed, overlooked chapter of the franchise, so thanks for making me smile this morning!

Do you remember which episodes pleasantly surprised you, by any chance?

I'm a Trekkie before anything else but, even so, agree with you about Deep Space Nine. Despite not managing to finish a recent Babylon 5 marathon, the parallels were alarmingly clear.

There is one point we disagree on, though, because I really do love Enterprise as well. The show was supposed to last seven seasons, like all of the Trek spin-offs, so the fact it only made it to four speaks to how dissatisfied many were with it (although, by today's standards, it was a ratings bonanza; I think it will go down in history as one of the earliest victims of the modernisation of viewing habits, and it was badly mishandled by its home network, UPN). I wish it had stuck to its earlier tone and premise, and not gotten as distracted by fan service as it did in its final year, but I also wish that its creators were given the freedom to explore their original concept (which was Star Trek does The Right Stuff, basically) and not even have a starship for its first season. That would've been something real special.

But hey, that's just me. There's certainly enough Star Trek for everybody's tastes, as it became real pervasive in the 90s and looks to be even moreso today!

@RogerRoger Oh I'm bad at the episode titles cos I've only watched them once, but I enjoyed quite a lot of them and the characters were all really likeable.
I particularly liked the doctor's arc over the series. His episodes were quite philosophical at times - I especially enjoyed where he'd made the decision to save someone at the expense of someone else because of personal feelings, and how that affected him. The episode where the other stranded crew are killing lifeforms to run their ship was wonderfully engaging. I was also surprised at the Neelix episodes, as my first impression of him was of a comedy character, whereas most of the time he's featured there's some real heavy issues being dealt with. I was kind of shocked at what happened to poor Tuvix...
And I quite liked all the characters, which is a first for me with Star Trek.
@LN78 Babylon 5 had been around the houses so to speak, in trying to sell the show, so the idea had been around for a few years before both shows were on the air. Straczynski spoke about it in his book in the chapter about Babylon 5 and how his ideas somehow ended up in a Star Trek show.

@LN78 Six months, and Babylon 5 had been shipped around all the major networks long before it entered production around the same time as DS9. I can't recall my sources, so take all this with a shuttlecraft of salt, but word was Star Trek executives wanted to move to counter the threat posed by Babylon 5 in its infancy. It wasn't until both shows had been running for a couple years concurrently that the serialised war storyline started to take hold on DS9, again as a direct response to Babylon 5 pushing that envelope right out of the gate.

I don't have an agenda here; as I say, I failed to get through all of Babylon 5 in one sitting, whereas I regularly re-watch DS9 and find it a better-made, more accessible production on the whole. There were also plenty of other cases of suspected plagiarism during that era, with the Voyager two-parter "Workforce" liberally borrowing from an episode of Stargate SG-1, for example.

I always thought of Voyager as having more in common with Lost in Space myself, especially when they started hammering home its "family" themes in later seasons.

@Vahla_Hanesh Simultaneous posting always makes me laugh!

Great highlights, particularly Neelix. So many people write him off, but he routinely starred in some of the most engaging and complex episodes. He faces a war criminal from his planet, he panics at outliving his usefulness, he grapples with a crisis of faith and, throughout it all, he remains supportive of everybody. My favourite moment of his entire run was a very short, almost throwaway scene in the fourth season, when B'Elanna is having a rough time. He sits down beside her and offers, "When you're angry, come see me. Call me names. Insult me. Question my parentage. I won't take it personally, and you won't need to keep things bottled up inside anymore." God, if only we all had a friend like that, eh?

The Doctor is more broadly loved, and rightly so. The show gradually positioned him as one of its core three characters, alongside Janeway and Seven, when it realised what a gift Robert Picardo was. He got some awesome episodes, like the one where he's stranded in an alien museum which, hundreds of years after Voyager visited its world, has gotten history so very wrong.

Out of all the Star Trek casts, I think Voyager had the best for doing both drama and comedy in equal measure, and it made the show much more appealing as it developed.

@LN78 It nearly got to that, especially with fans on both sides stoking the tension between both shows, but it was settled amicably when Majel Barrett heard of the situation and didn't want the good standing of her late husband's franchise tarnished. She did a guest appearance on Babylon 5 and, in exchange, Bill Mumy appeared in "The Siege of AR-558" [DS9] for the sole purpose of calming things down.

@LN78 Well, there's no smoke without fire (he says, no pun intended given the other examples of Hollywood coincidence you raise) but let's be honest, it's pretty ancient history by now, especially since Star Trek has been soft-rebooted three times since DS9 and Babylon 5 has, er... well, exactly!

Sorry to hear you think that about the Voyager cast as, on a harsh day, that's almost word-for-word what I'd say about DS9, only replacing Robert Picardo with René Auberjonois.

Ah well. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, and all that, I suppose.

I haven't read through all this topic because I still haven't finished/watched discovery season 2, short treks and Picard but I thought I'd post a few random thoughts.

I've started a rewatch of Star Trek from the beginning starting with First Contact and then Enterprise. The reason I started with First Contact was because of all the time travel story lines they actually go back to when Trek begins with this one, on screen at least. Arguably a time travel story that goes back to the Eugenics War and actually features it on screen would be a good place to start it (if it existed) as I believe the early 1990s is when the trek timeline begins to diverge from our own. I also started with First Contact because it's followed up on a few times in Enterprise with Cochrane's recorded speech in episode 1, the sequel episode where they uncover the Borg in the Arctic and of course In A Mirror Darkly which is more or less where we see for the first time chronologically the mirror universe diverge from the main Trek timeline.

Anyway I've nearly finished Enterprise, just have a few episodes left of season 4 and I just love it so much. My love for it hasn't gone away at all since I first watched it on channel 4 and I've completely blazed through it because it's so engaging. This is in comparison with my recent rewatch of the X files which has a load of stop start episodes and was a bit of a struggle at times. There's not a single uninteresting character on Enterprise, I really do love them all but one of my favourites is easily Shran.

He really does just have the best arc on the show in my opinion and I guess because he's in it so little compared to the main cast, he really stands out and I'm always left wanting more. Which really makes me sad that Enterprise is coming to an end for me now. I'd really like a Star Trek: Shran spin off show in the vein of Picard but I guess nobody will touch it because barring a a quick shout out to "Admiral Archer's beagle" in Star Trek '09, there has been very little reference to the Enterprise years in later TV and film. At least that i've seen, I suppose Discovery Season 2 could throw me a curve ball but somehow I doubt it will. I do think Shran is the best of Jeffrey Combs' star trek characters as well but he may actually be my favourite, or at least one of my favourite characters in all of Trek.

On the flip side of the coin, Soval has been another highlight in later episodes. Especially when he takes a stand in the episodes about the dissolution/rejigging/whatever of the Vulcan government. He has a particularly funny exchange with Trip where Soval thanks him because Trip is unable to tell that Soval has an affinity for humans and Earth.

I love the season 1 and 2 theme tune, I know it gets hate along with the rest of the show but it is so inspirational. Especially when it's played over the montage of mankind's greater achievements in the opening credits. There's been a few times when it's reduced me to a crushing realisation that I'll never see some of this show become a reality. We need warp drive, we need to explore the stars. I imagine it didn't feel so far off in the 60s space race when star trek began but now it feels so far off that it's almost impossible and that just makes me so sad. I really wish that big companies were pouring funds into anti matter propulsion systems instead of better cameras for the next iPhone. Back to the theme tune, the flip side is that I absolutely hate the theme tune for season 3 and 4. Why did they change it? It sounds like they took the recording of the singing and slapped it over a non licensed karaoke backing track. It doesn't make it better for those that hated the original tune as it still sounds nothing like the classic Trek themes. It's just the Enterprise theme, but worse. I don't know if the new backing track just highlights it or if they didn't edit the singing when they made the new song, but you can hear all the intakes of breath which in parts of the tune makes the word "faith" sound like "face". It's weird.

One episode that really stood out for me on this rewatch was Cogenitor. It really had an effect on me and left me feeling really down and contemplative. But in a good way, if you get what I mean. It's a hopeful episode that ends in a sad way but I enjoyed it a lot because of how effective it was. Somehow the moral rationalisation of this episode had way more of an effect than the standard "this pre warp species is about to face extinction from something we can prevent but won't because of the prime directive" type episode. It was painful to watch a fledgling Earth try to make interstellar allies while both overlooking and interfering with an aspect of this alien culture that is so completely counterpoint to the ethos of (future) humanity. The arguments for the aliens treatment of their third gender make sense. They only make up 3% of their population and they are required for reproduction. But the argument against it though feels morally right, the Cogenitors aren't a sub species, they have the same brain capacity and potential for self actualisation as the other two genders. If the Cogenitors did follow their own pursuits however, it would leave the whole species unable to reproduce. It's almost as if the evolution of this species physiology hasn't caught up with the evolution of their intelligence. That's the human point of view but of course that is balanced with the notion of not interfering with or judging alien cultures, which is a moral point in itself. It's a complex episode with an absolutely human viewpoint (i.e. conflicting on every level) and I think it differs from the faceless preventable mass extinction episodes because we actually get to know Charles (the cogenitor's chosen name) and travel with them on their journey of self realisation. Its fine that the diplomatic solution was chosen but it really hurts that it ends in Charles' suicide. This adds a lot to the moral quandary because had Trip not interfered, the Cogenitor would have lived on but because he did interfere, the Cogenitor probably experienced the best few days of their life. It's a really difficult one and it was a really engaging piece of television in my opinion that dealt with the matter in the only way humans knew how. The outcome wasn't good but that's life. Sometimes life leaves you with a gut punch.

Anyway, I was eager to watch a light-hearted episode after this but the next episode was the intense First Contact sequel episode!

In terms of episodes, it's kind of weird that all but one of the season 4 episodes are mini 2 or 3 episode arcs. Though they do the job of setting up the various story strands that make up Trek lore as we know it. Season 3 was quite engaging because of the season long storyline but within that, there were quite a few "gimmick" episodes like the Archer brain parasite episode with the alternate future. Stuff like that really sticks out (not necessarily in a good way) when there is a season long narrative. I absolutely loved the epic five or so part finale to that season though, with all its ups and downs, twists and turns, changes of allegiances, best laid plans and last minute saves, escapes and close scrapes. Generally I think if the show had carried on, it would've been wise to adopt an approach that combined the one and done episodes of the early seasons (most of which are my favourites) with the 2/3 parters and an overarching storyline that only needs addressing toward the end.

Another thing that I find interesting is the semi problematic appearance of the Romulans. The allied planets never see them (well, except for that nasty two bit Vulcan governor) so it's not a problem within the story. But watching these shows chronologically means that the shock reveal of the Romulans in the original series isn't so much of a shock. Though I think that one episode is a small price to pay for the enriched lore and understanding of the universe you might get from watching Enterprise first. Even if you didn't understand half the stuff in Enterprise but watched it first to get the basics and then watched it again once you are an uber fan and have watched every other show set after it which would give you a better understanding of Enterprise itself. It's a bit like the chicken and the egg. It's good as both a precursor and a successor.

Anyway, that's about it for my thoughts on Enterprise, I'm looking forward to the so far relatively short Discovery and short treks shows that come up next chronologically that I've only seen about half of in the past!

@RogerRoger thought I'd give you a tag because in our past convos I believe you mentioned noticeable budget cuts in the show that you didn't discuss in detail because you didn't want to spoil it for me but now I've seen it recently and am unlikely to watch it again for another ten years, I'm interested to know what you were going to point out because I haven't noticed anything out of place! It might be a testament to the enthralling story of Archer and his crew that I haven't spotted anything though!