Star Trek TV

[DFF]

I've always liked Bashir, not sure why. 

[SeanDMan]

22 hours ago, ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster said:

I'm into season 4 of DS9 now and there have been plenty of episodes along the way that I have really really liked. It is without doubt my favourite part of the ST universe, my favourite "ship" (well....station), my favourite crew. I love the shades of grey and the grubbiness. I love how that when Worf arrives and tries to get all "good boy scout" by getting all up in Quark, Sisko instead pretty much tells him to judge Quark on Ferengi moral codes and not Starfleet/Human. The Cardassians and Bajorans are rich and interesting and the relationship between the two races and Humans is nuanced and always evolving. This is without even getting into the Dominion.

 

Anyway, all that said and done, tonight I just watched "Our Man Bashir" and it left me with a huge smile on my face and warm feeling in my soul throughout. It's rare that TV does that. I LOVE that episode.

 

Our Man Bashir is to me a huge missed opportunity. Supposedly MGM wrote some strongly worded letters to Paramount because they felt it was a bit too close for comfort, but man, this is like music studios pulling popular songs off youtube; it is free advertising. No one is gonna watch Our Man Bashir and legit confuse it with a Bond movie, no more than they would Austin Powers. Parodys like that tend to make you appreciate the originals and grow the audience; I bet there are thousands of kids whose first James Bond movie was Austin Powers. So it was a real shame we never got to see more.

In retrospect though, trying to imagine "It's Only A Paper Moon" without Vic Fontaine makes me think things worked out okay.

[RazorsEdge]

Whenever somebody mentions "It's Only A Paper Moon" I'm immediately reminded that Nog had some of the best character development in a Star Trek show period.

[SeanDMan]

Nog is a good example of what happens when you hand good writing to a good actor. Dude killed it, his whole run was great but especially once he applied to Starfleet.

[K]

Was not expecting the most recent episode of Discovery to be both

Spoiler

a sequel to a thirty year old TNG two-parter, AND implement concepts debuted in a one year old Picard episode

 

[Mick]

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Discovery is wearing me down. I'm an outspoken fan of series 1 (yes, really) and series 2. I'm happy with the jump into the far future and like the idea of making reconnections with different planets. Saru is brilliant in the role of a quasi-ambassador, smoothing things with the folk from the different planet, I think that's his biggest strength and should be celebrated.

 

My problem is that more and more it's the Burnham show and that's exhausting me and making me feel that they're missing opportunities in adding depth. It feels like they've gone backwards in this regard. I feel we have fewer and fewer people involved in A storylines this series. I know fan writing is generally trash but I really feel that even in these shorter series with less chance for bottle episodes or focusing on engineering for a whole episode etc, they could still have built other characters without Burnham being pushed into the background.

 

Without going too indepth into episodes, here is a personal and utterly flawed retroactive plan:

Episode 1: Burnham's episode. Her character deserves it and is the best eyes for the viewer.

Episode 2: Saru takes Nilsson instead of Tilly. The walk gives a chance to build Nilsson's character, along with how she responds in the wild west bar. Tilly stays with the ship and shows some leadership skills in trying to save the ship.

Episode 3: just add a little more of Detmer's PTSD, make it a B storyline to build it a bit.

Episode 4: Culber goes to the Trill homeworld with Adira. Build the counsellor side of his character. Put him in Burnham's shoes for the episode and it becomes a great Culber ep. He doesn't need to be at the crew dinner as he can hear about it when he returns, so you still get his scene with Detmer and Saru still has the B story.

Episode 5: Butnham doesn't need to go to the Tikhov. It's a good Nhan episode and she deserves a good episode. Sometimes it feels Burnham is included just because it's Burnham. I know she's science, but still...

Episode 6: This Burnham/Book/Georgiou episode works better with less Burnham in Eps4 and 5. It goes back to her Ep1/3 struggle with if she belongs with Starfleet.

Episode 7: Awkward to change as it's Vulcan based, but less bigging Burnham up as the reason for Spock's success would be good. More Saru or give the bridge team a C story to solve.

Episode 8: I can see why they wanted to tie Book, his planet etc to Starfleet but something about this episode was wrong and under my new writing rules you can't have so many Burnham heavy episodes in a row. Maybe drop Burnham/Book to the B story and make the Emerald Chain stuff bigger. More Detmer and Owo involved in a storyline regarding flight stuff or even give Bryce and Rhys a chunk of time to solve a problem and build character.

 

 

Anyway, enough of my nonsense.

 

 

[Toe]

I'm with you in not enjoying season 3 as much as the first 2 seasons. For me, I think it's the jump to the future that's got me less interested. It doesn't help that the past few episodes have focused on the Mirror Universe. The only episode of Star Trek involving the Mirror Universe that I enjoy is the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror". 

[SeanDMan]

 

 

Merry Christmas, everyone.

[Benji]

Currently on episode seven of season three..

Spoiler

Really hated the whole scene with Michael in court. It felt like bad writing, just the bit where she's all "oh actually, it's not worth this" and walks out as if she dropped a mic and everyone looks inspired, confused, and gassy. Michael as a whole has felt a bit lacking this season for some reason.

Also, I adore Tilly, but making her the number one is probably the most stupid promotion ever.

 

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I'm up to 3.10. Saru and Culber have been my MVPs of the series. Culber is now his own character with his own strengths and not just partner-of-Stamets or back-from-the-dead-guy.

Saru has made mistakes as he learns how to be captain and is naturally cautious, but he's brilliant at talking to representatives from planets and has been the one most willing to return to Starfleet chain of command and "greater good".

If I was the admiral I'd be getting Saru to keep making contact with planets to try to bring them back to the Federation. He's great as that guy.

[Lint]

[Hobo]

Convinced my girlfriend to start watching Voyager a little while ago. When we met she had only ever seen TOS. She had never seen anything else.

Now she's seen all of TNG and DS9. Now we're at the end of Season 3 of Voyager. I have not watched the show at all since it first aired. So, I might as well be watching it for the first time by and large.

I also never finished watching the series as I dropped off somewhere around season 4. I think. I can't really remember. I know I gave up watching it because, at the time, I got bored of it sometime afrer the Borg showed up.

So far, it's an interesting watch again as I remember liking the show for much of the first 3 seasons at least. And I still think it's good for the most part. It's kind of a strange show though for characters though. There just seems to be so little development or interpersonal relationships. My gf's largest complaint is that people don't talk to each other on the show.

And really 4 seasons in, it feels like they only just started doing that. I'd argue Kes has some of the best developed relationships on the show but they're mostly off screen. And by the point we're at her run is nearly over.

I had remembered Tom and Harry being set up as friends early on but they really don't seem to hang out that much? In fact, Harry Kim probably has the least amount to do in the whole show thus far. While Paris, who is not a particularly endearing character (like, he's fine but his all his smart alec quips ar e abit much?) get s alot of screen time. B'Lanna is a pretty great character but, like, I'm not sure she gets to do as much? Some of the best parts are her and Janeway getting horny for science together. 

Tuvok and The Doctor are great. I've always liked Neelix myself.

And Chakotay, well he's there. 

Despite having a really interesting premise and characters - a lot of times where the show just feels very generic. I think design doesn't really help either, the Enterprise and Deep Space Nine looked very distinct on the interior and Voyager looks much more clean and sterile despite having a cool ship design - also the lighting change when they go to red alert bothers me a bit (but that might be down to watching it on a tiny laptop screen.)

 

 

[K]

I still haven't finished discovery season three

[Toe]

6 hours ago, K said:

I still haven't finished discovery season three

I loved the first two seasons of Discovery, but I definitely felt like the 3rd season was a bit of a slog. It just wasn't as fun. I still enjoyed some of the episodes, and seeing Doug Jones get to play Saru with none of the make-up (inside a holodeck) was pretty cool. 

[K]

On 04/07/2021 at 22:08, Toe said:

I loved the first two seasons of Discovery, but I definitely felt like the 3rd season was a bit of a slog. It just wasn't as fun. I still enjoyed some of the episodes, and seeing Doug Jones get to play Saru with none of the make-up (inside a holodeck) was pretty cool. 

same. absolutely loved one and two, but season three just felt like hard work. i didn't come out of an episode feeling good, and in the middle of the pandemic i needed to feel good. Like TV can be about challenging subjects, I just watched the BBC drama Time, set in a prison for example, and it can be enjoyable, but discovery season three i just wasn't looking forward to each week. I think I will try and binge it before season 4 comes out and see if it works better in one haul like that.

Also for UK viewers, Channel 4 I think is having a Star Trek thing at the moment, and all the movies seem to be on the All4 streaming platform

[SeanDMan]

listening to cast members reading the hatemail the show generated is amazing. I could watch just two hours of that.

[Lint]

 

An entity known as Q turns people in fascists. 

[DFF]

Very happy to see Q back = definitely one of my favourite sci-fi characters, let alone a Trek one. Trailer was a bit of a mixed bag for me, but looks interesting and a bit more uptempo than season 1. 

[Hobo]

I think I like the idea presented in that trailer.

But, I dunno if this needs to be spoilers or not?
 

Spoiler

But there is a part of me that is like "that looks like our 21st century and not the one what we've seen in Star Trek before"

honestly, I dunno if I'll watch Picard Season 2. I had quite mixed feelings on Season 1. In particular, the ending.