Reality is for prople who can't handle sci-fi

Post Reply New Topic

I've been a fan of Star Trek since I was old enough to understand it. It's been more than a decade since Star Trek Enterprise went off the air, and I'm looking forward to the new series coming out in 2017.

I've seen the re-imagined movies from J.J. Abrams. I don't like Chris Pine as Kirk, but I do like Karl Urban as Bones, and I'm getting used to Zachary Quinto as Spock.

Which version(s) of Trek do you like & why?

Next Generation and Deep Space Nine for me. Minding the cheese and viewing it as a stage play with classically trained thespians, the former had interesting (and sometimes traumatic) story ideas coupled with great dramatic writing, and it pondered ethical and philosophical questions (usually with Picard sipping on a cup of Earl Grey tea). The later was a mostly decent sibling, albeit darker and much more concerned with political subject matter; not all of it works, but at least half of it does. Both of these shows are nostalgic time capsules for 80s and 90s television programming.

I could never get into the original series, as it lacks the depth of the two aforementioned successors. (I do like a few of the movies, though.) I recognize it's importance, and I will watch it if I've nothing else to look at I suppose. Voyager had a few watchable episodes here and there (e.g., "The Chute"), but the show's premise and execution was fundamentally flawed.

As for Enterprise and the J. J. Abrams offerings...

For me it's three series: TNG, DS9, and Enterprise

TNG really took off after Roddenberry was kicked upstairs and later died. For all the praise he was given for creating the series, his inability to get with the times really hurt the show of the first two and half seasons. From then on TNG set the standard for modern Trek with lots of philosophical, political, and social lessons and analysis being packed into entertaining stories. The one main gripe I have with it is how little the characters evolved over the series.

While Star Trek was the "wagon train into outer space", DS9 was the frontier town in outer space. Sisko was the sheriff come to keep order and the series took every advantage of its relatively fixed locale to really dig into the characters and have them grow throughout the series. The evolution of the Ferengi in particular is a massive reason to watch the show. Showing the dark underbelly of the Federation was another though I know a lot of people didn't like it. It did have a really slow 3 season start and some of the religious stuff could be really annoying.

Enterprise is pretty much the red headed step child of Star Trek but I love it. A lot of people scream about how the Vulcans are portrayed without thinking about how they were shown in the original series and DS9. Remember the DS9 episode with the racist Vulcan? Yeah even in the 24th century you'd had an undercurrent of arrogant supremacy running through the species. Just imagine how bad it would have been too years earlier and the Vulcans in Enterprise actually make sense. The show in my opinion went back to the old staple of exploration as a focus but also had the secondary effect of explaining some of the things in the original series and later series as well as building up to things like the formation of the Federation and the Romulan War. The biggest elephant in the room for the series was of course the temporal cold war crap which was very poorly handled and thankfully dropped toward the end. UPN screwed up big time cancelling this show.

I totally disagree with the thread title but my favorite will always be voyager.

TNG.

The complaint against the initial TOS pilot was that it was "too cerebral". That is why i dislike TOS because of the times it was created in that required a war like setting. Picard was also more diplomatic than James "Fire Phasers" Kirk and TNG also featured more philosophy and justice themes. I don't give much for DS9 or Voyager, which are basically just cash machines, though i like Quark and Odos interactions and also "the Tailor" Garrak from DS9. I also like 7 of 9 because i am a man and still have a pulse.

But i also dislike the topic. When you grow up, you'll realise that humanity is too stupid and that a society like in Star Trek would never work today. Only after something like a nuclear war, people would start to think about helping eachother on that scale. People are egotistical narcissistic lazy dickheads. Thats why i'm a prepper.

something about the ones that came after the original series, just left me cold. it is like they take themselves too seriously, whereas the original had some tongue-in-cheek.

I absolutely love this thread title.

My absolute favorite ST series is Voyager. It had the characters, storyline and episodes I liked best by far.

TNG was okay, some nice characters and episodes, just nowhere near as good as Voyager (IMO).

I never got much into TOS, and I didn't like Kirk. He was a cowboy and I find it hard to believe that such a character would be allowed to stay captain within an organization like Starfleet. Stories need to make sense within their fictive universes, and that didn't (to me at least). The best part of that crew was the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which I found to be very fun and entertaining.

I never liked DS9 at all. I gave the first season a shot and was very disappointed.

Never saw Enterprise.

By the way, add fantasy and horror to the title, and I agree!

Extrication, did you like the stembolts episode and the one with Morn?

Garrak was intriguing. I think they kept him mysterious on purpose though, rather than show viewers all of his manipulations.