Trek Thread

[Stofsk]

I like FC, but my problem with it is it's trying to tell two stories at the same time, and either one is great on its own, but trying to tell both in the same two hours just hurts both stories.

Who the hell honestly complained that fluidic space of all things ruined Scorpion?

I don't know, I was just saying it was a pretty rad Voyager two-parter. A recent rewatch of it made me appreciate the story it was telling.

[Sandman]

I liked it, myself. Species 8472 were a genuinely alien menace, something not even human or human-looking, and I've always found those sorts of threats to be more interesting. Though on another level, episodes like Scorpion tend to annoy me somewhat because they show what Voyager could have been more consistently, given a more motivated and better directed writing staff.

[Stofsk]

Yeah I know. It's actually incongruous to a lot of the episodes I remember being bad. It makes me wonder how many other gems I missed because I simply didn't watch them.

[Sandman]

One of the better episodes that comes to mind was Timeless. I recommend that one, if you haven't seen it.

Though it seems to fulfil the odd note that Trek is surprisingly good at time travel related stories. But then, for all of the fan complaints I've never really bought the idea that the time travel stories were really all that bad, since they gave us episodes like Year of Hell.

[Bounty]

Timeless was good mostly because it was one of the few episodes that dared make a main character properly fallible without turning it into Life Lesson. And partly because LeVar Burton is a good director.

Stofsk: If you stick to episodes where the Doctor plays major role you have the best chance of hitting the non-shit ones. Robert Picardo can actually polish turds.

[evilsoup]

Which one was Timeless?

Any Voyager episode about the hologram Doctor is in the top 10% of trek.

[Bounty]

Which one was Timeless?

Any Voyager episode about the hologram Doctor is in the top 10% of trek.

The one where grumpy future-Kim, Chakotay and Chakotay's squeeze dig the wreck of the Voyager out of a glacier so they can send a signal back in time through Seven of Nine's frozen eyeball while Geordi is trying to stop them.

[Crazedwraith]

so i've returned to DS9 Season 7. With Chimera and Badda Bing Badda bang.

Chimera is boring as hell. Just slamming down the 'people don't like changelings' button till it breaks to set up while odo will go home at the end of the season. Sorry, guys you're no 'Consider Phleabas'

And Badda Bing Badda Bang. Another holosuite episode. This time a heist move. Whic his pretty darn fun all things considered. But Sisko has this weird dislike for Vic's because its the sixities and therefore racist. Maybe its something that needed to be said but in the episode it was just jarring.

I should watch Far Beyond The Stars again. That a decent episode about racism since it devotes more than one scene to it. Plus alien actors out of make up is always fun.

[Bounty]

Season 7 also had Take Me Out To The Holosuite which gets a lot of hate. It's probably my favorite standalone episode of the whole series.

[Crazedwraith]

Yeah. That one's just tons of fun.

[evilsoup]

Is that the baseball one?
Jesus, there really is no accounting for taste

[Bounty]

"Alright, Niners, let's hear some chatter."
"Hey, batter, batter, batter, batter, batter..."
"DEATH TO THE OPPOSITION"

[Crazedwraith]

"He didn't touch base? He didn't touch base! What do I do?"

"Find him and kill him!"

[Crazedwraith]

So continuing mini-reviews. I know how much you love them.

'Inter Arma Enem Silent Legas' is about Bashir and Section 31. And we learn that despite Bashir being genetically enhanced he holds true to the character traits assign in season 1: He's can be a guillable idiot. Sloan basically runs rings around him hear and gets him to do exactly what he wants. Helping get a section 31 mole installed as a member of the 'continuing comittee' a top romulan body. (though the guy is already head of the Tal Shiar, i can't imagine he wouldn't be useful anyway.) So its pretty good, Bashir gets all righteous indignation to Admiral Ross who it turns out is a S31 collaborator but nothing will come of it.

'Penumbra' is the start of the final 10 episode arc and contains Ezri and Worf's passionate clothes on hugging. (they take off like the top layer of uniform. Saucey) Damar entertaining a hooker in full uniform and Sisko/Kassidy getting engaged. Really I care not.

[timmy]

My name is Damar

I like

Kanar

[Zablorg]

hey guys what are good tng episodes from season 5? I've only seen a few of them (one of which was a WESLEY EPISODE so the others had better be damned good)

[Stofsk]

'Darmok' and 'The Inner Light' are the two best episodes. 'Redemption part 2', 'Unification', 'The First Duty' (which may be the Wesley episode you refer to) and 'I, Borg' are also good. 'A Matter of Time', 'The Next Phase', 'Powerplay', 'Conundrum', 'The Perfect Mate', 'Hero Worship' and 'Disaster' are all fun episodes. So is 'The Game' for that matter, but some may not like it because it's Wesley (and a young Ashley Judd) saving the Enterprise Yet Again. Of the two Wes episodes this season, 'The First Duty' was the best.

[Bounty]

The problem with the "Wes saves the ship" episodes is that there's too many of them, so if you pick just one - and The Game is probably the best one - you should be fine.

The Perfect Mate gets a lot of hate but it's really a nice bittersweet Picard story. Also, Famke Janssen.

And give Cause and Effect a try. It's a slow burner but the concept's pretty cool.

[Stofsk]

'Cause and Effect' annoys me because it's such a waste

of Captain Fraiser

Seriously they brought Kelsey Grammar in just to have him repeatedly kill the Enterprise? That's it? Also the way the Enterprise died was fucking shit. All it did was tap one of the fucking nacelles and that causes a catastrophic bullshit reaction.

I fucking hate this episode.

[Crazedwraith]

Do we really need spoiler tags for TNG episodes? Signs points to no. It's sad Grammer only cameos but meh whatever.

And i hope you're being ironic about the nacelle bump thing. Generally assume it was the cheapest/easiest effect for them to do.

[Stofsk]

Do we really need spoiler tags for TNG episodes? Signs points to no.

Uh Zabs said he wanted a list of stuff he hadn't seen before?

It's sad Grammer only cameos but meh whatever.

And i hope you're being ironic about the nacelle bump thing. Generally assume it was the cheapest/easiest effect for them to do.

I'm not, it's fucking stupid. It's literally just a bump and that causes this bullshit catastrophic failure. It makes no sense, especially in light of 'Disaster' which had a lot of heavy damage happen to the Enterprise and somehow nobody blew up.

How the hell does bumping the starboard nacelle cause casualties on every deck and antimatter containment failure? Also your assertion that it was the cheapest/easiest effect for them to do isn't convincing when it's in the script itself.

[Crazedwraith]

Whoops, sorry Zablorg.

OK I just rewatched that scene to refresh myself;

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-QNJdDbxdv4


-the anomaly was already fucking over all their systems anyway. So its presumably not typical of bump to the nacelle to do that stuff.
-i misremembered the impact. I thought the Bozemen actually punched a whole straight through the nacelle. Rather than just scraping down the outside and causing the blue bit to shatter.
-personally i think its plausible that smashing up the bit of the ship that makes space-time its bitch could cause problems but I'd be more convincing if they'd been using it at the time.
- 'casualty reports from all decks is a bit silly, maybe they were all saying 'nope no casualities here', or maybe lots of consoles exploded or something.

- and yeah looks like they did put a great deal of effort and work into those E-D destruction effects. So I was totally off base about that. Be better if they just smashed headlong into the secondary hull like what happened to the Odyssey but the shuttlebay depressurization wouldn't have helped.

So yeah, you're right its not a great scene but really its not enough to send me in a frothing raging against what is basically a decent rendition of the time loop concept.

[Stofsk]

Perhaps frothing rage is too extreme a reaction, after all this is the TNG version of Groundhog day.

I guess I just feel like the whole 'Enterprise suffers catastrophic damage' thing could have been handled better.

[Crazedwraith]

Oh yeah. Fair enough I guess.

I quite like it though. Never seen Groundhog Day itself but of the other goundhog day episodes I say. (ok, Stargate's and Xena's) The characters are very aware of whats going on and the problem they're trying to solve.

TNG's is unique as far as I know, in that character are most unaware. Only being aware on the subconscious level. As little sense as that makes.

Anyway speaking off bad endings for ships. I've reached 'The Changing Face Of Evil' on my DS9 S7 watch and man does Defiant get a lousy send off. Killed by breen plot device.

And the Dukat and Winn arc is as painful as I remember it being when I first saw it.

It's very ironic that Damar actually triggers his rebellion when things are swinging towards the Dominion again. But I guess at this point he already knows the Cardassians are getting shat on and if he waits longer, the less likely he is to suceed. But the episode basically treats it as the only thing keep the alliance's ass out of the fire.

[Stofsk]

I would need to rewatch DS9 and s7 in particular, but I remember not liking s7 very much when I watched some of it years ago. I especially didn't like how the Defiant was destroyed, then a couple episodes later, they got another Defiant-class ship, renamed from USS Sao Paulo to USS Defiant, including the NX registry. That was just lazy writing.

Why bother upsetting the apple cart like that if you're only going to bring the ship back for the finale anyway? If the Defiant must be destroyed, then do it in the final chapter, where it does something heroic - not get technobabbled to death.

(not that I didn't like the Breen superweapon thing, it just needed some more foreshadowing I think. I liked how the Alliance adapted to it, that seemed fairly reasonable actually)