New Testingstan

TOS had a few stinkers but in general the quality was more consistently good throughout the show's run than any other Trek show. Even the third season had some really nice episodes in there, although the quality took a nose dive due to budget cuts and really bad episodes (stay the fuck away from 'Way to Eden' and 'Turnabout Intruder'; I love TOS and I literally cannot watch these episodes).

The themes were also really interesting from a humanist perspective. There was more of a sense that humanity was a flawed species that was trying to better itself; I contrast this with TNG, where the theme seemed to be HAHA WE'RE PERFECT FUCK YOU Q (that's literally the theme of the pilot episode of TNG). Other themes include how technology can be dehumanising (like one episode nurse Chapel's mad scientist husband conceives of a plot to take over the galaxy by manufacturing robots to upload everyone's consciousness into; pretty transhumanist stuff, but it turned out he was wrong as his very human flaws could not be overcome. There was also an episode where Kirk was replaced by a super smart computer where the theme is 'industrialisation/super tech can make anyone redundant and GEE THAT SUCKS DOESN'T IT GUYS'), racism is bad, space vietnam is bad, and religion is bad (religion though would be disguised as 'alien planet where the people are essentially brainwashed and do bizarre behaviour in such a way that it looks like they're religious but it turns out that a super powerful computer is behind everything').

I loved the characters too. Kirk, Spock and McCoy had such great chemistry. You got the feeling they all loved and deeply respected each other but they could have arguments and disagreements. That really sold the relationships too. Despite being great friends they could still shout at each other.

Stofsk wrote:The thing is, they also depicted the cardassians as assholes ever since their introduction in TNG.

So by 'morally grey' I am saying that while the Maquis were the aggressors, part of it was that the Federation signed a peace treaty with the cardies which might have been too conciliatory, or portrayed to be borderline appeasement. Remember the very first episode we see the cardassians, we hear about a massacre of civilians on Setlik 3 and how one captain with PTSD believes they're gearing up for a second round. Setlik 3 is interesting because it wasn't a military target, only civilians were killed aside from a handful of Starfleet personnel from the USS Rutledge (so it is stated and/or implied), and the attack was based on faulty intelligence. So if you're a Maquis colonist, with memories of a civilian massacre on a nearby colony years ago when things got 'hot' between the Federation and the cardassians, where it really, really sounds like the latter just made up some bullshit pretext to attack, it just becomes really easy to take that next step.

At least that's how I think they tried approaching it.

The Wounded takes pains to paint Maxwell as in the wrong. Not only does he offer the most half-hearted excuses for not even attempting to pass his concerns up the chain of command (I found his evasive and vague answers much like the US attempts to justify invading Iraq) but the admiral that talks to Picard has an "oh shit" face and tone of voice as he emphasizes "we *cannot* afford a renewed war with the Cardassians, you *have* to keep the peace." This suggests that even if the peace treaty was not wholly advantageous for the Federation, it was necessary.

Star Trek has a weird thing with massacres in general, it seems like *everyone* commits them. They reference the "Norcon massacre/campaigns" in The Defector where the Romulans allegedly butchered a bunch of people some time ago; the Romulans also committed a massacre at Khitomer; there's Setlik, as you've described; the guys that adopted a human kid from Suddenly Human annihilated a colony; and then I recently watched DS9 Nor The Battle To The Strong and everyone seemed convinced that the Klingons were going to murder everyone, including everyone in the hospital (which I'm pretty sure we would consider a fairly serious war crime). The Cardassians and Romulans teamed up to launch a pre-emptive genocide against the Founders. Bashir and his fellow spergs mutants suggest that the Dominion War will somehow cost hundreds of billions of lives. Weyoun proposes annihilating the population of Earth after the Dominion wins the war, to set an example for the rest of the Federation; then the Dominion started butchering Cardassians wholesale at the end of the war so enthusiastically/fanatically as to send out their headquarters garrison to help.

starku wrote:Pffft I wasn't planning on paying

I was just watching ole blake and think 'isn't tos like this only 'good''

I'd say TOS has the benefit of a wider variety of stories, it seems like almost all of the Blake stories are "they tellyport down, they split up, someone gets captured, then they have to escape or be rescued", and every fourth episode or so they'll throw in the "and somehow the ship gets invaded/captured" twist. Flip a coin to see if Servalan pops up.

I'm sure I'm exaggerating but it did get annoying when they kept splitting up even after they should have learned that that was a quick way to get bonked on the head. And even without the "remastered CGI high-def" effects I'd say TOS has better production quality than Blake's did. And there's no recurring invincible supervillain that always gets away at the end.

If I find out that tos is just as pretentious and boring as I remember

I'll be bored

ugh, the maquis were a huge swing and a miss in ds9. any points they had were always immediately eclipsed by their plans to kill all the cardassians with nuclear space nerve gas or whatever, and seriously fuck eddington and his pretentious bullshit

i also enjoyed how the writers failed to sell sisko as obsessed in that arc too. because getting angry that a guy under your command used/betrayed you to go do evil is so out of line with what we've seen of any starfleet captain ever

oh oh another episode of ds9 that i think is a spectacular failure is that one where the klingon's brilliant plan to discredit the federation and garner sympathy for their cause is...to paint worf as bad because klingons are untrustworthy, violent, and murderous

http://youtube.com/watch?v=E1lFEZ-bHjg

God I love this scene. Patrick Stewart ends that last line in a ROAR.



Also in the Youtube video description, I deliberately referred to Data as "the robot" so as to stir up the pedants and sperglords.

Did you see how Riker got in Picard's face in front of the entire bridge crew

Tigh would not approve

did you see how riker did something

producers would not approve

Haha but what about in Pegasus when he stood up to the admiral

Just like in Pegasus when Adama stood up to the admiral

So, winged horses are like kryptonite when applied to the authority of an Admiral? Surely we should take this into account for future versus debates...

timmy wrote:Did you see how Riker got in Picard's face in front of the entire bridge crew

Tigh would not approve

tigh's really big on the "i'm the XO" thing, he gets off on being the commander's enforcer and martinet

riker on the other hand is basically waiting for Picard to scurry off to some other ship or to the admiralty so that he can swoop in and grab the Enterprise for himself

That's kinda the XO's job.

Riker is just a fucking clown.

i always figured riker must have liked playing second chair to picard because it was the enterprise

he could have had a ship so many times during his time on the enterprise that in a modern setting his career would have been over if he didn't accept captaincy

On white base the xo was a young glider enthusiast

She argued with thE captain too

In front of the crew?

Yeah but that was the danger hook of the "Sarek is broadcasting anger" plot, the idea that it could turn even the Enterprise crew into experiencing an uncontrollably violent rage without warning. Before that scene we saw Wesley and Geordi get into a shouting match (and Wesley got in a p. good burn on Geordi in the process), Wesley getting slapped by his mother, followed by Troi saying she was hearing of similar reports all over the ship, culminating in a massive riot in Ten-Forward.

That scene isn't normal, that's Riker and Picard feeling the effects themselves.

starku wrote:On white base the xo was a young glider enthusiast

She argued with thE captain too

she also married him because Roy Focker died a few days earlier

Stofsk wrote:i always figured riker must have liked playing second chair to picard because it was the enterprise

He actually basically says that in Arsenal of Freedom, he had a chance to pick up command before coming to the Enterprise but decided to play on the brand new ship instead.

timmy wrote:In front of the crew?

well white base is a pegasus

so what do you think :V

to be fair Bright Noah was only a 19 year old lieutenant that got pressed into being captain

dudes at that age argue with women all the time

Stofsk wrote:i always figured riker must have liked playing second chair to picard because it was the enterprise

he could have had a ship so many times during his time on the enterprise that in a modern setting his career would have been over if he didn't accept captaincy

He even did get to command the Enterprise for awhile in Best of Both Worlds.

He was also apparently promoted to the rank of Captain (not just position) because he was wearing four pips.

But then when they got Picard back Starfleet apparently demoted him back to Commander so he could keep being First Officer.

Now granted Riker probably didn't object (IIRC one of the B-plots in BOBW is that Riker wanted to stay on the E-D) but still. He went down in actual rank.

Well, just more proof that Starfleet is not like the US Navy, right guys?

RogueIce wrote:But then when they got Picard back Starfleet apparently demoted him back to Commander so he could keep being First Officer.

Now granted Riker probably didn't object (IIRC one of the B-plots in BOBW is that Riker wanted to stay on the E-D) but still. He went down in actual rank.

Is it possible that his promotion was some sort of unofficial field promotion, like half the cast of Voyager?

I base this on my total lack of military knowledge.

Might have been a brevet promotion, to be confirmed later. Would be more in keeping with SFs RN styling in TOS.

That's probably the most sensible interpretation.

IIRC Admiral Hanson specifies that it is a field promotion precisely because Picard is presumed lost.

Still they probably should have let the guy keep the fourth pip. What with saving Earth and all.

The decision was obviously driven by real-life production concerns (nobody wants to write off the best actor and the star of the show), but I wonder if they couldn't have found some creative way to keep Riker a full captain and keep him and Picard on the Enterprise at the same time.