Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

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The Ferengi were absolute shit from when they were introduced in TNG, up until DS9 fixed them. Even after DS9, several of their episodes were downright bad. But I did enjoy a couple of them.
 
The Orville’s second season starts on the 30th.

I know it’s not officially Star Trek, but I figure it’s closer than STD.
 
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UnKillFill said:
The Ferengi were absolute shit from when they were introduced in TNG, up until DS9 fixed them. Even after DS9, several of their episodes were downright bad. But I did enjoy a couple of them.
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They were originally intended as villains, but when that idea tanked, they got reworked into what DS9 turned them into, with most of TNG laying the foundations post the early seasons to do this.

Armin Shimmerman (Quark's actor) was outright disgusted with his first debut in TNG (his role before Quark, as a different Ferengi in one of the cringier episodes), his DS9 role was an attempt to take the Ferengi and do some damn good acting with the race.

He still had some shit DS9 episodes, but for the most part he succeeded.
 
PreferredPenne said:
Today I found out this exists.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eHrCrh9FNUI
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Ouch, discount Gary Coleman could only spring for Dorn. You'd think they'd at least shell out for Frakes or better yet Burton (because engineering is called at one point) voice over.

Aaand... of course it watches like it was written by someone who didn't even know what a "Star Trek" was. That's bad characterization even for early seasons Worf.
 
So it's not enough they're being sued for ripping off one video game, now Discovery is ripping off mass effect?
 
Despite Wrath of Khan being one of my favorite movies as a kid, I never got fully immersed into Star Trek, but thanks to Netflix, I am in the process of marathoning TOS, and once I'm done with that, I've got the animated series, Next Gen, and DS9 on my docket. I've seen large chunks of episodes from Next Gen and TOS before, but now I'll be able to say I've seen all of those two at least.

I am almost all the way through TOS and I'm really liking it. I can't get enough of Shatner's scenery chewing, lol.

Stab You in the Back said:
Why does everybody play Spock so damn angry? I miss Leonard Nimoy.
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Nimoy played it so naturally and so flawlessly that anyone else that follows is a disappointment. But yeah, it is very easy to take that character and make him feel like an asshole. But Nimoy managed to play it in a way that made his Vulcan nature seem entirely natural.
 
RumblyTumbly said:
Despite Wrath of Khan being one of my favorite movies as a kid, I never got fully immersed into Star Trek, but thanks to Netflix, I am in the process of marathoning TOS, and once I'm done with that, I've got the animated series, Next Gen, and DS9 on my docket. I've seen large chunks of episodes from Next Gen and TOS before, but now I'll be able to say I've seen all of those two at least.

I am almost all the way through TOS and I'm really liking it. I can't get enough of Shatner's scenery chewing, lol.



Nimoy played it so naturally and so flawlessly that anyone else that follows is a disappointment. But yeah, it is very easy to take that character and make him feel like an asshole. But Nimoy managed to play it in a way that made his Vulcan nature seem entirely natural.
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Early on in his acting role, Nimoy admitted he wasn't entirely sure how to play Spock, you can see some goofs in early episodes where he shows more emotion than later appearances, but he eventually realized playing the stoic who occasionally has trouble suppressing his emotions worked well, all the more so because he was overcompensating for personal and cultural reasons.
 
I watched one of my favorite TNG (2-part) episodes tonight. "Chain of Command." I have some thoughts...

-Admiral Nechayev pisses me off. I can't decide whether to call her Admiral Bitchayev, or Admiral Betrayev, but both are accurate. Fuck that bitch.

-I have heard some cucks try to defend Captain Jellico before, but he's just terrible. The dude clearly cares more about waving his dick around in front of a crew that (for all he knows) he wont even be leading for that long, than actually being an effective leader. He makes arbitrary changes to a crew used to doing things one way for 5+ years, and is blatantly shown to not even make the minimal effort of giving the crew the resources to make those changes happen. Literally only one of those changes (Making Troy wearing an actual uniform) was an actual good order. Fuck that douche.

-This is one of the *best* looks into Cardassians Trek ever gave us, even compared to DS9. (Which I generally prefer to TNG) The scene between Gul Madred and his daughter, in front of a tortured Picard was particularly great.

-Both Picard and Madred were wrong, there weren't 4 lights, there weren't even 5 lights, there were like a couple hundred mini leds behind the 4 main ones.

-I like the scene where Jellico and Riker tell each other how much they both suck... Both were right. Riker was a *tad* smug, but frankly he deserved it at that point due to how shitty Jellico had been before that.

-Finally, I don't think Riker being "tha best pilot evar" had been established before this episode. The only thing even *hinting* at this that I remember is him "manually docking" the two halves of the Enterprise in the pilot episode, which was directly stated by Picard to be a "routine maneuver". (Though admittedly, they had the transporter chief at the con at the time, so that's probably more impressive than it would usually be.)
 
UnKillFill said:
I watched one of my favorite TNG (2-part) episodes tonight. "Chain of Command." I have some thoughts...

-Admiral Nechayev pisses me off. I can't decide whether to call her Admiral Bitchayev, or Admiral Betrayev, but both are accurate. Fuck that bitch.

-I have heard some cucks try to defend Captain Jellico before, but he's just terrible. The dude clearly cares more about waving his dick around in front of a crew that (for all he knows) he wont even be leading for that long, than actually being an effective leader. He makes arbitrary changes to a crew used to doing things one way for 5+ years, and is blatantly shown to not even make the minimal effort of giving the crew the resources to make those changes happen. Literally only one of those changes (Making Troy wearing an actual uniform) was an actual good order. Fuck that douche.

-This is one of the *best* looks into Cardassians Trek ever gave us, even compared to DS9. (Which I generally prefer to TNG) The scene between Gul Madred and his daughter, in front of a tortured Picard was particularly great.

-Both Picard and Madred were wrong, there weren't 4 lights, there weren't even 5 lights, there were like a couple hundred mini leds behind the 4 main ones.

-I like the scene where Jellico and Riker tell each other how much they both suck... Both were right. Riker was a *tad* smug, but frankly he deserved it at that point due to how shitty Jellico had been before that.

-Finally, I don't think Riker being "tha best pilot evar" had been established before this episode. The only thing even *hinting* at this that I remember is him "manually docking" the two halves of the Enterprise in the pilot episode, which was directly stated by Picard to be a "routine maneuver". (Though admittedly, they had the transporter chief at the con at the time, so that's probably more impressive than it would usually be.)
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Nechayev is supposed to be polarizing and morally questionable, it's established she's basically the Federation "gray-ops" leader, especially in the Expanded Universe. While pro-Federation, she's quite happy to do some callous shit in support of the Federation even if means acting like it's scummiest member in the process, to the point she effectively is this at times for real.

Jellico is an asshole, no question, and even most EU authors go the route he's less effective than he seems and mostly keeps his job because everyone else is worse than him whenever he's around his fellow admirals, all of which tend to fight for the "which of us can be the most useless rear echelon motherfucker" crown.

As for the lights, as a 1984 reference, it less what the ACTUAL number was supposed to be and more what they were supposed to be seen as, reality be damned or not.

As for the portrayal of the Cardassians, agreed, it shows best how their society has grown so used to callous brutality and how they are basically are like the worst aspects of Soviet Russia because life sucked so hard order, even of the most brutal sort, was seen as tolerable and even humane to the alternative. Given what was established for their backstory, that episode really added to the tapestry that is their lore.

As for Riker, yes and no. Yes, he was a smug asshole, and yes, he does get shilled pretty hard in-universe, despite not being THAT impressive (which is beautifully deconstructed much later on, see "The Pegasus" for a brilliant deconstruction of his supposed ace qualities), but Jellico did deserve a callout.
 
GethN7 said:
Nechayev is supposed to be polarizing and morally questionable, it's established she's basically the Federation "gray-ops" leader, especially in the Expanded Universe. While pro-Federation, she's quite happy to do some callous shit in support of the Federation even if means acting like it's scummiest member in the process, to the point she effectively is this at times for real.

Jellico is an asshole, no question, and even most EU authors go the route he's less effective than he seems and mostly keeps his job because everyone else is worse than him whenever he's around his fellow admirals, all of which tend to fight for the "which of us can be the most useless rear echelon motherfucker" crown.

As for the lights, as a 1984 reference, it less what the ACTUAL number was supposed to be and more what they were supposed to be seen as, reality be damned or not.

As for the portrayal of the Cardassians, agreed, it shows best how their society has grown so used to callous brutality and how they are basically are like the worst aspects of Soviet Russia because life sucked so hard order, even of the most brutal sort, was seen as tolerable and even humane to the alternative. Given what was established for their backstory, that episode really added to the tapestry that is their lore.

As for Riker, yes and no. Yes, he was a smug asshole, and yes, he does get shilled pretty hard in-universe, despite not being THAT impressive (which is beautifully deconstructed much later on, see "The Pegasus" for a brilliant deconstruction of his supposed ace qualities), but Jellico did deserve a callout.
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Lol.. were you trying to "counter" my random thoughts about one episode in a vacuum? Can I counter those counters?


GethN7 said:
Nechayev is supposed to be polarizing and morally questionable, it's established she's basically the Federation "gray-ops" leader, especially in the Expanded Universe. While pro-Federation, she's quite happy to do some callous shit in support of the Federation even if means acting like it's scummiest member in the process, to the point she effectively is this at times for real.
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In Trek, anything "expanded universe" is, by default, non canon. Every single time that Nechayev appears on screen (and she's actually rather prolific for a Starfleet Admiral as I recall) She acts like a total bitch, and no real reason is ever given, this episode is no exception.

GethN7 said:
Jellico is an asshole, no question, and even most EU authors go the route he's less effective than he seems and mostly keeps his job because everyone else is worse than him whenever he's around his fellow admirals, all of which tend to fight for the "which of us can be the most useless rear echelon motherfucker" crown.
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Again, EU isn't canon. But it's funny... I didn't even mention this, But I was actually ok with a lot of Jellico's early shit. He was ok having a different commanding style from Picard, he was just a dick for asking for the crew to completely change everything on his whim in a matter of hours just because he said so, it was particularly dickish for him to give engineering a strict time table for an arbitrary change that was technically feasible with a full staff, and then switching a large chunk of them to security.

GethN7 said:
As for the lights, as a 1984 reference, it less what the ACTUAL number was supposed to be and more what they were supposed to be seen as, reality be damned or not.
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This was a joke man, come on now.

GethN7 said:
As for the portrayal of the Cardassians, agreed, it shows best how their society has grown so used to callous brutality and how they are basically are like the worst aspects of Soviet Russia because life sucked so hard order, even of the most brutal sort, was seen as tolerable and even humane to the alternative. Given what was established for their backstory, that episode really added to the tapestry that is their lore.
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Ok we agree on at least one thing, lol.

GethN7 said:
As for Riker, yes and no. Yes, he was a smug asshole, and yes, he does get shilled pretty hard in-universe, despite not being THAT impressive (which is beautifully deconstructed much later on, see "The Pegasus" for a brilliant deconstruction of his supposed ace qualities), but Jellico did deserve a callout.
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Again, are we disagreeing here? I still never saw any proof of Riker being the amazing pilot everyone said he was here before or even after now.
 
UnKillFill said:
Again, are we disagreeing here? I still never saw any proof of Riker being the amazing pilot everyone said he was here before or even after now.
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Not really disagreeing, you made fine points.

And yes, I know, EU is non-canon, but the EU material tends to agree with your points or at least fills in blanks the shows and movies left in a manner that is generally sensible.

For instance, Jellico hated EU captain Mackenzie Calhoun's guts, which is funny, because he was initially a fanboy of Calhoun who saved his life once, but after some bad shit happened when Jellico pulled strings and got him a cushy XO position that ended in tragedy later, Calhoun gave Jellico a piece of his mind for it, and rather than accept Calhoun was understandably distraught (he had to watch his captain commit suicide after going crazy and several innocent people Calhoun cared for died in the same incident), Jellico was a total fucking cunt about it and declared Calhoun an archenemy from that day forward. Ironically, Nechayev became Calhoun's sponsor later and defended him from Jellico's attempts to drip poison on Calhoun's service record, which is further ironic, as her and Jellico got along nicely in the books, though she's still portrayed as a total bitch who sends Calhoun to do shit most other ST captains would have the good sense to leave the hell alone.

tl;dr: Forgive my autism on this topic, I was trying to support most of your points since I used to be quite the ST lore sperg at one point.
 
GethN7 said:
Not really disagreeing, you made fine points.
For instance, Jellico hated EU captain Mackenzie Calhoun's guts, which is funny, because he was initially a fanboy of Calhoun who saved his life once, but after some bad shit happened when Jellico pulled strings and got him a cushy XO position that ended in tragedy later, Calhoun gave Jellico a piece of his mind for it, and rather than accept Calhoun was understandably distraught (he had to watch his captain commit suicide after going crazy and several innocent people Calhoun cared for died in the same incident), Jellico was a total fucking cunt about it and declared Calhoun an archenemy from that day forward. Ironically, Nechayev became Calhoun's sponsor later and defended him from Jellico's attempts to drip poison on Calhoun's service record, which is further ironic, as her and Jellico got along nicely in the books, though she's still portrayed as a total bitch who sends Calhoun to do shit most other ST captains would have the good sense to leave the hell alone.

tl;dr: Forgive my autism on this topic, I was trying to support most of your points since I used to be quite the ST lore sperg at one point.
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I do not think you're autistic at all (At least, no more than I am about Trek, lol) But is it weird that I don't at all like that EU point? (Which I hadn't heard before, lol) Ironically, I used to dislike Jellico a *LOT* more than I do now. As I said, he was a fucking terrible leader for the Enterprise in the two episodes he showed up for especially... *Specifically* because of how quickly he expected the entire crew to bend to his whim, but... I don't think he would have been that bad a captain if he had given his crew some time to acclimate to him, and I even think he was probably a fine captain on his *real* ship (The Cairo). Actually, that's probably a more controversial trek opinion than yours, lol.
 
My read on Jellico was that he thought that there was a serious possibility that they'd be fighting the first battle in a Federation/Cardassian war and made all those arbitrary changes to shake up the crew. Specifically, he wanted to shake the crew out of their peacetime stupor and weed out stubborn Picard-loyalists like Riker and weenies who'd fall apart under the pressure of a war scenario like Barclay. That said, Jellico is probably a very fine captain under normal circumstances.

As for Riker being an ace pilot, I just assumed that was the senior staff trying to help their boy get his job back.

edit: If you're going to criticize Chain of Command for anything, how about the Federation sending two geriatrics and a Klingon (the least stealthy race in the galaxy) on a black ops mission together.
 
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