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Star Trek: The Next Generation (STTNG)

Started by MV/Liberace!, January 07, 2014, 11:16:56 AM

MV/Liberace!

Just finished watching a two part episode from season 7, Gambit.  Captain Picard gets kidnapped by a crew of space roaming mercenaries who go around stealing valuable artifacts.  They're pursuing these Vulcan artifacts that, when assembled together, form some sort of extremely powerful weapon.

Here's what the weapon turns out to look like:



Basically, if someone points it at you and you have negativity in your heart, it will kill you.  That's right... an entire two part episode where the payoff at the end amounts to a gaudy garage door opener.  Episode wise, i think this story line was one of the biggest failures of the entire series.  Just laaaaame city.  Shitsville.

Edit:  Another really awful episode from season 7 is the one where Data turns into some sort of ancient sun god.  WOW is that one hard to watch.

STTNG is the only series from the whole Star Trek franchise that I care about.  The Original Series, DS9, Voyager, bleh... none of it ever grabbed me.

area51drone

How long has it been since you watched DS9 or Voyager?   I felt the exact same way you did as a teenager, and then a couple years ago I forced myself to watch DS9, and although I still can't stand Sisko (or however his name is spelled), Quark and Odo and some of the other characters are very very good and the show is a lot better than I remembered.    Same with Voyager.   So if it's been a while for you take another shot at it.    The one I still can't get into is the TOS, even though I really like the TOS motion pictures.   If I had to rate the TV shows, it would be STTNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, TOS.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: area51drone on January 07, 2014, 11:25:55 AM
How long has it been since you watched DS9 or Voyager?   I felt the exact same way you did as a teenager, and then a couple years ago I forced myself to watch DS9, and although I still can't stand Sisko (or however his name is spelled), Quark and Odo and some of the other characters are very very good and the show is a lot better than I remembered.    Same with Voyager.   So if it's been a while for you take another shot at it.    The one I still can't get into is the TOS, even though I really like the TOS motion pictures.   If I had to rate the TV shows, it would be STTNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, TOS.

i tried to plow through a few ds9 episodes a couple years ago, but i just lost interest.

i think sttng actually improved quite a lot after roddenberry died and berman took over.  that's not a commonly accepted position, but i think the "cheese" factor went away after roddenberry was gone.  star trek was always pretty cheesy in certain ways, and in retrospect, it seems that was mostly just the roddenberry influence.

Saw one recently where the ending is Riker repeatedly shooting an alien woman he was romantically involved with; torturously raising the setting until he kills her, while she tries to walk the length of a small room to kill someone.

She had no weapons but could kill a specific person with only a touch (some kind of DNA specific thing) but iirc, that person wasn't Riker or any of the several other people between her and the target.

And even if she could kill anyone in the room with just physical contact, why not bash her over the head with something inanimate? Incapacitate her somehow... No - she's resistant to phaser stuns so lets shoot her over and over again at higher and higher kill settings and deny her life saving medical assistance while she dies in agony.

A cruel ending that just didn't seem very Riker, or Federation, or Star Trek.

area51drone

I have forgotten these long lost gems of episodic greatness.  I'm going to have to go on another STTNG binge. 

Of course the original series was a little cheesy, it was 1966.

NG just had too many really boring eisodes to wade through, finally gave up on that and never watched the others. 

area51drone

You guys are killing me.  Someone please back me up on DS9 here.

Quote from: MV on January 07, 2014, 11:43:36 AM
i tried to plow through a few ds9 episodes a couple years ago, but i just lost interest.

i think sttng actually improved quite a lot after roddenberry died and berman took over.  that's not a commonly accepted position, but i think the "cheese" factor went away after roddenberry was gone.  star trek was always pretty cheesy in certain ways, and in retrospect, it seems that was mostly just the roddenberry influence.

I read somewhere Roddenberry wanted all the characters to be more or less the same, evenly balanced, rational people, likeable, flawless but boring, not the mixture of archetypes and more flawed characters that you would get in later series. 

It probably got a lot better after Roddenberry's influence slackened and Ron Moore became heavily involved in developing the storylines and characters, Ron having much success later with the "rebooted" Battlestar Galactica and a far less likeable crew. 

I never make it very far with DS9, when Sysko yells "Help MEEEEE!" in the pilot, I start to lose interest.

area51drone

I feel you, but you train your brain to ignore him.  Trust me, it's worth it.

Quote from: area51drone on January 07, 2014, 12:13:25 PM
I feel you, but you train your brain to ignore him.  Trust me, it's worth it.

or just go and watch Babylon 5 instead.

area51drone

Quote from: Threaten the Hoover on January 07, 2014, 12:16:40 PM
or just go and watch Babylon 5 instead.

That is one sci fi show I did not watch.   The new BSG series was pretty good.

Juan

Quote from: MV on January 07, 2014, 11:16:56 AM
Basically, if someone points it at you and you have negativity in your heart, it will kill you.
What a bunch of New Age 80s crap.


georgesucks

Quote from: MV on January 07, 2014, 12:48:28 PM
it's douche chill inspiring.
Star Trek in general is better then Star Wars.


b_dubb

Quote from: aldousburbank on January 07, 2014, 01:23:20 PM

how did Sigourney manage to squeeze her boobs into that costume?  science truly is amazing

*** sigh ***

jazmunda

Season 7 of TNG was extremely weak.

Season 3 or 4 onwards of DS9 was very good.

Voyager was bleh despite the fact that I watched the whole series.

Enterprise started getting good during it's final season and probably should have been given another season.

Anyone here watch Babylon 5? I thought that was a great series.

area51drone

Quote from: jazmunda on January 07, 2014, 02:34:14 PM
Voyager was bleh despite the fact that I watched the whole series.

Janeway = Hottest ST character ever.

area51drone

Quote from: jazmunda on January 07, 2014, 02:34:14 PM
Enterprise started getting good during it's final season and probably should have been given another season.

Anyone here watch Babylon 5? I thought that was a great series.

I disagree on Enterprise.  I really thought it was heading downhill once they started with the Nazi stuff.   And now with two recommendations, I'm going to have to start Babylon 5..


nbirnes

Quote from: area51drone on January 07, 2014, 02:35:41 PM
Janeway = Hottest ST character ever.

Have you seen Kate on Orange is the New Black? If you haven't, I won't spoil it for you, but oh my. What an incredible actress. Some guys can't take that show, but real guys can.  8)

area51drone

Quote from: nbirnes on January 07, 2014, 02:44:49 PM
Have you seen Kate on Orange is the New Black? If you haven't, I won't spoil it for you, but oh my. What an incredible actress. Some guys can't take that show, but real guys can.  8)

Have not, will have to check it out.   Looking at the pics, wow, what a difference.  Maybe I'll just keep her as Janeway in my head and stay away from Orange.

Quote from: aldousburbank on January 07, 2014, 01:23:20 PM


By Grabthar's hammer, you shall be revenged!

This is the best of all send ups of the cheese factor in Star Trek, and I say that as a fan of both.

I will buck the prevailing sentiment and out myself as a fan of both TOS and TNG. Not to say every episode was a gem - most were definitely not, but some stayed with me for years: Tasha Yar's meaningless death, Luxwana Troi's affair with a man who had to kill himself as a cultural imperative, the original introduction of the Borg, Data's daughter, and the doctor's romance with an alien implant who changed genders. These were all thought provoking, others were sheer dreck. And they never used Riker adequately.

Roddenberry, to be fair, got a lot of flack from the network execs over the use of a woman as Number 2 in his far superior original pilot, and then again when he created Spock and allowed him to be an integral part of the mission. Science fiction was, by then, light years ahead of the series, but this was tv in the 60's after the Golden Age of Sterling, etc. The City on the Edge of Forever, The Cage, Who Mourns for Apollo?, Where No Man Has Gone Before, I, Mudd, Metamorphosis, and The Trouble With Tribbles are all memorable, but they're nuggets interwoven with some very lackluster plots. The music, though, still sends shivers down my spine.

jazmunda

Quote from: area51drone on January 07, 2014, 02:35:41 PM
Janeway = Hottest ST character ever.

Sure if you have a thing for older chicks. Give me a half borg with big boobs any day of the week.

area51drone

Quote from: jazmunda on January 07, 2014, 03:10:13 PM
Sure if you have a thing for older chicks. Give me a half borg with big boobs any day of the week.

I know most guys would say that, but she never really did anything for me.   Janeway has (ahem had) a classic beauty about her that I find appealing, plus I like strong decisive women.   I always liked the challenge of finding women like that who had a stick up their ass and would act as if they were repulsed by my behavior, but ultimately I would turn them my way. 

jazmunda

Quote from: area51drone on January 07, 2014, 03:18:08 PM
I know most guys would say that, but she never really did anything for me.   Janeway has (ahem had) a classic beauty about her that I find appealing, plus I like strong decisive women.   I always liked the challenge of finding women like that who had a stick up their ass and would act as if they were repulsed by my behavior, but ultimately turn them my way.

It's entirely possible she was playing for the other team and I don't mean that she was a Maquis spy.


nbirnes

Quote from: area51drone on January 07, 2014, 02:55:40 PM
Have not, will have to check it out.   Looking at the pics, wow, what a difference.  Maybe I'll just keep her as Janeway in my head and stay away from Orange.

You will just love her. At first -- total shock. I didn't know it was Kate. Took me a couple of shows to stop flinching, but it's one of the best series I've ever seen. It's not nihilism.

area51drone

Quote from: jazmunda on January 07, 2014, 03:21:39 PM
It's entirely possible she was playing for the other team and I don't mean that she was a Maquis spy.

You're probably right.  I met her once though and told her to her face I thought she was the hottest woman on TV and she blushed and touched my arm, so maybe I could have turned her around.

area51drone

Quote from: nbirnes on January 07, 2014, 03:26:29 PM
You will just love her. At first -- total shock. I didn't know it was Kate. Took me a couple of shows to stop flinching, but it's one of the best series I've ever seen. It's not nihilism.

Okay, I'll give it a shot.  For you and Bill.  BTW, I'm going to go looking for your show episodes right now... jonesing for some good talk.  I hope it's as good as the Bateman interview.


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