TV: The All - Encompassing Star Trek Thread. Debate Long + Prosper

[The Nemesis]

Threshold. It's always going to be threshold.
these are the Voyages wasn't bad. it was insulting as hell, but it wasn't bad.

Absolutely this. Spock's Brain was a product of the hot garbage TOS season 3 because they had gutted the crew (in particular, both Gene Coon and DC Fontana were gone, replaced by amateur writers with no Trek experience and a script supervisor that had no idea what he was doing. There's a bit on the Star Trek wiki that notes that the new script supervisor literally walked onto the Transporter Room set one day early on in the season and said "what's this thing supposed to do again?" He's also the guy that wrote the completely awful series finale, "Turnabout Intruder". S3 producer Fred Frieberger was also had no idea about Star Trek, but he worked cheap)

These Are the Voyages was mostly a gigantic slap in the face to the years of Enterprise because it was all like "We know you don't love this show like you loved TNG, so here's Riker and Troi to make it aaaaaalllll better." The concept of the episode itself without the stupid holodeck crap was a fitting way to end the series, Trip's stupid and pointless "artificial drama" death aside. If Spock's Brain wasn't trying hard enough to be likeable to Trek fans, this was trying too hard.

Threshold was written by people that should've known better. Directed by people who should've known better. It doesn't have the excuse of ignorance like Spock's Brain. It doesn't have the excuse of misplaced over-caring. It's just an awful episode by people who should've been able to avoid that level of awfulness in their sleep.

 

[Blender]

Okay, which is worse:

TOS's Spock's Brain
Voyager's Threshold, or
Enterprise's These are the Voyages...

Nothing is worse than Threshold, nothing. The guy who wrote the episode said this about it:

Brannon Braga said, "It's a terrible episode. People are very unforgiving about that episode. I've written well over a hundred episodes of Star Trek, yet it seems to be the only episode anyone brings up, you know? 'Brannon Braga, who wrote 'Threshold'!' Out of a hundred and some episodes, you're gonna have some stinkers! Unfortunately, that was a royal, steaming stinker."

 

[Blender]

There was quite a vocal contingent of fans back then that disliked DS9 immensely because they viewed it as counter to Roddenberry's ideals.

Evidently Berman and Braga felt the same way too, because they basically disowned the series after the second season (and that was when things really started to get good).

Back to present day: people dislike nuTrek for a number of a well-justified reasons, but I personally don't accept "the existence of conflict amongst characters" as one of those reasons, for the same reason that I didn't accept it as a justification for disliking DS9.

I always thought the opposition to DS9 had more to do with the dark tone of the show, rather than any interpersonal conflicts the show may have had. Also, no one has once said the characters can't have conflicts, not once. People in Star Trek are supposed to have moved past being petty and shitty to each other though, which Discovery for example is full of. I don't think the Abrams movies suffered from this as badly, but they had a different issue where many of the characters acted childish and unprofessionally. In every Star Trek series you had that level of underlying respect among the characters, even if they were arguing about something.

 

[Cloned]

I always thought the opposition to DS9 had more to do with the dark tone of the show, rather than any interpersonal conflicts the show may have had. Also, no one has once said the characters can't have conflicts, not once. People in Star Trek are supposed to have moved past being petty and ****ty to each other though, which Discovery for example is full of. I don't think the Abrams movies suffered from this as badly, but they had a different issue where many of the characters acted childish and unprofessionally. In every Star Trek series you had that level of underlying respect among the characters, even if they were arguing about something.

The conflict contributed to the dark tone of the show.

I don't mean anyone on this board necessarily. I mean in general. I remember when DS9 was in first-run, a lot of Trek message boards had some pretty vocal fans who were Roddenberry-idealists and didn't believe in the underlying themes of the show.

As for examples in nuTrek... I think some people didn't like the conflict between Spock and Kirk in the Trek 2009, or Admiral Marcus' in STID.

I'm not going to get into another Discovery debate here, but suffice to say I think some people have forgotten that being petty and shitty is still part of humanity, even in the 23rd century and beyond. There's lots of evidence in canon:

Kirk and Decker in TMP
Kirk and most of his Academy classmates in the episode "Court Martial"
A lot of The Undiscovered Country
"Redemption" in TNG, Data's first officer on the Sutherland
Riker's attitude towards Jellico
Captain Maxwell
Vice-Admiral Layton
(I'm not going to include Janeway's manic swings in mood )

I could go on. Obviously Discovery plays on this more than other Trek shows have in the past, but I don't think it's a case of introducing a concept that's completely anachronistic to the fictional culture. It's more a dramatic decision to highlight the flaws of humanity to show how we can become better.

 

[Daisy Jane]

you forgot Admiral Nacheyov . she was such a cow LOL

 

[Osprey]

I'm not going to get into another Discovery debate here, but suffice to say I think some people have forgotten that being petty and ****ty is still part of humanity, even in the 23rd century and beyond. There's lots of evidence in canon:

Kirk and Decker in TMP
Kirk and most of his Academy classmates in the episode "Court Martial"
A lot of The Undiscovered Country
"Redemption" in TNG, Data's first officer on the Sutherland
Riker's attitude towards Jellico
Captain Maxwell
Vice-Admiral Layton
(I'm not going to include Janeway's manic swings in mood )

I could go on. Obviously Discovery plays on this more than other Trek shows have in the past, but I don't think it's a case of introducing a concept that's completely anachronistic to the fictional culture.

I wouldn't call any of those examples of pettiness. Exactly the opposite, they're examples of how, in the future, conflict is handled professionally and maturely (at least by those representing the ideals of Starfleet). On top of that, they're all conflicts between the cast regulars and outsiders. Conflict in Trek is rarely seen within the crew, and, even when it is, it's handled professionally and maturely and gets resolved by the end of the episode or movie. Crew members don't act petty and bitterly towards each other, especially across several episodes. That is mostly a concept introduced by Discovery, and that and several others (such as individualism and disrespecting orders) stand out as not being very Trek-like. Regardless of all of that, though, the fact that some examples of bad behavior can be pointed to in nearly 700 episodes of Star Trek doesn't excuse a new series seeming to make bad behavior more common than good behavior.

It's more a dramatic decision to highlight the flaws of humanity to show how we can become better.

It's highlighting the flaws of humanity, but it's not showing how we can become better. It's suggesting that, hundreds of years from now, people are no different towards each other than they are now and that it might be hopeless to think that we can improve and avoid it. If you want to show someone how he can become better, you show him an ideal to aspire to, so that he can compare and adapt his behavior to it. Without a good example to guide you, you won't realize what's possible, how much you fall short and where. Trek is supposed to be that good example. That doesn't mean that, over the next hundreds of years, we'll learn to avoid conflict and erase the flaws of humanity, but that we'll respond to them in a better manner (more professionally and maturely, not giving into primal impulses and treating others decently).

 

[Daisy Jane]

I wonder who was more Harry Kim.
La Forge.
or Harry Kim?

 

[The Nemesis]

I wonder who was more Harry Kim.
La Forge.
or Harry Kim?

Harry.

At least LaForge got a promotion and a senior officer posting within his 7 years on the ship. Harry couldn't even get past ensign. Also in spite of being a total creeper sometimes, at least LaForge's list of potential girlfriends didn't include a terrorist, a cyberstalker, a dead woman, the wrong twin, a borg drone with no interest in him, and an alien engineer with whom he starts a gigantic diplomatic incident.

 

[Daisy Jane]

Harry.

At least LaForge got a promotion and a senior officer posting within his 7 years on the ship. Harry couldn't even get past ensign. Also in spite of being a total creeper sometimes, at least LaForge's list of potential girlfriends didn't include a terrorist, a cyberstalker, a dead woman, the wrong twin, a borg drone with no interest in him, and an alien engineer with whom he starts a gigantic diplomatic incident.

true. La Forge only fell in love with a hologram, a married woman, a murdered woman/murder suspect...and someone else. i can't remember. Harry wins due to the glow-sex alien.

 

[The Nemesis]

true. La Forge only fell in love with a hologram, a married woman, a murdered woman/murder suspect...and someone else. i can't remember. Harry wins due to the glow-sex alien.

There was the normal-seeming crew member he had interest in in that episode with the evolving, glowy "John Doe" alien guy. I don't think it went anywhere.

Also if we want to count alternate timelines and possible futures, there was also that episode of Voyager where we follow Kes' life backwards through time and Harry ends up marrying his best friend's daughter who's less than 5 years old, which is at least 4 different flavors of wrong.

 

[Blender]

I wouldn't call any of those examples of pettiness. Exactly the opposite, they're examples of how, in the future, conflict is handled professionally and maturely (at least by those representing the ideals of Starfleet). On top of that, they're all conflicts between the cast regulars and outsiders. Conflict in Trek is rarely seen within the crew, and, even when it is, it's handled professionally and maturely and gets resolved by the end of the episode or movie. Crew members don't act petty and bitterly towards each other, especially across several episodes. That is mostly a concept introduced by Discovery, and that and several others (such as individualism and disrespecting orders) stand out as not being very Trek-like. Regardless of all of that, though, the fact that some examples of bad behavior can be pointed to in nearly 700 episodes of Star Trek doesn't excuse a new series seeming to make bad behavior more common than good behavior.



It's highlighting the flaws of humanity, but it's not showing how we can become better. It's suggesting that, hundreds of years from now, people are no different towards each other than they are now and that it might be hopeless to think that we can improve and avoid it. If you want to show someone how he can become better, you show him an ideal to aspire to, so that he can compare and adapt his behavior to it. Without a good example to guide you, you won't realize what's possible, how much you fall short and where. Trek is supposed to be that good example. That doesn't mean that, over the next hundreds of years, we'll learn to avoid conflict and erase the flaws of humanity, but that we'll respond to them in a better manner (more professionally and maturely, not giving into primal impulses and treating others decently).

Agree with all of this. Couldn't have said it better myself.

I think what keeps getting ignored is the underlying respect and professionalism among the Starfleet personnel, even the ones from different ships as you were mentioning. Yes there have been a small number of exceptions to even this, but it has been the norm in Discovery.

 

[Blender]

I wonder who was more Harry Kim.
La Forge.
or Harry Kim?

Definitely Harry Kim. Although he isn't the most useless character ever since Travis Mayweather was supposedly a part of Enterprise.

 

[The Nemesis]

Definitely Harry Kim. Although he isn't the most useless character ever since Travis Mayweather was supposedly a part of Enterprise.

Come on, now. Mayweather had that one episode where he was useful because they went and dealt with his family's ship. And there was.... uhhhhh...... hmmmmmm.... That episode where his reporter ex-girlfriend ended up maybe being one of robocop's space racists?

****. Mayweather is easily the uselessness champion of Trek. Someone should get him a big fancy belt.

 

[Blender]

Come on, now. Mayweather had that one episode where he was useful because they went and dealt with his family's ship. And there was.... uhhhhh...... hmmmmmm.... That episode where his reporter ex-girlfriend ended up maybe being one of robocop's space racists?

****. Mayweather is easily the uselessness champion of Trek. Someone should get him a big fancy belt.

Hey, to be fair Maywether pressed those buttons with the best of them!

 

[The Nemesis]

Hey, to be fair Maywether pressed those buttons with the best of them!

Yeah, but his pointlessness deprived us of getting a regular non-main-cast bridge crew member to latch onto. We could've had an Enterprise version of Lt. Leslie from TOS or Lt. Ayala from Voyager.

 

[Nolan Bombgardener]

I wonder who was more Harry Kim.
La Forge.
or Harry Kim?

Why was Harry a member of the "senior staff" on Voyager? I never understood that one. He's an ensign.

 

[The Nemesis]

Why was Harry a member of the "senior staff" on Voyager? I never understood that one. He's an ensign.

Briefings needed someone to get the coffee and be patronized to for making any sort of comments

 

[Blender]

Why was Harry a member of the "senior staff" on Voyager? I never understood that one. He's an ensign.

If I had to guess, I'd say he held some sort of positional authority in the way Chief O'Brien had officers working under his command. Although they never really explain this in Voyager at all, and Kim holds the same rank and position in the finale that he did in the pilot, so it doesn't make a ton of sense for him.

 

[KirkOut]

meanwhile Tom Paris got picked up from prison camp in the first episode, got reinstated right to LT, eventually got demoted down to ensign and thrown in the clink, got repromoted to LT, all the while poor dumb is still an ensign. Or at least the version of Harry that ended the journey (the real Harry died and got replaced by out of phase Harry and nobody seemed to remember after that week)

 

[The Nemesis]

If I had to guess, I'd say he held some sort of positional authority in the way Chief O'Brien had officers working under his command. Although they never really explain this in Voyager at all, and Kim holds the same rank and position in the finale that he did in the pilot, so it doesn't make a ton of sense for him.

I guess you could argue he was the chief Operations officer, akin to Data in TNG. But why they would have an ensign in such a position is never explained beyond assuming that somehow every other Ops-trained crew member above his rank (which would have to be all of them since IIRC Voyager is supposed to be his first posting out of the academy) died in the caretaker incident.

or we can just assume that Crazy Cat Lady Janeway woke up one day and decided to make some unqualified kid a senior staff member and department head and no one had the balls to disagree with her out of fear they'd be stuffed into an airlock and jettisoned into space.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

Obrien having officers under his command made sense. While he was an NCO, he was the chief engineer with far more experience than most of the officers under his command.

 

[Blender]

Obrien having officers under his command made sense. While he was an NCO, he was the chief engineer with far more experience than most of the officers under his command.

I wasn't trying to say it fit perfectly with Kim, they just might have been going for the same thing. I agree it never worked though.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

Voyager overall had poor world building and poor writing. I dont find it surprising at all that Kim is on the uber man council.

 

[Blender]

Voyager overall had poor world building and poor writing. I dont find it surprising at all that Kim is on the uber man council.

Their world building was terrible for sure. According to the internet, all of these people on Voyager outranked Harry Kim: Lieutenant Andrews, Lieutenant Arkinson, Lieutenant Ayala, Lieutenant Walter Baxter, Lieutenant Joseph Carey, Lieutenant Pete Durst, Lieutenant Hargrove, Lieutenant Susan Nicoletti, and Lieutenant Russell. These are the ones who were either seen or mentioned and factored into the plot somehow. It doesn't include the ones in writing seen named after production staff like Commander Rick Berman, Lieutenant Commander Bob Blackman, Lieutenant Commander Dick Brownfield, Lieutenant Mandy Chamberlin, etc.[URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Arkinson'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Walter_Baxter'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Rick_Berman_(Commander)'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Bob_Blackman_(Lieutenant_Commander)'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Dick_Brownfield_(Lieutenant_Commander)'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Joseph_Carey'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Mandy_Chamberlin_(Lieutenant)'][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL]
[URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Arkinson'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Walter_Baxter'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Rick_Berman_(Commander)'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Bob_Blackman_(Lieutenant_Commander)'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Dick_Brownfield_(Lieutenant_Commander)'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Joseph_Carey'][URL='http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Mandy_Chamberlin_(Lieutenant)'][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL]
So not only is Harry Kim a member of the senior staff, he appears to be a department head over a bunch of higher ranking offices, some of who relieve him when he is off the bridge (as seen in the show). It just makes no sense.

 

[Osprey]

The "someone has to be Ensign" excuse is such a silly one. If that's the case, why not give Kim a much needed promotion and use it as an opportunity to introduce a new character as Ensign?

Regardless, I don't understand why they thought that the show needed an Ensign in the main cast in the first place. It's not like the show needed to show an accurate cross section of the entire crew, from lowly Ensign up to Captain. Like every other Trek series, it was a show that was heavily focused on the more senior officers, so it would make perfect sense for them to all be at least Lieutenants. I can't think of anyone in the regular or even semi-regular cast of TNG who was a mere Ensign. Wesley filled that role, but he had no rank and they eventually got rid of him. No one ever complained that TNG had no ensigns, since we all knew that the ship was littered with them, even if they didn't factor into episodes.