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All Things Star Trek — Page 7

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TV's Frink said:

Riker sits down.
http://i.imgur.com/p5q9BiV.gif

Tobar said:

twister111 said:

Interestingly enough I've seen all of Voyager, Deep Space Nine, and The Next Generation. Yet TOS I've yet to complete watching. I guess I feel like once I've done that. That's it. No more Star Trek series for me to watch with completely fresh eyes sort of speak.
What about Enterprise?
I simply don't like Enterprise enough to want to watch the entire thing. I'm pretty confident that I've likely seen the best of Enterprise already anyway.

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You have to at least check out the Andorian episodes. Jeffrey Combs as Shran was as memorable as his DS9 character.

The Mirror Universe two parter is also a must see.

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twister111 said:

 

TV's Frink said:

Riker sits down.
http://i.imgur.com/p5q9BiV.gif

Tobar said:

twister111 said:

Interestingly enough I've seen all of Voyager, Deep Space Nine, and The Next Generation. Yet TOS I've yet to complete watching. I guess I feel like once I've done that. That's it. No more Star Trek series for me to watch with completely fresh eyes sort of speak.
What about Enterprise?
I simply don't like Enterprise enough to want to watch the entire thing. I'm pretty confident that I've likely seen the best of Enterprise already anyway.

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/7405/cooly.gif

 

What have you seen?

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 (Edited)

Enterprise is a decent sci-fi series, it just doesn't really feel like a Star Trek series, and I think that's why it's always been the black sheep. Voyager, even if it was mediocre half the time, at least looked and played like you would expect it to. But if you like TNG and DS9, you won't necessarily like Enterprise, and I think that's the main reason it never has found an audience. It's not a bad show. But ST fans are not going to be kind to it, and non-ST fans aren't going to discover it either, so it only held that minority of ST fans who watched it, realized it wasn't really like any ST series, but liked it anyway. I can't say I'm one of them either. I wish I was, after I watch all the DS9 episodes I missed while TNG was still on, I'm out of luck as well.

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Berman and company tried to escape the brand name for a while. Star Trek wasn't even part of the show's title early on. Probably a mistake in retrospect.

There was a gap of mere months between the end of Voyager and the premiere of Enterprise. (Voyager actually shot an episode on some shiny new sets built for Enterprise.) Nemesis was also in the pipeline. Maybe there was too much Trek product at the time? It might have been better had the franchise taken a little vacation for a year or two. Disney ought to take heed as they prepare to saturate us with Star Wars.

Enterprise being on a fifth rate network that didn't even air in several key markets didn't help. (They had also lost some affiliates toward the end of Voyager's run.) And the Nielsen ratings didn't factor in how many people were downloading the show, since they couldn't see it where they lived. UPN fell apart not long after cancelling the show. Arguably, more people have seen reruns on Sci Fi than when it first aired.

That theme song didn't help much either. ;)

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SilverWook said:

Berman and company tried to escape the brand name for a while. Star Trek wasn't even part of the show's title early on. Probably a mistake in retrospect.

Dropping the "Star Trek" name from the first season always amused me. I felt like they were trying hard to make it different from the other shows. See, look, it isn't even really Star Trek! No Star Trek in the title, see? And check out this snazzy theme song? Now does that sound like Star Trek to you?

And then the very first scene you see in the pilot episode is a running Klingon. *face palm*

 

There was a gap of mere months between the end of Voyager and the premiere of Enterprise. (Voyager actually shot an episode on some shiny new sets built for Enterprise.) Nemesis was also in the pipeline. Maybe there was too much Trek product at the time? It might have been better had the franchise taken a little vacation for a year or two. Disney ought to take heed as they prepare to saturate us with Star Wars.

At the time Enterprise first started airing, I'd spent years watching TNG with my dad during its original run, never saw more than an episode or two DS9, and had stopped caring about Voyager a few seasons before it ended.

My first response to it was rolling my eyes at the prequel idea, and after seeing a few episodes, it felt like every character on the show was a knock-off of another ST character we'd already known. T'Pol and Seven dressed very similarly, were obviously both intended as eye candy, and spoke almost identically, and it was hard to see the new doctor and not think of Kneelix (from both the fish out of water aspect, and the comic relief aspect).

I was kind of enjoying the return to the general sci-fi space exploration roots during season one, but then there was that whole damn attack on earth storyline that encompassed the second and third seasons, which was an obvious reference/reflection on 9/11 and the following "war on terror".

Season four had some fun stuff in it, but that only happened because the show was cancelled and they had to hurry up and cover all the cool concepts they had planned on covering eventually. Too little, too late.

 

I feel like the death of Star Trek was due to an over saturation. Enterprise didn't have anything new to offer us, and it couldn't even figure out its own identity. I don't think we even knew exactly what we wanted from it, or even if we really wanted it at all, while it had no clue what it wanted to give us. 

Someone in the General SW section under the J. J. Wars thread posted about how Star Trek fans hated/complained about everything Star Trek, so it made sense to take it from them and turn it into a profitable watered down silly mainstream action series.

I'm still annoyed that this happened, I liked what Trek was, I enjoyed those TNG movies quite a lot actually, with the exception of the terrible Nemesis, which I still had fun watching. I didn't hate everything ST that came out, and I don't think the fans really did either, but I think we did all need a break from it. We went literally over 15 years with Star Trek on the air non-stop (TNG - ENT). I wish they could have slowed it down a bit and continued it later. Sometimes less is more. I would have liked to have seen more TNG films, or perhaps even another series taking place after Voyager a few years down the road. Instead we went from over saturation, to losing it all hook, line, and sinker. The TNG era ST universe I grew to really love is dead, sadly, and I doubt it will ever be seen again. So it goes.

 

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I'm old enough to recall when Data was considered an android Spock by some.

Actually, the "Temporal Cold War" figured into much of the first two seasons. (We never did find out the identity of "Future Guy", the mysterious figure ordering the Suliban around.) Earth wasn't attacked by the Xindi until the end of Season 2, and Season 3 was almost entirely "We gotta' save the Earth."

Over the course of Season 3 it was revealed the Xindi were misled into attacking Earth by another faction in the TCW. I enjoyed the cliffhanger nature of Season Three, and even when they got dragged back into the TCW at season's end again, with World War II being altered by evil aliens helping Germany. Everything's better with Space Nazis. ;)

It wasn't out of character for Trek to comment on real world events. TOS addressed Vietnam and race relations back in the day. Even the Klingons were once considered an analogy to the Russians. A lot of storylines on DS9 are actually more topical today than when the series originally aired. I'm not sure you could even do a character like Major Kira today.

 

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DuracellEnergizer said:

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/129/8/9/wtf2__by_duracellenergizer-d64qe1g.jpg

You're going to pay dearly for this. ;)

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SilverWook said:


Actually, the "Temporal Cold War" figured into much of the first two seasons. (We never did find out the identity of "Future Guy", the mysterious figure ordering the Suliban around.)
Brannon Braga claimed on Twitter they were going to reveal Future Guy to be ARCHER.

I'm not sure how serious to take him though.

I'm still working my way through Enterprise. I rather like it, though I wish it could have had less network influence. The theme song, the sexy decon rubdowns... Braga & Berman wanted the whole first season to be earthbound! That would have been interesting, I think.

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I still want to know what that ship was between Cochrane's and the NX-01.

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I have exiled myself from Twitter. A good thing, as apparently LEONARD NIMOY is tweeting spoilers for Into Darkness.

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Why would Mr. Nimoy do such a thing? Unless...

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Welp, I've completed my run through Enterprise and that also means I've finally completed my run through Trek. Enterprise had a bit of a rocky start. I could see what they were doing with portraying our first steps out in the greater galaxy but the pacing was a bit too slow. Season 2 just dragged. I think it would have been better spent on the temporal cold war. The Xindi threat in season 3 was a welcome break. The fourth and final season was interesting. It packed a lot of cool stuff in there but after a whole season long arc I was kind of hoping for some one offs, not the barrage of multi-parters. But being their last season they wanted to get as much in as possible.

Ultimately, having now run through it all, I can say that I'll miss the show. I think its greatest weakness aside from the snail's pace was it needed better character development. Sure there was a lot of T'Pol and Trip stuff but the rest of the cast really needed that as well. The majority of the cast seemed to just stagnate and never really develop much.

I also now have a fuller understanding of the Trek universe as a whole. It's a shame that it's now at the mercy of someone who never understood it to begin with. Hopefully someday soon it'll escape and land back on our television screens and we can ignore the last four or five years.

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Have you watched The Animated Series yet? It's essentially the fourth season of TOS in my book.

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Watching a bit of TWOK on Sci Fi today reminded me about an upcoming documentary recalling the most infamous Star Trek convention in history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wotq-0GCTJg

I read a lot about this near fiasco in the pages of Starlog back in the day.

 

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Around 1975, Star Trek became very popular in syndication, and toy makers started to release a lot of products.  Here are some of the things that I had at that time.

 

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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 (Edited)

Why is the Klingon wearing a Starfleet uniform?

Upon closer inspection, you might be expecting me to ask why the Klingon is wearing Uhura's Starfleet uniform, but I'm the last person to criticize gender non-conformity.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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SilverWook said:

Watching a bit of TWOK on Sci Fi today reminded me about an upcoming documentary recalling the most infamous Star Trek convention in history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wotq-0GCTJg

I read a lot about this near fiasco in the pages of Starlog back in the day.

 

Pfbttttttt.... what?!  When the hell did Walter Koenig go completely bald?!  He looks like Picard now!

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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I spent all day watching episodes from the original series, and now I feel weird, like I've gone a whole 24 hours without any sleep.

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Gaffer Tape said:

Pfbttttttt.... what?!  When the hell did Walter Koenig go completely bald?!  He looks like Picard now!

For a moment there I thought it was Clint Howard.

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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This is what happens when you use someone's ebay photos. ;)

The Animated Series is what really got the merchandise ball rolling in 1974. The AMT model kits were on the market while TOS was still on NBC, and the FX crew used the Enterprise kit to make the damaged USS Constellation for The Doomsday Machine.

I had nearly all the Mego stuff, except for that sweet Mission to Gamma IV playset. (Why the heck they didn't just call it Vaal, I'll never know!) Half of the Aliens subset of action figures were dead on likenesses, the other half made you wonder what someone at Mego was smoking. The company making the retro Mego Trek figures rectified that, as well as finally making Sulu and Chekov figures. I had to make Uhura and Scotty man the helm when I was 8.

Fans have it so good with the affordable prop replicas made today. Someone at Mego was really into that blue color scheme. ;)

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I really need to watch the Animated Series, I've only seen a few clips and maybe 2 episodes when I was 6 that I can't even remember now. Not a fan of the animation style, I think that was what kept me away for so long. I watched the old Spiderman series, which has a similar style, but for some reason the Star Trek style made the show seem boring to me, maybe because it's slower paced (as far as I can tell).

Hmm, guess I have more Trek on the cue than I thought.