The Star Trek Thread

[Squinty]

As background I've had on the episode of TNG where Data was considering dating someone and other people were advising him to think about it carefully, consider her feelings, etc, but when Data went to see Riker he was just basically "strawberry float yeah, she's hot dude!"

I watched this one the other day. The last scene broke my strawberry floating heart.

I'm sure Riker was literally around the corner ready to comfort her.

Yeah, but Data sitting in the darkness

[Jenuall]

My TNG re-watch has been rumbling along nicely through Season 4 now, they really have hit their stride by this point - even the weaker episodes are still solid and there are some real high points as well.

Family - A lovely character insight episode, the kind of thing that shows just don't seem to be capable of these days which is a real shame. The Picard story is brilliantly done and is definitely the highlight of the episode but the Worf and Wesley/Beverly plot-lines are nicely done as well. 9/10

Brothers - Brent Spiner plays triple duty as Data, Lore and Dr Soong in this great episode exploring some more android background. The opening with kid getting sick and needing urgent treatment and Data commandeering the ship was nicely done but the episode lags a bit in the middle third Getting Lore back in play was a bit heavy handed "oh the homing signal for Data must have reached you as well!" but it does add some more tension to the story so it's worth it. 8/10

Suddenly Human - Not the greatest episode and thematically they have probably stuck with "family" centered episodes for too many in a row now which doesn't help. Jono feels like he's trying to take Wesley's "most annoying young man" trophy during his time on board the Enterprise but at least we get to hear Picard tell him to shut the strawberry float up a few times as a result which is always a win. The way the crew handle the situation is somewhat at odds with the "humanitarian" nature of Star Fleet and the show in general at times. They seem to go out of their way to force Jono to relive the trauma of losing his parents and being "stolen" by the Talarian's in a way that doesn't really sit right. The kids emotional and physical welfare should be their priority but it feels like they just want to win one person back for the federation rather than explore what is actually best for the people involved. 6/10

Remember Me - I always remember hating this episode but really quite enjoyed it this time. Beverly Crusher gets trapped in a collapsing warp bubble because her son is a complete bellsprout who never gets adequately reprimanded for the trouble he causes! McFadden does a fine job of her side of the story, watching the Dr get increasingly frustrated that nobody understands what is going on and thinks she's just losing her marbles was enjoyable. I think the main reason I used to hate this is still the main problem I have with it: Magic Wesley. The Traveller was an alien who was supposed to have advanced mental powers that allowed manipulation of time and space, Wesley is a strawberry floating 16 year old knobhead - there's no way he should be able to pick up those same skills in 5 strawberry floating minutes! 7/10

Legacy - Solid episode where we get to see Ishara Yar, Tasha's younger sister played by Linda Hamilton Beth Toussaint who gets to wear an outfit at one point which looks like a prototype for the one that Seven of Nine would get several years later. The story here is pretty decent, although it's plainly obvious to anyone that Ishara is going to double cross the crew. She even communicates from the Enterprise to Hayne on the planet and gives the game away there - surely they would be monitoring her communication! Data gets to do his thinking face a lot whilst he contemplates which Yar sister he would rather bang so that's always fun. 7/10

Reunion - Another excellent Klingon episode! Of all of the species in the Trek universe the Klingon's definitely seem to be getting the best episodes in TNG so far, the Romulan efforts haven't been up to the same level of quality. Returning to both the stoyline of Worf's dis-commendation as well as his relationship with K'ehleyr was a bold move for one episode but they pull it off well. Worf once again proves that he is the MVP for the show. 8/10

[Squinty]

Jenuall TNG impressions

Brothers is great. The vineyard scene where they are mud wrestling

[Peter Crisp]

The Brothers episode does also show how odd it is that characters can be absolutely fine next episode no matter how traumatic an event they suffer.

[Jenuall]

Yeah there are times when they come up against the limits of what was acceptable at the time in terms of continuity between episodes etc.

Re-watching things now you do pick up more on threads that are dropped between episodes and things like that. Like what happened to that kid that Worf basically adopted in Season 3? Did he ditch him or something?!

[That]

I have been giving Deep Space 9 my first proper watch-through. I've seen the odd episode here and there before but never took to it.

A bit of the way into Season 4 now and I think it's really good, essentially of the same quality as peak TNG.

Our Man Bashir, the James Bond holosuite one, is the greatest holodeck ep of all time imo. Anastasia Komananov's secret rotating bed, oh my God.

[gaminglegend]

The Brothers episode does also show how odd it is that characters can be absolutely fine next episode no matter how traumatic an event they suffer.

It’s odd sometimes I gather there’s some space between episodes weeks perhaps months then other times they suddenly are daily.

[Squinty]

I have been giving Deep Space 9 my first proper watch-through. I've seen the odd episode here and there before but never took to it.

A bit of the way into Season 4 now and I think it's really good, essentially of the same quality as peak TNG.

Our Man Bashir, the James Bond holosuite one, is the greatest holodeck ep of all time imo. Anastasia Komananov's secret rotating bed, oh my God.

It starts to get good around S4, and it gets way better from there. You are in for one hell of a ride.

I like that point about Brothers showing that things are not always okay with characters. This was one of the things that pissed me off about that Voyager assimilation episode. They are having coffee at the end of it like nothing happened. It mentally scarred Picard to the point where he never really got over it.

[gaminglegend]

I’ve been listening to a lot of Star Trek TNG/TOS audiobooks during lockdown from YouTube.

I find I can really get into the abridged versions or those with the TNG cast reading. But struggle a bit with the others. The genesis wave I’m finding difficult to keep concentration on at the moment.

I quite enjoyed the Shatner/Picard crossover novels that he wrote, but maybe it’s me, but there seems to be a ridiculous writing style that he has that makes Kirk almost a perfect being.

Kirk encounters a problem, or him and others; and it seems to go (I’m paraphrasing)..

“Kirk knew it. And instantly in that moment he knew what to do, how to defeat the enemy and save the universe all in one shot”

[Jenuall]

The Brothers episode does also show how odd it is that characters can be absolutely fine next episode no matter how traumatic an event they suffer.

It’s odd sometimes I gather there’s some space between episodes weeks perhaps months then other times they suddenly are daily.

The stardates announced at the start usually give some indication of the time passing, not that those really mean anything or are applied that consistently of course. Pretty sure that Tasha dies in an episode with a stardate that is earlier than some of the ones where she is still alive!

[Lagamorph]

At least as early as TNG there weren't any real tracking rules around Stardates for writers. I recall reading that the only rule they really had was that Stardates within their episode had to be consistent, they were free to not worry about the Sgardates of other episodes. I think they were just given a range of "This season is between these Stardates and your episode will probably be around this point of the season"

[Jenuall]

Yeah they are surprisingly slapdash with it all. My understanding was that the 4 at the start is because we are in the 24th Century and then the digit following this is the number of the season - i.e. 44XXX would be a season 4 episode. After that I think they just picked random (hopefully ascending) numbers!

[Jenuall]

More episodes down and Season 4 continues to deliver!

Future Imperfect - Riker, Geordi and Worf transport down to a planet to investigate the usual macguffin of "unusual readings" before one of them lets off some serious toxic gas and they all pass out. Riker wakes up to find he's 16 years in the future and is scarcely able to contain his pleasure at the fact he's still a damn fine specimen of a man! This was a fun episode, and one that I can't actually recall having watched previously, seeing Riker piece things together and work out that everything is actually a simulation is nice and everyone else does a convincing job of acting just wrong enough to make it work. The episode kind of falls apart if you analyse it too much - this one boy and his mother were really the only survivors from their planet? She just decided that when fleeing from their attackers that the best thing to bring with them would be sophisticated simulation equipment to allow her son to live out his life in a glorified holodeck?! The kid was clever enough to generate a simulation for Riker that was two layers deep just in case he worked out that the inner layer was a simulation? Either way it was fun. 7/10

The Final Mission - This episode features Wesley prominently which is always a difficult position to find yourself in during a watch but it doesn't suffer from his presence as much as some others do. Picard and Wesley travel to a planet to help resolve some mining disputes but the shuttle they take breaks down despite Geordi apparently having given it the all-clear before departure, thanks for nothing Geordi! Whilst the main antagonist in this episode is Captain Dirgo who is basically a moron I feel that the true enemy is actually Picard who whilst appearing on the surface to have performed a noble and valiant act in taking the force of a rock slide on his own head has actually just given up a golden opportunity to remove the problem of Wesley Crusher once and for all! I'm sure Beverly would have been fine with it - "Sorry Doctor, Wesley was crushed to death by a rock slide there was nothing we could do!" "Oh okay, no probs. I'm too busy deciding which shade of colour my hair should be right now anyway - is today a deep scarlet or a strawberry blonde kind of day I wonder..." Overall it's a pretty decent episode with some nice moments between Picard and Wesley and I guess we just assume that the miners resolved their own problems without the need for Picard's diplomacy skills! 7/10

The Loss - Invaders from the 2D dimension somehow deprive Troi of her betazoid empathic abilities and this turns her into a right old moody bum! Seriously Troi is strawberry floating horrible in this! Loss of one's inherent abilities is absolutely going to be a traumatising experience and I have no doubt that I would take something like this badly but man is she a right strawberry floating dick to everyone she encounters during this episode! Fortunately the crew are able to employ the powers of the deflector dish to save the day - a piece of starfleet equipment custom designed to do whatever the strawberry float the writers want in an episode! Probably the worst episode of the season so far. 5/10

Data's Day - A fantastic episode and another reminder of the kind of story that we just don't see enough of in more modern shows! Data relates a description of his day in a message to Bruce Maddox (who we can assume has become far less of a dick these days since trying to disassemble data when we first met him!) and describes how he is continuing to learn more about being human and what friendship is. Something which this episode does really well is that it manages to run both the A story and B story very effectively alongside one another and allows them to dovetail nicely with data's insights into friendship and human behaviour having parallels with the Romulan spy deception story. Lots of fun highlights to this episode - Data's genuine dismay that telling O'Brien that Keiko wants to cancel the wedding hasn't made him happy, Worf's disdain for human wedding ceremonies, Dr. Crusher getting pissed off at Data's adeptness at tap dancing. 8/10

The Wounded - Another excellent episode! The Enterprise is undertaking another one of their regular exciting missions of "scanning a sector" (y'know just to see if anything has changed recently!) when they are attacked by a new (to the viewer at least) foe - the Cardassians! Turns out the Cardassians believe that the shaky peace between them and the Federation is no more after a Federation ship destroyed one of their "research stations" and so after some classic Picard diplomacy ("do what I want or we'll blow you up") they team up and investigate what has happened. The themes are very well handled in this episode and the main cast do an excellent job of selling the drama. Picard is excellent here - treading the fine lines between peace and war, trying to keep both the Cardassians and his own crew on side whilst taking the most practical steps to attempt to resolve the situation without further issue. That said when initially pursuing the Phoenix it doesn't really make sense why they are only going at warp 4 when they know it is trying to destroy another ship and time is of the essence! "I can assure you we are doing all we can..." It's nice to see O'Brien get a chance to shine as well foreshadowing how valuable he would come to be on DS9. All in all a great episode! 9/10

Think that puts me at the half way mark for the season and at this point it is probably pipping season 3 in terms of quality, I don't recall there being any real stinkers in the back half of the season either!

[Squinty]

Data's Day is an awesome episode. The synopsis for it makes it sound absolutely shite, but it manages to be really enjoyable and well written.

I've been watching through the movies boxset. A lot of these I haven't really seen. I've watched up to and including The Final Frontier (why does God need a spaceship?)

All of them except Wrath of Khan have been a bit crap. Well, the movie where they time travel back to earth was so bad it was good. It has so many silly lines, I enjoyed it but I still think it's crap.

[Peter Crisp]

I really like The Motion Picture.
I know it gets a lot of criticism but I like the slower pace and the sense of real discovery of an alien so superior to us they can wipe us out without an effort. For the time the special effects are decent as well.

[SEP]

I really like The Motion Picture.
I know it gets a lot of criticism but I like the slower pace and the sense of real discovery of an alien so superior to us they can wipe us out without an effort. For the time the special effects are decent as well.

The problem with that movie is that it was an episode stretched out to a movie, all the while trying to be 2001: A Space Odyssey.

And those strawberry floating uniforms.

[Lagamorph]

The uniforms in TMP were absolutely awful
It had a lot of production issues as well and ended up going quite a lot over budget.

[Squinty]

I really like The Motion Picture.
I know it gets a lot of criticism but I like the slower pace and the sense of real discovery of an alien so superior to us they can wipe us out without an effort. For the time the special effects are decent as well.

The problem with that movie is that it was an episode stretched out to a movie, all the while trying to be 2001: A Space Odyssey.

And those strawberry floating uniforms.

I agree with this. It would have made an intriguing 45 minute episode. I get the comparison with 2001 as well, the sequence where the Enterprise is flying into the V'Ger structure was way too long, much like some of the sequences in 2001.

One standout in these films is DeForest Kelley though. He's brilliant in the majority of the films I've seen so far.

My brother says the next one is pretty good? Undiscovered Country? I have no memory of ever seeing it.

[Lagamorph]

I really like The Motion Picture.
I know it gets a lot of criticism but I like the slower pace and the sense of real discovery of an alien so superior to us they can wipe us out without an effort. For the time the special effects are decent as well.

The problem with that movie is that it was an episode stretched out to a movie, all the while trying to be 2001: A Space Odyssey.

And those strawberry floating uniforms.

I agree with this. It would have made an intriguing 45 minute episode. I get the comparison with 2001 as well, the sequence where the Enterprise is flying into the V'Ger structure was way too long, much like some of the sequences in 2001.

One standout in these films is DeForest Kelley though. He's brilliant in the majority of the films I've seen so far.

My brother says the next one is pretty good? Undiscovered Country? I have no memory of ever seeing it.

Undiscovered Country was the 6th film and is the best one after the 2nd, Wrath of Khan.

[That]

Are you talking about only the TOS films? Because First Contact is actually the best Star Trek film.