The Star Trek Thread

[Preezy]

TNG - Series 1, episode 4 "The Last Outpost"

This has been by far the best episode of TNG so far, proper Star Trek - dealing with an unknown adversary, Picard showing restraint and leaning on the input of his crew like a good captain should, diplomacy, patience and humility. Loved it

[SEP]

TNG - Series 1, episode 4 "The Last Outpost"

This has been by far the best episode of TNG so far, proper Star Trek - dealing with an unknown adversary, Picard showing restraint and leaning on the input of his crew like a good captain should, diplomacy, patience and humility. Loved it

Early Ferengi

[Lagamorph]

TNG - Series 1, episode 4 "The Last Outpost"

This has been by far the best episode of TNG so far, proper Star Trek - dealing with an unknown adversary, Picard showing restraint and leaning on the input of his crew like a good captain should, diplomacy, patience and humility. Loved it

Still can't believe the Ferengi as presented in that episode were supposed to be the original big baddies of TNG to replace the Klingons from TOS

[Preezy]

TNG - Series 1, episode 4 "The Last Outpost"

This has been by far the best episode of TNG so far, proper Star Trek - dealing with an unknown adversary, Picard showing restraint and leaning on the input of his crew like a good captain should, diplomacy, patience and humility. Loved it

Early Ferengi

Yeah they were a bit cringe and over the top, but you allow it in the early days of the show.

[Victor Mildew]

[Jenuall]

And Season 5 of my re-watch is now complete! This felt like more of a step down from 3 and 4 than I remember it being, there are still lots of good episodes in their but it's much more inconsistent than the last two seasons.

The First Duty - Wesley Crusher comes back once again to haunt us all with his whiney face. And as if one irritating little git wasn't enough this episode gives us two as Tom Paris proves that even when he's not Tom Paris he's still capable of being one of the only things in the franchise to seriously challenge Wesley for the "most annoying character" title. Some good work from Picard here though in lecturing Crusher on the value of truth.

Cost of Living - Are you kidding me?! You can't follow up an episode featuring Wesley and proto-Tom Paris with yet another prime moron: Lwaxana Troi. That said I don't remember watching this one before and, I hate to say it, this is actually a fairly decent Lwaxana episode - she actually has some redeeming qualities here. Loses points for having Alexander in it though, he needs to get jettisoned ASAP.

The Perfect Mate - Picard's failed attempts to employ Data as a kind of android cockblock result in Xenia Onatopp using her empathic pheromones to seduce him into somehow thinking that arranged marriages are a good thing. Sometimes it feels like the writers just fall back on the prime directive as crutch to allow them to give a pass to a load of really shitty behaviour. Loses more points for reminding me that the Ferengi still exist.

Imaginary Friend - What the strawberry float is this gooseberry fool? This would have felt like a bad episode in season 1 FFS! Kids are almost universally terrible in TNG so having a whole episode that centers on them was never going to go well but even so you'd have hoped that by this point in the series if they thought they needed a kid episode they would at least be able to make it half decent.

I, Borg - Hugh A wonderful return to form after the last few dire episodes. Hugh's growing understanding of what it means to be an individual and the slow acceptance of him by Crusher, Geordi and Guinan is handled well as they begin to question their existing beliefs regarding the Borg and the legitimacy of Picard's plan to use Hugh as a "bomb" to infect the collective. Picard sticking to his guns out of fear driven by his experiences as Locutus makes sense as well and leads to the fantastic confrontation between himself and Hugh at the episodes climax. Probably just misses out on a top tier TNG spot but this is still excellent.

The Next Phase - Solid stuff (pun intended ) Geordi and Ro end up out of phase with the rest of the crew following a transporter incident and so are unable to be seen by anyone or even to touch anything ... except they can still travel in turbolifts and shuttles and don't fall through the floor and all sorts of other convenient exceptions! They have to find a way to get themselves back to normal and prevent those pesky Romulan's from killing everyone whilst they are at it. Ro gets pissed off that she doesn't get to hear Riker say that she was a better lay than Troi during her funeral.

The Inner Light - Another Patrick Stewart showcase, and a great one to boot. It's slow and very little really happens but it's just really well done and performed so perfectly by Stewart that you can't help but get hit right in the feels when Picard plays the flute at the end.

Times Arrow (Part 1 and Part 2) Probably the worst two part season finale/opener we've had yet. There's nothing major wrong with it exactly but its very fan-fictiony and just doesn't live up to the standards of Best of Both Worlds or Unification. Mark Twain is strawberry floating annoying as well.

So on to season 6 I go, I recall this being a bit of a mixed bag as well but possibly a bit stronger than 5 overall.

[Squinty]

Get the strawberry float out with your casual Ferengi racism Jenuall

I agree, in TNG they are pretty bad (they are essentially terrible, ugly space perverts).

DS9 redeems them despite them still being the above things funnily enough

Just got off watching BSG and Michelle Forbes (Ro Laren) is briefly in that. She incredible in BSG, I wish she was in more stuff.

[Jenuall]

The Ferengi do get a chance to redeem themselves somewhat in DS9 this is true!

To my shame I have never watched BSG, it has been on my watchlist for a long time I just haven't got round to it!

[That]

The Ferengi are extremely cringe in TNG. I think they undermined whatever point they were trying to make with the race by failing to ever make them seem like people.

DS9 manages to make them a lot less one-dimensional. You've got Quark's hidden conscience, Rom's engineering career, Nog heading to the Academy, Ishka's feminism. It's clunky at times, but the main family feel like people from a (very exaggerated) different culture, not, like, inherently irredeemable little horny gremlins.

I think how the characters grow as they acclimatise to living with the Federation during DS9 is a lot more "Star Trek" than having them just be these weirdo sex pest villains.

[Lagamorph]

The Ferengi are extremely cringe in TNG. I think they undermined whatever point they were trying to make with the race by failing to ever make them seem like people.

DS9 manages to make them a lot less one-dimensional. You've got Quark's hidden conscience, Rom's engineering career, Nog heading to the Academy, Ishka's feminism. It's clunky at times, but the main family feel like people from a (very exaggerated) different culture, not, like, inherently irredeemable little horny gremlins.

I think how the characters grow as they acclimatise to living with the Federation during DS9 is a lot more "Star Trek" than having them just be these weirdo sex pest villains.

Though DS9 absolute had some Ferengi that were weirdo sex pest villains.
Though they probably learned that from early Bashir.

[That]

Yeah, absolutely. Ferengi culture is still depicted as horrible, obviously. It's just far more interesting that we meet Ferengis who are not fundamentally awful people.

Like when Quark gets caught between wanting to succeed financially and pay off his debts, and not wanting to facilitate genocide, in that episode where he becomes an arms dealer. That struggle is interesting (if a bit on the nose) because we understand his cultural background, but we also understand that he has empathy. If it was a TNG Ferengi there'd be no conflict there (and he'd probably jerk off while the bioweapon exploded).

[Hexx]

DS9 manages to make them a lot less one-dimensional. You've got Quark's hidden conscience, Rom's engineering career, Nog heading to the Academy, Ishka's feminism. It's clunky at times, but the main family feel like people from a (very exaggerated) different culture, not, like, inherently irredeemable little horny gremlins.

And the profit and lace happens...

[SEP]

DS9 manages to make them a lot less one-dimensional. You've got Quark's hidden conscience, Rom's engineering career, Nog heading to the Academy, Ishka's feminism. It's clunky at times, but the main family feel like people from a (very exaggerated) different culture, not, like, inherently irredeemable little horny gremlins.

And the profit and lace happens...

We don't talk about Profit and Lace.

[That]

I'm not that far in yet but I checked the wiki page and it looks like an incredible ep.

[Hexx]

I'm not that far in yet but I checked the wiki page and it looks like an incredible ep.

Wait. You’ve not seen all of DS9?

[That]

I'm not that far in yet but I checked the wiki page and it looks like an incredible ep.

Wait. You’ve not seen all of DS9?

I'm watching it at the moment! I'm just about done with S5. I'm enjoying it a lot!

[Hexx]

Let us know what you think of the next few

[Cuttooth]

And Season 5 of my re-watch is now complete! This felt like more of a step down from 3 and 4 than I remember it being, there are still lots of good episodes in their but it's much more inconsistent than the last two seasons.

The First Duty - Wesley Crusher comes back once again to haunt us all with his whiney face. And as if one irritating little git wasn't enough this episode gives us two as Tom Paris proves that even when he's not Tom Paris he's still capable of being one of the only things in the franchise to seriously challenge Wesley for the "most annoying character" title. Some good work from Picard here though in lecturing Crusher on the value of truth.

The Next Phase - Solid stuff (pun intended ) Geordi and Ro end up out of phase with the rest of the crew following a transporter incident and so are unable to be seen by anyone or even to touch anything ... except they can still travel in turbolifts and shuttles and don't fall through the floor and all sorts of other convenient exceptions! They have to find a way to get themselves back to normal and prevent those pesky Romulan's from killing everyone whilst they are at it. Ro gets pissed off that she doesn't get to hear Riker say that she was a better lay than Troi during her funeral.

I heard Robert Duncan McNeil's character in The First Duty was originally planned to be in Voyager instead of Tom Paris, but they realised they would have to constantly pay the writer of the TNG episode royalties to use him in the new show, so they just made him a "different" character.

I love The Next Phase, a real representation of just a typically good TNG episode.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Not Star Trek but damn Babylon 5 is good. I'd always dipped in and out when I was younger but never really spent much time with it.

About halfway through season 2 and absolutely loving it.

[Jenuall]

And Season 5 of my re-watch is now complete! This felt like more of a step down from 3 and 4 than I remember it being, there are still lots of good episodes in their but it's much more inconsistent than the last two seasons.

The First Duty - Wesley Crusher comes back once again to haunt us all with his whiney face. And as if one irritating little git wasn't enough this episode gives us two as Tom Paris proves that even when he's not Tom Paris he's still capable of being one of the only things in the franchise to seriously challenge Wesley for the "most annoying character" title. Some good work from Picard here though in lecturing Crusher on the value of truth.

The Next Phase - Solid stuff (pun intended ) Geordi and Ro end up out of phase with the rest of the crew following a transporter incident and so are unable to be seen by anyone or even to touch anything ... except they can still travel in turbolifts and shuttles and don't fall through the floor and all sorts of other convenient exceptions! They have to find a way to get themselves back to normal and prevent those pesky Romulan's from killing everyone whilst they are at it. Ro gets pissed off that she doesn't get to hear Riker say that she was a better lay than Troi during her funeral.

I heard Robert Duncan McNeil's character in The First Duty was originally planned to be in Voyager instead of Tom Paris, but they realised they would have to constantly pay the writer of the TNG episode royalties to use him in the new show, so they just made him a "different" character.

I love The Next Phase, a real representation of just a typically good TNG episode.

Yeah that's what I've seen about it as well. I'm sure they could have just agreed a deal to include Locarno in Voyager instead of needing to rename him Paris though. That said on reflection making a break from that character was probably a smart move, otherwise they would probably have tried to shoehorn a way to get Wesley into Voyager at some point