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New Star Trek Series Rumblings
Tycoon Guy writes "TrekToday just posted a write-up about the next Star Trek series, containing info on all the characters. Here's a quote: 'Series V will indeed be set on a Starship Enterprise, under the command of human Captain Jackson Archer. The backdrop of the series will be the 22nd Century, at a time when starship travel was a relatively new endeavour, humans and Vulcans still had much to learn about each other, and the universe really was still filled with strange new worlds, new life and new civilizations.'" I guess I'd care more if the last 2 Trek series, and the last Trek Movie maybe, didn't suck monkey. The casting information reads just as bland as you would expect. I'm actually much more interested in tonight's premiere of The Lone Gunmen (X-Files spinoff). Please don't suck!
"Stupid new Dax"?!?!?!? She's gotta be the cutest thing I've ever seen!
It's too bad they didn't replace Dax a few seasons sooner. On the other hand, it's good to see Dax kept up her lesbian french kissing...
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
And, of course, the amount of energy that penetrates the shields and hull, travels along the cables, overrides any spike protectors for whatever passes for energy in the future, and blows up the console is ALWAYS barely enough to do this and is never just a small bit more, smearing everybody against the walls.
Same for the inertial dampers and the ship getting hit -- it's always just enough of a hit to barely overcome the dampers and never just a little bit more, smearing people against the walls.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
I wanna know when we're going to see hunky and attractive MEN on the damn show... Equal time, dammit! :-)
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
That why events like My Lai and the Holocaust happened...
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
> - All bad guys are one-dimensional caricatures...
Most are, but not all. "Romulan Commander" in TOS, Darmok in TNG ("bad guy" presumed at first), Q (after several episodes), Lore, Moriarity (deliberately 1-dimensional at first), Ok, well, I'm starting to run out of examples, and these were spread over, what, someone said 29 seasons?
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
It does seem that they put some thought into setting a consistent stage for the 29th century during Voyager.
:) (has it ever been established how long those guys live?) Or, perhaps the Borg have by now assimilated the Founders and are capable of shape-shifting themselves. :)
They've established the "Temporal Prime Directive", several viable characters, some of the basic rules of time travel (only 4 jumps per person, then bad things happen).
Also, up to this point, new ST series have definitely had a tie-in with previous series. DS9 carried on the story of the Bajoran occupation and the Maquis, which was established during TNG. Voyager also used the Maquis tie-in.
Setting the new series in the 29th century aboard the Federation TimeShip Relativity would be a nice tie-in for the new series. Also, setting it further out in the future would (presumably) allow for much greater velocities, making galaxy-wide travel a routine matter. This could open up the gate for interaction with the species introduced in Voyager, and even a fresh conflict with the (once again powerful) Dominion. Or, perhaps the Dominion is now on the side of "good", under the leadership of Odo.
Given that there's no real evidence out there other than previous patterns, I think a "TimeShip Relativity" based show is more likely than a Pre-Federation show.
Well, I actually NEED cookies for some things (unlike a lot of /.'ers I have a job that requires me to do things that would make them scream in misery on technical grounds), that's why I have the
browser prompt before it create cookies.
Not gonna expire until 2037? Uh huh, ain't going in. Only good for this session? Okay, I'll allow that.
Only pain is going in and "clean house" every month or so to weed out stuff that I only used that one time...
Cookies aren't The Devil, but comprising my cookies would yield very little useful information.
Moof!
The gang was hanging around, and one of the lackeys was browsing the internet. Tony tells him to shut off the laptop, and says something like "You know how I hate that cookie sh*t!!!"
Kudos to the writers on that one!
Gotta love the FBI Sting going on, too. Good spy stuff going on there.
Heh... I've actually seen the Lone Gunmen Pilot already. It was floating around the ABM newsgroup a while back.
:)
It was actually pretty good IMHO. It is a bit lighter and tounge-in-cheek then the X-Files, though it does attain a fair sense of mystery and intrigue. The the lone gunmen characters are flushed out more then in the X-Files and form a good ensamble.
I think that will be the key to the show's success or failure: whether they can operate as a strong ensamble cast, which is very difficult to do on TV. The writers also have a very tricky job ahead of them in balancing the humor and intrigue. I think the pilot was successful in all of these areas. We'll have to wait to see if they can pull it off for an entire season.
This is not to say that the show is perfect. There were some weak spots, including a number of especially improbable and bizzare fudging of technical aspects (mostly computer related, ironically).
My suggestion: Be sure to watch it, but put on your "suspension of disbelief" hat.
-- tjoynt
--==Hail Eris!!==--
DS9 is actually pretty close to that. If you include the recurring characters (who have gotten more screentime that in any other series) there are more non-Federation characters than Federation ones.
I am watching the show and I wanted to know if the OS they used in the scene with the winch was an actual OS?
Umm, personally I think most people look back on TNG through rose-coloured glasses. I think DS-9, second last season, was easily as good as the last season of TNG. TNG kinda ran out of ideas towards the end - I mean, people seemed kinda disappointed if they didn't fight the borg every episode. Main thing I liked about DS9 - plot continuity - yesterday is not the same as today is not the same as tomorrow. Things change more often then once per season. DS9 had, though worse actors, more believable characters.
I think DS9 and TNG have about the same maturity, most of the time. But yes, Voyager is for small kids who are easily distracted by shiny objects and large breasts.
I mean, please. The science officer is a vulcan. (Gee, wonder where they got that idea.) The communication officer is female. (hi uhura)
HELL, the CHIEF ENGINEER is called SCOT^H^H^H^HPIKEY!
It had potential. It really did. But after Roddenberry died, everything has just sucked.
This seems very unlikely. The NCC-1701 that Captain Kirk commanded was the very first starship enterprise... and even the Enterprise B and C have been given crewnames(not matching that list). Also, didn't the producers previously deny the 22ng century setting?
I've seen but the opening scene of the lone gunmen, and I would officially like to register my disgust througout the world.
Actually, I didn't like First Contact, either. :)
:)
Can someone please tell me what is a queen worth in a distributed network of drones? The Borg would never have just one of anything important. And how could Picard have just forgotten about her? That's just an excuse for not having mentioned her before, because Paramount wanted an actual, visible villain. As for task management and command decisions, that would be made shipwide, or what's the use of having a network of linked minds in the first place?
As for Picard's destruction of the Cube, that was far too easy. The Borg would never build their ships with a huge weakness like that - they don't have control centers, and their fuel must be distributed shipwide in many small tanks, each one shielded from all the others to prevent chain reaction. We saw in Q Who the Enterprise-D vaporize 20% of a Cube with no chain reaction.
And how come Starfleet weapons are suddenly so effective against the Borg? Shouldn't the Borg be adapting after the first 3 hits or so? We saw quantum torpedos do damage several times - the Borg should have adapted in minutes like they always did before.
As for Voyager, Seven of Nine makes me feel like a statistic. An oversexed male in his twenties who doesn't care about plot or writing or continuity as long as the blondes are buxom. She insults me.
Now DS9, I loved.
How about this: A Trek series not involving Starfleet, set in the early days of the Federation, or just before it.
It could be from the point of view of independant explorers, prospectors, smugglers, or freighter captains. The main characters don't have a ship of their own, they're just wandering around the galaxy, out of pure wanderlust. They don't have to save the universe every week, all the character development is about them and the exploration of the galaxy.
And most of all, THEY DON'T HAVE TO FOLLOW THAT GODDAMN PRIME DIRECTIVE(a.k.a. The Plot Killer Device).
I don't like DS9 at all I find it dull, boring and just very "un-Start Trek", but Voyager is sweet.
... mmmm...Seven Of Nine. That sounded so good I'll say it again ... mmmm...Seven Of Nine.
I have to agree though that you don't need any reason above the fact that Seven Of Nine appears in it
Did I get across the fact that 7of9 has a great body (and that uniform shows it off too), not to mention a incredible mind and that incredibly attractive hard, logical, efficient manner... I'll just make sure... mmmm...Seven Of Nine.
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...it won't die, either.
the stories have gone from okay, to bad, to worse, to the the worst crap hollywood and new york can scrape off the used wax ring of a trailer park toilet.
gimme a break.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
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Maybe people are just tired of the same old political correctness, deus ex machina problem resolution, goofy technology (thousands of weapons, and not a one that leaves gibs; stuff that works or doesn't work as the plot demands), and utter lack of continuity.
The same old plots come up over and over again: resolving generations-old blood feuds in a few days, refusing to take or use over-powerful weapons, facing trial by god-like aliens, respecting alien culture (no matter how stupid), forced alliance between old enemies, etc.
TOS was okay when it was new. TNG was okay for those who hadn't seen TOS, or were pathetically desperate fans of the sort who can watch the same second-rate show a hundred times without getting bored of it.
Going from loading an optical illusion into the borg so their computers will crash to giving the shapeshifters an incurable virus is not creating a new story. We've heard it all before, the players just keep putting on new masks.
---
Wow, people are still trying to be politically correct in the 22nd century? One of the character is described as "Lieutenant Joe Mayweather: Helmsman. African American.". But then it goes on to state that he was raised on cargo ships in space. What part of this makes him an 'American'? Does 'America' still even exist as a nationality?
Sorry, these PC things really get to me.
At least this new series might bring a breath of fresh air into the franchise... Voyager is getting old... TNG is still the best IMHO
Technology can be useful before it becomes obsolete. A new thruster would still help before the development of impulse engines. Plus, ST technology makes everything too easy. Without transports, maybe they'll have an actual decent set of shuttlecraft instead of those little suicide boxes. Plus, read some hard sci-fi, not pulp. Most good sci-fi is based on feasible science, not godlike hocus-pocus. B5 gave a hint of this, with inertial ships, no shields, and rotational gravity. I wanna see some zero-g space combat in space suits.
Uh oh, technical innacuracies... that sure makes a show suck, doesn't it? Ok, sarcasm off... next you'll be whining about how Hackers was a bad movie because acid burns laptop was a P6.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Happy Days was originally one or more stories on that terrible show Love: American Style. I guess The Simpsons could be considered a spin-off of the Tracy Ullman Show as well.
-- $SIGNATURE
Will they be the wimp-Klingons that were on TOS or the Worf-ish ones from the other Trek series...
They *HAD* to create the Holodeck because TOS had already done enough time travel and twisted-Earth analogs to make it impossible to do anything time or Terran based without it as a plot device. It does suck, mind you, but the 'Deck is really just an extension of old Trek plot-lines. BTW, let'sb real -- SOMEone on would get Jenna Jameson addicted on the Holodeck, if you know what I mean. As for Troi, well, they had to have someone on TNG to wear the "special uniform" -- kind of like the blonde with the clipboard on TOS. Talk about sexist...
Does the world really need another patronising, pompous, American sci-fi series?
Rich
"Maybe there's no technically accurate way to make stuff like that look exciting on a film or video. Think about it; even most of what, say, a script kiddie does is just typing gunzip rootkit.tar.gz | tar -xf rootkit.tar | /rootkit/r00t.sh."
..
I think you hit the nail on the head. My solution? Don't focus on the computers as a "prop", put the energy into the story!
And yes, if anyone in Hollywood would like to hire me on as a technical advisor on any films/tv shows let me know. I'm not any kind of guru but I've at least probably used more OS' and computers then all of your effects guys combined
--
--
RumorsDaily
Remember the TNG episode where it turns out that key high-ranking federation officials had been taken over by little bug beasties? With their little bug beastie asses sticking out of the backs of necks? And how they managed to send a signal back to their homeworld, but were never seen or heard of again? That's because too many people wrote in saying it was too dark, too sinister, not 'Trek' like. Lots of people like their 40 minutes of spoon-fed morality play and nothing bad happening. Everybody else is too busy preaching to the choir on Slashdot to actually write in and express some dissatisfaction to the people who can do something about it.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Darmok
The Inner Light
The Dyson Sphere
Contagion
The Best of Both Worlds
Q Who?
many more, IMHO
I loved TNG, personally. DS9, too, but in a completely different way. DS9 was more B5ish, and more realistic, and I loved the ep where Eddington joined the Maquis, esp his rant to Sisko at the end.
Tell me where this supposed 'Enterprise' would fit into Trek History?
The first Enterprise, NCC-1701 was commanded by Christopher Pike, Robert April, then James Kirk.
The second Enterprise, NCC-1701-A was commanded by James Kirk.
The Third, NCC-1701-B was commanded by Captain John Harriman.
NCC-1701-C was commanded by Captain Rachel Garrett.
NCC-1701-D and NCC-1701-E were commanded by Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
None of the official Star Trek documentation lists anything of a ship called "Enterprise" prior to NCC-1701, and after the Barbados Patrol Craft commisioned in 1981. They're trying to come off as saying that this new series is Pre-TOS, but it doesn't fit.
Then, there's the crew. The doctor is supposedly an Exotic Alien. Prior to TOS, people from Earth had limited contact with extra-sol life forms. "The Doctor has filled Sickbay with all sorts of bizarre medical instruments, alien plants and spores, and stasis chambers with small, living creatures." No doctor would create a sickbay like this. Even Dr. McCoy's sickbay was a clean, sterile environment.
Then, we have names. The author of the hoax couldn't come up with any creative names, so they stole the names from various Star Trek sources:
Sub-Commander T'Pau (Sub Commander? This isn't a Romulan Ship...)
Admiral Forrest (DeForest Kelley, or "Leonard McCoy")
Admiral Leonard (Leonard Nimoy, or "Spock")
Commander Williams (William Shatner, or "James Kirk")
Tos (Well known acronym for 'The Original Series')
Plus, the sheet goes on to say that shooting begins in May - before casting is even complete?! For a series that debuts at the end of the year? Not likely.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I never thought of it that way d00d! You just blew my mind!!!
Did anyone catch that on The Lone Gunmen today? I didn't know cookies were so dangerous... maybe /. is trying to hack our system with that cookie..... Be afraid!
The UFP was started in the year 2161. Whether or not Starfleet was started is another matter. The ship would only have an NCC designation if it was a Starfleet ship. Just like I can have a ship with an American registry that doesn't have a USS designation.
If you notice, two of the recurring characters (both Star Fleet brass), Admiral Leonard and Commander Williams, are possibly named after TOS actors, Leanard Nimoy and William Shatner.
Lets not forget control panels that don't freaking explode.
Just look at how few people watch Dr. Who.
;->
I kind of think that would work well as a video game or RPG, but not very well as a non-interactive TV show. Action oriented things are usually best when they are interactive.
Oh well, yet another Star Trek series I can't watch. I saw every episode of ST:TNG, most of ST:DS9, a season of ST:Voyager and then Paramount pulled it to UPN only in my area and I can't get UPN. Stupid Paramount
I Don't Work Here
IF they'd just be more interested in creating new planets/aliens/stories instead of always falling back on the soap-opera-ish plot lines of recent trek series. Somehow I don't think Gene would approve.
We don't need our officers screwing eachother dammit!
Blech. Signatures.
Given that the Vulcans made first contact as a result of the invention of the warp drive (did you see that movie?), and that there are supposed to be Vulcans serving on the ship, I'd have to say that the warp drive will have already been invented.
-- $SIGNATURE
However, if the timeline is where I think it'll be, warp wouldn't have been discovered by that point in time!
What makes you think that? It was established in ST:FC that we made contact with the Vulcans AFTER Cochran made his first warp flight. So, how could we possibly have humans and vulcans serving on the same ship before the discovery of warp drive?
The rumours have been about the new series being pre-Federation, not pre-warp.
As far as your collective complaints/wishlists re: Trek issues, a lot of them are answered in anime.
I'll go ahead and plug my fave, Legends of The Galactic Heroes (good overview at http://logh.net ). This series makes B5 look like patty-cake. Orbital nuking, machiavellian intrigue, assassination, huge fleet battles with 50,000+ ships on each side, cynical PR campaigns, intentional starvation as a tactic, power-mad individuals- and oh yeah, major characters die like flies. The more you like them, the more likely they are going down.
Re: The Lone Gunmen- yeah there were plot holes one could drive a truck through, but so what? This is about an amatuer Mission:Impossible team, or maybe Mission:Improbable. They'll loosen up and have fun. Relax.
What I would like to see in Trek is the dirty politics end of the Federation. People don't stop being ambitious just because they live under dilithium-powered socialism. That and since the death rate must be far lower then it is today, overpopulation means push is coming to shove re: desirable territory. Yup, the Federation has got to be propped up on some really nasty sordid deals.
Heck, then we can have the Federation Lone Gunman. See, it all fits together.....
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
"I need that I go to the bathroom" which doesn't make sense. It makes sence to people who say ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
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But.. Taken from the supposed write-up of the charecters... "...who's the highest ranking officer in Starfleet. " So obviously starfleet, and therefore the federation have been established...
I Haven't Lost My Mind -- It's Backed Up On Disk Somewhere
My rantings, only longer and with better spelling..
Uh, I know this is offtopic, but I couldn't find an email for ya, Skyshadow. I really enjoy the gyro's from Yiassoo's in Cupertino.
Yiassoo
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(408) 253-5544
\//
According to the information I've seen, the starships of the period looked much like the Daedalus-class http://www.culttvman.com/jbhorizon.html. Eh, please no. Anyway, this does have potential, not the least of which is the first contact with the Klingons and the Romulans. There are no transporters and primitive phaser technology; generally gritty. As long as they don't call for a ten-year old boy or cute robot as comic relief, I'll watch.
The party's over
NT means NO TEXT!
I Haven't Lost My Mind -- It's Backed Up On Disk Somewhere
My rantings, only longer and with better spelling..
After reading though some of the firestorm of comments on trektoday's discussion board, it sounds like this new prequel series will be set before the creation of StarFleet, the details are obviously vague, but set in the 22nd century, 'historically' it could be before or sometime close too the formation of StarFleet and the United Federation of Planets.
The whole thing sounds great too me, *if* it happens, would be bridging that gap that has always been there between the 'current day' (paranoid, etc) human society and the 'future' startrek UFP..
With the TMP scene, i saw this link http://www.geocities.com/st_ent/ which is apparently one of the pictures shown in that scene of TMP.
Damn. I was determined not to post to this story, and then you had to go and read my mind. Please don't laugh, I have to get this off my chest.
I watched my first star trek in fifth grade. That was Voyager's 1st season. I still vividly recall Future's End. Now, I will say that I have a very active mind, and I spent a lot of time thinking about Captain Braxton and the 29th century. Car rides, long hikes, boring gym classes, whatever... whenever my brain was on "idle," I would start speculating. Soon I had an entire 29th Century (or C29, as I couldn't help calling it) setting thought up. A crew for a ship, uniforms, technology, politics, history... the works. No one really wanted to hear about it, so I just kept it to myself and let it grow in my head.
Eventually, i matured, and found it felt much better to spin my own universes in my mind. C29 sank to the back of my mind, and I've recently found myself cannibalizing some of those ideas for my original fiction. But I still recall a lot of it. In fact, I probably still hve my sketched out uniform designs somewhere. Maybe I should turn it all into a webpage.
When series V was more sepculation than fact, one rumor I found was much like this one, except that it specificed occasional appearances by Captain Braxton from the 29th century, in pursuit of temporal criminals and suchforth. That blew my mind, especially since i hadn't thought about it for a couple years.
For all that it would doubtless conflict with my ideas, I would love to see a C29 series. There's so much potential, as you said.
I guess it's hard to take all i've said here seriously. This being slashdot, mockery is probably forthcoming. Whatever. Had to get this off my chest.
You know, while a historical doesn't seem to have much potential, it could have been much, much worse. One of the other rumors I encountered a while ago was a Starfleet Academy series. Good gods, it would've been the voyages of the starship Loveboat, NCC-90210.... ;)
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Yoda is from Babylon 5 not Star Trek. I wish people would do more research before posting things like this.
So one of the original castmembers was actually Forrest Gump?
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"I'm afraid to say that all the information you have received about the next 'Star Trek' project is incorrect. The official information about the new show was given out a few weeks ago and the steps have been taken to ensure that information is kept confidential.
See TrekWeb for details.
Thanks.
-j
(TrekWeb tech guy and builder of things.)
baby rape. think about it...
http://www.section31.com/stories/mar-2001/030401_
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Please. TNG was crap.
It had three kinds of episodes: episodes that ended in a deus-ex-machina, pseudo-intelligent episodes that were thought-provoking the first time you watched them and were full of huge holes the second time you watched them, and crap episodes derived from the previous pseudo-intelligent episodes.
Oh, sure, about seven decent episodes aired, so it wasn't a total loss. But it took seven seasons for TNG to produce as many decent episodes as TOS did in three, or DS9 did in any two of the War years.
Well, 3 and 7 weren't really that bad, and I'm not sure 8 qualifies as good either.
All rules regarding logical consistency in drama go out the window for ultra-silly comedies.
---
Puh-leeze. Although I guess not being a fan of the original disqualifies my opinion, the few times I've started to watch SVU when there was NOTHING else on it has been horrible. Its just another example of scum on TV, and "SVU" is just anothre excuse to bring up smut.
It boils down to quality. The TNG episodes have more of that than DS9 and Voyager. Why? Well, just watch them! A TNG episode will keep you clustered to the screen, while DS9/Voyager makes you zap to see the eight o'clock news.
DS9 desprately tried to be all dark and realistic, but it couldn't do a story arc to save its life, and failed miserably at character development. While relying on the RESET button at every turn.
Don't forget "All in the Family". I think they lead the pack with spinoffs: Goodtimes, Maude, Jeffersons, Florence, Archies' Place, etc.
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
That "data blob...with the text strings off to one side" is the same thing you'd see with debug or Norton's Diskedit, and they did call it a sector editor (or something like that), so that part, at least, was reasonably accurate.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
AKA Lone Gun Men
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
Wattsamatter, need a few more hits on those banners, so you post some flamebait comments attached to an article?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
(And I promise I won't pick on "ensamble". :-)
--
Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Inbreeding is bad because of the risk of re-inforcing recessive degenerative genes. Some of these "bad genes" will kill the off-spring immediately when expressed, where others would introduce subtle defects in the successive generations. The best empirical evidence for this negative re-inforcement is the breeding experiment otherwise known as European Royalty, which produced more than its fair share of morons, criples, and other such genetic neer-do-wells.
Of course, everything I know about "modern" genetics I read in Time Enough for Love, so you should go out and get a book on breeding animals and read up on the subject for yourself.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
What about Quantum Leap?
I go two worlds for you: Frank McCoy
Numbers 31:17,18 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,but save for yourselves every virg
Just in case you missed the the technobabble and catch phrases the first time around...
that's not funny =P
Quick! Who'd win in a fight between Data and C-3PO?
Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo...a star shines on the hour of our meeting
It Sucks
The fundamental problem? The average, non-tech TV viewer hates real technology, and the propeller-heads (like us) hates everything not true to form.
Every time we see the "magic computer search", my wife turns to me and asks, "how come ours doesn't do that?" to which I must reply, "because we don't live in TV land, dear..."
Yeah, right.
We need a space based reality show to replace Star Trek; a Survivor-type show in the ISS would be ideal. Another idea: an earth based show taking place in a building set up with starship simulators, each taking up several rooms, with computer drived displays and props in each. Each team would have its own "starship", with battles taking place between teams.
No data, no cry
get out of your parents basements and do something. How old are you? 35? have you even kissed a girl?
They brought in the cheesy special effects, costuming, acting, and fight scenes from the Hercules family of shows.
The first few shows looked great, even if the acting and FX were cheesy, and I thought it was going to be one great big storyline, but then it went totally episodic. They don't seem to be busily restaffing the ship, as I assumed they would, and their new allies from previous episodes don't seem to be helping them much in restoring the Commonwealth. It had such potential, it's really a shame to see it turn out as nothing more than a cross between Hercules and Star Trek.
---
From this article, it sounds like the new series will be called Starfleet Academy. Oh God. Is there any possible way that they'll bring back Wesley Crusher? God, I hope not.
It's almost as bad as when the TNG crew solved problems by "reversing positronic flows". The difference is that 23rd century technology is completely fictional, whereas Lone Gunmen addresses real technology that many viewers are familiar with.
I expect that every episode of this series is going to have a couple of hacking-into-computers sequences, and I hope they're not all as silly as this. I don't expect technical accuracy. But why not put in somewhat-believable gibberish rather than complete gibberish? Non-techie viewers won't know the difference, but it won't turn off techies..
It's more like "Star Trek: The First Post"(tm).
====
Crudely Drawn Games
You could have old familiar faces pop in for a visit, or study old battles from new approaches, explore the staff and the politics of the place, and figure out what makes a bunch of newly post adolescent representatives of disparate species transform into people who can get along with each other far, far from home? Voyager folks could come home and disperse from there.
I like the fact that there are families and relationships on Voyager and DS9. Much more realistic than to assume that people in space will continue the military monastic (ahem) tradition which ignores primate biology so long as no one gets caught.
As for Voyager, Seven of Nine makes me feel like a statistic. An oversexed male in his twenties who doesn't care about plot or writing or continuity as long as the blondes are buxom. She insults me.
If you're oversexed, you're probably not watching Star Trek in the first place.
The UFP was started in the year 2161. Whether or not Starfleet was started is another matter.
Starfleet is one of the principal executive agencies defined in the Federation's Constitution (Chapter 8). There is mention that temporary forces would be "borrowed" from individual Federation members until Starfleet got its own fleet up and running. Perhaps this Enterprise will be such a ship.
As long as it's a level above Anddromeda, I'll be happy.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
DS9, Gul Dukat was not a one dimensional badguy. Not by much, but he then, not all villians need to be. He was truly a hate worthy and well developed villian and lasted for the duration of the series.
And as far as the Quality of various episodes of Trek, well, it actually ends up rougly average with the rest of the drek that is on TV these days.
Nothing pisses me off more then people who try to make them selves sound somehow educated and inteligent then by trashing this movie or that series. Either you like it enough to watch it, or not. I will admit that some people will express frustration when a long running series is not living up to expectations, but that is no reason to kill the franchise.
After all, why the hell do you think they choose to launch a new series rather then continue an existing one? Yes, they recycle material, but mostly because much of that material is relevant to the back story of the given universe. And, yes, nothing horribly bad seems to have lasting effect because much of Trek is in an idealized utopian and tolerant society. So its difficult to create stories with internal conflict as the focus while remaining consistent with the established universe.
Roddenberry is dead. Trek is not going to be the same as it was when he was alive. It could be better then it is, but that is not such a good reason to continually harp about how much you miss the "Glory Days".
END COMMUNICATION
True enough: time travel stories suck (with a very few exceptions, which are among the best episodes ever. Anyone remember the Harlan Ellison episode? Or the Deep Space one involving Tribbles?). Two other entire categories of Star Trek episode are almost entirely vacuuous: "holostories" (pronounced "hollow stories") which take place in holosuites, and anything brought to you by the letter "Q." I boycott both. -Gareth
Sorry Taco - The Lone Gunmen sucked. Does anyone else have this urge to become a hollywood special effects supervisor so we can put an end to shit like this?
Excuse me - I have to go secure my cookies with my new sector editor so the spooks don't steal my new Socket-7 CPU or my USERDATA.INI file. Maybe I should defrag it to make sure the modem inside my CPU doesn't upload any information to the internet..
Yes, I agree, PLEASE DON'T SUCK! I've got all the guys (and gals) from work who are interested in this meeting in the recroom to watch it all on the bigscreen projector... Just hope that they (and I) aren't dissappointed.
Well, I'm not trying to defend ST plot consistancy, you can explain away a lot of these problems with a little creativity. For instance, the Queen probabally isn't really as crucial as she lets on. I bet she is little more than a figurehead for the Borg, maybe even have as much power as the President of the US.
The cube destruction was not all that unbelieveable given that nobody else was crazy enough to actually board a Borg ship before (this part is completely obvious as the Borg have even less internal security than your average unmanned Federation Ships (My guess is that every other race assumed that anybody boarding a Borg ship would be more or less instantly assimilated, that and transporters seem to be in short supply in the Delta quadrant). Since the Borg are rather poor at thinking up new things for themselves (as opposed to merely adapting to solve problems, and assimilating new knowledge from species), they may never have considered the internal security problems on their ships. They certainly didn't learn anything useful on this issue by scanning the Enterprises computers... Also, they wern't blown up by conventional means, they self destructed when Picard glitched the command systems (and they show yet more really bad security by not securing the "everybody goes to sleep" command!)
I think the Starfleet is probabally one of the formost experts on the Borg now, as they have a lot of time to study Borg technology (and even have an ex-drone) without worry of assimilation (unlike every other species that meets the Borg, save Species 8472). Most likely the Quantum torpedos are designed to be difficult to adapt to. Plus the first Borg attack was against a mostly unprepared Federation, later on the Federation has no doubt spent 1000s of man hours developing procedures for Borg attacks. Finally, the ships at Wolf 359 were no doubt a mish-mash of Federation ships from whatever was available. After the destruction of these old ships, the replacements were no doubt newer, stronger ships.
Seven of Nine is more than just T&A, she is also the requisite robot/alien looking to become more human that every ST series needs...
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
This is fake for the following reasons:
1) NOBODY would be stupid enough to make a series set so far in the past that it would mess up every timeline in existance.
2) The vulcan alone disproves it. A 40 year old vulcan would be like a 20 year old commander of a starship.
3) There's various other inconsistancies which make things not right.
Aaaanyways...
*goes back to his conspiracy theories*
-- Bandit450...If-Else-Do-*TWITCH*!
Ahhh...well, bear in mind that this is likely not the real info... Paramount has a history about as long the distance between Voyager and the Alpha quadrant of spreading disinformation to throw people off as to the *real* story... this "anonymous source" really has me suspicious.
My journal has hot
Watch your tongue, L&O continues to be awesome. SVU, otoh, I don't care much for either.
Yes, but we can hope :)
Hmmm... what rhymes with rolling, and what's slashdot chock-a-block full of... yeah, I KNOW... posting. Nothing rhymes with rolling like posting, yeah - that's good!
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
Have you seen it yet? Well, on the east coast the show just finished. I didn't think it was that bad. The show was more refreshing and tongue-in-cheek than any of the last 5 X-Files that were on.
they're really great supporting characters...
I agree. Though this first episode did flesh out the characters more. While it was necessary to suspend disbelief at many points in the show, it was fun none the less.
"Drug related crime" is a misnomer, "prohibition related crime" is the more accurate and correct phrase.
Wow, those are a lot of points you make... and exactly how many episodes of the various series did you watch to figure all that out?
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python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
I've watched most of TNG, most of DS9 (*all* since season 4), most of Voyager (all season 1-5) and I am unconvinced.
I will defend DS9 here because it's my favourite. Plus I will agree that Voyager is the least of the four incarnations, but that doesn't mean I think it sucks, it had some very great shows.
Perhaps you should move away from the USA and come see DS9 in Europe, where most channels do not interrupt shows for commercials. DS9 is a lot stronger when not interrupted. For the same reason I did not watch the arcs per episode but saved them up for nice marathons.
TNG on the other hand is perfect for "let's view 44 minutes of Trek". IMHO it's a lot more casual.
Maybe it's just a matter of taste.
Absolutely, 6 months ago, I would have said that ST:TNG was the best series. Then I got a TiVo, and discovered the DS9 reruns that our local ABC station airs late at night.
Seasons 6 and 7 (about halfway through 7 now) are brilliant. It's nice to have stories that aren't resolved in an hour, and have characters who remember and reference events in past episodes.
If you were like me, and sort of tuned out of DS9 after the first few seasons, check out the last two. You'll be blown away. I can't wait for the finale, which I haven't seen yet...
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When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
So the $NAME stuff is for shell variables? I always thought it was a reference to the Civilization resource files that had things like $GOLD or $LEADER etc...
wishlist:
-main characters who occasionally set aside their principles to make a really big gain
-at least a few alien species that never betray their stereotypes
-at least one alien from a species with a deeply unpleasant, but generally accurate stereotype, who betrays the stereotype to be nasty in totally different and dramatically worse ways
-weapons that blow their targets into messy globs of whatever the target is made of, even if it always happens offscreen
-reasonably intelligent robots without emotions, that everybody treats as machines (no casual conversation, are casually sacrificed without concern except for the cost of replacing them)
-deaths of main characters that serve the plot, not casting convenience
-badasses who are more concerned about their ability to wreak havok than any particular ideas about why they should do so
anti-wishlist:
-fistfights (unless there's a very good reason for the combatants to be unarmed)
-drawn-out close-range shootouts (as if their weapons couldn't blast through flimsy cover like tables)
-comic relief characters
-deus ex machina resolutions
-time travel or other "physics anomalies"
-humanoid aliens without at least a dozen immediately obvious distinctions from humanity (basically, anything that can be done with a rubber mask)
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Also how many warships carry the crews family with them.
My Weblog
I hope it picks up, because, man, what a great show concept for nerds.
-m
Was that a real OS, or a fake hollywood OS? Thanks
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
You've made a lot of good points. Ultimately, however, you fail to realize your points apply to network television, not just Star Trek. Actors have contracts. All shows of all non-present eras make references to the present. All shows exist in a universe with "zero consequences". Some more of your points:
The Trek writers cannot develop characters that are remotely believable. Only mindless, one dimensional cliche's.
Trek characters, IMO, are deeper than most sitcom or hour drama characters. we'll have to agree to disagree.
They cannot handle character development. They tried on DS9, but it was always herky-jerky and forced. People didn't develop over time, they developed in one of their two or three designated character development episodes. Even then they couldn't convince anybody with an IQ above 74 that it was remotely natural and believable. At the end of TNG, everybody was almost exactly the same as they were Season 1. Let's not even mention Voyager.
Again, I disagree. Trek characters are considerably more developed - Take a look at Picard season one compared to Picard seasons six and seven. Hell, look at all the characters. Your point isn't specific to Star Trek, you could replace the title with any show that's ever been on television.
They cannot handle long-term story arcs. The Trek way is to start a war in one ep and forget about it for oh......8 episodes or so, with a few infrequent cut and paste mentions here and there. Even then, you can forsee the outcome 3 seasons in advance. Their "surprises" are incredibly weak and convoluted. God forbid they start a conflict in an ep that isn't the season finale!
The DS9 Dominion War was too long and got silly...but it's silly to say they "forgot" about it. it was always in the background.
No character ever dies unless the actor playing them asks for more money or quits in frustration when the writers can't think of anything to do with them. Everybody has their nice 6 year contract.
Trek actors, as far as I know, don't have set contract lengths at the beginning of the runs of each series. We saw various characters (most notably Tasha, Judiza and Kes) all leave, and they all left for different reasons. Once again, your points are NOT specific to Trek, but to television in general.
The writers cannot come up with a new and exciting story, most of it is recycled from other Trek shows, and even if they can write a script you could consider "passable" everything is neatly wrapped up by the end of the hour.
That's one of the oldest jokes about television - from the Leave it to Beaver days to now - the drama gets wrapped up before the show's over. This is NOT something just Trek deals with, and says nothing of the Trek writing.
The surroundings are always sterile and unrealistic. Unless you count the one, single "plot-device-personal-possesion" each major character has.
As stated by other posters, when Trek goes dark, fans don't like it. Once more, most shows are "sterile and unrealistic" - it's fiction, remember? And if you'd like, I'll supply you with a huge list of personal possessions each character has and appears in episodes.
The solution to any problem is a particle-of-the week/technical thing we have never heard of before. While the "realistic" and "logical" soltion is impossible because of veteron radiation or something.
This is called a "plot device". Maybe you've heard of it. Non-sci-fi shows have a non-sci-fi version - drama is interesting because the "easy" way is often impossible. Star Trek didn't come up with it.
The Federation believes itself to be infallible.
The Fonz believes himself to be cool. So?
All bad guys are one-dimensional caricatures who either die or come around to the infallible Federation way of doing things. Not to mention the fact they look like 50 other aliens we have seen.
Make-up departments don't have the biggest budgets. Besides - humans play the characters. Get over it.
Here's the bottom line: Star Trek is a popular franchise with a core group of fans and many fringe fans. Trek's fans are probably more dedicated than any other besides possibly soap opera fans, and Trek fans tend to use the internet a little more, so you hear about it a little more. Trek still makes money, and there will always been a new series on the horizon as long as money keeps coming in. The most important point you should remember, however, is that Star Trek is a television show. If you don't like it, don't watch it. It contains human actors wearing make up. It's written by human beings with a much tougher job than most television writers, because of the history they need to know with every episode. But it's just TV. Just fiction. Don't get so worked up.
The Good Reverend
I'm different, just like everybody else.
Remake the original episodes! Identical stories, characters, but with todays special effects.
They wouldn't have to pay writers, and use unknown actors so production costs would be minimal.
Sorta like that remake of Psycho that was done a few years ago by Gus VanSant.
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So this would be Star Trek, the 0th Generation?
I saw the pilot, all I can say is (in comic book guy voice) "Worst episode ever!"
When hacking into another computer system, make sure you disable cookies, lest they be compromised.
Don't run a file server when hacking into another system, lest they retaliate by hacking into yours.
If you run a file server anyway, don't keep your real name and address in a file named userdata.ini.
When you take over a system, encrypt the manual override command to make sure no one knows what it is.
Even if it does end up sucking, we'll all watch it as long as its on the air. Myself (And I know this is heresy) I enjoyed voyager much more than ds9, but hell. I watched whichever one was on next. Its just how these things work.
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
Wouldn't it technically blow?
Unless it has an NX designation in the manor of DS9's Defiant, which I am told means it is an experimental ship.
The problem with really great supporting characters is that they're really great supporting characters -- you usually just can't give 'em enough to do on their own. Think of all those spin-offs that failed horribly; the only ones I can think of which succeed are complete departures from the original premise (for example Fraiser is technically spun off from Cheers, but is in all important respects completely unrecognizable as a derivative).
The Lone Gunman were barely enough to pull off an episode that was mostly them (the DefCon Vegas convention epp, and even that one had a lot of help from Scully).
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
On voyager, every other show someone mutinys for 40 mins and they appologize to janeway in the last 5 and its all cool.
Id like the show to be a bit more like the real military. Anyone who mutiny'd would be dead by morning.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
I also saw the pilot through the magic of the internet. It's probably been tweaked since the downloaded version, but still... it does kinda suck. Not horribly, I mean, it's OK if you don't have anything better to do. I'm not actually offended that I spent an hour of my short life watching it. But it doesn't do what I was hoping it would do.
Bottom line - as usual, don't set your expectations too high, and you probably won't be disappointed.
I like it when a story is consistent. There is alot of Star Trek lore built up over the years, and if Paramount throws it all away, yes, it will bother me. I wasn't too happy with either DS9 or Voyager, and I hope that they aren't creating a "Enterprise" just to try to "erase" the relative failures that the non Enterprise shows were. Hope its good, won't watch if its bad.
Troll, -1
What the hell? I've always thought that DS9 was the best of all the series... it was a lot more indepth than the original or TNG could ever be. And it was a more appealing show to those outside the "trek realm". Case in point: my wife would actually change the channel to watch DS9... compared that to her constantly changing the channel to get away from TNG.
While I don't personally like it, mostly because I haven't watched it that much, I've heard that Voyager is an excellent addition to the Star Trek family. I think it's the lack of familarity with the characters that turns most people off.
For example, I remember when the first season of TNG aired. I was among many who said that they could never do a new series. The original was so good, they could never improve upon that.
And for the first season, I didn't watch.
Well, by chance, I happened to watch an episode. And than another, and another. And pretty soon, I had friends watching. And my father. And so on.
And before long, guess what? I realized it was better. That there was life after Kirk, Spock, McCoy. That you could extend the idea without breaking the original.
But, you think I would've learned from this, right? Nope
When DS9 came out, I shunned it. I still had new episodes of TNG, I didn't need it.
And it took, ahem, a lack of cable for a month. The only channel I could recieve was the one that was carrying DS9. And I got hooked.
So, while I personally don't watch Voyager, I don't automatically just spout out that it sucks. It's just different.
I wish the creators of this new show lot's of luck. It sounds like a neat idea that should give them a lot of stories to play with.
And after a few seasons, I might actually sit down and watch the new show... and then I'll be hooked again.
dennis
Previously, a staple of the Star Trek series' gaining interest was always new species, in particular, new enemies that are somehow different from anything we've seen before. Also, there'd be "innovative new technology" always coming out.
Does this mean we're going back to Klingons and Romulans? Does this series mean that we'll be stuck with 22nd century tech? It's not like they can invent new stuff, because if they do, then that'd be stuff we should have seen in the 3 24th century shows, right?
Oh well. In any case, I used to be a huge Star Trek fan but the past couple of years have made me stop watching and I've since lost interest. To be this seems to be sort of a step back. I don't see how you can be creative with this show when so much of the ground's already been covered.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
The Federation was founded in 2161. My uneducated guess is that this series will be set sometime before that, but after the formation of a united Earth government (approximately 2113). Don't be surprised if the new starship is designated a "United Earth Spaceship" or something similar. (Perhaps the starship's operating authority will be the "United Earth Space Probe Agency," or "UESPA," alluded to in the TOS episode "Charlie X.")
It's likely that the new series will also predate the Romulan Wars (started approx. 2156, ended approx. 2160). It would certainly predate the establishment of the Prime Directive (which did not exist even as of 2168).
The practical upshot of all this is that many of the background elements we've seen criticized in series like TNG won't exist, because they simply won't have been established yet. Characters should be more free to conflict with each other, nobody's going to be moralizing about "interference with other cultures," and there should be generally more action all around. We might also get some insights into events that shaped the Federation as we know it...this might be interesting.
Eric
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Be who you are...and be it in style!
1)The 'characters' of the original characters were what initially got the series off the ground and not the space notion behind them. The space notion and associated circumstances helped extend the series into a full-fledged production for years, but it was the characters which helped hold audiences at first. 2)Too many times recently, computer FX are leaned on too heavily without adequate character development/story development/motivation. Just saw that preview for those computer nerds from x-files looks like some good stuff. Lone gunman may get my viewing time!
Does he also invent new types of salutes, and unclog chicken soup dispensor nozzels?
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"How many six year olds does it take to design software?"
dinner: it's what's for beer
So they could remake Babylon 5 instead of ST:TOS?
(sorry, I had to)
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No way man. The further they go into the future, the more techno-babble they use. As others have pointed out in previous articles, ST has a history of using some new crazy particle to get out of a bind. And it gets old. Add to that, that the current representation of future is amazing short sighted (when you have ships moving at >c, are voice commands from the captain really going to be accurate?), and I'm glad they're moving the time back to something that is more feasible.
As far as I'm concerned, you were 100% correct. I just watched the episode, and I had a lot of trouble with it:
* I had heard it labeled as humorous in nature. Ha! And that was a Ha of sarcasm. Much of the show was spent in moody lingering moments - most of the humor I found really lame, and I have a pretty broad tolerance for humor.
* The computer stuff was totally rediculous. "Hey look - red text in an otherwise all blue interface! It's a breakin!". "Processor frozen". "I'll just pop in this prototype chip into my laptop and we're good to go!". I know they have to have some leeway to make the computer stuff exciting, but a computer professional just using "deltree" to wipe a computer leaving the FAT intact? Come on! I'd rather have seen them use a handbuilt remote magnetic sensor to detect previous disk images, it would have been more beleivable. And the text file download - time to upgrade the 300 baud modem guys! And you might want to check the tmp directory for partial downloads.
* (Major spoilers here) Plot "twists". I might be able to forgive other areas, but the plot was SO WEAK. Who did not know right when they found it that the blood was not his fathers? Who here didn't assume automatically the moment they knew the plane was in danger that it would be another remote? Forget the father wanting to tell the media, don't you think the pilots would be just a tad upset and be talking to them anyway????? ARRRGH!!! It was so stupid I had to force myself from turning it off a number of times.
* Lara Croft ripoff. I can hear them discussing the basics of the show now: "Hmm, we can't write, we have little sense of humor. Say, I hear this 'Lara Croft' character is quite the rage with the kids, how about we throw one of her in there! We can just have her shooting uzi's in every seen and re-use footage.
All in all, I found the plot so mind-numbing stupid that it just amplified the other basic errors (like all the computer flaws) that I can normally get past in a movie or TV show. The problem is that at the core it's still a warmed over conspiracy drama, when it should really have been be a comedy I was expecting - it had real potential there. Read the IGN preview, that's how I thought it would be.
It's probably just as well, I only have two or three shows a week I watch all the time and I really didn't need another time drain.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If I remember correctly, there was a scene in the first movie where Decker shows Ilia (the bald chick) a picture of all the ships named Enterprise. There is the Enterprise (NCC-1701) that we all know and love, as well as the space shuttle, aircraft carrier, and one other space-ish looking vessel that really never gets identified. I wonder if this is the Enterprise that will be featured in the new series?
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
So My question is wheter we will see the klingons and whether they'll have god damn ridges on their foreheads. When will they ever tell us where they came from.
my favorite was the "portable hydrocarbon sensors". i don't know how they made them sensitive to explosives but not jet fuel.
So, what are the odds that they'll go back to toggle switches and blinking lights for the sets? Wouldn't be the original Enterprise without all those clicks, beeps, and whistles now, would it?
:(
Personally, my money will be on touch panels ala TNG, DS9, etc.
Grei
By my calculations... yes, yes, subtracted by generation.... The microskirts should be oh, two three inches.
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Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
well, some are, but they probably deserve it anyway...
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Last but not least, Insurrection. Come on, it wasn't that bad. Stop comparing it to First Contact. We all know that one was better. Look at it this way: it was definitely the best odd-numbered movie.
I guess I'm the only one here who liked Insurrection better than First Contact.
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There are definite disadvantages to the second approach. (the disadvantages of the first are all but self-evident) You can't keep extending a given series, for example, because real stories have endings. Once you've told a story, you have to find a new story to tell, and if you don't find new characters to go with it, the story becomes somewhat derivative. The other disadvantage of the second approach is that a full story requires a certain amount of resources to be committed to the project beforehand. I mean, you can kill the series halfway through the story, but then there are so many loose ends that the complaints kill your public relations people. And finally, how do you do movie tie-ins with a finite series? Short answer: you can't, not in the traditional manner. You can retell the story in a short movie, you can make the climax of the series and story into a movie, but you can't create the traditional 'related to the TV series' endless parade of movies.
All these things may put off executives from creating a 'one big plot' Trek series. But they're milking the series dry, as things currently stand. Ah well, the cool geeks are off watching stuff from Japan and Hong Kong these days. We've seen Trek, and unless some bold moves are made, they won't show us anything new...
If you read Melancholy Elephants, you'll see how Copyright extensions will eventually kill creativity in this country, but that's nothing new. I mean, we killed comic books as a mass medium in this country, through societal pressures and strange intellectual property laws... Witness Japan, in contrast, with a Manga series for everyone. But I'm not bitter, noooo... I'm both determined to learn another language, and incredibly bitter...Ok, I'll stop ranting now...(Damn Stan Lee to hell)...really, I'll stop now, rea
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
When TNG came along, things seemed so inwards - they were no longer exploring other worlds, they were reciding into their own minds and the issues had become much more social. This is why the holodeck (a crappy addition to the show) and Diana Troy both annoy the crap out of me.
I am glad that this show is earlier in time, because it suggests to me that the series will be returning to its roots, that of exploration of the physical universe.
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One of the weird side-effects of having a single writer, while it made things more consistent, is that it made things too consistent. A lot of different characters from very different backgrounds, spoke the same way and used identical idiomatic expressions and metaphors. ("In this game, you only have one shot...", "God is like shining a light at a wall....", "Someone once said...")
I realize JMS didn't like to give up control of the scripts, since even apparently minor changes might have had undesirable effects on the plot, but I think he could have benefitted from having someone edit him, or edit the dialog scenes, or something.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
also - the lone gunmen ... is that like the lone rangers?
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Scott and Chris: Assuming you were, at one point, a fan of Star Trek, are you still one now? How do you feel about the current state of the franchise?
Berke: I quit cartooning because I wanted to go out before things exhausted themselves. Its a pity others don't do the same. Haven't watched in ten years. Although I did sit with Jonathan Frakes the other day while he directed a movie. I had to pretend that I had watched more Trek than I had. Seemed the right thing to do.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Yeah, B5 has a certain amount of cohesiveness and quality.
But all it *really* has going for it is Londo and G'kar.
JMS writes horrid dialogue for Sheridan and Delenn. If I hear "Someone once said..." or "As someone once told me..." ever again, I'll scream.
The end of the Shadow War may have been intellectually satisfying but it was *not* satisfying on a visceral level. Turning great and powerful enemies into whiny children in ten minutes...bah. And who really gave a damn about Byron's telepaths? Not me.
B5 is very, very good. But DS9 was better.
Sorry.
Well, that is exactly what I would like to see in Star Trek (as I voiced in my original post). So let's hear some of these ideas! If you don't feel comfortable posting them in a public forum like Slashdot, then send me an email. I also have been speculating on all the other Series V premises TPTB could have chosen, so I'd like to hear what other people would like to see.
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We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Ensign Hoshi Sato: Comm Officer. Japanese.
Really? She's Japanese? What was your first clue?
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
- Female crewmembers in miniskirts and go-go boots...And lots of 'em.
...Do the usual removal.
- Female Yeomen who serve (Deep echoing voice) *SPAAACE COFFEE* in futuristic little blue styrofoam cups!
- Female Yeomen on the bridge who immediately cling to the Captain's chest at the drop of a hat. "Warp three??!? Oh! My hair! **CLING**"
- Sleazy saxaphone music every time a female Yeomen enters/leaves the room.
- I'm stealing this from the original "Lost in Space" series because it was just such a 1960's housewife's dream-come-true: *SPAAACE LAUNDRY*
Put the clothes in a hopper...Push a few buttons: The clothes come out seconds later washed AND dried AND pressed AND folded...AND individually WRAPPED IN PLASTIC!
(Of course, the Yeomen would have to do this, because laundry is women's work.)
- Food replicator serves multicolor Playdough cubes with dyed celery.
- Bridge chairs and other starship furniture that are conspicuously not fastened to the deck.
- An alcoholic Chief Engineer who sits at the controls of a matter/antimatter engine.
- Turbolifts with up/down/left/right motion indicators.
- Big-ass blinky cube 'o' lucite buttons on control panels.
- One bridge display showing a holographic version of the Mahir "I Kiss You!" web page with a counter of nine hundred thousand billion hits.
- Sulu's ever-so-cool robotic console viewing device...Which was only shown once in motion.
- The goosenecked "War of the Worlds"-style viewers with the 2" screens from TOS pilot.
- The Enterprise is that cheesy first design of Gene Rodenberry's...With the globe instead of the saucer.
(Think of a bastard spawn between the Enterprise-C with ship from the cartoon "Josie and the Pussycats in Space")
- Sullen, pimply teen parking attendant in the shuttlebay.
- An explaination for the three seperate slider controls in the transporter room that have to be brought down simultaniously.
- One episode only. On the first voyage, they visit "The Gamsters" planet...Are kidnapped and become Thralls...And are all killed after a sum wager of 275 Quatloos.
The Providers...Low on cash...License their own likenesses to Spencer Gifts as head-shop novelty lamps.
- The Enterprise delivers Dick Clark's brain to run the underground female Imorg society on Sigma Draconis 6...The brain outlasts the Morg/Imorg culture...The systems sun...And subsequently the heat-death of the universe.
Please feel free to add!
kendrickDAMNNOSPAM@biggeek.com
Actually, I believe the character is modelled after the 80's New Wave band of the same name.
That redhead was wicked hot.
...how does one get to be African-American when one is "raised on cargo ships"?
To bodly go where unthinking, self-conscious politically correctness has not gone before...
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
That was totally off topic but hella funny
--
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Jackson Archer?
How high on the badass meter were they trying to score?
They should have just named him Shaft and be done with it.
"I am Shaft, and these are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise." "Shut you mouth!" "Just talkin about Shaft." "Then I can dig it."
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
that if they are going to continue to make trek series (which they are because it is still very profitable) then they should stop making series based on the federation and base it on something more interesting. My suggestion would be the romulans, but that is just my opinion. I think maybe 4 series and numerous movies based on boring "good guy" humans is probably enough. Time to go milk another cash cow.
moo
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;
I'm really excited about tonight's Lone Gunmen premiere. Like Taco, I hope it won't suck, but I've been disappointed before.
;-)
Voyager was a pretty disappointing series for me, at least until about halfway through (this last season has actually been very good, IMHO, but it's unfortunate the series took this long to really get going).
I thought Deep Space Nine was quite good, though I haven't seen it for a while (nobody plays DSN reruns around here). I never got to see as much of it as I wanted, since it was on at the same time as Friends. Sorry guys, but some days I really need to laugh
Anyway, hopefully TLG will be good.
--
I mean, come on - so INCREDIBLY cheesy! - Did you all actually read and parse this. Dear lord. Fake, fake I say!
And this my most important reason why we would be better off without Trek:
It prevents new and innovative series from being developed and produced. JMS said more than once that when trying to sell B5 he was always told there was no room for another deep space sf-series in main stream TV.
Instead after a B5 rip-off (DS9), we will now get a Crusade rip-off. I suspect it is set in the 22nd century to at least get rid of that incredibly stupid prime directive.
Yeah, like how someone would be outside and have two shadows. Heh.
Hands in my pocket
will they bring back the good old card board sets and cheesey phaser effects. I mean if the original was like that, whats this show gonna be like? I can just imagine a fight involving a bunch of Star Trek models bought from Hobbytown flying around on strings. Now that would be worth watching
______________________
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
- They cannot handle long-term story arcs. The Trek way is to start a war in one ep and forget about it for oh......8 episodes or so, with a few infrequent cut and paste mentions here and there. Even then, you can forsee the outcome 3 seasons in advance. Their "surprises" are incredibly weak and convoluted. God forbid they start a conflict in an ep that isn't the season finale!
You know, dropping important events like that has always been my biggest problem with the X-files. Though it has never been more evident than this season (well, except maybe the season after the movie, when Mulder found a huge fucking UFO at the south pole, but then it sorta got dropped until they needed to boost ratings).
I remember seeing that when I was like 12, and was pretty shocked when they just blew away all those high ranking Start Fleet admirals. As an adult now, I would probably find the story much better.
... but maybe I'm just reaching! But the description in the link, if accurate, sounds like it would be a load of fun. Imagine the first contact with the Klingons or other trek staples? It could be more of an initial space exploration show than a "prime directive" show which the trek series focused on way too much. Oh well, I'm willing to give it an honest shot for sure.
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
Actually, The English show from which "Threes company" was copied was called "man about the house" and spawned off the really rather successfull "George and Mildred" (Roper of course) and the somewhat less successful "Robin's Nest" (Where the guy shacks up with one of the girls and opens a restaurant).
Of course, differences in humour and the American entertainment industries tendency to dumb things down may have had something to do with it (I mean, "Cybil" is meant to be your version of "absolutely fabulous"?)
Rich
It wasn't the greatest thing I've ever seen, but the loan gunman didn't suck that bad. I can't believe, though, that anyone would think that TLG sucked and CSI doesn't. It is ok if the technology isn't quite correct, it is obviously a bit tongue in cheek. I'll watch next week (I don't generally watch the X-files anymore, sigh).
-Moondog
I think it'd be cool if they made it like the low-budget original series and actually hired some good writers and didn't try to make it dramatic and stuff. Good writers make a series, not a large budget. Testament to this is Doctor Who, the British sci-fi which lasted well over 20 seasons, seven doctors while it was being made by BBC, and an eighth from the movie, and it was really low budget, and imho, the best sci-fi series ever. Unfortunately, BBC didn't see it that way and "put it on hold" largely because it was low-budget and stuff like that and they wanted to replace it with what they thought was better.
There is no need to jump to conclusions about startrek and trekkies. Star Trek should be supported. There is nothing to gain by lashing out at it. I am really disapointed in Malda.
samrolken
Do you want to appear on Voyager before it goes off the air, to keep the Number One/Christine Chapel/Lwaxana Troi track record going? How about Series V?
I'm still doing the voice of the computer on Voyager. But I know there is no chance of appearing. Two years ago, I would have loved to work on a campaign to get me on the show, because I was thinking, after thirty-some years, why not? But then as it started to settle in -- the older you get, the wiser you get -- I started to say, not on your life.
I know absolutely nothing about the next Star Trek series. I don't think there are many people over at Paramount who do either. I haven't heard anything, not even that the main office has said, here's the money, go ahead. Those days are over.
Says an awful lot about Paramount
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
This is very true and one of the big reasons while I'd like to see the Timeship premise fleshed out. This is obviously my own opinion, but I think some of the best Trek episodes (in any of the series) were those dealings with conundrums of time travel.
It gets boring and obnoxious quickly.
Here is where I have to disagree. I think there is an immense amount of stories to be told revolving around time travel. The aforementioned Trek episodes are very different from one another and illustrates how a whole series could be had from the premise of a time ship.
Also, temporal mechanics doesn't need to be the only thing discussed. I'm sure the entire law, economy, moral system of those in the 29th century is shaped by the ease of time travel. Are criminals punished even though their wrongs can be righted? Are they placed into rehab before they even develop the personality to commit said crimes? Do rare artifacts hold any value when it is possible to reach back in time and bring them forward? Are there any fields of study like history, archaeology, anthropology when absolute answers are available rather than assessments of evidence (Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter address this question somewhat in The Light of Other Days)? Those are just ideas that I've come up in my stream of conciousness for this post. I'm sure the writers of the show would come up with others much more interesting.
Just as the all the other Trek shows don't use the exploration of space as a way to show all kinds of extraterrestrial wonders, a show based on time travel doesn't need to show all the wonders of time. They show the implications of the ability to do so. Some shows may resolve around time travel technobabble but others may use it as a vehicle to explore ethical and moral dilemmas - just as all the other Trek shows have.
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We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Well, I for one am glad that one of those 15 different story editors saw it appropriate to give us an episode where the android gets some!!
--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Here's a couple of recurring themes:
1) Alien ship fires toothpick, shields immediatly down to 20%. Time to run for it.
2) A modified deflector dish is every problem's solution.
- Ensign Hoshi Sato: Comm Officer. Japanese. Mid to late 20s. Striking and intelligent, Hoshi has a feisty spirit that often tests the patience of the crew. She's in charge of communications on Enterprise, but she also serves as ship's Translator. An expert in exo-linguistics, she learned to manipulate her vocal chords to emit a range of alien sounds no human has ever produced. She has a natural affinity for picking up languages. Hoshi doesn't like the idea of being trapped in a "tin can" hurtling at impossible speeds. Every time the ship jumps to warp she grips her console and closes her eyes. She's a "white knuckle" space farer.
Is it just me, or isn't this new series supposed to take place before the warp drive was invented by Zephram Cochran (à la First Contact)?--
<>
I really don't think "Deep Space Nine" sucked...I think it broke a lot of new ground dramatically, and flew in the face of the critics who said that Trek (especially DS9's predecessor "Next Generation") took itself too seriously. DS9 bent the rules of Trek and was a success, critically and IMHO.
As for the new series, I think it has the opportunity to do the same thing. Based on the information that the series is going to be set in the not-so-distant future (relative to the other series at least), it sounds like the characters might be more identifiable and real.
In any case, I'll have the chance to get back into a Trek series from the beginning...I've totally lost track of (and to a certain degree, interest in) "Voyager".
One last thing: I've heard that they are pushing to get it on the air sometime this fall...that seems a bit optimistic for me, given the strikes taking place in Hollywood right now. I hope they don't rush things like casting just to get it out there sooner.
Red Dwarf was better than any of the other shows. A bit up and down but on its best it was absolutely hilarious. Particularly that episode where the time ran backwards..
Kirk: "Should I maybe not have sex with the green alien chick?"
McCoy: "Maybe doing surgery while completely drunk isn't such a hot idea?"
Picard: "I'm gonna smack the crap out of the next alien who gives me heat about being bald."
Janeway: "Maybe there's still someone here in the Delta Quadrant who doesn't think I'm some bull dagger Katharine Hepburn wanna-be."
Or they could just complete their descent into hell. All ST needs now is Jar-Jar Binks.
Ummm I hate to tell you but Roddenberry wasn't exactly a conservative. In fact much of the liberalness of Star Trek flows from the fact that most of Roddenberries original philosophies that he based Star Trek on were fundamentally flawed. You can't run a government like the Federation.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
C'mon babe, get those quanta bouncin', we gotta universe to explore!
--
XSL: think like a tree, not like a chainsaw
The really sad thing about TLG is that the producers know their target audience are geeks but they still managed to utterly mangle the technology. How hard would it be for them to hire a geek technologist to say "When you wrote this dialogue around the computer (hard|soft)ware you guys were just pulling it out your asses, weren't you?" As was mentioned in the previous fluff article about C.S.I., it's not too difficult to make the technical content of the story semi-plausible and still have a story that will work. I'm off to defrag the modem in my spiffy new CPU. I'm hoping my access codes don't get encrypted after I log in and screw everything up.
Quite right. But on the other hand, IMHO that's exactly the way America acts, too. So why should it have changed in a future where almost all ideals are inspired by 20th century America?
And, BTW, this is not confined to StarTrek either.
'final' means 'the last', not 'the latest'...
Ok ask yourself this question.
How much do I look like an Octopus? How much do I think like a bobcat? The answer my friend is nothing and not much. If two creatures who evolved on the same planet, same atmosphere look and act so different from each other why do you think aliens from another planet with a completely different atmosphere, gravity, flora and fauna would look and act excetly like humans?
War is necrophilia.
What you say may be true in the general case, but spinoffs work enough of the time to make trying them profitable. Sure, some spinoffs are doomed failures. (Does anyone remember The Ropers from Three's Company, or Golden Palace from The Golden Girls? I didn't think so.) But how about Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which was spun off from Law & Order? I'd hardly call SVU a "complete departure" from Law & Order. Likewise with the hugely popular Star Trek: The Next Generation and, to a lesser extent, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, which were spun off from Star Trek. Also let's not forget the countless successful children's cartoon series spun off from movies, such as Beetlejuice and Ghostbusters.
Regards,
Also, my understanding is that NCC stands for Naval Construction Contract. It doesn't directly imply Starfleet or UFP, so it seems possible that earlier Enterprises weren't NCC-something.
And perhaps the later A, B, C,... designations reflected that fact that Kirk and his crew were legendary heroes, and so Starfleet wanted to keep a ship with that name and numerical designation 1701 in service.
(This is without a doubt the geekiest set of comments I've ever made to /.)
I've been following this for a while. I'd be very doubtful if this was real. The biggest issue is credibility. If they did it now, they would have all sorts of cool gadgets that are supposed to predate TOS, but would be more advanced. Without this, no one would watch. Furthermore, and Rick Berman personally agrees with this: You just can't bring back the 60's mentality. Star Trek is an issues show, and any issues that correspond with the TOS era from the 60's just don't exist anymore. I think the future (a la 29th century) is more credible, and Brannon Braga (STSV exec), agrees that this would be the logical course of action. Let's face it: they can't go back pre-TOS.
Make it about Captain Sulu or don't bother
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
I'm not totally clued up on my ST History, but:
Is this series before or after the set up of the UFP? If it is after, then logically the Enterprise would have an NCC designation.
However, we know that the TOS Enterprise must be the first NCC Enterprise, otherwise they wouldn't keep putting on the A, B, C suffix...
And another thing... in ST:TMP after the alien intelligence infilitrated the crew member's body, they took her on a tour of the Enterprise and they passed through a rec lounge (or similar) and mentioned "all these craft were called Enterprise" with pictures of the AC, Space Shuttle, and a few others. I can't remember the details exactly, but is this new Enterprise going to look like one of those, or are they going to fix that in the Directors Cut?
--
Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
nope. Insurrection was good, lighthearted etc. Could have been much better, but they destruction of the borg in FC, and later inVoyager, is unforgivable.
The non borg part of FC (the planetside part), was great though.
Byron's telepaths ruined the last season of B5 without a doubt. I think everyone was expecting outright cancellation after 4 years and JMS had pretty much wrapped everything up by then. When TNT decided to ppurchase a 5th season, JMS had to scramble to fill episodes. I couldn't wait for Byron to get offed. That would have been satisfying. I never got too excited during the last year of B5. I even missed a couple of episodes and if I ever see them in reruns, fine, but if not it's not going to bother me too much.
While I'll agree that ST Voyager had MUCH to be desired, DS 9 wasn't bad at all.
Deep Space Nine was a pleasant diversion from the "fly the enterprise, have a holodeck/Mr Data/ time travel/ incident that were so prevalent in ST TNG. DS 9 didn't have all the skirt chasing of the original series, nor did it have the neat self contained trouble/resolution in one hour of show that plagued TNG.
DS 9 had story, and maybe it was a bit too much soap opera at times, but of all the existing trek series, it alone had a continuing story. There were unresolved issues at the end of the program that were to be dealt with in the next week's episode. Telling a story this way created an epic, one piece leads into the other, and the whole is a well told congruent story.
You don't have to like DS 9, it wasn't everyone's idea of a "proper" trek series, but that is no reason to put it down to the same level as Voyager. Sheesh, DS 9 never had to resort to T&A to drum up ratings, unlike one ST series.
otoPICO
... they literally started off with First Contact. Have the series begin with Zephram Cochrane and his cronies meeting the Vulcans and the Next Generation folks blasting off. Make the "Enterprise" be one of the first rust buckets they shoot into space. Show the actual first contacts between humans and Vulcans, humans and Klingons, humans and Romulans. Have the Time Ship Aeon occasionally pop up. Throw the bank at James Cromwell and make Cochrane a regular character. Lots of "engineering on the fly," birth of the Federation, the development of the Prime Directive, and so on. Have them shoot themselves in the foot a time or two by making erroneous first contacts with other races (getting off on the wrong foot). THAT would make a series I would watch. Of course, a 29th century one on the Time Ship Aeon would also be cool.
Devolver's Homepage... more fun than a box of crackerjacks.
for that matter, who said that a genetically engineered superman doesn't rule half of asia?...
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
Why in four centuries do people think earthlings will become "noble" and so compassionate?
We have the "prime directive" ya right. This is the real scenario:
We would be flying around, see a planet with ore, minerals, resources we want. We'd push the primitive civilization out of the way and take what we wanted.
Also, we wouldn't be goofing around with Romulans and other enemies having battles. We'd kidnap one of the little buggers and unravel his genetic code. Once that is accomplished, we can send a surgical strike virus or chemical to obliterate the race.
Another way, infiltrate the planet, and with one anti-matter blast obliterate the planet. (At least blow the atmosphere away.)
Another is the nanites. Disassemble the people on a molecular level. See ya. Your planet is ours now.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
- The Trek writers cannot develop characters that are remotely believeable. Only mindless, one dimensional cliche's.
Darn tootin'. Have you read the cast list for this new series? It reads like TOS meets Andromeda via Buffy. Shudder. Is anyone else picturing a Kevin Sorbo lookalike playing Captain Bulge Gently (or whatever the fcuk he's called)?
This cast list looks like they've cherry picked the current SF/youth TV. For example, the British Bloke might as well be called Wesley Wyndham-Price from that character description.
Originality? Courage? I'm sure they've heard the words.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Actually, from what I heard at a Trek convention, the reason these aliens were never heard from again is that the Trek story editor changed soon afterward. This is partly why Trek TNG had trouble getting and keeping cohesive continuing storylines--they went through something like 15 different story editors, and with each change, old story elements that were the former story editor's favorite project got lost. The same thing happened for those fish-like aliens that were kidnapping members of the Trek crew into another dimension and performing anatomical experiments on them in a later season--they dispatched a probe into this dimension, but were never seen again.
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
I used to be a huge trek fan. Ive seen all of the original shows and most of TnG, however i really havent been able to fall in love with ds9 and voyager. I think both of those shows were great ideas carried out badly. i think that going back to an earlier time in trek history is going to make for a very interesting show. Im expecting lots of interesting plot ideas from this series, as long as theres no time travel i think ill be pretty happy. This looks like it might be a great series, hope the writers can make this work.
Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind...
You're right about the sterile environment! Even the rogue mercenary ships never have overflowing ashtrays, half-eaten pizza still in their boxes, tons of paper printouts, beer bottles, magazines, used condoms, toilet paper or mouldy bananas anywhere.
Nobody ever sneezes so hard their face gets covered in snot.
Nobody ever farts.
There are no trash cans anywhere. Huh?
When the ship gets shot at, the bridge falls apart in rubble like a brick-and-mortar house. Are ships made of concrete or what? Anyway, we never see anyone clean up...
Of course, knowing ST, all this will probably be explained away with some mention of mouldy pizza emitting disgusteron particles which interfere with the warp drive, or something.
Any technology which is distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced.
Since Star Trek takes place in a vacuum, one can presume that it will suck, a lot.
The truth about Michael
Engaging Ramble Mode, Captain.
In the end, DS9 had some of the darkest and most dramatic episodes in the entire history of the franchise, especially in season six. "In The Pale Moon Light" and any episode with Section 32 in it comes to mind, and the Siege of AR-52(?) especially. It's like the writers finally got some ideas from B5 on how to do story arcs, and even managed to add their own original spin to it.
If you can ignore everything after the stupid little "Klingon-Federation Battle" story arc, you'll be in for a treat. The only exception to this is "The Visitor", which is DS9's answer to "The Inner Light." But the last three seasons are the only ones really worth a damn. Honestly, I can't see how people can say that DS9 sucked, given the high quality of work in the later part of the shows history.
Which is why it's so painful to see what they did with that last episode. Although the last five minutes were good...just barely redeeming the whole debacle.
Watching Voyager has been very....sad and painful. While it still manages to have an occasional bright spot, the series has lost "It", and I'm just glad that they are finally allowing it to limp off into the sunset, while we're still at the point where I'd rather watch a bad episode of Voyager than most anything else on prime-time TV. They will probably screw up the last episode in the same way they did for DS9 though. But, there is at least one "Good Way" they could wrap things up. My vision: in the last Episode, Voyager has to go through events that kill people (maybe even a principle actor or two.) and almost destroy the ship...but they make it home. The last scene is Voyager limping through the Sol system...pan up, and the crew are watching Earth through a staticy viewscreen. Music softly swells, and the very last scene is of other starships and shuttles drifting over to greet the returning ship.
It could end JUST like that, and be perfect. If they NEEDED additional closure, I say you just have a five minute scene: It's a year later. Voyager has been refitted, fixed and upgraded with all the new technologies aquired from the Delta Quadrant. Quantum Slipstream drive, etc etc....Voyager is supposed to be the first of a "new breed" of starship, like the Excelsior was going to be, and the Prometheus is. Janeway is still the captain, and she spends the next five minutes in her personal log just talking about what happened to the other crew members. Some would stay, some would leave. And life would go on.
I think that Series V is going to be the biggest flop in Star Trek history. I'll be surprised if it makes it past two or three seasons....and even then, the only thing carrying it along will be the "Trek" name. It strikes me as terribly uninteresting, and a digging up of old graves, due to lack of new material. A better series would have taken place just slightly ahead in the future. Maybe 10 or 20 years from the end of Voyager.
Or better yet, maybe we should just let the old girl rest a spell. We HAVE gotten 21 years worth of new material since TOS...time to let the field lay fallow for a bit.
"When Government fears the people, it's liberty. When people fear the Government, it's tyranny." - B. Franklin.
No, actually I posted cause I'm an idiot.
i hope this star trek is alot better then voyager..only reason to watch voyager is seven of nine...DS9 was pretty kool in my opnion..well atleast when they had the war with the dominion in full swing.. but i always thought it would be kool if they did a star trek based on a kligion ship...klingions as the main characters..more action..less talking..and certainly less prime directive issues... i luv'd TNG but sometimes i wished they would jus fire photons and blew up anyone that gave em problems...besides klingions are the most popular of the alien races and it would bring about a new prespective... BTW i hope the lone gunmen does well..but the reviews so far have it branded as pathetic slap stick comedy..which would seriously disappoint me..
i hope this star trek is alot better then voyager..only reason to watch voyager is seven of nine...DS9 was pretty kool in my opnion..well atleast when they had the war with the dominion in full swing.. but i always thought it would be kool if they did a star trek based on a kligion ship...klingions as the main characters..more action..less talking..and certainly less prime directive issues... i luv'd TNG but sometimes i wished they would jus fire photons and blew up anyone that gave em problems...besides klingions are the most popular of the alien races and it would bring about a new prespective... BTW i hope the lone gunmen does well..but the reviews so far have it branded as pathetic slap stick comedy..which would seriously disappoint me..
"For instance, the Queen probabally isn't really as crucial as she lets on."
Aye, she's probably the borg's version of a sound card.
Ah, well... when the Borg first appeared, I loved that thrill of fear from seeing a dark, mysterious, invincible enemy. When they wiped out a large fraction of starfleet at Wolf 359, I was awed. Yeah, the "go to sleep" solution was a bit of a letdown, I expected something more desperate, more costly to our heros. But after First Contact and Voyager, I don't fear the Borg anymore. They are boring to me. That's why I'm a little bitter about the whole mess. They took what could have been a great villian, and made them weak and silly. When I see the Borg I want to be scared.
Doesn't anyone know how to write good, scary sf villians anymore? Dukat was good before he went nuts. Kai Winn was rather chilling, for a time. G'Kar was very good, imho. Khan was wonderful. Morden was good, but Bester was great.
Yep, if the characters "tos" (The original series), Lennord, Forrest and Williams, and the similarities with vulcan science officer, renagade captain, etc. is not proof enough, section31.com posted:
m
http://section31.com/stories/mar-2001/030401_a.ht
My name is (Identity Preserved) and I'm a casting director in London. Having an office in New York allows me to obtain US casting information.
I'm afraid to say that all the information you have received about the next 'Star Trek' project is incorrect. The official information about the new show was given out a few weeks ago and the steps have been taken to ensure that information is kept confidential.
I truly believe that this is someone's idea of a practical joke. Even though the party in question went to extreme lengths to make the character info as a real document, it's a fake.
"Sub-Commander T'Pau" -- Is this supposed to be the T'Pau from Amok Time?
And the brethren went away edified.
"Several people commented on hating holodeck...I don't have a problem with them except for one thing...why is there an option to override safety protocols? When is it EVER a good idea to let holograms kill you? So why would the programmers even put that choice in there? "
Even today the military conducts live-fire exercises in which if you're not careful there's a good chance you'll get hurt/killed. Knowing that little detail can change your attitude toward the task at hand in a hurry.
Blech. Signatures.
"I'm so rope, just like Mister Roper"
-Pauls Boutique
=steve
--- rapper/producer/bachelorette party stripper
Here's my run down of the Enterprise crew:
But seriously... I'll watch the pilot out of curiosity but they had better get it right or I'm abandoning ship. Hey, after DS9 and Voyager could it get any worse?
I sure hope not...
--
Scott Brady
My favorite has always been 4 though. After that came 2, then 6, then 3.
but DS9 is the best ST series ever! Voyager is ok, not as bad as some maintain. most of the criticism of it comes from people who sound like they only saw the pilot
I'll be happy as long as they don't make this series "Political Correctness in Space", like they did with The Next Generation and V'ger.
I used to watch Star Trek a lot... but Voyager just, well, sucked, and I haven't kept up with it. And now that I've seen Babylon 5 (thanks SciFi channel!), I don't know that I'll be able to go back to the "continuity? what's that?" of Star Trek.
Sure I'll give the series a chance though. You never know, they might be able to come up with something good.
One of the problems with Voyager is that they never knew where they were going. They start off with this setup of "we need to get home" or whatever, but there was no sense of progression, really. Ocasionally they'll pull off a super-jump ("we're now 4259.1453 light years closer!"), but then nothing ever comes of it. They still meet aliens that were around before, etc.
Well, I hope the new series turns out good, I'd like to watch a good, new, sci-fi series.
And, barring that, maybe Sci-fi will buy the rights to Crusade and bring that back into production.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Yeah, wasn't T'Pau played by Dame Ican'tbelieveI'minastartrektvshow?
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
LOL. Fair points, and even worse: has anyone ever seen a toilet in the series? I mean, there could be lots of 'em on other levels, but there surely ain't none anywhere around the bridges of the ships I've seen. Must be interesting having to use the elevator every time you feel the urge...
Ally McBeal starts to look like real life compared to that. Anyway, I'm all in for more Trek, not that I'm misunderstood.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Does anyone remember / has anyone heard of the Excelsior Campaign? It's basically a fan based movement to make Series V a series based around Sulu. I met George Takei about a year ago and he was very enthusiastic about it. However, I haven't heard a peep about it lately. Hope it's not dead.
~Mike
A big enough hammer fixes *anything*
Apparently you watch, or have watched, enough Star Trek to get the gist of the plot. However, if one would stop to think about the shows, particularly TOS and TNG (while Roddenberry was still alive), they would notice that the episodes weren't necessarily about a bunch of people in a tin can exploring space and having fun with all sorts of technological gadgets... they were about the human condition, right here on Earth. Good example, and probably the most transparent of all episodes, is Let This Be Your Last Battlefield(TOS) where two aliens, one colored black on the left and white on the right and the other of the opposing coloration are the last of their respective races. Having destroyed their own planet with racial hatred and chased themselves throughout space, they end up on the Enterprise where Kirk tries to reason with them, but they end up destroying themselves and their entire species at the same time. Pretty deep storytelling in a simple analogy.
The reason nothing had consequences in the shows is the ability to maintain continuity... look at most of the shows that are from the same era... Did the Cartwrights ever suffer extreme losses on the Ponderosa that would change the entire landscape of the show? Roddenberry himself proclaimed that Star Trek was "Wagon Train to the Stars"... the show's design was simple to be extensible with character primatives that could be easily 'traded' back and forth among the cast with very distinct traits being found in the key cast members. Basically, all the toys had to be back in the box before you went home, because if that didn't happen then the shows didn't accomplish their desired task -- to be an analogy with a simple driving base story concept (people in space).
After Roddenberry's death, the shows changed focus a bit and allowed a deeper modification process to ensue. Happily, I don't believe it changed much of the basic principle that the show tried to achieve. But then again, I enjoy B5 and Crusade just as much as I do Star Trek.
-----
I think I'll call this one Bob.
Live with Love for Love is Life. --mine.
-----
I think I'll call this one Bob.
Live with Love for Love is Life. --mine.
-----
I always wondered what happened with that line of the story and why they never further developed it, after all, at the end the worm creatures had managed to send a signal out into deep space before Riker and Picard could blow his host up.
I was eagerly awaiting a follow up with some sort of invasion force that was to do battle with the Federation.
That two part? episode had the best suspense of any of TNG episodes. Too bad people thought it was too dark and ruined it for the rest of us.
Besides people shouldn't say that Star Trek doesn't have it's dark side. The old series had dark moments like when Kirk was split in two with a good half and an evil half, or how about when innocent seeming kids killed their parents via a supernatural force and then tried to take over the Enterprise? Or how about "Cat's Paw" or the "Gamesters of Triskelion"? Two other very dark and medievalish episodes from the original series?
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
Star Trek *had* characters, but we weren't expected to care about them as themselves, but what they stood for. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are different parts of our own mind and culture coming into conflict. Spock was interesting as the outsider looking in for the observation; in the newer series, we're supposed to care about the stupid robot *himself*.
[The spinoffs aren't the only shows to make this mistake--compare the first half-season of Alien Nation, which was very well done and was about the conflict rather than the races, to the rest of its run, in which we were supposed to become interested in the details of the space beasties. The early episodes frequently crammed a feature-lenght plot into the hour, whereas the later ones spent time babbling about the eggs . . . Or _Heat of the Night_. The movie and early television series had the conflict between the two characters, whereas it devolved into them being chums fighting other evils . .
Anyway, skip the character development and write a better plot. Don't waste time on the characters "growth," or let excessive consistency get in the way of a good episode.
And a couple of quibbles after looking at the page. The captain may be an improvement over the last several, who have been burdened by (and even provided!) adult supervision. Kirk ran around the galaxy without supervision, getting himself into messes that were, often as not, of his own creation. The Bald One was the type of pencil-necked desk-flyer that Kirk avoided. [Oh, and if Kirk ever caught a klingon on his bridge, he would *personally* have thrown him out the airlock].
I'm starting to ramble (just coming off the second really bad cold in a week), but when the Klingons became more interesting than the fedceration, it was doomed . . . and that switch. Originally, the Klingons were Nazi's with bad accents. In the later series, they were Norsemen with funny heads . . .
Oh, and why are there a Sub-Commander and a Lt. Commander in the same navy in this new character list??? These are the British and American names for the same rank . . .
Finally, I suppose that the "sensual" female vulcan will be the, errr, busty hormone target, in the tradition of Commander Cleavage, Major Mammary, and 36 of D?
:)
hawk
Having won its target demographics in the overnight ratings. With better ratings than most of the Mulder-Free X-Files episodes this season.
Afterall, a spin-off doesn't have to be better than the original show, it just as to be almost as good as it. It already has an established fan base which helps with the word-of-mouth/email/IM marketing efforts. Also, they'll be helped by the original series going off the air if they get sufficient ratings to justify the original show's time slot, as Frasier did eventually (though not permanently), and by the orginal show becoming a big screen franchise (for example, it was Star Trek's big screen success that prompted the STNG era spinoffs).
Work for Change & GET PAID!
I thought that andromeda was going to be good...looked promising. But what happened to it? It really does not have any appeal. I have to question whether or not writers will be able to think up original new episodes that won't immediately remind you of a previous series episode. It seems to me that unless some drastically different story is created, many episode ideas may make their way back into circulation. Perhaps they should try a more 3rd person approach...say, something from the POV or starfleet command...
Commander Williams
Admiral Leonard
Admiral Forrest
Anyone else see a pattern here?There has been a steady movement as we move further in the future and the Trek shows move further, THINGS LOOK BETTER! I mean - how crappy are they gonna have to make the shuttle craft doors? Is Cochran still alive, and if so does he still listen to Steppenwolf (and is he a 'hero' yet?) I dunno - seems like a mess to me!
If the Trek series is set in the past, think of all the limitations they are gonna have due to the fact 'it isn't discovered until stardate 86931 by Dr. Voliskine acording to episode by48x' and I just typed random numbers for the stardate too.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Two words: Doctor Who
Ahem... excuse me.... whilst I'm the first to admit the DS9 series did indeed suck ass... I have to say I'm outraged that Voyager is being publically defamed...
/.'s dream babe - part computer... totally scrummy.... I'm getting excited just now thinking about her... peripherals... And the Dr on voyager is a total scream...
I think Voyager is easily as good if not better than the Next Gen series... The episodes with the Borg *RULE* and there was no babe on any other star trek series like "7 of 9" she should be every
True the dozen or so of Voyager series were dodgy... but have a look at the first dozen Next Gen episodes. For example compare the opening epsiode of the Next Gen series "Farpoint" which goes for one and a half (boring) hours and culminates in an encounter with a couple of jelly fish.... when compared with the first Voyagers opening episode, you could easily say Voyager rules over Next Gen !!
Let's see some more of the 29th century Federation Timeship Aeon! ( Future's End, I & II , Voyager, Season 3). How many more wonders of space can they create for Series V? Let's see the wonders of time that confront the crew of a Federation Timeship. Hell, if they wanted to show some Trek history, then write an episode w/ Cpt. Braxton returning to "fix" the timeline in the 22nd century and do it there.
I just wonder how soon the premise for Series V will wear itself out. A 29th century will at least give the writers a whole new playing field. I honestly think a radical departure from what they have done in the past is the only way this francise can keep itself going without a break after 14 years.
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
while the new lone gunman will fail. We will all watch ST, even if it degrades to a fat old guy sitting in a refrigerator box saying 'raise shields'. Lone gunman, on the other hand, will fail, just like the Einis spinoff from Dukes of Hazzard.
Maybe it will be before they have a prime directive to circumvent as a plot gimmick every other episode. Maybe there will be "insensitive" ear jokes about the Vulcans and vice versa. Maybe there will be pre-catastrophe Klingons who still look like humans.
Maybe there will be only one plot per episode.
...of course, I thought they were a 1-hit wonder, and not the one you quoted. :^)
--
..!!in an intastella burst i am back to save the universe!!
Did I mention that I don't pay much attention to the ramblings of ACs? No? Well, I don't. So screw you, my cowardly friend. :D
...is Space:1999 - The Next Generation.
C'mon. If stories were at all important, none of your would be watching the latest thrashing of the dead Trek horse. Let's get back to basics:
Cool looking spaceships. And big explosions.
POW! Zaap! Whoosh!
You know you want it. Admit it already.
I'm thinking more of the "duct tape"-type of imaginative engineering - with possibly references to previous episodes starting with stuff like "You remember that emergency weld I made around Centaur Antares III? It didn't hold."
Anyone care to give it a shot? Trekker bragging rights to the best list.
How about these suggestions to get you started?
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
I know there's a zillion replies to this, but have you written an episode? The produces of ST: Voyager (and I think DS9) had an open door policy on script submissions. Anyone in the world could try their hand at writing an episode. Seems to me the best way to get rid of something that sucks is to go into it and improve it yourself.
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
1. Seatbelts. After being flung about the bridge for the Nth time someone, somewhere, must rediscover the lost art of strapping oneself to one's seat.
2. Fuses. Another bit of technology forgotten sometime after the 21st century. Just a couple of breakers and we can say goodbye to spark flinging controll boards and concentrate on structural members collapsing whenever the Enterprise hits a dust mote going faster than 10m/s.
Really, that's all I truly want from my SciFi TV.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
Being a one-time Trek fan, I can appreciate the original poster's comments. Hell, I agree with them 100%.
r eheads, but it also had a good number of nonhumanoid critters. It also had a story arc from start to finish. Wars were started and ended in episodes besides the season finales/premieres, and fairly prominent characters were killed off mid-season. Actions had consequences in this series.
What causes the frustration with how Star Trek has evolved? Of course there's a dozen funny one-liners which would serve as an answer, but here's mine: we've seen it done better, elsewhere. For me, "elsewhere" meant Babylon 5.
Sure, B5 had your stock aliens-who-look-like-humans-with-funny-hair-or-fo
B5 proved that you could have good SF on television. IMO, B5 was "The Sopranos" of Science Fiction. Star Trek has proved that with enough studio support, you can milk a cash cow for decades.
No Prime Directive
Has anyone noticed that the odd-numbered Trek movies as a whole, were pretty bad, and the even-numbered movies were great?
--
Mike Hollinger
Michael C. Hollinger
DS9's best aspects were the ones they ripped straight from B5.
Okay, okay, BEFORE all the rabid Trekkies start telling me that DS9 started first, let me remind you that JMS pitched B5 to Paramount *long* before DS9 and they had plenty of time to steal his thunder. B5 itself was stuck in "I need a network" hell for quite awhile.
The second Startrek seires could be called
"yuppies in space". The newest Roddenberry spinoff
Andromeda is "GenX in space".
Don't wish to hard because they -something- -something-
And you can't -something-
Come on people, it was a big hit in the 80's. Was I the only one hanging out at fifth-grade discos back then?
(And in case it wasn't clear, I was in the fifth grade myself at the time so I'm not some creepy weirdo... at least not THAT kind of creepy weirdo.)_ __
_______________________________________________
I love the fact that they are looking for an "African American" to play the guy "raised on cargo ships." in space. They need an American for that?
I guess if the Actor happens to be Canadian then screw him.
Is this the end yet?...How 'bout now...how 'bout now...how 'bout now?
Do you even know *why* DS9 was so different from TNG? Because TNG was starting to get boring with all those nice and almost flawless characters and another series like that would be very boring. Instead, DS9 was different. A lot more shades of grey, flawed characters with dark sides and yes, perhaps not always the most positive view of the future.
Gene wouldn't have liked it that way. Well, wake up: we were not exactly getting along with the Klingons and Romulans in TOS, are we? Sure, there was no large war like the Dominion one, but there was conflict. (actually there was plenty of war, just not during the timespan of the series)
I'm glad DS9 explored some new grounds. Not yet another starship, but a station. Many reoccuring characters. True, a soap-like arc, but therefore also bigger story arcs and some continuity I *like* in TV shows.
As for Voyager: again something else. Away from Starfleet. While I would agree that could have played out better at times, the concept was good and it created some nice shows. The whole Hirogen arc was terrific. Seven of Nine is a babe but also gave us room to explore the Borg and I think they did a fine job there most of the time.
Last but not least, Insurrection. Come on, it wasn't that bad. Stop comparing it to First Contact. We all know that one was better. Look at it this way: it was definitely the best odd-numbered movie.
I am sure the new series will have shows that suck. And I am sure some shows will be very interesting and exciting to watch.
And if you really think Star Trek sucks nowadays, just ignore it and watch reruns of the shows you did like or watch other series and movies.
We all are, samrolken, we all are...
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
The last site I saw that sucked so hard did so on purpose.
--Ford Prefect
I'm trying to be possitive, 'cause I really want the next series to not suck too much. However, I hope the cast of characters isn't set in stone. The Chief Engineer looks like someone took "Bones" and pulled out his "Medical Officer" module in favor of a "Chief Engineer" module. A Vulcan Science Officer? An "excentric" Medical Officer? A female Communication Officer? It sounds far too much like ST:TOS (I know originality and vision are rarities in Hollywood, but a little effort would be nice). The thing that really gets me is that out of seven regular characters, only two are female. What is this, the 50's? "Women are too soft and can't cut it out here on the wild frontier?" Most of this wont make a difference if they can get a group of decent writers and actors. I just hope they can.
However, I find Andromeda to be a refreshing show. Although there are some TNG like storylines (it is a Roddenberry show after all), the universe and characters are quite interesting.
For instance, Andromeda has advanced technology like seat belts, and consoles that don't explode and kill people! The character's don't blindly love thier captain like in TNG, and the dialog is quite un-Trekish. Oh, there's no holodeck!
It's still in it's first season shakedown, still I'm hoping it will get better with time, although the other recent Roddenberry series, Earth: Final Conflict was basically unwatchable by the middle of it's second season.
Give Andromeda a shot.
Or Voyagers ;)
While I agree B5 is among the best television science fiction ever done I was glad Crusade died. ;)
I'm sorry I didn't find it any good. Just because B5 is good doesn't mean Crusade is
I suspect that I'm not writing anything which has not already been written in this forum, but...Star Trek is moribund, and ought not to continue. At least, not until after another indefinite hiatus.
Hell, I watched STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION as religiously as any Trekkie. This was back when I disparaged the original show, because of its cheapjack production values and Kirk's belligerence. Now, it seems to me that TOS has retained its value, while it's TNG which has aged poorly. Is there a single TNG episode anything like as memorable as "The Doomsday Machine", or "Balance of Terror", or of course "City on the Edge of Forever"? The original show had very few stinkers to its credit. I'll say it; I'd rather watch "The Omega Glory" or "Spock's Brain" for the hundredth time than watch most episodes of TNG for the second.
The crew of Enterprise 'D'...just wasn't _interesting_. TNG's soapy attempts at "character development" were often forced and unconvincing. (Worf, the single father! Data tries to emulate human behavior...again! Troi has to deal with her mother! Yawn.) Their well-meaning, topical episodes were daring less often than they were craven (q.v. "The Outcast"). And then there was the ridiculous way that the show often substituted hobbies for personality. Consider those ludicrous poker games--they seem to me analoguous to the class nerd's laughable attempt to prove that he isn't square after all but a regular guy because he likes poker (baseball, beer, &c.) You'd never catch Spock or McCoy playing poker; they didn't have to, because they were interesting enough characters without such props.
And although Trekkies are quick to laud Patrick Stewart's acting, he didn't exhibit as much of it as TNG as I would have liked. Indeed, Stewart's ability to deliver a pompous, Ciceronian oration--and make it sound believable--was often used as a convenient way to wrap up a mediocre episode (qq.v. "Measure of a Man", "The Drumhead").
I spend so much time on TNG because that show. The faults of DEEP SPACE NINE (which, be it noted, I _did_ find interesting enough to watch for two seasons) and the execrable VOYAGER are also TNG's faults, magnified. Michael Dorn's addition to the DS9 cast illustrates this--the show was taking refuge in the sort of violence-heavy plots which the Klingons came to exemplify in TNG. Dorn's addition, also, pointed up the Trek franchises increasing inability to attract new viewers; increasingly, Trek began to feed on itself. The TNG-universe movies were the logical conclusion of this trend: movies which were utterly pointless to anyone who wasn't so devoted a fan of Star Trek that they could watch Brent Spiner tell bad jokes for two hours and consider themselves well entertained. (Wait...)
We've had enough of Trek to last us for a few years. But then, science fiction, in the visual media, has long since run itself dry. It has nothing to offer but mindless action and tiresome hand-to-hand combat, dressed up with a futuristic gloss. It's a little depressing to think that the last, best hope for intelligence sci-fi movie making is Steven Spielberg.
hyacinthus.
The sping scifi convention in my town is
the first one I can recall in a dozen years
there is no actor from a Star Trek series or
movie appearing. The francise appears to be
winding down.
I always wanted to see Kirk go to the planet of the political conservatives (no, the Nazi planet doesn't count
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Soval, Tos? - Aren't male Vulkans of that era supposed to have 5-letter names beginning with "S" and ending in "k"? - OTOH, the only one conforming to that scheme is Silik, the evil alien. - An in-joke, a hint, a conspiracy ...
...and then there was doom.
"Umk. So maybe it was a stupid plan after all." -God to his angels, just after creating the universe
noone has noticed this.
Smokedot: Stop the war on drugs. Slashdot style.
Time travel works for the occasional episode, or standalone work of fiction, viewed in isolation, purely for its "wierd thought" value. The paradoxes of time travel are fun to think about once or twice a year, but a series based on free-roaming time travellers would just be stupid.
Time-travel paradoxes are always resolved by fiat: "Yes, today you can go to yesterday and murder yourself; it doesn't really matter, as a time-traveller, you're insulated from the effects." "No, even if you don't do anything important, you'll return to a dramatically different universe." It gets boring and obnoxious quickly.
The only logically consistent bidirectional time-travel is one in which a new parallel universe is created every time someone makes a jump backwards. Which means that you never actually accomplish anything by time travelling, which is totally unsatisfying when you're faced with it for more than an hour or two.
There's just no way to make a good time-traveller series.
---
Agreed.
:/.
Someone kept pestering me to watch the re-runs of B5 on Sci-Fi (I missed the entire original run), and I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality and cohesiveness (it helps that it was almost entirely written by JMS instead of an army of vying authors). I've never liked DS9 or Voyager very much, and this new series doesn't sound promising either
There's a report that the 13 Crusade episodes are getting shown on Sci-Fi (which JMS has apparently confirmed), as well as a possible new B5 movie (which is more realistic than Crusade itself being picked up as a production series I think).
I guess my point is that people looking for good sci-fi on TV don't have to settle for Star Trek or the dreck in Sci-Fi's original shows... (I also found it very amusing that TNN is getting the Next Generation re-run rights).
:wq
Damnit! Let it die already!
The people in charge have proven they cannot write themselves out of a wet paper bag....well actually they can, but it requires a new particle of the week and 40 minutes of pure Celine Dion-grade melodrama. And no matter how bad or potentially life-changing the whole experiance is, no one will remember it ever again. There will be no mention of it, and all it's effects will be purely short term.
This pisses me off like nothing else.
- The Trek writers cannot develop characters that are remotely believeable. Only mindless, one dimensional cliche's.
- They cannot handle character development. They tried on DS9, but it was always herky-jerky and forced. People didn't develop over time, they developed in one of their two or three designated character development episodes. Even then they couldn't convince anybody with an IQ above 74 that it was remotely natural and believeable. At the end of TNG, everybody was almost exactly the same as they were Season 1. Let's not even mention Voyager.
- They cannot handle long-term story arcs. The Trek way is to start a war in one ep and forget about it for oh......8 episodes or so, with a few infrequent cut and paste mentions here and there. Even then, you can forsee the outcome 3 seasons in advance. Their "surprises" are incredibly weak and convoluted. God forbid they start a conflict in an ep that isn't the season finale!
- No character ever dies unless the actor playing them asks for more money or quits in frustration when the writers can't think of anything to do with them. Everybody has their nice 6 year contract.
- The writers cannot come up with a new and exciting story, most of it is recycled from other Trek shows, and even if they can write a script you could consider "passable" everything is neatly wrapped up by the end of the hour.
- Did I mention the Trek universe has zero consequences?
- The surroundings are always sterile and unrealistic. Unless you count the one, single "plot-device-personal-possesion" each major character has.
- Everyone is obsessed with the 20th century and makes references almost exclusively to this time period.
- The solution to any problem is a particle-of-the week/technical thing we have never heard of before. While the "realistic" and "logical" soltion is impossible because of veteron radiation or something.
- The Federation believes itself to be infallible.
- All bad guys are one-dimensional caricatures who either die or come around to the infallible Federation way of doing things. Not to mention the fact they look like 50 other aliens we have seen.
I could go on for hours.....is it any wonder why a lot of people who watch B5 for long enough get so disgusted with Trek?
It's depressing to think the brain-trust behind the past decade of incresingly mediocre Trek has been handed the reigns once again.
Oh well, let's hope "Crusade" comes back.
Any Trek refugees are welcome in the land of Babylon 5, right now Season 5 is winding up on SciFi. Season 1 should begin again on March 9th.
"Possibly?"
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
one day in the "geek compound"...
mr. hemos: captain malda, i have determined that napster stories are bringing in three to five hundred comments a piece! think of the banner revenues!
captain malda: captain to engineering!
engineer roblimo: engineer roblimo here, sir.
captain malda: mr. roblimo... crank out some more napster stories!
engineer roblimo: but captain... the trained monkeys can't take much more! they're pulling them out of the queue as fast as they can!
captain malda: not fast enough, mr. roblimo!
engineer roblimo: we need more submissions!
captain malda: damnit, roblimo, just make something up!
lieutenant jamie: captain, we're receiving a transmission from an unidentified source.
captain malda: patch it through!
osm(over speaker): i want to open-source natalie portman's firm teen buttocks and pouting teen breasts!
helmsman emmett: captain... look!
an aibo approaches the compound.
lieutenant jamie: captain, the transmission is coming from the aibo!
captain malda: helmsman emmett... moderate it down: -2, flamebait!
helmsman emmett applies the moderation. the aibo pauses but keeps approaching.
osm (over speaker): your feeble moderation points are no match for the power of my modified aibo!
captain malda: engineering, we need more power in the moderation system!
engineer roblimo: but captain... the moderation system is at maximum power!
captain malda: i don't want excuses, roblimo... give me that power!
the aibo begins to move forward, a large antenna rises from the nose.
captain malda: mr. roblimo!
the antenna starts to glow.
captain malda: mr. roblimo!!
the antenna glows brighter.
engineer roblimo: captain! i have jerry-rigged the moderation system! i converted it to a bitchslap system!
captain malda: helmsman, fire!
helmsman emmett presses the fire button. just as an enormous comment begins transmitting through the speaker...
osm (over speaker): star (as in hot young actress) wars. a story of tender love. it is a period....
the transmission is terminated by the bitchslapping. captain malda relaxes.
captain malda: good work mr. roblimo!
mr. hemos: captain, sensors have detected that yeoman portman was beamed off the ship... into the aibo!
captain malda: lieutenant jamie, open a channel.
captain malda: osm! return yeoman portman at once!
yeoman portman (over speaker): blow it out your ass, dork! i want a real man! an open-source man! a man that knows how to caress my firm teen buttocks and suckle my pouting teen breasts! not a boy who has bad dreams and shits a lot!
osm (over speaker, clearly ecstatic): hahahahahahahahahahahaha! i took a bitchslapping for natalie portman! hahahahahahaahahahahahahaha! come natalie, i will take you to quicktrip and woo you with a vegetarian burrito. i will then take you to see the buffalo and touch you.
yeoman portman (over speaker): oh, open-source man! how my innocent teen heart has yearned for the tender touch of your open-source hand!
osm and yeoman portman (over speaker): hooray!
captain malda: cut that off!
the aibo turns and disappears. transmissions continue beaming from the aibo and are broadcast over the speaker.
captain malda: what the hell is the matter with that guy?!
dr. katz: damnit, rob, i'm a teen-angst zealot, not a psychiatrist!
captain malda (clearly infuriated): engineering!! where the hell are those napster stories?!!
i took a bitchslapping for natalie portman!!
----
Deepthroat my submarine, swallow my seamen.
you are the man, that post made my day
Rock over London, Rock On Chicago
Your missing out then on the latest..
Imprisoned on the employment planet.
First Officer writes resume to infiltrate huge corporation that hired all the Voyager crew!
...I liked it.
' Nuff said :(
----- In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream...
WARNING: Stop reading already, I've been to the bottom of this thread and it's a complete waste of time!
The only good post is:
Neither Microsoft nor Unix exist in Star Trek.
I mean, have you seen any BSoD's? Have you seen anybody at an advanced console saying "computer, command prompt tar space hyphen exs vee eff space less than space data's new firmware dot bin greater than slash dev slash data brain pipe execute"?
Let get back to The Lone Gunmen...
Amen brother. Same feelings here.
"Life is art...Paint your destiny"
And yet again there is a Japanese crew man on the series. What about the quarter of human popuation that is Chinese? Will they still be technically behind and socially unacceptable in the 22nd century? While there continues to be strong Japanese presence in all of the series.
Alas, it is a 20/21 century tv show... Still have to target the American audience.
For a real "space opera", check out Farscape. The good guys are bad and the bad guys are worse. The primary character ended up killing the woman he loved and had his brain exposed on an operating table unable to speak coherentaly. w000p!!!
Think about it. The insides of a current Shuttle or Advanced Jet look far more high tech and flashy than the stuff in the original series.
:)
TOS worked because it looked better than the technology of the day. That is no longer the case and people will notice and not like it. Knobs, buttons and flashing lights ? Nope.
What I expect is an actual glass like windscreen on this baby with a heads up display for some controls. This will likely be a smaller ship than even Voyager and will actually land frequently. If it doesn't land then the shutlecraft will be huge by comparison. They won't be able to explain the backward steps in appearance of TOS and hopefully won't have to.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
When I flipped it on the first thing I heard was captain Kunt Moldgrow's scratchy voice saying "We're trappeed inside the event horizon of a black hole- fire photon torpedoes", and I knew then that I could never again watch it.
Sure the plots may have worn thin, but the next generation cast was a thousand times better.
Then I had an idea: Why not use the same core group of actors repeatedly to play all sorts of occassional characters? An actor could become known for his plethora of alien beings. It would sort of harken back to the theatre, I suppose.
I remember that that one crazy chick, Cezca, the Cardassian spy, played a Romulan security officer watching the cloaking device on DS9, so it isn't as if this hasn't been done before. And of course Tom Parris played a senior cadet in TNG. And Nurse Chapel == The elder Ms. Troi. And Doctor Pulaski played a blind weirdo on TOS. Wow, they've actually done that a lot. How do I remember this stuff?
Anyhow, this would be a definite shift from the usual garbage, I say.
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--hongpong.com
Star Trek: The Next ReGeneration!
Yes! They bring together all casts and crews from everywhere for a giant huge conglomeration of Star Trekness! Watch in amazement as they splice together old series shots with new series shots, and as the Enterprise-D runs rings around the Enterprise-Nothing! Watch for a dramatic conclusion of the popular cult debates:
- Spock vs. Data
- Scotty vs. Geordi
- 'Bones' vs. Crusher
- Kirk vs. Picard
- Chekov vs. Ensign Ho
- Nurse Chapel vs. Nurse Ogawa
- Spot vs. the Vulcan Gatorbeast
- Worf vs. Sulu (breakfast time!)
- Wesley try to survive Kirk!
- Whether or not Kirk will ever leave the damn Holodeck!
- Whether or not the Vulcan Nerve Pinch will work on Worf!
- The elapsed time between first contact with Kirk and when Worf gets sick of his arrogance and opens fire!
Watch vicious new love triangles form, including:
- Worf, Troi, Nurse Chapel!
- Spock and Data!
- Kirk, a mirror, and the Holodeck!
- Scotty and TNG Warp drive!
- Riker and Uhura (!!!)
- Guinan and Uhura (!!!!!!!!)
- Sulu and Nurse Ogawa
- 'Bones' and the New Sickbay
Terrible tragedies...
- Kirk ReGenerated!! ARGH!HHHHHH!!H!H!H!H!H!!H!!!!
- Riker and Ensign Noname in a one-night stand which inevitably ends in death!
- Worf having to wear the "Ensign Noname" death shirt!
- Crusher have another child (ARGHHHHHH)
- Troi make passes at the confused Chekov
- Spock contemplate same-sex benefits as a logic problem
- TOS crew seeing TNG accommodations
- Kirk meeting the Borg. Heh. Heh. Heh.
And, of course, new discoveries...
- Kirk's rug
- Spock's ears
- Bone's fetish (can't say for what, gotta save some secrets!)
- Uhura a lesbian???
- Chekov loses his accent
- Scotty gains his accent to the point of non-understanding
- Crusher's hair dyeing secret
- Picard's rug (unlike Kirk, he knows enough not to wear it!)
- Riker as Kirk's long lost son (makes sense, no?)
- Troi's feelings for Worf
- Worf's feelings for Data
- Data's feelings for Spot
- Geordi's feelings for Troi and Data (?!?!!?)
- Ensign Ho's padded bra (!!!)
- Wesley as some super Traveller-like being (oops, too late)
- Guinan's relationship with Picard (his slave)
- Q's friends R, F, and P.
- The Borg discover Kirk's arrogance when they assimilate him
- Tasha's Grandfather's Sister's Son's Niece's Daughter's Mother's Great-Great-Grandmother is Nurse Chapel!
Don't miss this exciting new Trek phenomenon! Watch the pilot episode, Friday October 12th at 8:00 EST! Star Trek: The Next ReGeneration! Don't miss it!
This was written by someone called Black Ninja.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
Yeah, The Lone Gunmen might be an okay spinoff, but I'll have to catch it some other time. Tonight is the premiere of the third season of The Sopranos!
Heh, I remember when I started watching TNG, all the old dudes said that TOS was the only real Star-Trek. Now it seems we have moved one series up. :-)
I must admit that I didn't care much for DS-9, too much talk, at least in the EPs I saw, but I have enjoyed watching the EPs of Voyager I could get my hands on.
No channel in the country I live is showing them, except for season 1, so they are a bit hard to come by.
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I hope they brink back yoda, he is my favorite star trek character. Since he trained jedi for over 800 years, I am sure that he was around when the federation was formed. This would be a wonderful tribute to Gene Roddenbery: May the Force be with You.
This message was encrypted with rot-26 cryptography.
Personally, I've liked all the trek franchises. TOS was essentially the 'wild frontier' TNG was basically to modernize the series, but after awhile it started to feel like they weren't boldly going where no one has gone before, but patrolling thier well known and well traveled borders.
DS9 essentially wanted to get politics into the mix. They did this well, and the characters were interesting and well developed.
I'm one of the rare who actually LIKE voyager (and not just for Jeri Ryan's ass, fine though it may be). The show in many ways return to TOS, giving much more of a feel for being out of the frontier.
Several people commented on hating holodeck...I don't have a problem with them except for one thing...why is there an option to override safety protocols? When is it EVER a good idea to let holograms kill you? So why would the programmers even put that choice in there?
Set in the past, I don't know. I don't think they can convince me that this is before kirk and his crew. They aren't about to go back to cheesy animations for phaser fire or overly large colored knobs on the control panels, or that weird bowl think Sulu used to steer the ship with
-- When a fool hears of the Tao, he will laugh out loud.
Damnit, I wish they'd come up with a storyline which DOESN'T involve a Federation crew, but still in the Star Trek universe. Something where the crew isn't all the "best of the best", and always going around preaching goody-goody stuff.
:)
Maybe a trader-of-ill-repute (read: smuggler) operating on the fringes of Federation space, in a ship which is constantly in need of repairs and/or imaginative engineering, and where the basic goal is survival first, money second - and the great lengths they go for the second will often result in desperate moves to do the first.
They could have a female Klingon "captain", who has a tendency to get drunk, with the resultant havoc