Scott Atwell Star Trek Discussion thread (Series and Films) (6 Viewers)

[Jason_V]

I don’t recall reading that this idea was meant as a season long arc. Perhaps it was a good call to make it a two parter.

Only quoting you, Nelson, cuz you're the most current. This is from Memory Alpha. Part I's article does stipulate YoH being S3's finale was also a conversation at the time.

• Despite the viability of this influence, the writers were still not entirely certain about how to draw the episode to a conclusion. "We had at least half a dozen different endings, and reshot endings," Joe Menosky recalled. "Brannon wanted to keep the ship wrecked for the entire season, and he didn't want to end with a reset. The studio [namely, Paramount Pictures] didn't want to do that. [Executive producer] Rick Berman didn't want to do that. So we didn't do that. I wanted at least a couple of people to know what had happened. We actually wrote this ending even though we didn't shoot it, where time is reset, the weapon is gone; we know what has happened to us through some complication I can't even remember. When we meet up with the next Krenim, Chakotay asks offhand, 'Have you got a colony called Kyana Prime?' And the guy says, 'Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about.' The idea was that time had in fact in some ways punished Annorax. Everything was reset except that. That was denied him, so it was this great, final, tragic moment. That was written and never shot because Rick said it was too complicated, and he was right. I can't even remember the tortured reasoning we had so that some of us could remember. Rick said, 'Just plow Voyager into the weapon ship, and reset the timeline, and nobody remembers.' That was the simplest solution." At the time, however, Menosky regretted the ending that was chosen. "I wasn't completely satisfied with it," he remembered. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 109)

 

[ScottRE]

Awesome, thanks for that quote! People come down on Rick Berman, sometimes unfairly, sometimes not. This time, I think he zigged when he should have zagged. Star Trek didn't take very many chances under his leadership.

 

[BobO'Link]

I avoided Voyager for so long because I had hated the pilot when it first aired, and never felt the desire to return. A few years ago, I decided to give it a shot since I had seen every other Trek thing and wanted more Trek, and I'm glad I gave it a second chance. Perhaps the reason I enjoyed it so much is because my expectations were so low that it far exceeded what I was counting on seeing.

But with that said, I think their finale episode was beyond awful.

Voyager has been one of my favorite non-TOS series since I first saw it. For the longest it and DS9 were tied as my 2nd favorite Trek series. That said - when I rewatch it these days I usually don't bother with that last episode. The only Trek series finale worst than that one is the one they saddled Enterprise with. That one I never rewatch.

 

[Osato]

I watched the Voyager season 4 2-part Year of Hell last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has action, peril, courage, sacrifice, suspense and some compelling philosophical issues. It had been long enough since I had seen it that I couldn't remember all of the plot points, and the epilogue totally surprised me, no memory of that at all. I loved the interaction between Chakotay and Paris when they were discussing the Krenim commander's actions and motivations.

If someone had asked me, I would have sworn this was a season cliffhanger, but it was actually fairly early in season 4, eps 8 and 9. Had Voyager ever had the opportunity to do a theatrical movie, I think this story would have been a good candidate for the plot; IMO there is enough there that it could easily be fleshed out a bit more for the big screen.

Love Botager and Year of Hell is one of the best Star Trek episodes of the franchise!!!

 

[Osato]

Voyager has been one of my favorite non-TOS series since I first saw it. For the longest it and DS9 were tied as my 2nd favorite Trek series. That said - when I rewatch it these days I usually don't bother with that last episode. The only Trek series finale worst than that one is the one they saddled Enterprise with. That one I never rewatch.

1. Tos
2. Ds9
3. Voyager

4. The rest of it....

 

[Nelson Au]

I just may do a YoH viewing.

Thanks Jason for the quote, i’ll check out the whole entry on that episode.

 

[Jasper70]

1 - TOS
2 - DS9
3 - Enterprise
4 - TNG
5 - Voyager
YMMV

 

[TJPC]

1. TOS
2. TNG
3. DISCOVERY
4. VOYAGER/DS9
5. ENTERPRISE

 

[Osato]

Tng is a series that I have a hard time rewatching.

I started season 3 a while back but didn’t make it very far.

I thought it best to skip seasons 1 and 2. I wanted to see the remastered work.

 

[Sam Favate]

Voyager, since it aired, has always been in a distant last place for me. I never warmed to it. I didn't like the concept, which turns Star Trek on its head (instead of going out to explore, their goal is getting home, and yet, they stop every chance they get, assuring they'll never get there). I never liked the writing. There were a few exceptions, but for the most part, it is the weakest Star Trek in terms of scripts. I never liked the look of it. The sets were bland, the lighting always too dark and the uniforms the worst in the series (virtually all black instead of the bright colors of TOS and TNG). I hated the alien makeup; every episode was just what I call "the forehead of the week," another alien species that looked just like humans with some seemingly useless cartilage in their face. I didn't like the characterizations: Intelligence was not rewarded (Tuvok is constantly proven wrong or ignored) and goofy un-intelligence is heralded (Tom Paris succeeds despite not being very bright). I initially didn't buy the series on DVD. I felt I didn't need it. Then, my wife, with whom I'd watched all the other shows, said I should get it and that she'd like to see it, so I did. We watched all seven seasons on DVD (my second viewing) and it just never excited me. I like the cast (for the most part) but I don't feel the writers, set designers and costume/makeup folks ever did them justice.

 

[TJPC]

Almost my same feelings for DS9. I am not religious and certainly don’t get excited by the mythical spirituality in these shows. I liked the funny episodes cantering around Quark, but otherwise found them dull. I consider them part of cannon, and have the DVDs, but only watched the set once. The fact that it is mostly rooted to the same spot made it feel static to me.

 

[ScottRE]

1. TOS - by a VERY wide margin.
2. DS9 - the characters and chances taken are amazing.
3. ENT - in spite of a shaky start (they all had that aside from TOS), this became a favorite because of the character work and "The Right Stuff" kinda feeling.
4. TNG - loved it at the time, but it is the least re-watchable of the various series. It went from a silly, oversexed TOS redo to become a dull conversation. Never has an expensive series looked to cheap and studio bound. The FX have aged worse than the original series. However, it gave America Patrick Stewart. Picard, Data and Riker are among my favorite characters in all Trekdom.
5. VOY - the characters are awful and the series tame, but when it wanted to be, it was high concept fun. THe music was great, though, breaking free of the low droning Berman insisted on for TNG.

 

[Gary Seven]

1. TOS
2. TNG

and distant
3. Second Season Discovery

Voyager was okay at the time I guess... too many resets.
Enterprise got interesting too late.
DS9 is simply a soap opera in the Star Trek universe. Some fun episodes and interesting characters but diminished the utopia that was supposed to exist.

 

[ScottRE]

I didn't even count Discovery. I saw season one, I'll catch the second when it's on blu ray. It's....okay. First year didn't feel at all like Star Trek.

 

[Doug Wallen]

1. TOS
2. DS9

Then there is the rest. I watched them all and like them all for different reasons. None really stand out and fall in the replay arena like the above listed series.

 

[Jason_V]

This is a pretty interesting conversation from where I'm sitting on the sidelines. And I say that because we all have different ideas of what Trek "is" or "should be" or what makes Trek, well, Trek.

I'm not diminishing anyone's opinions or thoughts with that comment. It's simply an observation.

For me, Trek is about seeing how humanity in all its forms stacks up against alien cultures. Whether those aliens are on a new planet every week, in the Delta Quadrant, having those cultures come to us or the person next to a human on the bridge, that's what makes Trek Trek for me.

I don't remember which TOS episode was the first I ever watched, but the one that sticks the most in my memory is "Day of the Dove." It was a rerun after the weekly TNG rerun on a Sunday night. It had to be summer since it was bright as day outside around 7 pm. I was 10-ish years old; my father and I were watching the episode.

And I think it created the idea of what Trek is for me. It's people of all different types and different cultures working together to achieve a common goal. Regardless of the technical or production merits of each series, they have all continued that tradition in some way, shape or form. I'm on record saying DS9 is my favorite series. Does that mean I don't put a random episode of Enterprise on late at night "just because"? Nope. Does it mean I thumbed my nose at Discovery Season 2? Not at all...everyone in that thread knows how much I loved the season. Trek is and always will be people working together and figuring out how human ideals stack up against the rest of the universe. And finding the commonalities we can all use to build relationships.

 

[ScottRE]

For me, what made Discovery’s first season less Star Trekkish was that it was pretty negative and unpleasant. I enjoyed it as a general SF series with lots of great twists and reversals, but it didn’t have the same hopeful, generally upbeat feel that even the hardest edged series had. Every one of them had downbeat episodes, but at the end of the day, you felt like this was a future you wanted to be part of. It also seemed FAR too advanced to be a Prime Universe prequel, which made me feel that it should have been a Bad Robot Universe prequel.

Discovery was about pushing boundaries, being harder, tougher, darker than before. The Klingons used to be a species you could relate to because they stood in for whatever adversary the US was facing at the time or showed how far we’d progressed and found a fragile peace. In Discovery (again, I am only going on the first season), the Klingons were so damned alien, I found them boring. The most memorable thing I recall was saying “oh, that’s what Klingon breasts look like.”

I hear things got more in line with the hopeful take in year two and I look forward to seeing it. I kinda refuse to pay for ALL ACCESS just for this – I’d rather have the physical media.

Obvi, YMMV.

 

[Osato]

I didn't even count Discovery. I saw season one, I'll catch the second when it's on blu ray. It's....okay. First year didn't feel at all like Star Trek.

I’ve only seen the episode that was aired on cbs network tv.
For some reason I wasn’t excited about it.

Interesting that it seems to be doing well but many are saying it doesn’t feel like Star Trek. I know they are now including a lot of characters from the original series as well.

Maybe I’ll see more of season 1 at some point.

 

[ScottRE]

I would prefer a starship series that went forward, post Voyager and quit with playing around with history and justifying why the tech is advanced and the uniforms don't match. Pike looks great, but unless young Spock is shouting a lot, it just ain't right.

"Check the CIRCUIT!"
"Radiation....NEGATIVE!!!"
"Damage control report, all staTIONS!"

 

[Sam Favate]

I think CBS is getting the message that a lot of folks want a post-Voyager/DS9/TNG series. Maybe "Picard" will fill in some of what we want.

I still want a Pike series, and I would love a post-DS9 series (or mini-series) with those characters. Star Trek: Bajor or whatever.