"STAR TREK" Gripes & Pet Peeves (generic) (1 Viewer)

[Jack Briggs]

"...No Lightsabrers..."

Wrong religion!
I have also commented on that Voyager nonsense about conserving power by turning off the replicators--yet with no one expressing concern about the precious holodeck's power consumption. Oh well, Janeway did have to indulge her fantasies about being a nanny. Whew. What a bad memory that series is.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

DaveF wrote:

, in that Q was part of the Star Trek universe and followed its own logic and rules. And Q never popped in at the end, wholly unexpectedly, to solve a problem. Q always (I believe) was introduced at the beginning of a story, and was an organic part of the the resolution.

Webster's New 20th Century Dictionary Unabridged (ha!!!) (2nd ed.)
deus ex machina
"3. anyone who unexpectedly intervenes to change the course of events."

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Geoffrey_A wrote:

Man, they sure wussified the borg. The borg were scary because they were faceless, they were a perfect hive, and they couldn't be reasoned with. Giving the Borg a face, with all the human frailties we're familiar with totally defanged the Borg.

As I tried to point out earlier in the cases of the Vidians and Species 8472 (great foes), this is the Star Trek producers' and writers' pattern (and policy???) for the franchise.
The Borg have been vastly overexposed, so what more was there to say about them if they repeatedly failed to conquer the Federation? The solution was to make them un-Borg, to "humanize" them.
"Everybody's really human under the skin."
But what if they're not?

 

[DaveF]

"3. anyone who unexpectedly intervenes to change the course of events."

I still disagree, since Q was no more unexpected than any other alien entity -- every show began with Enterprise unexpectedly encountering someone or something which changed the course of events. Somehow, there was resolution. Perhaps Geordi flummoxed the iso-linear widgets, Picard quoted Shakespear, Riker hit on the blue-headed babe, or the alien realized they could be friends after all.

Q generally appeared in the beginning of an episode (like every other alien), did his Q-best to annoy Picard, and then was involved in the resolution somehow.

But perhaps my memory fails me, and Q was more random than other plot contrivances.

 

[Geoffrey_A]

The solution was to make them un-Borg, to "humanize" them. "Everybody's really human under the skin."

I think a better solution would have been to completely back off the borg for a while, and let them become that ominous off screen presence they used to be.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Well, if the Borg are fair game as a pet peeve:
1. Rotating shield and phaser frequencies : What a load of crap. Either the Borg would simply have a shield that covered the entire frequency spectrum of the phasers or they could only stop a limited range at a time. If it was the latter then it would be more of a guessing game of which frequency to use with the phasers and shields and you could always go back to a previous frequency.
2. How many times do they have to destroy the Borg's communications link before they are wiped out or "The energizer Borg, they just keep going and going and going...
which leads to what others have brought up
3. Why the hell don't the Borg send 300 cubes from cube central to wipe out Earth or "Don't underestimate the power of stupid drones in a collective."
4. If it takes 50 starships to stop one cube, how is the Federation still around? or "It's obvious the writers flunked math class."
Okay, enough with the Borg. One more regular one:
Can't the writers all decide on just ONE warp speed scale? Is warp 10 the highest speed possible with the warp scale being asymptotic to infinity or is it some linear / geometric scale that has no numerical upper limit? In "All Good Things", future Riker says "Let's do it the hard way. Warp 13!" when previously on TNG is was explained that warp 10 was it. They also spent an entire episode on Voyager about this.
Chuck Anstey

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

3: They never used the captain's Yacht in the series.

In TOS they didn't have a shuttlecraft until they sold the model kit rights to AMT, using the money to build a full-size shuttle.

 

[Kwang Suh]

TV:
Already TV is dropping in popularity, and it's only the 21st century. And if I had holodecks, I'd never ever watch TV.

I don't know about you, but I've never done anything of great importance in a scant 26 seconds.

I once got dressed in 15 seconds after you know what

 

[Randy Tennison]

My gripe with STTNG was that every problem they encountered seemed to be resolved by realigning the lateral sensor array.

 

[Mike Soltis]

My gripe with STTNG was that every problem they encountered seemed to be resolved by realigning the lateral sensor array.

Well in TOS, is was Scotty climbing around in those jeffries tubes ('feels like ants crawling all over m'body')

...or Spock 'cross-circuiting to B'

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Geoffrey_A

I think a better solution would have been to completely back off the borg for a while,

I think we are in complete agreement on that point. To be clearer my statement should have said "their solution" (that is the lazy writers' and producers' of ST). When the highest ratings are what's at stake, anything goes in today's tv world.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

I still disagree, since Q was no more unexpected than any other alien entity -- every show began with Enterprise unexpectedly encountering someone or something which changed the course of events. Somehow, there was resolution.
. . . .
Q generally appeared in the beginning of an episode (like every other alien), did his Q-best to annoy Picard, and then was involved in the resolution somehow.
But perhaps my memory fails me, and Q was more random than other plot contrivances.

Have we been watching the same series? "Encountering" is one thing, "popping in", a Q-specialty, is another.
First of all, "Q's" appearances were not limited to TNG, but became relatively frequent in ST: Voyager as well, as the character came to annoy, pursue, and perplex Janeway ("Kathy") and crew in the so-called Delta Quadrant.
Q comes when he's "banished" from the "Q-continuum" ---whatever that is (we only ever got to see it as a dusty road in a southwest US setting---how convenient!)---("Deja Q"), when he has female troubles ("The Q and the Grey"), parenting troubles ("Q2"), when he's chasing outlaw fellow "Q-balls" ("Deathwish"), when he wants to join a Federation crew ("Q Who?"), and on and on (and on (sigh!)).
"Here or nowhere is where I'd rather be, among you puny inferior humans," He tells Picard, in a perfect example of the anthropocentric contradiction that besets the whole series.
In most, if not all, of his appearances in both series, Q made it his mission to hunt up the "silly humans" that were supposedly (contradictorily) too far beneath his kind to even notice.
The big difference between Q and the Classical deus ex machina is that he initiates the troubles he sometimes later "solves". If actions like "unexpectedly" introducting the Federation to the Borg (capriciously and out of spite, I might add, at being rejected for crew membership)---and possibly thereby changing the course of human and Federation history---don't meet the above definition, I don't know what does (or could). [Of course, after the introduction of Seven of Nine, the producers and writers of the series show contempt for their audience and the story changes again for their convenience of the moment---but that's a different pet peeve.]
The whole "Q"-concept is for me one gigantic writer's deus ex machina. Lazy writing = repeat after repeat after repeat appearance.

 

[Jack Briggs]

"My gripe with STTNG was that every problem they encountered seemed to be resolved by realigning the lateral sensor array."

Well, that's how I solve all the major and some minor problems in my life! Get with the program, Randy!
Seriously, this is a great discussion. You go, Rex! Thanks for starting it.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

The big difference between Q and the Classical deus ex machina is that he initiates the troubles he sometimes later "solves". If actions like "unexpectedly" introducting the Federation to the Borg (capriciously and out of spite, I might add, at being rejected for crew membership)---and possibly thereby changing the course of human and Federation history---don't meet the above definition, I don't know what does (or could).

Q did not "capriciously and out of spite" introduce Picard and the Borg. It was done purposely at that time by the Q continuum to save the Federation by giving them time to prepare for their coming. The Borg were actually introduced at the end of the first season, although we do not know it, when the Enterprise and Romulans are investigating the complete disapperance of several neutral zone monitoring stations. Q mentions in a future episode something like "If it weren't for the Q continuum, you would have been assimilated years ago." I guess the could be argued as deus ex machina before the fact since he solved a problem before it was a problem.

I enjoyed Q but there was one thing that was never really touched upon philosophically. They were effectively God, having power over life and death and the universe, but rather than being good and evil, they were instead completely neutral and let "nature" take its course for good or ill. They only really got involved if the balance in the universe was threatened. This is in sharp contrast to most religions where there are good and evil omnipotent figures.

Chuck Anstey

 

[DaveF]

Rex - I better understand what you're saying, though I don't agree. Or perhaps I should, but I still wouldn't be bothered by it
Perhaps incorrectly, I think of deus ex machina as, to make a silly example, the castaways on Gilligan's Island are rescued when the Hand of God reaches down, picks them, and places them on Hawaii. A solution that had no connection with the established rules of the show and no connection to the established characters and actions.
Q did pop in -- but so did almost every other problem. And he often fixed his problems with as much aplomb -- much like most every other "engineering" problem (realign the iso-linear holo-heater).
As for Q's contradictions -- I thought that was part of what was fun about him. But I also think it was part of the atheistic underpinnings of TNG (generally dismissive of "gods" or religion).

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Chuck Anstey wrote:

Quote:

I don't think I agree with you here either. Q, or some other member of his/its continuum, often involved the Enterprise ("Deja Q", "Q-Pid") or Voyager ("The Q and the Grey", "Q2") crew in things they would not have been involved in otherwise (his "parenting" problems? the Q-Civil War? Q-suicide, or---I can't help it---Q-icide? Come on!) Why were the Q-runaways on Earth in "True-Q"? What universal rescue mission were they on? Why Earth?
I actually like to think of Q as Lucifer (especially when he was banished from the continuum), rather than "God". As in the Old Testament, this being is the "prime mover" of so much of the action in the story. His appearances are capricious and unexpected from the viewpoint of the humans he affects, yet they aren't accidental. I personally just couldn't take it. I could barely tolerate the character and grew tired of it after---what?---four visits (including the 2-part pilot). Yet the producers chose to begin and end TNG with this character popping in and popping out and pulling the protaganists around by the nose. "Q" is the ultimate deus ex machina by my reasoning because he represents the consummate manipulate of both the protagonists in the stories and the viewing audience.
Some might call that great fun. I couldn't. And can't. Recalls for me too many Lost in Space moments.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Jack Briggs wrote:

Seriously, this is a great discussion. You go, Rex! Thanks for starting it.

Thank you much. You might be able to tell: some of this has been brewing in me ever since the early '90s. It's good to get it out finally, and I was sure that, given the popularity of this "franchise", there would be many others who felt the same.
Coming up some time (as soon as I have time and energy to get my thoughts together):
1) unexplored or false implications of ST episodes
2) Comfort-Zone issue: "Who is the Federation & why don't they ever show up? Race and ethnicity in ST"

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Kwang Suh wrote:

Quote:

We well realize this. Over thirty-five years and still no loos! We didn't imagine they held it in forever!
I just think that, with 3-and-a-half decades and the kind of money that's been put behind this "franchise" (under essentially the same production heads since TNG began), they could have put a little more thought and more resources into the "imaginings" of the non-technical side of future life. Hell, they could've hired any of a number of know-it-all fans on the cheap to go over every script and point out the violations of canon as well as the outright contradictions to the show's own established "history" that keep popping up all over the place.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Kwang Suh wrote:



Quote:



DS9 is the best Trek series.






That's a defensible, but debatable statement. It depends on what one is looking for. Certainly for "pure drama" and personal character development, I would agree with you. However, with that strength comes also a drawback, as far as I can see.

DS9's format was far less flexible than those of the other series. Its surroundings were far too "comfortable" and familiar. That meant less chance to get into interesting science-fiction stories that almost always, by definition, go into unexplored territory. For me personally, that is the reason for looking at science-fiction (or supernatural-horror) programming. The melodrama of the characters' personal lives, which were often played up to the hilt in DS9, should normally be part of the story, to the extent that it is both appropriate and feasible, but not the story itself.
Any of the other series was (potentially, at least) better at exploring the unknown than DS9, in my opinion, just because the setting and elements of the setting changed from week to week. It is after all, as someone pointed out earlier in this thread, called Star Trek (and not for nothing). Even DS9 didn't get to be a good program until the characters got a ship of their own and started going to interesting places (which the station itself, and even Bajor, were most definitely not). The "weirdo-aliens-show-up-on-station-week-after-week" or "Bajoran-religion-this" or "Bajoran-religion-that" of the first two seasons of DS9 just didn't cut it for me.

Where DS9 does get to shine as no other Trek series ever has (or ever will?) is as a (more or less) self-contained "novel for television" a la Babylon 5. (A co-incidence??? J. Michael Straczynski has wondered that same thing aloud over the Internet.)

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Kwang Suh wrote:

The Dominion War arch was quite good, and went far beyond anything done in Trek before or since.

Here we agree, but I have a peeve and a question for anyone.
What was the Dominion War really all about?
Even after watching the episodes multiple times and reading Terry Erdmann's excellent DS9 companion, I'm still not completely clear on the issues.
I know, the "changeling" Founders of the Dominion in the so-called Gamma Quadrant want to impose order on the "solids" (humanoid races) that once oppressed them. But at first they just wanted the Federation and others from "Alpha Quadrant" to stay on their own side of the Bajoran wormhole. If the show is to be believed, they could just as well have "closed" or "collapsed" the wormhole from their side. (Hhhhhhhhhh! the sound of mind going on cruise control from the simple-mindedness of the "science".) So, what happened? What have I missed (even though I've seen the whole series multiple times)?
Is it just me, or is it again some gap or double-take (double-cross) by the show's producers?
I will appreciate hearing other people's interpretations of the genesis of the whole war arc.