Star Trek

[Atomic Age]

In my opinion DS9 became by far the best Trek spin off show. Much better than TNG which took about 3 seasons to really find its footing. I think if you stick with DS9 you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Doug

 

[Doctor Strange]

DS9 is extremely polarizing among the Trek fan community. There is an extremely vocal minority that think it's the best series... but for many of us - particularly Old Trekkers From Day One like me - it's alleged superiority is a mystery.

I just never warmed to the characters or situations on DS9, and its shift to arc-heavy storytelling with a huge amount of convoluted backstory in its latter seasons made it very frustrating to drop on occasionally if you didn't follow it religiously. I am not blind to how excellent some of its episodes are (e.g., "Beyond The Farthest Star"), but it only ranks a hair above the godawful Enterprise in my own feelings about the quality of the Trek series. I have tried to go back and watch the many episodes that I missed during the original run repeatedly... and given up repeatedly. It just doesn't grab me.

My theory is that the bulk of this vocal DS9 fanbase are folks who were in their mid- and late-teens during the time that the second half of the series ran. DS9 provided them with their first exposure to storytelling featuring complex moral ambiguity and dark, serious themes, and it made a huge impression. But those of us who had already experienced this kind of storytelling before in films and series - largely outside the range of science fiction/fantasy - were not similarly entranced.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I know I'm going to get digital brickbats thrown at me for this -- but nobody's mentioned TAS, the Animated Star Trek series from 1973-74. Yes, the animation was awful, and a lot of the scripts recycled bad cliches from the original; stipulated. But . . .

"Yesteryear": One of the best Spock/Vulcan stories ever, as the adult Spock must travel back in time via the Guardian of Forever, and rescue his own 7-year-old self to restore his timeline.
Spock: "A pet . . . died."
Kirk: "A pet? That couldn't mean much, in the course of time."
Spock (in his most carefully emotionless voice): "It might, to some."

"The Slaver Weapon": Trapped by the fearsome cat-like Kzinti (from Larry Niven, who adapted his own short story), Spock, Sulu, and Uhura somehow must prevent them from seizing a devastating weapon from a war a billion and a half years old.

True, Roddenberry himself declared the animated series non-canon, not authentic "Star Trek." But "Yesteryear" is too good; it refuses to die, and elements from it have turned up in other Trek shows/movies since then.

 

[Stearmen]

The Cage

I've been a Star Trek fan ever since watching the original series when it first aired in 1966. The original series may seem "hokey" or "campy" by today's standards, but it's still the best in my opinion.

What do you think of the original pilot, The Cage? This was of course the episode rejected by NBC in Febuary 1965, staring Jeffery Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike. It was finally aired in 1988 in a two hour retrospective intitled, The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation to the Next. By all accounts, this is what Gene wanted the entire TV series to be like, and DS9 is very close to this! In fact, NBC stated when they rejected the original pilot," too cerebral", "too intellectual", and "too slow," exactly the criticism of DS9. If The Cage had been aired back in 1965 and the remaining episodes been up to those standards, I might just have become a Treky!

 

[Lillemor]

I got in to TNG before watching the originals. I couldn't get in to DS9 or any of the other spin offs. I recently watched a bunch of old TNG episodes on youtube and stayed up until late at night to catch as many of the old TNG episodes that some Danish station aired. I'm surprised at how many older Danes who have never heard of Star Trek. Whether Americans like Star Trek or not, I've never met one over my age who haven't heard of Star Trek. I feel so proud whenever Star Trek gets positive mention in movies or on TV.

zombie_61, I'm all for hokey and campy stuff!

 

[Benzadmiral]

Re: "The Cage" -- yes, Stearmen, I finally got to see it in the 1991 25th-anniversary broadcast, which I think is the one you mean; are you sure you saw it in 1988? The bits that were not used in the "Star Trek" broadcast ep "The Menagerie" were great, and rounded out the characters. The relationship between Capt. Pike and the ship's doctor was much like that between Kirk and McCoy. Plus there were a few flashes of humor. Hunter's Pike would have been a convincing starship captain, for sure.

 

[Marshall]

I grew up on Next Generation (DVD Season Sets) and Voyager, so those are the ones that really grab me, particularly TNG (I especially love the movies, First Contact was awesome).

I watched a bit of Enterprise, but it just didn't have that Star Trek vibe to it. I haven't seen the Original Series, I hear you usually are only a big fan if you watch it before the other series, otherwise it's just kinda cheesy. *ducks rocks thrown by OS fans*

 

[Doctor Strange]

It depends on how open minded you are. If you can see beyond the psychedelic lighting and limitations of sixties TV (*), the best of TOS is still some of the very best Trek. And it's only cheesy if you don't compare it to the many average - and far cheesier - shows that aired at the same time.

( * It really annoys me when people attack stuff like "it's so obvious that it's a stuntman rather than Shatner in the long shots of the fight scenes." It may be obvious when you're freeze-framing a DVD on a 32" monitor, but it most definitely was NOT when the show first aired and most people watched it on 19" b/w TVs with fuzzy antenna reception... and you didn't get the chance to rewatch episodes endlessly!)

 

[Lady Day]

I think the franchise is just in a perpetual state of decent. It started at the top and just went down from there.
Story wise, I strongly believe this is the case. With the OS, you had complex stories (with the fair amount of cheesecake) wrapped up and told through a 60s narrative. If you understand that when watching them, then you have a better perspective. Plus this had never been seen before! It was the first and that gives it a hierarchy you cant argue with.

TNG I consider a reboot of the OS in that it brought Star Trek back to a main audience after a 20 year hiatus. It in essence is the framework for the complete Star Trek universe where things and inner workings were explained that were not in the OS' two year run.

I liked a lot of DS9 and James Avery was *hot*, but the show was just stagnant, and they wrote in all this silly stuff. I think if it had just stayed on the occupation transition which was the basis for the series, it would have been smoother.

Voyager was tired. So much so that they had to add some T&A in later seasons. AND they essentially dismantled my absolute favorite villain in the Star Trek universe, the Borg. I don't think I can ever forgive the franchise for that.

I tried to watch Enterprise but I just couldn't get into it.


LD

 

[FRASER_NASH]

Just a bit lost here, so help me out please. Where does STAR TREK fit into the 'golden era' category? Sorry guys if I missed something here, but I don't see where it fits into 'the era' or FL for that matter (unless there was a prototype in the 30s or 40s?). I hold my hands up if I have misread the ethos of the Lounge, but isn't STAR TREK science fiction and fairly modern at that too (?).

 

[Lady Day]

The show did originally air in the 1960s, and there were many flash back episodes to thee 1930s and 1940s throughout the franchise. Plus the moving picture area caters to a lot of movie/tv nerds who chat films of all stripes. :biggrin:

LD

 

[Zombie_61]

What do you think of the original pilot, The Cage? This was of course the episode rejected by NBC in Febuary 1965, staring Jeffery Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike. It was finally aired in 1988 in a two hour retrospective intitled, The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation to the Next. By all accounts, this is what Gene wanted the entire TV series to be like, and DS9 is very close to this! In fact, NBC stated when they rejected the original pilot," too cerebral", "too intellectual", and "too slow," exactly the criticism of DS9. If The Cage had been aired back in 1965 and the remaining episodes been up to those standards, I might just have become a Treky!

I like it. Good performances from all of the cast members, but difficult to gauge from a two-hour pilot whether or not they would have eventually developed the chemistry that Shatner, Nimoy, and Kelley had (which IMO is one of the pivotal reasons the original Star Trek was so successful). I did like the more subtle production designs (i.e., sets and costumes), but I can understand why the producers decided to make things a little more "flamboyant" for the series. And it was refreshing to see a woman in a command position in an era when women were still struggling to achieve equal rights in a male-dominated society (an unfortunate situation that to this day still hasn't fully come to fruition in many ways).

I did see it on the big screen when the remastered version was shown in theaters as a special screening a couple of years ago. I understand why they remastered the series, but I wasn't impressed with the CGI effects scenes--high-end video game quality at best, and did nothing to enhance the storytelling.

 

[Stearmen]

I think is the one you mean; are you sure you saw it in 1988? .

Yes it was 1988. I had to check to be sure, I only remembered it was in the 80s. I remember how all the Trekys were talking about the big event. Like I said, it was part of TNG and intitled appropriately, From One Generation to the Next!

 

[Atomic Age]

DS9 is extremely polarizing among the Trek fan community. There is an extremely vocal minority that think it's the best series... but for many of us - particularly Old Trekkers From Day One like me - it's alleged superiority is a mystery.

I just never warmed to the characters or situations on DS9, and its shift to arc-heavy storytelling with a huge amount of convoluted backstory in its latter seasons made it very frustrating to drop on occasionally if you didn't follow it religiously. I am not blind to how excellent some of its episodes are (e.g., "Beyond The Farthest Star"), but it only ranks a hair above the godawful Enterprise in my own feelings about the quality of the Trek series. I have tried to go back and watch the many episodes that I missed during the original run repeatedly... and given up repeatedly. It just doesn't grab me.

My theory is that the bulk of this vocal DS9 fanbase are folks who were in their mid- and late-teens during the time that the second half of the series ran. DS9 provided them with their first exposure to storytelling featuring complex moral ambiguity and dark, serious themes, and it made a huge impression. But those of us who had already experienced this kind of storytelling before in films and series - largely outside the range of science fiction/fantasy - were not similarly entranced.

Well I was born the year that Star Trek premiered, so I can't say that I was a fan from day one, but picked it up when it was doing re-runs around 74. I was obviously NOT in my teens when I watched DS9. In fact I didn't watch it in its original run, because I found the pilot episode to be amazingly boring. I didn't watch it until years after it went off the air, on DVD, in my late 30's.

Some people say DS9 isn't good Star Trek. Well if that is the case then none of the spin off shows are good Star Trek, particularly not TNG which is probably the weakest show of the bunch. Frankly by the time I started watching DS9, I didn't care if it was good Star Trek, it was just a good show.

Doug

 

[Doctor Strange]

I wasn't making any kind of personal attack, Doug. If you like DS9, great, enjoy it.

I honestly wish I could see its alleged greatness - I've tried - but it just eludes me... Well, there's plenty of Trek to go around!

 

[Benzadmiral]

Yes it was 1988. I had to check to be sure, I only remembered it was in the 80s. I remember how all the Trekys were talking about the big event. Like I said, it was part of TNG and intitled appropriately, From One Generation to the Next!

Then what I saw in '91 (and I'm fairly clear about that -- 25 years from '66 is '91) must have been another celebration entirely. It's not surprising that I didn't see it in '88. In the '70s and the first half of the '80s, I was quite the SF convention-goer, but fell away from it after '87 or so.

 

[Stearmen]

Then what I saw in '91 (and I'm fairly clear about that -- 25 years from '66 is '91) must have been another celebration entirely. It's not surprising that I didn't see it in '88. In the '70s and the first half of the '80s, I was quite the SF convention-goer, but fell away from it after '87 or so.

Don't fie bad, I never saw the 25th anniversary special, had to look it up, yes it was 1991! Well, theres another Star Trek I have not seen.

 

[Atomic Age]

I wasn't making any kind of personal attack, Doug. If you like DS9, great, enjoy it.

I honestly wish I could see its alleged greatness - I've tried - but it just eludes me... Well, there's plenty of Trek to go around!

Well I must admit that it took me a while to get into it. More than half of the first season, but I thought I'd stick with it. Once I got into season 2 I was really enjoying it. I wouldn't say that it exudes greatness, but a well written, well acted show.

Doug

 

[eveready]

Well I must admit that it took me a while to get into it. More than half of the first season, but I thought I'd stick with it. Once I got into season 2 I was really enjoying it. I wouldn't say that it exudes greatness, but a well written, well acted show.

Doug

My thoughts exactly.........

 

[The Good]

Does anyone know what is really the case with William Shatner's hair, or lack thereof? I have heard many times that he is, or was a frequent toupee wearer, even back in the days of The Original Series. So is there strong evidence that would suggest that, or has he ever admitted it?