Star Trek: Classic or Dud?

Never watched the original series much (wasn't alive at the time of the originals, don't recall seeing the reruns), but became a fan of the movies when they started. Fell into things fully when TNG began (watched from the first episode to the last) and still followed those films, though after starting with both Deep Space Nine and Voyager I gave them up fully in late 1995 and never looked back. Have a couple of the, ahem, 'technical manuals' around the place but that's about it -- the other books I've avoided. Have no costumes, have always avoided any kind of conventions general or specific, take cruel pleasure in laughing at Shatner's follies in the fifth movie, as should we all (the fake MST version is the only one to see, frankly).

Unsurprisingly, Picard is my fave (I was actually a Patrick Stewart fan already), but both Avery Brooks and Kate Mulgrew did excellent jobs in their Sisko and Janeway roles. Scott Bakula as Archer just scares me as a concept. TNG cast my favorite ensemble bunch, though I will give it up (oh yes) for George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy, Terri Farrell, Alexander Siddiq, Rene Auberjonois, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran and Robert Picardo. Data ist rad. And so forth.

note: star trek: the motion picture looked awful. but all the ones after that were awesome. how much cooler would next generation have been if they had those burgundy uniforms? kirk looked like the motherfucker in EVERY MOVIE wearing that shit.

ned: you think picard is tougher than picard. what. the. fuck. did you see wrath of khan? did you see that shit? he fucking kicked khan's fucking vinyl-chested ass. 'oh, yeah, you have genesis, khan but you don't have me. if you want me, you're going to have to come down here. you're GOING to HAVE to COME DOWN HERE!!!@#@@!$#'. you can say ANYTHING ELSE about kirk vs. picard, picard is smarter and more civil and professional or whatever the fuck, but nobody in their right fucking mind would say that he's tougher than motherfucking kirk. i am actually literally angry about this, so i need to calm down now. christ, i'm such a trekkie.

I thought it was Riker who had the twin. ;-)

that riker transporter twin episode is some stupid shit though.

original series: chekov...maybe, but that's stretching it. he kicks ass in the movies, he's just sort of useless on the show. but the original cast (chekov being a second series addition) is flawless.

next generation: RIKER RIKER RIKER, troi, that doctor who replaced crusher for one year, yar, data (come on, admit it. he's a super-advanced andriod and he can't understand common phrases? he thinks a 'lemon' is a literal lemon for god's sake. i'm sure the writers kissed each other for how fucking cute that was. anyway mudd's women were way smarter). and WESLEY. geordie would get on my nerves if he were played by anyone but le var burton, but he's a childhood icon and can therefore do no wrong.

deep space nine: the only memorable character besides the captain (who is cool) is quark the ferengi (who is also cool). but the rest aren't even fleshed-out enough to annoy me. wait, no, the short-haired chick with the ridges on her nose aggravates the piss out of me. and the doctor, god.

voyager: it has an indian. and an asian guy. and a black vulcan. and the captain is a woman. only as annoying as that new ghostbusters cartoon where one of the ghostbusters was in a wheelchair. like, what the hell?

evidence that kirk is the best captain: all series after that have had kirk ripoffs that are nowhere as good as kirk because they are not as cool as the godly shatner. like riker, or that really forgettable womanizer guy from voyager. i mean, what the hell, don't you just want to punch riker in the face? does anyone not want to? anyone?

All-time favorite episode is "Charlie X," where the Enterprise picks up some teenaged human waif from a planet, who then runs around the ship melting off the faces through telekinesis (?) of various crew members whenever he's teased or horny. What teenager couldn't identify with that?

I remembered TNG being great when I was 12, but I watched a few of them more recently and they were AWFUL, even the later ones. I think I might have quite liked Deep Space Nine later on, when they started having season-long story arcs, but I never saw enough of them to make sense of what was going on.

How come most of the crew are American yet NONE of them are chronically obese? (except Scotty who's - ahem - ""Scottish"")

In the 60s it was a bizarre mix of US military 'might is right' fascism and Hippy-dippy, 'why can't all nations hold hands?' idealism (though still managing to be sexist ~ Uhura the Captains secretary and Yoaman Rand (is that right) the Captains bit of [onboard] fluff. AND THATS IT SISTERS!)

It should have ended there as it ran out of ideas and people stopped watching it. But OH NO, they had to bring it back in the 80s with over-long, plodding bore-a-thon 'Next Generation' episodes that tapped into the touchy-feely / inner-child / New-Age nonsense that was on the go at the time. I mean - Counsellor Troi = WHY? She even sits on the bridge next to the Captain!! the message is in the 25th Century a bloody social worker is one of the most important jobs on a space ship.

But it was all so clinical and corperate and soul-less, advocating Pro-conformity and how you should be a good citizen. And too much sanctimonious liberal finger-wagging for my liking.

And it starred Whoopi Goldberg.

And how come all the baddies end up as the Federation's (UGH!) freind, taking tokenistic jobs as Navigators etc?

And why was it always so fucking BORING?

Another Star Trek I had over the other incarnations -- BETTER BACKGROUND MUSIC! Esp. that duh-dum-duh-dum-DUH-DUM-duh-dum theme whenever Kirk's ass was in deep ship.

On the other hand, Troi's mother was AWESOME.

And the original ST's music was Varese-influenced, hey? Hmmmm ... never knew that! Maybe I should go over to that "Who Opened Your Ears" thread in ILM and change an answer or two of mine :-)

Troi's mom was cooler than Troi, not more attractive! Aigh, my eyes!

troi: not attractive.

crusher: nuh-uh.

troi's mom: uh.

that guy who was troi's mom's butler or something and was the guy who played lurch in the addams family movies: mrowr.

question: who liked first contact? it was like a next generation episode, only like, cool. plus, supercool supporting cast with alfre woodard and the farmer guy from babe.

someone start a star wars thread so i can bitch about how much that sucks except for empire strikes back.

hey i just remembered something else i liked in next generation, although it's from that bastard movie where kirk dies (falling off a walkway! the fuck? he's saved the universe like two hundred times and he falls of a walkway and dies? fuck). um anyway, i liked when data said 'shit'.

Andrew L has not mentioned his great expertness in this area, for some reason. I know about it because I very briefly worked under him on a Star Trek magazine!

God that movie was so dire

can't really blame cumbatch; he did everything he was asked to do

but what i mainly remember is this classic soap-opera scene where he explains his motives while facing away from anyone who could conceivably hear him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D221A8qsKtI

(fast forward to 2:40)

also admiral marcus just constantly sonning kirk

see also scotty constantly lassie-ing jayla in the third one (and he has no excuse, as simon pegg co-wrote the script)

bring back editors for literally everything

i felt bad for spock that he (canonically!) dies in abrams useless spin-off universe

i do like pine as kirk though! and the first one's fun

Pine >> SNW Kirk
SNW Spock >>>>>>> Zachary Quinto

"because in star trek (2009) the above-mentioned nero came out of a wormhole, into (his) past and destroyed the uss kelvin ft. george kirk, which created a 'divergent timeline'"

You know, until this moment I assumed that it was called the Kelvin timeline because the films were written by a man called Kelvin. You learn something every day.

John Kelvin, or something.

But no, they were written by Roberto Orci. He died! I didn't know that either. In 2025, of kidney disease, at the age of 51.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEaicg1kYMk

Kelvin timeline not to be confused with the Kelvans, although I often want to:
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Kelvan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aar_-2oLvmw

^seen this past long weekend at a Muppets Tonight event

we began Strange New Worlds

How are you finding it?

what do you think of pike's hair

Only two episodes in. Honestly? Hope it gets better.

mookie took the words right out of my fingers

Has anyone on this thread signed up for anything Klingon as a result of this show?

what does that even mean

like… language lessons? idgi either

RIP Michael Forest, who played Apollo in "Who Mourns for Adonais?" He was 97.

Oh RIP. he was a very good Apollo imo!

rough week

Yeah we didn’t even talk about Chekhov itt yet and now Picard too ;_;

It's just little bits like "Do not let your children forget" that stick out for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwGiU0rGgGI

Amazing, from Todd Stashwick on his FB post on Stewart:

"The last picture is one of my favorites, cause it was the day we shared with him the video of William Shatner’s rendition of rocket man. He’d never seen it."

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kqdyhnklmmv34nmml6btyqv6/bafkreigxektqqljjhpzhs4osouzv7xlurosoex3gde43ltpqxgdeiatpru

excellent pick. Patrick Stewart was great at delivering lines with just enough gravitas that you’d think his character had lived through something, a voice not speaking aphorisms but experience

that was a xp but I’ll allow it

Tea, Earl Grey, Hot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaAT6-dY1QI

Even fake Picard was a showstopper (though I guess depends on how you feel abt Napoleonic songs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC2hOtMb9OM

Really upset when I heard the news. Koenig was bad enough now this. Apparently he had Lewy Body? Did he deteriorate real fast or something bcs wasnt he just making a new xmen film recently?

Apparently he sold his Park Slope home last year but it didn't make the news until now. May be a sign he was diagnosed with it by then.

I used to live within walking distance of his home, but I only saw him once - he was on the opposite side of the block, taking a stroll and wearing a sweater - and I kept walking, but it was pretty cool living in more or less the same neighborhood as him. I didn't follow Star Trek but I always appreciated what it did for science fiction and it was enormously popular with a lot of my classmates with his incarnation of it being the most beloved of all.

Mr Veg fired up a rewatch of a couple of TNG classic favorites tonight - s3e15 Yesterday’s Enterprise, and s2e16 Q Who

A fine time was had

I sad afterwards it’s like when Yauch died, every time I played his music I got so lost in how good it made me feel I forgot to be sad - very much the same w Picard/Trek

*I SAID afterwards

now watch the inner light

yr not the boss of me

But also we will prob watch that tomorrow lol

<3

excellent pick. Patrick Stewart was great at delivering lines with just enough gravitas that you’d think his character had lived through something, a voice not speaking aphorisms but experience

― mh, Thursday, 29 October 2026 bookmarkflaglink

That's Shakespeare for you.

Never seen Darmok - that's my biggest TNG gap - I'll try and watch that this weekend

I have to admit I didn't realise Walter Koenig had died until I saw his name mentioned in threads about Patrick Stewart. It's truly odd that William Shatner has now outlasted his successor. And there was an eighteen-year gap between Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, it's not as if the show switched over mid-season.

If only there was a quicker, easier way to refer to those shows. Some kind of shorthand. StTr and StTr:NeGe. I dunno. If only the franchise had some kind of long-lived fan following. We can but dream.

I've mentioned it up the page, but in the UK the BBC started showing The Next Generation in 1990, and technically they only had the rights to the first three series, so they had to strike a deal with Sky TV to show "The Best of Both Worlds II". Then they spent an entire year re-running Star Trek: The Original First Show That Came First, which felt like forever at the time because there was no Netflix back then. The 1990s only superficially resembles the modern age.

Why do I mention this? Because after a year's gap they restarted The Next Generation with "Family", which felt like a massive let-down at the time, because after a year's wait they came back with a slow-paced character drama set on Earth. With lots of boring talking and some ooshy emotional stuff. It basically spoiled that episode for me, which is a shame because it's really strong, and surprisingly brave for a pop sci-fi show in those days. It basically has the same theme as First Contact but shorter.

"They used me to kill and destroy, and I couldn't stop them. I tried so hard, but I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't good enough. I should have been able to stop them."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuzoxcErOc8

I can’t tell if yr being serious or not.

Star Trek = TOS
The Next Generation = TNG
Deep Space 9 = DS9

and so on. these have been shorthand forever.

Talking about TNG with my kids, I find out that it's a plot element in some young adult novel that they had to read in school. So the whole idea of them talking about TNG with their dad is something that they talked through in class. They even screened an episode or two in class.

On one hand, that's nice. On the other hand, kind of robbed me of the opportunity to share it with them!

"Have you told your children about Wesley Crusher?" pamphlet.

somewhat opportunistically, TNG has suddenly been discounted on Apple TV. The whole series remaster for twenty quid, which is pretty good.

my year of rest and relaxation as mandatory YA reading?

Watching Star Trek as an adolescent was when I first came to regard Whoopi Goldberg with the reverence she deserves. Whoopi seemed like an absurd interloper on the USS Enterprise. Whenever she appeared on screen, I sensed she was laughing at the whole production. Her presence made the show completely absurd.

my understanding was that she really liked star trek -- she was headlining movies at the time but still fit it into her schedule when she could

whoopi is great in first contact imo

That quote is silly, the reason Whoopi seemed like "an absurd interloper" to the writer is because they had a frame of reference for her outside the show and not for anyone else, and TNG was "completely absurd" in the best way with or without her.

somewhat opportunistically, TNG has suddenly been discounted on Apple TV. The whole series remaster for twenty quid, which is pretty good.

The economics of our time work a little differently...