US: Star Trek: Discovery

Voyager had some good stuff. It was just a little outweighed by the snoozier eps and the whole tHeY nErFeD tHe BoRg thing, which is fair.

As for ENT, I'll give it another chance one day. Like TNG/DS9, I hear it gets a lot better later on.
 
ENT isn't that bad at all. I don't understand the hate it gets. The only bit that is frustrating is the last episode, otherwise it has some great characters that build throughout the seasons and it's interesting to see a perspective on trek before they have all the crazy gadgets that we take for granted from TOS onwards. I don't even remember any silly terrible episodes (like VOY - Threshold?!), other than some of the mirror universe stuff which I could live without, albeit it's a bit of fun.

Discovery wasn't even that bad until the gradual decline that started.
 
alex24 said:
ENT isn't that bad at all. I don't understand the hate it gets. The only bit that is frustrating is the last episode
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That last episode is really, really bad :(

alex24 said:
otherwise it has some great characters that build throughout the seasons and it's interesting to see a perspective on trek before they have all the crazy gadgets that we take for granted from TOS onwards.
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Eenhh...

They have a transporter that, in the main, works just as well as they did in TNG. They have polarised hull plating that works exactly like shields. They have phase cannon weapons and photonic torpedoes that are almost identical to later phasers and photons. A grappler that does exactly the same job as a tractor beam. Races have cloaking devices, which will be mysterious and relegated to the 'theoretically possible' by the time of TOS...so that's weird.

Plus, the ship was slower and shorter-ranged than later (in canon) starships...but it didn't seem to stop them getting to a new planet each week. Overall, the Enterprise universe didn't feel large enough or dangerous enough for me.

alex24 said:
I don't even remember any silly terrible episodes (like VOY - Threshold?!), other than some of the mirror universe stuff which I could live without, albeit it's a bit of fun.
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I dunno. Trip getting pregnant (season 1's "Unexpected") was right out of the Brannon Braga Dumb Story Generator. "Precious Cargo" in season 2 was awful, s4's "Bound" not much better. And the aforementioned series finale. But a special mention if I may for the cliffhanger ending of season 3, with EVIL ALIEN NAZIS!!! :D

alex24 said:
Discovery wasn't even that bad until the gradual decline that started.
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I think my disagreement with that statement is pretty much on the record at this point ;)

re: Voyager

I think I've posted about it before, but Voyager was a very troubled production. The pilot episode cost more to make than Wrath of Khan had (either an indictment of the people making Voyager or high praise for Bennett, Meyer et al.). The lead actress that they'd hired for Janeway (Genevieve Bujold) quit barely days into shooting, forcing them to scramble for a replacement in Kate Mulgrew. Then they had to reshoot material that they shot with her because her hair colour was clashing badly with the studio set lighting (hence that bun she wears her hair in for the first few seasons). Robert Beltran only took the role of Chakotay to work with Bujold and consequently fell out of love with the show rapidly, especially when the script quality turned out to be pretty...I'll be kind and say 'uneven'.

It's amazing that they dragged seven seasons out of it. In a different age, an episode like "Threshold" genuinely would have killed the show.
 
Uncle Petey said:
Voyager had some good stuff. It was just a little outweighed by the snoozier eps and the whole tHeY nErFeD tHe BoRg thing, which is fair.

As for ENT, I'll give it another chance one day. Like TNG/DS9, I hear it gets a lot better later on.
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True about the Borg but I was a sucker for any more related content. One thing was certain - any episode to do with that Irish village - snorefest.
 
Sorry my post was 100% bait but I think it proved the point. Beyond TNG, most Trek fans don’t really agree on what is ‘good trek’. It seems a lot of people have lots of issues with both the older and the new content. I mean half the movies are famous for being a bit poor.

As I laid the bait I suppose I’d better reply:

I couldn’t really get into TOS, I think it just didn’t hold up that well once I was old enough to watch it.

TNG is certainly the best and the show I enjoyed the most.

I couldn’t get into DS9, not sure why, probably a mix of the characters and the story was a bit dry at the start.

I enjoyed both voyager and enterprise.

Discovery was ‘fine’ at the start but it really got weird and lost my engagement.

I enjoyed Picard, but I am a big fan of Patrick Stuart as an actor and that probably helped me look past a few of the seasons flaws.

I suppose the key difference for me is that I’m not a ‘Trekkie’ but I just like SiFi. If they cancelled the whole IP tomorrow I’d certainly not shed any tears. I don’t watch shows like this to get into the lore and embrace the universe. I like to sit down of an evening, turn off my brain and unwind. I couldn’t really care if X scene goes against the lore set in Y scene, I’m just looking to be entertained.

If the show goes in an odd direction like discovery did and loses my engagement, I’ll just turn it off but I’m really not bothered if timelines don’t quite stack up or tech they had in enterprise wasn’t available in TNG.
 
It all kind of reminds me of Star Wars. Recent movies have such bogglingly stupid moments that people are clamouring for Lucas and the prequal movies, almost forgetting how badly they were received when they came out.
Voyager and Ent got savaged when weaker episodes aired, and they had some stinkers. People clamoured for B&B to be sacked. Now you have people pining for them and shooting the same ire at Kurtzman and co. Not saying it's not deserved, just amuses me the parallel and that a lot of Trek has always gotten the same abuse.

Really, they just need the magic sauce of the writing from mid/latter TNG/DS9, with characters behaving in a consistent manner with proper development and growth. Mix in a pinch of more modern story telling arcs that are well thought out and planned in advance. Add to the canon and the mythos, don't ride roughshod over what has already been established or hit a universe wide reset button. The show is no longer Star Trek at that point.

Take direction from more recent SciFi like the expanse or even nuBSG for visuals. Don't have these starships shooting at each other from 20 meters away. Last ep of disc it drove me nuts how the whole of starfleet (at their HQ) couldn't stop one ancient ship from what was essentially point blank range!
We have the sfx to show these vessels as the huge machines that they are, capable of releasing ungodly energies at vast distances. Use it. Be consistent. Pretty please.
 
doodah said:
True about the Borg but I was a sucker for any more related content. One thing was certain - any episode to do with that Irish village - snorefest.
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Agreed. Even though they did make the Borg less of a threat, they were mostly still enjoyable storylines IMO. Maybe it's one those relative to a lot of the other episodes situations :D

@b0rn2sk8
I don't how much DS9 you got through, but I'd highly recommend starting again with a couple from S2 like Blood Oath (and basically any of the Klingon centric episodes across all seasons tbh. They're always fun and anything involving Martok and/or Gowron is gold) and The Jem'Hadar to get warmed up.
Avoid any of the tedious Bajoran centric episodes.

I'd be happy to put together a little watch list for S3-7 if you're halfway interested in checking it out again. S3 has some good stuff, but S4 and the arrival of Worf and bald Sisko is where it starts getting really good.
 
DS9 had some of the best content/storylines, even though Voyager was my favourite. And yes, avoid Bajoran episodes unless it's Kiera kicking ***.

One of my favourite episodes was Garrack and Sisko working together......"it's a faaaaaaake".
 
Yeah, that episode was sheer class.
Love or hate Avery Brooks, but it can't be denied that he knocked it out of the park on that one, as of course did Andrew Robinson.
 
Uncle Petey said:
Avoid any of the tedious Bajoran centric episodes.
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I'll add a couple of exceptions there if I may? The season 2 opening trilogy is more Bajoran politics than Bajoran religion, and the third episode is good fun with the Die Hard On A Space Station vibes. Similarly, "Shakaar" from season 3 is a decent episode that focuses on Bajoran politics instead of prophets and pah'wraiths and other such 'magical alien' stuff.
 
Uncle Petey said:
Agreed. Even though they did make the Borg less of a threat, they were mostly still enjoyable storylines IMO. Maybe it's one those relative to a lot of the other episodes situations :D

@b0rn2sk8
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Avoid any of the tedious Bajoran centric episodes.
...
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Season 1, Duet being an exception. Possibly one of the best episodes of anything I've ever seen.
 
Agreed on both of those points :)

It's kind of a similar situation to the oft repeated opinion about the first couple of seasons of TNG being complete garbage. Yeah, kind of, but there were still a few episodes in there that were brilliant.
 
Uncle Petey said:
Yeah, that episode was sheer class.
Love or hate Avery Brooks, but it can't be denied that he knocked it out of the park on that one, as of course did Andrew Robinson.
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Like Bill Shatner before him, Avery Brooks is right out of that very expressive theatre school of things. Sometimes it ends up being a bit OTT (see the series finale in the Bajoran fire caves). And sometimes it's this:


 
He earned enough credit with me to let the over-dramatic stuff slide :) I can live with it ;)

Shatner was in another league of gurning OTT drama :D
 
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