Comment Stream

Re: TOS S3: Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

For all the claims here about how bad this episode was, it sure generated much debate and chatter.

What problems that do exist for this episode, exist for many other episodes. Which is, a great concept that required more than 45 minutes to explore. So, any & all subtleties are condensed and appear "ham-fisted." Many of the arguments spouted by Bele & Loki, were arguments made by the activists back in the sixties. So the dialogue was being drawn "straight from the headlines" as they used to say.

It's in my personal list of top ten TOS episodes. I was just under ten when it originally aired. The ending has always stayed with me, powerful stuff. I saw it then and watching it as an adult now, it sure is an element of the decade in which it was made. We've come a long way.

Re: ENT S1: Fight or Flight

The episode seemed tolerable at the time because it was a new show and we were giving it a chance to see if it could deliver. But it's horrible, especially the staging of the grand climax.

There's no end to the nonsense and how eerily and badly timed it was with an unforunate debut weeks after 9-11, especially it was led by characters who acted like cowboys, carried prejudices about other species, and acted as if exploration was for their enjoyment, not for the purpose of carrying out sensitive missions representing the best of themselves to the world. These early episodes seemed to embrace Archer's swagger as the way it should be.

But the execution of the plot is as bad as the plot itself, completely undone by the wrap up.

The episode ends as the unknown ship attacks rapidly with extensive technology and seems to be able to put the Enterprise in peril rapidly up until the time when there's need for a long, agonizing pause from the attackers - enough to give Hoshi time to have a meltdown as the "great" Archer talks her down, with awkward hesitation for "drama" (Oh! Will she do it? Will save the day! What will the Enterprise do if she quits?"). And then, the ship of the species we never really get to know (pithy coda aside) has a smaller ship that can destroy the "villains of the day" when their larger ship was overwhelmed and their crew killed. Okay sure.

While this is supposed to be a big moment for Hoshi, as Archer tries to pass it off, it screams to anyone that there should have been more serious talks about their preparedness, as Jammer does. They should have suffered damage, barely escaped from Archer's foolish decision to go back, and had discussions about taking Hoshi home and listening to T'pol.

And then we're subject to Archer's smugness, which carries over into the next episode. They should have been kicked in the ass in this episode and changed the dynamic and humbled this crew episode after episode. The hoo-rah dominance of Archer and Trip is grating, but this is a show by Americans for Americans. Rodenberry's overall cast had many (white) American (Hollywood) faces, but the tone of the show was global. Of the main cast over the course of the series, Kirk and McCoy cover the American identity and are outnumbered (balanced out) by a Vulcan, a Scot, a woman who at least maintains some of her African identity, and crew from Japan and Russia.

Enterprise inadvertently suggests that there was a reason why hoorah A-mur-icans were not in charge of the crews on TNG, DS9 and Voyager, and why these "Archer" types were almost always the villains, the renegade Captains causing chaos in the universe. Pity that this series didn't get that, but at least it was cancelled after four uneven seasons.

Re: TNG S5: The Perfect Mate

TNG through Enterprise only made minor steps at evolving on gender and other diversity questions throughout their times.

The only way I can get through this episode is seeing it as a not-so-veiled jab at men controlled by their sex drives, more than just Kamala. We get this thrown-off revelation that there are apparently males who have this "mutation" that presumably is great for women (of course not other men), imprinting and serving their mates. But you can't get away from the focus on a women whose "mutations" makes her identity entirely molded to men.

So "Riker can't resist" makes her even more seductive and he somehow therefore can't stop himself from tonguing her. Okay. Kamala tells Picard the reason she's behaving as she is because it's how he wants her.

Famke Janssen does a credible job when she's trying to keep Picard with her, but to see him even be unable to resist makes him look like such a weakling.

Hard to watch.

Re: TNG S5: Cost of Living

Everyone has their own tastes, but the majority of reviews aren't lacking in it.

This episode exists for two reasons: (1) to make a show that appeals to young children (or people who think that childish fluff is entertaining) and (2) because of a commitment to Roddenberry to have Majel Barrett on the show once a season.

I know very few people who think you should have a show that tries to elevate Trek and take on subjects like death, torture, rape, and so on and then make shows that are supposed to be for kids in the middle of it.

DS9 did the best at keeping the theme and tone right, even when young people were involved. This is a colossal disaster.

Re: TNG S5: Cause and Effect

I love this episode, even with Beverly showing up with pink ribbons in her hair while in her uniform.

Seriously, I love the way Beverly happens to be the one, for reasons unknown, whose mind most sharply seems to recall the past experiences. It made me think that whatever gifts Wesley had they came through her (don't me get started on the horrible granny episode).

The whole thing is creepy and so well executed. One of the absolute best of Season 5.

Re: TNG S5: A Matter of Time

I like CPUFP's plot change suggestions.

I wish Picard had been more skeptical from the start. as well as the rest of the crew. They're supposed to be scientists and Picard and the crew should have been shown to have been testing Rasumssen more cleverly.

Case in point: Riker, for once, asks a great question about time traveling historians being seemingly unknown to history. Rasmussen claims there is no record of other time travelling historians because they were careful, But this claim is undone by the manner in which he is NOT being careful, arriving and seeking questionnaires and creating a record or his presence and so on. After the scene were he makes this gaffe in Ten Forward, instead of having the typical "Riker-loses-his-temper" trope, it should have been played calmly and as if they were playing along, and then to be shown later to have doubts based on this very conversation.

Indeed, what this episode SHOULD have been about is the scientific revelation that time travel may not only be happening more than this event, but that this guy not hiding it raises too many questions about the effects on time and whether real scientists and historians would MORE likely be aware of creating a cascade effect of time travel corrections and possible reversals and interventions by not keeping as low profile as possible. They should have been eager learn what they can about such time travelers BECAUSE Rasmussen is too intrusive and open about time travel and need to figure out more of what it means -even if Rasmussen was benign - and other time travelers who were operating in greater secrecy might not be.

The multiple fans who scoffed at Picard's suggestions that Rasmussen's credentials were so ludicrous that it bugged me the whole way through, especially since Picard a few sentences later swears he has doubts. He didn't need the benefit of technology to see that it was a ludicrous line to write and was driven by a long history of falsified documents.

But it gets worse.

Throughout Trek's history, some of what must have been known and are known to the crew of Enterprise D, they've seen how timelines can change by not thinking. Despite the weak execution of consequences of Tasha's travel-back-in-time storyline, Picard should have known in the alternate timeline that he could not guarantee any consequences from sending her into a different timeline, whether or not she died, even if he did it because the crew might not have made it back to their own time. And even if the Enterprise-C being pushed into the future was seen as an error that needed correcting, it was an enormous lapse in judgment. Why would he not ask whether or not this time traveler - by signaling the day was important - not possibly relevant? If the crew was put on alert that something was going to happen, who knows what assembling them might have affected? What if something else had happened that he distracted them from?

And this is where the Temporal Prime Directive takes the show downhill, that it either should have been dealt with as having exceptions that had been thought through (as they have not been for the original directive) or at least constantly had some default about how it would work if it were the other way around in different contexts. The comments above are dead on about the Prime Directive, though I argue less about its weak definition than how frequently it is disregarded or not violated.

Do we even know what the Temporal Prime Directive is, and if not, why has a civilization so aware of the original PD's problems that this discussion did not come up in the command room scene?

I can't enjoy an episode where my reaction is "Oh come on" every couple of minutes.

Re: TNG S5: The Game

It's really horrible. In some ways it might have worked as a comedy – especially if it ended with an intervention about Will and his sex life.

These are supposed to be intelligent people, some of whom unless they had been held down would have said no. So ridiculous. And it all ends with a flashlight.

A zero for me.

Re: ENT S2: The Communicator

Apparently this society hasn’t yet learned to split the atom - the soldiers are seen using hand guns. However, their futuristic-looking planes can fire laser bolts! Someone in the airforce needs to be seconded to the military...

Re: PIC S1: Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2

Drama is just for entertainment? If so, then what the hell are any of us doing here discussing Star Trek? There are hundreds, thousands of more entertaining pieces of drama available on TV alone.

Re: VOY S5: 11:59

Clearly these Millennium Gate folk never played SimCity...

Re: VOY S5: Someone to Watch Over Me

I've been doing the Star Trek Chronology Project, and I gotta say: this episode loses some luster, especially after watching the DS9 finales.

I realize I'm years late to the convo, but I can see how 21st century viewers (like John up there) see this as really dated. But that's viewing it through the lens of NOW, outside the context of when it was written and aired, twenty years ago.

And there always seems to be the issue of writers telling stories based of their personal experiences, leading to anachronisms. A view of the 24th century, written by someone who came of age in the 1970's.

Add all those gaps up, and yeah, some dissonance is gonna happen. The 2010's were not the 90's were not the 60's, and none are gonna have the same outlook on 2374 or whatever.

Consider: the gap between Voyager airing and present day is now as large as the gap between TOS and TNG. Some cracks are bound to start showing in the social and cultural norms of the era.

In 1999, this ep comes across as a bittersweet tale of unrequited affection, a nice My Fair Lady homage.

In 2019, (to me) it starts to look and feel a bit like a hokey 80's sitcom plot. Or Daphne and Niles Crane IN SPACE.

Re: VOY S5: The Disease

Wow, 2031 is only 12 years away now.

Nice Disney prediction, Jammer!

Re: VOY S5: Nothing Human

Watching this episode from 2019, some of it feels like it's not aging well.

"Voyager partitions its harddrive, creates a new MedTalk AI app, and argues about deleting the wiki article about vivisections."

Re: VOY S5: Infinite Regress

As much as I liked the creepy visuals, I wish they'd done more with it than just having "Larry" Tuvok (as we call him) and Seven yelling MULDER!!! and SCULLY!!! at each other across a chasm.

Also, I had to chuckle at some of the "convenient" framing of those Sickbay shots.

The Doctor, with Picardo really selling the concern:
"Seven? Are you okay?"

Seven, with Ryan crushing it conveying the distress:
"Please help me!"

Seven's Boobs, filling up 1/4 of my screen:
**HEAVE*HEAVE*HEAVE*HEAVE**

Re: VOY S4: Vis A Vis

Coaxial Drive, I snicker and make jokes every time I hear it.

"Coaxial is failing!"

" Shunt power to the Blu-Ray conduits, and re-route the signal tto the HDMI relay!"

"I can't get an RCA cable lock!"

"Computer, access Special Features Audio Commentary, authorization Kim-Four-Seven-Delta-Berman, enable."

Re: VOY S4: Retrospect

Ten years worth of arguing about rights, repressed memories, false accusations, and rape. All from a Voyager episode that aired twenty-one years ago...

I think we can all agree, we are a LONG ways away from a 24th century utopia at this rate. :-(

Re: VOY S7: Q2

Wow. I've been reading these comments for the last year or so while rewatching the syndicated series. I have to say that it seems a lot of people don't understand that Q is always testing humanity, even when he, it, or they, act like they aren't. If you saw the last episode of TNG you should realize this. If you saw the end of this episode where Janeway says " I appreciate this but It will only save a couple years..." And Q earlier saying "don't mess with the Borg," you may realize he basically tested Janeway and gave her all she needed to get home a few episodes later. Yes, it was a test. Am I the only one who sees that? It had nothing to do with Q Jr. That was just a ruse. It was still decent though.

Re: ORV S2: All the World Is Birthday Cake

He's probably writing the reviews simultaneously and The Orville just happened to get finished first.

Re: TNG S4: First Contact

New to the series. Can someone explain how the UT works? I assumed it was built into their comm badge but at the start of the show when Riker wakes up in the hospital he says he is missing his “metal pin” (aka comm badge) - so how were they able to communicate?

Re: VOY S5: The Fight

Hey, an alien race that can only communicate by punching Chuckles in the face?

I'm all for it. :-)

Re: VOY S4: Retrospect

Something that HASN'T changed, sadly; the outrage at the perception that an attractive white woman can get whatever she wants, at the expense of a man's self-worth and reputation.

I remember being super angry at that kind of idea in the 90's; but I was also a hormonally-charged, socially-inept and sexually frustrated teenage virgin at the time.

Re: VOY S4: Retrospect

Just a thought: If Kovin lives in a society where even an accusation of misconduct will destroy his business, why is he so poorly equipped to defend himself?

It feels like Russian dash cam scenario, where you want incontrovertible proof of all interactions.

Like others here, I think VOY tried to do a "your memories of trauma can deceive you" story, but fumbled it (as usual). And in the process, they accidentally wrote a prescient allegory about the current climate of "believe victims" and "false accusations."

We should all try to remember that twenty years ago, victim-blaming and false rape were not the headline grabbing hotpoints they are now.

Re: TNG S5: Cost of Living

I hate every second of this episode. Simply one of the worst in Star Trek history, if not THE worst. Majel's scenery-chewing is even more rampant than usual, although in fairness no actor could have made the holodeck scene bearable.

Re: VOY S4: The Killing Game

This episode is stunningly bad. Voyager as a whole has not aged well at all.

Re: DSC S1: The Vulcan Hello / Battle at the Binary Stars

I found this first episode kinda boring, to be honest. Not a lot really happened and the characters are very thinly sketched. Only Michael and Saru leave any impression, out of an entire bridge crew. And god, the Klingon scenes. What were they thinking? Dull, dull, dull.

On the plus side, there's a lot of money on screen, for sure. The people who love eye candy will be pleased. It'll be interesting to see how long they're able to maintain this budget as the series progresses. Is it just reserved for the pilot?

(It amuses me that Jeff Russo more or less has maintained the McCarthy/Chattaway era of musical wallpaper, albeit in a more contemporary, Zimmerified idiom. When you can hear it at all, of course. The mix is quite low. If it's one thing that The Orville slaughters this show's production design in, it's the music.)