Comment Stream

Re: ENT S4: Borderland

Worst costume!
There were many stupid looking aliens in SciFi incl. Star Trek but these ripped shirts of each of these augments look so ridiculous it i s distracting. What happened to those shirts? Why did they never get replaced. Why did they never rip entirely or do they never put them off, never wash? Or is it just really bad augment fashion taste?

Re: TNG S7: Force of Nature

So to prove her point about the affect of warp energy on their corridor, she had to be on the ship when it exploded?
And their original expectation was that their unproven hypothesis would be immediately met by regulatory action initiated by Picard? Or that he would destroy a warp core in the corridor?
And lastly, in a universe as such the entries space faring Galaxy rather limits it's trading, exploration, help missions et cetera than evacuating and repopulating the planet to a better one or to at least discuss that option? We only have one Earth but if we had two, a lot of people might actually want to go there.

Re: TNG S6: Birthright, Part II

As always in TNG the Klingon rituals look ridiculous and Word has, contrary to what we are constantly told, neither brains nor brawns (in TNG). The hunting game, the hunt, the meditation, his racism, his believe that Klingon culture is the only and superior way for people no matter under what circumstances they grew up, that is all so awefully ridiculous and close-minded unfitting a Starfleet officer, the latter parts more importantly than the bad portrayal of supposedly superior warrior hunter skills.

Yes, this place is a prison, the Romulan a patriarch, the community forced or at least socially coerced into living a certain way of life. That however is not what Word criticises but instead that the Klingon children, who never lived among "true" Klingons are not educated as Klingons and supposedly are deprived of what he assumes for them as the better way of life.
Plus totally denying that both might indeed be compatible or a fusion of both and any other kind of influence might work just as well for them.

I am really disappointed with Star Trek making Klingons usually dumb impulsives (who happen to be high tech space farers) and brave at best and the Romulans a treacherous people. That coming from a series that otherwise is all about keeping an open mind, letting go prejudice and so on. There are exceptions but for the most bit the protagonist non-human races are always good for action but never truly explored in-depth as a culure with not just a different but alternative point of view.

Re: TNG S6: Chain of Command, Part I

A good 2-part episode for all the already mentioned reasons and with a few major and minor flaws as per usual for ST (and most series unfortunately).

It does sound odd that Cardassians could plan for a mission to require the sending of Picard: having such extensive knowledge of the federation to determine that
- Picard knows what they need
- Picard conveniently among all the people in Starfleet has a rare enough skill that makes this old man occupying an important position the best guy for the job (also considering capture or death is likely, and with Picard having a lot of highly confidential knowledge)
- a threat so terrible and known across species involves a field few people have any sufficient knowledge about
- that Starfleet would only send just enough people they could be overpowered easily

If I found about all this, I would want to investigate if any Starfleet Admiral had a helping hand in that plan...

Re: TNG S6: True Q

Where do Q powers come from? A deeper understanding "the universe"? Then this episode fails as the girl has power before she has understanding.

Or are Q be somehow born with their powers and wield them pretty much as we know how to lift a ball without necessarily knowing the underlying physics or calculating the desired results in terms of applied force, direction, resistance etc.
In that case, their application of power would still be very crude, except in comparison with what we know and can do. Plus even the tiniest animal applies the same principles as we do to make changes in it's environment while the Q use entirely different means unobservable to us (the hand movements of the Q are ridiculous).

All in all, the Q episodes are far less interesting philosophically than the TNG crew's encounter with different cultures and values and more open minded human reactions to it. A Q here is little more than an egocentric human with intense power whose universe and perception strangely changes over the course of a few years (TNG/VOY) after billions of years of life, making humans not only the center of our universe but giving us a huge significance in the ST universe as a whole. A step back in philosophy.

Re: TNG S5: Darmok

While the idea might be nice, the execution is horrible (@playwriters).

Picard, fluent in e.g. Klingon, trained in diplomacy and first contact babbles out whole sequences of sentences in English to a species that obviously has no hope in the world to understand him. And instead of either species starting with the basics of any language and simple symbolism, or drawing, or doing holodeck simulations to make their point, they just keep on babbling as if repeating complex phrases that are not understood makes them any clearer as well as force beam someone into a seemingly dangerous situation. -10 points for first contact psychology.

As someone said here earlier: a child/two children would have done a better job at communicating.

Re: TNG S4: The Host

4 Stars. This is a great episode.
+ Riker acts a different person
+ Diana is okay with Beverly dating Riker/Odan (a bit more conflict should be expected but since there is only 45 minutes...)
++ I love it when Odan argues to an understandably pissed off Beverly that he did not mention it because that simply is what he is and as little point to mention that e.g. as your grandmother was French. Okay, it is over the top but the direction is great. This episode plays on so many interesting themes - what/whom do we love, appearance vs character, conflict of friendship and ex lovers, I'd say even themes such as gay/bi or whatever kind of "different". Like a number of episodes this would deserve to be explored in a fat book though, not just one episode.

+- the choice of Riker is great BECAUSE of the conflict it starts between Crusher/Riker, Troi/Riker, Troi/Crusher but of course it would only make sense if this was long-term and Riker had agreed to forego his personality which would not happen in an instant.

It's totally what I love about TNG though. Even if there is much left to be desired in an episode - and there always is - at least it makes you start putting on your "what if we were super open-minded, respectful and ethically advanced"... and then the discussion goes back and forth and continues so long until after the " solution for this episode is around the corner" stopped its 45 minute reel.