STAR TREK

Not that anyone cares, but I updated my list by adding the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks (which recently finished its first season) to my rankings above. I actually enjoyed it more overall than the other modern Treks, much due to it getting the colorful nature with the weirdness and optimism down pretty well. I think that things are looking good for how the second season will turn out there.

If there's any Trek viewers out there on the board, what are your favorite series and episodes? Also, [MENTION=78686]Wile E. the Brain[/MENTION], have you seen any Trek episodes yet or haven't you gotten around it?
 
CousinMerl said:
Also, [MENTION=78686]Wile E. the Brain[/MENTION], have you seen any Trek episodes yet or haven't you gotten around it?
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Not yet. To be honest, I've made animated series my priority right now, and even with that I'm struggling to catch some of them up. Not to mention I'm currently rewatching The Simpsons from the beginning. But I'm still interested to try the Star Trek series someday, since I like most of the movies. And I'll make sure to tell you when I will.
 
[MENTION=78686]Wile E. the Brain[/MENTION]. No worries. I was just curious so I thought I'd ask. I know you watch a lot of shows and hasn't got time for any more (I didn't know you're rewatching 'Simpsons' but it's a good incentive. I've rewatched the show earlier but since I've focused on other shows, it's been a while since I paused the rewatch on early season 10), but I hope you'll break into some Star Trek and get back to this thread eventually.
 
For me, I enjoyed most of the movies, but I don't really have a definitive favorite one yet. I guess it's between The Wrath Of Khan or Star Trek.
 
I watched Lower Decks, which made me start watching TNG and Season 3 of Disco, looks like Im a Star Trek fan now.
 
[MENTION=70954]Smear-Gel[/MENTION], as probably said before, I'm not surprised that some will discover the franchise and get into it via 'Lower Decks' (which I'd say is a good starting point, especially if you're into animation. A lot of those in-jokes and references the series contains may go over a newcomer's head but it still is an entertaining show and a good gateway).
 
CousinMerl said:
[MENTION=70954]Smear-Gel[/MENTION], as probably said before, I'm not surprised that some will discover the franchise and get into it via 'Lower Decks' (which I'd say is a good starting point, especially if you're into animation. A lot of those in-jokes and references the series contains may go over a newcomer's head but it still is an entertaining show and a good gateway).
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Yeah, Ive heard people critisise it by saying the references shut out newer fans, but I never really had a problem understanding the episodes as I watched. A few jokes missed me until I saw some reactions to them (*spoiler* coming out of the holodeck at the end, "Anthony") but for the most part I got what I needed to. At the same time I dont know if Im a perfect example since I did learn enough about the show in passing before I started to not be completely lost. I do agree that it's a good starting point, it seems to be one of the few Trek shows where most people think season 1 was good. Even though Im convinced Mariner and Freeman were on the Enterprise-D so now Im spending a moment of every TNG episode thinking "I wonder what they're doing right now"
 
[MENTION=70954]Smear-Gel[/MENTION], I get what you mean. A lot of people and naysayers (like those who hate modern Trek) have been saying that the references and in-jokes make 'Lower Decks' bad for newcomers but I cannot see how it would shut out so many at all. Sure, fans and those who know a decent bit about the franchise will get more of the references, but it still is a nice and entertaining show that doesn't really require any previous knowledge (I rather think a series like 'Picard' does require some knowledge due to plot points and characters being more tied to previous shows, but that one still works as a standalone too. I'd say it's my least favorite of the series' though).

And regarding the thought of Mariner and Freeman having been around on the Enterprise-D, I would say it is a possiblity Freeman has been stationed there at some point during the TNG series but I think Mariner is a bit too young for having too (but I guess during the later two TNG movies she could have been on there, at least as visitor). I think that there is a possibility that any character connections with the Enterprise could be touched upon in season 2 with Boimler on the USS Titan with Riker & Troi (at least in passing dialogue).

Anyhow, back on the live-action shows, you said you're watching TNG. I do think that is a good starting point when it comes to the older shows, even if the first couple of seasons are pretty rough, especially the first one (I watched the movies first, with 'Star Trek Into Darkness' sorta being my gateway to the franchise before seeing the classic films, and then The Original Series, which I stuck to for a few years before going to TNG, then Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise & naturally Discovery inbetween and also the 1970's Animated Series).

How far have you gotten and what do you think so far, overall?
 
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CousinMerl said:
[MENTION=70954]Smear-Gel[/MENTION], I get what you mean. A lot of people and naysayers (like those who hate modern Trek) have been saying that the references and in-jokes make 'Lower Decks' bad for newcomers but I cannot see how it would shut out so many at all. Sure, fans and those who know a decent bit about the franchise will get more of the references, but it still is a nice and entertaining show that doesn't really require any previous knowledge (I rather think a series like 'Picard' does require some knowledge due to plot points and characters being more tied to previous shows, but that one still works as a standalone too. I'd say it's my least favorite of the series' though).

And regarding the thought of Mariner and Freeman having been around on the Enterprise-D, I would say it is a possiblity Freeman has been stationed there at some point during the TNG series but I think Mariner is a bit too young for having too (but I guess during the later two TNG movies she could have been on there, at least as visitor). I think that there is a possibility that any character connections with the Enterprise could be touched upon in season 2 with Boimler on the USS Titan with Riker & Troi (at least in passing dialogue).

Anyhow, back on the live-action shows, you said you're watching TNG. I do think that is a good starting point when it comes to the older shows, even if the first couple of seasons are pretty rough, especially the first one (I watched the movies first, with 'Star Trek Into Darkness' sorta being my gateway to the franchise before seeing the classic films, and then The Original Series, which I stuck to for a few years before going to TNG, then Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise & naturally Discovery inbetween and also the 1970's Animated Series).

How far have you gotten and what do you think so far, overall?
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For TNG, I enjoy it. I know people say to skip the first few seasons but that seemed like a bit too much so I just skipped Encounter at Farpoint and started with the show proper and Im enjoying the plots. I can see some rough edges but Im glad I started this early. Also I know Im a Trek fan now because I also grew to just hate Wesley in only 10 episodes. Hide and Q is probably the best so far while obviously Code of Honor is the worst. At first I thought Hide and Q was super boring and I wondered why the game was falling flat so much until I realised that was just the setup for what was really going on. But yeah, Wesley sucks, Tasha seems really weirdly underused, and the Ferengi ships better get a bridge design soon.

And while I said I dont like skipping 2 seasons of a show, I ended up doing that for Discovery anyways and just skipped to season 3 so Im watching that too. And judging by what Ive seen and what people say about this compared to the first 2 I probably made the right choice. I havent seen Picard but it does seem to be most people's least fav. And especially after Discovery is winning back (some) people now it kind of sticks out even more. For the Enterpirse, I mean more that Freeman is possibly an Ensign or Lt Jr Grade and Mariner is one of those Wesley type kids that just lives and goes to school on the ship. He did say he was in school in Hide and Q (the episode Im at now).
 
[MENTION=70954]Smear-Gel[/MENTION], I really wouldn't skip 'Encounter At Farpoint', much due to how it ties into the series finale (with the introduction of Q and all), plus I love the ending with the life forms), so it is an important episode despite being kinda meh. I really cannot disagree about season 1 being the worst season (Tasha was indeed underused, which was why the actress wanted to be written out and got the wish), but it still has a lot of highlights that stand out ('Where No One Has Gone Before', 'The Big Goodbye', '11001001', 'Home Soil' & 'Heart Of Glory' comes to mind).

Not too big on 'Hide & Q but it has its moments (the Shakespeare discussion) and Wesley I don't really mind (aside from the first half of season 1 when he solves so many problems the adults cannot, but he does get better written and more likeable as the show goes on). Since you like the show now, you'll just see when the show goes into full bloom in season 3 & 4.

I think it is unconventional skipping the first two seasons of Discovery (I watched all of them from the start) but I think that 3 works as a starting point (as they fill in the blanks here and there). Season 1 was okay at best but I did enjoy 2 pretty well and some aspects and references might be lost if you jump over it, but 3 is the best one thus far and still functions pretty well for a new viewer.

(Also, please avoid quoting large posts (especially ones above you) which is clogging. I prefer if you use mentions like I do with you in this thread, putting the @ before the username. Thanks in advance).
 
My dad told me he originally saw most of the Original Series when he was in the Army and probably saw most of them in Vietnam .

So my friend and I just started watching the Original Series and I can see why it only lasted three years. The story lines weren't that great. William Shatner's acting was and is godawful and even the bickering between Bones and Spock got old. Now they had some great characters, my favorite is Scotty. I also liked the character, Harry Mudd. Like Q, both pains in the ass. My friend posted on Facebook that the show was really sexist especially in the beginning. She also didn't like the uniforms. I joked with her that it sounded like she had a problem with short skirts and she said yes when their sexist. I agreed with her after I spoked the bear a little more.

I've been also watching TNG and it is definitely better in all aspects. Deep Space Nine is also better. However, I think Voyager is lousy. Even Jeri Ryan can't saved it.

I'm thinking of watching Below Deck but I'm not sure.
 
The Original Series was the first of the show's I saw and I liked it then and still like it. It has certainly dated with the production values, social values of the 60's (which could be really silly and I roll my eyes at how backwards some things were), but I do like me some classic TV and it was and is colorful fun (I like how crazy, weird an creative it could get) and to me many of the stories, themes & issues explored still hold up (and make for some great episodes, even with the lackluster season 3 in mind).

If one does not have issues with old shows that aged and dated, I'd say check it out (for me, it is easy to accept it as a product of its time). I think it is a shame when people (such as on the Trek reddit) either ignores it or bash it with talk of it being "unwatchable garbage" or worse, but there are still fans and I guess many of those blasting it are judging it by modern values (in which case it doesn't hold up, but if one can accept that it is a product of its time and see it as such, I'd say it works much better).

As for the miniskirts, at the time (60's) they were considered feminist symbol (there were a pants alternative designed, though) so while not sexist at the time it can be seen as such now. As for Shatner's acting, I think it was fine most of the time and he did good especially in S1 (though really started to get into that stereotypical overacting in S3) and the Spock/McCoy bickering was amusing (the trio's relationship was the heart of the show). Even with the flaws, I don't think that TOS should be discredited.

Deep Space Nine is my favorite and as for Voyager, I like it fine but as I've said it has a lot of problems (I'd say it is my least favorite of the TNG era shows. Enterprise was better and more consistent).

(Also, please don't quote this entire post for abeformentioned reasons).
 
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I love Star Trek.

I'll probably watch the new Trek shows someday if I care enough to pay for CBS All Access.
 
I finished my rewatch of the third season of the Original Series (the second time I've seen it, in fact) and it's the weakest of the three seasons by far (and for good reasons), but it still has a some pretty good stuff in there. Added six episodes from it to the recommendations list on the previous page (maybe an pointless exercise as I bet there's little to no interest in the oldest 'Trek' show around, but eh, just in case).

Additionally, I hope the show 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' (coming next year) will be a good one. I like how it seem to be advertised as more of a classic 'Trek' which makes me hope for a bit more of an episodic approach with only some serializtion (and that it doesn't forget to have some fun; bring on some silliness and comedic episodes, for instance.)
 
This series starts out somewhat slow, but keeps getting better. Watching without commercial interruption is important since I picked up the series on Blu Ray. Season 3 is exciting since it's a constant battle for survival. But mostly, you really care about the crew.
 
Just curious, have you watched any more 'Trek' on top of the continuation of 'Lower Decks', @Smear-Gel?

Also, if anyone else have watched some or are fans, feel free to share opinions. Favorite show, episodes & characters, maybe?
 
@CousinMerl Im getting close to the end of season 2 of TNG. Since Strange New Worlds is coming out once I get that done I'm gonna take a break from it to go watch TOS, though I have seen some of it already. I also skipped ahead and watched Darmok, which was incredible.
 
@Smear-Gel, I think TNG, much like TOS, is a show that is fine to skip around when watching, even though there are things that carry over to following episodes and some small arcs here and there, though TOS is more strictly episodic. Also, season 3 of TNG is when it really finds its footing with a lot of great episodes so you have plenty of good stuff to look forward to.

I hope you'll enjoy TOS in all its colorful 1960's-ness. One should be prepared for dated production values, attitudes and a lot of camp, though, but to me it still has a lot of charm, a lot of great writing and themes & so much crazy creativity so I hope that comes through).
 
@CousinMerl TOS is dated for sure, but what I've seen has surprisingly held up for me. I think because my main introduction to older shows is classic Doctor Who, which separates a single plot into ~6 half hour weekly episodes. TOS being hour long episodic stories means its already inherently closer to how I watch shows now compared to that where Classic Who's pacing is much more off.
 
TOS is dated as hell, but it has a charm for it's style and 60's campiness.

Unlike Enterprise's 2000s era grit and TNG's early 80's silliness.
 
@AlphaOmega, Season 1 TNG trying to copy the style of TOS was pathetic and didn't work at all, made worse due to the BTS chaos, nothing having been figured out yet, poor scripts, stiff uneasy acting and characters being smug, moralizing assholes time and time again (I still remember finding early Picard being a cranky and irritable like an old man angry at kids being on his yard very offputting on my first viewing). Worst first season of old 'Trek' I'd say, but certainly not without its entertainment value and good episodes.

Enterprise' at least had a better start and the first season was prett decent overall, I think (and it was better than the second, of which little over the first half of the season was kind of a slog to watch for me, lol. Too many reused ideas and more like "'Star Trek' on autopilot" as I told myself. Luckily it picked itself up toward the end of that season and seasons 3 & 4 I found quite enjoyable. Too bad it got cancelled after 4).

@Smear-Gel, also, I'm guessing you went ahead to 'Darmok' due to the Kayshon character on 'Lower Decks', right? Just wondering.
 
@CousinMerl yeah, figured I'd need to get caught up on it. We ended up with much less Kayshon than I expected this season but the episode was still worth it and made understanding the LD one easier.
 
CousinMerl said:
@AlphaOmega, Season 1 TNG trying to copy the style of TOS was pathetic and didn't work at all, made worse due to the BTS chaos, nothing having been figured out yet, poor scripts, stiff uneasy acting and characters being smug, moralizing assholes time and time again (I still remember finding early Picard being a cranky and irritable like an old man angry at kids being on his yard very offputting on my first viewing). Worst first season of old 'Trek' I'd say, but certainly not without its entertainment value and good episodes.

Enterprise' at least had a better start and the first season was prett decent overall, I think (and it was better than the second, of which little over the first half of the season was kind of a slog to watch for me, lol. Too many reused ideas and more like "'Star Trek' on autopilot" as I told myself. Luckily it picked itself up toward the end of that season and seasons 3 & 4 I found quite enjoyable. Too bad it got cancelled after 4).
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Season 1 is somehow both offensively stupid (Code of Honor) and hilariously stupid (The Naked Now) when it wasn't just being shockingly boring (We'll Always Have Paris). There are only like two or three episodes worth watching anyway.

The worst thing about Code of Honor is that the writer learned no lessons from it, since they remade it several years later as a Stargate SG-1 episode, Emancipation, which pretty much has the same plot but with Asian stereotypes instead of African sterotypes.
 
@AlphaOmega, I'm still baffled over how 'Code Of Honor' made it on screen in its final state (nor that the majority of the cast refused to do it). I could have understood if they went with the original idea of making the natives a lizard people but then they did it the stupid and offensively racist way they did (which is shocking, especially considering this was the 1980's). One of the worst episodes franchise-wide by far.
 
CousinMerl said:
@AlphaOmega, I'm still baffled over how 'Code Of Honor' made it on screen in its final state (nor that the majority of the cast refused to do it). I could have understood if they went with the original idea of making the natives a lizard people but then they did it the stupid and offensively racist way they did (which is shocking, especially considering this was the 1980's). One of the worst episodes franchise-wide by far.
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Felt like a TOS holdover script even if that doesnt make any sense
 
@Smear-Gel, I feel pretty sure that not even TOS would have sunk so low as to have done a story like that. The episode is like a complete anomaly that somehow was made as an early episode of TNG. Episodes like that really soil the first season (and reading on the Trek subreddit, I'm still flabbergasted about how so many complain about the 1st season of DS9 yet TNG S1 "is not so bad", but then again that reddit seem to often have a lot of users with a very pro-TNG & Voyager bias that is almost blind).

On another note, I saw that Star Trek: Discovery has come back today with its fourth season (and ironically, I heard the show just got removed from Netflix internationally and is set to debut on the international Paramount+ sometime next year. What a horrible decision. I mean, why not just let it stay on Netflix until the move? But yeah, awful decision is awful and all that).
 
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@CousinMerl the timing is bullshit and just makes Star Trek and Paramount on a whole look embarrasing and already casts a black mark over the series right as it's about to start. They really dont know what they're doing. I think they're the only major company still region locking their videos
 
@Smear-Gel, I think some other companies also region block videos regularily, but I fully agree with your overall statement.

I'd say that the first episode of Discovery S4 was decent, but I still like the beginning of 'Star Trek: Prodigy' (the Nickelodeon animated series which kinda feels like the 'Trek' version of something like 'Star Wars The Clone Wars' & 'Star Wars Rebels') a lot more. I think that as of now, the best of modern 'Trek' lies in animation, but I definitely look forward to the 'Strange New Worlds' series (which might become my favorite of the current live-action series the franchise offers. 'Disco' and 'Picard' are all right, but not fully my jam).
 
CousinMerl said:
@Smear-Gel,

I'd say that the first episode of Discovery S4 was decent, but I still like the beginning of 'Star Trek: Prodigy' (the Nickelodeon animated series which kinda feels like the 'Trek' version of something like 'Star Wars The Clone Wars' & 'Star Wars Rebels') a lot more. I think that as of now, the best of modern 'Trek' lies in animation, but I definitely look forward to the 'Strange New Worlds' series (which might become my favorite of the current live-action series the franchise offers. 'Disco' and 'Picard' are all right, but not fully my jam).
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Agreed, Discovery was fine. Didnt like the fact that they went to the big gravity bubble thing so quickly. Also I think personally the LD season finale will weight over this season for me, being a very good episode about them overcoming a science problem with no villain. I like the Federation president, let's see where they go with her. They made a point to use the rest of the crew more which is good. Burnham still being anti authority for no reason though.

Prodigy was good. Ironic we have an episode with a new starship propulsion system and another show saying there were no new starship propulsion systems that made it to the future. It was nice finally seeing them act like a team. Surprised as to how much Ive enjoyed Jankom Pog
 
CousinMerl said:
Deep Space Nine is my favorite and as for Voyager, I like it fine but as I've said it has a lot of problems (I'd say it is my least favorite of the TNG era shows. Enterprise was better and more consistent).
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Hot take, but I freaking love Voyager. There was a time when I shared everyone's disappointment at what it could or should have been, but then I re-watched the show and appraised it purely on its own terms and I think it's fabulous. Season 5 in particular is among the best Trek ever. Conversely, my opinion of DS9 has deteriorated as I've gotten older. Despite the successes of its serialisation and the power of its drama, I find the anti-Trek ethos uncomfortable a lot of the time. It's strange to me that Sisko, who so often behaved inconsistently and questionably, rarely faces the same scrutiny as Janeway does.
 
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