To: Psycho_Bunny
I disagree with that statement. While watching repeats of DS9 late nights, I've been able to appreciate what the show became at about the third season or so--the most consistently good Star Trek besides the old cast.
I can't even watch the TNG reruns, with some notable exceptions like the Borg episodes and "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" with Paul Winfield oh and the "There are FOUR LIGHTS!" episode.
Worf is better in DS9 and the supporting cast and insertion of the Dominion as the new uber-enemy makes it quite enjoyable. The episode where Tony Todd plays Jake Sisko wasting his whole life to bring his father back from subspace limbo, and then succeeding in making things all right again by his own suicide was among the very best Star Treks ever.
I really wish they had made a movie focused around the Dominion, rather than the craptastic Insurrection and Nemesis plots.
197 posted on
05/05/2003 10:14:28 PM PDT by
Skywalk
To: Skywalk
Where're these re-runs on? I'd love to rewatch DS9, but unfortunately, as far as I know it's not airing anywhere. TNN's supposed to start airing it, though. Just wish I knew when. Hope it's sometime soon.
Anyway, I was reading one of those articles that I had linked to, here, and I found some of the points in them interesting. Namely...
1) Each alien race has exactly one religion.
2) Each alien race has exactly one government.
It also pointed out how the Klingon Empire was nothing but Klingons, the Romulan Empire nothing but Romulans, etc (One big reason why I liked the Dominion. It was like the dark mirror of the Federation. A nation consisting of multiple races, though they were divided into a racial hierarchy). Which brings me to a point I'd like to make. Namely what I'd love to see in a Sci-Fi show.
A vision of the future in which each nation is based on an IDEOLOGY, not what member of a race you are. And each nation will be composed of varying numbers of different races (And of course, each race will be varied. No more "This race has one culture and one religion" deals).
So you'll have your Socialist nation, like the Federation, which'll have its human members, as well as various other races, living in their socialistic and atheistic bliss. Then you'll have the Constitutional Republic, with its religious population (Whether they be Human Christians, Jews, and Muslims, or aliens believing in their own gods, or what have you. Or how about a combination? Have your human believers in Keh'less and your Klingon believers in Jesus Christ, etc). Then have your monarchies, with a dictator imposing his rule not just on members of his own race but on members of alien races.
That, IMO, would be a lot more interesting universe than what most Sci-Fi shows have to offer.
204 posted on
05/05/2003 10:39:11 PM PDT by
Green Knight
(Looking forward to seeing Jeb stepping over Hillary's rotting political corpse in '08.)
To: Skywalk
I disagree with that statement. While watching repeats of DS9 late nights, I've been able to appreciate what the show became at about the third season or so--the most consistently good Star Trek besides the old cast. I concur, DS9 in its last two seasons was consistently the best of the four series, better I think than even the first series, even giving charity points for the differences in SFX capabilities.
There was one episode of TNG that came up to that level of interest and plausibility, and that was (I forget the title) the time-loop episode involving a collision in space, that began each loop in the middle of a command-staff poker game. (For bonus points, can you name the guest actor who portrayed the commander of the other starship involved in the collision?)
Overall, though, DS9 was consistently the best and most satisfying, and the final scenes of the last episode were really special, as Robert della Santina, Michael Westmore, and all the other behind-the-scenes people showed up at Vic's as holographic extras, in a scene that was actually the wrap party for the series. That was an extremely well-done show, and I have it on tape.
By contrast, I find Voyager positively estrogen-soaked (early PR fluff mentioned Jeri Taylor's demasculinizing role approvingly), and the male characters shallow and wan by comparison with their TNG and DS9 counterparts. Chakotay practically oozes Cathy Guisewite's Irving, and for all that he has manly and culturally validating tattoos, he seems at times like a charley-boy, a self-centered woman's idea of what a manly man should be, instead of the real thing. The real thing, about six episodes in, would have said something like, "Hey, Kate -- you may swing a big axe around here, and you might have scored high on your orienteering survival course, but I think you don't know what you're doing out here and you're gonna get yourself killed and everyone else. Drop me off at the next Class 'M' planet with warp technology, I'm outtahere!"
The show tries to sell the idea that Janeway's command philosophy, which is too soft, too big-sisterish, and too reliant on the knowledge and expertise of others, would be a winner in an extreme situation. Not likely in real life. A better model for a starship captain would be a submarine captain, who has to be basically omnicompetent and omniscient about the systems aboard his boat: he has to be omniscient, in order to garner the crew's confidence and consent to be commanded by his expertise. Patrick Stewart came a lot closer to embodying that command-skill set.
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