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Roller

macrumors 68030
Jun 25, 2003
2,955
2,170
(Actually, as a geneticist these plot points grate on me fairly hard, and I have a hard time with my suspension of disbelief. Even though, clearly, I don't have any problem with all the other obviously crazy stuff in universe....maybe it is because I worry that, whereas many people might discount the physics gibberish as obvious fiction, some people might take the genetics gibberish as somehow more plausible. Ehh, pet-peeves, and all...)

It's interesting how viewers with professional or other experience in various disciplines might notice instances where ST pushed well beyond the realm of possibility in their areas of expertise. For me, it was medicine. For example, I recall the time when Dr. McCoy remarked that he couldn't cure "the common cold," unlikely given other medical advances in the 23rd century.
 

Obi Wan Kenobi

macrumors 6502a
Mar 9, 2011
509
345
London, UK
(Actually, as a geneticist these plot points grate on me fairly hard, and I have a hard time with my suspension of disbelief. Even though, clearly, I don't have any problem with all the other obviously crazy stuff in universe....maybe it is because I worry that, whereas many people might discount the physics gibberish as obvious fiction, some people might take the genetics gibberish as somehow more plausible. Ehh, pet-peeves, and all...)

I am not a geneticist, but I think you're right about that.

I also think that when Worf joined DS9, the quality of DS9 increased dramatically. His character gave them a whole new way to explore the ST universe and add depth to the show.

Although it was great to have Worf in the show, I wonder if Michael Dorn might have been a better Sisko than Avery Brooks ...
 
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Number-Six

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2013
416
1,206
I am not a geneticist, but I think you're right about that.

I also think that when Worf joined DS9, the quality of DS9 increased dramatically. His character gave them a whole new way to explore the ST universe and add depth to the show.

Although it was great to have Worf in the show, I wonder if Michael Dorn might have been a better Sisko than Avery Brooks ...

That right there is outright blasphemy! :p

Maybe I'm biased because I think Sisko is my favorite Captain :D
 

mobilehaathi

macrumors G3
Aug 19, 2008
9,368
6,353
The Anthropocene
It's interesting how viewers with professional or other experience in various disciplines might notice instances where ST pushed well beyond the realm of possibility in their areas of expertise. For me, it was medicine. For example, I recall the time when Dr. McCoy remarked that he couldn't cure "the common cold," unlikely given other medical advances in the 23rd century.

Hehe, but he's got those pills that can grow brand new fully functional kidneys in a matter of hours. ;)
[doublepost=1497623628][/doublepost]
I am not a geneticist, but I think you're right about that.

I also think that when Worf joined DS9, the quality of DS9 increased dramatically. His character gave them a whole new way to explore the ST universe and add depth to the show.

Although it was great to have Worf in the show, I wonder if Michael Dorn might have been a better Sisko than Avery Brooks ...

Hmm, I thought Avery Brooks was pretty great, but I suppose Michael Dorn could have done a good job. It's hard to separate him from the Worf caharacter though...
 
It's interesting how viewers with professional or other experience in various disciplines might notice instances where ST pushed well beyond the realm of possibility in their areas of expertise. For me, it was medicine. For example, I recall the time when Dr. McCoy remarked that he couldn't cure "the common cold," unlikely given other medical advances in the 23rd century.

The cold may still elude him but the opening Olof this scene and the bit around 4:15 should give us hope for the future of medicine (though not the future epidemic of cheesy '80s sitcom music):

 

jweinraub

macrumors 6502
Jun 26, 2007
372
221
Sol III
Growing up watching TNG only time I've the TOS was on late night TV. My parents of course got me into ST itself but they tried I never got into TOS. While I do like the characters not growing up in the 1960s I did not understand or appreciate the political statements the show was all about. The fact they had "racial harmony" on the bridge didn't phase me. Why would I care if they had a russian or a black woman, or an asian man?

So the stories and effects were silly looking to me but now as an adult, I really do enjoy TOS, but I think I can tolerate it as repeats on TV rather than owning it on DVD. TNG however I can watch a marathon and I am very keen on wishing to own the Bluray version and am very upset they can't / won't do it for Voyager. As I was in Uni when Voyager was on, my room mate and I were huge fans and loved it. DS9 I never got into since it had too much continuity with the dominion war but perhaps I can watch it now for another go. Enterprise I never got into, while I love the idea of prequels and seeing things from the very beginning, It forces them to keep things out of date I reckon because the 22nd/23rd/24th centuries from back then are slowly happening now in the 21st, plus retro-conning histories is too cheap.

Perhaps do another TNG, like do some 25th century stuff, or continue on with the Voyager episode of the 29th century. At least they can do time travel so they can enter all star trek universes without resorting to silly "holodeck catastrophes"!
 

Mousse

macrumors 68040
Apr 7, 2008
3,648
7,082
Flea Bottom, King's Landing
Although it was great to have Worf in the show, I wonder if Michael Dorn might have been a better Sisko than Avery Brooks ...

He might work as Sisko for newbies, but anyone who has seen TNG regularly would cry foul. Even without the make up on, Trekkies would recognized him immediately from his voice alone.

Marc Alaimo is another actor whose voices is very distinctive. He was one of the poker player/hustlers (red jacket) whom Data cleaned out in TNG: Time's Arrow. I didn't recognize him without his Cardassian makeup on, but I knew it was Gul Dukat as soon as he started talking.

One more thing, Avery Brooks makes an intimidating looking Klingon.:cool: Colm Meaney, not so much. How did such a harmless looking Klingon earn the Order of the Bat'leth.:confused::p Even the not menacing at all Klingon Odo looked more menacing.:D (DS9: Apocalypse Rising)
 

Scepticalscribe

macrumors Haswell
Original poster
Jul 29, 2008
65,135
47,524
In a coffee shop.
........

Marc Alaimo is another actor whose voices is very distinctive. He was one of the poker player/hustlers (red jacket) whom Data cleaned out in TNG: Time's Arrow. I didn't recognize him without his Cardassian makeup on, but I knew it was Gul Dukat as soon as he started talking........

Now, that is a fascinating footnote, and one I hadn't spotted - and I thoroughly enjoyed those two episodes.

Thank you.
 

anonymouslurker

macrumors regular
May 16, 2012
181
634
He might work as Sisko for newbies, but anyone who has seen TNG regularly would cry foul. Even without the make up on, Trekkies would recognized him immediately from his voice alone.

Marc Alaimo is another actor whose voices is very distinctive. He was one of the poker player/hustlers (red jacket) whom Data cleaned out in TNG: Time's Arrow. I didn't recognize him without his Cardassian makeup on, but I knew it was Gul Dukat as soon as he started talking.

One more thing, Avery Brooks makes an intimidating looking Klingon.:cool: Colm Meaney, not so much. How did such a harmless looking Klingon earn the Order of the Bat'leth.:confused::p Even the not menacing at all Klingon Odo looked more menacing.:D (DS9: Apocalypse Rising)

That is one of the things that I loved most about DS9: Far Beyond The Stars, was seeing the actors without makeup, and initially recognizing them by their voices.

That episode was also one of my favorite Avery Brooks performances, with his breakdown at the end of his sci-fi writer vision.
 

bradl

macrumors 603
Jun 16, 2008
5,952
17,447
It's interesting how viewers with professional or other experience in various disciplines might notice instances where ST pushed well beyond the realm of possibility in their areas of expertise. For me, it was medicine. For example, I recall the time when Dr. McCoy remarked that he couldn't cure "the common cold," unlikely given other medical advances in the 23rd century.

But yet they were able to cheat death rather easily, with the Genesis project (ST 2: Wrath of Khan), as well as put those who would have been dead into stasis in the mid 21st century, shot them into space, to be revived and cured of their diseases by Dr. Crusher (ST:TNG, season 1: The Neutral Zone).

Go figure! :eek:

I am not a geneticist, but I think you're right about that.

I also think that when Worf joined DS9, the quality of DS9 increased dramatically. His character gave them a whole new way to explore the ST universe and add depth to the show.

I'd even go before then. You see his character really develop around seasons 3 and 4 of TNG. He stops being just a Klingon Warrior, totally dead set on duty and honor, and grow. If you think about it, Worf dating Troi was the catalyst for Worf and Jadzia (and to an extent, Ezri), plus bring about B'Lonna Torres.

Plus, who would have ever thought that duty and honor bound Worf would have a sense of humor? I mean, when he gets on the Enterprise-E during the Borg battle in ST: First Contact from being rescued from the Defiant, try saying that one liner he had with Riker:

Riker: Tough little ship!

Worf: Little?

Comedy gold.

Although it was great to have Worf in the show, I wonder if Michael Dorn might have been a better Sisko than Avery Brooks ...

I dunno.. perhaps he could have made a better counselor than Troi.. Reference a couple of episodes of Castle, when Dorn was Beckett's psychiatrist.. And try not to be scared when you realize that he's bald! :p

BL.
 

GFLPraxis

macrumors 604
Mar 17, 2004
7,152
460
Is it me, or does anyone else feel like the film industry has an obsession with the Kirk era? Maybe it's Hollywood's recent obsession with reboots and retellings.

All Star Trek media since post Voyager has been in that theme.

Enterprise, the films, and now Discovery.

I don't think there's actually a huge *fan demand* to revisit that era, but it play a to casual audience's nostalgia.
 

ActionableMango

macrumors G3
Sep 21, 2010
9,612
6,909
Is it me, or does anyone else feel like the film industry has an obsession with the Kirk era? Maybe it's Hollywood's recent obsession with reboots and retellings.

All Star Trek media since post Voyager has been in that theme.

Enterprise, the films, and now Discovery.

Yep, TNG, DS9, and Voyager were all the same area. They overlapped episodes and had crossovers.

I also 100% agree with you about the film reboots.

I wouldn't say Enterprise is in the Kirk era; it doesn't feel that way to me at all. It takes place about 100 years prior to TOS (The Original Series). The setting is substantially different; it starts in a pre-Federation timeline that is prior to encounters with Romulans, Andorians, Klingons, etc. There are no starbases. Starfleet is a relatively new entity and is just starting to stretch its legs with its first significant starship prototype, a prototype that is essentially outclassed by almost every single vessel they come across.
 

bradl

macrumors 603
Jun 16, 2008
5,952
17,447
Is it me, or does anyone else feel like the film industry has an obsession with the Kirk era? Maybe it's Hollywood's recent obsession with reboots and retellings.

All Star Trek media since post Voyager has been in that theme.

Enterprise, the films, and now Discovery.

I don't think there's actually a huge *fan demand* to revisit that era, but it play a to casual audience's nostalgia.

Yep, TNG, DS9, and Voyager were all the same area. They overlapped episodes and had crossovers.

I also 100% agree with you about the film reboots.

I wouldn't say Enterprise is in the Kirk era; it doesn't feel that way to me at all. It takes place about 100 years prior to TOS (The Original Series). The setting is substantially different; it starts in a pre-Federation timeline that is prior to encounters with Romulans, Andorians, Klingons, etc. There are no starbases. Starfleet is a relatively new entity and is just starting to stretch its legs with its first significant starship prototype, a prototype that is essentially outclassed by almost every single vessel they come across.

I believe in one of the Trek convention clips, Wil Wheaton gets into this. He said that one of the biggest longings that people have over the TNG, DS9, and VOY series is how utopian everything is. There really didn't seem to be any real conflict to come into play, at least until the Borg enter. After that, some of the utopian thinking went out the door, as conflict started to come back into the timeline. Think about it.. take a TNG episode, like Angel One, and pit it up against parts 1 and 2 of Reunification. Then pair all of that up against later episodes of DS9 when the Jem Hadar and the Founders come in. People, at least according to Wheaton, missed that conflict, and that was also really prevalent during TOS.. They took out a lot of the social commentary and put back in the "cowboy diplomacy", and things started to go a bit downhill from there.

BL.
 

Scepticalscribe

macrumors Haswell
Original poster
Jul 29, 2008
65,135
47,524
In a coffee shop.
I believe in one of the Trek convention clips, Wil Wheaton gets into this. He said that one of the biggest longings that people have over the TNG, DS9, and VOY series is how utopian everything is. There really didn't seem to be any real conflict to come into play, at least until the Borg enter. After that, some of the utopian thinking went out the door, as conflict started to come back into the timeline. Think about it.. take a TNG episode, like Angel One, and pit it up against parts 1 and 2 of Reunification. Then pair all of that up against later episodes of DS9 when the Jem Hadar and the Founders come in. People, at least according to Wheaton, missed that conflict, and that was also really prevalent during TOS.. They took out a lot of the social commentary and put back in the "cowboy diplomacy", and things started to go a bit downhill from there.

BL.

But the best episodes in TNG were those which included both social commentary and conflict (and it didn't have to take the form of "cowboy diplomacy"). Conflict gave a (sometimes) much needed edge to proceedings, whereas social commentary gave it a fitting context.

I loved the Klingon political succession episodes in TNG; they were intelligent, thought-provoking, tense, full of conflict - both hidden and overt - extremely politically astute and aware - and quite profound; actually, they were gripping, and not a trace of 'cowboy diplomacy'.

Of course, Patrick Stewart - yet again - was superlative in his role as a diplomat with a formidable fist masked, and sheathed in a velvet glove, as he played the demanding role of the arbiter of succession.
 

jdoll021

macrumors 6502
Is it me, or does anyone else feel like the film industry has an obsession with the Kirk era? Maybe it's Hollywood's recent obsession with reboots and retellings.

All Star Trek media since post Voyager has been in that theme.

Enterprise, the films, and now Discovery.

I don't think there's actually a huge *fan demand* to revisit that era, but it play a to casual audience's nostalgia.

You know, I think you might be on to something here. There does seem to be a curious fascination with "retro" these days.
[doublepost=1498086674][/doublepost]
Starfleet is a relatively new entity and is just starting to stretch its legs with its first significant starship prototype, a prototype that is essentially outclassed by almost every single vessel they come across.

You know, I never really cared for that myself. Throughout the previous series, we were given a sense that pre-TOS was a relatively primitive space travel era for all founding members of the Federation, not just Earth. The biggest example of this was TOS: Balance of Terror where Spock mentions battles with atomic weapons and a lack of ship to ship visual communication. Enterprise sort of side-stepped this by making visual communication with Romulans a non-starter for some reason. They never really say why, but hey, problem solved vis a vis Spock's statement. Except that I always took it to mean all species. I still think it could have been done well with submarine vs. submarine like suspense. Think: Hunt for Red October meets Star Trek.
 

ActionableMango

macrumors G3
Sep 21, 2010
9,612
6,909
I still think it could have been done well with submarine vs. submarine like suspense. Think: Hunt for Red October meets Star Trek.

Yes, Battlestar Galactica (reimagined) and Firefly show us that you can do "spaceship sci-fi" storytelling just fine without a giant TV on the bridge for FaceTiming aliens.

On the other hand, I like a lot of the interactions.
 

jdoll021

macrumors 6502
I'd like to switch gears for a moment and talk about the upcoming ST: Discovery. Who here is keen on this 10 years before TOS shtick with the potential dealing of Axanar? I mean, why the f*** can't we have something further into the future with Star Trek? Like maybe adventures with Enterprise-J? I always liked Doug Drexler's description of the type of ship that Enterprise-J was:

The studio model for the Enterprise-J was built by Doug Drexler and called a Universe-class ship, about two miles in length. Drexler saw it "as a multi-generational vessel, that had large parks, entertainment zones, and entire universities on board. The ship is so large that turbolifts would be replaced with site to site transporters. [It] had one deflector, recognizably descended from the NX. I opted for spindly nacelle struts because I felt it suggested a technology beyond what we were familiar with. They are beyond transwarp. They can fold space, and they are exploring other galaxies besides the Milky Way."

In each Galaxy they visit, I can picture dozens, if not 100s, of delta flyer inspired runabouts to a few Voyager inspired cruisers that would treat Enterprise-J as "home base." Heck, you can even call one of those "Voyager" type ships the USS Discovery!
 

mobilehaathi

macrumors G3
Aug 19, 2008
9,368
6,353
The Anthropocene
I'd like to switch gears for a moment and talk about the upcoming ST: Discovery. Who here is keen on this 10 years before TOS shtick with the potential dealing of Axanar? I mean, why the f*** can't we have something further into the future with Star Trek? Like maybe adventures with Enterprise-J? I always liked Doug Drexler's description of the type of ship that Enterprise-J was:



In each Galaxy they visit, I can picture dozens, if not 100s, of delta flyer inspired runabouts to a few Voyager inspired cruisers that would treat Enterprise-J as "home base." Heck, you can even call one of those "Voyager" type ships the USS Discovery!

I don't object to the setting per se, although I agree a future (beyond TNG/DS9/VOY) setting would pique my interest more. My biggest problem is that this new series appears to be fairly generic sci-fi action in the style of the recent movies. I dislike the new movies (as Star Trek) enough that I've only watched 1.5 of them.
 
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