The one thing that bugged me about the Star Trek universe was their constant reliance on time travel as a story line. They dabbled with in TNG, Did it once or so in TOS, some in DS9. Enterprise, it seemed like a constant theme. Voyager, seemed to have too much of it, but yet with that said, I found The Voyager's "Year of Hell" parts I and II to be two great episodes.
I find time travel stories to be intriguing despite the perceived paradoxes and admit the viewer is put into the position of going with the flow, ie, accepting the narrative at face value without putting too much thought into it. I usually have problems when the stories get complicated and involve parallel dimensions.
A great example of a go with
the flow paradox is in Interstellar where a message from the future gives the coordinates of an important location, a message sent by the person, basically to themselves from the future, when at the original time, they had no clue a base existed. But how did they get into space? They found the base.
My impression of time travel, which some of these stories has shown, is a radically changed present as a result of going back in time. This is what would make time travel far to impractical if there was any intention of returning to a future you recognize.
Time travel, done intelligently, or in a manner that is thought-provoking, is not something I have an issue with.
Some of the very best - and most gripping - shows that I saw in the past decade on British TV had that theme - very compellingly treated - as a core concept - namely, "Life on Mars" and "Ashes to Ashes".
But, my bugbear with STNG was the wretched holodeck; to my mind, holodeck malfunctions happened far too often - had that happened on a real spaceship the holodeck would have been out of bounds until repaired (with those repairs tested endlessly); actually, while it was used intelligently (those Sherlock Holmes episodes), to my mind, it was also relied on far too often (and lazily) by script-writers.
Agreed, the idea of a device that with a malfunction could erraticate all occupants would be troubling, and doubtful it would ever be available for routine use, but a good mechanism for story telling imo.
Anyone care to comment on Q?
I must say that I thought some (not all) of his episodes in STNG very funny.
And - on a related but separate topic - I loved Vash; "Captain's Holiday" was very, very funny. (As was "Qpid").
Q was the single best character in the series. He ushered the series in and out, provided semi-regular challenges for the crew and was very entertaining. He had a presence. The series final was profound, exilerating, and he was right in the middle of it. The concept of an event perceived in different points in the past, by the same person, the desire to investigate it, and by doing so cause the event to occur, which threatened our existence, amazed and excited me. Probably the single best time paradox story ever!
My impression is that the Q Continuim had the inconceivable ability to alter reality as we know it, and Q used this as the ultimate test to determine if humans, epspecifically Picard was worthy of existence. What does that make Q in the big picture? Almost, if not, God like.
