Star Trek The Next Generation.

[ErzogDravsyn]

I absolutely hated that episode.
I came in expecting an awesome episode about Star Trek TNG, only to find that 70% of it was an incredibly lazy and poorly thought out diatribe against religion.
Seriously, their arguments weren't only weak and childish, but their execution was cheap as well.
Not only that, but while I did somewhat appreciate the in-jokes in the few TNG segments there were, at the end of the day, it was just a poor setup to make some jokes with no real depth.
When Futurama got an entire Star Trek cast, they dedicated an entire friggen episode to it. And you know what, it was friggen awesome.
This, however, was just the final straw in me ever watching new Family Guy again.
(Original Family Guy will always be good, though.)

I skipped over the A Plot bits on Netflix when I watched it last night. It's so fantastic. I wish Patrick Stewart acted that way in real life. The pencil topper scene had me rolling.

"You're a baby."

"Yes, I am Denise Crosby." /shoots her dead "That was a warning!"

Tasha Yar(and every goldshirt to follow) in four words.

[curiousTerminal]

I've never sat down and watched all of them, but I still love this show. We've got the box set so occasionally I'll tell someone to pick 2 numbers from 1-7, and one from 1-4, then watch the corresponding episode on the corresponding DVD in the corresponding season.

[ErzogDravsyn]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36752658/FadeIn.pdf

Every fan of TNG should read that.

I feel very bad for saying this, especially since Gene started the whole thing and was obviously this great guy otherwise, but it is a good thing, for the Star Trek franchise, that he died. PLEASE DON'T TAKE THAT OUT OF CONTEXT!

A female Starfleet officer is killed in an accident
and her child, overcome with grief, bonds with a holographic recreation of his
mother rather than accept her death.
I sent a short description of the story to Rick and Gene. Minutes later, I
was called to an urgent meeting in Gene’s office. “This doesn’t work” he said.
“In the Twenty-Fourth Century, no one grieves. Death is accepted as part of life.”
As I shared the dilemma with the other staff writers, they took a bit of
pleasure from my loss of virginity, all of them having already been badly bruised
by rejections from Gene. Roddenberry was adamant that Twenty-Fourth Century
man would evolve past the petty emotional turmoil that gets in the way of our
happiness today. Well, as any writer will tell you, ‘emotional turmoil’, petty and
otherwise, is at the core of any good drama. It creates conflict between THE WRITING OF STAR TREK: INSURRECTION 15.
characters. But Gene didn’t want conflict between our characters. “All the
problems of mankind have been solved,” he said. “Earth is a paradise.”
Now, go write drama.

I'd say a big part of the early season's suckiness was his influence and wanting to force a perfect human race down our throats.

[BRPXQZME]

Me too, though the last time I tried saying that diplomatically it turns out the other guy was looking for a fight and I gave him one. He was convinced Gene was some kind of saint, I guess. As if! Anyone who reads up on him could see there were totally legit reasons some people who worked with him couldn’t stand him one bit.

Of course, the utopian ideal wasn’t the only part of it. The show’s entire style hadn’t been settled. Even roles hadn’t settled in—TNG Season 1 Ferengi are nothing like DS9 Ferengi, TNG Season 1 Klingons came from Kling, and Riker hadn’t yet gotten a little Captain in him, instead opting to risk, I dunno, bum-dialing the Romulans or something.

[ErzogDravsyn]

TNG Season 1 Ferengi are nothing like DS9 Ferengi

The Ferengi were terrible villains. Maybe for a one shot, but they were just so non threatening in practice. Voyager repeated the mistake in the Kazon.

[BRPXQZME]

Yeah, the Ferengi and Kazon were always kind of BS villains. And while Ferengi episodes of DS9 were a bit hard to tolerate, they could occasionally be fun characters, especially as their society moved forward. And especially especially because Quark.

The Maquis were kind of unconvincing villains, too. Though, at least they had potential and some of that potential was used. But it was mostly unrealized potential. I don’t think all that many people were really looking forward to a lasting Federation-y villain anyway.

[ErzogDravsyn]

The Maquis were kind of unconvincing villains, too. Though, at least they had potential and some of that potential was used. But it was mostly unrealized potential. I don’t think all that many people were really looking forward to a lasting Federation-y villain anyway.

They were basically terrorists. Not a credible threat at all.

[BRPXQZME]

I’d say it’s more like whenever the topic came up, the shows flip-flopped between whether they were powerful or not. I liked the approach they took on a couple occasions with that nightmarish possibility where anyone in Starfleet could have been a Maquis agent, but it got perhaps a bit too obvious. Plus,

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they probably wanted to save that sort of paranoia for the Changeling threat.

Of course, I realize there wasn’t much that could be done since most everyone on board clearly wanted to get back home and there was only one ship headed that way, but the Maquis portion of the Voyager crew stopping barely short of rolling over like an adorable puppy for a Federation belly rub kind of killed their reputation for ruthlessness just a little bit.

[ErzogDravsyn]

Voyager had too many problems to count.

[chimaeraUndying]

... Like basically every other episode requiring medium-grade brain bleach to get all the stupid out.

[ErzogDravsyn]

That is one way of putting it.

[BRPXQZME]

Yeah, there was that, too.

[hristy]

I honestly like Enterprise best, but I grew up with TNG and I have watched every episode. It's fantastic, absolutely great, and the main cast was an incredibly talented bunch. I have always wanted to do what Stewie did in that episode of Family Guy and just hang out with Patrick Stewert and the gang for a whole day.

I was just about as happy about the family guy tng episode as i was sad about it. It was awesome that it came out on my birthday of all days, but the episode should of been more about tng, you have a good point about the futurerama episode that was mosty really all about the tos cast which was great, the family guy episode should of been better but it wasent bad it was nice to see them all together, its funny how much seth mcfarland loves star trek he's actually been in some episodes of Enterprise as 'Rivers' he's in a few, one in the 4th season and I think there's more.

For all we know, at this very moment, somewhere far beyond all those distant stars, Benny Russell is dreaming of us.

Yes, benny russel is dreaming of us all, I really love that episode far beyond the stars, although it's a break from the war in ds9, it's really a great episode


I always loved gene rodenberry but he has the wildest ideas, I remember he wanted star trek 2 to be about the klingons going back in time and stoping the assination of jfk to change history, that would of been a different movie.

The ferengi really do change alot though the series, they stay the same in some reguards, but change so much from the 1st season of tng, it's funny though one of those first ferengei in that tng epiose in season one is armin sherman, quark, he looks so young in that.

The kazon look rather silly, they always seemed like really silly klingons, I guuess they grow on you after awile, it's funny how voyager never had the kazon after basics, I think there's just shattered in the 7th season and relativity when they show them in the past or just have them again like in shattered when voyager is seperated into about 13 different time periods, I always liked that one.

The maquis were funny, I guess star trek wanted a plot that would last though DS9 and even set up things for voyager, I thought they were interesting but maybe more could of been done with them, I could never understand how they fit so many maquis in that small federation courier craft in caretaker, those really arnt much bigger than a runabout, and there's like... what 30-40 maquis crew members on voyager, they were interesting in ds9 too, Michael Edition made for an interesting maqui going back between loyaties with sisco and the maquis

I always loved voyager, I was just sad when kes left, she was really awesome, at first they were considering getting rid of harry kim, but he had made the time's top 100 so things changed a bit.

the voyager cast still seems close, all the guys from it still have meals like once a month, it's funny, there's even three roberts in the cast, they all have nicknames for each other, robbie, bob and robert, I could tell you but maybe you should guess : D

I think i'm the only one that loves all the series, but it does pay, I've won many trivia contests because I love all 5 series, I've won some big ones on Star Trek Online does anyone here play that, they should join my fleet, h3h3

[BRPXQZME]

Don’t get me wrong, I love Voyager, I just don’t like the parts of it that were very, very stupid. Every time I see that glazed over look of “god I wish I were insane enough to turn down a stable job in acting” on Robert Beltran’s face, I see a reminder that the show deserved to be much, much better. Most shows do, really, but with Voyager they kind of wave the wasted potential right in front of you. Enterprise has similar failings.

For instance, they could have milked many episodes on deconstruction/reconstruction of various Trek technologies in both Voyager and Enterprise. I would have liked an episode of Enterprise where they examined why the Federation of the future uses phasers instead of guns (I suspect the conclusion would be that phasers are tools like knives, and only a weapon as a last resort, just like Roddenberry kind of hinted at, and that one episode of DS9 with

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the rifle that uses transporter tech to shoot through walls

implies), but instead, they went straight for the phasers early on, all but saying “hey this is an upgrade to our arsenal”. I could almost hear the above pitch being tossed out a window.

I pin most of the trouble with those shows on a pernicious kind of executive meddling that TNG and DS9 didn’t have to deal with. UPN nixed many gutsy directions.

And I wish I had time for STO, but... I don’t. Hell, I’m still kind of waiting for that Romulan faction. (because that’s such a legit excuse ) </complaint about games you don’t play>

[ErzogDravsyn]

STO is...disapointing. Space combat is slow as hell and there were tons of glitches.

[chimaeraUndying]

I would assume that the Federation uses phasers instead of bullet-based weapons because of a couple things:

Phasers can be scaled much better than guns (ship mounted phasers) and don't require as much, if any, ammunition. They also work in space pretty well, unlike most guns we have now, which don't work in an airless vacuum. Phasers are also more versatile, as they can stun or kill or toast bread (which you'd need three different guns for).

They also make the setting more spacey, and probably more accessible (read: less likely to get lambasted for "encouraging gun violence!").

[ErzogDravsyn]

I'd say the "stun-warm coffee-blow shit up" Swiss Army Phaser explanation is probably the best.

[BRPXQZME]

They also work in space pretty well, unlike most guns we have now, which don't work in an airless vacuum.

Modern firearms function in the vacuum of space just fine because the explosives pack their own oxygen! The primary difference would be tactics, due in no small part to the lack of heat dissipation, Newton’s Third, potential ethical issues, needing to take the third dimension and possibly orbital gravity into account in a space fight, and so forth.

The issue I have isn’t really why they use phasers or why they didn’t examine the nuts and bolts of the universe more closely. It’s why they went to the trouble of making a prequel series, then didn’t give quite enough screen time to the kind of things you’d probably want a prequel to show, such as explain why things have to be the way they are later in the chronology (admittedly, I hear things picked up in this vein before the show was cancelled, and that they were planning to keep going in that direction were it renewed for another season... but I’ve got about 56 eps left to go).

[chimaeraUndying]

Huh, I never knew that conventional explosives worked in space. I AM NOW DONE LEARNING THINGS TODAY!

Prequel series that don't establish the lore are always disappointing, I agree. They feel a bit like a cheat to not create any new lore for the series, because it's all happened in the past - the writers are just using a very similar setting to explore new characterizations.

[ImperatorMortis]

Wait, what was this thread about again?

It was about me trying to find a nice free online source to watch all the TNG episodes.

But I found em so its cool now.

[Descriptor]

It was about me trying to find a nice free online source to watch all the TNG episodes.

But I found em so its cool now.

Oh sweet, awesome.
Just to clarify, is this a legal source? And if so, would you mind sharing it with us?

[chimaeraUndying]

So I watched The Inner Light yesterday.

I think it might be the best episode of anything I've ever seen on TV.

[BRPXQZME]

Pretty much. It’s one of those episodes that can make you cancel your plans for the rest of the day.

[hristy]

Yeah the inner light is one of the best episodes, he has a good quote to make now the most important because once comes now it doesn't come again, which Picard says at the end of Generations too, reminds me of the Inner Light, everyone loves this episode I noticed all trekkers.

Also Picard's son is in this episode, he is the grown up Betai, named after picard's friend in the episode, picard and his son kinda look similar, espally later in the episode when he's a bit bald : D

Yeah the episode is epic

Also the trailer for Star Trek XI is out, it looks crazy interesting how the show the enterprise crashing into water, apparently you can see more in the Japanese trailer version