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Star Trek: Amok Rhyme

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Posts

  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    Just watched the weirdest episode of DS9, the A plot is dominated by some rando conman, the B plot is Bashir and O’Brien playing racquetball, and all of a sudden everyone started quipping like Joss Whedon wrote it.

  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    Winky wrote: »
    Just watched the weirdest episode of DS9, the A plot is dominated by some rando conman, the B plot is Bashir and O’Brien playing racquetball, and all of a sudden everyone started quipping like Joss Whedon wrote it.

    And the weird thing of the episode is a device that manipulates chance on a macro level, can go through the replicator, and is never mentioned again. (Considering the events it triggered, it can also probably read minds.)

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    Dark_Side wrote: »
    Thirith wrote: »
    I started watching What We Left Behind, but 20-30 minutes in I’m not feeling it. DS9 was my favourite Star Trek, but too much of the documentary feels self-congratulating to me: we were the best, we were the smartest, we were the most progressive, even if people didn’t appreciate our genius at the time. And you, the fans, are equally great for realising it. Am I being too critical? The tone of the filmmaking also rubs me the wrong way, a sort of wistful quirkiness that comes across as oddly smarmy. Does it improve or does the beginning pretty much tell you what you’ll get for the rest of it?

    I've only watched the trailer so far, but I got the same sense from even just that. Felt like it would be fun to go down memory lane with the cast and crew, but that one one dude with blue goatee gave me the vanity project vibe - more specifically the self indulgent, bad kind of vanity project. Then I saw he put himself on the cover and was like yeah.....

    It is a little bit that, but it's still got some great moments in it.

    One of the great things I learned was that Avery Brooks introduces Cirroc Lofton as his son and that's the most goddamn heartwarming thing I've ever heard of and made me love Avery Brooks even more than I already do.

    Though on the down side of things, it seems that Mark Alaimo has major creeper vibes and I don't think that was him playing a role for the documentary.

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    Winky wrote: »
    Just watched the weirdest episode of DS9, the A plot is dominated by some rando conman, the B plot is Bashir and O’Brien playing racquetball, and all of a sudden everyone started quipping like Joss Whedon wrote it.

    Space Humperdinck is sleazy as hell and I love it

  • AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    edited September 2019
    Winky wrote: »
    Just watched the weirdest episode of DS9, the A plot is dominated by some rando conman, the B plot is Bashir and O’Brien playing racquetball, and all of a sudden everyone started quipping like Joss Whedon wrote it.

    And the weird thing of the episode is a device that manipulates chance on a macro level, can go through the replicator, and is never mentioned again. (Considering the events it triggered, it can also probably read minds.)

    The mind-control device the Ferengi guy uses on Picard in the first episode where the Ferengi act grudgingly as if they might be people and not stereotypes is another "you'd expect that to have consequences," thing that just disappears.

    You could run a whole game of the Trek RPG just following loose threads of plot. Maybe several.

    Auralynx on
    kshu0oba7xnr.png

  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    You give the people what they want, and what they wanted was Bashir in a tight suit

  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Someone needs to make a fantasy series where they can just use magic to explain all these things rather than trying to come up with some kind of scientific sounding explanation.

    Calling it Sea Trek might be a little too on the nose, but most of the scripts could be re-written for it super-easily.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Just make a Spelljammer tv series.

  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    klemming wrote: »
    Someone needs to make a fantasy series where they can just use magic to explain all these things rather than trying to come up with some kind of scientific sounding explanation.

    Calling it Sea Trek might be a little too on the nose, but most of the scripts could be re-written for it super-easily.

    I give you Sea Trek!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg6AsKsPH24

  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    klemming wrote: »
    Someone needs to make a fantasy series where they can just use magic to explain all these things rather than trying to come up with some kind of scientific sounding explanation.

    Calling it Sea Trek might be a little too on the nose, but most of the scripts could be re-written for it super-easily.

    I give you Sea Trek!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg6AsKsPH24

    That's still sci-fi, though. I want one where instead of a reverse temporal ion field causing a neutrino imbalance, they can just say it's a bad wizard who cursed an island and move on.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • MancingtomMancingtom Registered User regular
    So you want to D&D tv show?

    I'd watch the shit out of that.

  • DanHibikiDanHibiki Registered User regular
    Just make a Spelljammer tv series.

    the world needs more Miniature Giant Space Hamsters

  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Mancingtom wrote: »
    So you want to D&D tv show?

    I'd watch the shit out of that.

    I'm arguing that we already got it, but for legal reasons they had to set it in the future and rename the Elves to Vulcans, Dark Elves to Romulans, Goblins to Ferengi, etc.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • initiatefailureinitiatefailure Registered User regular
    I picked back up on a Voyager rewatch I started a few years back and just got to the wwii episodes.

    And you know I'm very here for this exact level of nonsense

  • StrikorStrikor Calibrations? Calibrations! Registered User regular
    That's good, because Voyager has even more nonsense than it does shuttles and torpedoes.

  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Re-watching Relativity, and damn, Braxton is the most hilariously bad Time Cop ever.
    I particularly like the bit where he says he asked Janeway for help once, she refused, and he got stuck in the 1970s.
    Yes, if by 'asked for help', you mean 'tried to destroy her ship based on a conclusion taken from laughable evidence because there wasn't time to discuss it'.

    He really should have shown up in the finale. Future Janeway's shenanigans should have been the final straw that drove him round the bend, and they'd have their stable time-loop.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    The more I watch TNG, the less great Discovery looks.

    It really struck home when they followed up Best of Both Worlds with an subdued episode about various family dynamics. The only action sequence was two old men wrestling in the mud. And then an episode about Data meeting his creator where the ticking clock is getting a boy to medical facilities.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    TNG had a lot more elbow room than Discovery, banging out 26 episodes a year rather than 13 or so, and it's more leisurely in its storytelling than Discovery, not trying to make every second of every episode important and meaningful or an emotional climax. That era of TV seems gone in a lot of respects.

    I'm not saying Discovery shouldn't just calm the fuck down a lot more than it is doing presently, or that I would like it to be less chained to the remorseless engine of the season long arc. I think I'd like a lot more episodes where someone wasn't crying like their whole world fell apart, for example. Starfleet in Discovery seems less like a highly organised group of professionals who've trained for years and more like some nice, smart, well-intentioned people with poor impulse control were given a spaceship.

  • LanzLanz ...Za?Registered User regular
    I am slowly making my way through TNG in order instead of "Whatever random episode seems good or whatever random cable channel Y is airing"


    Measure of a Man is so goddamn good

    waNkm4k.jpg?1
  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    The courtroom speeches are great, and Frakes doesn't get enough credit for both his work and the guilt and shame he displays afterwards, but the Guinan/Picard scene is so well played. The highest of stakes, and TNG has a quiet, understated but morally complex conversation about it. It's very TNG and I love it.

  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    Lanz wrote: »
    I am slowly making my way through TNG in order instead of "Whatever random episode seems good or whatever random cable channel Y is airing"


    Measure of a Man is so goddamn good

    And then you get a do over Lal. The downside with the more leisurely pace and more episodes per season with no real arc. Sometimes the writers just go back to the well and repeat themselves.

    I also reached Barclay. Come on Geordi, don't just walk into someone's private holodeck time.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Wasn't Barclay late for a meeting or something? He was whacking it on the company's dime.

  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    Wasn't Barclay late for a meeting or something? He was whacking it on the company's dime.

    I think that was when Geordi, Troi, and Riker went in there later in the episode. Geordi just went in unasked after Guinan told him to not be an ass to Barclay.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Geordi was probably just disgusted someone was using the holodeck to salve his emotional needs and start romantic relationships with hard light AI constructs because Geordi would never do that.

  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    It's quite funny to me how many Old Maquis Tricks(tm) they use on Voyager, given that the Maquis existed for about a year at best before they got stuck out there. You'd think they'd all be new Maquis tricks.

    klemming on
    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • MancingtomMancingtom Registered User regular
    I just realized the Maquis make a lot more sense if they are old—if they were partisans fighting the Cardassians alongside Starfleet.

    We know that the Cardassians directly targeted civilians, and Starfleet can’t be everywhere at once, so it makes sense that the people would defend themselves.

    It would also explain the Starfleet-Maquis pipeline that saw so many fleeters of every stripe end up a guerilla. Maybe Starfleet couldn’t—or wouldn’t—commit 200 ships to the area, but if an officer retired or took a leave of absence and suddenly found a call to agriculture, well that’s just how it goes.

    Then the treaty goes through, and Starfleet decides to pack up and go home as if the fight’s over. So now these farmers, who’ve spent almost a generation fighting, are left to circle up and hold best they can.


    I read in an old tabletop splatbook that the Federation’s war doctrine boils down to “play defense and don’t escalate, buying time to reach a diplomatic solution,” and that perfectly fits what’s been shown or implied. The Cardassians show the pros and cons of that policy all through DS9.

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    TNG had a lot more elbow room than Discovery, banging out 26 episodes a year rather than 13 or so, and it's more leisurely in its storytelling than Discovery, not trying to make every second of every episode important and meaningful or an emotional climax. That era of TV seems gone in a lot of respects.

    I'm not saying Discovery shouldn't just calm the fuck down a lot more than it is doing presently, or that I would like it to be less chained to the remorseless engine of the season long arc. I think I'd like a lot more episodes where someone wasn't crying like their whole world fell apart, for example. Starfleet in Discovery seems less like a highly organised group of professionals who've trained for years and more like some nice, smart, well-intentioned people with poor impulse control were given a spaceship.

    Yesterday I watched a YouTube video of someone reviewing a modern show I like. The reviewer was, I'd guess, in his teens. His greatest critique of that show was how many "boring, pointless filler" episodes there were. And it was strangely disappointing to me, because I wanted to say to this kid: that's not filler, it's not pointless, those quieter moments are explaining the characters to you, they're every bit as important as the frenetic action scenes. Hell, without the quieter moments, the action scenes would not be so powerful!

    I know that's just that one kid, but I do feel like current TV has primed the younger audience to expect continuous action/drama and you break that formula at great risk.

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • RichyRichy Registered User regular
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Bogart wrote: »
    TNG had a lot more elbow room than Discovery, banging out 26 episodes a year rather than 13 or so, and it's more leisurely in its storytelling than Discovery, not trying to make every second of every episode important and meaningful or an emotional climax. That era of TV seems gone in a lot of respects.

    I'm not saying Discovery shouldn't just calm the fuck down a lot more than it is doing presently, or that I would like it to be less chained to the remorseless engine of the season long arc. I think I'd like a lot more episodes where someone wasn't crying like their whole world fell apart, for example. Starfleet in Discovery seems less like a highly organised group of professionals who've trained for years and more like some nice, smart, well-intentioned people with poor impulse control were given a spaceship.

    Yesterday I watched a YouTube video of someone reviewing a modern show I like. The reviewer was, I'd guess, in his teens. His greatest critique of that show was how many "boring, pointless filler" episodes there were. And it was strangely disappointing to me, because I wanted to say to this kid: that's not filler, it's not pointless, those quieter moments are explaining the characters to you, they're every bit as important as the frenetic action scenes. Hell, without the quieter moments, the action scenes would not be so powerful!

    I know that's just that one kid, but I do feel like current TV has primed the younger audience to expect continuous action/drama and you break that formula at great risk.

    This is also why I enjoyed Stranger Things S2E7 in Chicago that everyone hates. Yes it was a side-quest from the action/drama of the season arc, but it was one that allowed character-building and world-building, and that matters.

    sig.gif
  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    I think the problem people had with STS2E7 was that the character and world building was bad

  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    The difficulty is finding a balance. TNG's plotting and speed doesn't change all that much between episodes. put a TNG episode into Discovery and it might just be jarring. But yeah, some decompression episodes in Disco would be nice. As long as it doesn't turn into water treading (see Netflix Marvel shows around episodes 9 to 11)

  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    The episode of Discovery with the sphere was when I checked out until next season because I couldn't handle the ALL CAPS EMOTION anymore. It died to save us...from the problem it caused, because we did what it wanted. Everyone start crying

  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    That's mostly a problem with Michael, I think.

  • MancingtomMancingtom Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    As much as I like Discovery, it’s pretty clear they don’t know what to do with Michael.

    Her character is defined entirely by what’s happened to her, and they haven’t shown her doing much about it.

    Sisko was initially defined by past tragedy/tapped on the shoulder by God, but his arc is about what he does because of it or despite it. He acts. Michael reacts.

    I don’t think it would be a problem if Discovery was an ensemble story like previous Treks, but Michael is absolutely the main character with a supporting cast. Martin-Green has the chops to carry the show, but her character needs more meat.

    Mancingtom on
  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    More meat, less ham!

  • RichyRichy Registered User regular
    Another problem with Discovery is that the writers are trying to be clever in their big season-long action-oriented arcs, but they are much less so than they imagine. They try to pack twist after twist thinking they are being fresh and unexpected, but it just comes out disjointed, with every segment of the story insufficiently fleshed out to be interesting or engaging.

    Season 1:
    We'll have a Klingon messiah and we can talk about the decline of Klingon society... sudden war! So we'll have battles and loses and... sudden spore drive! We'll need to explore the ethical consideration of life-based transport and... sudden mirror universe! So we can look at a dark reflection of our characters and... sudden holding Qo'Nos hostage to push a peace treaty!

    Season 2:
    We'll have weird red angels appear in space and... sudden info sphere! So now we know everything about the alpha quadrant over the past 2000 years and... sudden Spock accused of murder! This opens a window onto Michael's family relations and... sudden Section 31! So now there are black ops involved and Giorgio is back and... sudden time travel!

    sig.gif
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    honovere wrote: »
    The difficulty is finding a balance. TNG's plotting and speed doesn't change all that much between episodes. put a TNG episode into Discovery and it might just be jarring. But yeah, some decompression episodes in Disco would be nice. As long as it doesn't turn into water treading (see Netflix Marvel shows around episodes 9 to 11)

    The problem with shit like the Marvel show filler is that's it's not actually episodic. It's just filler. It's wheel-spinning.

    A show like TNG or DS9 or, to pick a more serialized show, Buffy has tons of "filler" but it's often really good because it's written as a self-contained story. It exists to stand on its own and not just to stretch out a larger arc with padding.

    shryke on
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    I wonder why the Discovery writers think the series has to be this hyper-drama crap at all. Basically every Trek series was doing it's own Trek thing and not mimicking whatever was "in" for series design at the time. Voyager and Enterprise were both crap and they still had multiple seasons because people really just want more Star Trek.

    Just... be Star Trek, not another "GoT but in (insert setting here)" contender for trying to dial up the drama.

  • MancingtomMancingtom Registered User regular
    TV writers are under enormous pressure to get people’s attention and keep it. The quickest, easiest way to do that is MAX DRAMA ALL DAY ERR DAY, which can actually work depending on the story. But mold doesn’t fit everything.

    We have fond memories of TNG, but I think we all know it would never survive its first season if it came out today.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Mancingtom wrote: »
    TV writers are under enormous pressure to get people’s attention and keep it. The quickest, easiest way to do that is MAX DRAMA ALL DAY ERR DAY, which can actually work depending on the story. But mold doesn’t fit everything.

    We have fond memories of TNG, but I think we all know it would never survive its first season if it came out today.

    It's also become the expectation of Premium TV Drama. That's what the industry and the audience have been taught to think serious prestige drama looks like.

This discussion has been closed.