Revisiting original Trek

GKE - you're doing yourself a disservice if you aren't watching TNG in its entirety... although you may have seen most or all of it over the years in syndication.

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Well I've seen every single episode, I actually had the DVDs and sold them. I really just think there's a lot of boring stuff in there, especially in the first two and last seasons.

I've never been a proponent of the even/odd numbered Trek movie phenomenon. The Motion Picture is still a favorite of mine, despite the 70's cheesiness at points. The story is unique and draws loose parallels to future Star Trek lore.

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You know, it was kind of a "Nomad" remake, though. I wouldn't call the story itself 'unique', I actually thought they did a pretty good job expanding the notion into a feature film. And one with a bit of a different ending.

I like the first Trek film, too, but I was also a die-hard Trek fan right up until about season 2 or 3 of Voyager.

Star Trek I is the only Star Trek thing out there prior to Voyager I have only seen once and till recently had no desire to see it twice. The story wasn't bad or anything .. there was just .. something off with the pacing for me that just made it unbearably .. long. The same problem I have with 2001. I am looking forward to watching the Director's cut though, that I do now posess on DVD.

Two, Four and Six definitely are my favorites.

Three I quite enjoyed, just that I can imagine it being too great a movie for non-fans.

Five was awful, but at least awful in an entertaining way. Watching it the third time was WAY more fun for me than watching the motion picture for the first time.

Seven is with three for me there - I enjoyed it - as a die-hard fan (which I was till somewhere in the middle of the third season or so of Voyager - before that, I was still giving it a chance .. but I did eventually lose my patience). As a non-fan, if you remove the "cool! Kirk AND Picard!" factor, I doubt what's left is more than mediocre.

Eight was .. well .. fun in the over-the-top action movie way. Not much on the redeeming value side, but not something I at least ever got bored with.

I think nine is actually my favorite next generation movie - yes, I'm weird .. though it really did seem more like something that would make a normal episode than anything else .. but hey, I liked standard TNG episodes. And much prefered the to what Nemesis was.

Nemesis .. I walked out of the movie theatre and was just thinking "huh?" .. two days later, I had forgotten everything that happened in it. I do want to see it again, just to test if it was as bad and forgettable as I remembered it.

Though all in all, watching all the movies should be managable. If you have the patience for the motion picture (and if the director's cut is actually better than the original was, which I have heard many times)

One of the strengths of Generations was that it didn't blatantly focus on Picard and Data, as Insurrection and Nemesis did. Even First Contact did, to a minor degree, between Picard's efforts to save the ship and Data's interaction with the Borg Queen. Everyone else just seemed along for the ride, with the exception of Geordi, who at least seemed to have his own thing going while overseeing things at the missile compound.

Generations did focus on Picard's family tragedy, but not too much. Data's emotion chip was a fun and interesting turn for his character, and is probably what made him an instant favorite among less-than-casual Trek fans who decided to see the flick in the theater. I get more of a sense of teamwork when I watch the crew in Generations then the last 2 TNG movies, and that's really what TNG the series was all about.

Five was awful, but at least awful in an entertaining way. Watching it the third time was WAY more fun for me than watching the motion picture for the first time.

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As bad as Five turned out to be, it does boast some of the funniest humor in all of Trekdom. Some of the best funny lines I like to quote come from Star Trek V. One of my all-time favorites goes like this:

Kirk & Spock enter the turbolift after beaming up straight from Yosemite.
Turbolift computer voice: "L-L-Level?"
Kirk: "Bridge. I hope."
Turbolift doors GRIND shut.
Kirk: "I could use a shower."
Spock (pauses, as if quietly inhaling): ".....Yes."

Kirk investigates a ceiling fixture.
Spock: "Useless."
Kirk continues.
Spock: "Unwise."
Kirk gets shocked and falls to the floor.
Kirk: "You could've warned me."
McCoy: "He DID, Jim."
Kirk: "There's got to be a way out of this place."
Spock: "This is a new brig, Captain. It is escape-proof."
Kirk: "How do you know?"
Spock: "The designers tested it using the most intelligent and resourceful person they could find. He failed to escape."
Kirk: "This person... didn't by any chance have pointed ears and an unerring capacity for getting his shipmates into trouble, did he?"
Spock: "He did have pointed ears."

The directors cut of TMP is better, but it still really slow.

Star Trek I The story wasn't bad or anything .. there was just .. something off with the pacing for me that just made it unbearably .. long.

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There was a reason why that movie quickly acquired the nickname, even aong many Trek fans, of:

Star Trek: The Motionless Picture


To me, the even/odd breakdown only ever really applied to the Original Cast movies (1 - 6). Generations is *predominantly* a Next Gen movie. Search for Spock was clearly the best of the odd numbered ones, but the bad still outweighed the good so that it fell on the down side that dichotomy. ST:TMP was just a remake of the Nomad episode with much worse pacing. The one with the search for God (I'm even blanking on the title, other than ST5) was just awful ..... with the one redeeming comedy moment (though not *nearly* redeeming enough) of the "Excuse me, ..... Why does God need a star ship?" routine.

While I liked "First Contact" as an individual movie I think the Borg Queen idea was the beginning of the 'crapification' of the borg. It took a cool concept, and on a personal note the first time as a kid I understood what a cliffhanger episode was, and threw it out for a moment's gratification. "Generations" and "Insurection" seemed more like longer episodes than movies and V just plain sucked.

Voyager killed my interest to such an extent that I've yet to see "Nemisis" or "Enterprise".

Quagmire, unless you're a big fan of Scott Bakula or you're incredibly patient, I wouldn't ever even bother with Enterprise Season 1 or 2, I think there was only 2 or 3 good episodes per season. Season 3 got old for me before the season ended, because I didn't think the season long arc worked for the show, but some people actually enjoyed season 3. Lots of reset timeline buttons pushed in the first 3 seasons, as well. Season 4, though, is actually quite worthwhile, IMHO. Season 4 returned the series to what we had hoped for it when it was first announced as being the next Trek series.

While I liked "First Contact" as an individual movie I think the Borg Queen idea was the beginning of the 'crapification' of the borg.

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Agreed, but at the time, I think they probobly didn't plan on bringing them back. (On Voyager)

I don't know .. with the Voyager being in the delta quadrant and it having been clearly stated that the Borg were in the delta quadrant, I was quite sure from the beginning that they would meet them eventually - firstly because of the location and secondly because it was too big a "cool thing" for fans to leave unmilked. From the little I gathered (not meaning Seven here, just general stories) .. it would have been better for everyone if they hadn't met the Borg. But I have no idea really what they had planned .. if anything

While I liked "First Contact" as an individual movie I think the Borg Queen idea was the beginning of the 'crapification' of the borg.

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Agree completely. The idea of a "queen" takes away all the coolness of the Borg. It also removes the need for the Borg kidnapping Picard in Best of Both Worlds.

I'm now at the point in original Trek where the show is hitting its stride. Last night I watched a personal fave: A Taste of Armageddon, where a civilization is fighting a war completely via computers and sends its "casualties" into disintegration chambers.

Next up: Space Seed!
(though probably not tonight, since the NFL season opener will be on)

I'm now at the point in original Trek where the show is hitting its stride. Last night I watched a personal fave: A Taste of Armageddon, where a civilization is fighting a war completely via computers and sends its "casualties" into disintegration chambers.

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Hah, I remember really liking that one. Have been slowly rewatching Original Trek with my sister recently, but we haven't gotten that far yet, since either she has been busy or I have been busy .. have been really looking forward to that one. I have noticed though that quite a few episodes I remembered liking a lot when younger just didn't impress me at all anymore now (Court Martial, The Conscience of the King) .. and some that I never cared about earlier on really seemed cool now (The Corbomite Maneuver, The Menagerie) .. I guess age makes a difference, I was 9 when watching TOS for the first time.

But I knew that the Omega Glory was horrid even then. Hah!

I have noticed though that quite a few episodes I remembered liking a lot when younger just didn't impress me at all anymore now (Court Martial, The Conscience of the King) .. and some that I never cared about earlier on really seemed cool now (The Corbomite Maneuver, The Menagerie) .. I guess age makes a difference, I was 9 when watching TOS for the first time.

But I knew that the Omega Glory was horrid even then. Hah!

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I must admit that I have a soft spot for 'The Conscience of the King' - any reference to Hamlet is always welcome, and that particular line is my favourite from the whole play.

It's amazing what you tend to notice now about these episodes now that they are nearly 40 years old. Like 'Court Martial' - the things that stick in my memory about that show are just the really silly use of props:

Like McCoy using what is obviously a singer's microphone to somehow register and filter out specific heartbeats.

And Shatner's foe for the week trying to kill him with the biggest god-damn spanner I have ever seen! Just what bolt is big enough that would justify the use of such a tool?

And, yes, The Omega Glory sucks big time - at least with Spock's Brain, you can laugh at the stupid B-movie premise. The Omega Glory takes itself far too seriously, and is the worst Original Series episode by a mile.

It looks like I will be revisiting Enterprise.

I know most people disliked it, and I also agree that there are only a few really good eps each in the first two seasons. BUT, ABC TV is rerunning Enterprise, and I can see it in HD. I will watch the opening two parter, and an occassional ep, just to see it in HD. The local UPN station wasn't available in HD, and had a rather poor analog picture.

Last episode watched: City on the Edge of Forever.

Sweet.

The next two are the last and first eps of season 1 & 2 respectively. Operation Annihilate seems rather pedestrian but it has lots Spock, and Ca'ts Paw just seems weird.

"Cat's Paw" was a Halloween episode, meant to be fun and somewhat weird.

If you want really weird you should have seen it rerun on WPIX in New York one night in the mid-70s. This was back in the days when syndication stations still got physical prints of TV shows (usually 16mm.) (They would then trim frames from the film to insert extra commercials - which is where many of the frames that were traded and sold among fans came from.) Anyway, one night the guy runnijng "Cat's Paw" either got a set of reels that were misnumbered or loaded them in the wrong order, because viewers saw the teaser, the first act, the third act, and then the second act. Finally the Star Trek title slide, a still of the Enterprise oribting a planet with the WPIX logo superimposed came up and an announcer said approximately the folllowg:

"Star Trek's mysterious Halloween episode, 'Cat's Paw', has been rendered even more mysterious by one of our engineers, who ran the film out of order. WPIX apologizes for the error. If you'll give us a few minutes, we'll show the entire episode, in order and in its entirety, following a short interuption."

Then they ran some kind of 15 minute filler while keeping the Trek logo in the lower right hand side of the screen, dumped whatever show was supposed to follow Star Trek and restarted the episode from the top as promised. It is a measure of how important Trek's ratings were to local indy stations at the time that they would drop another show (or shows) to keep the Trek fans happy..

Regards,

Joe