Brannon Braga Rocks

Egads! The Seventh season DOES suck.

It has its fine episodes (I just LOVE Parallels), but ..

What is it with every second episode focusing on some new family member introduced for the main characters? La Forge's mom .. Data's mom .. Worf's stepbrother .. Troi's sister .. Crusher's grandmother .. who cares?

And then ..

* "Force of Nature" .. "Warp Drive is bad for the environment!" .. okay. It was obvious enough that the writers thought this was stupid too, as they dinged it within a few weeks after creating it. But in this episode .. okay, two alien scientists come to the enterprise, and tell them that Warpdrive is BAD, as it might, in theory, some day, create a subspace rift right by their homeworld, which will make it uninhabitable. The Enterprise does not believe this without further research. So what does one of the scientists do? CREATE a subspace-rift which will make her homeworld uninhabitable.

ZUH?? That's kind of like proving that Nuclear Powerplants are dangerous by creating a meltdown intentionally. But at least she got to prove that she was right, which was what was really important! .. or .. something? I haven't quite figured it out. Neither have the writers.

* "Homeward" .. Worf's stepbrother, Nikolai, dares to save a dying species. So what does Picard and the crew of the Enterprise harp on about? The prime directive, yadda yadda yadda. Apparently, the directive created in order to protect alien races from contamination forbids the Enterprise from saving a species from certain destruction. Does this make sense?

Then Nikolai explains that it doesn't make much sense like this. What reply does he get? Troi (bitch!) going "No, actually, ..." and Picard harping on and on about "regulations" and "rules".

The rest of the episode has Worf bitching about how Nikolai just did this all because he is "selfish". Yeah, having common sense = selfish. I wish Nikolai had smacked Worf. And Picard. And Troi. And the whole lot.

Lesson learned: Wesley >> alien culture. Wesley is worth breaking the prime directive for (Justice), a little cute kid is worth breaking the prime directive for (Pen Pals), but an entire civilisation is not. Great.

* Sub Rosa: Oh Boy. The agony booth says it all really. Sexy seducive Scottish ghost seducing Crusher and her grannie? YECK. And when the random Scottish "protector" guy came, I instanlty thought "Crickey. It's Groundskeeper Willie." Glad it was not just me.

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Definitely the last time I watch *all* of TNG, in any case. Seasons 1, 2 and 7 do have their decent episodes, but in general, the show was only good for 4 years.

I must have a filter that blanks out all of the bad TNG. Either that or it just faded into one...

Heh- prime directive.

I was watching a TOS ep the other day called "The Apple," about a primitive culture ruled by a machine "god." Kirk and McCoy decide that it's wrong and destroy it. Spock brings up the prime directive and Kirk is all, yeah whatever, blah blah prime directive blah blah and they blast Vol out of existence.

The End.

Pfft, prime directive.

The prime directive on TOS is like some kind of running joke. "Ah yes .. the "rules"."

In TNG though .. mooooral dilemma, moral dilemma, moral dilemma! Look at us all suffer from the moral dilemma!

Yeck.

Chilli said:

Egads! The Seventh season DOES suck.

It has its fine episodes (I just LOVE Parallels), but ..

What is it with every second episode focusing on some new family member introduced for the main characters? La Forge's mom .. Data's mom .. Worf's stepbrother .. Troi's sister .. Crusher's grandmother .. who cares?

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Actually, I found a couple of those to be touching. But yea, for people who hate stories about families, I can see how there would be "too much" of it in that season, for you.

They also threw in a line like "you are given permission to break current warp speed standards..." to deal with whatever emergency has come up.

And then ..

* "Force of Nature" .. "Warp Drive is bad for the environment!" .. okay. It was obvious enough that the writers thought this was stupid too, as they dinged it within a few weeks after creating it. But in this episode .. okay, two alien scientists come to the enterprise, and tell them that Warpdrive is BAD, as it might, in theory, some day, create a subspace rift right by their homeworld, which will make it uninhabitable. The Enterprise does not believe this without further research. So what does one of the scientists do? CREATE a subspace-rift which will make her homeworld uninhabitable.

ZUH?? That's kind of like proving that Nuclear Powerplants are dangerous by creating a meltdown intentionally. But at least she got to prove that she was right, which was what was really important! .. or .. something? I haven't quite figured it out. Neither have the writers.

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You hated the episode so much, you missed the explanation.

They only explained it once, and briefly, but do you recall a line something like "if it had opened any closer to the planet..." withthe implication being that she saved her world by making the "meltdown" happen further away from her planet. Far enough away to protect it somewhat. And since her only concern was to make people aware of the problem that happened to be about to take that planet down.

* "Homeward" .. Worf's stepbrother, Nikolai, dares to save a dying species. So what does Picard and the crew of the Enterprise harp on about? The prime directive, yadda yadda yadda. Apparently, the directive created in order to protect alien races from contamination forbids the Enterprise from saving a species from certain destruction. Does this make sense?

Then Nikolai explains that it doesn't make much sense like this. What reply does he get? Troi (bitch!) going "No, actually, ..." and Picard harping on and on about "regulations" and "rules".

The rest of the episode has Worf bitching about how Nikolai just did this all because he is "selfish". Yeah, having common sense = selfish. I wish Nikolai had smacked Worf. And Picard. And Troi. And the whole lot.

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The use or lack of use of the "Prime Directive"is laughable in the original series. I felt the Next Generation at least tried to make it seem like it was followed from time to time. And we don't really know (do we?) what specific history was made, badly, when man first reached out and tried to help more primitive cultures.


About Weseley: a captain has another directive, and that's to protect the lives of his crew and passengers. What really doesn't make sense is Data's "pen pal", the little girl living on a planet that is tearing itself apart. The ONLY thing at stake in that decision was Data's... er... feelings.

With that said, in general I think a lot of fans were glad to see season 5 wrap up TNG. What I found silly was how initially Worf brags how he'd likely hurt his "fellow crewmates" were he to engage in sex with them. Later, he's laying human females with no apparant concern.

Maybe he'd passed his sexual prime.

And we don't really know (do we?) what specific history was made, badly, when man first reached out and tried to help more primitive cultures.

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I vaguely remember the show Enterprise trying to do that, ending with Capt Archer saying something like, "and perhaps in the future there will be some sort of... directive... to prevent this" blah blah blah.

I did not mind the family episodes .. and some of them were quite okay, actually. It was just .. a few too many of them, at once, IMHO.

GKarsEye said:

I vaguely remember the show Enterprise trying to do that, ending with Capt Archer saying something like, "and perhaps in the future there will be some sort of... directive... to prevent this" blah blah blah.

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Bingo. "Dear Doctor", I think, but I'm not sure. It made me cringe horribly, in any case.

The bit about there being the captain also having the directive to protect his crew makes sense, but does not do so in excess. As the prime directive is .. well .. the prime directive. Comes before all others.

Though that episode didn't make sense in the first place - how did the prime directive allow for them beaming down in the first place?

Not to get me started on Seasons 1 & 2 .. I'd be going all night

Season 5 would have been too early .. season 6 was still quite okay. I hear that season 7 also suffered from many writers and much of the creative staff being preoccupied with DS9 *and* Generations, and the preparations for Voyager at the time .. which would make sense, IIRC, season 2 of DS9 was a lot better than this.

you are given permission to break current warp speed standards

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That is true, but they only did this once or twice. By the first season of Voyager - less than a year later - they had developed a "new engine" which didn't cause these problems. Problem never seen again.

I hear that season 7 also suffered from many writers and much of the creative staff being preoccupied with DS9 *and* Generations, and the preparations for Voyager at the time .. which would make sense, IIRC, season 2 of DS9 was a lot better than this.

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I don't remember my Trek timeline and am too lazy to look it up, but I think DS9 ripped some key writers from TNG. Season 7 of TNG would coincide with season 2 or 3 of DS9, when it was at its best, so it seems like there was some sort of talent-transfer there.


Remember JMS' famous line about how a good TV show in the U.S. is expected to have about 1/3 of the episodes being decent, 1/3 being great, and 1/3 being awful? I would say TNG fits that description.

Yea, that is really so true. I thought about that kind of thing as we all looked at and voted in the polls for B5 episodes (and the Crusade and the t.v. movies, of course). In most shows if you break the 1/3 crap mark (or better yet, increase the "really good") then odds are it's a short-lived triumph.

I can see cranking out story after story, week after week. But I can't see them all being good.

20+ eps per season is just too much. That's why even the worst HBO series are better than anything on network television.

Despite the romanticism of creative artists being free to produce tons and tons of material, art generally needs severe editing and deadlines to be consumable.

GKarsEye said:

20+ eps per season is just too much. That's why even the worst HBO series are better than anything on network television.

Despite the romanticism of creative artists being free to produce tons and tons of material, art generally needs severe editing and deadlines to be consumable.

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That's probably true. B5 is a bit of an exception there (Season 3, for example, had only ~2 bad, and ~2 mediocre episodes), as it was telling one big story, and not 22 individual ones. But in general, even a good season of a good show could do with a third of the episodes not being there.

TOS season 2 for example, a truely excellent season. It could still do without Patterns of Force, The Omega Glory, Catspaw and possibly also THe Apple, also if I love it for its campiness (and for Chekov and his hot girlfriend teaching the backwards planet people how to shag)

I recently picked up TOS season 2 on DVD and I'm not watching all the episodes, only the ones that are catching my interest for now, but The Apple was one that made my viewing list. It's a plot that got beaten to death by the end of the show's run but it was still fresh here.

Well, they had already done it once in Return of the Archons .. The Apple was a lot better than Return of the Archons though, IMHO. It's a lot more fun, though it is kind of daft.

Plus, it has Spock prooving just how cool he is. Hit by deathly seeds, struck by lightning, and almost walk on exploding rock. And it has four redshit deaths in one episode.

redshit

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ha ha

D'oh!

The first picture in my link is now my work laptop desktop image.

...{snip}... TOS season 2 for example, a truely excellent season. It could still do without Patterns of Force, The Omega Glory, Catspaw and possibly also THe Apple, also if I love it for its campiness (and for Chekov and his hot girlfriend teaching the backwards planet people how to shag)

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Ah, yea, Chekov: the Kirk in training. I had a crush on him as a kid.

Was the Apple with the native people who never aged or mated, and the had that giant head god that sustained them, if they kept feeding it rock or something?

Wow, talk about breaking the Prime Directive, there.

But that's what's so FUN about Kirk. He does this and no one even blinks. When Picard does it, it's much more like "hey, Mr. man-of-the-rules, how'd you justify ignoring your PRIME directive?"

Kirk just didn't care.

Chilli said:

Well, they had already done it once in Return of the Archons .. The Apple was a lot better than Return of the Archons though, IMHO. It's a lot more fun, though it is kind of daft.

Plus, it has Spock prooving just how cool he is. Hit by deathly seeds, struck by lightning, and almost walk on exploding rock. And it has four redshit deaths in one episode.

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Ah, no, you just can't fluster Spock. Unless he's at that one particularly inconvenient time in a male Vulcan's life.

GKarsEye said:

http://echosphere.net/star_trek_insp/star_trek_insp.html

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This one was awesome!

Chilli said:

TOS season 2 for example, a truely excellent season. It could still do without Patterns of Force, The Omega Glory, Catspaw and possibly also THe Apple, also if I love it for its campiness (and for Chekov and his hot girlfriend teaching the backwards planet people how to shag)

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See, I liked Patterns of Force, The Omega Glory and The Apple. Catspaw was the only one of that group, and of the season, that I really didn't care for much. Season 2 of TOS was awesome.