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Holy Crap, Do I Love Star Trek

M

Mr Master

Pulsar
Joined
Jan 26, 2009
Location
Right behind you... you smell nice, by the way...
It will surprise none of you that I've been a big old geeknerd the entirety of my life. Comic books, role-playing games, you name it. Like almost all geeknerds the world over, I had a turn at Star Trek. I was a fan. Not as rabid as some, and with more to do in my life than others: I was never at the point where I could see a frame of film and tell you what episode it was from. But I knew the trivia and I knew the actors and all the plots and I could rationally discuss things about the Federation.

I was in high school when they started showing Next Generation, and in college nearly everybody in my dorm (we were in these two-story small dorm buildings, so everyone in my dorm was about 30 people or so) would gather in the dorm lounge to watch the daily Original Series episodes before dinner, and the weekly Next Generation episodes were also a group draw. The discussion of the ongoing plot and theories about what would happen were loudly conducted during all commercial breaks.

Time dulled my edge, and Voyager and Enterprise, along with a sharp decrease in quality of the movies, really soured my fandom, but the old stuff...

I just recently discovered http://www.watchtrek.com, and while some eps in some series have problems loading, I've had little issue seeing the majority of Deep Space Nine (after a few errors in first season episodes), and it's rekindling how much I love the good parts of the show. The mythos, some of the actors. It's coming back to me, now that I'm seeing the good parts again.

I like my Trek like I like my porn: with hot people in the lead roles. I also like my Trek like I like my SF: with things that get me thinking. Does anyone have a favorite character they like, and why? Any favorite episodes or lines?

For women, I can't help but love Ezri Dax. Pixie-like, short hair, chipper, looks like she'd fit in my pocket... she's so damn cute, it's hard not to adore her. For men, I find I'm liking Riker a lot as I get older; I think I get him better, now, than I did when the show was fresh. I also adore Odo, for some reason. And Quark remains one of my best comedy relief characters.

I do have a love for TOS, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (and Scotty, Sulu, Uhura... all those) have a cool that pretty much set the standard. Plus, the new movie didn't hurt them, either, no matter what sort of plot holes it may have had. But I keep thinking I find some other folks more relatable, and the series I find most of them coming from is Deep Space Nine.

So, anyone else want to admit one of the broadest and most well know nerdy fandoms? It's not like you're in rare company; something like 80% of the population reports enjoying Star Trek enough to call themselves "fans" of various ranks. Who wants to talk about it?
 
well, i like star trek too. far from a trekkie about it, but yes... i love it. especially anything TNG. data was my man... err... android. XD god i loved him. still do. was absolutely DEVASTATED when they killed him off in 'nemesis'. yes, i freakin' cried. >.< DON'T JUDGE!!! LOLOL!!! i also had a strange fascination with the borg arc. i found it to be one of the most amazing concepts the franchise ever created. i also had a strange love for Q. then, he DID instigate the whole borg meeting........ and let's not forget that picard is just the damn sexiest captain ever to grace the air waves!!!
 
Reasons why Major Kira is awesome:

1. Major Kira could easily tear off your leg and rape you with it, if she so pleased. Yet she refrains from doing it.

2. She is an honest politician.

3. Before she got a desk job she was a guerrilla insurgent fighting fascists with gray skin and weird cranial structures.

4. She, as a pilot, can fly a small two man Bajoran fighter craft, in and out of orbit, without using sensors. She can also land without instrumentation of any kind.

Reasons why Odo is awesome:

1. As the Chief Security Officer (read as: space Sheriff) of a space station (read as: one horse space town) Odo never used his shape shifting ability to roughly replicate someone else and implicate them in a crime.

2. He married Lwaxana Troi, arguably the single most annoying female corporeal entity in the entire Star Trek universe, and did not kill her.

3. As the space sheriff of a one horse space town Odo never made use of the ample opportunities to collect more money through the careful reception of bribes. That's really the least of what he could do. The amount of smuggling he could greenlight through his one horse space town would be truly epic.
 
The moments in the first couple of seasons when Odo kind of shows how he'd be a total security fascist if he was allowed to be are both chilling and awesome, too. The Mirror Universe version, Overseer Odo, is probably the bleakest and yet fullest expression of those impulses. Kind of shows how he was connected to the Founders at a genetic level, but in dealing with the Bajorans and the Federation, he learned new ways of doing things, learned tolerances that the other Changelings didn't learn. Which is yet another reason he's awesome.
 
Dataaaaaa.

I never really watched any of the original ST episodes. But I did watch TNG with my stepdad when he put them on TV. Data was my one of my favorites- he was just too silly. And the captain was damn hunky. Even for an old guy. <3 Lawlz. I can't remember who his second in command was though with that black hair and beard...

the Borg episodes were probably my favorites. They were kick ass.​
 
YAYAY! hahvy's a data fan too! sweeeet! data was just the best. i loved his innocence in the android sense. just made him that much more endearing. and picard's #1 was riker! YUM! what a team those two were... a hot captain and a yummy #1... guh! made my evenings oh so enjoyable back in my HS days.

and i agree... love. the. borg. makes me love Q for bringing them into the picture at all. even if he was an arrogant ass. lol.
 
darkangel76 said:
YAYAY! hahvy's a data fan too! sweeeet! data was just the best. i loved his innocence in the android sense. just made him that much more endearing. and picard's #1 was riker! YUM! what a team those two were... a hot captain and a yummy #1... guh! made my evenings oh so enjoyable back in my HS days.

and i agree... love. the. borg. makes me love Q for bringing them into the picture at all. even if he was an arrogant ass. lol.
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Yessss. <3​
 
Ahhh, le sigh! My very first celebrity crush was Chekov. I would rush home from school and watch re-runs of the old series every day, ate a bowl of ice-cream with peaches and dreamed of living among the stars. That wonderful old show got me through the loneliness and despair of my tweens and early teens, and gave me the moxy not to follow the crowd.

I went to a small liberal arts college in the midwest, and we also gathered in the dorm TV room on Sunday nights to watch the old show. I could always name the title of the episode within the first ten seconds of the show -- I think it was one of the few times in my life when people were amazed at something I could do, so my memory still has a warm fuzzy from that.

My favs from the series:

ST-NG: Picard.... I think it was the tea and classical music
DS9: Kira..... actually used to hate her because she could be so shrill, but then I saw "Duet" and it moved me like nothing on TV has before.
Voyager: Toss-up between Harry Kim and 7 of 9
Enterprise: (yes, I liked this series too) Trip.... because of the accent.
 
I've been working my way through DS9 on watchtrek, and I'm into Season 5, and oh, damn, is it good.

Worf is the king of the deadpan one-liner. Michael Dorn is not only a jet pilot and owner, but he's a classically trained actor who pretty much created his most famous character from scratch. His glare alone can deliver a joke's punchline.
 
Mr Master said:
Michael Dorn is not only a jet pilot and owner, but he's a classically trained actor who pretty much created his most famous character from scratch.
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So what you're saying is Michael Dorn = badass. One of the things I've always really appreciated about the Star Trek universe is their proclivity for picking up classically trained actors. I'm not saying they're better than actors from a more modern school (e.g. Johnny Depp, Julia Stiles) but it has a very classically dramatic feel to it when they act.
 
Quick synopsis of my thoughts on the Star Trek series.

Original: Bad. So bad it's good. My favorite part of the entire series is watching with my friends to see who does and doesn't think he has a hair piece. Although it does take on a new feeling after listening to the clips of audio feuding between George and Shatner on radio programs, as well as George's outwardly gay ramblings. It's like watching the series with a second set of commentary some days.

I do prefer the original to the remastered, just so that the effects match the acting.

TNG: Great stuff, had a strong 80's vibe to it. Stewart was one of the most interesting Captains. More prone to walk the route of Lawful Neutral then any of the other Captains in the series, plus it had Worf and Data in it. Geordi was the type of engineer that, as opposed to Scotty, had to Deus Ex Machina things up with effort, rather then just reversing the polarity of something. It was good, nerdy fun.

Also it introduced Q and the Borg. Booyah.

Voyager: It had it's moments. And it had more regular fan service then the other series. Also it had Dwayne Johnson in one of his first 'serious' acting roles. Aside from that, even Q doing the dirty and the Borg Queen weren't really stories that were strong enough to keep my interest. The best part of that show was probably the Doctor.

DS9: Religion in Space. :E Odo was cool, Dax was a sexy book worm, Quark, Worf, Garrick, O'brian, lots of awesome supporting characters, but Sisko. Sisko was just....underwhelming as a character, not to mention the actor always seemed like he was conflicted between snarling or breaking into Joker esque maniacal laughter.

The most interesting thing about that series I can think of is how they'd pull from TNG in such direct ways, like bringing in Troi's mother, Worf's son, Riker's 'evil' clone, all those sorts of things. When the best part of a series is how it tributes/rip's off the others, it's a clear sign.

Enterprise: I know a lot of Trekkies will give me flack for this, but I enjoyed it. It really didn't feel like Star Trek, but I guess that's what I enjoyed about it. It sort of reminded me a bit of Firefly, people on the edge of the universe, feeling completely isolated, not a military force to be reckoned with. While I was pissed about the Borg episode, aside from that, I very much enjoyed it.

Then again, I watched Quantum Leap.
 
I gotta disagree about Sisko. I really dug how Brooks played him as a committed, wholly Starfleet guy with a dark side, willing to play the villain when necessary. I've been working through DS9, and it's so much more a character show than the others; you really get into their heads.

Yes, you can say they drew a lot of plots and such from other Trek shows, but I generally tend to think they did it better. I'm just a DS9 fan, though, so there we go.
 
The Sisko character had it's moments, for sure, but when he was 'The Prophet' or whatever, I didn't have as much interest in it. As I said, my biggest problem wasn't with how Brooks portrayed his personality, but how he actually acted. He felt like...at least for the first half, he didn't know how to scale his emotions.

He was either on or off.
 
Ah-haa, yes. I love Star Trek also, but I'm not a full on trekkie or anything. Although it's bound to happen, my boyfriend is a complete trekkie, he can hear a line from the show [ TOS & TNG of course ], and know exactly what episode it came from, and how the rest of it played out. So I'm bound to become at least a minor trekkie.
From TOS, I have to love Spock. He's just... awesome. ♥ But of course I've gotta have some Kirk, too.
From TNG, Data is the man. Picard is always badass, too.

I can not stand Enterprise though. I'm all for girl power and what not but...
Ugh. Janeway pisses me off. But most female characters do?
 
Most female characters aren't particularly well-written. Janeway I thought they did as decent of a job as they could, but the writing on the entirety of Voyager was sucky in the extreme, so Janeway was just kind of a victim of the general roadkill that was that series.

And T'Pol of Enterprise was really just eye-candy with pointy ears. They did what they could with her as a Vulcan, but that whole show just fucked with the established continuity enough to make me hate it, starting with frikkin' words in the theme song. Screw that.

They did decently with Troi and Crusher in TNG (the less said about their sad attempts with Yar the better, but it was first season, and even for sci fi shows, TNG's first season was epically crappy), even though they were basically mostly for plot exposition (about either emotions or about medical situations), with a few exceptions that worked pretty well, but honestly, I think the best female characters were in DS9.

Jadzia Dax was very complex, and as a Trill she had seven lifetimes of memories of both genders, and they didn't hesitate to play that up. Ezri was a shakier-written character, but she was kind of supposed to be, and that pixie attractiveness of hers forgave a lot. Even Keiko O'Brien was written pretty realistically and competently. But really, the best go for female characters is Major Kira. She was written as a skilled guerilla, a competent professional, and a woman in touch with her emotions and her faith. There were some false steps here and there, but I think Nana Visitor did a great job coping with all she was asked to play, the wide range of emotions and situations, and pulled it off well. Kira managed to go all over the map and still remain pretty much believably consistent all the way through. She changed when it made sense that a person would change, over time; she stayed true to herself when it seemed like a real person would stay true. All in all, I think she was the best-written character in the franchise.
 
Dameon said:
You wanna talk awesome female characters? Guinan.
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Whoopi did her well, but ultimately, she was more of a plot device than an actual character. She never had doubt, never needed to display range, never needed to change who she was. She was interesting and written as well as a plot device could be, but she wasn't really a character, imho.
 
Really? I thought the interactions between Gainen and Q were some of the best of the series. Especially because she was the only cast member I can recall of that made Q flinch.
 
I agree! But she didn't have to change. She had good backstory, she was well-portrayed, she did interesting things, they put good advice into her mouth but still avoided making her the Magical Black Person of the future. All good things.

But she never went through growth, she never had to question anything, we never saw her have to puzzle something out and come to a decision... there was no drama with her, and thus she wasn't really a real character in the way that the other female character's I'm talking about were. She was pretty much done growing by the time she showed up, so she was more of an advisor type of person, a support, not a main, and not really the kind of character I'm talking about when I talk about good female characters.
 
Well, she was in there for 4 seasons, very rarely. She was a minor character, by definition. Which is too bad. They didn't even bother putting her in the last season.
 
Well...no character in any of Star Trek series were well-written and none of them seemed realistic. But that doesn't mean we can't like them!
 
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