How many reset buttons?

[MacLeod]

Another explantion for the Trill and use of transporters, is quite simple really. The technology was improved.

[JirinPanthosa]

TNG used its fair share of reset buttons. Time Squared, Yesterday's Enterprise, Cause and Effect, All Good Things, Future Imperfect (Kinda), the warp bubble one (Kinda), Parallels, Tapestry.

--

Why are we constructing these roundabout explanations of the simple fact: The writer of a given episode only cares about that episode, and although the writer will pay attention to established precedents he's certainly not going to chuck his cool idea because it contradicts something.

DS9 was marginally better at continuity than the others, at least characters remembered when they were mad at each other.

But oh, what the heck. I can explain the difference in trills between TNG and DS9. There are two races of trills, one has spots and one has bumpy foreheads. That's not a stretch, humans look awfully different from each other. There are also two races of symbiants. One race believes in equality and sharing a life with their hosts, the other believes in fully taking over the host's mind.

Now, I can't explain why, in a world where earth was totally unified, the majority of the population is very caucasian. One would think there'd be a lot more Asians and Arabs walking around in the 24th century.

[sonak]

Solsticequaze wrote:

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I can't help but notice how you avoid DS9 completely in your rebuttal. Seven's "growing humanity" is effectively what the show became about in the later seasons. The rest of the crew (other than Janeway) were little better than window dressing. But, none of those are reset buttons.

The ship was always magically repaired by the beginning of the next episode no matter how dramatic the damage or the fact that they were thousands of lightyears from the nearest resupply or repair base. I'll grant you TOS, but then its not really fair either way to compare a show filmed in the 90 to one filmed in the 60s.

You and sonak must be arguing about two separate types of reset buttons because sonak just got done say that VOY relied much less than TOS and TNG and those arguments can't both be true. Otherwise we should be clear about what we're arguing about.



I've seen every episode of TNG and I competely missed her being 'sold into human trafficking'. Yes, she flirts with the head of the "Masterpiece Society" the episode after getting mind raped in "Violations", but I'd hardly call how she deals with it as a psychological professional a reset button. Getting abducted and stripped naked along with with her mother briefly in front of a few Ferengi is hardly going to have her holding herself and crying in the sonic shower in "Transfiguations". One time she was abducted by Romulans and lived aboard a Warbird for several days ("The Face of the Enemy") and afterward she was treated as an expert on Romulan behavior with advanced knowledge of the layout of Romulan ships ("Timescape").



How often would you bring up a dead parent in a conversation having nothing to do with it? Would the following episode ("The Gambit p1") have been improved upon by having a scene of Geordi moping around his quarters or crying on Data's shoulder before being called on-duty because of the possible death of his captain?



Actually, Worf mentions his how his brother didn't care for the stringent rules of Starfleet and dropped out after one year in "Heart of Glory". He went on to mention him a few times in DS9. ("Change of Heart")



Good point, I agree with you on this one.

The only thing Dax had in common with the only known Trill (Odan) to have that issue was the name of the species. Other than that they bore no resemblance to one another. Who is to say that he wasn't a member of a sub-species with a transporter issue.

Not to mention a bit more obvious.

My main issue is the lack of continuity where previously set Starfleet technology is. Voyager takes crippling amounts of damage at least once a season on average but rarely requires a repair base of any kind.

There's the photon torpedo count which I won't go into detail about here in lieu of all the threads devoted to it.

I think those are larger issues than how much more quickly trained professionals bounce back from traumatic experiences in the 24th century versus people who watch a TV show in the 21st.

I wasn't comparing Voyager to DS9 in terms of continuity because that would be silly. Of course DS9 had much better continuity, it made use of serialized storylines, and long-term series arcs. That was partly a result of DS9 being able to "fly under the radar" as the non-network and more "neglected" of the Trek TV series. And also the setting itself, a space station, really helped, because it allowed for bringing in recurring characters much more frequently.


That's why I compared Voyager to TNG and TOS, because those three shows are much more similar. And yes, if you look at the shows, Voyager had many more continuing storylines and multiple-episode arcs than TOS or TNG ever did. But yes, it still relied on the reset button a lot, which just happened to be more of a concern due to the era when Voyager was airing, and that the premise made a rest button more frustrating.

[MacLeod]

^Oh come on, with only something like 150 crew members on Voyager and virtually no chance of getting replacements, they could have had plenty of recurring characters. Yes they had Carey and Vorik to name a couple.

[Guy Gardener]

Vorrik was in 9 episodes. Carey was in 7.

DS9 had a litany of supporting characters who did 30 to 40 episodes.

[Anwar]

MacLeod wrote:

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^Oh come on, with only something like 150 crew members on Voyager and virtually no chance of getting replacements, they could have had plenty of recurring characters. Yes they had Carey and Vorik to name a couple.

We're talking about interesting recurring characters, like Generals and Kings and Space Popes and adventurers and stuff. Folks outside the chain of command who could do interesting things for the plot.

[BruntFCA]

Anwar wrote:

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We're talking about interesting recurring characters, like Generals and Kings and Space Popes and adventurers and stuff. Folks outside the chain of command who could do interesting things for the plot.

Characters are what you make them, Carey could have been the most interesting man in the universe if written well enough.

As for continuity I except that VOY didn't want to do arcs but there's no reason the show couldn't have the same level of continuity that the first 2 seasons of ENT had.

[Anwar]

Give them a reason to stick around in the same general area of space instead of running away from everything, then there's reason for better continuity because there's more to work with.

[R. Star]

MacLeod wrote:

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Whilst those are valid points, there is no reason why you couldn't show two crew members working in the background repairing a damaged section of coridoor whilst our principals walk past.

Or over the course of 2-3 episodes the exterior damage being repaired.

and even with replicators, you might need an industrial sized replicator to replicate large sections of hull plating and DSN inferred that these weren't easy to get a hold off.

I've a lot of issues with Enterprise, but this was one thing they did right that I liked. Damage would still be there from one episode to the next and you'd see them working on repairing these things.

[Harvey]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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Vorrik was in 9 episodes. Carey was in 7.

DS9 had a litany of supporting characters who did 30 to 40 episodes.

To put this in perspective, DS9 had fourteen recurring characters who appeared in more than ten episodes. VOY had three characters to appear in more than ten episodes.

VOY had zero recurrning character who appeared in more than twenty episodes; DS9 had seven.

Star Trek: Voyager was simply not committed to developing a recurring character base.

I've seen this blamed on the size of the show's cast, but this seems a stretch. VOY had 9 regulars at a time; DS9 began with 8 regulars, but with the addition of Michael Dorn in season four that number grew to 9.

[teacake]

And what are the TNG stats for this?

[Guy Gardener]

Berman looked at season two and chose to sacrifice the supporting/recurring characters they had enjoyed up to that point (Seska and Culla.) rationalizing upsidedownly that what the fans really wanted was more space ships and explosions rather than storytelling and acting.

Lets just figure this out.

Removing the cost of a few recurring actors (6 episode contracts, mean that these tourists guys get paid almost as much as Wang per episode.) which would sum up to an extra 20 maybe 30 seconds of cgi-modelling.

Wooo-hooo?

[Guy Gardener]

teacake wrote:

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And what are the TNG stats for this?

In the beginning TNG was made by a lot of the same Blokes who worked on the original Star Trek. They were working off the same models as 1950s cop shows. TNG's stats are going to be worse than Voyagers .. Although looking at their imdb listing, it seems that several of the extras were given "names" and then hung around for another 50 episodes.

DS9 was innovative like a soap opera, an then for their finale? And ongoing continuous 12 part episode?

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Voyager gets praise for Tom being mean to Chuckles for three episodes to sneak onto Seskas ship for 3 minutes before he breaks cover and...

12 parts with so many, many, many, interlocking moving pieces.

Voyager meanwhile given the opportunity to raise the bar instead took two steps back and could barely competently hold together a two parter.

Continuity wise episode to episode, Enterprise wasn't that bad in season one. They were always talking about how many light years they were from earth and subtly boosting the number each week. Season four was a wet dream. nothing but 3 and 4 parters that sorted connected up with everything.

But since you asked...

14 recurring actors in TNG (not counting Majel, Wheaton or Crosby) appeared in more than ten episodes...

and they had 10 characters in TNG(not counting Majel, Wheaton, and Crosby) who appeared in more than 20 episodes.

[sonak]

Harvey wrote:

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To put this in perspective, DS9 had fourteen recurring characters who appeared in more than ten episodes. VOY had three characters to appear in more than ten episodes.

VOY had zero recurrning character who appeared in more than twenty episodes; DS9 had seven.

Star Trek: Voyager was simply not committed to developing a recurring character base.

I've seen this blamed on the size of the show's cast, but this seems a stretch. VOY had 9 regulars at a time; DS9 began with 8 regulars, but with the addition of Michael Dorn in season four that number grew to 9.

it's hard to have a lot of recurring characters that aren't a part of the crew when they're supposed to be almost constantly on the move, though. When they TRIED to have recurring villain characters with Seska and Maj Culluh there were complaints about how the Kazon were still around when Voyager was supposed to have been on the move for so long.

[teacake]

Thank you.

I guess I never notice this stuff, as in notice it negatively. I felt like Voyager did get a stuck-in-the-office kind of suffocating quality that seemed realistic to me. They see the same people day after day and new people are not going to stick around because Voyager is not going to stick around.