"Darmok" vs "Trials and Tribble-ations" better Trek tribute?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Dax fawning over Spock was even funnier. Especially how she goes all pouty and sulky when Sisko won't let her go over to the station to help Odo and Worf.

[Captain Picard.]

Tuvok wrote:

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Yeah have to go with TandT just for the Geek love , and the effort of the crew to seamlessy blend the two series together.

Plus how hilarious is it Uhura checking out Sisko!

This thread is 6 years old

[Greg Cox]

Yeah, I don't really get the point of pitting these two particular eps against each other. T&T was DS9's special anniverary salute to TOS--and hardly representative of DS9 as a whole. T&T is to DS9, as "Relics" is to TNG, and "Flashback" is to VOYAGER. "Darmok," on the other hand, is simply a memorable TNG episode that was never meant to be a "tribute" to anything--except maybe the movie Enemy Mine.

I'm not sure you can derive any profound trends or insights from comparing these two random episodes, especially since one of them was deliberately designed to be a nostalgic tribute to TOS and the other wasn't. It's apples or orange, or tribbles or targs.

You might just as well compare "Q-Pid" to "In the Pale Moonlight" to "Bride of Chaotica." All very different episodes, with very different intentions, but all equally Trek.

And, given that both episodes are now many years old (as in nearly two decades), and produced by the previous regime to boot, I'm not sure either really shows where the franchise is headed! Nobody involved with either ep is even connected to Trek anymore.

(I can't believe T&T was some seventeen years ago!)

[Loskene]

Captain Picard. wrote:

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This thread is 6 years old

Please be polite to those suffering from time dilation.

Trials for me BTW.

[Greg Cox]

Honestly, I think the OP is working way too hard to find some deep significance in a cute, one-off, 30th-Anniversary ep that aired seventeen years ago. T&T was great fun, but it hardly set the tone for future of DS9, let alone the rest of the franchise.

Sometimes a tribble is just a tribble.

[MacLeod]

Captain Picard. wrote:

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This thread is 6 years old

Ok, who's been playing with the Orb of Time?

[Greg Cox]

MacLeod wrote:

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Ok, who's been playing with the Orb of Time?

My money is on the Klingon . . . .

[foxhot]

I like Paul Winfield in just about anything, but I too prefer TRIALS. If memory serves, wasn't it ''Forrest Gump'' and its CGI moments (mixing Tom Hanks with John Kennedy, for example) which inspired DEEP SPACE NINE to make their tribute?

[JirinPanthosa]

I'd have to go with Trials and Tribbleations.

It is kind of fanservice, but it is very good fanservice.

Darmok's a good episode too, and it has all the elements that made TNG great, but it's not one of the absolute highlights of the series.

@Greg Cox

Yeah, but TaT is way better written than Flashback or Relics, and unbelievably well edited. You wouldn't think they would be able to put DS9 characters directly into TOS scenes and make it look seamless. And the meta-humor is some of the best in the series. I don't think it should be considered one of the absolute best DS9 episodes, but it's one of the better ones, and I can't imagine how they could have done better with the premise.

[J. Allen]

Yeah, it's 6 years old, but I'm answering anyway.

Definitely "Trials and Tribble-ations". I love "Darmok", but T&T was a fantastic effort, and is easily one of my favorite tributes to the original series. Plus, this was before the cleanup project, and everything looked so spiffy and new, I love it. Also, Dax.