Season 2 Teaser
- Thread starter Tuskin38
- Start date
Yep. Trek can be anything. For all that people critiqued DS9's gloominess at the time for example, it undoubtedly has the largest number of comedic episodes of any Trek series - even if you discount the Ferengi ones!
This is why I feel like Trek movies have tended to underwhelm, because due to a combination of trying to make the TWOK lightening strike twice and Hollywood's general slant these days Trek keeps getting shoved into big-budget action adventures where a captain faces off against a singular antagonist.
I dunno, I just find it funny the big takeaway you guys had about the series was Sisko sitting around a table with Admiral Ross and Martok. That was basically a handful of episodes in the end run of the series. Fundamentally DS9 was a show about people, not politics. Even In the Pale Moonlight isn't really about political maneuvering. It's about whether a "good man" can live with himself for doing bad things if he thinks the ends justify the means. It's a personal story about Sisko's torment. Far Beyond The Stars, The Visitor, Necessary Evil, Duet, It's Only a Paper Moon, Soldiers of the Empire - they are all stories rooted in the characters.
Yeah, though after 79 episodes of TOS and over 175 of TNG, at some point you're going to run out of new ideas, at least until real-world changes lead to new inspirations.
Depends on who the "you" is. TOS and later TNG drew on story ideas from a lot of different writers, including many freelancers. VOY and ENT, and now certainly DSC even more so, relied on a small in-house writing staff. When the goal for a show isn't to be an in-depth exploration of a single "high concept," but rather a broad-ranging exercise of the imagination, one can see how that might make things more difficult.
So...let's chat.
Perhaps. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call them "comedic" and I'd agree that the term "light" is probably far more appropriate. That said, 90% of the Ferengi-centric episodes were awful by my measure.
The Trek movies didn't really try to "recapture the TWOK lightning" until (maybe) TUC. After that, it was very TWOK inspired for the most part.
I would never have said such a thing. DS9 was borderline-brilliant.
Yes, but the stage setting is the politics and maneuvering required due to the state of war they find themselves in. My point in saying "let's avoid making it about politics" is to say "let's continue to tell the human stories, but have a more sci-fi worthy backdrop." If I wanted war or politics to be the backdrop / stage setting that drives these dramatic points, there are plenty of other shows I can watch to get the same thing, and frankly DS9 has already done that in Star Trek clothing really well, so why re-tread that same ground? Star Trek is uniquely positioned to use exploration and discovery as the stage setting to tell those stories, not war and politics. It's one of the initial disappointments I had when I learned of DSC's S1 premise, quite frankly.
As they should be...but not all driven by the same stage setting, that could easily be traded out for any other genre (modern, fantasy, etc)
Agreed!
Perhaps. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call them "comedic" and I'd agree that the term "light" is probably far more appropriate. That said, 90% of the Ferengi-centric episodes were awful by my measure.
The Trek movies didn't really try to "recapture the TWOK lightning" until (maybe) TUC. After that, it was very TWOK inspired for the most part.
I would never have said such a thing. DS9 was borderline-brilliant.
Yes, but the stage setting is the politics and maneuvering required due to the state of war they find themselves in. My point in saying "let's avoid making it about politics" is to say "let's continue to tell the human stories, but have a more sci-fi worthy backdrop." If I wanted war or politics to be the backdrop / stage setting that drives these dramatic points, there are plenty of other shows I can watch to get the same thing, and frankly DS9 has already done that in Star Trek clothing really well, so why re-tread that same ground? Star Trek is uniquely positioned to use exploration and discovery as the stage setting to tell those stories, not war and politics. It's one of the initial disappointments I had when I learned of DSC's S1 premise, quite frankly.
As they should be...but not all driven by the same stage setting, that could easily be traded out for any other genre (modern, fantasy, etc)
But doesn't that arguably apply to a lot of STAR TREK? "Balance of Terror" is a submarine thriller in space. "Elaan of Troyius" is "The Taming of the Shrew" in space. "Mudd's Women" is a western about mail-order brides on the final frontier. "The Enterprise Incident" is the Pueblo Incident in space--with a happier ending. TUC is about glasnost in space. Etc.
Star Trek frequently puts its own spin on other genres and stories, often to good effect.
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Absolutely agreed!
I was speaking more about the core premise of a series, and not specific to any given individual episode.
So- to be clear, I'm not opposed to "politics / war / maneuvering / etc" as a plot point in Star Trek for an episode or movie. I just think I would prefer it be avoided as a basis for a series or even any further long story arcs!
And they managed to repeat themselves on more than one occasion.
The Magnificent Ferengi is a hands-down great episode, as is Little Green Men. I also have a soft spot for Bar Association because it's a sweet love letter to my own background in the labor movement. House of Quark is fun too. The Negus and Ishka-focused episodes were generally awful though, and the episodes which focused on the predicaments Quark got into due to his underworld connections were generally just average.
It's been my general experience that while good Trek episodes can have some sort of high-concept sci-fi element as integral, great ones could basically be stripped down to stage plays and still work just as well, because it's all about the interactions between the characters.
"Little Green Men" is one of my favorite DS9 episodes. In general, I think the Ferengi are funniest when they're contrasted with other species and cultures, as in "House of Quark." But, yeah, when it's just Quark's extended family yelling at each other, that gets tiresome real quick.
Also on the humorous front, "Our Man Bashir" is one of the best holodeck episodes in modern Trek.
ill chime in support for the Ferengi episodes. I will admit the ones with the Nagus get a bit old quick though.DS9 starts to show the Ferengi as a more alien species than some of the others. They had working ethics, they were just different from those of Humans (and Quark seemed to rightly understand that Federation ethics and culture were largely hyuoomon by then).
Quark:"You're overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi: slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you.. we're better."
In a galaxy with major galactic empires all jostling to be in control, Ferengi's ability to hustle, deal, and the understanding that Everyone has their price kept them relatively free and distinct. I don't think Trek did as well as fleshing out a species again as a seperate alien culture, until the Vulcan episodes on Enterprise season 4.
Quark:"You're overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi: slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you.. we're better."
In a galaxy with major galactic empires all jostling to be in control, Ferengi's ability to hustle, deal, and the understanding that Everyone has their price kept them relatively free and distinct. I don't think Trek did as well as fleshing out a species again as a seperate alien culture, until the Vulcan episodes on Enterprise season 4.
The title of that episode always reminds me of the old cartoon of the old guy scoffing at ufos and people who dream up little green men....and then a small flying saucer comes buzzing in and he starts weeping. Hilarious.
Wish I could find that cartoon online somewhere....
Yeah, it's an example of the holodeck done right. In general DS9 got the balance right because the holodeck was usually talked about by the characters but only briefly seen. They got a bit indulgent towards the end with Vic Fontaine, but it was nothing compared to VOY's flogging the dead horse until it was mush.
The shocking thing to me is that DS9 seemed to "get' Ferengi right from the start. Yet the last two years of TNG, VOY, and ENT in their rare Ferengi episodes still had no real idea what to do with them, either using them as simple clowns or making them more menacing and nefarious than what was now canonically established.
The ENT episode should have never been made.
Here you go. 5:53 markThe title of that episode always reminds me of the old cartoon of the old guy scoffing at ufos and people who dream up little green men....and then a small flying saucer comes buzzing in and he starts weeping. Hilarious.
You can say that about so, so many ENT episodes however.
I actually didn't mind their Borg episode much though. It was one of the well done bits of fanwank from the the pre Manny Coto years. Hell, it was better than nearly anything Voyager did with the Borg.
I liked the Borg episode and the Ferengi episode. Acquisition was a fun episode, and as far as I'm concerned, more Jeffrey Combs, Ethan Phillips, and Clint Howard is never a bad thing.
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