aliens ruined by TREK

[RobertScorpio]

Can you think of an alien race that you think the writing on TREK let down? I can...

The Borg. I still maintain and always will that by introducing the Queen (and sticking her in BOBW flash backs) was the down fall of the Borg. By giving the Borg a centralized character it ruined their best aspect, Space Zombies, and makes Q and Guinan both look like idiots.

Hirogen. This Alien species had such a great start. They were the bad asses of the Delta Quadrant that the Kazon never amounted to be. Then later versions made them shorter, less kick ass, and they were just whimps.

Nausicaans. I will just go on pretending that ENTERPRISE never happened. They nutured the Nausicaans. And thanks to the comments of the temporal dudes on DS9, they remarkt there have only been 6 ships called Enterprise. TOS then A B C D E...six!!! Not seven...SIX!!!

I know the writers have to devloped characters, but sometimes they just ruin them, IMO

 

[MattJC]

Klingons.
I got sick of them by the time DS9 ended.
I realize that they are a major part of trek, and they will continue to be seen in new Trek movies and series, but I am just really sick of them.

 

[JiNX-01]

MattJC said:
Klingons.
I got sick of them by the time DS9 ended.
I realize that they are a major part of trek, and they will continue to be seen in new Trek movies and series, but I am just really sick of them.

I'm with you!
I was SO MAD when a turned up in Broken Bow!

 

[Cyclopean]

I hate Klingons. I hate how TNG et al romanticize them. They should have been completely villainous in ENT.

Here's another, a lot more promising than the Hirogen IMO: Species 8472, ruined in "In the Flesh."

Giving Romulan butt-foreheads or whatever pretty much messed them as well. How would Styles have ever confused one of them for a Vulcan in "Balance of Terror"? Unless they too need an ENT episode explaining changing make-up styles "in-universe."

 

[BrotherBenny]

RobertScorpio said:
And thanks to the comments of the temporal dudes on DS9, they remarkt there have only been 6 ships called Enterprise. TOS then A B C D E...six!!! Not seven...SIX!!!

Lucsly and Dulmer were probably thinking of Federation starships named Enterprise, forgetting about the pre-Federation Earth Starfleet Enterprise.

Anyway, I think that ST actually ruined the Tholians in ENT. They were a great villain in TOS and ENT made them pawns. It would have been nice to actually see them in TNG or DS9.

 

[archeryguy1701]

The Borg. You want to talk about a race getting neutered, Voyager massacred them. They used to be a big, scary race, but Voyager turned them into the throw-away race of the week. If the writers ran out of ideas, they would just kill some more Borg.

 

[Anwar]

More like "UPN thinks that Borg = viewership so they're ordering us to tell more Borg stories".

And also, the Borg's fall began with TNG, not VOY. They were really only good for like 2-3 stories before they lost their appeal anyways.

 

[Phantassm]

Xeris said:

RobertScorpio said:
And thanks to the comments of the temporal dudes on DS9, they remarkt there have only been 6 ships called Enterprise. TOS then A B C D E...six!!! Not seven...SIX!!!

Lucsly and Dulmer were probably thinking of Federation starships named Enterprise, forgetting about the pre-Federation Earth Starfleet Enterprise.

Anyway, I think that ST actually ruined the Tholians in ENT. They were a great villain in TOS and ENT made them pawns. It would have been nice to actually see them in TNG or DS9.

I wouldn't call the Tholians villians...even in TOS. They were just defending their space. Ent did nothing to soil their reputation.

 

[DarKush]

1. Borg-the Queen concept did usher in the fall of the Borg. However, I was willing to tolerate it because FC was a great film and Alice Krige was very good in the role. But the overuse by VOY done the Borg in.

2. Vulcans-I think ENT's character assassination, all to elevate Archer and the humans, was bs. It was only the 4th season Vulcan Reformation arc that helped stopped the bleeding. But I think the Vulcan bias began actually with DS9's "Take Me Out to the Holosuite". I wish B&B had taken more from DS9 than just that.

3. Species 8472. VOY actually created a cool, mysterious alien race that could ripped the Borg a new one. And what did they turn this group into? Boothby.

4. Klingons. I still enjoy them, but they were extremely overused from DS9 on. At least with DS9, they played a critical role in the DW. But by the time of ENT, it was really piling it on.

5. Kazon. These guys were made pretty pathetic from jump, and it only got worse.

6. Xindi. I liked the concept, but it never made sense why the Xindi didn't just send a fleet to capture or destroy the Enterprise. Or why they sent a probe to test on Earth, giving the humans a warning and enough time to mount a defense. Why not just test the weapon on an Earth-like planet and take Earth completely by surprise? I also wish they had played with the Xindi concept a little more, made the human Primate Xindi the more villianous instead of the Reptilians.

7. Suliban. By making them flunkies of an poorly developed Future Guy this race was consigned to second or third stringer status.

There were a lot of races underused in Trek, but I can't say they were ruined: Vidiians, Voth, Vaadwaur, Tholians, Gorn, Breen, Nausicaans, Talarians, Tzenkethi, Deltans, Orions, Andorians, Bolians, Ktarians, Krenim, Hunters

 

[Finn]

^How could they ruin the Kazon when they were like that from the beginning?

 

[Trevacious]

Cyclopean said:
Giving Romulan butt-foreheads or whatever pretty much messed them as well. How would Styles have ever confused one of them for a Vulcan in "Balance of Terror"?

What good is a Romulan that can't cock an ironic eyebrow with the best of his Vulcan brethren?

 

[MattJC]

DarKush said:


6. Xindi. Or why they sent a probe to test on Earth, giving the humans a warning and enough time to mount a defense. Why not just test the weapon on an Earth-like planet and take Earth completely by surprise?

The Xindi and Sphere-Builders didn't count on FutureGuy telling them where and who they are.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Vulcans.

No one beyond Mark Lernard and Leonard Nimoy knew how to portray one as an interesting character. Russ and Baylock tried, but T'pol had to be humanized and after 7 seasons Tuvok was still boring.

Other efforts amounted to sticking that Moe Howard wig on someone and them acting as monotonous as possible.

Romulans: Instead of trying to make them distinctly and philisophically different from Vulcans, they are instead , bowl-haircutted fascists who are default-villains that are "destined" to find logic and reunite with the Vulcans. They never created a strong recurring Romulan character, only Andreas Katsulas's Tomalok comes close, to break the race out its stereotypes. Considering what they did with the Cardassians and later Andorians, the treatment of the Romulans was lacking.

 

[Noname Given]

DarKush said:
1. Vulcans-I think ENT's character assassination, all to elevate Archer and the humans, was bs. It was only the 4th season Vulcan Reformation arc that helped stopped the bleeding. But I think the Vulcan bias began actually with DS9's "Take Me Out to the Holosuite". I wish B&B had taken more from DS9 than just that.

You need to watch more TOS as ENT DID NOTHING to character assasinate Vlcans - it's actually TNG and the 24th century series that turned them into something they WERE NOT during the TOS era. If you watch the TOS episodes Amok Time - and look at T'Pau, T'Pring, and Stonn; and even look at the actions of Sarel in Journey to Babel you'll see ENT Vulcans (and the later DS9 Vulcan episodes) was one thing the show got right.

 

[Tulin]

MattJC said:
Klingons.
I got sick of them by the time DS9 ended.
I realize that they are a major part of trek, and they will continue to be seen in new Trek movies and series, but I am just really sick of them.

HIGH FIVE!!!

I hear ya brother.

What I hated most about the Klingons was the highly vaunted and oft repeated mantra of their honour being most important to them. Apparently their society is built around it.

What we CONSTANTLY saw, however, was a race of dirty, foul, debauched, cretinous, backstabbing(literally)and deceitful thugs.

I'll admit Worf was the shining example of honour for his people but I just cannot buy that this is what the entire race is known for when almost EVERY KLINGON we saw was a lying, cowardly shit.

In fact, the whole "this species is known for ........ human trait" got old by the time the Ferengi were presented as the scheming Jews of ST. Trust me, I am one of the most politically incorrect people you will ever meet but the whole "categorizing by one trait" just smacked of being juvenile, simplistic and patronizing.


Oh and my answer would be the Borg.

One of the great crimes of modern TREK was how B&B overused and neutered them in VOY.

Absolute fucking shame.

 

[Anwar]

B&B didn't "neuter" them, it started in TNG itself and UPN's insistence on Borg stuff to get the ratings up didn't help matters.

 

[DarKush]

Noname Given said:

DarKush said:
1. Vulcans-I think ENT's character assassination, all to elevate Archer and the humans, was bs. It was only the 4th season Vulcan Reformation arc that helped stopped the bleeding. But I think the Vulcan bias began actually with DS9's "Take Me Out to the Holosuite". I wish B&B had taken more from DS9 than just that.

You need to watch more TOS as ENT DID NOTHING to character assasinate Vlcans - it's actually TNG and the 24th century series that turned them into something they WERE NOT during the TOS era. If you watch the TOS episodes Amok Time - and look at T'Pau, T'Pring, and Stonn; and even look at the actions of Sarel in Journey to Babel you'll see ENT Vulcans (and the later DS9 Vulcan episodes) was one thing the show got right.

I don't think you can extrapolate the actions of two Vulcan individuals from "Amok Time", emotional individuals at that, to characterize an entire race. I would say the same for Sarek's perceived actions in "Journey to Babel". For all we know, Sarek's emotional responses might have been brought on by early Bendii Syndrome.

My issue with ENT Vulcans were they were haughty, arrogant, and reactionary. I felt they were characterized in a negative way to make the human characters look better, and that was wrong. Vulcans had been out in space for centuries. I think humanity could've learned something from them, but it wasn't played that way on ENT, and 9 times out of 10 the humans were proved right, and that didn't make sense to me.

Even the ENT writers knew something was out of whack, and that's why the created the Vulcan Reformation arc.

 

[DarKush]

MattJC said:

DarKush said:


6. Xindi. Or why they sent a probe to test on Earth, giving the humans a warning and enough time to mount a defense. Why not just test the weapon on an Earth-like planet and take Earth completely by surprise?

The Xindi and Sphere-Builders didn't count on FutureGuy telling them where and who they are.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. I guess it is in regard to the Suliban. But my issues with the Xindi were different than for those with the Suliban. As I said before, I thought the Xindi were a fine concept, but some of the actions they took or didn't made them less effective as villians. For one, not taking out Enterprise when they had the chance. Two, Gralik and later Degra and the Xindi-Primates quickly coming to believe Archer's story and his peaceful intentions. The Sphere Builders also needed a bit more fleshing out.

 

[DarKush]

Finn said:
^How could they ruin the Kazon when they were like that from the beginning?

Simple. They were ruined from jump. The concept of basing them on LA gangs was dicey enough, but then they made them so weak that they weren't much of a credible threat. Also, they looked like knock-off Klingons too, which didn't help.

I did like their warships. But even those came from the Trabe.

 

[MattJC]

DarKush said:

MattJC said:

DarKush said:


6. Xindi. Or why they sent a probe to test on Earth, giving the humans a warning and enough time to mount a defense. Why not just test the weapon on an Earth-like planet and take Earth completely by surprise?

The Xindi and Sphere-Builders didn't count on FutureGuy telling them where and who they are.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. I guess it is in regard to the Suliban. But my issues with the Xindi were different than for those with the Suliban. As I said before, I thought the Xindi were a fine concept, but some of the actions they took or didn't made them less effective as villians. For one, not taking out Enterprise when they had the chance. Two, Gralik and later Degra and the Xindi-Primates quickly coming to believe Archer's story and his peaceful intentions. The Sphere Builders also needed a bit more fleshing out.

In "The Expanse", FutureGuy warned Archer about the Xindi. The Xindi probably had no clue that someone from the future would warn the humans.