Spoilers Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x10 - "No Small Parts"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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I think Errand of Mercy and Day of the Dove were great episodes. To be honest though, I don't really feel like the Klingon aspects of The Trouble With Tribbles are what makes the episode work well. It could have been a generic antagonist of the week and worked just as well. And we should also keep in mind that Friday's Child, a Private Little War, and The Savage Curtain are terrible episodes, even considering the last gave us Kahless. So it's not like they hit it out of the park every time.
Regardless, as you made clear, there was basically no "there there" when it came to the Klingons. Kor and Kang were good characters, but the Klingon race wasn't even kiddie-pool deep at the time. That's why I can't understand saying they're more "interesting." I mean, it's entirely possible that a one-page short story is more compelling overall than a 600-page doorstopper. But just due to the sheer amount of text in the latter, there's going to be more interesting passages in the latter.
I suppose one could use their imagination to fill in the bits however they want. Indeed, I've read a good deal about how "sequels" almost always let down readers/viewers for that reason - the hazily put together headcanon people come up with is almost always more enjoyable than additional Word from God, which conflicts with what they want in one or another way. I'm just old enough I watched TOS a bit as a small child before TNG came out (I was 8 when TNG premiered) but I do not have any particular fond memories related to the series which would color my perceptions.
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Personally, I like all three of these episodes, “Savage Curtain” a little less than the other two, and are in my regular TOS (Those Old Scientists) rotation.
I take more interesting as more relatable, understandable, unique, and engaging from a personal point of view. I get that aliens should be more, well, alien (hence my interest in more diversity in the Klingon Empire) but ultimately these are stories by humans for humans and humans are the ones who are engaging with it. Having a villain who is like us is going to go a long way for audience to engage with, in general.
Mileage will certainly vary. But, I mean, look at Gul Macet (I think that was his name) from Chain of Command. He is both humanized, and yet dehumanizes Picard by having his daughter come in to the torture room. It's a fascinating dichotomy but one that very much humanizes him, even if there is a horrified by his actions attitude as well.
And I almost put Madrid lolGul Madred.
The ultimate floundering middle management.
But the cat's out of the bag isn't it? I mean, Star Trek transmogrified from a quasi-anthology show exploring sci-fi concepts into a lore-laden universe. Given this, it was basically inevitable that writers would seek to "deepen" the Klingon race - although we can quibble about how it was done.
I honestly prefer the way Star Trek has dealt with aliens than Star Wars though, TBH - where unless you go deep into the books aliens are just weird-looking, funny-talking people with no discernable cultural traits.
I understand what you mean, but save for a brief period during the fourth season of DS9, the Klingons were never villains, and only rarely antagonists, during Berman Trek.
I do have to say that in general I do not think "villains" are one of the strengths of Trek. Many of the greatest episodes of Trek fall more into the "man versus nature" or "man versus himself" line instead. That's why I find an episode like say Voyager's Barge of the Dead - when Torres grapples with what her Klingon identity means to her, or Soldiers of the Empire (focusing on a ship of "Klingon losers" who are broken in various ways) - much more compelling than seeing a bad guy chew the scenery.
It's also part of why "movie Trek" lost its way I think. Early Trek movies experimented with an antagonist who was not a villain (TMP, TFF), a villain not central to the narrative (TSFS) or a barely present antagonist (TVH), but now it's just "bad guy" and half the time they try and blow up the Earth.
Well, that's something with which we can certainly not agree.
"A Private Little War" is my frequent go-to for "best overlooked episode" of TOS. A detailed discussion of why is too off-topic to dump into this thread, but every now and then it comes up in the TOS forum.
While every aspect of "Friday's Child" is by no means top drawer, the Capellans' takedown of Kras is pretty tense, and Kras delivers one of my favorite lines from any Klingon in any episode ("The next man who raises a weapon destroys all of you. You and your primitive knives and your weapons, I'll teach you what killing really means." [http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/32.htm]). Any episode with all that can't be flat-out terrible.
As for "The Savage Curtain," seeing the Excalbian alone is worth the price of admission, certainly one of TOS's most imaginative and striking alien realizations.
You’re suggesting that I’m a hater (of LD) and because of that, I’m ignoring good things about the show that you think are obvious.
What have I written that causes you to think this?I might suggest that perhaps you like the show so much that you’re unwilling to acknowledge (or may be unaware), aspects of LD that are, um, “less than perfect?”
I saw every episode and I can assure you that I have never, and will never, hate watch a show. Shows that I truly hate or have no interest in, I stop watching.
I like LD but I do have some issues with a few things.
But, even as allies they could be very one note. The depth wasn't consistent.
I mean, I agree, but the depth wasn't consistent across all of Star Trek because...there were different writers.
I mean, the Ferengi are a good example. They were absolutely awful on TNG, but ended up a fantastic element of DS9. Despite that show redeeming them however, the outings in VOY and ENT which featured the Ferengi were just plain awful.
I will say I actually didn't much like the whole Duras/Gowron arc from TNG. My basic issue is that Ron Moore was trying to tell a story which was simply too "epic" for the budget and the scenery available. Even on Deep Space Nine I felt like every time I saw Gowron it made an episode worse.
Right, but that's why I prefer TOS is that there are hints of a larger empire rather than just the one note culture we tended to get. For want of a better analogy the lake got wider but not much deeper.
I tend to agree but that's because there wasn't much thought behind Gowron other than "the opposite of Duras."
Well, you would have an equally hard time hanging torture or mass execution of civilians as a tactic of occupation on 24th Century Klingons, you know? Which is to say, if you say "this is how ___________ operates" in an episode, that is how that group operates, and whatever inconsistencies with what came before or after are largely irrelevant. Based on what was presented, a 24th Century Klingon should think slaughtering defenseless civilians would be without honor. But if they had done an episode of DS9 where a Klingon commander did that to Cardassians as part of the Dominion War, then that would be that.
By the same token, the presentation of Ferengi in the first episode of TNG was that they were brutal and at least by rumor cannibalistic. It seems like it isn't that far a stretch to imagine the Ferengi having a military wing that was as brutal as the oen in Errand.
German-American actor Henry Brandon as the title character in Drums of Fu Manchu (1940) and out of makeup:
Greek-Canadian actor John Colicos as Kor in Star Trek: "Errand of Mercy" (1967) and later as Count Baltar in Battlestar Galactica (c. 1978-79):
The word for the makeup designs used on these white actors is "Yellowface."
The original script for "Errand of Mercy" has stage directions that, upon introducing the Klingons, explicitly state, "We see the Klingons are Orientals." (Source.)
Also per Memory Alpha's article on the depiction of Klingons: John Colicos and the relevant makeup artist sat down and began to devise how the Klingons should look. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 28, No. 4/5, p. 59) That makeup worker, Fred Phillips, started the process of designing the species by directly asking Colicos how he wanted to look. Despite thinking of the Klingons as the futuristic Russians they were intended to be, Colicos took inspiration from Genghis Khan, as Kor was likewise an ambitious military commander. (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 40) "He thought that was a hell of a good idea," Colicos said, regarding Phillips' reaction. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 104, p. 19) Colicos' hair happened to be very short and combed forward. He asked for it to be sprayed and slightly "kinked up." Due to the Genghis Khan influence, Colicos then proposed "a vaguely Asian, Tartar appearance," with an alien-looking "brown-green makeup." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 40) Colicos also took inspiration from Fu Manchu as an influence on his look as Kor. He instructed the makeup department, "Spray my hair black, give me a kind of swamp creature green olivey mud reptilian make-up, and we'll borrow some stuff from Fu Manchu, and put a long moustache and eyebrows on me." ("The Sword of Colicos", Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Official Poster Magazine, No. 8).
The writers and actors literally, openly, based the Klingons in TOS on the Yellow Peril stereotype -- Fu Manchu, 1960s Anglosphere assumptions about the militarism and ambition of Temüjin Borjigin, etc. It's not even a question; they all cited sources that are clear examples of Yellow Peril tropes.
I have no idea if you're a "hater" or not. You don't have to hate something to refuse to engage with the material.
I did not say they were "good" things. I did assert that there's more going on than is present on the surface. This is true of almost all texts, even bad ones. There is a world of difference between acknowledging that themes and subtexts are present in a text, and arguing that that text is good.
The entire post I had quoted consisted of what amounts to a repeated claim that elements clearly present are absent (there is a clear contrast being drawn between Tendi and Peanut Hamper per PH's desertion), or posits assertions about the text that are clearly false (i.e., Mariner and Boimler have personalities that are in no way similar to Tendi's or Rutherford's).
Again, whether or not these things are good, or whether or not they are even particularly deep, is an entirely separate question.
The show's good for what it's trying to be, but I don't love it the way I love, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Veronica Mars or Star Trek: Picard. There are plenty of shows I like more than Star Trek: Lower Decks. But I'm not gonna let my personal feelings about the show get in the way of a textual analysis.
That's cool, but that's also not the same thing as fully engaging with the material to see how the thing ticks.
I mean, let's be clear: The dialogue established that they were brutal and possibly cannibalistic, but the presentation in terms of acting choices was so stylized that it registers to the overwhelming majority of viewers as humorous rather than threatening. I would suggest that the Ferengi could have been presented as brutal had the acting choices ordered by the director been less stylized.
On this, I totally agree. In point of fact, anyone who doubts that Star Trek: The Next Generation could have depicted a hyper-capitalist society as brutal and oppressive need only review the crimes against humanity committed in the so-called Congo Free State by the colonialist regime of Leopold II, or the atrocities of Cecil Rhodes in southern Africa.
ETA:
As a democratic socialist, I think it's a shame that the stylized acting in "The Last Outpost" led future Star Trek productions to depict the Ferengi in a humorous light. I would have loved to see Ferengi capitalism depicted as the brutal, oppressive ideology capitalism is in real life, so as to draw a stronger contrast to the Federation's more enlightened anti-capitalist ideology. Frankly, the idea that a hyper-capitalist society with access to faster-than-light space travel, energy beam weapons, antimatter weapons, and even just the ability to launch mass drivers at a planetary surface, wouldn't embrace an incredibly violent colonialism against less technologically developed cultures, is deeply unrealistic. A genuinely menacing Ferengi Alliance would have made for great villains.
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It was a quick shot and I assumed.
I stand corrected.
By "deepen" you mean "lard it over with superficial trivia?"
Yeah, very likely. Maybe not inevitable.
It's not a "lore-laden universe." It's a bunch of TV shows where they make things up as they go along, don't think through the implications of the things they make up, and load the thing with so much continuity that it's a ridiculous challenge to do anything worthwhile with it now.
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