The 3 Good Things and 3 Bad Things Challenge

[TheMadCloner]

Anyway, I've done three good things and three bad things with TOS, TNG, and DS9 episodes now.

So, with any Star Trek series passed DS9 or any movie passed First Contact, general consensus across fandom disappears. So with Voyager and Discovery, I'm only going to go with episodes that are generally praised or disliked by fans of those series. I'm an actual fan of DSC (for the grand total of two lurkers who literally just stumbled onto this board and didn't know! ), and I think I have a pretty good feel for what the general consensus of VOY episodes are among its fans.

There's not enough of Picard, Lower Decks is still completely in spoiler territory, and my binge of Enterprise six months ago has turned back into a blur (though less of a blur than the binge I did in 2010), so they're off the hook.

You've definitely passed the challenge, haha.

 

[Oddish]

First Contact was the best of the movies, but I can do it. I think.

1. Why didn't they all just replicate Tommy guns, given how effective they were. Or mek'leths, for that matter.
2. Given that Cochrane's crew had been connected to First Contact as well, removing them from history probably would have dramatically changed the timeline.
3. It seemed a little... convenient that Lily was there to talk Picard down. I thought, anyway.

And now... Insurrection, the other way.

1. HMS Pinafore makes everything better.
2. Worf gets pimples, and Data has a roll in the hay.
3. Trek's best power couple finally gets together properly.
3.

 

[Lord Garth]

Good Things about "Unforgettable" (VOY)
1. Chakotay wrote about Kellin (yes, I had to look up her name) so he wouldn't forget her.
2. I don't mind the romance between Chakotay and Kellin.
3. This episode works with the reset button.

Bad Things about "Year of Hell" (VOY)
1. I can't believe Chakotay starts to believe Annorax's craziness.
2. Shaving's not logical if you're blind, Tuvok. Grow the beard. I say this as someone who's not a beard person.
3. You'd think Annorax's crew would've openly rebelled against him by now, if it's been 200 years.

 

[Lord Garth]

Bad Things about "Star Trek: First Contact"
1. Based just off her only glimpse of the 24th Century, like Picard going pyscho against the Borg and everyone thinking fighting them was suicide, I can't believe Lily would envy the "world" Picard's going to.

2. Even for a medium-budget 1996 film, I think there should've been more to the fight between Starfleet and the Borg before the Enterprise showed up. DS9 proves they could've done it.

3. The opening credits, when the film is going through the cast's names, has dated badly. The Jerry Goldsmith score is what's carrying it. (But once it gets to Picard's dream sequence, everything about that scene is golden.)

Good Things about "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier"
1. Kirk's "I need my pain!" speech.

2. Anyone who's had to watch one of their parents die in a hospital (like I had to with my mother) will be able to relate to the scene between McCoy and his father.

3. Klaa showing respect for Kirk at the very end of the film, as an opponent. Right before Kirk asks Spock and McCoy, "Cosmic thoughts, gentlemen?"

 

[Lord Garth]

What the heck? Might as well finish this off.

Bad Things about "Context Is for Kings" (DSC)
1. Stamets acts like a huge asshole in this episode.
2. It's a bit too easy for Burnham to sneak around the Spore Drive chamber. Tilly's breath and that's it?
3. Landry's too rigid in her thinking to be Security Chief. As long as the Ripper wasn't killed, you'd think she'd be all for anything that could get it away from them. Stamets is the one who hands Burnham his phaser. It makes it look like Landry's not in control of the situation.

Good Things about "Point of Light" (DSC)
1. The way Amanda takes matters into her own hands and says she's the one who'll find Spock. It makes more a lot more sense for Amanda to be the one to go. Spock will be more receptive to Amanda than Michael.

2. The Klingons are a male-dominated culture. Women have limited rights in the Empire in TNG and DS9. In TSFS, Kruge says, "I've come a long way to find the power of Genesis and what do I find? A weakling Human, a Vulcan boy, and a woman." The Klingon Empire is sexist. The Klingon Empire is macho. Georgiou is right when she tells L'Rell the Klingon men will be wondering why one of them isn't in charge instead of her. So L'Rell, like it or not, had to prove she was more Klingon than Klingon and more fierce than them, just to get their respect.

3. I like the way Pike handles things when he tries to find out more about Spock. They can't investigate until Pike actually establishes something has gone wrong. So instead of being bound by the system, he made the system work for them. Pike is teaching Burnham not only that the book is there but how to use it to get what they want out of it. Plus Amanda's there, so he's not going to do her wrong and not even try to find out what's going on with someone all three of them care about. He's working his magic.

And with that, I'm done.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Three bad things about a good episode: “Babel One” (ENT)

1. Episode suffered from small universe syndrome, in that the destroyed Andorian ship was commanded by Shran instead of a different member of the Andorian Imperial Guard.

2. Reusing the chaotic space hulk from VOY for the drone ship. Unlike the reuse of other props, this has always been a nuisance. Surely they could have just modified a Romulan BoP, since the BoP model was already on file? It would not necessarily mean that Archer & co. would make the connection to the Romulans if they saw it modified the way it was, since it could have been modified by another species. Just paint it grey or some other colour, and add the spikes and holographic projectors to it

3. Romulans being aware of what humans look like when they are on the drone ship goes against the idea that humans and Romulans aren’t supposed to know what the others look like a whole century before “Balance of Terror”. True, the humans don't know that, but its always been implied the lack of knowledge of the other's appearance was mutual.

Three good things about a bad episode: “Vox Sola” (ENT)

1. Showing the struggles of first contact with a new species (Kreetassans), the conflict it caused between T’Pol and Sato over its initial faliure, and how the crew managed to get over it initially with Archer & Trip watching water polo and the rest of the crew watching a movie.

2. Mayweather and Sato were each given something to do for the episode which showed their capabilities, with Mayweather in command and Sato understanding that the symbiotic lifeform had a language of its own.

3. It involved a new species that wasn’t a humanoid for a change, showing diversity in the Alpha Quadrant.

 

[tomalak301]

Episode I Love: All Good Things

1. the future uniforms
2. The plot hole where the Pasture fires the beam to create the anomaly.
   
3. Will Riker becoming a cermudgeon

Episode I don’t like: Cost of Living

1. Finding out this episode was filmed after Roddenberry’s death added new context to the episode
2. Worf in the MudBath
3. The Bubble dude was a nice visual effect for its time.

 

[Farscape One]

I'm going to try something different and do this with an entire season.

The good of TOS Season 3...
1. There tended to be more strong female characters this season than the other two combined. Not only did it make said guests more intriguing, but it proved to be a different challenge for Kirk.

2. Someone mentioned on another thread that this season felt more 'out there' than the previous seasons, and compared it to TNG seasons 1 and 2. I would agree with this assessment. Good, bad, or indifferent, there were some really weird and out there episodes in season 3.

3. Uhura, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov got some more focus overall than before. They got some meat for their roles, and they dined well on it.


The bad of VOYAGER season 4...
1. This was the beginning of going all-in with Seven, with many of the regulars cast aside. 1/3 of this entire season's episodes were devoted to her.

2. Getting rid of Kes. I'm sure there could have been a way to keep her in a recurring role instead of ditching her entirely. There were some story opportunities not explored here by having both Kes and Seven aboard.

3. The uniqueness of the Delta Quadrant started to go away with this season. Say what you will about their first sesson, they had some truly unique phenomena that gave the Delta Quadrant a really 'out there' vibe. Plus, Voyager didn't seem as resource starved as seasons 1-3. Except for "DEMON", they seemed to be fully powered and have no issues.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Three good things about a bad two-part episode: “Descent, Pts I & II” (TNG)

1. It brought Lore’s story to an acceptable conclusion.

2. It showed Beverly Crusher as an effective commander.

3. The concept would have worked well as a feature length TNG movie.


Three bad things about a good two-part episode: “In a Mirror Darkly, Pts I & II” (ENT)

1. Instead of tweaking the personalities of the prime universe main characters, supporting characters, and minor characters to make them more three dimensional, those personalities changes were confined solely to the mirror universe.

2. Continues a dark, militarized version of Star Trek.

3. Would have been just as good as a “Tomorrow’s Enterprise” type of episode, to draw parallels to “Yesterday’s Enterprise.”

 

[at Quark's]

1. Instead of tweaking the personalities of the prime universe main characters, supporting characters, and minor characters to make them more three dimensional, those personalities changes were confined solely to the mirror universe.

Not sure I understand this one. Doesn't In a Mirror, Darkly play in the Enterprise MU exclusively? So, how can the above be a bad thing of that episode, then? Wouldn't that rather be a bad thing of the pick-up of the rest of the Enterprise series?

 

[FederationHistorian]

Not sure I understand this one. Doesn't In a Mirror, Darkly play in the Enterprise MU exclusively? So, how can the above be a bad thing of that episode, then? Wouldn't that rather be a bad thing of the pick-up of the rest of the Enterprise series?

I think my point was that a couple of mirror universe episodes were made at all, when the characters could have received some of these character tweaks or character drama seen in those episodes in a regular two-part episode set in the prime universe. Its probably a terrible criticism to make as it doesn’t come across clearly.

Sorry about that. Should have made a better and clearer point.

---------------------


Three bad things about a good episode: “The Pegasus” (TNG)

1. Why did Starfleet send the flagship of the Federation to retrieve a ship carrying sensitive information, knowing the Romulans were also looking for the same ship? What if the Enterprise got captured along with the Pegasus?

2. Would have benefitted from a flashback of the mutiny onboard the Pegasus.

3. Did not have a follow up on the events at the inquiry at Starbase 247, which would have made it a two-part episode.


Three good things about a bad episode: “These Are The Voyages” (ENT)

1. The concept of a historic holoprogram, and even involving Riker and Troi, was good on paper.

2. The parts solely with the ENT cast weren’t bad on their own and would have made for an average episode in absence of the TNG special guest appearances.

3. The final 30 seconds featuring the three Enterprises is a classic.

 

[Vger23]

Good things about Star Trek V- The Final Frontier:
1. The soundtrack rivals TMP for grandeur and power...very nice
2. Nails the fun and the character moments from the best TOS episodes
3. Very nice cinematography and a more dynamic style than the previous 4 films

Bad things about Star Trek VI- The Undiscovered Country:
1. Tonally inconsistent. Goes from dark political thriller to "winky-winky at the audience" too often and in a jarring way
2. Klingon makeup looks cheaper than in previous films
3. Lots of plot elements, when you think about them with any effort, make absolutely no sense

 

[Qonundrum]

For a good story:

The Best of Both Worlds:
1. It's always been too easy to figure out what the Borg want with Picard the second they appear and say they want him, which is admittedly polite but atypical of the Borg as well (so this is two bad moments at the price of one). Maybe capture the ship and abduct them without the 20 minutes of waffling and soap opera.
2. Admiral Hansen, in an awkwardly and bizarrely yet apparently mature fashion, tells Picard about his (and I quote) "old man's fantasies" regarding Shelby.
3. Shelby had it right - in the event of emergency such as the weather conditions to be encountered, you leave a memo on a post-it ipadd and then do the least amount of critical work that won't impact other work and then tell the crew to have their meeting and state why protocol had to be put to the side because the tornado breezing on in to muck up the archeology stuff that she really digs isn't going to give a hoot either way. They're just as polite-to-a-dumb-fault as the Borg in that regard if they all have to sit there for 30 minutes to decide if they should get some soil samples or not when the known Big Bad trope hanging out there is just waiting to say "boo" thus causing them to all soil themselves as a result. Especially when time is short in finding anything that gives them a helping hand. (Riker was later correct in mentioning they need sleep and someone else could have gone in for the night shift while the lot of them snooze.)

For a not-so-good story:

I, Mudd
1. Androids want to take over the galaxy not by killing but by kindness. Not that I'm against hordes of silicon critters zapping everybody when done right, but this is a novel twist to utilize, and it's done rather well on top of that.
2.The juxtaposition alone between serving humans and giving them what they want, except for what they are programmed not to give (the ship), and how going around what was not programmed and effectively having the crew nag the computer and not just Kirk mouthing until it explodes. (Nobody fathomed exception handling or denial of service loop attacks back then... but it's always fun to watch computers getting nagged to death that it's all good!)
3. The jokes that work are quite hilarious, making up for the ones that fall flat.

Honorable mention:
1. The androids' actors were all rather well-cast.
2. The trick photography was all excellent. (Even reversing the negative and running off-sync both left and right-side Stellas when they berate Mudd to save on an extra retake, note the flower in her hair should be facing the camera from one side...)
3. The costumes, made from bubble wrap and shower curtains looked appropriate for androids. That said, the sweatpants for the androids where they ran out of budget for plastic shower curtains revealed the recharge cords way too quickly...

 

[Not A Dominion Spy]

For a good story:

The Best of Both Worlds:
1. It's always been too easy to figure out what the Borg want with Picard the second they appear and say they want him, which is admittedly polite but atypical of the Borg as well (so this is two bad moments at the price of one). Maybe capture the ship and abduct them without the 20 minutes of waffling and soap opera.
2. Admiral Hansen, in an awkwardly and bizarrely yet apparently mature fashion, tells Picard about his (and I quote) "old man's fantasies" regarding Shelby.
3. Shelby had it right - in the event of emergency such as the weather conditions to be encountered, you leave a memo on a post-it ipadd and then do the least amount of critical work that won't impact other work and then tell the crew to have their meeting and state why protocol had to be put to the side because the tornado breezing on in to muck up the archeology stuff that she really digs isn't going to give a hoot either way. They're just as polite-to-a-dumb-fault as the Borg in that regard if they all have to sit there for 30 minutes to decide if they should get some soil samples or not when the known Big Bad trope hanging out there is just waiting to say "boo" thus causing them to all soil themselves as a result. Especially when time is short in finding anything that gives them a helping hand. (Riker was later correct in mentioning they need sleep and someone else could have gone in for the night shift while the lot of them snooze.)

For a not-so-good story:

I, Mudd
1. Androids want to take over the galaxy not by killing but by kindness. Not that I'm against hordes of silicon critters zapping everybody when done right, but this is a novel twist to utilize, and it's done rather well on top of that.
2.The juxtaposition alone between serving humans and giving them what they want, except for what they are programmed not to give (the ship), and how going around what was not programmed and effectively having the crew nag the computer and not just Kirk mouthing until it explodes. (Nobody fathomed exception handling or denial of service loop attacks back then... but it's always fun to watch computers getting nagged to death that it's all good!)
3. The jokes that work are quite hilarious, making up for the ones that fall flat.

Honorable mention:
1. The androids' actors were all rather well-cast.
2. The trick photography was all excellent. (Even reversing the negative and running off-sync both left and right-side Stellas when they berate Mudd to save on an extra retake, note the flower in her hair should be facing the camera from one side...)
3. The costumes, made from bubble wrap and shower curtains looked appropriate for androids. That said, the sweatpants for the androids where they ran out of budget for plastic shower curtains revealed the recharge cords way too quickly...

I rather liked I, Mudd

 

[FederationHistorian]

Three good things about a bad movie: Star Trek Into Darkness

1. The opening scene.

2. Admiral Marcus was an interesting villain in his own right.

3. STID’s take on the Klingons (thin ridges, face masks, BoPs).


Three bad things about a good movie: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

1. Contradicts its own history in regard to the Eugenics Wars and Khan’s rulership. “Space Seed” has him ruling between 1992 and 1996, while TWOK has him ruling in the mid-21st century ("two hundred years ago" according to Khan). And the TWOK's interpretation could mean either early 21st century or late 21st century as well. Point being, there's no consistency here.

2. That the encounter with Khan in “Space Seed” was such a secret to the rest of Starfleet that Captain Terrell was unaware of Khan’s existence in Ceti Alpha sector. Even though Chekov was aware of who Khan was and what happened to him, despite not being on the Enterprise during TOS S1 at the time of Khan being awaken from stasis on the Botany Bay.

3. Lt. Saavik never really added to the film at all beyond the Kobayashi Maru scene.

 

[Lord Garth]

1. Contradicts its own history in regard to the Eugenics Wars and Khan’s rulership. “Space Seed” has him ruling between 1992 and 1996, while TWOK has him ruling in the mid-21st century ("two hundred years ago" according to Khan). And the TWOK's interpretation could mean either early 21st century or late 21st century as well. Point being, there's no consistency here.

Looking at it going by 1982 terms and forgetting about anything that came out afterwards (and also ignoring TMP, which is what they might've been going for):

1996: Khan escapes on the Botany Bay.
2196: "Space Seed". The Enterprise finds the Botany Bay. Kirk exiles Khan to Ceti Alpha V.
2211: TWOK takes place 15 years later. In normal speech, 215 still rounds down to 200.

It works if a 1982 audience thinks of TWOK as taking place in the early-23rd Century and TOS in the late-22nd.

"Space Seed" also refers to Khan as being from 200 years ago.

 

[Not A Dominion Spy]

Three good things about a bad movie: Star Trek Into Darkness

1. The opening scene.

2. Admiral Marcus was an interesting villain in his own right.

3. STID’s take on the Klingons (thin ridges, face masks, BoPs).


Three bad things about a good movie: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

1. Contradicts its own history in regard to the Eugenics Wars and Khan’s rulership. “Space Seed” has him ruling between 1992 and 1996, while TWOK has him ruling in the mid-21st century ("two hundred years ago" according to Khan). And the TWOK's interpretation could mean either early 21st century or late 21st century as well. Point being, there's no consistency here.

2. That the encounter with Khan in “Space Seed” was such a secret to the rest of Starfleet that Captain Terrell was unaware of Khan’s existence in Ceti Alpha sector. Even though Chekov was aware of who Khan was and what happened to him, despite not being on the Enterprise during TOS S1 at the time of Khan being awaken from stasis on the Botany Bay.

3. Lt. Saavik never really added to the film at all beyond the Kobayashi Maru scene.

My head canon is that Chekov just wasn’t on the bridge in S1

 

[JRoss]

Three Good Things About Homeward:
1. Penny Johnson Gerald is in it
2. Jonathan Del Arco is in it
3. Paul Sorvino is in it
That's it

Three Bad Things About The Best of Both Worlds (I & II):
1. They didn't show much of the battle scenes
2. They couldn't afford to send more than a handful of Klingon ships
3. We never see Shelby again

 

[Farscape One]

Jonathan del Arco is not in "Homeward".

If you are referring to a guest star that has appeared again in the franchise, it's Brian Markinson. (Dr. Giger in DS9's "IN THE CARDS" and Lt. Durst in VOYAGER's "CATHEXIS" and "FACES", which he was also the Vidiian doctor.)

 

[Oddish]

3. We never see Shelby again

You were supposed to say a BAD thing.