No it isn’t.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
- Start date
No it isn’t.
I'm glad you pointed that out, because I have thought the same thing about Jeri Taylor. She was the primary showrunner for TNG season 7 and VOYAGER season 3... and I have always felt both seasons were very mediocre, overall. (In fact, I put both seasons as the worst of both shows.)
She does write good, solid episodes. ("The Wounded" teleplay, "The Drumhead", "The Outcast", "EYE OF THE NEEDLE" teleplay, "PERSISTENCE OF VISION", "ALLIANCES", "HUNTERS", "ONE" "NOTHING HUMAN") But as a showrunner, she was not that good.
I find it hard to be sure how badly some of these oft-reviled people truly did. After all, their main mission was not to write quality material, it was to keep ratings up. They might have considered the TNG formula a safe, reliable way to do this.
If Voyager had actually been the show we saw it having the potential to be (fractious Maquis wearing leathers, perpetually low supplies, a year of hell that had consequences, etc) it probably would have been better, and it would very likely have a better rep... but would it have survived? In the cutthroat business of television, Star Trek Voyager made it through seven seasons and ended on its own terms. Many shows weren't so lucky.
Of course, on several occasions it seemed like the writers/showrunners were either deliberately trying to piss off their audience, or they truly didn't have a clue what they wanted. So who knows?
If Voyager had actually been the show we saw it having the potential to be (fractious Maquis wearing leathers, perpetually low supplies, a year of hell that had consequences, etc) it probably would have been better, and it would very likely have a better rep... but would it have survived? In the cutthroat business of television, Star Trek Voyager made it through seven seasons and ended on its own terms. Many shows weren't so lucky.
Of course, on several occasions it seemed like the writers/showrunners were either deliberately trying to piss off their audience, or they truly didn't have a clue what they wanted. So who knows?
The biggest I keep going back to is the simple fact that none of these shows were written with the malicious intent off ascribed to the show runners. They are, after all, trying to run a business and keep the show on the air in order to make money.
So, I rarely think they went in with the "let's piss off the audience" attitude that is often attributed to decisions that are disagreed with. Because I don't think they have the affection for the show as we do. They have a great admiration for the work, and enjoy the process, but won't necessarily latch on to specific characters in the same way. There's a bit more of a workman type attitude that they have, in general. Obviously, they can become attached, especially the longer they are with the production.
In the end, Star Trek is a business. I do think it would be helpful to fans to keep that in mind when raging against the production machine.
I certainly agree that the writers weren't trying to make bad episodes. While we can definitely question their sanity in allowing certain ones to be made in the first place ("AND THE CHILDREN SHALL LEAD", "PLATO'S STEPCHILDREN", "Sub Rosa", "LET HE WHO IS WITHOUT SIN...", "PROFIT AND LACE", "FURY", "THESE ARE THE VOYAGES..."), I don't think we can say any were made with hatred.
Although in the case of the ENT finale... killing off the arguably most popular character does come off like a 'f-ck you' to Manny Coto by Berman and Braga, whose leadership that season was widely viewed as the best season of the show.
Although in the case of the ENT finale... killing off the arguably most popular character does come off like a 'f-ck you' to Manny Coto by Berman and Braga, whose leadership that season was widely viewed as the best season of the show.
It's clear that Berman and Braga didn't even spend the 45 minutes to watch "The Pegasus" that it would have taken to realize that Riker couldn't and didn't spend all this time on the holodeck figuring out what to do about his problem.
It's also clear that they feel badly about how it came out. Berman has said as much, and I've seen Braga on stage more than once apologizing for it, saying that he has yet to live down "making the nicest guy in Hollywood" (Bakula) angry at him. And there's still bitterness amongst the cast over the ending, save Connor Trineer, who was very happy to be so relevant to the episode.
I do, and that's why I typically only do so in matters of abject stupidity. Going from 38 torpedoes to infinite torpedoes is fine... if you explain how it happened. Trying to sneak it past us is an insult.
I would add "Code of Honor" and "Threshold" to that list.
It's not the first. Consider the conversation between Harry and Janeway in "Nightingale". Imagine you've been inundated over the season break with letters from annoyed fans demanding to know why Tom got his rank back and Harry's still an ensign. Do you...
A. Accommodate them.
B. Ignore them.
C. Shoot a scene that basically gives them the middle finger.
Feeling bad about it afterward doesn't mean the intention wasn't there at the time. And I completely agree that they should have rewatched the episode, which was one of the very best of season 7 TNG. But you know what would have solved that? Have the Riker/Troi scenes take place on the Titan, or even the Enterprise-E. It would work as a hidden story of a situation we never got to see, AND you wouldn't need to try (and fail) to make both Frakes and Sirtis look 11 years younger.
I agree about the torpedoes... a simple line of dialogue would have worked. They did seem to forget the audience remembers such things... and have vcrs and other recording devices to refer back to them.
Regarding "Code of Honor" and "THRESHOLD"... with the former, only the casting choices of the Ligonians makes it a bad episode. The script isn't bad, as there have been FAR worse TNG episodes (and later in the series, too) produced. And with the latter, take out the evolving part at the end, and it's actually a pretty solid episode. While my opinion is biased because I am a big horror fan, the transformation of Paris was done really well. (Good enough, in fact, to win the show an Emmy.) And it was a good character piece for Tom... we got great scenes with him and Janeway when he pleads with her to make the flight and at the end when he realizes it's his own view of himself that needs to change.
Regarding "NIGHTINGALE"... yeah, there is no defense for that. They could have done away with that scene and replaced it with 'we'll be getting additional material for more torpedoes, since we used up the spare material for all the other torpedoes we fired', and there would be no on screen proof of Janeway mocking Harry's career. (Plus, it would incidentally take care of an issue that was ignored for several seasons.)
Last edited:
B'Elanna did say in the episode that they still had to figure out the navigation aspect of it. Given the scope of how far you can go at warp 10, it's entirely possible this problem could not be licked for decades.
Take Astrometrics on Voyager. They are able take data from stars within their own galaxy, but it's still only the start. There's other factors that come into play. Doubly so for other galaxies that have never been set foot in, let alone explored with any depth.
Take Astrometrics on Voyager. They are able take data from stars within their own galaxy, but it's still only the start. There's other factors that come into play. Doubly so for other galaxies that have never been set foot in, let alone explored with any depth.
Agreed. It would have taken almost nothing to put that situation somewhere else or to make that situation more relevant to what they were actually watching. I think it came down to B&B wanting to ride the coattails of a beloved episode.
That said, I don't even know how much that would have helped, because, really, there's not a lot of meat in it either way. Riker and Troi's dialogue is thin and it's the same with the rest of the cast. There's no real sense from Archer, etc. of the...enormity of what's happening around them, and very little in the way of conveying what these people mean to each other.
I have not seen TATV since it aired, and I have no reason to ever go back to it. "Demons" and "Terra Prime" are everything TATV is not and serve as a far better bookend to "Broken Bow."
G
Gul Sengosts
Guest
I think the salamanders were the best part of Threshold, at least that was so whack it made me laugh. Could have been a memorable camp/nonsense episode if the rest of it wasn't so utterly effing boring.
edit: but the worst part is that it stole an Emmy from The Visitor. I can't forgive it that.
edit: but the worst part is that it stole an Emmy from The Visitor. I can't forgive it that.
Last edited by a moderator:
I think its absolute biggest sin was that it did literally nothing to convince anyone NOT to do a warp 10 jump and just go home.
I mean, The Doctor reversed even the advanced changes that Janeway and Paris endured. Go home, cure the crew...then just be home.
Well, the Emmy was for Make-Up/Effects, and DS9 already got one for that with the previous season's "DISTANT VOICES".
A beloved episode that neither of them wrote. ("The Pegasus" was written by Ronald D. Moore.)
TATV is a terrible episode anyway... nothing can really save it. Maybe if it was not the series finale and didn't take place during "The Pegasus", it could have improved.
A beloved episode that neither of them wrote. ("The Pegasus" was written by Ronald D. Moore.)
TATV is a terrible episode anyway... nothing can really save it. Maybe if it was not the series finale and didn't take place during "The Pegasus", it could have improved.
Navigation was the problem.
Moore was always a better writer than either of them.
And, with those changes, it would have just been a mediocre, forgettable episode instead if the disaster that it was so...improvement...I guess?
Maybe, but it seems like a not insurmountable problem that you put everything you can into for as long as it takes when the payoff is instantaneous travel of the universe.
Agreed. Moore was excellent with characters. I also think, on paper, he's the funniest writer of the group.
I will say, though, that Brannon Braga might the most imaginative writer of the bunch. His obsession with time travel notwithstanding, his concepts were really great and when he was on point, he was really on point.
In my opinion, removing it from the Pegasus time period eliminates a lot of difficulties with the time frame and compressing in to a lot of Pegasus' events. The other side is how the Riker/Troi story intersects with the story told. It honestly struggles to feel relevant to Riker at all, which is a big problem. Plus the time jump from the last episode...
Ok, yeah, there's a lot to sort out.
"The Visitor" is clichéd, cringeworthy, and otherwise generally awful. I guess I should at least give it props for lampshading the first by literally beginning on a dark and stormy night.
That there certainly lives up to the thread, LOL.
He certainly ended up doing a lot for "The Orville." I think by TATV he was just utterly burned out.
Similar threads
- Locked
