What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Richard S. Ta]

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Fuck. I thought it was some 2022-made joke opening thing when I watched the clip, then an episode started and... now I find out this was really a show?

How have I never heard of this? I pride myself on knowledge of obscure sci-fi but this rings zero bells for me.

Is it any good? It looks crap, but I'm willing to watch the whole (Googles...) eight episodes that there are of 'Quark' if it's worth it.

There's actually a dearth of information about it on Wikipedia too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(TV_series)

Thanks regardless! @Imaus too. That is a totally new and weird thing to me.

 

[Lord Garth]

Is it any good?

God, I wish you didn't ask me that.

I don't know. I only spot-checked it, earlier. I'll put it on and watch it For Real.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

@Lord Garth

I'll do the same and catch up with you later. I think we should both have an option to dump it in a fire if the first one is too crap.

I'm looking forward to it. At worst it's gonna be a waste of 25 minutes or so.

See you on the other side.

 

[Lord Garth]

Is it any good? It looks crap, but I'm willing to watch the whole (Googles...) eight episodes that there are of 'Quark' if it's worth it.

I watched four-and-a-half minutes then shut it off. It's not my type of thing. BUT, I do know a friend IRL who might like it.

It reminds me of a film I edited called Transsexuals from Space. It's a spoof of '50s Sci-Fi B-Movies. Here's a trailer for it. I also acted in it. You can see me getting zapped by a ray-gun at one point.

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Eh, screw it. I'll watch the rest.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I watched four-and-a-half minutes then shut it off. It's not my type of thing. BUT, I do know a friend IRL who might like it.

It reminds me of a film I edited called Transsexuals from Space. It's a spoof of '50s Sci-Fi B-Movies. Here's a trailer for it. I also acted in it. You can see me getting zapped by a ray-gun at one point.

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Eh, screw it. I'll watch the rest.

I watched half the first and I'll watch the other half later. I'm just pushed for time. It actually is quite funny... at points, quite bizarre in others, visually quite interesting and unfortunately bigoted in places.

I think I'll watch the whole thing for the sake of 8x25 minutes.

I'm absolutely shocked that I've never heard a murmur of it before.

Oh, and there are TOS sound effects all over it.

It's to some degree an attempt to deconstruct Star Trek I think, but I can't say for yet how successful it is. There's a whole scene where the captain's solemn log keeps getting interrupted. And a four armed woman done really well!

Anyway, thanks to all! Anyone else who wants a look, here's episode 1:

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[Farscape One]

I actually have the QUARK dvd set. Haven't seen it in years, though.

 

[Lord Garth]

Okay, I got to the end of that episode of Quark. "Is it any good?"

No!

But, putting that aside, um... I can see some of the set design being used on Star Trek in the '70s, but the writing definitely would've been more serious. This feels more like a homage to '50s sci-fi than TOS. Though I do like that they had TOS sound-effects and I liked that they had a transporter and I guess a "Captain's Log". The clones are a hoot.

 

[Imaus]

Fuck. I thought it was some 2022-made joke opening thing when I watched the clip, then an episode started and... now I find out this was really a show?

How have I never heard of this? I pride myself on knowledge of obscure sci-fi but this rings zero bells for me.

Is it any good? It looks crap, but I'm willing to watch the whole (Googles...) eight episodes that there are of 'Quark' if it's worth it.

There's actually a dearth of information about it on Wikipedia too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(TV_series)

Thanks regardless! @Imaus too. That is a totally new and weird thing to me.

No problemo.

As to as it's good - it's okay. It gets a chuckle out of me. It's a comedy show and Head and the station manager basically trying to shaft Quark every episode is fun. Stuff like the Transmute is more than dated but it's worth a watch, it's only like 8 episodes anyway. Replacing Mudd from the pilot with Fiscus helped a lot, we needed a actual serious only-sane-man while Mudd was just as off as everyone else (and hated transmutes which would had made it even more unbearable for eight episodes)

Another Scifi small run show I saw, with Dorn in it, was uhhh Starship Regulars, ever seen that? More 2000s nsfw but yea

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Is it a controversial opinion that I genuinely don't care what order I watch TOS in?

I don't really know that I'm ever going to rewatch the whole thing from start to finish again, anyway, rather than just picking an episode I want to watch. But if I do, I'll take whatever order is on the streaming service I watch it on. And I'll have absolutely no idea off the top of my head whether that will be production order or something else. I have a hard time imagining it would ever make any difference to me either way given how completely detached one TOS episode is from another.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Is it a controversial opinion that I genuinely don't care what order I watch TOS in?

I don't really know that I'm ever going to rewatch the whole thing from start to finish again, anyway, rather than just picking an episode I want to watch. But if I do, I'll take whatever order is on the streaming service I watch it on. And I'll have absolutely no idea off the top of my head whether that will be production order or something else. I have a hard time imagining it would ever make any difference to me either way given how completely detached one TOS episode is from another.

That's the 'aired randomly in syndication' method. Equally valid as a way to experience TOS I would say. I'm sure many came to it exactly like that.

Then the fun becomes measuring how much things like quality or tone vary wildly from episode to episode.

I don't think TOS was made to be enjoyed as one continuous thing. 78 separate stories.

 

[Ovation]

I’ve watched TOS so much (I don’t think any episode has had fewer than 10 viewings and many of them twice that) that I’ve not watched a “full run” (in any particular order) since the 80s. I just pick whatever episode I’m in the mood to watch (thus the discrepancy in frequency of viewing noted above).

 

[Vger23]

TOS in production order is my go- to

 

[1001001]

Alphabetical order is the only way.

 

[suarezguy]

I find Kirk about as preachy as Picard-but less appealingly so, less convincing and powerful.

 

[Citiprime]

I find Kirk about as preachy as Picard-but less appealingly so, less convincing and powerful.

I always thought a huge difference between Kirk and Picard is that Picard enters into problems sure of his convictions and decides issues through the filter of his own beliefs, where Kirk hangs back and allows the issue to play out to some degree before making a judgment.

Khan makes a great observation about Kirk when he says Kirk allows Spock to probe for answers while sitting back and watching the reactions. I think that plays out a lot in the series, where Kirk allows Spock and McCoy to debate a problem in order to flesh out all of the sides before he goes in to push his solution.

 

[Vger23]

That's definitely controversial.

I'll counter with a controversial thought: Picard gives a "moral of the story" Afterschool Special level speech in nearly every episode, and it's usually pretentious and obvious. Kirk absolutely has his moments too, but not every damn episode and not so on the nose. Kirk comes across as an everyman trying to make moral sense of very difficult situations. Picard comes across as a smug, elite, self-assured member of the Federation Superiority Society. Kirk's preachy moments feel far more organic. Picard's feel like he spent 15 min in his ready room preparing them with a cup of tea at his side before he unleashes them on the unsuspecting peasants and simpletons of the galaxy in a rich British accent.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Alphabetical order is the only way.

Mm-hmm, you comedian. Let's start you off with with "A"...for Agony Booth!

 

[1001001]

Mm-hmm, you comedian. Let's start you off with with "A"...for Agony Booth!

So, you’re going to force me to watch TMP?

 

[eschaton]

TOS in production order is my go- to

Yeah, the first half of Season 1, in particular, just flows much better in production order, as the early installment weirdness makes much more logical sense.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I actually don't think The Man Trap is such a terrible way to introduce someone to TOS. All the basic relationships are there and the creature itself is interesting visually and the whole thing is resolved in a Star Trek way.

"The Man Trap" ends with McCoy killing the last surviving member of a species. That's not a very Star Trek ending, IMO, although Kirk's thoughtful regret at the end is very Star Trek.

SULU: Ready to leave orbit, Captain.
SPOCK: Something wrong, Captain?
KIRK: I was thinking about the buffalo, Mister Spock. Warp one, Mister Sulu.
SULU: Warp one, sir. Leaving orbit.

I think "The Devil in the Dark" is much more typical of a Star Trek story, where we start out encountering a new, different, and frightening creature, and by the end we've seen things from the creature's POV and come to an understanding. We also see this in "The Corbomite Maneuver" and "Arena." Even "Errand of Mercy" has this to a degree, although there it's the Organians that surprise us. The Klingons are exactly what they appear to be at first glance.

I'll counter with a controversial thought: Picard gives a "moral of the story" Afterschool Special level speech in nearly every episode, and it's usually pretentious and obvious. Kirk absolutely has his moments too, but not every damn episode and not so on the nose. Kirk comes across as an everyman trying to make moral sense of very difficult situations. Picard comes across as a smug, elite, self-assured member of the Federation Superiority Society. Kirk's preachy moments feel far more organic. Picard's feel like he spent 15 min in his ready room preparing them with a cup of tea at his side before he unleashes them on the unsuspecting peasants and simpletons of the galaxy in a rich British accent.

I definitely agree with this, particularly of early TNG. Picard's speeches tended towards the trite side, although Patrick Stewart is such a great actor he could sell the hell out of them. Kirk is a more open character in a lot of ways, because he seems less concrete in his convictions. Picard was much more prone to grand proclamations, whereas Kirk would be more likely to give us a "Did we do the right thing? I'm still not sure..." at the end of an episode.

It's the difference between TNG telling us what to think and TOS inviting us to think and reach our own conclusions, I suppose.