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What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

I don't really understand it, but there's nothing wrong with it. If I like something, I want to explore every part of it... it's alien to me to just say "meh, i'm good with just this." Even with something like TOS... i'm 39, very much a 90's kid, I grew up with DS9 and Voyager. I still needed to see everything and went back to watch TOS, and I absolutely love it.
I'm 39, but didn't get in to TNG, but love TOS. I didn't get in to DS9 until the TOS crossover episode and then watched it further. VOY was the one I tried to follow from the word go, picking up magazine articles and reading TV guide. To me, I had to grab more of TOS, but not as much for DS9, though I read the Trek encyclopedia to keep up since I started behind.

I usually "have to know everything" only on particular items.
 
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Lee Conway so was bad ass that sometimes he didn't even have legs. Sometimes he did. It was totally optional. Script writers just worked around it.
Lee Conway must be a black Pandronian* and needs no stinking legs.
<*from the planet Pandro in the Garo Seven system.> :D
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Although… in the latest FAM episode, Danielle has a line about watching “all three” of the Star Trek series, this in I think 2003. So if the first two are TOS and Phase II, is the third a TNG that proved less popular than in our timeline (since no further series by the time ENT ended in our history)? In which case, why did the franchise grow less popular in a world more actively involved in space activity?
I've got three guesses that all feed into each other:

1. TOS, Phase II, and TNG all had full-runs. Whereas in our timeline: TOS was cut short, Phase II never happened, and only TNG had a full run (which I'll define as breaking 100 episodes and ending on its own terms). Ultimately, we did get three series that broke 100 episodes and ended on their own terms, but they were TNG, DS9, and VOY. So, in FAMK, it's TOS, Phase II, and TNG. They called it a "trilogy" of series, and they were done. They didn't feel like any more series were necessary.

2. With the real space program taking off, audiences would probably be more interested in series that took place in space that were more "realistic" and more closely reflected their actual space program and where it might really end up in their future. The more "real" space travel feels, the more realistic the audience would want it to look. More like Alien & Aliens. More like 2001: A Space Odyssey. And, yes, because this is Ron Moore's series and you knew this was coming, more like his Battlestar Galactica. ;)

3. In FAMK, maybe the producers felt it would be in poor taste to create a new Star Trek series without Gene Roddenberry. Without the demand for more series (see #1), no one wants to become known as the person who dropped the ball. On top of the belief that Star Trek had seen its day and belonged to a different era (see #2). It's also worth noting that if TNG ran five seasons, just like TOS and Phase II, then Gene Roddenberry would've died during TNG's final season. In which case, it would only add to perception of they shouldn't continue on without him. Even if the show still runs seven seasons, the perception can still be there, but they just let TNG finish its run before calling it quits.
Per Ron Moore:

The Star Trek veteran and For All Mankind co-creator has more information on the alternate timeline. Moore explained this during a Q&A at Collider's exclusive For All Mankind season 4 finale screening in Los Angeles attended by his fellow executive producers, Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert and Maril Davis, and stars Joel Kinnaman, who plays Ed Baldwin, Krys Marshall, who plays Danielle Poole, and Wrenn Schmidt, who plays Margo Madison. Read Moore's quote below:​

"I think [...] the last I counted, I thought we were saying it was Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Phase II, which was the show that never happened in the '70s, and Star Trek: The Next Generation."

It would be interesting to know how many of the movies exist in the For All Mankind universe, since I think in our timeline TNG was spurred along by the mainstream success of The Voyage Home. If the movies occur after a successful run of Phase II, then TNG becomes more akin to DS9 and Voyager. It would be an attempt to build off of the success of Phase II the same ways DS9 and Voyager attempted to build from TNG's popularity. The For All Mankind version of TNG is probably drastically different and may even be set in the late-23rd century to fit with Phase II.

I would guess that all 3 movies of the "Genesis Trilogy" exist. Although, I would think Wrath of Khan gets to the same place in a different way, given that Xon, Ilia, and Decker would be there, if they survived as characters coming out of Phase II (since the story for The Motion Picture would have been Phase II's pilot and Ilia and Decker wouldn't have been merged with V'Ger). So even those movies would be different if Phase II was their basis.
 
I think in our timeline TNG was spurred along by the mainstream success of The Voyage Home
I was actually at a Star Trek convention in the fall of 1986 where they were talking about TNG before TVH was even released, so it was probably more the overall success of the other three movies. You can also see with the TVH that Paramount was playing nicer with Roddenberry than they had been for TWOK/SFS (casting Majel and having him be more involved with promoting TVH). I suppose there was also an element of realizing the TOS cast getting long in the tooth and wanting to start working on continuing the franchise without them.

Back to For All Mankind, in that universe the two TV series and movies would have likely been much more of a continuing story, so I wonder if their TNG was more about an actual next generation, and followed the crew of a ship led by characters introduced over the course of their Phase II and Genesis trilogy, versus being set 100 years later.
 
I haven't watched FAMK yet. Is this explicitly stated or speculation of an alternate series of events?
Phase II isn't mentioned in an episode, Ron Moore mentioned it in an interview.

Although… in the latest FAM episode, Danielle has a line about watching “all three” of the Star Trek series, this in I think 2003. So if the first two are TOS and Phase II, is the third a TNG that proved less popular than in our timeline (since no further series by the time ENT ended in our history)? In which case, why did the franchise grow less popular in a world more actively involved in space activity?
I took this as nothing more than a snook cocked deliberately at Voyager by Ronald D Moore. So TOS, TNG, and DS9... and no VOY.
Ron Moore said the three Trek series in the FAMK timeline are TOS, Phase II and TNG.
 
I'm 39, but didn't get in to TNG, but love TOS. I didn't get in to DS9 until the TOS crossover episode and then watched it further. VOY was the one I tried to follow from the word go, picking up magazine articles and reading TV guide. To me, I had to grab more of TOS, but not as much for DS9, though I read the Trek encyclopedia to keep up since I started behind.

I usually "have to know everything" only on particular items.

I agree, I only need to know everything on particular stuff (for myself), but I don't feel that need for the entire franchise. It's only entertainment after all.

I see no reason to watch a show when it becomes clear that show is not for me. I may have that with some of the newer shows (though I haven't seen all of them yet), and I also partly had it with TOS (I've seen most of it, but still not all, since it isn't easy viewing for me). It's not as if I have to keep cramming in everything, including the series that don't resonate with me, only so that others will see me as some kind of acknowledged Trexpert or some such thing.
 
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TNG would have to be a very different show if Phase II was made.
Another aspect to this, the internet doesn't exist in the For All Mankind timeline even into the 21st century.

That would mean there's no Netflix equivalent or streaming that would begin syphoning off content in the aughts. Also, the nature of fandom would be different. No instantaneous reactions and fan carping about every bit of news.
 
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