Why the hate for Alex Kurtzman?

[HotRod]

WRONG.

It might take YOU out of it, but you're in the distinct minority.

Listen, there's no bigger fan of Subspace Rhapsody on here than me. I love it. But @Farscape One is entitled to his opinion.

I find him to be one of the most reasonable and level headed posters on this forum, and if he doesn't like the episode, he doesn't like the episode. It's pretty clear that he simply doesn't like musicals. I don't get it, but I respect it. If someone hates musicals with the fire of a thousand suns, Subspace Rhapsody is gonna be a pretty hard sell.

Even if it is one of the best episodes in the entire franchise.

 

[Farscape One]

The funny thing about “The Cage” and Pike in “The Cage” is that DS9’s pilot, “The Emissary,” has similarities to it. And Pike in “The Cage” can be seen as a very early version of the ideas that would become Sisko.

- Both Sisko and Pike are disillusioned with Starfleet after experiencing emotional trauma from a loss of life.

- The stories of both pilots involves aliens that create mental illusions based on the lead character’s memories but on a fundamental level misunderstands the nature of humanity.

- In the end, the experience allows both Sisko and Pike to move beyond their issues and find new purpose in what their command gives them the ability to achieve.

That's a great comparison, actually. And while it's a more personal loss and story for Sisko, I can see the bones of the two pilots being similar when you break it down like that.

Nice take!

 

[TRON JA307020]

WRONG.

It might take YOU out of it, but you're in the distinct minority.

Its his opinion. Why is it wrong and yours isn't? Everyone is entitled to an opinion. That episiode wasn't everyones cup of tea. I found it to silly for star trek. But thats just me. If you loved it more power to you. I also wasn't a fan of the lower decks cross over either. The cartoon ending I felt was really dumb.

 

[Citiprime]

That's a great comparison, actually. And while it's a more personal loss and story for Sisko, I can see the bones of the two pilots being similar when you break it down like that.

Nice take!

It can arguably be taken even to another level too.

Both "The Menagerie" from TOS and "What You Leave Behind" from DS9 have similar conclusions for Pike and Sisko.

In the end, both characters lose their normal existence sacrificing themselves for others, they return to the aliens they first encountered at the beginning of their stories, and both end up living in the fantasy existence with the aliens.

 

[nightwind1]

Listen, there's no bigger fan of Subspace Rhapsody on here than me. I love it. But @Farscape One is entitled to his opinion.

I find him to be one of the most reasonable and level headed posters on this forum, and if he doesn't like the episode, he doesn't like the episode. It's pretty clear that he simply doesn't like musicals. I don't get it, but I respect it. If someone hates musicals with the fire of a thousand suns, Subspace Rhapsody is gonna be a pretty hard sell.

Even if it is one of the best episodes in the entire franchise.

But his quote is: "Takes you completely out of the episode and destroys any chance of suspension of disbelief."

That's him speaking for others, not just for himself.

 

[TRON JA307020]

But his quote is: "Takes you completely out of the episode and destroys any chance of suspension of disbelief."

That's him speaking for others, not just for himself.

Come on man. Thats a common saying. He wasnt speaking for everyone.

 

[Shawnster]

WRONG.

It might take YOU out of it, but you're in the distinct minority.

Or the minority is simply more vocal than the silent majority.

The universe may never know...

I count the musical perhaps the lowest point of SNW.

 

[somebuddyX]

It also produced duds like "Threshold," "Move Along Home," and "Sub Rosa."

Actually I realise what a good point that is. I think I've even made the same point when Michael Rosenbaum talked about if Smallville was on HBO and had a smaller season, it would have a "better" reputation. But you still get the wins and the losses. And it's not enough to just have more episodes (or less), you need that team driving it. It's pretty obvious statement but the best seasons are down to the guys running it.

 

[Tuskin38]

all this complaining about Subspace Rhapsody just makes me want to watch it again

 

[fireproof78]

all this complaining about Subspace Rhapsody just makes me want to watch it again

I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[TRON JA307020]

all this complaining about Subspace Rhapsody just makes me want to watch it again

Enjoy.

Ill be watching where no man has gone before.

 

[JLA]

all this complaining about Subspace Rhapsody just makes me want to watch it again

Good

 

[HotRod]

Someone in a different thread brought up Generations, and it got me thinking....

People didn't take much issue with the concept of The Nexus, a basically magical energy ribbon that travels through space and is a gateway to a realm where all you're fantasies come true, you never age, that you can travel throughout, and even leave, using simply a thought.....

But the concept of a subspace fold opening up and producing an improbability field, where music is played and people are involuntarily made to sing show tunes..... that's to big a pill to swallow?

Just a thought.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

The Nexus is kind of absurd as well, plus instantly adjusting its trajectory by blowing up a sun is ridiculous if you give it more than a second of thought. Generations has real problems!

I dunno, I give the Nexus maybe a low 3 out of 10 on the Star Trek Suspension of Disbelief Scale, with Picard being French up at 8 and the Subspace Rhapsody thing remaining a 1.

I think it helps that the Enterprise-D crew have no bloody idea of how the Nexus works and aren't coming up with any guesses, while the Enterprise-SNW crew seem satisfied with the bizarre technobabble explanation they get. If Spock had said something like "The presence of music with lyrics we are compelled to sing implies an intelligence, but they are evading our detection. It appears that we are currently unequipped to solve this mystery", then I would've been able to roll with it.

 

[fireproof78]

I think it helps that the Enterprise-D crew have no bloody idea of how the Nexus works and aren't coming up with any guesses, while the Enterprise-SNW crew seem satisfied with the bizarre technobabble explanation they get.

So, the lack of techno babble makes the Nexus more acceptable?

I don't care for the musical anomaly but good grief does it work better than the Nexus and the weird rules it supposedly operates by that Picard and Kirk can just leave despite being told they wouldn't want to leave.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I can deal with "We don't know how it works, we just know that it does", because space is full of weirdness and I've seen this stuff get satisfying explanations often enough that I'm happy enough to accept there must be one.

What I don't like is when the characters encounter something absurd, come up with a terrible explanation and seem satisfied by that. They should be questioning it, trying to find a more likely explanation. They should be raising the obvious questions that the audience is going to have.

Like I just saw the TNG episode Power Play, and in that the bad guys possessing the crew say that they're the ghosts of dead Starfleet officers. This is pretty unbelievable to a Star Trek fan, and Picard immediately starts pointing out why, which leads to him discovering what is REALLY going on. If Picard had said "Oh, ghosts must be real then" and the mystery ended there, that would've been very unsatisfying.

 

[fireproof78]

I can deal with "We don't know how it works, we just know that it does", because space is full of weirdness and I've seen this stuff get satisfying explanations often enough that I'm happy enough to accept there must be one.

What I don't like is when the characters encounter something absurd, come up with a terrible explanation and seem satisfied by that. They should be questioning it, trying to find a more likely explanation. They should be raising the obvious questions that the audience is going to have.

Like I just saw the TNG episode Power Play, and in that the bad guys possessing the crew say that they're the ghosts of dead Starfleet officers. This is pretty unbelievable to a Star Trek fan, and Picard immediately starts pointing out why, which leads to him discovering what is REALLY going on. If Picard had said "Oh, ghosts must be real then" and the mystery ended there, that would've been very unsatisfying.

That's "Where No One Has Gone Before" for me.

Absurd events in Trek are common to me so the music barely raises my Vulcan eyebrow.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Someone in a different thread brought up Generations, and it got me thinking....

People didn't take much issue with the concept of The Nexus, a basically magical energy ribbon that travels through space and is a gateway to a realm where all you're fantasies come true, you never age, that you can travel throughout, and even leave, using simply a thought.....

But the concept of a subspace fold opening up and producing an improbability field, where music is played and people are involuntarily made to sing show tunes..... that's to big a pill to swallow?

Just a thought.

This is the same Fictional Universe that "Q" exists in.

When Q exists, none of those other Phenomena bother me at that point.

I'm like Numb to whatever crazy Phenomena exists out in ST's beautiful, but wacky fictional world.

 

[Tuskin38]

And the explanation of fixing it made (fictional) sense.

It tapped into one of the core parts of the transporter, the Heisenberg Compensator, first mentioned in TNG, which was created by the writers to explain how the transporter gets around Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Which makes sense when you're dealing with improbability.

Whether you liked the episode or not, the writers knew their Trek when it came to some of the aspects. They created very Trek sounded technobabble which would not sound out of place in the TNG era shows.

There was also that gambling device in the DS9 episode Rivals that messed with the 'laws of probability'.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Rivals is very high on my 'yeah, no, that premise just doesn't make any sense' list, along with the Chakotay consciousness jumping episode in Voyager and anything involving DNA. It wasn't a particularly great story anyway, but the probability thing lost it even more points as far as I'm concerned.