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What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

The early concept of TNG was "technology unchained": the ship would be so powerful and intelligent that it would run itself with minimal intervention from the crew.

The early bridge sketches are basically a conference lounge.
One of any number of early ideas I wish had been given more of a chance. In those early months before the series actually aired and all you had to go on was the various publicity stuff and David Gerold’s column in Starlog, young me built up a cool, high-concept version of What TNG Would Be that the show was never going to be able to match.
 
I doubt an ad-lib would have been tolerated, especially when it's his entire character.

They were just auditioning various engineers during that season, but no one stuck.

The old story (which is probably apocryphal) is that Biff Yeager tried to get a fan campaign to make Argyle the permanent engineer going at a convention. The producers did not appreciate an actor lobbying in that way, and he was never asked back as a result.

Several actors have told me they do not tolerate ad-libbing at all on Star Trek.
 
TOS-Data.jpg

A great reason for him not to wear blue is because of all the Spock parallels, even if TNG's blue was a little more saturated and shade of blue (which didn't look too bad).

data-blue-outfi2t.jpg


Closer to TNG's blue hue, it clashes yet doesn't? (Hmm, I forgot to go back into Photoshop to clear up the red haze from the quick'n'dirty color alteration, ditto regarding forgetting to add the 4th pip to Captain Pulaski there, whoops...)

That said, with all the Spock/Data comparisons of the time being a good reason to give him gold, since Pulaski having some loose parallels to McCoy via a snipy attitude (but with an original twist). I don't recall her doing what the EMH did on a regular basis, though as he was far closer to a McCoy rip-off and right down to the "I'm a Doctor not a parroted meme" shtick, but by 1995 nobody cared.
 
Leland T. Lynch should have been permanent Chief Engineer, just so he could have bizarrely stated his full name in communication more times in the series.

He’s hilarious. What’s with that?

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He only appears in Skin of Evil and only gets a few scenes but for some bizarre reason responds to Picard over the comms by announcing his full name. He does it twice I think.

Ah yes, Roscoe P Coltrane Leland T Lynch. Definitely an ego thing if I'm reading that rightly, but he does have that standoffish and resigning attitude when butting noses with Picard that could have been interesting.
 
Even in ENT there was no dedicated Science Officer aboard mid-22nd century Earth starships, but T'Pol had the science station and Spock-like pop-up scanner she looked into, so that made her by default the NX-01 Science Officer.
 
Total speculation, but maybe the actor really wanted to make an impression and get called back, so he ad libbed it? Or the writers likewise wanted to create a regular, but it didn’t pan out? It does otherwise seem an odd emphasis.
I could be wrong, but I don't think actors in small parts like that are encouraged to ad-lib. Save that for the rehearsals. When the cameras are on, doing it differently gets a dirty look from the director and "Let's try that again." The writers were probably thinking they might make him a regular so they wrote in his full name, but for whatever reason it didn't happen. Which I think is good, Geordi was much better.
 
Several actors have told me they do not tolerate ad-libbing at all on Star Trek.

I remember the Vash actor, Jennifer Hetrick, wanting to make a joke about the tri-corder batteries being dead and someone had to point out to her the device didn't use batteries and I recall Gary Graham talking about being frustrated with wanting to change a line on "Voyager."
 
What kind of joke? If it was meant to be a flippant suggestion as to why the tricorder wasn't working and not a serious idea, the objection to the joke must've been something else.

I don't recall the details. Not even sure where I first heard it. Could have been a TNG dvd extra or me reading the TNG book companion where you will see people giving some behind the scenes info. I do think it was suppose to happen in the caves setting when she and Picard are looking for the future device thingy. The Tri-corder can't pick up on it or something.
 
Yeah, I've heard the no ad-lib thing about Trek as well. Even to the point where they couldn't change 'could not' to 'couldn't'.

I'm sure there were exceptions (I've heard it said Robert Picardo liked to ad-lib) but a bit player like the actor playing Leland T. Lynch wouldn't have had the option I'm sure. Especially not in such an egregious way.
 
Several actors have told me they do not tolerate ad-libbing at all on Star Trek.

Many of the actors who appeared on the D-Con Chamber (including the hosts) have mentioned that. Even changing a word required divine intervention.

Yeah, I've heard the no ad-lib thing about Trek as well. Even to the point where they couldn't change 'could not' to 'couldn't'.

I'm sure there were exceptions (I've heard it said Robert Picardo liked to ad-lib) but a bit player like the actor playing Leland T. Lynch wouldn't have had the option I'm sure. Especially not in such an egregious way.

Part of the Ad-Libbing issue might be (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) something to do with the WGA (Writers Guild of America) Rules & Regulations.

If you Ad-Lib, you might get in trouble, and that could cause headaches.


Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool is famous for improvised dialogue. Can that still happen during the writers’ strike?
If he rewrites any of Deadpool 3‘s script (including minor edits to stage directions or cutting unwanted lines), he’ll be violating the strike.

“Every line I have in the movie I just wrote myself because in the script we had, it said, ‘Wade Wilson shows up, talks really fast.’ I was like, ‘What?! What am I supposed to do with that?’”

Improvised dialogue is something of a grey area in terms of what the WGA qualifies as “writing.” During the 2007-08 strike, some late-night talk shows returned with fully improvised episodes, although Jay Leno earned backlash for writing monologues.

Meanwhile, actors are still allowed to ad-lib spontaneous dialogue while filming—and on some productions, studio bosses are likely hoping that actors will pick up the slack from striking writers. But if those actors are WGA members with a writing credit, they face more scrutiny about following the strike guidelines; an issue that improv-centric comedies struggled with during the last strike.

Under normal circumstances, films and TV shows routinely have a writer on set (or at least on call) to rewrite dialogue or solve narrative problems that crop up while filming. Reynold would probably be doing this kind of work, but if he supports the strike, he’ll have to bite his tongue and keep filming with zero rewrites. Scabs and strike-breakers risk being reported to the WGA tip line and expelled from the guild.
 
The TMP ones are still better than the DSC Season 1 and 2 uniforms.
They’re better than all but TOS-era uniforms and their Kelvin or SNW derivatives.
Nah.
At least the Monster Maroons were in service for 71 years, albeit changing ever so slightly as the decades passed.
That’s a bug, not a feature.
Isn’t average lifespan a little deceptive, because infant mortality was so much higher? If you made it to adulthood, you had a decent chance of living to old age.
Yes.
 
The thing is I can sort of see why they were strict on ad-libbing. The technobabble had to be precise and also they really wanted the language to have that future, non-contemporary feel to it. We should probably call it it PIllar-speak because I think he is the one most responsible for basically defining the way the characters would talk during the Berman era. Even shows were he had less influence on in later years to no influence like Enterprise still felt very much connected to the language style he created.
 
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