Random Trek "Problems" That Bug You (and that you can't let go!)

[maneth]

Isn't that kind of the whole point of a bad guy?

Evil because evil characters aren't interesting. I prefer morally ambiguous characters like Gul Dukat. Sure, he was horrible at least 95 percent of the time, but the 5 percent when he did good, if only to serve his own interests, kept him interesting. One reason why Garak is one of my favorite characters is that you never really know what he wants and why he does what he does.

 

[Farscape One]

Space Seed, TWOK, and STID. Khan is a completely amoral, horrible character with absolutely no redeeming features. And the way Lt. McGivers was treated in Space Seed was disgusting, she wouldn't have betrayed her captain and crewmates no matter how thralled she was by a man. And I absolutely fail to understand why they chose this one if they had to make a feature movie as a sequel to an episode.

The Changeling. I quite like the episode otherwise, but the way NOMAD was confused by Uhura's female brain badly enough to render her unconscious was just the sort of casual sexism that has made TOS age quite poorly. When we watched it with our son, 14 at the time, he was like

Turnabout Intruder. The whole premise that women couldn't be captains is off-putting. Even if the story was well crafted otherwise, the premise utterly ruined it for me. It didn't really help matters that it was the last episode they ever broadcast, even if it wasn't intended as a finale (because the concept of a finale didn't exist then, episodic shows just ended).

Regarding "TURNABOUT INTRUDER"...

I get some people view the episode as sexist, but I just don't see it. Two things to keep in mind about where the sexism of this episode seems to come from. First, Janice Lester was a nutjob. And because she's a nutjob, she's not a reliable narrator of truth. Second, it's taking Lester's line of 'your world of starship captains doesn't permit women' too literally. If you look at Kirk, Picard, and a number of other captains, they put their job and duty as a captain ahead of any romantic relationships. That is what she's talking about.

Is it a great episode? No, and it is one of the weakest final episodes of a series in the franchise. But I don't think it's quite as bad as many say.

 

[fireproof78]

Isn't that kind of the whole point of a bad guy?

And fits with the larger themes of the story and the follow up film.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Oh, good.

Yet another “what don’t you like about Star Trek” thread.

Thanks for your contribution.

My random gripe, which many posters have mentioned in past posts, is the lenient treatment of Rojan....and probably Claudius, too.

 

[maneth]

Regarding "TURNABOUT INTRUDER"...

I get some people view the episode as sexist, but I just don't see it. Two things to keep in mind about where the sexism of this episode seems to come from. First, Janice Lester was a nutjob. And because she's a nutjob, she's not a reliable narrator of truth. Second, it's taking Lester's line of 'your world of starship captains doesn't permit women' too literally. If you look at Kirk, Picard, and a number of other captains, they put their job and duty as a captain ahead of any romantic relationships. That is what she's talking about.

Is it a great episode? No, and it is one of the weakest final episodes of a series in the franchise. But I don't think it's quite as bad as many say.

Granted that Janice Lester was an unreliable narrator, but I don't buy your second point. If it had been about the sacrifices a captain had to make in choosing not to get involved in a lasting relationship, there would've been no need for Lester to swap bodies with Kirk to essentially become the captain she couldn't be as a woman by impersonating a famous man.

The one redeeming feature in this whole episode is the acting by both Shatner and Sandra Smith. Their body language shows subtle characteristics of the other character who's supposedly inhabiting their body (another example of great acting is Nimoy's performance in the completely ridiculous Spock's Brain, where the totally dead look in his eyes makes the idea that there's nobody home utterly credible).

All that said, however, they must've embraced the less sexist attitudes of other Federation members quite quickly given that they had female admirals, who I assume got there by doing a great job as captains, in TNG. At that time their status was taken for granted and never remarked upon, so I doubt it was a new thing.

 

[Vger23]

I always kind of grate at the way potential time travel paradoxes or violations are treated in TVH. They leave behind a Klingon hand phaser, give transparent aluminum to a polymer company, and extract a 20th century scientist from the timeline. Yikes!

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Not to mention three whales.

 

[Farscape One]

Granted that Janice Lester was an unreliable narrator, but I don't buy your second point. If it had been about the sacrifices a captain had to make in choosing not to get involved in a lasting relationship, there would've been no need for Lester to swap bodies with Kirk to essentially become the captain she couldn't be as a woman by impersonating a famous man.

The one redeeming feature in this whole episode is the acting by both Shatner and Sandra Smith. Their body language shows subtle characteristics of the other character who's supposedly inhabiting their body (another example of great acting is Nimoy's performance in the completely ridiculous Spock's Brain, where the totally dead look in his eyes makes the idea that there's nobody home utterly credible).

All that said, however, they must've embraced the less sexist attitudes of other Federation members quite quickly given that they had female admirals, who I assume got there by doing a great job as captains, in TNG. At that time their status was taken for granted and never remarked upon, so I doubt it was a new thing.

I agree the acting of both was really good, and does most of the heavy lifting of the episode.

I still can't agree with Starfleet being sexist about captains. The first pilot has a woman as XO and was, in universe, a number of years before Kirk took command. She would not be in that position if she wasn't on track to commanding a ship herself. Also, we see a female captain in TVH... the Saratoga's captain.

And Lester deciding to body swap is entirely based on her own twisted worldview, particularly since she targeted Kirk specifically because they had a relationship that ended. Because she's totally Froot Loops, I can't buy into the idea that anything she said had any merit to it.

 

[1001001]

I agree the acting of both was really good, and does most of the heavy lifting of the episode.

I still can't agree with Starfleet being sexist about captains. The first pilot has a woman as XO and was, in universe, a number of years before Kirk took command. She would not be in that position if she wasn't on track to commanding a ship herself. Also, we see a female captain in TVH... the Saratoga's captain.

And Lester deciding to body swap is entirely based on her own twisted worldview, particularly since she targeted Kirk specifically because they had a relationship that ended. Because she's totally Froot Loops, I can't buy into the idea that anything she said had any merit to it.

I don’t love the “Froot Loops” comment, but I agree her statement is more reflective of her state of mind than an actual Starfleet policy.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Dominic Keating.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

And the way Lt. McGivers was treated in Space Seed was disgusting, she wouldn't have betrayed her captain and crewmates no matter how thralled she was by a man.

This is a strange opinion to my POV, since "Space Seed" shows McGivers doing exactly that, and sets it up well, IMO. The episode is not ever under any illusion that the Khan/McGivers episode is a healthy one.

Besides, McGivers did have second thoughts about executing her crewmates and rescued Kirk from the decompression chamber, so she was somewhat redeemed by the end.

 

[Cicero]

Space Seed, TWOK, and STID. Khan is a completely amoral, horrible character with absolutely no redeeming features. And the way Lt. McGivers was treated in Space Seed was disgusting, she wouldn't have betrayed her captain and crewmates no matter how thralled she was by a man. And I absolutely fail to understand why they chose this one if they had to make a feature movie as a sequel to an episode.

Khan is Satan from Paradise Lost (to contrast with Star Trek's ideology of a secular Heaven/Nirvana of endless self-improvement). The end of the episode even makes this explicit. That's why his later role as Ahab in The Wrath of Khan is so effective; Melville borrowed Moby-Dick's protagonist from Milton.

Like Lucifer, what's redeemable about Khan is that he has every reason to be an outstanding, admirable person (Into Darkness does a good job with this; Harrison is both capable and completely right about Marcus). But his perpetually wounded egotism destroys everything he values.

I think you're also misreading McGivers. She wasn't treated poorly so much as she was a terrible but somewhat sympathetic person, like Ben Finney in "Court Martial."

 

[F. King Daniel]

Not getting Star Trek 4.

Followed shortly by, one of the Star Trek 4's (the one JJ was talking about in the hype for Beyond's release) being SUCH A SHIT IDEA. George Kirk's heroic sacrifice started the Kelvin movies. So let's undo it! It ACTUALLY beamed himself to safety, never intending to sacrifice himself, and sat in a pattern buffer for 30 years only to be found and resurrected by his son.

Fuck. Off.

 

[FredH]

Dominic Keating.

Aw c’mon, I always liked him as Reed. (I admit I know little else about him.)

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Aw c’mon, I always liked him as Reed. (I admit I know little else about him.)

Can’t stand him, as an actor or a person…

Just my opinion of course. If you enjoy him, all power to you. Many do.

I took perverse pleasure a few years ago upon learning that Wikipedia had taken down Reed’s article on their site due to him having ‘no notability’.

He is the only Star Trek main cast character to have had this happen to him I believe…

Not rational, but that’s the thread. Things that bug us.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Can’t stand him, as an actor or a person…

Why as a person? Is there something controversial about Keating I haven't heard about?

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Such an iconic scene though. I wouldn't want to lose that. It felt like the death of a character.

Agreed.

I don't think that's what happened. Spock was chiding Rand for her interest in the captain, which she had just expressed to Kirk (and been gently shot down) and was continuing with an infatuated glance when Spock started speaking.

She had obviously inferred that the attraction the "imposter" had for her—apart from his actions—was likely shared by Kirk.

^ This. The scene was never an endorsement of / being flippant about sexual assault.

Space Seed, TWOK, and STID. Khan is a completely amoral, horrible character with absolutely no redeeming features.

Irredeemable individuals have and will always exist. There was no reason for a ruthless world dictator to possess redeeming features.

And I absolutely fail to understand why they chose this one if they had to make a feature movie as a sequel to an episode.

Everyone here is talking about Star Trek because of that film saving the franchise (from the reaction to TMP).

(because the concept of a finale didn't exist then, episodic shows just ended).

Incorrect. Series finales existed in the 1960s, with series such as Leave it to Beaver (1963), Route 66 (1964), and one of the most famous of all TV finales--The Fugitive's 2-part "The Judgement" airing in 1967.

Isn't that kind of the whole point of a bad guy?

Exactly, Real world history spills over with irredeemable individuals who were not--by nature or external factors--ever going to show and act on anything other than the worst of qualities.

 

[Paul755]

I always thought in was hinky in Undiscovered Country that a huge space battle between two Federation Starships and a Bird of Prey could play out un-molested. Surely with both the Federation President and Klingon Chancellor in attendance anything like that would be investigated.

And even though I know it was for budgetary reasons, it bugged me that whenever the Enterprise or Defiant returned to Earth any shots of them in orbit wouldn’t show any federation infrastructure in orbit with them. No orbital bases, spacedocks/dry docks, satellites, etc…

Regarding "TURNABOUT INTRUDER"...

I get some people view the episode as sexist, but I just don't see it. Two things to keep in mind about where the sexism of this episode seems to come from. First, Janice Lester was a nutjob. And because she's a nutjob, she's not a reliable narrator of truth. Second, it's taking Lester's line of 'your world of starship captains doesn't permit women' too literally. If you look at Kirk, Picard, and a number of other captains, they put their job and duty as a captain ahead of any romantic relationships. That is what she's talking about.

Is it a great episode? No, and it is one of the weakest final episodes of a series in the franchise. But I don't think it's quite as bad as many say.

This has always been my read on it too. The ship/command always came first. I mean, isn’t that basically how Kirk broke the spell in Elaan of Troyius.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

And even though I know it was for budgetary reasons, it bugged me that whenever the Enterprise or Defiant returned to Earth any shots of them in orbit wouldn’t show any federation infrastructure in orbit with them. No orbital bases, spacedocks/dry docks, satellites, etc.

I'd assume they'd be staying well clear of them unless they had a reason to drop by. The surface area of the planet is about 200 million square miles so there's a lot of space up there.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Why as a person? Is there something controversial about Keating I haven't heard about?

Check his YouTube thing out that he does with Connor Trineer. He’s obnoxious. There’s quite a bit of contention among fans about his interview technique.