Posted by Kevin Fajo:
I'm not flaming or trolling- I just want to know if other boards have these types of polls. And since trek_dude answered Undecided to more than one (wich is more than I did actually) then what makes them easier to answer than other series?
I just don't recall Voyager or TNG having as challenging moral dilemms the likes of Progress, In The Pale Moonlight, Section 31 episodes or so on. TOS could arguably have had a few but Kirk's response was always shoot first and ask questions later so the situation and his reactions are probably two different things.
Its more of an academic question and I could start another thread, I just wanted to put it here since none of these questions or dilemmas are particularly EASY.
I checked, because I mentioned in my last survey/poll that I'm looking forward to seeing one for TNG or the other series. But so far I haven't found any. I don't think it's because there aren't enough questions to compile. If you look hard enough, there should be enough questions for at least one survey for each series. So I'm just waiting for someone to tackle one of the other series.
But I think DS9 questions are harder. Typically, I found, especially with TNG, that the questions they posed can usually be solved easier because the "right" side is almost always the one the main characters take. I was just watching "The Drumhead" and I came across that problem. There was potential for a really tough ethical debate there for the audience to have with themselves, but then Picard goes into this "chains us all irrevocably speech" and then Norah Satie was made to look like a lunatic, and suddenly we
know who was right and who was wrong. It was hand-fed to us. I'm not saying that TNG or Voyager didn't pose a doozie of a question every now and then, but that was a recurring theme.
Plus, the entire cast was made up of Starfleet characters, and according to Gene Roddenberry, most of them had no ethical flaws in the 24th century, especially the humans.
That's why DS9's premise has an advantage. It goes back to when Sisko said, "It's easy to be a saint in paradise." Well, DS9 wasn't paradise and that made them the most susceptible to tough moral decisions. Half of the cast and most of the recurring characters are not Starfleet, which made it even harder since they didn't need to always do what Starfleet said, and it became an effective loophole around Roddenberry's mandate. The different aliens opened them up to more possibilities than an all-human or mostly human starship could, IMO. I liked that fact that some of the aliens taught Starfleet a thing or two. Quark in "The Jem'Hadar" was one example. And he was Ferengi...a stark contrast to how Ferengi were portrayed on all the other modern series.
But I don't think you can measure how difficult the questions are by Undecided answers. Many answers I didn't put "undecided" on I still had trouble coming to a conclusion on. But it has to do with each individual person. For some people it's easier, for some it's harder. That's why I asked the question, because even though most people took a side on an issue one way or the other, most people thought the questions were harder than those for the other series anyway.
