You will love this two parter.
I officially began my journey through all Star Trek on October 9th...
- Thread starter Shalashaska
- Start date
Your disk packages are ALOT better than ours.I can see what direction this thread is going, so just for safe measures, here's a reminder to please keep spoilers out of here!
Anyways, look what just arrived in the mail today!
(Apologies for crappy phone camera quality in the last pic!)
I'm coming up to Chain of Command, Part I & II, and will probably watch both tonight, which means I'll be starting Deep Space Nine tomorrow! Can't wait.
What are you, Region 2? 3?
I don't know. Seeing that antisocial, independent season seven box sitting on the shelf would constantly tug at my OCD stings.
Oh, be glad you didn't get them from Region 1. I've had my sets since they were new in 2003, and the ONLY reason they've held together was the 400 miles of scotch tape I had to use RIGHT AWAY to put them back together in the first place. The disks themselves are fine, but the packaging.....
I wish we had yours.
An exception to the rule does come up in DS9's "Behind the Lines" and "Favor the Bold," but those are still several seasons away for you.
The operations officer is basically the jack-of-all-trades bridge guy. He does a little bit of everything service related, but he's neither a designated command officer nor a scientist.
First officer doesn't wear the command uniform, if he is pulling a double duty like Spock did. Spock was both the science officer and the first officer (it is possible that this was an unusual arrangement, and was only due Spock being so skilled.) This is similar to how Enterprise-D didn't have dedicated second officer position, Data was bot SO and the operations management officer. It however did have a dedicated first officer position. When he became FO, he relinquished his position as OPS, and thus wore red.
Data wears yellow, because he is operations management officer, as the name implies, definitely a operations division job. His job really has nothing to do with the helm (that's the flight controller, seat next to him, occupied by a redshirt.)* He is basically the guy on bridge who controls most of the ships' tech.
Troi already wore blue uniform in Encounter at Farpoint, remember? Psychology certainly is a science (sciences are not only natural sciences, they also contain social sciences.)
*Note that these are TNG era positions, in TOS era two front seats were the pilot and the navigator. These were combined into flight controller (conn) in TNG and the OPS position was created.
Troi was the captain's advisor but she also was part of the broader medical staff I think, just taking care of the crew's mental health instead of phaser wounds and deadly pathogens.
Her rank will be important later, btw.
Her rank will be important later, btw.
Glad you've gotten into DS9!
The first season is a rocky ride. I'm doing a rewatch now myself, and I'd say about half of the episodes of the first season are duds. Remember the first season on TNG? Or the last season of TOS? It's kinda like that, but different of course. But don't give up hope. They finally figure out what they're doing with the show in the classic final two episodes of the season. And then, the second season begins with a great three-part DS9 movie. But then the second season gets a bit rocky too before they finally find their stride for good.
In terms of TNG, you're right that Chain of Command is one of the best they ever did. Out of all the 170+ TNG episodes, I think I'd rank it second. There are some more classic episodes in the last half of the 6th season, but after that it begins to fall apart.
There's been a lot of speculation over the years for why TNG became mediocre again, for the most part, in the 7th season (aside from a few amazing episodes, like All Good Things). One guess is that the basic scenario had played itself out. As wide as the number of possibilities are for a spaceship roaming the galaxy, it just had done most of what could be done with the imaginations the writers had and the budget they had. The second was that some talent had been moved from TNG first into DS9, and then, even before TNG ended, into preproduction on Voyager. It's probably some of both, and maybe some other stuff thrown in there....
The first season is a rocky ride. I'm doing a rewatch now myself, and I'd say about half of the episodes of the first season are duds. Remember the first season on TNG? Or the last season of TOS? It's kinda like that, but different of course. But don't give up hope. They finally figure out what they're doing with the show in the classic final two episodes of the season. And then, the second season begins with a great three-part DS9 movie. But then the second season gets a bit rocky too before they finally find their stride for good.
In terms of TNG, you're right that Chain of Command is one of the best they ever did. Out of all the 170+ TNG episodes, I think I'd rank it second. There are some more classic episodes in the last half of the 6th season, but after that it begins to fall apart.
There's been a lot of speculation over the years for why TNG became mediocre again, for the most part, in the 7th season (aside from a few amazing episodes, like All Good Things). One guess is that the basic scenario had played itself out. As wide as the number of possibilities are for a spaceship roaming the galaxy, it just had done most of what could be done with the imaginations the writers had and the budget they had. The second was that some talent had been moved from TNG first into DS9, and then, even before TNG ended, into preproduction on Voyager. It's probably some of both, and maybe some other stuff thrown in there....
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Welcome to DS9. You will find for the first season and a half the writers were going with a kind of TV Western Frontier Town vibe mixed with Cassablanca and some Noir detective stuff. With what felt like some recycled TNG ideas liberally sprinkled in (A trek tradition!). I'm impressed you liked Bashir. He can be a mixed bag first season. But the character and Siddig's acting evolve to some of the best in the series. You talked about missing that chemistry the TOS crew had. Keep an eye on Bashir.
And then they went on and made eleven more years about a ship roaming the galaxy anyway! Well, maybe that's why Voyager and Enterprise were as they were...
PS. Bashir is great! I really loved interaction between him and O'Brien.
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In retrospect, I have the same feeling about seasons 6 and 7. It does seem that the quality floor fell away, and there were numerous duds. That judgement stands in opposition to how I felt at the time: the duds were far less important to me than the exceptional episodes, and I forgave the show for all the Aquiels because all the Tapestries were so exceptional. When it was good, TNG was still vital, standing head and shoulders above much of what was being produced at the time.
Yes!++
If those are two of your early favorites, you're in for a treat as the series progresses.
Those two become DS9's great bromance...perhaps Trek's best buddy relationship for its relatively grounded nature and the fact that we get to see evolve organically rather than having it thrown in the series wholecloth, e.g., Kirk/Spock or Data/Geordi.
In that area, TNG laid the foundations that DS9 built upon.
Sometimes realism is not what people are after when watching TV, more escapeism...
And it's not that hard to imagine a world where everyone is happy with what they've got, that's not the situation on Earth right now, but people of the future have the entire the galaxy to exploit, there should be enough for everyone.
Looking at the situation on our planet right now, a bit of TNG's better future is a nice change of pace. Conflicts and political battles can be seen just by watching the news.
Agreed. All good points. If want "realism", I turn off the TV and talk to actual people.
TOS depicted an optimistic future. But it also had realistic, flawed human beings that viewers could relate to, unlike the holier-than-thou automatons of TNG. And to me, TOS had a greater sense of danger and peril in dealing with the unknowns of the universe.
Kor
Well, I'm past the Birthright two-parter (Enterprise visits DS9) and am about 11 episodes into DS9, moving onto The Nagus.
Something about DS9 has made it a lot of fun to watch for me, despite the accursed Star Trek early season "growing pains", character conflict.
I think that's what's been missing from TNG, conflict between the lead characters. It seems like everyone gets along perfectly well outside of professional matters, while in TOS, you have McCoy ragging on Spock constantly and vice versa leaving Kirk having to get in there sort both of them out, and then in DS9, you have Quark and Odo throwing dirt at each other, as well as Major Kira voicing her displeasure with having to work with Starfleet quite clearly.
It's the different relationships, some good, some bad, between the characters that I've missed. TNG is great, but I've found DS9 to be very refreshing to watch so far. I know some people go on the about the problems of DS9's first couple of seasons, but I've found season one of DS9 has been much more bearable to watch than season one of TNG (I'd rather not even speak that season looking back on it now).
Yes, I agree that the lack of conflict between the characters, and the sometimes "too perfect" and rather sterile environment in TNG could sometimes be a bit much.
If you like DS9 so far, I think you're going to get into it.
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