Revisiting Star Trek Continues...

[Warped9]

Overall STC isn’t horrible. It’s definitely an above average fan production in many respects. But your enjoyment of it is likely to be coloured by your expectations.

It’s obvious Vic Mignogna wanted it to fit as seamlessly as possible into the greater Trek continuity as it later played out. Thats part of why they inserted so many references and callouts to later productions, and particularly the setup to TMP. And if you’re into that then you’ll likely really enjoy STC.

However, it’s easy to see that later productions, including TMP, didn’t feel wedded to TOS in terms of look and strict continuity. Roddenberry himself directed the writers of TNG shouldn’t feel obligated to TOS in terms of continuity. And every production since has basically done what they wanted to do regardless of whether it contradicted what might have been established in TOS.

With that in mind I wouldn’t feel obligated to tying my stories to whatever later productions might have established.

To that end if you’re hoping for something that feels like it could have been made right after TOS’ third season then you might be disappointed because you will encounter all sorts of things that didn’t yet exist in 1969/70 and the creators of TOS couldn’t possibly have foreseen. Anyone going through this thread can see I fall into this camp. I hoped for something that felt as authentic as possible, but thats not what we got even considering things STC did that I enjoyed.

 

[Bixby]

However, it’s easy to see that later productions, including TMP, didn’t feel wedded to TOS in terms of look and strict continuity. Roddenberry himself directed the writers of TNG shouldn’t feel obligated to TOS in terms on continuity. And every production since has basically done what they wanted to do regardless of whether it contradicted what might have been established in TOS.

One of the reasons why I just can't get into the TNG and post-TNG series. That, and apart from DS9, 85% of the characters bore me to tears. For TNG I liked Patrick Stewart's acting, but not his character. Worf is also a favorite. The rest put me to sleep...

Something else that TOS did was that almost every episode held actual danger for many of the characters. There was always strong tension (though some of the episodes like Charlie X had Charlie disintegrate a judo opponent of Kirk's and oddly Kirk seemed not to care about that...

I never felt any tension with characters in TNG, Voyager and the newer shows (however I did stop watching all of them after Discovery season 1). And when someone did die I cared not one whit.

For STC, Fairest of them all should have been a nail-biter, but though it had its moments, I knew deep down that these were gelded versions of Mirror Mirror's ship of psychopaths...And that same feeling continued until the end. Some of them had interesting concepts, but the execution didn't go far enough...

Anyway, I keep hoping someone from the pro-STC camp will stop in and tell us their point of view, but looks like that's not to be...

 

[Warped9]

When TNG debuted I tuned in to give it a try. But “Encounter At Farpoint” left me exclaiming WTF repeatedly over one thing or another. I tried a number of times over the years and even watched whole episodes, but the series never held me. Many years later I watched TNG in daily syndication, but my attention often drifted away. When DS9 debuted I managed to watch the first two-and a-half seasons before being pulled away by Babylon 5. For me there was no contest—B5 grabbed me while DS9 faded away from my interest. I tried a few times to watch DS9 again, but like TNG before it could never hold me. By the time VOY arrived contemporary Trek had long settled into a style of writing I just couldn’t stomach—how the characters acted and spoke felt very staged and contrived. I never liked anything I saw in VOY and later ENT.

So long before the shit pile that was JJtrek in 2009 I had already soured on contemporary Trek. From 2009 onward it’s been one bag of vomit after another. People seem to rave over SNW, but it’s pretty much as rancid as what preceded it only slightly less so so people sing its praises.

Several years back I did an entire series revisit of TNG and came away liking maybe a third of it. And, surprise(?), the bulk of that is in the first three seasons, although “Encounter At Farpoint” is still bad and boring as hell. From Season 4 onward decent instalments were increasingly sporadic. Seriously they could have ended TNG after four seasons and I’d have a better opinion of it overall. Seven seasons and TOS still had more good-excellent episodes in its only three seasons. DS9 has a handful of respectable episodes, but I could never sit through a revisit—it just bores me.

Yes, I agree the characters of later Treks never resonated the same way as those of TOS. But for me it’s more than that—I just rarely found the later shows as interesting.

When STC came along I hoped for a bit more TOS magic, and there was some that early on. But as STC progressed, after the first few episodes, whatever magic was there dwindled in fits and starts. That two-part finale felt nothing whatsoever like TOS.