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Spin-offs and poor treatment of TNG?

It's also quite a different mindset in that situation because Sisko IS a father. He would understand what it might feel like to lose a child. Picard didn't have that perspective.
 
I'm just curious, could you elaborate?
Bringing on the Borg, and Section 31 (from DS9); a spin-off works for me if the show finds it's own ground. It would be best to be it's own thing and not re-vamp stapled-antagonists from the previous series. Disco is doing the same sh*t too and YES and can elaborate on that as well. :rolleyes:
 
Of course they do. It's what they do to survive. Eventually the entire Borg species would die off if they didn't keep assimilating others. Just like the crystalline entity survived by eating planets, just like humans survive by eating animals and plants.

They don't assimilate to survive they seek to enhance themselves and reach perfection. It's made clear from multiple episodes that the Borg see assimilating species against their will as doing the galaxy a favour. They seek to make order out of chaos, perfection through control. There is nothing survivalist about that and there is no rationalisation for what the Borg do. They are a plague that deserved to be wiped out when Picard had the opportunity to do so.
 
Bringing on the Borg, and Section 31 (from DS9); a spin-off works for me if the show finds it's own ground. It would be best to be it's own thing and not re-vamp stapled-antagonists from the previous series. Disco is doing the same sh*t too and YES and can elaborate on that as well. :rolleyes:
I agree about S31 on ENT. They had to create the scenario just to bring back a Sloane wannabe, where DS9 was already doing the setting that S31 should appear involved in(big war). It also hurt Reed's character imo, just for the sake of some more melodrama. And it was cheesy "I..thought I was done working for your... Section"

I don't agree about the Borg. Ent was pitched as a sequel series/follow up to First Contact. It was only natural for them to pick up on those events. Plus, it's only one isolated episode, and it's just a great, well executed genre story. It's really one of the best Borg episodes.
 
They don't assimilate to survive they seek to enhance themselves and reach perfection. It's made clear from multiple episodes that the Borg see assimilating species against their will as doing the galaxy a favour. They seek to make order out of chaos, perfection through control. There is nothing survivalist about that and there is no rationalisation for what the Borg do. They are a plague that deserved to be wiped out when Picard had the opportunity to do so.
Sounds like humans on Earth to me.:bolian:
 
I agree that in the end, the Crystalline Entity needed to be destroyed.

But to compare it to the Borg is not right.

At least the Crysyalline Entity is doing what it does out of a need to feed. The Borg WILLINGLY kill and assimilate billions... maybe even trillions.

The Borg, in my opinion, is a much worse threat, and Picard was wrong to not use the program.
In Datalore - it was intimated that the CE was intelligent (Lore knew exactly how to communicate with it and called it - both to the Colony 16 years earlier, and then to the 1701-D in "Datalore".

Picard was ALWAYS a class A hypocrite from day one. If he was sooo concerned with space borne life; why did he return fire and kill the mother Geki as it was giving birth just because it was protecting itself from an intruder? Picard ALWAYS seems very willing to sacrifice OTHERS when it suits his morals, but oddly never himself.
 
In Datalore - it was intimated that the CE was intelligent (Lore knew exactly how to communicate with it and called it - both to the Colony 16 years earlier, and then to the 1701-D in "Datalore".
Intelligent probably, but the lengths taken to communicate with it are vague. Lore could simply have devised a lure, with its crystalline beacon thing. For all intents & purposes, it could've just been a moth to the flame
 
Lore tried to make the crew think it was an animal when he told them to blow up the tree.
 
For Picard, it's when he gets really self-righteous, and has that 'I hate you. I'm disgusted by you' expression.

Fun facts I just made up: Picard had an ancestor on 20th century Earth, whose name was Kirke Thatchre-Picarde, who was a member of a punk band and wrote a song called 'I Hate You'. :D ;)
 
I don't like the fact that Worf joined the crew of DS9. I don't think he was the Worf we knew on the Enterprise. Sure, different surrounding, different people around him but his behaviour changed and he felt like a different character and I don't think Worf character needed that

I strongly agree with that, he seems like a different and lesser character later.
In TNG he, even though he was more aggressive than Picard or maybe a typical Starfleet officer, he still seemed to generally admire and be part of the Federation and its values and willing to go partway to meet his friends, in Deep Space Nine it generally seemed more like he was a Klingon officer who transferred to Starfleet and too often seems to resent being there, to favor or love or need to fight for its own sake and to be pretty uncivil with the characters he interacts with (aside from Sisko and Jadzia Dax, a few but very few moments with O'Brien or Odo or Kira).

ETA:
Not only was Picard wrong in returning the kid, Jono, to the Talarians. The speech that he gave was just outrageous.

Picard basically blamed the victims for crimes committed against them. It wasn't just his excusing Jono for stabbing him. Picard accused himself (and Starfleet) of committing a crime by trying to persuade Jono to stay and be reunited with his biological grandmother.

He was too much overstating but I think it was a reasonable idea that their persuasion was really too much more imposing on and pressuring Jono and that they from the start hadn't considered other perspectives, including or especially what Jono had been saying and trying to convey, too much disregarding that.

Picard essentially excused the Talarians of the real crimes that they committed. The Talarians killed Jono's parents and then took Jono as war booty. They kidnapped the kid. Picard twisted the situation around. It was outrageous.

I don't think the episode or Picard do excuse the initial actions just because they say that nonetheless Jono and Endar do regard themselves as son and father, that Jono should be allowed to choose to return and that it's wrong to pressure him to change.

Interestingly, DS9 also had an episode, "Cardassians", that dealt with child custody.

The two situations weren't exactly the same, but there were similarities. In both cases, the kid bonded with and wanted to stay with his adoptive alien parent. Rugal's adoptive father took Rugal in, in good faith. He adopted a kid whom he thought was abandoned, which was opposite of the Talarians who outright stole the kid.

Ultimately, it was shown that both kids were stolen (it was Dukat's shenanigans that got Rugal "orphaned") from their biological parent, yet Picard and Sisko came to different resolutions.

The two episodes aired about 3 years apart. It was a shame that one, the spinoff, got it right but the other, TNG, got it wrong, imho.

That episode didn't really go into why Sisko chose differently, it was so much focused on that there was a conspiracy and Sisko literally saying that the father was victimized by wrongdoing & that made everything else less significant plus kind of implying (or the viewer just assuming) that Sisko was a biological father so he favored that relationship.

To me sending the child, and against his wishes, to a society that was both totalitarian and militaristic and at least may be much less accepting of him than Bajor was felt like a bad idea and really unsupported by the episode.
 
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I didn't so much judge the actor, as the character. It's like they were deliberately trying to have a captain who didn't behave like Picard, & that basically meant... a terrible captain, who when left unopposed, constantly made poor choices, as a default.

Picard sailed around on a giant cruise ship, complete with a bartender, a ships doctor, a teenage assistant, and a cruise director. Janeway was thrown across the galaxy into an impossible situation with no backup, no resources, and much of her crew dead. Her pilot was plucked out of prison, she had to integrate a crew of hostile malcontents into her own crew, including making the leader of those malcontents her first officer. She faced situations Picard couldn't imagine. Janeway made the the hard decisions that needed to be made, right or wrong, as any captain should. Command decisions aren't generally made by a committee that includes the cruise director and teenage assistant. Janeway wasn't a bad captain, she was THE captain, so much so that I would say Captain Janeway is to Captain Kirk as Captain Picard is to Captain Stubing.

I don't now what the hell Picard would have done as Captain of Voyager. Well, I take that back. The Captain Picard of "Yesterday's Enterprise" was pretty much "in charge" of his ship due to the adverse circumstances, unlike his prime counterpart. So I'd guess he'd do pretty much the same thing as Janeway. Make hard choices in hard times.
 
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Back to Seven, in real life many of us traumatized severely don't end up being pristine cardboard cutout chipper as suggested in that teaser, but it's not impossible either.

"Chipper" Seven goes on to kick a$% :eek: :

50N2Bhi.jpg



How does she go from smiling and happy in one teaser to The Terminator in another? The mind reels. :confused:

(I know ... that's the idea. :rolleyes: )


To me, the show doesn't begin until "Scorpion". Season 3 had an improvement, but even in rewatching the earlier seasons pre-season 4 is more miss than hit.

Same here.

I tell new Voyager viewers to watch "Caretaker" (simply because it's the pilot and it sets up the show) and then go on to "Scorpion".

There was a REASON it was staring down cancellation after S3. It hewed so closely to TNG's "no conflict" ethos during its first three seasons that it came off looking like a poor TNG clone (right down to having its own version of Troi in Kes :shifty: ).
 
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"Chipper" Seven goes on to kick a$% :eek: :

50N2Bhi.jpg



How does she go from smiling and happy in one teaser to The Terminator in another? The mind reels. :confused:

(I know ... that's the idea. :rolleyes: )

Same here.

I tell new Voyager viewers to watch "Caretaker" (simply because it's the pilot and it sets up the show) and then go on to "Scorpion".

There was a REASON it was staring down cancellation after S3. It hewed so closely to TNG's "no conflict" ethos during its first three seasons that it came off looking like a poor TNG clone (right down to having its own version of Troi in Kes :shifty: ).

It was staring down cancellation because unlike the other series before it, it was attached to a network instead of being sold directly to syndication. Whole different ball game.

It isn't fair to completely discount the first three seasons of Voyager, any more than it is fair to discount the first few seasons of TNG or DS9. The first season or two of TNG are typically regarded as softer, although I tend to disagree with that, but I consider at least the first two seasons of DS9 to be pretty soft. "If Wishes Were Horses", "Move Along Home", etc. were pretty hard to watch, especially the latter.

It took a while for all of the spin-offs to gel, and all of them changed somehow, to eliminate perceived weaknesses in the ensemble. They ALL borrowed from each other.

* In TNG, they ditched Beverly Crusher because they felt she was boring. Unfortunately, they replaced her with someone twice as boring and 10 times as stiff. And, Pulaski's constant conflict with Data was a reworked ripoff of McCoy/Spock.

* In TNG, they ditched Tasha Yar. Whether of not it was Denise Crosby's choice or not who knows, I never believe "They left on their own"... these people sign contracts. Yar was a weak character. They replaced her with Worf, a far more interesting character.

* In DS9, They jumped at the chance to get Worf onboard to punch up the ensemble, and they needed it. I don't think Miles, Bashir, or Kira were particularly interesting lead characters.

* In DS9, They "retconned" the history of boring characters. Somehow Julian Bashir was a super genius (right) and Miles O'Brien had background in espionage. They also gave these characters insipid things to occupy themselves, such as playing with toys.

* In DS9, They added a star ship (the Defiant). The scuttlebutt at the time was that limiting the crew to the space station was limiting stories and scripts. I remember the news... "DS9 is getting a ship".

* In VOY, they ditched the original captain even before the series started. And thank God for that, if anyone's watched the original pilot. There is miscast, then there is miscast.

* In VOY, they added Seven to punch up the ensemble. Like each of the series, they had an overload of ensemble characters that were better at supporting complex story lines than driving them. Unfortunately, they couldn't afford to add to the cast without ditching someone.

* In VOY, they got rid of the Kazon as the main enemy, and replaced them with the Borg and others. The Kazon have to be the worst recurring enemy in the history of Star Trek. Seven once said that the Kazon were never assimilated because they were an inferior species. I double that.

* In VOY, Kes was "retconned" into not only being telepathic, but also had the ability to split atoms with her mind. Too little, too late.

Functionally, many of these characters borrow from each other.

Data was a Spock clone. He analyzed down to too many decimal points like Spock. Spock wanted to purge all emotional reactions, Data desperately wanted to have them.

Pulaski was a Bones McCoy clone. She didn't understand Data, as McCoy didn't understand Spock. She bickered with Data the same way as Bones bickered with Spock, pretty much for the same reason.

Troi
was another Spock Clone. She was the telepath of the ensemble, half-bred, coming from a species of telepaths.

Seven was another Spock clone. Emotionless, super intelligent, complex background. She was the de-facto know it all science officer on Voyager.

Kes was the Troi clone, who was the Spock Clone. The telepath of the ensemble.

Paris and Kim are clones of Sulu and Chekov.

Chekov was added for his Beatles haircut and perceived "sex appeal". Seven was added for her tits in a skin tight catsuit. The only difference is Jeri Ryan could act, and her character added to the show. Chekov was as boring as Kim.

EMH, Odo, and to some degree Worf all borrowed from Bones McCoy. They were the grumpy, often disagreeable ones in the ensemble.

Janeway is a Kirk clone.

Worf on DS9, Worf on TNG, Seven on VOY were all Spock clones, in that thier position in the ensemble wasto represent a complex" alien" character with a complex background. Troi and Dax hinted at this position in the cast, but ultimately didn't measure up long term.
 
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Seven was another Spock clone. Emotionless, super intelligent, complex background. She was the de-facto know it all science officer on Voyager.

Seven DID show emotion

She might not have made a grand production of it, but she did show emotion (She mourned One's death in "Drone". She shed a tear at the end of "Imperfection". She loved Icheb enough to fight Janeway for him in "Child's Play".)

She had a cortical limiter during the years that she was on Voyager (had she shown strong emotions, it would've killed her).

She did the best she could under the circumstances.

Intelligent as she was, she made mistakes ("The Voyager Conspiracy" centered on her making a blunder). To me, she's the closest thing to a real, living, breathing, human being in the entire franchise (more so even than a lot of the actual PEOPLE).


Janeway is a Kirk clone.

Kirk slept with anything that wasn't nailed down.

That was not Janeway.
 
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If anything, I think it actually helped the majority of the characters become more beloved. After seeing the relatively poor performance of Sisko and Janeway (and the actors that portrayed those characters), Picard seems to be that much better. Nostalgia.
I know when I watched Voyager, I kept thinking about how annoying Kate Mulgrew was as the captain and compared her unfavorably to Patrick Stewart.

..Did you really just call Sisko's performance, "poor"? I'm guessing you haven't really watched DS9.. You should check out "In The Pale Moonlight" and get back to me on that.
 
If anything, I think it actually helped the majority of the characters become more beloved. After seeing the relatively poor performance of Sisko and Janeway (and the actors that portrayed those characters), Picard seems to be that much better. Nostalgia.
I know when I watched Voyager, I kept thinking about how annoying Kate Mulgrew was as the captain and compared her unfavorably to Patrick Stewart.

To me, Picard always came off as bloviating. He was more of an archetype than an actual human being.

FTR, I'm watching Picard more for Seven of Nine than Jean-Luc (if the trailers are any indication, it's going to be fun watching the fireworks going off between those two).
 
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Seven DID show emotion

She might not have made a grand production of it, but she did show emotion (She mourned One's death in "Drone". She shed a tear at the end of "Imperfection". She loved Icheb enough to fight Janeway for him in "Child's Play".) She had a cortical limiter during the years that she was on Voyager (had she shown strong emotions, it would've killed her).

She did the best she could under the circumstances. Intelligent as she was, she made mistakes ("The Voyager Conspiracy" centered on her making a blunder). To me, she's the closest thing to a real, living, breathing, human being in the entire franchise (more so even than a lot of the actual PEOPLE).

Kirk slept with anything that wasn't nailed down.

That was not Janeway.

You've picked exceptions,and ignored the rules, haven't you? I could name twice as many instances where Spock "showed emotion" Spock, Data and Seven all had the same position in the ensemble. Cold, scientific, intelligent, out of place with their surroundings due to the duality of their existence, and one way or another they each had an issue with emotions. Is this really something to debate?

Kirk and Janeway were both strong captains who were in charge of their ships,and made the hard decisions.They weren't commanding a cruise ship where every order was questioned, and subsequently approved by committee, they didn't command a space stations where every order was questioned or ignored. I wasn't talking about their sex lives, out of curiosity, why would I be?

I agree. And there were MANY times where her emotions showed in very subtle ways.

Another missing of the point.
 
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..Did you really just call Sisko's performance, "poor"? I'm guessing you haven't really watched DS9.. You should check out "In The Pale Moonlight" and get back to me on that.

He did belt Garak for doing exactly what he expected Garak to do. That was a lot gutless.

But your point is taken. These people complain about the "lack of quality" of one series, while ignoring the same exact "lack of quality" in another, and expect their opinion to be gospel. I wonder why they even bother to consider themselves fans.

Explain to me how Data went through Starfleet academy, rose to the rank of lieutenant commander, yet was still confused by everyday human interaction, idioms, vernacular, and slang. Often it was played like it was the first time he ever experienced these things.

The way Data was portrayed was BS.He had been around humans for years.

Crap like this is magnified whe you aren't watching your favorite series with your love goggles on.
 
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