Maybe if you find a TV show that isn't a joke, you might be happier watching it instead of Trek.
The lack of realism in star trek is seriously insulting
- Thread starter Sexy Human
- Start date
Maybe if you find a TV show that isn't a joke, you might be happier watching it instead of Trek.
Whoops! Sorry, I reread the OP and dialed down the harshness of my reply.
I've seen them all more than once. All of them. Probably four times at least by now. Lots more on my favourites.
Except "Sub Rosa". That was freakin' awful. But I've still seen it twice!
That would probably piss off the Department of Temporal Investigations. Besides, if you'd paid attention to Picard's occasional speeches on the subject, people in the Enlightened United Federation of Planets (especially Starfleet) don't care about material things. They don't want stuff. They want to improve themselves, to be better humans...
And then you've got the flip side where everybody on DS9 is counting their latinum strips and bars, and the Voyager crew's currency is replicator rations.
I didn't mind Jadzia's death, since I never liked the character. I would argue that Tasha's death had the most impact, since her very existence made all the difference in avoiding a horrendous decades-long interstellar war.
As to the OP's comment about astronomy... yeah, it annoys me as well, when writers neglect even elementary research into what is a plausible scenario for a planet to even exist in orbit around particularly well-known stars, never mind actually having life that evolves and thrives long enough to be intelligent and capable of interstellar flight.
I can forgive the errors of the 1960s, because we didn't have the benefits of the Hubble telescope and all the other wonderful discoveries made in the late '70s and on with probes, telescopes, etc. I read in The Making of Star Trek that they simply wanted to use star names that would be most likely to be recognizable by the public, and ignored the implausibility of one starship being able to visit them all in a human lifetime, let alone a single 5-year mission. But there's less room nowadays for such careless mistakes. I'm guessing that's why Star Trek started naming planets instead of saying they were the 5th planet of the star _____.
I actually liked Sub Rosa.
And I've seen them many times too. TNG through twice, VOY and DS9 through four times but lots of VOY eps watched multiple times. ENT through four times but a lot of season 4 seen more than that. TOS, well that's the clear winner since I watched it twice a day through my teenage years
And TAS I've seen all the way through twice. The movies vary wildly according to how I like them, ST:XI being the clear winner followed by TUC and FC.
And people express disbelief that I never watch the CSI shows.
And I've seen them many times too. TNG through twice, VOY and DS9 through four times but lots of VOY eps watched multiple times. ENT through four times but a lot of season 4 seen more than that. TOS, well that's the clear winner since I watched it twice a day through my teenage years
And TAS I've seen all the way through twice. The movies vary wildly according to how I like them, ST:XI being the clear winner followed by TUC and FC. And people express disbelief that I never watch the CSI shows.
By impact I meant on the storyline and the reactions of the other characters. And Jadzia's death gave us a whole new character!
Three.
Tasha's death had a tremendous long-term effect on multiple characters - Worf, for instance. He wouldn't have moved up to Security Chief if she hadn't died. We wouldn't have had the episode with Tasha's sister. We wouldn't have had the extraordinary story of "Yesterday's Enterprise". And we also wouldn't have had the character of Sela (although we really could have done without her - ick!).
Guess they'll have to fight to the death then to see who had the most impact. Oh wait, they're already dead.. well Sela and Ezri can have a smack down.
As mentioned above in this thread, realism is boring. I watch TV or movies and Trek to be entertained. Yeha, I know when all is said adn done and good guy will have won and the main cast will all have survived (usually) and so what? Real life has more than enough drama for me, TV/movies are about being entertained.
Pretty much this.
OP, if you're watching Star Trek for realistic space adventures, then you're doing it wrong. It only uses aspects of science to tell a story. If reality + space is what you're looking for, then I think the NASA Channel is for you.
It could be realer. I think the new Battlestar Galactica is a good example. Just because someone is a main character doesn't mean he can't be killed, that should be in each actors contract, the idea is to keep the show going and not letting the audience be reassured that the main characters will always come out on top all the time. Having "red shirts" around is way too obvious, you know that if a "red shirt" is around then something is going to happen to him on this particular episode. its way too obvious. We need more suspense.
Pretty much this.
OP, if you're watching Star Trek for realistic space adventures, then you're doing it wrong. It only uses aspects of science to tell a story. If reality + space is what you're looking for, then I think the NASA Channel is for you.
On the other hand its realer than some others like Space 1999.
Yup - it bugs me - the crappy storytelling. Ship in danger; ship out of danger; everything fine. There really is no drama. Several people have pointed out on this bbs that the Berman-era B-stories about character development are better than the A-stories, often. Esp. on my second-favorite show, VOY, rightly derided for its technobabble deus ex machina of the week.
The best stories involve dilemmas or decisions or a thought-provoking what-if concept. Trek does that sometimes.
Let me add one to the Trek-vibe-unreality: people are stoney when someone is killed. Man, even battle-scarred veterans can break down and weep. Just watched "Shore Leave" and Barrows gets emotional at McCoy's murder. It was weird to hear a character emote and sound real about it. The shows do anger well. Happy seems muted a lot of the time, though.
Another one: in Berman-era, the aliens ALL sound stilted (except in Darmok) when they speak. Did they train them in some Trek cadence of sounding stilted? They never (ok, rarely ever) sound like real people.
Also, everything usually looks so nice. Early S1, there were coffee cups and crap laying around sometimes. Everybody's quarters, every village is like a work of some sort of art.
My five cents.
The best stories involve dilemmas or decisions or a thought-provoking what-if concept. Trek does that sometimes.
Let me add one to the Trek-vibe-unreality: people are stoney when someone is killed. Man, even battle-scarred veterans can break down and weep. Just watched "Shore Leave" and Barrows gets emotional at McCoy's murder. It was weird to hear a character emote and sound real about it. The shows do anger well. Happy seems muted a lot of the time, though.
Another one: in Berman-era, the aliens ALL sound stilted (except in Darmok) when they speak. Did they train them in some Trek cadence of sounding stilted? They never (ok, rarely ever) sound like real people.
Also, everything usually looks so nice. Early S1, there were coffee cups and crap laying around sometimes. Everybody's quarters, every village is like a work of some sort of art.
My five cents.
It's unfair to compare it to BSG since that's a product of 21st century television and the bulk of ST was tied to last century in a significant way. Different time, different television values.
The only one that was contemporaneous was Enterprise and it was trying very hard to break free of the weekly reset.
The only one that was contemporaneous was Enterprise and it was trying very hard to break free of the weekly reset.
Star Trek isn't lacking for realism. It exists in it's own universe with FTL and transporters and half-alien beings, all of which are ludicrous from a realistic perspective.
What Star Trek is lacking for the most part is consequences. The Enterprise shows up, shows the people how they are wrong and lacking when compared to humanity and then toddles off on it's merry why like a cosmic Mary Worth. Or Spock goes afainst orders and regulation, assaults Starfleet personnel, kidnaps Pike and steals the ship but it's all OK because Pike is his friend so all is forgiven and the next week all is forgiven and forgotten.
Or Tom Paris ir released from prison, given a rank that puts him above a large number of of the crew on Voyager, is demoted and later promoted again. Meanwhile, poor old Harry Kim is an Ensign for 7 years. If Kim is doing a good job, promote him. If there isn't a reason to promote him, transfer him to another job and get someone else in there.
It doesn't have to be exactly like our real world but there should be lasting consequences.
What Star Trek is lacking for the most part is consequences. The Enterprise shows up, shows the people how they are wrong and lacking when compared to humanity and then toddles off on it's merry why like a cosmic Mary Worth. Or Spock goes afainst orders and regulation, assaults Starfleet personnel, kidnaps Pike and steals the ship but it's all OK because Pike is his friend so all is forgiven and the next week all is forgiven and forgotten.
Or Tom Paris ir released from prison, given a rank that puts him above a large number of of the crew on Voyager, is demoted and later promoted again. Meanwhile, poor old Harry Kim is an Ensign for 7 years. If Kim is doing a good job, promote him. If there isn't a reason to promote him, transfer him to another job and get someone else in there.
It doesn't have to be exactly like our real world but there should be lasting consequences.
If Star Trek drove for total realism, it'd just be about people on a sublight vessel on a one-way trip talking about going to a planet that they will never live to see themselves with most of the stories centering about keeping their ship running with the rest being straight uip daytime soap opera stuff about who is sleeping with who, who is backstabbing who, and who the hell is this baby's daddy.
I'd rather take idealistic Trek.
I'd rather take idealistic Trek.
That's a biggee! And consequences are . . . realistic.
And yes, we might be quibbling over the medium in which Trek existed ('60s and '90s episodic tv). But the Bochco revolution had happened by the time TNG premiered. Certainly by the time of VOY. ITS reset button is especially egregious given its premise.
But quit ragging on us for finding fault with something. The lack of consequences and crappy storytelling ARE lame, even if they were par for the course.
If you love something, you're allowed to complain, like yelling at your team when they do something dumb.
On a plus note, I heartily recommend David Gerrold's Worlds of Star Trek for its discussion on what makes good drama, and the perils series face in storytelling as the seasons add up.
