Things I Hate About Star Trek

[The]

~With Love!~

• Love Story of the Week. Writers of TNG, DS9, and VOY, I'm looking at you. If you want a romantic storyline, then take the time and have the balls to craft it in full. I'm so thoroughly sick of the hackneyed guest-star that pop in, has the female character(s) fall in love with them, and then is gone by the end of the episode. I mean, Troi...what a slut!
• Holodeck Adventures. Don't get me wrong, I love the holodeck as a concept. There have been some good scenes and uses made out of it through the various trinity of 24th century shows. But, after awhile it begins to stretch the fine layer between science fiction and strict fantasy. I get holographic games, and story recreations. All well and understood. But, who develops an entertainment and recreational system that, if it just breaks down one day, is impenetrable and would vaporize you if you turned it off? You're trying to tell me there's not an alt-cntrl-del key? Don't even get me started on the actual stories that come out of it. My god...Fist Full of Datas? When your bright idea for a story is to neuter Worf by making him a cowboy that's fighting Brent Spiner, made up like Data, made up like a campy 20's villian, your imagintion is bankrupt. I'm nauseous just thinking about it. And if the Holodeck can upgrade itself to out-think Data, kill Worf, and/or gain sentience, then why the hell isn't Starfleet making these in android-shaped bodies, you know? Which leads me to my next similar gripe...
• Holo-Self-Awareness. I can understand where the holodeck can recreate characters from fiction or written into the game-code. But, this is just another function of a computer, right? Not in Star Trek. In Star Trek the holodeck is a god-machine, able to spring forth evolving self-awareness at will. Moriarty was cool. Those two times he appeared. But, then, we get the EMH-Doctor. Then we get Vic Fontaine. Sentience and character self-awareness is a step or two too far in my opinion. It dumbs down the mysterious aspects of what makes life, on a whole, when your most advanced television can have an anxiety disorder.
• Abraham Lincoln. That's right. I hate historical Earth characters appearing in the far reaches of the universe. I know Trek is all about optimism and hope, but it's just absolute clown shoes to have Mark Twain walking the halls of a 24th century starship, or fist-fighting side-by-side with Abraham Lincoln on an alien planet. It's just such a cheap, joyless writing crutch. "Yes, I shall have Picard find the ghost of Jacques Cousteau in an alien ocean....how unconventional!" Lame.

I'm sure I'll think of more. But, in the meantime, I welcome other people to list their own.

And remember, this isn't about arguing or proving how much you know about/love Trek. It's just what we hate ~With Love!~

 

[plynch]

It is loving to want something you care for to live up to its potential and not settle for crap.

1. I HATE when the TOS crew goes through hell, then ends up chuckling on the bridge. Recently watched The Changeling in which Scotty gets killed, Uhura gets brain-scrambled, and four people are killed (plus billions Nomad sterilized on some planet) and Kirk ends up joking about losing a son. Grrr!!

2. I hate HOW CLOSE DS9 got to being really good -- not just modern Star Trek good, but lame dialog and dumb plots keep getting in the way. They were 85% there. Grr!!

3. I HATE bumpy-head Klingons. You have insulted my honor. I kill you now. Grrr!

 

[john titor]

Boring episodes about nothing mostly, you know the ones, by the numbers and assembled rather than written from any sense of creative inspiration. I think Voy and Ent are the worst offenders in this regard.

 

[Captain Pike]

Aliens that look exactly like humans but with some bit of plastecine attached to their nose or forehead.

The quality of the acting of most of the extras in TNG. Especially that one that spills her coffee on Picard.

Janeway's sickening moralising. Stupid, vacuous, insipid, vapid and hard-to-like characters like Kneelix and Kes. Actually, pretty much most of Voyager really.

Romulans and Klingons which swapped their racial characteristics sometime after TOS.

Admirals that are dicks.

I could go on, but that'll do for now..

 

[miraclefan]

^The worst offenders for boring eps are VOY & sadly ENT (first two seasons) Other things I hate, 1.The same class of ''FEDERATION'' vessel's used over & over again, I know there were ''budget'' reason's for this, but it's still annoying as hell. 2. ALL the aliens speaking perfect ''ENGLISH''! 3. Almost every alien encounterd are ''HUMANOID'' (I know it's been explained a cupple of times in trek lore, but it's still stupid!) 4. episodes being remade. That's all I can think of right now.

 

[JustKate]

I hate on-again, off-again romances. Lots of TV shows do this besides Trek, but I hate it. Hate it, I tell you. Out here in Reality World, Riker 'n' Troi, Picard 'n' Crusher, Janeway 'n' Chakotay, Worf 'n' Troi, not to mention a whole host of other on-and-off relationships of shorter duration or lesser prominence, would not be each other's One True Love in one episode, then - while still remaining on the same ship together, mind you - in love with somebody else a couple episodes later (linking my hate with The's Hate #1), and then back to being each other's One True Love a few episodes after that, and then...

Etc., etc., etc.

Hate it. Hate.

Actually I fervently agree with every point The made. I hate all that stuff. Hate. I'd never really thought about the lameness of using historical characters before, but there the hate was, bubbling away in the background, and it was The's post that brought it all back to me. Historical characters who we know exactly what they look like are particularly lame, IMO.

I am also as one with Plynch on his point about "end up chuckling on the bridge." Hate.

 

[number6]

The fans. The constant whinging about minute details that they didn't "get right" because they didn't consult with the right "expert" or say the "right" line of dialog.. Nitpicking can be fun, but Star Trek fans have raised it to some kind of art form. It is impossible to enjoy a Star Trek episode without some snarky remark. That's what I hate most... and the Dutch.

 

[Nardpuncher]

Boring episodes about nothing mostly, you know the ones, by the numbers and assembled rather than written from any sense of creative inspiration. I think Voy and Ent are the worst offenders in this regard.

I think I know which ones you mean. I was going to say the ones where the ship (whichever one it is) shows up at a planet that is having some trouble with another group either on the same planet or on another. Somebody gets kidnapped ( I don't really know why from a story-telling point of view, but they always are) and then some secret that isn't surprising comes out and the crew saves the day. I hate those. They were even worse when that kind of plot happened in Trek novels! (Howard weinstein is guilty of this.)

 

[miraclefan]

The fans. The constant whinging about minute details that they didn't "get right" because they didn't consult with the right "expert" or say the "right" line of dialog.. Nitpicking can be fun, but Star Trek fans have raised it to some kind of art form. It is impossible to enjoy a Star Trek episode without some snarky remark. That's what I hate most... and the Dutch.

Wow, how the hell did I miss ''THAT'' one! I compleatly agree, in fact I think the so-called ''fans'' helped to bring an end to not only ENTERPRISE (my favourite trek) but also helped to ''stigmatize'' trek fans in a very negative light!

 

[plynch]

Q

 

[plynch]

"Funny" eps. They're not.

 

[Dayton3]

1) I hate the political liberalism that modern Trek pretty much fully endorsed. Yeah, I know Gene Roddenberry was a dyed in the wool liberal.

But most of that was a function of his old geezer years. When the original series was made, any liberal ideas were buried so deep you could simply ignore them and enjoy the show (much like early MASH episodes buried their antiwar screed).

2) I hate the lack of imagination in marketing of Trek products. Given the amount of on air material to draw from there should be entire retail chains selling nothing but Trek merchandise.

Yet Paramount got so hamhanded in the way they liscensed merchandise that it can be all but impossible to locate Trek tie in merchandise.

3) I hate sex in Star Trek. If I want to see sex and sexual tension, I'll watch any one of about 100 television shows on at any one time.

4) I hate seeing the Enterprise getting blown up or severely damaged all the time. For a hero ship, the various modern Enterprises don't seem very heroic.

Kirk's ship normally kicked ass, took names, then kicked some more ass before the final scene.

5) I hate that the soon to be released movie was ever made.

6) I hate that the novels have gone from being easy to read 200 page stories to 400 page monsters that seem to veer all around before completing the story.

7) I hate the fact that so many fans apparently don't care about space exploration anymore.

8) I hate that my story submission for the first Strange New Worlds contest was rejected. I thought the idea was very original.

9) I hate what the direction that Pocket Books has chosen for post Voyager Star Trek.

10) I hate character and actor worship. People who act like Stewart was the greatest actor ever or who danced in the streets when they heard that Bakula was cast as Archer.

11) I hate it when members of certain Star Trek forums asked me
"Why do you even watch Star Trek?"

More to come...

 

[miraclefan]

^I agree with you(Dayton3) on the ''sex/sexual tension'' if I wanted to see BOOBIES and much more, I'd just go out and get a porno! or just get it off the net! I don't watch TREK for the sex, I watch for the story and adventure!

 

[Dayton3]

12) I hate the fact that modern Trek writers are apparently convinced that space travel and exploration IS BORING!!! Apparently they do because they seem to avoid actual exploration these days.

The only excitement in modern Trek apparently is when they have starship combat or find yet another "ghost ship".

 

[Michael]

I'm so thoroughly sick of the hackneyed guest-star that pop in, has the female character(s) fall in love with them, and then is gone by the end of the episode.

You make it sound like the male characters never fall in love with a guest star.

The quality of the acting of most of the extras in TNG. Especially that one that spills her coffee on Picard.

Sonya Gomez was hardly an extra.

I hate sex in Star Trek.

But then again, weren't you the guy who didn't even want any women in Star Trek?

 

[plynch]

I I am also as one with Plynch on his point about "end up chuckling on the bridge." Hate.

Hey -- I JUST watched "Turnabout Intruder" and it (of all episodes) does NOT end with a post-Gene L. Coon chuckle-on-the-bridge-scene. Instead: thoughtfully, regretfully, Kirk walks into a turbolift muttering, "If only, if only. . . ."

 

[plynch]

. . . the ones where the ship (whichever one it is) shows up at a planet that is having some trouble with another group either on the same planet or on another. Somebody gets kidnapped ( I don't really know why from a story-telling point of view, but they always are) and then some secret that isn't surprising comes out and the crew saves the day. I hate those.

I second that. Ship or character in danger. Ship or character out of danger. Snore.

 

[JustKate]

^^ Ah. Sensitivity. It does happen now and then. I wouldn't have thought it of that episode, though, I must admit.

 

[plynch]

^^ Ah. Sensitivity. It does happen now and then. I wouldn't have thought it of that episode, though, I must admit.

Since you bring it up -- another great 3rd season ending: Req for Methuselah with Spock making the Captain "forget . . . forget . . ." his love for Rayna. Sensitive. Humane. How nice. Got Season three (NON-remastered!) for Christmas, and it holds up better than I remembered.

Excuse my digressing from the hate, but I couldn't help it.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

What I hate most about Star Trek: that it's not on TV right NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!

...and when it's on TV, sure, I hate the smug superior Feds, the holosuite cliches, the bad/boring/awful romances (weekly or ongoing), the way the hew-mons are all stiff and evolved and the most boring people in the show, the lack of follow-up to interesting ideas that I want more of, bad guest stars, overly cutesy and self-indulgent nonsense involving Las Vegas, obviously re-used scripts, technobabble, no more DS9 stories, shields down to X%, the Borg being turned into pathetic jokes, transporters being blamed for everything, "godlike" aliens, convenient ion storms, pretty much all time travel episodes, no more Trip Tucker stories, overly cutesy and self-indulgent nonsense involving baseball, glaring continuity errors caused by lazy-ass writers, aliens with big heads wearing gowns (okay when Trek did it but Stargate just ran it right the frak into the ground), technobabble!!!, aliens who act all boring and stilted (the Cardies were never boring, so there's no excuse!), those idiotic Moe Howard haircuts they inflict the poor, suffering Vulcans, Melvin Belli in a mu-mu, Starfleet officers who forget they are supposed to be fighting a war, technobabble!!!!, and Barbies of Borg wearing catsuits.