There were quite a few episodes where he did restrain people and/or fought. He "restrained" himself so as not to seriously injure his opponent.
Things You Hate About Trek (of late)
- Thread starter John Picard
- Start date
Here's a few:
- Too damn much stock footage
- Picard (it's almost always Picard) whining about how there supposedly isn't any money in the Federation
- They said baseball was dead
(thank God Sisko brought it back!)
- Did I say too much stock footage?
- This bit in ST XI:
- Unrealistic phaser effects (the beam actually takes time to reach its target; since it's a beam of light, it shouldn't do that)
- TNG and Voyager never did Mirror episodes
- Too damn much stock footage
- Picard (it's almost always Picard) whining about how there supposedly isn't any money in the Federation
- They said baseball was dead
(thank God Sisko brought it back!)- Did I say too much stock footage?
- This bit in ST XI:
Kirk making Captain too quickly
- Unrealistic phaser effects (the beam actually takes time to reach its target; since it's a beam of light, it shouldn't do that)
- TNG and Voyager never did Mirror episodes
S
Stone_Cold_Sisko
Guest
Berman's edict of not making aliens too 'alien' or people wouldn't relate to them.
Berman's edict of sticking to a specific "dull" music format because the music shouldn't stand out in his opinion.
Berman's trend of neutering every series premise in the pilot, maquis join starfleet as part of the Voyager crew! What's that, tensions between Humans and Vulcans? T'Pol is more or less integrated into the crew in the pilot.
The wimpy choices of lead characters. Shows like The Shield, Dexter, The Wire The Sopranos, are not afraid to have complicated main characters. Archer was kind of the last straw. Yet another boring goody two shoes. *yawn*
There was just such a lack of passion, dramatic risk-taking in recent Trek that it's just kind of sickening. I started getting into shows like Farscape, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, B5, BSG, Lost........... and then I would look at the "antiseptic" style of Voyager and Enterprise, and laugh. Why would I waste my time with that shit?
Berman's edict of sticking to a specific "dull" music format because the music shouldn't stand out in his opinion.
Berman's trend of neutering every series premise in the pilot, maquis join starfleet as part of the Voyager crew! What's that, tensions between Humans and Vulcans? T'Pol is more or less integrated into the crew in the pilot.
The wimpy choices of lead characters. Shows like The Shield, Dexter, The Wire The Sopranos, are not afraid to have complicated main characters. Archer was kind of the last straw. Yet another boring goody two shoes. *yawn*
There was just such a lack of passion, dramatic risk-taking in recent Trek that it's just kind of sickening. I started getting into shows like Farscape, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, B5, BSG, Lost........... and then I would look at the "antiseptic" style of Voyager and Enterprise, and laugh. Why would I waste my time with that shit?
The alien makeup thing was more a pure budgetary concern than making them "too alien".
The music thing, yeah. He wasn't right in that.
The VOY thing with the Maquis was UPN's doing, not Berman's. Same with ENT.
The Shield aside, that list of "complicated" main characters doesn't really work. Dexter's characters are all mostly from a pre-existing book series (and the book characters are even darker), the Soprano characters are essentially bad guys we follow, same with Wire characters.
I don't think a main character captain who is a remorseless serial killer would work out.
As for those other shows, they don't have to worry about being big money-making franchises. As long as Trek is making lots of money, Paramount won't DARE shake things up.
The music thing, yeah. He wasn't right in that.
The VOY thing with the Maquis was UPN's doing, not Berman's. Same with ENT.
The Shield aside, that list of "complicated" main characters doesn't really work. Dexter's characters are all mostly from a pre-existing book series (and the book characters are even darker), the Soprano characters are essentially bad guys we follow, same with Wire characters.
I don't think a main character captain who is a remorseless serial killer would work out.
As for those other shows, they don't have to worry about being big money-making franchises. As long as Trek is making lots of money, Paramount won't DARE shake things up.
Maybe you won't have a captain thats a serial killer, or crime lord... but for someone like Archer a few flaws would have made him a hell of a lot more interesting. Especially considering we're going back in time to a less sophisticated human than we'd see in TNG so he'd be less the evolved idealistic gent, and possibly more like any of us wonderfully flawed and sexy people 
Having a dog does not make you an interesting character.
Having a dog does not make you an interesting character.
-- latter day fans, ie digital age fans, who take shit just waaaaaaaay to seriously.
-- hardliners for any serious who claim that their fav series is the real spirit of Star Trek.
-- Gene Roddenberry worshippers. And by extension a subset of that group who think that Gene planned out every single fucking thing about every Trek series.
-- TOS bashers that bitch that TOS doesn't work cause the special effects look like they came from the 60s, and a subset of those who think that Trek is about the SFX.
In terms of the shows:
-- The writing got "safe" over the years, they didn't want to take a risk with the characters.
-- Technology got the point of being magic-tech.
-- Replicators
-- Post First Contact Borg.
-- hardliners for any serious who claim that their fav series is the real spirit of Star Trek.
-- Gene Roddenberry worshippers. And by extension a subset of that group who think that Gene planned out every single fucking thing about every Trek series.
-- TOS bashers that bitch that TOS doesn't work cause the special effects look like they came from the 60s, and a subset of those who think that Trek is about the SFX.
In terms of the shows:
-- The writing got "safe" over the years, they didn't want to take a risk with the characters.
-- Technology got the point of being magic-tech.
-- Replicators
-- Post First Contact Borg.
For me at least, it stretches the realm of disbelief.
And going beyond light speed, being able to de-materialize and re-materialize your body while passing it through a bio-filter, having laser weapons that can either stun or kill, having a device that translates the dialect of virtually any alien you come across, etc... is not pushing your supsension of disbelief?
I can accept the transporter in TOS, cause it was a budgetary concern. But when TNG came along, the Tech just got to the point of just being to far out there. I can enjoy the shows if I don't think to much about, but if I do then yeah I'm going to nitpick.
And what is so wrong with the tech being too far out there, so to speak? It matters not how realistic the possible existence of such a technology might be in our near future, what matters is looking at hypotheticals about what our future might be like, no matter how many false assumptions that might entail. By limiting the technology that a sci-fi show can have, you're limiting the "what-ifs" that these shows are trying to explore.
You might also want to consider that budgetary issues also limited TOS's ability to portray the future the way the producers might have envisioned. I doubt people in the 24th century will still be printing things on paper. We've already transcended that technology in some ways: look at blackberries, for instance.
You might also want to consider that budgetary issues also limited TOS's ability to portray the future the way the producers might have envisioned. I doubt people in the 24th century will still be printing things on paper. We've already transcended that technology in some ways: look at blackberries, for instance.
No it doesn't. If the story is worth telling, technology is nothing but a set dressing or a McGuffin.
If I want magical tech, I'll watch Star Wars or anime. Trek progressively moved further and further away from being science-fiction and into the realm of space fantasy.
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What's this have to do with your complaint about replicators?
Not this non-sequiteur. "If I wanted good writing, I'd read a book, if I wanted good music, I'd listen to Mozart, if I wanted profound ideas, I'd take a class on philosophy" etc. You could use this type of argument to dismiss watching Trek altogether in place of a better show.
So why didn't you make that statement to begin with? Adding replicators or nanoprobes isn't what damages the show. If anything, it adds to the atmosphere of how advanced these space travelers were in regards to other aspects of their lives.
Not really it doesn't. It makes it look like a bunch of writers that said "You know what'd be cool..."
TOS nailed it right for the most part: The tech is everyday, the characters don't need to waste to much time worrying about talking about it anymore than they need to, if it works that's all that matters.
TNG and beyond: The whole 24th century is a bunch of gadgets geeks that just can't STFU about their new toy and get on with getting it done without a long winded explanation.
Replicators and Nanoprobes and technobabble BS last-minute-saves just "Trek's version of "And then a Wizards comes along and waves his magic wand..."
For me, Replicators were just the point where I said, "Oh for fuck's sake". Like I said, I can overcome it so long as I'm not stopping and actually THINKING about the world-construct of the series.
And here's a another one for my list:
-- Get out of Death free cards. TOS started it with TSFS, the rest of the series followed along: Kill a character and they'll come back in some shape or form. Trip might be dead, but the fictional-corpse wasn't cold before the tie-in media rushed to undo that one too.
*BINGO*
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