Say what you want, but you picked a phrase that is highly unique and specialized, a far cry from what the previous poster was complaining about, and thus you were being hyperbolic.
TNG vs DS9?
- Thread starter Lt. Munro
- Start date
I love them both but head to head, I’d take DS9 every day of the week. I’d only rank DS9 behind TOS.
To me, the DS9 characters seem more fully formed. The characters and relationships (aside from maybe Data and Geordi) feel more authentic. Look at Ben and Jake or Miles and Julian.
DS9 felt like it was willing to take more risks, to “boldly go” more than TNG did. And I don’t just mean the war. The religious stuff, the Ferengi, even the struggle with Odo wanting to be with his people despite them being evil.
But they were also willing to have fun and poke fun at themselves. Even if it was very cringeworthy at times. TNG felt stuffy unless Q was involved.
and I think Worf was a much better character and fit on DS9.
To me, the DS9 characters seem more fully formed. The characters and relationships (aside from maybe Data and Geordi) feel more authentic. Look at Ben and Jake or Miles and Julian.
DS9 felt like it was willing to take more risks, to “boldly go” more than TNG did. And I don’t just mean the war. The religious stuff, the Ferengi, even the struggle with Odo wanting to be with his people despite them being evil.
But they were also willing to have fun and poke fun at themselves. Even if it was very cringeworthy at times. TNG felt stuffy unless Q was involved.
and I think Worf was a much better character and fit on DS9.
I can’t agree with you. Toss you out the nearest airlock is not a common phrase. It was a cheesy threat and you never thought Kira would ever do it.
I don't see anything wrong with the phrase "shove you out of an airlock". They are on a space station with airlocks after all, it's like someone today saying "I'm gonna kill him/her/them" when they're angry with somebody. Obviously they're not really gonna kill that person, it's just something people say.
So the airlock thing is definitely something I can imagine people in the future saying when they're annoyed with somebody.
And I'm not gonna fault the writers of a science fiction show for trying to make the dialogue to make sense for the setting.
So the airlock thing is definitely something I can imagine people in the future saying when they're annoyed with somebody.
And I'm not gonna fault the writers of a science fiction show for trying to make the dialogue to make sense for the setting.
Around 20 years ago, I showed DS9 to a friend who was a HUGE TNG fan. She had never seen a single ep. After we watched the entire run, she said "it's like Trek for grown-ups". She didn't mean TNG was a kiddie show, just that DS9 felt like a more mature and harder show. She also thought you had to watch TNG first to get into that universe, then watch DS9. I agreed with her that DS9 is a more satisfying show on so many levels. Still like TNG too.
TNG revived the franchise but DS9 is the one l look to rewatching over and over, DS9 humans are still humans, TNG humans are fairy tale humans.
But again I would argue that the TNG humans were stated to be "better", when they really weren't (in comparison to the DS9 ones).
I think the characters of TNg could have been just as faceted as the DS9 ones if given better storylines (as, imho Ds9 had in comparison to TNG)
TNG often treated it's characters more as tools to move the plot along.
I see the point, but I would differenciate it in another way: In my eyes, in both series we see the same kind of humans: They're smarter, they're more conscientous and they're able to handle more problems to solve than today. Maybe, the characters in DS9 profit from a more character-centric way of writing, but I also see them as a kind of 'evolved humans'.
You used the word 'fairytale' and I also see this, because: In TNG, the humans live in a fairytale land. Yes, there are enemies (like the Borg) and they have their problems, but all in all, TNG shows us the best kind of humanity in the best kind of possible circumstances. In DS9, the situation is changed on many levels: Sisko doesn't lead the flagship of the whole federation, but a space-station, that was left by the Cardassians and that doesn't seem to be as 'brand-new' as the Enterprise-D at the beginning of TNG. While Picard can act the way, his moral compass leads him, Sisko has to make more compromises (e. g. because of the Bajoran politics, like Kai Winn's election).
What I really love, is the way, DS9 shows the costs of this fairytale land, Picard and his crew lives in. Sloan has a very good point: Men like Picard can act like Picard, because Section 31 exists. Ships like the Enterprise can go on their discovery journeys, because they live in a world of peace. This is a very strong way to expand the universe of TNG, but it also depends on TNG: In my eyes, without TNG, DS9 couldn't have been the series it became. So I would say: DS9 is, for me, the better series, but TNG was the nessecary condition for its success.
So when Kira Nerys, second in command of the station, threatens to torture someone to death it's cute or edgy, but when Mike Pence does it, not so much?
I may be misremembering, but wasn't the larger point the poster above making about the frequently used set-up of a character threatening another, the other defying them, and then the first character saying they were hoping they'd say that, before mayhem ensued?
One of the things I appreciate about PIC (and nBSG for that matter) is that they seem to be geared to older audiences. You can't watch a Ferengi comedy and tell me DS9 is too. What's more, TNG takes the idea of a better future seriously, about the human adventure just beginning, whereas DS9 believes that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I tend to watch TNG over and over though I'm ever returning to DS9 as well. TNG's humans were truly foreigners from a different time whereas DS9's were fantasy characters from a contemporary melodrama plopped into the future.
Michael Crichton was criticized for characters not being more "dramatic" in his work, arguing about their relationships and emotions and so on, and he'd reply that there wasn't really time to when you're running away from a dinosaur or other such situations in his work. I feel a bit the same about TNG. It was more of a procedural (Law & Order) than a melodrama (DS9) where successful and emotionally healthy professionals, on the flagship, we’re usually dealing with life or death situations of profound importance and ramifications.
So you're saying that the only way to a better future is one built upon a secret genocidal gestapo organization, and that that's the true meaning of Star Trek?
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Who's Mike Pence?
And sorry, to me it always seemed more along the lines of "I'm gonna kill [insert name here]"
Plus, while I don't remember each occurrence of her saying that, I think fictional characters often get more leeway than real people, precisely because they're fictional.
No. Read what you want, but I've never written something about the one and the only "true meaning of Star Trek".
Not escapism. Art. Contemporary stories are done very well in contemporary shows. Kudos to DS9 doing a fine one in the future too, but the real of the real world they bring to the distant future is not as realistic. All of this is escapism to an extent, and the Trek world is awesome, but TNG’s proposition of a better future remains unusual to most (most only dismiss it as family entertainment) when it’s maybe the most radically opposed series to the status quo of today.
Well, you said:
What I really love, is the way, DS9 shows the costs of this fairytale land, Picard and his crew lives in. Sloan has a very good point: Men like Picard can act like Picard, because Section 31 exists.
So again, the Federation can’t be without Section 31. The Prime Directive, Starfleet Intelligence, the Diplomatic Corps, Starfleet itself, and all those fine Federation citizens enjoy their fairly tale lives because of the costs paid for my Section 31. This is your point, yes?
No, this isn't my point. I've never said, that the Federation can't be without Section 31. When B follows A, this doesn't mean, that B only is true, when A is true - that's the way, I've learned it (
) and it's also the way, the ST universe works in DS9: Maybe, Section 31 can guarantee the fairy tale, but there's also a lot of hope, that this isn't the only way... and that's the reason, why Bashir, O'Brien and the other fight against it.Another point is, that I don't believe in ST having something like a "true meaning". When literary studies show one thing, than it's that there are always more than one way of interpretation - and all of them can be true at the same time...
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DS9 usually but TNG had its moments.
For me TNG is the rewatchable one, revisiting DS9 is rare for me.
However, I watched some of the latter seasons of DS9 this spring. While there are some nice episodes the whole thing kind of falls apart. Partially because it has an ongoing story, it's not easy to skip a crap episode if it has something in it that needs to be seen in order to understand the whole plot.
Standalone episodes for the win.
I'm wondering, what exactly is a fairy tale human? One that does the right thing? Some say that DS9 has more realistic human characters, well maybe if you look at humans today. While few hundred years is not a massive leap into the future, it's not that hard to imagine that all of humanity could be better if it has what it needs. Food and drink, medication, wealth enough to not worry about surviving until next months paycheck, help when there's a problem and other things that make life more pleasant, people could be better?
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