What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

Good choices there, as they are definitely among my favorites of each season.

Except "The Neutral Zone". Better than "Where No One Has Gone Before"? "The Arsenal of Freedom"? "11001001"? "Heart of Glory" or "The Big Goodbye"?

"The Neutral Zone" being the best of season 1... that is a controversial opinion. Particularly since that one was directly affected by the WGA strike of 1988.

 

Season One of TNG is vastly better than Season Two.

Yeah, fuck the Borg.

 

The Borg are actually quite dull both in terms of their original conception and their subsequent overuse.

 

I like Seasons 4 and 5 the most.

 

S2 is the only TNG season I actually own. I do have other episodes here and there that came in some of the Fan Collective DVD compilations or two-parters that were released on blu-ray.

Kor

 

The Borg were best in "Q Who" and "The Best of Both Worlds". I would also say if you take out the Borg Queen in FIRST CONTACT, the Borg were terrifying.

The other TNG appearances softened them, and VOYAGER completely defanged them.

Their concept is frightening in the same way the Cybermen on DOCTOR WHO are frightening. (I personally feel the Cybermen are THE most terrifying villain of that franchise.)

 

I’ve admitted it before, but TNG seasons 1-3 are my favourite. The first two are certainly flawed but had a certain spark, edge and lustre the latter seasons lacked. Space felt more dangerous and unknown. Everyone got a little too comfortable in later seasons, not least the writers. The series peaked relatively early with Best of Both Worlds and i don’t think anything in the subsequent seasons came close to that level of iconic, neck-grabbing splendour.

Michael Piller’s redirected focus on primarily character driven storytelling was fine in theory, only it led to a whole heap of rather tepid soap opera dramas, and far too many episodes dealing with characters’ family members, who invariably weren’t that interesting.

 

Cybermen suck because they are so terrifying. I can't argue with that but I would rather not have that in Trek though it is what the Borg started out as. It's such a fine line within Trek because on the one hand you do want villains that inspire a little bit of fear or anger in the audience. On the other hand, Trek is also about finding a way to coexist with many species. It's really hard to strike that with a foe like the Borg or the Doomsday Machine.

 

I agree that STAR TREK is about finding a way to coexist, but there are people and things that do not want to coexist peacefully. Some things or people are just evil and can't be reasoned with.

And the Doomsday Machine was just a weapon, not alive.

 

The Weeping Angels are a very close second to me. No matter what, you have to give Steven Moffat credit for knowing how to create creepy villains.

 

Long time WHO fan and I’m still a Dalek guy. All the way. Beautifully iconic design and as relevant in the world of today as they were in the 1960s.

 

Sometimes, except all the times it's not.

 

Low-tech Cybermen are terrifying, and honestly the lower tech the better. Body horror is key to them. The Cybermen are at their best when viewing people as little more than walking, talking collections of spare parts. The point where they become cheap plastic Iron Man knockoffs painted silver is the point where they stop being scary.

 

Yes, I believe it falls under the "things that are evil and do not want to coexist peacefully."

But, I would be really curious to see the Borg explored over just treated like the Cybermen. TNG and Voyager went a different way that I would prefer.

 

Agreed. The body horror aspect was their most terrifying.

The Daleks are iconic, no question. Their pure hatred makes them completely unable to be reasoned with. But they don't strike terror in the way as the Cybermen do, and the Weeping Angels.

 

I agree with the idea that the Borg have become less and less threatening and 'scary' over the years.

Spoiler: Star Trek: Picard

What happened with them in the last season of Picard was a culmination of this.

I think there's still the existential horror of being forcibly converted into a Cyberman. I can't remember when that became a thing, as it seemed that early Cybermen were some species that had willingly transformed themselves.

Kor

 

Weeping Angels are a thing of diminishing returns for me. Every time I’ve rewatched Blink it’s impact lessens. I think the story that did really right by them was Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone but otherwise… great concept but there’s nothing to them beyond the concept.

Cybermen are scary conceptually but they’ve so, so rarely been given the stories they deserve. Too often they are reduced to just being the monster of the week and the whole matter of Cyber-Conversion is pushed into the background or ignored completely. I’d say Earthshock is a decent enough sci-fi shooter for instance, but it doesn’t utilise its villains.

The idea is scary though. I’ll give you that. What happened to Bill Potts… brrrr. Chilling.

A fate worse than death indeed.

 

I’ve never had any issue with the Borg Queen aside from the fact she became grossly overused. She would have played better as either a one off in First Contact, something the Borg manifested to replace Locutus. Or in a one time appearance on Voyager. They just made her seem like another villain of the week.

when it comes to the Borg, it makes the 2-parter where Janeway, Torres and Tuvok get assimilated even worse. Because while all but Tuvok retain their individuality they still have to go through that painful, gross, horrific assimilation and augmentation procedure. And in the end it gets shrugged off like nothing happened. Like if Kathy just had a really bad cold or something. Even on TNG Picard still showed signs of trauma.