What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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*raises hand*
Except, I'm even less interested because Decker is not an interesting character.
It is. I usually ignore them now.
I think the source of the polarization was continuing the story from Berman Trek but doing it in the style of Kurtzman Trek. It might even be why people who don't like Picard don't like it in general. Picard is too Old Trek to be New Trek and too New Trek to be Old Trek.
I personally think the blend and the blurring of the lines gives Picard a distinctiveness.
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I think my distaste for Picard 1 and 2 came from Stewart's attitude (that found its way into the show) that this is no longer the time for a hopeful view of the future. (This from someone who was a small child in England during WWII and working on a show that posited a hopeful view of the future during the late 60's!) My distaste for Picard 3 was just that it was a mess and made no sense.
Which is interesting if that's how it went down. I'm about 1/3 of the way through Making It So, and Stewart doesn't strike me as a particularly gloomy or hopeless person in general.
I have to wonder if, initially, it was planned to go Deep & Dark and then bring back Hope later. I definitely felt they were trying to do that at the end of Season 2 and I could certainly have bought into that. Or perhaps it was just initially to go deep into Picard as a character and it "infected" the rest of the show's tone.
I don't know. I enjoyed the show as I watched it, and there were parts I thought were very well done, but in hindsight the flaws are glaring.
I have to wonder if, initially, it was planned to go Deep & Dark and then bring back Hope later. I definitely felt they were trying to do that at the end of Season 2 and I could certainly have bought into that. Or perhaps it was just initially to go deep into Picard as a character and it "infected" the rest of the show's tone.
I don't know. I enjoyed the show as I watched it, and there were parts I thought were very well done, but in hindsight the flaws are glaring.
Picard had to start off dark because that's the way the various creators left things with the 24th Century.
Data Dead --> Nemesis
Romulus Exploded --> Recapped in Star Trek (2009)
Picard had a Condition --> Established in "All Good Things"
Starfleet changed by War --> DS9
If they started off with everything hunky-dory, it would ignore everything we knew the series would be following up upon.
I always wanted to see Picard tackle a Changed Federation. It's something barely touched upon in the TNG Movies, except for Insurrection and anyone who'd say they liked how INS tackled the subject would be lying. So I'm glad we got to see it in PIC.
Data Dead --> Nemesis
Romulus Exploded --> Recapped in Star Trek (2009)
Picard had a Condition --> Established in "All Good Things"
Starfleet changed by War --> DS9
If they started off with everything hunky-dory, it would ignore everything we knew the series would be following up upon.
I always wanted to see Picard tackle a Changed Federation. It's something barely touched upon in the TNG Movies, except for Insurrection and anyone who'd say they liked how INS tackled the subject would be lying. So I'm glad we got to see it in PIC.
My interest in Picard was inversely proportional to its evolution towards TNG 2.0. As such, I found each successive season less interesting than the previous one. I enjoyed something in each season, but it was a case of diminishing returns.
Oddly enough, my interest in SNW is directly proportional to its resemblance to TOS.
We’re such contradictory creatures, aren’t we?
Oddly enough, my interest in SNW is directly proportional to its resemblance to TOS.
We’re such contradictory creatures, aren’t we?
For people whom came to being fans of Trek during the 90s, it seemed like Berman-era Trek had this unofficial rule (starting with TNG) that the different series usually took some time to figure themselves out. There are individual episodes in the early years one can point to, but usually it's season 3 before TNG was considered "good," seasons 2 and 3 are considered the turning point for DS9, it's season 3 and the Xindi storyline of ENT before they get the dynamic of Archer right, etc.
And, to a degree, I think I saw the early issues with Discovery through that prism, of growing pains where I expected them to course correct into something more enjoyable. But I think Discovery fits more with modern shows, where unless there's a drastic change when switching from showrunner to showrunner, there's not going to be a change reflected in what you see on the screen. The tone and type of storytelling are NOT going to change that much, only tweaked a little here and there.
I haven't watched the DS9 documentary, but I remember back in the day the feeling you got from the interviews Ira Steven Behr and Ron Moore would give is that as Voyager came into being, Berman and the Paramount suits felt Voyager was their flagship Trek show they micromanaged and it gave DS9 more autonomy.
I think you're right, in that a production is helped by someone that has the power to say "no" when creatives go a little too far. Some of Behr's ideas are great, but some I side-eye at, like the "Benny Russell" ending.
I remember reading one of the big disagreements between Behr, Moore, and Berman was the Dominion War arc that starts season 6. If I recall correctly, Behr and Moore had to fight to get it to be 6 episodes, and wanted it to be longer (e.g., I can't remember if their original intention was for it to be the entire season or not). But Paramount, especially, was not a fan of serialization in the syndication days, since they felt Star Trek functioned better, especially when trying to sell it to independent TV stations, as a show where people could casually view it with no backstory, and come into an episode without knowing anything except the basic dynamics of what Star Trek is and enjoy the show.
Also, I believe Berman wanted there to be finality to the Dominion War arc after those episode, similar to how the TNG 2-parters closed off certain story elements, where Behr and Moore had to fight for it to be what it ultimately becomes, which is a significant part of the arc, but only a pivot point in the overall war.
Controversial Opinion: "Shades of Gray" wasn't THAT bad. Clip shows were a thing in the ‘80s. Some of us still didn’t have VCRs yet. I didn’t have one until 1990. So, clip shows were the only way for us to re-experience older episodes of anything, if they weren't strip-syndicated. Even though I wasn't watching TNG back then, I remember what it was like at the time, so I go easier on "Shades of Gray" than other people.
I asked my father for MONTHS to get us a VCR. Then he took me to Sears one day, showed me a VCR, and he said, "Do you know how expensive VCRs are?!" Then he pointed to one with a $300 price tag. $300 in 1990. That would be over $700 today. I couldn't understand it back then, but now I can understand my father's position. Today, I wouldn't want to just drop $700 willy-nilly. But anyway...
I get why they did clip-shows. Too many people just didn't want to spring for VCRs, and TNG wasn't being shown every day at the time. Clip-shows were like a "best of", except TNG didn't have enough "best of" material to justify it. That's as far as I'll go.
I asked my father for MONTHS to get us a VCR. Then he took me to Sears one day, showed me a VCR, and he said, "Do you know how expensive VCRs are?!" Then he pointed to one with a $300 price tag. $300 in 1990. That would be over $700 today. I couldn't understand it back then, but now I can understand my father's position. Today, I wouldn't want to just drop $700 willy-nilly. But anyway...
I get why they did clip-shows. Too many people just didn't want to spring for VCRs, and TNG wasn't being shown every day at the time. Clip-shows were like a "best of", except TNG didn't have enough "best of" material to justify it. That's as far as I'll go.
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Clip shows were fine. Shades of Grey was just as much a terrible clip show as it was a terrible episode.
^ They could have added a sarcastic voice commentary track by Q looking in on Riker's memories. Still low-budget but it could have made the episode substantially better.
While I generally hate clip shows as a rule, you’re absolutely right. Back at the time, it had likely been months or a year or more since the original episodes had aired. At the time it was kinda cool to be reminded that Riker was once beardless, Beverly Crusher was CMO and Tasha Yar was still a thing! The way the clips are compiled it’s actually quite decently structured I guess.
Of course, in the era of streaming and binging, clip shows are almost unbearable because chances are you only watched the featured clips a few days or weeks ago. They’re usually an immediate skip for me.
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Then, what is?
(I'll say that 'died of an aggressive vine' would have made a particularly louse epitaph on Riker's grave, though).
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The framing device is. The whole way the other elements are shot, that in order to deal with it Riker has to think different thoughts. It's just all very strange.
This and also the clips are just bad. A clip show only works when it brings back stuff you enjoyed the first time around and want to remember. As one of the episode's defenders already admitted, early TNG didn't have a lot to work with in that respect. But it still could have made much better selections than it did.
Focusing on Picard or Data instead of Riker probably would've automatically upped the quality of the clips by at least 50%.
Probably, but Picard shouldn't go on away missions as a Captain (so less options of him getting in mortal danger), and Data's memories are probably just strings of 1's and 0's
Probably, but Picard shouldn't go on away missions as a Captain (so less options of him getting in mortal danger), and Data's memories are probably just strings of 1's and 0's
But the away mission/mortal danger is just a choice. No reason at all you even need it to do a clip show. And the same thing is true about framing the whole thing as a character just remembering things.
^true, I was just being a bit facetious. In reality, of course they could have done a clip show with either Data or Picard, and written a story around it to fit that.
The only reason they chose that format was because they only had 3 days to film the entire episode. As comparison, a typical episode was shot 6-7 days. You'll notice there are only three sets used... Sick Bay, Transporter Room, and the planet. Not even the full cast was there... Worf and Wesley weren't in it. Pulaski and O'Brien are the only two non-regulars there with any speaking roles. (Pulaski wasn't in the main titles.)
Even "Where Silence Has Lease", which had a vast majority of it set on the bridge, was shot in 5 days. (At least, all the bridge scenes.)
I give "Shades Of Gray" more slack for multiple reasons, not the least of which there are worse episodes... even within TNG.
(Plus, it ends the season as showing how dangerous space travel really is... a recurring theme that was present throughout season 2.)
Even "Where Silence Has Lease", which had a vast majority of it set on the bridge, was shot in 5 days. (At least, all the bridge scenes.)
I give "Shades Of Gray" more slack for multiple reasons, not the least of which there are worse episodes... even within TNG.
(Plus, it ends the season as showing how dangerous space travel really is... a recurring theme that was present throughout season 2.)
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