What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Orphalesion]

The episode is fine. But, she didn't need the follow up in Sela.

Or at least if you create Sela, make her a more interesting character with more to her existence than just "blond Romulan played by Denise Crosby"
Though maybe that last part was why she didn't amount to more...?

 

[at Quark's]

I say it's overrated because of the weird "Guinan has a feeling" aspect of the plotline.

It's a weird ability, but why would it downgrade the episode? They needed an anchor and otherwise no one would have known something was wrong with the timeline and attempt to correct it in the first place. Guinan's "transdimensional perception" (to give it a name) to feel beyond the ordinary (e.g. that something fishy is going on with the timeline) pops up more often, for example in Q Who or in the way she can be both inside and outside the Nexus in Generations (and both versions seem to be aware of one another,too). Guinan just is a rarely explored character overall and we don't know much of what she actually can or cannot do.

 

[amp]

Without Guinan's feelings we'd just get technobabble on chroniton particles or something. Instead we get some interesting conflict; both the scenes between Guinan and Picard as well as that rather contentious meeting with the crew in the ready room.

 

[Peregrinus]

Which all leads to my probably-controversial opinion: I hate time-travel episodes. They're usually not done "right". There are two models of time travel, and they don't play together. The "continuum" or "steady-state" theory is the one that says if you go back in time, anything you do will create the recorded history you already know, because you were there in the past doing the things. "Messing up the timeline" doesn't work. A paradox isn't a fun little logic puzzle to think your way out of -- the universe is simply not so arranged as to allow one to happen. It's what the dang word means.

I allow special dispensation for entities like Q or the Guardian of Forever, because we don't know what they do or how they do it. Apart from them, I automatically discount episodes like "Past Tense", which feature we-broke-history-and-have-to-fix-it stories.

The other theory is the "multiverse" model, which holds that every subatomic particle at every Planck instant simultaneously experiences every possible permutation, splitting off different timelines for each. Pick one, there will be very similar "adjacent" timelines, with more and more differences becoming apparent as you get further and further from it -- in a higher-dimensional sense. In this model, you could go back in time and, since your arrival would alter the energy state of the universe at that point, a new reality will fission off, and you can muck about to your heart's content -- it won't impact the timeline you left. The trick, then, would be getting back to your origin timeline... assuming you wanted to.

Thanks to the Mirror Universe and "The Alternative Factor", "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Parallels", I feel there's more broad support for the Multiverse model than the Continuum model. Especially because they like throwing in paradoxes like "Timeless" -- good episodes that just don't work. It's why I'm so hacked off at Voyager's finale. A better episode would feature them finding a way home in the first act, and then the rest is the ramifications of that return for the rest. An even braver story (and thus very unlikely to happen under these producers) would have been to have the ship never get home -- either leave it open ended or have them sacrifice themselves to save some race they ran across, and, in the coda, Starfleet finally manages to backtrack their journey and hears about what happened years later. But what we got was the weakest format they could've gone with -- the two-hour process of actually getting home, and fading to the end credits just as they do... and with the help of time travel, to boot.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

There are two models of time travel, and they don't play together.

You describe two models of time travel stories, but those aren't the only two. The one where you actually destroy the original timeline when you alter the past would be a third, and there are other models as well.

I think "Yesterday's Enterprise" was largely a nostalgia episode for Tasha, but it's more than that. By the time YE was made, TNG was finding its legs, so YE also represented a chance to get Tasha right.

The whole "we've got to sacrifice ourselves to save the universe" is a Starfleet archetype, and YE helped make it a cliché.

Also, YE was an early example of TNG pew pew, though not the earliest. Even though "Q Who" had some ship-to-ship combat footage, the shots Picard ordered in that episode were slowly and deliberately applied to the cube. IMO a truer example of TNG pew pew before YE is in "The Survivors," both alien and Federation firing patterns are rapidly paced.

 

[cooleddie74]

Season 1 of ENT is actually one of the strongest first years for any Trek series. It's Season 2 that starts dropping the ball but even it has some real winners.

 

[1001001]

Time travel to the past is impossible, whether it's slinging around the sun or a Klingon device or time crystals or whatever. So for me, I just let that go and enjoy the ride. Year of Hell is one of my all-time favorite Star Trek episodes.

It's why I'm so hacked off at Voyager's finale. A better episode would feature them finding a way home in the first act, and then the rest is the ramifications of that return for the rest. An even braver story (and thus very unlikely to happen under these producers) would have been to have the ship never get home -- either leave it open ended or have them sacrifice themselves to save some race they ran across, and, in the coda, Starfleet finally manages to backtrack their journey and hears about what happened years later.

I really hoped the finale was going to be the same dilemma as in The Caretaker. Janeway has to choose and heroically sacrifices again (maybe destroying the Borg hub without getting into a conduit?). Although I liked Endgame just fine (watching Old Janeway kill the Queen was pretty cool) that would have been a bolder choice. I just don't think the VOY staff by then had it in them.

 

[Nyotarules]

I like the idea of a crew mutiny and forcing Janeway to use the Borg conduit to get them home

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I remember when that opinion was widely held. People took cheap shots at it all the time. But of all the Treks, [DS9]'s popularity has grown the most with age.

I'm not sure about that. But then, I was very pro-DS9 during its original run and wasn't too involved in its online fandom at the time, so maybe I have much rosier memories about how DS9 was regarded at the time. But I would say that, in some ways, Voyager & Enterprise are the most improved in terms of reputation over the last 20 years or so. With Voyager, I think it's mostly a matter of giving time for nostalgia to kick in. Enterprise was always a better show than it got credit for (though often only marginally so) but no one bothered to watch it because the franchise fatigue was so severe by that point.

One reason why Enterprise failed was because, when compared to 90s Trek is was somewhat overly US-American (especially early on with stuff just as that farmer chasing a Klingon with his shotgun) at a time when that would not have been that popular in international markets.
(Not saying whether that's good or bad or anything, I just have the feeling that it might have contributed)

That may have explained a reduced appeal in foreign markets but it doesn't address why the show wasn't very popular in the U.S. either.

Nor did being on UPN - a second-tier broadcast network - at a time when viewing habits were changing and corporate ownership of networks was changing. UPN was never a go-to, competitive network even during the relative glory days of VOY.

If anything, it should have worked the other way around. When Voyager started, UPN was a fledgling network hoping to gain a larger foothold. After 7 years, I'm sure Enterprise was hoping to premiere on a stronger, more established network than what Voyager started with in 1995. But it really didn't work out that way. FOX launched its prime time programming in 1987. Seven years later, it had several iconic, bona fide hits like The Simpsons, The X-Files, Married with Children, Cops, and America's Most Wanted and had just snatched the NFL away from CBS. But after 7 years, the only things UPN had to show for itself were WWE Smackdown, an aging Star Trek franchise, and a 2 year deal for Buffy the Vampire Slayer that they grossly overpaid for. (Ironically, the 2 biggest hit shows on the WB, UPN's main competitor, were both Paramount shows-- 7th Heaven and Charmed.)

I present a defiant middle finger to the producers who felt the Enterprise-D didn't look good on the big screen and mandated its destruction.

I happen to agree with the producers on this. The beige, tan, & light gray color palette of the Enterprise-D sets worked fine with the flat lighting of the TV show but didn't lend themselves to the more dramatic lighting of the feature films.

Unless we're talking about the exteriors. Then, yeah, the producers were talking out their ass. If anything, the Enterprise-E is even more problematic to film than the Enterprise-D. The E looks great from the side but a dead-on front view is absolute death. Most angles from too far above the E don't work either, since the top of the ship has a flat, smushed look, particularly when compared with the dramatic sweep down the neck from the saucer section to the star drive section of the D.

ENT explained Augment Klingons. TOS had Augment Klingons. Now it's just up to DSC or SNW or both to acknowledge them.

I don't know if this is controversial or not but I think that the Klingon forehead issue should have been ignored. Worf's "We do not discuss it with outsiders" line from "Trials & Tribble-ations" was the best explanation that we were ever going to get and the Augment stuff from Enterprise was needlessly convoluted.

That's just a political union, it doesn't make the Scottish people think of themselves as "British."

"British" is a colloquial catch-all term for all of the English-speaking people of the British Isles, including the English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Cornish, etc. All Scots are British but not all Brits are Scottish. (Similarly, all Brits, including the Scots, are European but not all Europeans are British.)

Season 1 of ENT is actually one of the strongest first years for any Trek series.

Agreed, compared to TNG, Voyager, and even parts of DS9, Enterprise had the strongest first season of any of them. The problem is that Enterprise Season 1 wasn't competing with those other 1st seasons. It was competing with the immediate memories of Voyager Season 7. And on that score, it failed to distinguish itself in any meaningful way. Just more of the same.

 

[Lord Garth]

This should be the theme song for Disco. Fantastic Voyage.

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[Oddish]

An even braver story (and thus very unlikely to happen under these producers) would have been to have the ship never get home -- either leave it open ended or have them sacrifice themselves to save some race they ran across, and, in the coda, Starfleet finally manages to backtrack their journey and hears about what happened years later. But what we got was the weakest format they could've gone with -- the two-hour process of actually getting home, and fading to the end credits just as they do... and with the help of time travel, to boot.

That actually would have been brilliant. Maybe instead of having the crew sacrifice themselves, have Voyager sacrificed, along with Janeway and one or two others (Tuvok and/or Chakotay maybe). The others wind up on an uninhabited M class planet somewhere, or on the planet Voyager was lost saving. When the Federation builds a reliable transwarp drive sometime in the 2600's, they finally get a survey team to this world and discover Voyager's descendants. Even if they never made it home, they find home. Something very bittersweet there...

 

[Nerys Myk]

When the Federation builds a reliable transwarp drive sometime in the 2600's, they finally get a survey team to this world and discover Voyager's descendants.

 

[Court_Vince]

Wonder what Janeway and Paris will say about that!

 

[Oddish]

I walked into that one.

 

[Vger23]

It still befuddles me to this day that somehow this episode got green-lit and produced.

Holy @#$%….soooo bad.

 

[Oddish]

Same way as Sub Rosa, Spock's Brain, and A Night in Sickbay. And DS9 had a stinker or three as well.

 

[cooleddie74]

I'll take space amphibians over an Irish village holoprogram full of stereotypes. Both suck but at least one has some corny, stupid entertainment value.

 

[Lord Garth]

Same way as Sub Rosa, Spock's Brain, and A Night in Sickbay. And DS9 had a stinker or three as well.

The one you're thinking of from DS9 is "Profit and Lace".

"Spock's Brain" is the least offensive of these. I never bought the "This is the worst ever!" comments from people about the episode. To me, it's Mock Outrage. I'm not going to pretend I hate the episode. It's goofy, it's ridiculous, and it's fun to watch if you don't take it seriously. It's like Plan 9 from Outer Space. "So bad it's good!"

"Threshold" is just so bad it's bad. "Profit and Lace" is something I already didn't like in 1998 and think, in retrospect, it's even more offensive through the lens of 2020.

One of the advantages of shorter seasons now is that episodes like these won't be made to fill the 26-episode quota.

 

[Oddish]

Profit and Lace was the worst of a long arc, in which everything that made the Ferengi interesting was obliterated because the the writers couldn't handle their political incorrectness.

 

[Court_Vince]

Tbh I never really hated Threshold or Spock's Brain they both just come into Fun absurdity for me