What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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I tend to agree. The last third is very much a struggle.
It kind of reminds me of a typical "Black Mirror" episode. It's well acted, well produced, and well written....but it's just uncomfortable and disturbing. And I've always kind of hated Charlie....like "why didn't they just beam him into space" hate. So, I think the fact that I never found him to be tragic / sympathetic doesn't help me.
Yeah, it shifts from sympathy from Charlie really really quickly, especially once the Antares was blown up.
Yeah, and the whole thing about how he lusts for Rand is SUUUUUUUUPER uncomfortable and unsympathetic as well. That scene where he enters her quarters and says all that stuff about being "hungry".....EEEEEHHHHGHGHGHHHHH.
And I'm not being overly-dramatic....it creeps me out that much.
Charlie X is obviously inspired by a twilight zone episode where a kid has godlike powers and imposes a horrible dictatorship on a small community.
The episode is called "It's a good life" and was released in 1961.
The episode is called "It's a good life" and was released in 1961.
The Thasians gave Charlie superpowers so he could survive, but he never had the chance to be raised and socialized with other humans so he doesn't have any filters. He's a sympathetic and ultimately tragic figure because his situation isn't of his own making.
Personally, I like Barclay, he's the only one on board the Enterprise that behaves like a real human being!!! Which makes him the most relatable character of the series.
Kids who don't cry when they lose their mother are something I can't understand. My mother is still alive but when my father died, I cried my eyes out and I was an adult!!!
Or possibly it is inspired by the same laassic short story as the Twilight Zone episode: "It's a Good LIfe" by Jerome Bixby.
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41109
As I remember, The Making of Star Trek contains several story ideas which were part of a pitch for the series STar Trek, and it is believed that "Charlie X" is based on one of them which I think was Called "When Charlie Becomes a God".
No doubt the various successive draft scripts would show how much it resembled "it's a Good Life" at the beginning.
That isn't mentioned in The Making of Star Trek. Maybe it's from one of the umpteen other behind-the-scenes Trek books.
From Memory Alpha
From the Original Pitch itself (Page 1):
Star Trek Pitch - March 11 1964 said:
Sandwiched right between "The Next Cage" (The Cage/The Menagerie) and "President Capone" (A Piece of the Action), and it's interesting how many of the one-sentence pitches became fully fleshed out episodes.
Most TOS episodes can be summed up in one sentence or less.
Deadly garden of Eden
The Greek gods were aliens
Aliens stole Spock's brain...
Modern Roman gladiators
300-year-old children
Genetic augments from the past
Alien Nazis
.....
And still manage to be far more entertaining than most dramatic series produced today.
Eh, you could say the exact thing same about the vast majority of scripted fiction.
TV guides have been doing it for all TV shows every week since they were invented.
Not really controversial (or maybe it is) but I think TNG is overrated, because:
Here's what you'll normally hear, "TNG is great after the first two seasons, and it went downhill during the seventh season, but Seasons 3-6 are great!" So it's great, if you don't look at most of Seasons 1, 2, and 7? So most of three seasons... out of seven. "And avoid Troi episodes! And here's a list of other episodes to skip! There are a few really bad ones every season!"
Doing some simple math in my head: that knocks out half the series right there. "TNG is great! It's a classic." Yes, but only if you look at the good half. Most people judge series as a whole. I will say I think it's more than the sum of its parts, but I'm not going to kid myself.
Here's what you'll normally hear, "TNG is great after the first two seasons, and it went downhill during the seventh season, but Seasons 3-6 are great!" So it's great, if you don't look at most of Seasons 1, 2, and 7? So most of three seasons... out of seven. "And avoid Troi episodes! And here's a list of other episodes to skip! There are a few really bad ones every season!"
Doing some simple math in my head: that knocks out half the series right there. "TNG is great! It's a classic." Yes, but only if you look at the good half. Most people judge series as a whole. I will say I think it's more than the sum of its parts, but I'm not going to kid myself.
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Every series has their stinkers.
In my case I think that even if you knock out half on the series and you're left with the episodes you like that's good enough. For me those great episodes are so full on awesome.
If that means TNG is a 50/50 series, half good and half bad, so be it. Small price to pay for the great ones.
In my annual TNG rewatch I don't even go through half of the episodes.
Once again quality and quantity.....
Everything above may not make sense to many, if any, but I still think TNG is my favourite series.
I just re-watched "Night Terrors" and it reminded me of the ridiculous things that were said in that episode
First, a chemical explosion that's more powerful than a photon torpedo!!!! Are you freaking kidding me!!!!
What's wrong with these writers???
The aliens don't have hydrogen!!! That's by far the most common element in the universe!!!! It's like saying that bedouins are lacking sand!!!!!
Data says that they can't maintain a stream of hydrogen for more than two minutes!!! Doesn't that depend on the intensity of the stream???
The betazoid has been sitting there for what? Three weeks!!! Shouldn't he have died of attrition?
How long can a betazoid go without drinking? Don't tell me that they are like camels!!!
These people are all supermen... It takes three days without rem sleep to go crazy not thirty!!! After ten days you are most likely dead. In fact the absolute record, I think, is eleven days without rem sleep and as is the case for most records, normal people can't get anywhere near it.
First, a chemical explosion that's more powerful than a photon torpedo!!!! Are you freaking kidding me!!!!
What's wrong with these writers???
The aliens don't have hydrogen!!! That's by far the most common element in the universe!!!! It's like saying that bedouins are lacking sand!!!!!
Data says that they can't maintain a stream of hydrogen for more than two minutes!!! Doesn't that depend on the intensity of the stream???
The betazoid has been sitting there for what? Three weeks!!! Shouldn't he have died of attrition?
How long can a betazoid go without drinking? Don't tell me that they are like camels!!!
These people are all supermen... It takes three days without rem sleep to go crazy not thirty!!! After ten days you are most likely dead. In fact the absolute record, I think, is eleven days without rem sleep and as is the case for most records, normal people can't get anywhere near it.
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