What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Vale]

There's a way to do it and they can thread the needle masterfully. But they have to want to.

I think the Enterprise bridge that we saw in Discovery is the perfect way to update the TOS look for a modern audience. Taking plenty of design cues and always being respectful of the original look, but not slavishly duplicating it. Compared to the Abramsverse Enterprise bridge it's night and day.

 

[fireproof78]

The original design doesn't need respecting.

 

[GhoulEddie74]

As you would say, to each their own. Your mileage will vary.

 

[Annorax849]

The Alternative Factor wasn't that bad. Kind of silly and over the top, but at least they tried to tell a big concept sci-fi story.

 

[GhoulEddie74]

It was ambitious, just ineptly executed. Robert Brown helps sell the whole episode, though, and makes Lazarus(both versions) extremely memorable.

 

[GNDN18]

When I was a kid that episode frustrated me no end because I couldn’t tell the mad/evil Lazarus from the sane/good one. There was one transition

where I thought I could figure it out … but nope.

Years and years later I learned that nobody connected with the production could tell, either.

 

[Brobdingnag]

The Alternative Factor wasn't that bad. Kind of silly and over the top, but at least they tried to tell a big concept sci-fi story.

It carries the ridiculous idea though that in order to detonate a sack of potatoes made in matter has to get into contact with an identical sack of potatoes in anti-matter. Otherwise, it's perfectly safe for someone to walk in a universe of anti-matter.

 

[GhoulEddie74]

Yeah, Kirk only survived in the antimatter universe because he didn't come into contact with his counterpart from there. It's a weak premise but then Trek does weak premises all the time and this is far from the worst.

 

[Brobdingnag]

Yeah, Kirk only survived in the antimatter universe because he didn't come into contact with his counterpart from there. It's a weak premise but then Trek does weak premises all the time and this is far from the worst.

Yeah, In Arena. The Gorn is so strong that it can be hit by a half a ton rock thrown from quite a height and it does almost nothing to him. When he got his hands on Kirk he should have torn him to pieces like a piece of paper. The whole scene is so ridiculous, it's almost unwatchable.

 

[fireproof78]

The Alternative Factor wasn't that bad. Kind of silly and over the top, but at least they tried to tell a big concept sci-fi story.

Agreed. An underrated story from TOS that ahowcases a fun idea in the science fiction realm.

 

[GhoulEddie74]

I'll rewatch "The Alternative Factor(TOS)" anyday over "Catspaw," "And the Children Shall Lead" or an awful lot of episodes from the other series.

 

[Mytran]

When I was a kid that episode frustrated me no end because I couldn’t tell the mad/evil Lazarus from the sane/good one. There was one transition

where I thought I could figure it out … but nope.

Years and years later I learned that nobody connected with the production could tell, either.

After several rewatches a couple of years ago I figured it out.
Basically, Kirk & co stumble into someone else's problem. Who's problem? Alt-Lazarus'. It is his people who discovered how to bridge universes, which in turn drove his counterpart mad. Since then Alt-Laz has been trying to trap Lazarus in the magnetic corridor, in order to prevent the two of them ending up in the same universe as this would be bad for some reason (probably quantum).
However, Lazarus keeps escaping and each time he does so it is accompanied by a "winking out" effect. Eventually Alt-Laz works out a way to exchange himself with Lazarus without the colossal side effects, but only for short periods of time. It happens twice:

1. In Sickbay. McCoy notices the difference but then Alt-Laz escapes and learns about the presence of dilithium crystals on board this strange ship he finds himself in, but slips back to the magnetic corridor before he can take action.
2. Near Engineering. Alt-Laz sneaks in and steals 2 crystals, with the help of his pocket sleep-needle. It is not known when he slips back
3. In Sickbay, a third attempt is made but Lazarus is able to fight it off (just after his second fall off the mountain)

 

[GhoulEddie74]

Luckily he later teamed up with Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan and one of the tribal leaders from Vaal's people and redeemed himself.

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[Brobdingnag]

It was back when they couldn't just remove a scar in thirty seconds with a laser thingy, like when Riker is scratched in his beard and has those ugly gashes on his face. Beverly just sweeps the wound with her instant healer and it even puts his hair back the way it was before.

 

[Tim Thomason]

It was back when they couldn't just remove a scar in thirty seconds with a laser thingy, like when Riker is scratched in his beard and has those ugly gashes on his face. Beverly just sweeps the wound with her instant healer and it even puts his hair back the way it was before.

Oh, they could do that (see Discovery). McCoy was just bad at his job, I guess.

 

[GNDN18]

Oh, they could do that (see Discovery). McCoy was just bad at his job, I guess.

 

[Brobdingnag]

Oh, they could do that (see Discovery). McCoy was just bad at his job, I guess.

Yet he could grow a new kidney in minutes with a pill... I don't think even Bashir or the Doctor could do that.

 

[Paul755]

Yet he could grow a new kidney in minutes with a pill... I don't think even Bashir or the Doctor could do that.

yeah, McCoy could give you a pill to grow a new kidney but Picard needs an artificial heart.

 

[Deks]

yeah, McCoy could give you a pill to grow a new kidney but Picard needs an artificial heart.

Drama in live action series often defies logic. The UFP should have been using transporters and replicators to create new body organs based off people's patterns if they require any... and technically, they CAN.
They are able to replicate nerves which can be used in patients with a given doctor like Pulaski, next thing you know, Crusher re-appears and suddenly, no more nerve replication.

The movies may have had more liberty and wanted to showcase how primitive 1986 medicine actually was.
Plus, different writers will have different levels of knowledge on what could have been hypothetically possible.

 

[fireproof78]

yeah, McCoy could give you a pill to grow a new kidney but Picard needs an artificial heart.

Perhaps getting stabbed means a different type of treatment.