I don't think it's forgotten. I think it gets played out as small moments against a larger backdrop, rather than a small heroic story.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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They allow for the slow building of characterization.
TOS is sometimes criticized for not having an ensemble cast. The comparison Wagon Train to the Stars meant that TOS relied on having a guest star in nearly every episode.
Controversial opinion: All other things being equal, the TOS format allowed for more dramatic storytelling. Why? Because it allowed for the greater potential to put more characters involved in the story into jeopardy. Why? Because your guest stars are expendable. It doesn't mean they're necessarily going to die, but their survival intact is not guaranteed the way it was with ensemble cast members.
Even a bottle show on TOS usually involved the presence of one or more guest stars, such as Windom as Commodore Decker or Marshall as Dr. Daystrom. Many bottle shows on other series primarily revolved around the ensemble cast; the principle characters of the stories were accordingly never in any serious peril which tended to undermine those stories before they could even get off the ground.
Controversial opinion: All other things being equal, the TOS format allowed for more dramatic storytelling. Why? Because it allowed for the greater potential to put more characters involved in the story into jeopardy. Why? Because your guest stars are expendable. It doesn't mean they're necessarily going to die, but their survival intact is not guaranteed the way it was with ensemble cast members.
Even a bottle show on TOS usually involved the presence of one or more guest stars, such as Windom as Commodore Decker or Marshall as Dr. Daystrom. Many bottle shows on other series primarily revolved around the ensemble cast; the principle characters of the stories were accordingly never in any serious peril which tended to undermine those stories before they could even get off the ground.
I actually watched a take recently that made the point that Kirk was not supposed to be the horndog that we now interpret him to be. Essentially at the time the "leading man" was supposed to have a love interest in nearly every episode, but the lack of any serialization meant that always had to be a new love interest. But because the stories weren't really written with the expectation the viewers were taking continuity into account, we weren't supposed to draw any conclusions from the sheer number of women he banged over the course of the series.
I'd already rewatched all of DS9 before the idea to watch them simultaneously and compare them occured to me!
Here are my personal percentages (I've only seen like half the seasons so far though):
- TOS: 62% good | 27% okay | 11% bad
- TNG: 38% good | 50% okay | 12% bad
- DS9: 53% good | 39% okay | 9% bad
- VOY: 33% good | 59% okay | 9% bad
- ENT: 40% good | 51% okay | 9% bad
Yes. The lack of serialization means the standalone stories are more like those in an anthology. Plus, Kirk is archetypal, so on any given week, a new story can be told involving the same character that has no relation to previous stories.
Going off of what a number of you have mentioned wrt characters being in peril and us knowing that the hero will always save the day, I was just thinking about how 90s/early 00s shows would pitch things vs how they are now.
I distinctly remember a number of episodes where the cut to commercial or the cliffhanger would put one of our heroes in serious peril, about to die, only to have them saved at the last second. I don't think shows go for this as much, unless they actually follow through with the death (or serious injury).
So I started thinking about how we consume media - viewers these days are much more savvy I think, with contract lengths of actors and the like being much more widely known and understood. This means that we know that, for example, Seven is meant to be in the next series of Picard, so we also know that she is highly unlikely to die. Back in 1999 though, I had no knowledge of these sorts of things so if you put her in an episode where she might leave the ship or is captured and held hostage then I would be much more likely to believe that she was going to be written off in some way.
The fun now, being older and more savvy, is in trying to guess how they escape more than the escape itself.
I guess it is similar to how, with crime procedural shows, it is almost a cliche that if you want to know who the bad guy/criminal was that you just watch the opening credits and whoever the highest profile guest star was is also probably the person who did it.
I distinctly remember a number of episodes where the cut to commercial or the cliffhanger would put one of our heroes in serious peril, about to die, only to have them saved at the last second. I don't think shows go for this as much, unless they actually follow through with the death (or serious injury).
So I started thinking about how we consume media - viewers these days are much more savvy I think, with contract lengths of actors and the like being much more widely known and understood. This means that we know that, for example, Seven is meant to be in the next series of Picard, so we also know that she is highly unlikely to die. Back in 1999 though, I had no knowledge of these sorts of things so if you put her in an episode where she might leave the ship or is captured and held hostage then I would be much more likely to believe that she was going to be written off in some way.
The fun now, being older and more savvy, is in trying to guess how they escape more than the escape itself.
I guess it is similar to how, with crime procedural shows, it is almost a cliche that if you want to know who the bad guy/criminal was that you just watch the opening credits and whoever the highest profile guest star was is also probably the person who did it.
Fine!
- DS9: 52.6% good | 38.7% okay | 8.7% bad
- VOY: 33% good | 58.5% okay | 8.5% bad
I think the problem with season 4 is that it was trying so hard to be "star trek" that the ending was completely predictable. find the aliens, figure out how to communicate, and talk it out.
Considering the differing reputations those two series have had over the years, those numbers are shockingly close together.
I think the difference is when people consider TNG, they usually mean "Peak TNG" - basically from Seasons 3 to 6, when quality control was higher.
In contrast, other than Season 4 being a smidge better, there's basically no difference in quality between the different VOY seasons, with the same mix of good/okay/bad the whole way through.
While other viewers opinions may vary from show to show and episode to episode, that seems to be close to the prevailing opinion. Even Voyager, viewed from that perspective, reminds us that it was really pretty good. The chief complaints about the show are large-scale issues: abandoning its initial premise and sloppy continuity work by the showrunners.
Oh, more than 29 TNG episodes are awful.
Every series has their awful episodes, but I wonder exactly how many and which ones are the most universally acknowledged as the worst?
"Shades of Grey(TNG)" and "Code of Honor(TNG)" have to rank at or just shy of the bottom of the list for that series.
You could get a list of episodes and ratings from a site like IMDb, check through it to figure the threshold for 'awful', and then generate a list from that.
My list of awful TNG:
Season 1: The Naked Now, Code of Honor, The Last Outpost, Lonely Among Us, Justice & Angel One (5)
Season 2: Time Squared, Up the Long Ladder, & Shades of Gray (3)
Season 3: A Matter of Perspective (1)
Season 4: Suddenly Human, Devil's Due, Night Terrors, & In Theory (4)
Season 5: The Game, A Matter of Time, Violations & The Masterpiece Society (4)
Season 6: Man of the People, Aquiel, & Suspicions (3)
Season 7: Liaisons, Phantasms, Force of Nature, Homeward, Sub Rose, Genesis, Bloodlines, & Emergence (8)
"Awful" means different things for different people. For example, I don't think Threshold is awful. Yeah, it's bad, but it has a neat idea and some good elements of body horror that McNeill leans into and plays really well. It's really the ending that shits the bed.
On the other hand, and here's one of my, I presume, unpopular opinions - I hate Redemption Part I & II. A lot of early TNG has not aged well, and I struggled for a while to get into the series. It really was Yesterday's Enterprise that was the "gawd, yes" moment for me - what they did with Tasha was great. Her "Let my death have meaning" arc was beautiful, in my opinion. And then we get to Redemption and find out that, nah, she didn't die with the Enterprise-C. She was captured and raped for 4 years before she was shot dead trying to escape. I know Picard says he doesn't believe it, but it is never refuted on screen, so that remains the canonical ending for Tasha. Like, what the hell, man? It left a really bad taste in my mouth, it really did.
On the other hand, and here's one of my, I presume, unpopular opinions - I hate Redemption Part I & II. A lot of early TNG has not aged well, and I struggled for a while to get into the series. It really was Yesterday's Enterprise that was the "gawd, yes" moment for me - what they did with Tasha was great. Her "Let my death have meaning" arc was beautiful, in my opinion. And then we get to Redemption and find out that, nah, she didn't die with the Enterprise-C. She was captured and raped for 4 years before she was shot dead trying to escape. I know Picard says he doesn't believe it, but it is never refuted on screen, so that remains the canonical ending for Tasha. Like, what the hell, man? It left a really bad taste in my mouth, it really did.
This is a decent list: https://screenrant.com/worst-episodes-star-trek-imdb/
I disagree with 'And the Children Shall Lead' and 'Sub Rosa'.
Where's 'Spock's Brain'?
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