Where is the Diversity of Starship Crews?

That's exactly what laziness is. It's doing the minimum effort. If one decides that writing is not the priority, then the writing must be, by definition, lazy.

 

That's not exactly the impression I get. They are doing the best effort within limited time. So, if the time is short you're not going to get the best result because of other constraints. So, I don't always consider it lazy. I think it takes a lot more time, talent and money to make it work and that usually doesn't work on a TV show schedule.

 

So TV is inherently a lower quality medium?

 

To me the essence of 'lazy' is that you could/should have done a better job under the conditions you were facing. If people did their best in the amount of time they got (and the time alotted was by no means sufficient), the result might be mediocre, or unfinished, or basic, but not 'lazy'.

 

TMP said it onscreen, so it's canon.

 

I'm inclined to agree with fireproof78 about writers being lazy.

There are situations when time, budget, and resources are very much against the writers. Like Kirk said in "THE ULTIMATE COMPUTER", "Genius is not done on an assembly line. You can't just say, 'Today I will be brilliant'."

There are absolutely situations where laziness does come into play, like the examples in the VOYAGER thread about fixing 6 major inconsistencies with just a few lines of dialogue. Kim's lack of promotion, endless shuttles and torpedoes, etc.

But more often than not, the franchise has given us good stories and good material.

 

OF COURSE NOT! They're white actors and actresses covered in make up.

 

It can very well be depending on the timelines, deadlines and scheduling expectations. As one TV FX friend of mine said "you can have it fast or you have it done right, but you can't have both." TV usually went for fast because that's what the schedules demanded.

 

Funny you mention 'fast or right', because I once saw a sign at a mechanic's shop that had these options (or words to the same effect, it's been years since I saw it)...


You can have it done fast.
You can have it done right.
You can have it done cheap.

You may pick two of the above.

 

yep, reminds me of the NASA administrator in the 90's, Dan Goldin. He promoted "Faster Better Cheaper" and would actually cheer when congress would cut the NASA budget. But Faster Better Cheaper did not work. NASA was stuck in development spirals it could not complete, employees and contractors were working on frayed nerves nonstop, corners were cut to make management look like they were meeting goals to keep Goldin smiling at the budgetary committees while there were very simple mistakes made that lost more than one probe and a lander.

Faster Better Cheaper meant they could not get a decent budget to finish X-38 and have a lifeboat waiting at the ISS. If there had been one, NASA might have been more interested in doing safety flyarounds and seeing that Columbia was too damaged to land with a crew in 03. Goldin was gone by then, but the FBC ideal had remained, until the after effects left seven astronauts dead.

 

Thank you. I had seen a similar phrase in the back of my mind but couldn't recall the exact wording. Regardless, I think it's a very shallow view that everything done not great is due to laziness without accounting for time, scheduling demands and expectations from production staff.

 

Agreed.

I'm pretty forgiving of mistakes on shows. Humans make errors, no one's perfect. It's the egregious ones that irk me at times. Or at least, call things into question.

Like in "Darmok", phasers being fired from the torpedo tube. WTF? You're in your 5th season, and that went unnoticed? Or forgetting one of your crew never died, doesn't appear for years, and is brought back a few episodes from the series finale only to be killed off? (Lt. Joe Carey.)

I guess there can be a fine line between lazy and what we view as lazy.

 

=D

 

*raises single eyebrow*

 

Or maybe there are phaser emitters in the torpedo tubes!!!!!

 

I suddenly feel like Worf is saying...

"Emit this!"

 

They are rejected at the Starfleet Academy budget meetings. Pointed ears and wrinkled noses cost a lot of money.

 

And don’t get them started on full facial appliances or CGI.

 

I don't know if it's been mentioned since I didn't go through the entire thread, so please excuse me if I have repeated something already posted.

I thought that ships were designed to fit certain environments. The crews would then be on ships that had atmospheres closest to theirs, the ones they could tolerate with little modification. Humans, Klingons, Vulcans, Batazoids, and others seen in the various series could all tolerate the same atmosphere and gravity making them suitable to work together. Those species who live in water would be in ships that are filled with water would be an example of another type of ship and its aquatic crew.

Thinking about it, it could be the reason why the hero ship is the closest ship to help in an emergency, it was the only one near enough to help and had the right atmosphere to accommodate any people needing evacuation.