Which Spin-off is Closest in "spirit" to TOS?
- Thread starter Emperor-Tiberius
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And once again, my friends, we have got proof of just how fractured the fan base is (I believe "diversity" is the PC word to use).
If we can't even agree about what we disagree about, how are we gonna like anything that gets handed out as Star Trek?
Maybe it isn't so uncertain why Trek is going down the drain as we speak, after all....
Just hope that the next Trek wont bomb like the last few years of it has.
Shouldn't there be a way to satisfy at least MOST of the fans?? One would think so.
Mayhaps that the only way to please others, is to please yourself at the same time too... You have to give your heart away to get your heart back in the end. So, whoever is producing Trek next... maybe the best thing to do is to just do your own 'thang', though that 'thang' has to be true to the spirit of Trek also...
My my, Trek is in a worse state then ever.
If we can't even agree about what we disagree about, how are we gonna like anything that gets handed out as Star Trek?
Maybe it isn't so uncertain why Trek is going down the drain as we speak, after all....
Just hope that the next Trek wont bomb like the last few years of it has.
Shouldn't there be a way to satisfy at least MOST of the fans?? One would think so.
Mayhaps that the only way to please others, is to please yourself at the same time too... You have to give your heart away to get your heart back in the end. So, whoever is producing Trek next... maybe the best thing to do is to just do your own 'thang', though that 'thang' has to be true to the spirit of Trek also...
My my, Trek is in a worse state then ever.
G
Guest
Guest
I haven't voted yet, but I do want to say how I felt about each series.
TOS: caught in syndication.. remember trying to watch as 7 yr old. Finally found trek and saw each eppy 5+ times. Have gotten tired of "some" after 20th viewing
TAS. Dull, kiddie type TOS cartoon for 5 year olds. Never got to see it much, didn't care! [I think I was 16 so...]
TNG: first season felt like a REAL continuation of "trek"
2nd season, OK, Third Oh Please... How many times are we going to go to other universes? Borg... a stupid concept.
Oh, and since I hate the whole P.C. thing... it didn't play well in TNG.
DS9: DS what? I know where K7 is, well... lost interest during first eppy... caught up a li'l later and watched, but...
Voy: tried to follow it, but not too interested, until 7 of 9 slinked onto the screen... LOL. Didn't like the Dallas "whole season never happened" crap. Was LIS with trek tech. Agree the EMH was the most real character.
ENT: Again, Season 1 and 2 felt like TOS all over with new TECH! Then along came the Zindy...[sp] Oh Please!!!
OTOH: BWAAAH HAAAA I want more TREK shows!!!! Pout!!!
3D Master
Rear Admiral
The Federation do not conquer, and did not conquer anything. Nor did they do it over anything that a citizen thought of, the citizens were already there, working their buts off for a living. That's not thinking, that's owning.
The Cardassians just wanted more territories and attacked places already colononized by Federation citizens. There was no dispute, it was very simply: we want it, let's fire up the weapons. The Federation defended themselves, and then afterwards gave the stuff away anyway. Why bother defending yourself in the first place if you're going to give it away later?
Further the Cardassians have NOT fought the Federation to a frustrating standstill. If you notice, Cardassian technology is subpar to the Federation. The Federation fought the Cardassians to a standstill, and were done. The war was over the Cardassians had nothing left, and still they gave territories away; territories that had Federation citizens in them, because they expected the citizens that risked their lives and well being to start a new existence on another planet to come back like good little pets because the Federation said so. If they had given the Cardassians territories that had no citizens there, alas, but they just gave it away and attempted to remove the citizens.
Ever think that it's a matter of Quality? It's been slowly going down since TNG (checkout the 7th season)...
I'm talking about plot and characters here... How anyone can say E is the closest in spirit to TOS needs to do their homework... E had THE most wooden characters of any Trek series, from the regulars to the alien-of-the-week... There was SO LITTLE dialogue alone to go around, it's no wonder the crew was flat... I've said it many times: Bakula had more dialogue, and more to do, in a Single Episode of Quantum Leap than he had for a full season on E... The plots were ridiculously pointless and simplistic (Archer or whomever is captured by a villain, the E flies in to rescue him, or variants thereof)... You'd might as well be watching Logan's Run, Space: 1999, or Homeboys in Outer Space... Only a handful of E episodes actually had anything to Say, and the way it Said it was about as outright transparent and flimsy as ST IV's Save The Whales theme...
And NO THOUGHT went into depicting this pre-TOS era--what we got was TNG/DS9/V tech transplanted, wholesale technobabble ripped off...all to tie it more into the 24th Century than the 23rd...
V pretty much did the same thing but saved us from corrupting Trek's past legacy by setting it in the 24th Century... And was able to at least dwell upon the past Trek series, bringing established characters back to the screen from time to time...
DS9 had characters and better plots for sure, but ended in poor taste with an ongoing war theme (I guess ALL space series these days have to have it, right? Or were they just trying to copy B5?)...
Let me put it to you another way: More thought went into the episode Titles of TOS than any later Trek series... By the time V came along, single-word titles were common, ditto for E...
Obviously the writers CARED more for their work, in years past, than they do now...but on the other hand... Today, we have the creators of the series penning most of the episodes themselves, so Naturally there's going to be instant stagnation... And these tv writers are only that: tv writers, not science fiction writers... One would think that an SF series would use real SF writers...
While I'm chatty, let me just mention Serial style vs. stand-alone episode style... Maybe it's just me, but stand-alone episodes come across as being far more polished and professional than the scattered chickenfeed serials...
These writers use the term Story Arc as an excuse to hide their own Bad Writing, since they usually haven't a clue Where they're going, they let things hang (and hope answers will come in some future episode/s)... This is one of those elements which slowly killed DS9 in its later years... (And among other things, it's killed this new Galactica series right from the start!)... If you're talking about the masses, the masses Don't want to start observing every little nitpicky detail and take notes on it, because X episodes down the road a story will revolve around them...
Good writing has a Beginning, a Middle, and an End... You don't just throw ideas onto the screen and try to make some sort of half-assed storyline Look like an episode of a story arc...
Really? Is that why they had DeForest Kelly do a guest spot as a 137 year old Admiral 'checking medical layout'; or the mention of Kirk and the fact that 'the Constitution class Enterprise under the command of James T. Kirk experienced something similar 80 years earlier...' in the first regular TNG episode The Naked Now? Not to mention all the TOS models and props littering the backgrounds in all the Observation and Briefing Roon scenes during TNG season one.
Personally, the 'thou shall not mention TOS on TNG' edict rumored to exist during season's one and two is either a myth, or a bold faced lie.
Posted by Noname Given:
Personally, the 'thou shall not mention TOS on TNG' edict rumored to exist during season's one and two is either a myth, or a bold faced lie.
There was such a thing? When did it start. I just remember thinking that TNG in the first two seasons might have tried too hard to be like Star Trek.
As for what spin-off is closest to spirit to Star Trek, it's kind of hard for me to answer the question since I'm still getting really into the series (I've seen every episode at least once, but most have only been once). I guess I could say TNG, for it's boldly going where no man has gone before.
Okay, let's look at what Star Trek was in 1966-1969. it was the first major prime time American science fiction TV series that (a) was aimed at an adult audience and (b) wasn't an anthology series like Twilight Zone or Outer Limits.
In most ways it was like the other dramas of its time: standalone episodes with a bit of character development, some recurring elements like the Klingons, but not too much continuity. There was also an awareness of the times reflected in different ways in different stories. Basically, though, the assumption was that even devoted viewers would never see a given episode more than once or twice.
So if you're going to bring back a show like that, you have two choices: do you see it as a product of the original show's era, or of its own?
TNG premiered in the era of Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere, shows that were upping the ante in TV drama with greater use of serial continuity (applying lessons learned from prime time soaps to genre shows) and in maturity of subject matter. TNG, for the most part, ignored the changes made in TV in the 1980s and early 1990s. That's partly due to being syndicated, probably, and not being able to take the kinds of risks major network shows could take. But it makes it seem, in its own time and context, conservative in its approach. As for the SF side of SFTV, TNG did occasionally take note of new developments in technology and science fiction, but it was still pretty damn conservative in its outlook there, too, considering it premiered post-cyberpunk. Max Headroom was more of a forward-looking SF TV series, short-lived though it was.
DS9 may still have been a bit on the conservative side SF-wise; its galactic civilizations are not headed for any kind of Vingean singularity. But it's moved forward a couple decades from the 1940s-style space opera to take on elements of 1960s and 1970s-style sociological SF (I'm thinking here of written SF, not media SF) in its much more detailed exploration of a few alien civilizations. As for TV... well, it started out a little old-fashioned and standalone, but over the seasons it put a much greater emphasis on serial storytelling and almost as great an emphasis on its large ensemble cast of regulars and supporting characters. It also took on more adult themes, with its sometimes cynical look at the Federation (one perhaps shared by Kirk and his crew, with their distrust of bureaucrats and diplomats) and its greater emphasis on relationships (including a subtly greater openness to homosexuality). It also took the multicultural thing from TOS and carried it farther, with the only nonwhite lead of all the Trek TV series.
Voyager had some arcs built in and handled them in a pretty confused manner. After all the Maquis setup on TNG and DS9, to create a source of conflict in Voyager's crew, everybody became happy families in no time. And the voyage home element competed with the need for familiar faces, so it took Voyager three years to get away from the dumbest Klingon-wannabes in the Milky Way. And then it ran a TNG creation, the Borg, into the ground.
Enterprise... two seasons of TOS/TNG/VOY one-shots, one season-long serial, one season with a mix of serials and one-shots. But whereas on DS9 the increasing use of serial storytelling and ensemble cast seemed to develop organically, on Enterprise the sense I had was that it was the result of mad flailing about by the producers to find an approach that would boost ratings.
So... DS9 most consistently worked towards being an example of quality TV of its time in turns of storytelling techniques and ensemble cast. DS9 moved beyond TOS and the rest of Trek in casting nonwhite lead characters. DS9 moved beyond the other shows in bumping its litSF equivalents forward a bit, to bring in a lot more worldbuilding and cultural exploration. DS9 dealt with more adult themes.
So, yeah. I do think DS9 is the most true to the spirit of TOS.
In most ways it was like the other dramas of its time: standalone episodes with a bit of character development, some recurring elements like the Klingons, but not too much continuity. There was also an awareness of the times reflected in different ways in different stories. Basically, though, the assumption was that even devoted viewers would never see a given episode more than once or twice.
So if you're going to bring back a show like that, you have two choices: do you see it as a product of the original show's era, or of its own?
TNG premiered in the era of Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere, shows that were upping the ante in TV drama with greater use of serial continuity (applying lessons learned from prime time soaps to genre shows) and in maturity of subject matter. TNG, for the most part, ignored the changes made in TV in the 1980s and early 1990s. That's partly due to being syndicated, probably, and not being able to take the kinds of risks major network shows could take. But it makes it seem, in its own time and context, conservative in its approach. As for the SF side of SFTV, TNG did occasionally take note of new developments in technology and science fiction, but it was still pretty damn conservative in its outlook there, too, considering it premiered post-cyberpunk. Max Headroom was more of a forward-looking SF TV series, short-lived though it was.
DS9 may still have been a bit on the conservative side SF-wise; its galactic civilizations are not headed for any kind of Vingean singularity. But it's moved forward a couple decades from the 1940s-style space opera to take on elements of 1960s and 1970s-style sociological SF (I'm thinking here of written SF, not media SF) in its much more detailed exploration of a few alien civilizations. As for TV... well, it started out a little old-fashioned and standalone, but over the seasons it put a much greater emphasis on serial storytelling and almost as great an emphasis on its large ensemble cast of regulars and supporting characters. It also took on more adult themes, with its sometimes cynical look at the Federation (one perhaps shared by Kirk and his crew, with their distrust of bureaucrats and diplomats) and its greater emphasis on relationships (including a subtly greater openness to homosexuality). It also took the multicultural thing from TOS and carried it farther, with the only nonwhite lead of all the Trek TV series.
Voyager had some arcs built in and handled them in a pretty confused manner. After all the Maquis setup on TNG and DS9, to create a source of conflict in Voyager's crew, everybody became happy families in no time. And the voyage home element competed with the need for familiar faces, so it took Voyager three years to get away from the dumbest Klingon-wannabes in the Milky Way. And then it ran a TNG creation, the Borg, into the ground.
Enterprise... two seasons of TOS/TNG/VOY one-shots, one season-long serial, one season with a mix of serials and one-shots. But whereas on DS9 the increasing use of serial storytelling and ensemble cast seemed to develop organically, on Enterprise the sense I had was that it was the result of mad flailing about by the producers to find an approach that would boost ratings.
So... DS9 most consistently worked towards being an example of quality TV of its time in turns of storytelling techniques and ensemble cast. DS9 moved beyond TOS and the rest of Trek in casting nonwhite lead characters. DS9 moved beyond the other shows in bumping its litSF equivalents forward a bit, to bring in a lot more worldbuilding and cultural exploration. DS9 dealt with more adult themes.
So, yeah. I do think DS9 is the most true to the spirit of TOS.
I'd agree with that. If anything, DS9 told about socialogical phenomena that was TOS's main target, not humaneterian future - although that was part of the whole message, the show didn't show a perfect world like TNG did. DS9 deliberately returned to TOS's less-then-perfect universe, still hoping for the betterment of human kind, but not ignoring the situations which, as depicted DS9, could possibly cause even GREATER consequences than the Dominion War. And I think Sisko understood that in The Pale Moonlight.
What do you think?
What do you think?
enterprise
OK, up until now, the votes gone like this:
Star Trek: The Next Generation: 62
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: 68
Star Trek: Voyager: 12
Enterprise: 41
Enterprise really got some interesting votes, but TNG and DS9 have taken the road. VOY.. well, I am surprised of its 12 votes (I half expected approximately 10 votes). Lets see how this could continue..
Star Trek: The Next Generation: 62
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: 68
Star Trek: Voyager: 12
Enterprise: 41
Enterprise really got some interesting votes, but TNG and DS9 have taken the road. VOY.. well, I am surprised of its 12 votes (I half expected approximately 10 votes). Lets see how this could continue..
number6
Vice Admiral
So I guess episodes like A Taste of Armageddon, Aprivate Little War, and Balance of Terror happened while his back was turned, and fans didn't praise the Dominion war arc in droves and aren't now clamoring to see the Romulan war???
DS9 wasn't about fighting wars, either. They did a war arc for a season and a half, but it wasn't the focus of the series.
The DS9 war arc started at the end of the second season, the actual war didn't start until the end of the fifth. And as for those eps. those weren't about fighting a war, they were about ending or preventing a war. And no people are clamoring to see the Romulan War.
http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=4916521&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=7&fpart=1&vc=1
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