Which Trek Episodes Have Aged Badly?

[GNDN18]

To my understanding of the words, there's a difference between "topical" and "relevant"...the difference being, did it have anything worthwhile to say about what was happening in the world at the time? I thought its somber fatalism was tone-deaf regarding the end of the Cold War...what it was really about was the resignation that the TOS era was over.

These are valid points, but the end of the Cold War and the TOS-era were coterminous. Nicholas Meyer’s vision of the future was dystopic and his film reflected that. Clearly, he saw no happy ending flowing naturally from the cessation of hostilities, but only an uneasy coexistence. Similarly, TOS promised much, but that promise is largely unfulfilled. Or, at least one could make the argument.

I mean, Meyer wanted to end ST 2 with the closed torpedo tube door, much like John Ford’s closing door in The Searchers. Not a real optimistic film maker, he.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I mean, Meyer wanted to end ST 2 with the closed torpedo tube door, much like John Ford’s closing door in The Searchers. Not a real optimistic film maker, he.

Did he literally want to end the film with that shot? I've never heard that before. What's your source on that?

Does that mean there wouldn't be Kirk's "I feel young" line at the end? That pretty much brings Kirk's character arc to a conclusion, no?

 

[GNDN18]

Did he literally want to end the film with that shot? I've never heard that before. What's your source on that?

Does that mean there wouldn't be Kirk's "I feel young" line at the end? That pretty much brings Kirk's character arc to a conclusion, no?

I thought I saw the storyboards in an extra from the Director’s Cut DVD. I might be mistaken.

ETA: I’m not the only one to mis-remember this. So…

But while I’m standing, I’ll stand by my main comment that Meyer is depressing. Look at Time after Time: Jack the Ripper goes on another killing spree because he’s so disillusioned by the future.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

But while I’m standing, I’ll stand by my main comment that Meyer is depressing. Look at Time after Time: Jack the Ripper goes on another killing spree because he’s so disillusioned by the future.

...You're watching these movies to the end, right? Time After Time ends with

Spoiler: Time After Time Ending

the Ripper utterly defeated and Wells and Amy reunited.

And the Ripper wasn't disillusioned by the future. On the contrary, he felt completely at home there and thought that society had finally caught up with him. It was Wells who had his illusions of a utopian future shattered.

 

[GNDN18]

...You're watching these movies to the end, right? Time After Time ends with

Spoiler: Time After Time Ending

the Ripper utterly defeated and Wells and Amy reunited.

And the Ripper wasn't disillusioned by the future. On the contrary, he felt completely at home there and thought that society had finally caught up with him. It was Wells who had his illusions of a utopian future shattered.

We see life through different lenses, but I appreciate your point of view.

 

[MAGolding]

...You're watching these movies to the end, right? Time After Time ends with

Spoiler: Time After Time Ending

the Ripper utterly defeated and Wells and Amy reunited.

And the Ripper wasn't disillusioned by the future. On the contrary, he felt completely at home there and thought that society had finally caught up with him. It was Wells who had his illusions of a utopian future shattered.

I haven't seen Time After Time so I don't know what the Ripper or H.G. Wells felt about the distant exotic future of 1979 (39 years ago) in the movie.

But I imagine if the real H.G. Wells from 1900 or something visited 1979 he might be shocked both by how much better and how much worse it was than he would have predicted.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I haven't seen Time After Time

See the movie. It's great. Particularly if you're a fan of Meyer's work on Trek.

Here's a piece I wrote about Time After Time last year when the swiftly-cancelled TV version premiered. It's not too spoiler-heavy, and should give you a feel for the film. Or just check out the trailer on YouTube.

 

[Jack Watkins]

See the movie. It's great. Particularly if you're a fan of Meyer's work on Trek.

Here's a piece I wrote about Time After Time last year when the swiftly-cancelled TV version premiered. It's not too spoiler-heavy, and should give you a feel for the film. Or just check out the trailer on YouTube.

Gees, that show... Sexy HG Wells vs. Sexy Jack the Ripper in "Time after Sexy Time Time Sex Sex."

 

[STR]

To my understanding of the words, there's a difference between "topical" and "relevant"...the difference being, did it have anything worthwhile to say about what was happening in the world at the time? I thought its somber fatalism was tone-deaf regarding the end of the Cold War...what it was really about was the resignation that the TOS era was over.

Somber fatalism? There was nothing fatalist about that movie at all. Indeed, the whole point is that the future is (in large part) what one makes of it. How you respond to change is up to you and your response can change history on it's own for better or worse.

And that reponse can be as simple (and as difficult) as merely trusting someone at their word, or just fearing someone based solely on your own prejudices.

I think that was relevant then and even more so today.

 

[Qonundrum]

TNG's "The Game," for that stupid, um... game.

Somebody did a youtube video of it featuring that flinging birds game. The cliché of Wes and writing everyone else around him as being dumb, with other obvious plot contrivances, was the usual problem. The story's otherwise aged disturbingly well.

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Can a story do reverse aging? "The Game" hasn't ever been more on-target.

 

[Verteron]

TNG, The High Ground, stating that terrorism led to an Irish reunification in 2024:

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This was so controversial in its day in the UK, when the Irish Republican Army were blowing up civilian targets regularly in Great Britain and had attempted to assassinate Thatcher and members of the monarchy, it was banned.

Nine years later, Republicans and Unionists signed the Good Friday Agreement, leading to a permanent cessation of violence in Northern Ireland in favour of politics. It's not worked entirely smoothly, but apart from the occasional dissident attack, peace has largely been achieved.

This is one anachronism in Star Trek I'm happy to see.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Gees, that show... Sexy HG Wells vs. Sexy Jack the Ripper in "Time after Sexy Time Time Sex Sex."

Yeah, I was not surprised that it was cancelled so quickly.

 

[Tomalak]

Nine years later, Republicans and Unionists signed the Good Friday Agreement, leading to a permanent cessation of violence in Northern Ireland in favour of politics. It's not worked entirely smoothly, but apart from the occasional dissident attack, peace has largely been achieved.

This is one anachronism in Star Trek I'm happy to see.

Ironically the British government is now doing its best to reignite those tensions at a time when the Republicans and Unionists are wholly unable to agree a power-sharing deal. Several MPs are openly questioning whether the GFA was a good deal.

How quickly we forget.

 

[Jayson1]

Only the ones who haven't been able to come out on Blu-Ray.

Jason

 

[MAGolding]

But that was never the question in "The Royale". Solution to Fermat's problem did not interest Picard. Fermat's solution to the problem - the "remarkable proof" - did. And science today is none the wiser as to what this solution might have been (although it's commonly accepted that no such solution ever really existed, and Fermat was merely joking or mistaken).

Timo Saloniemi

That's what you say. What does the episode say?

PICARD: Come.
(Riker enters)
PICARD: Fermat's last theorem. You're familiar with it?
RIKER: Vaguely. I spent too many math classes daydreaming about being on a starship.
PICARD: When Pierre de Fermat died they found this equation scrawled in the margin of his notes. X to the nth plus Y to the nth equals Z to the nth, where n is greater than 2, which he said had no solution in whole numbers. But he also added this phrase. Remarkable proof.
RIKER: Yeah, that's starting to come back to me. There was no proof included.
PICARD: For the eight hundred years people have been trying to solve it.
RIKER: Including you.
PICARD: I find it stimulating. Also, it puts things in perspective. In our arrogance we feel we are so advanced, and yet we cannot unravel a simple knot tied by a part-time French mathematician working alone, without a computer.

I always interpreted this to mean that nobody had ever proved Fermat's last theorem in 800 years or so since 1637 or by about 2437. But it is consistent with Picard and others trying to find out how Fermat might have proved it, instead of seeking independent proofs of it. Especially since many modern mathematicians suppose that Fermat goofed and had a false proof. Trying to figure out how Fermat might possibly have proved it with 17th century math would be a challenge.

Maybe Star Trek is in an alternate universe where Andrew Wiles was never born in 1953, or died before 1994, or never got interested in math. And so the theorem was not proved after 358 years. But that would still leave 442 years (give or take a few decades) for mathematicians to seek to prove it, and if it can be proved (and it seems to have been proved) it is probable it should have been proved by Picard's time. But in "Facets" in DS9:

DAX: Will you please stop saying you're sorry?
TOBIN: Sorry.
DAX: I've been working on finishing your proof of Fermat's last theorem.
TOBIN: You have?
DAX: It's the most original approach to the proof since Wiles over three hundred years ago.
TOBIN: Thanks.
DAX: I guess I tend to look for original approaches myself. I guess I have you to thank for that, as well.

So someone named Wiles did prove the theorem. If that was Andrew Wiles in AD 1994 it would make "Facets" after AD 2294 but probably before 2394. If Dax was counting the time in Earth years. We can't claim that Star Trek is in an alternate universe where Fermat's Last Theorem was never proved.

So that makes your interpretation a very attractive one.

 

[Lord Garth]

ENT -- especially Season 3 -- reminds me very much of the Bush Era.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

That's what you say. What does the episode say?

I could start pretty much every response I ever make to Timo with this sentence.

 

[iliescu]

Would say 'The City on the Edge of Forever' incredible but close to base.