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Seven is always the sexbot. She’s given more to do as they realize how well Ryan did with anything they gave her, but she’s never out of a skintight outfit, telling Harry to get out of his clothes, having her body violated in one form or another, needing someone to tell her how to date, falling in love with Chakotay for reasons, wrestling the Rock and somehow not getting liquified… She was brought on for one reason, serendipity notwithstanding.
I think that's a real underestimation of the character honestly, she became one of the most popular characters in the franchise because she's generally well written and consistently exceptionally well-acted. The Harry stuff is all very early (and is designed to say more about Harry than it does about Seven). Stuff like "Someone To Watch Over Me" is, at least in the way I took it, because she's essentially a cult survivor who has no social or emotional skills and never completed a normal childhood, which is the core of the character.
As for not getting liquefied by the Rock - Borg implants! That's the plot of the episode, right?
Hell, the concept of a Borg Queen is fear of mother. “No, no, that’s because they needed someone to personify the Borg,” you say? The apex of the Borg were BoBW, no Queen in sight. Certainly not one who blinks Data and has a very special relationship with Seven because reasons..
I agree about the Borg Queen, although in fairness that was a turd laid at their feet by First Contact. As soon as FC introduced the character there wasn't really much they could do to avoid having her come up. I think the absolute worst use of the character occurred in FC itself rather than in Voyager too. They probably made her vaguely maternal toward Seven in a desperate attempt to get something interesting out of a character who was essentailly designed to do nothing else other than give Data a boner (and, I suppose, to contrast her with Janeway, who is also a mother figure to Seven).
I think that's a real underestimation of the character honestly, she became one of the most popular characters in the franchise because she's generally well written and consistently exceptionally well-acted.
The Harry stuff is all very early (and is designed to say more about Harry than it does about Seven). Stuff like "Someone To Watch Over Me" is, at least in the way I took it, because she's essentially a cult survivor who has no social or emotional skills and never completed a normal childhood, which is the core of the character.
These storylines come from writers inspired by where they might take the character, not from an actual person’s real experience. She could have come out of the Collective a bit like Q, vaguely knowing everything, (the Queen knew how to seduce men for some reason), instead she needed the Doctor (middle aged man who looks more like a studio executive than anyone anywhere near her league) to tell her about human mating rituals.
Her implants were mostly in her body though. She wasn’t head butting him with the edge of her duranium eye piece lol The nanoprobes might have helped with healing but like they weren’t like ablative armor or something. It was them cross promoting the WWE on the network that week, we just nod and move on.
I agree about the Borg Queen, although in fairness that was a turd laid at their feet by First Contact. As soon as FC introduced the character there wasn't really much they could do to avoid having her come up. I think the absolute worst use of the character occurred in FC itself rather than in Voyager too. They probably made her vaguely maternal toward Seven in a desperate attempt to get something interesting out of a character who was essentailly designed to do nothing else other than give Data a boner (and, I suppose, to contrast her with Janeway, who is also a mother figure to Seven).
Berman had two major negatives, IMHO: he kept writing episodes tho he was a terrible writer; and he insisted on boring background music instead of anything interesting or exciting.
I think he gets way too little credit for co-creating the cast of Deep Space Nine, critics always says he was the least involved with that series so that was why it was the best!, least involved can still be a huge, at least really significant, amount of involvement and contribution.
Bajoran/space station setting and (non-Starfleet) Bajoran first officer, Ferengi as regular main cast character seem to me like taking petty big chances to me as does with Voyager making a former Borg a new main cast character.
Seven evolved into more than eye candy, but that's because the writers had good ideas for her character, plus she was played by a very capable actress. She and the EMH both became breakout characters. But that didn't change the fact that her outfit was a giant step backward for womankind on Trek. Troi had gotten a proper uniform on TNG, Kira and Dax wore standard uniform, Janeway and Torres same, and Kes wore tasteful civilian clothes. It looks like the corner's been turned, then...
Captain Picard’s Love Boat Actor Chris Pine recently appeared on an episode of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, as a very Shatner-esqe version of Captain James T. Kirk. The segment ignited discussion on social media of past SNL Star Trek skits, including Shatner’s iconic 1986 “Get A Life” sketch...
Berman era Trek was solid behind the magic of TOS.
Full length, episodic seasons with occasional arcs scattered throughout.
Some of the most iconic episodes and character moments in all of Trek.
Different shows had their shares of issues, but all of them were solid offerings.
Kurtzman Trek is Gen-Z Trek. What do I mean by that? The entire mindset is different, and it diverges a great deal from what came before. I could forgive that if it was consistently good, but instead it is consistently silly. The seasons are too short- a symptom of the times, I know. SNW has been the only part of it I've enjoyed, and even that show is sorely testing my patience as of S3.
So two thumbs up for the Berman era, warts and all. If I had to pick between Berman and Kurtzman, I'd be running home to the Enterprise-D and TNG.
Given the quantity of Berman Trek, it provided me with many moments of entertainment but none of them outshone the best of TOS, SNW, and Kelvinverse (obviously YMMV).
In a lot of threads recently I've seen people ragging on the entire Berman era, typically to suggest that SNW wipes the floor with it. It's a fascinating viewpoint and pretty novel; on the rest of the internet it's taken as given that TNG and DS9 represent some kind of objective high point.
I've rewatched many of them relatively recently and I have some thoughts, which I'll spoiler for length:
TNG - For me it hit a sweet spot in seasons 2 and 3, and started to become much more bland and haughty after that, though fantastic episodes still occur throughout. It's always at its best when it drops the pomposity and just writes the kind of straightforwardly fun plot that could slot into TOS. I think I'd still call myself a fan even though I've got no interest in watching about half of it. All the movies were pretty awful IMO, even the highly-rated First Contact.
DS9 - I really love a lot of the first three seasons, and it could have easily blossomed into my favourite Star Trek series of all from that starting point had it really focused on post-war Bajor, but it completely loses me from mid-season 4 onward with the string of boring war arcs (most of which are conveyed via WW2/Vietnam movie tropes transplanted wholesale). By the last two seasons it's basically on par with Picard for me, in that it just feels like a generic, unimaginative sci-fi series with the Star Trek name slapped on it. Can't call myself a fan since I think well over half the show is a complete washout, but I'd still rewatch those first three seasons any day.
Voyager - This is my favourite of the Berman shows easily, and as time goes on I find it more and more miraculous that it exists. It held firm to upbeat, high concept, mostly-episodic adventure into an era where that was increasingly seen as defunct, and eschewed the self-seriousness that defined latter-era TNG and DS9 (and much of TV in general by that point). It has its ups and downs but every season has a good amount of strong, imaginative science fiction, comedy, and character work. Along with TOS, this is the only Star Trek series I really like as a whole, and it's the only one I can really buy as a spiritual sequel to TOS/TAS.
Enterprise - I have mostly warm feelings about this, though I can't remember shit outside one or two episodes. Rarely great, but consistently enjoyable. T'Pol rules. Temporal Cold War sucked. Xindi arc went surprisingly well. It lost me in the fourth season, just absolutely no interest in that kind of "here's four Memory Alpha articles smashed together into a plot" type of storytelling.
tl;dr - I really like just under half of TNG and DS9, I love pretty much all of Voyager, and the first three seasons of Enterprise are solid.
On the whole, I'm really glad the Berman era happened, and compared with the Kurtzman era, it wins hands down for me. All four of these shows have their moments, and I'm always happy to revisit them (or at least, the first halves of them...) in a way that I just can't imagine doing with Discovery, Picard, or the latest season of SNW.
Go. Discuss. Are you a Berman Fan or a Berman Basher? What do you make of each of the shows on their own?
The Berman era is what got me into Trek, but I tend to reflect with mixed feelings. TNG was my bread and butter, and I loved DS9, but DS9 had less of a Berman footprint than the other shows. For me, VOY started out strong but got weaker as it went along, and I never warmed to ENT.
The Berman era is what got me into Trek, but I tend to reflect with mixed feelings. TNG was my bread and butter, and I loved DS9, but DS9 had less of a Berman footprint than the other shows. For me, VOY started out strong but got weaker as it went along, and I never warmed to ENT.
Yeah I was struck by how much more I enjoyed the first couple of seasons of VOY on the rewatch than the few I got up to before I paused. I’m thinking that was the Michael Piller effect. He and Gene Coon in TOS are under appreciated. Including by Ronald D. Moore who chaffed under him—re Piller.
There's a lot to recommend early Voyager.
- It wasn't the "7 and Doctor show". Harry and Neelix were perennially neglected, but Chakotay still got a few episodes.
- The original premise was still being followed.
- There was still a hint of Janeway/Chakotay.
- It had a good recurring villain in Seska.
- And yes, because it's me, I'm going to say it. Harry's low rank still made sense.
Love TNG, the one that started the era, and DS9, the one that tried to go a bold an unusual direction.
Voyager is pretty "blah" for me and I feel it has too many characters that are just "let's take this character from TNG/DS9?TOS and change them a little".
And ENT... it did the same thing as Voyager with many of its characters (as in taking "inspiration" form the earlier shows), was a prequel, which I tend to dislike, and it had abysmal characters and storylines imo.
The Berman era is what got me into Trek, and I still like it, but by now I think it's becoming very dated in many aspects.
Love TNG, the one that started the era, and DS9, the one that tried to go a bold an unusual direction.
Voyager is pretty "blah" for me and I feel it has too many characters that are just "let's take this character from TNG/DS9?TOS and change them a little".
I do feel Torres and Kes feel quite a bit like going forward with the original ideas for respectively Hernandez-Yar and Troi and it would be hard to do any new Klingon character (right) after Worf was such a big and strong part of TNG though Torres did still feel like quite original character. Definitely big echoes of Data with Doctor but also still original and enjoyable enough.
I think something being dated is an inevitability to be honest. TOS is dated.
As with any archival entertainment, it needs to be watched with a certain mindset.
Maybe my upbringing helped. I grew up in the 80s, but would regularly watch stuff from the 50s - 70s with my dad and for that reason it doesn’t jar for me much when I watch something old, even now.
From a commercial perspective, TNG was the absolute peak of Trek's viewership and remains the most successful Trek ever done. So there's that for the Berman era.
