Star Trek

I have been watching Star Trek and after going through the original series, the animated series and season 1 of the next generation, i thought i should watch one of the movies!

I really had to fight my way through the motion picture. The pace was so slow and much of it mostly showed characters staring at something or someone. It was great to see the characters again though even though they had aged more that i had expected.

I've been watching a good amount of Voyager recently and it made me notice how many episodes feature or hinge on faking-out the audience. So I went through the episodes and made a little list.

What I'm considering a fake-out: if the episode or scene itself is framed to make the audience think something is real when it isn't real, or if the events of the episode or scene are non-real by the end of the episode (e.g. "it was all a dream" or "we went back in time and changed it so it doesn't count").

Voyager episodes with fake-outs: S1E3 Time and Again - Whole episode is undone by time travel S2E3 Projections - Whole episode is a fake-out, with a bonus fake-out fake ending S2E5 Non Sequitur - Whole episode undone by the end S2E8 Persistence of Vision - Multiple hallucination based fake-outs S3E15 Coda - Multiple fake deaths framed to be real, then a fake exit to the situation S3E25 Worst Case Scenario - Fake-out mutiny in the beginning S4E4 Nemesis - Almost nothing in the episode actually took place S4E9 Year of Hell Part 2 - Undid all of the episode (and the one before!) by the end S4E13 Waking Moments - Multiple fake awakenings S4E17 Retrospect - False memories presented as real to the audience (and, really, the episode itself does a poor job of "disproving" them in the end anyway) S4E23 Living Witness - Opening scene fake-out with holographic recreation evil crew S4E24 Demon - Fake Tom and Harry S4E25 One - Fake evil alien S5E6 Timeless - Entire episode undone by time travel S5E18 Course: Oblivion - Entire fake ship S5E24 Relativity - Events undone by time travel S6E3 Barge of the Dead - Multiple fake deaths, visions S6E4 Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy - Opening scene fake-out by daydreaming Doctor S6E14 Memorial - Fake memories presented as real to audience S6E23 Fury - Episode events undone by time travel

(Edited with examples)

There were also quite a few episodes I left off that I felt were borderline fake-out. A few of the listed episodes are really good but the majority are distressingly lazy or inconsequential. In fact I remember watching the original run of Voyager and easily predicting when a new scene would be a fake-out after a while. For reference I also did a quick look at TNG's fake-out episodes and here's what I came up with:

Yesterday's Enterprise Remember Me Future Imperfect Conundrum The Inner Light Frame of Mind Parallels Eye of the Beholder

Of which Yesterday's Enterprise and Inner Light might not count, particularly in light of follow-up episodes (Unification and Lessons, respectively). Furthermore, of that TNG list I'd say they're all pretty good except maybe Frame of Mind and Eye of the Beholder.

Has anyone else noticed this tendency of the Voyager writers? Or have feelings about how that device is used in the other series?

It took 14 years, but I finally got my spouse into Trek a while back with TNG. We are in the process of wrapping up season 6, and the question of where to go next has come up several times. The two obvious next steps:

• TNG movies
• DS9

And even then, there's chronology/production order. All the movies, then DS9? DS9, then the movies? Mix the movies into DS9? (Yes, I do realize that we "should" be mixing TNG and DS9 at this point if I'm going to bring chronology into the mix lol.)

But I'm still very much interested in getting her to watch TOS, if nothing else than for the base of knowledge. IMO it still holds up, save for some societal byproducts of its time. And love it or hate it, the remaster made going back a lot more palatable for people who might otherwise struggle to enjoy 60s effects. And from there it would be either TAS (which I have but haven't seen yet) or the movies... which flows nicely into Generations. As a bonus, all of this has been released on Blu-ray and is sitting on my shelf, and doesn't require paying for official SD versions of DS9 etc. (or setting up for viewing by unofficial means).

As for me, I never finished DS9 or Voyager... by the time the latter came out I was in high school and basically stopped having time to watch tv on a broadcaster's schedule. And then I was working nights by the time Enterprise came out... and then didn't start any of the newer shows because I wasn't caught up. ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ (So no spoilers please, same with opinions on the newer shows. It's been beat to death lol.)

tl;dr Keep on trucking or swing by the old haunts first?

I’ve played the free demo on Steam, which is a glorified walking simulator at this point, but it’s still pretty interesting.

The dev has pretty big plans (and is very active on YT), hope they all come to fruition.

I just discovered this today.

I came across this box set and it's really messing me up for a lot of reasons (it is marked TOS despite having characters from all over the place, and for some mistaken reason Gul Dukat is included) but what I really wanted to talk about was Q's inclusion.

Do people usually consider him a villain?

I suppose he has done a lot of things that would be considered antagonistic, with a big one getting a number of Enterprise crew members killed in the first encounter with the Borg, but that seems, at least from his point of view a tough love moment. In the long term, Q did seem to have the survival of humanity as a goal. His judgment of humans was pompous but not villainous.

$55 is too much for me, but someone else here may feel it's worth it.

It cannot be overstated how limited budgets led to some of the best writing on TV. And this episode is one of the best-written in the entire franchise.

It's also my absolute favorite shot of Uhura:

Ensign Skippy was getting a little too political, so Uhura replaced him and fired the death blow against the Romulan Bird of Prey. And she just leans back and takes it in during this dolly shot of the bridge. Stone Cold.

Assuming everyone involved had about a week to familiarize themselves with the X-Box 360 and game, and had motivation to try and win.

Which combination from the following list would do better than any other pair?

Ben Sisko

Jake Sisko

Odo

Kira

Nog

Quark

Morn

Jadzia

Bashir

Garak Worf

Gul Dukat

Miles O'Brien

Keiko

The Grand Nagus

Rom

Grilka

Kai Winn

Follow up question: Would the winning pair change if playing Call Of Duty Black Ops zombies?

Assume a mass casualty type situation. Something along the lines of AR-558 with physical wounds ranging from phaser and disruptor hits, to concussions, broken bones, and the like.

Each Chief would be from roughly halfway through the run of their series with whatever knowledge and experience they had at that point. Each would have access to whatever kind of portable medical kit a medical officer of their time would have brought for such a situation. There are no able bodied personnel to help. No they don't have access to a transporter.

What are episodes from any series where you have problems with what the show presents as the correct side in an ethical dilemma.

This is a different question than purely having problems with ethical choices made by the characters themselves, as this question rests on what the writing frames as "correct" in the end.

I have two to start. The first is TOS 'Let That Be Your Last Battlefield'. It's the episode with the black and white characters locked in a constant struggle. The message is that holding eternal grudges and especially in the dimension of racism is wrong and self destructive. That's fine as it goes. The problem for me is that Kirk, and the writing frames each of the two fighting aliens as being equally at fault.

One alien is from the previously oppressive class, and is hunting down the other alien.

The second alien is from the previously enslaved class, and is being hunted.

These are not equal positions. Clearly one side is more correct than the other. Also that more correct side is being hunted, and there is no indication he is intending to continue the conflict except for when the alien hunting him catches up with him and forces another fight.

Good initial message, terrible execution.

The next episode that has never sat right with me is Voyager's 'Critical Care'. In this episode the doctor is taken to work on hospital of an alien planet where medical care is allocated by a bureaucracy that largely follows an algorithm for assigning resources. Those who are deemed more essential receive higher quality care, and those on the bottom rung get scraps.

The message about unequal treatment, and the heartlessness of bureaucracy, especially medical bureaucracy is on full display. Eventually the doctor forces medication to be distributed for all.

Seems fine as messages go, but this episode sticks in my head. The thesis of the "correct" side of the dilemma seems to assume there actually are enough resources for everyone, and I'm not sure if I buy it. Sure, showing a sliver of high ranking people getting double doses of preventative medication while the lower rung masses get nothing is awful, I wonder about the math. If 10 high ranking people are getting double doses, and you have 100 people down below who need them, then I suppose you can cut the double doses and treat 10 of the lower rung people, but you still have to exclude 90 of them. In that case, a logical algorithm to decide which of those 100 people is the best return on investment seems cold but needed. A hard choice, but the alternative is chaos. In the end, the Doctor didn't provide a roadmap for a better system, he just left the ship in the hands of a doctor who might game it for more resources, but those would logically be pulled from a central pool and leave less savvy off-screen hospitals with less. Assuming of course there weren't infinite medical resources being hoarded in the beginning. I don't know, it was just a little too murky for me.

This is a long watch (2 hours!), but worth it. My biggest gripe is the licking of Berman's boots, but the overall presentation is fantastic.

This video has good stuff in it. I promise it is worth the watch.

His portrayal of the self aware hologram Vic on DS9 was always a highlight for me. In the midst of an ongoing war epic, they'd sprinkle in moments for Fontaine to cheer/distract the crew and audience. His beautiful voice helped Nog through the loss of his leg and the PTSD incurred from battle. He got Odo to remove the proverbial stick from his ass. Plus, he helped to orchestrate a ridiculous heist on the holodeck in order to save his program. He will be missed.

Article from Hollywood Reporter