Anyone find these really difficult to watch as repeats, due to their sheer dullness and over stretching of ideas?
These shows don't seem to do that well on TV, and outside their original series arc just seem unwatchable. Even fans don't tend to talk about 'classic' episodes of "The Next Generation" (the most well recieved of the Star Treks) like they did about "Star Trek" but just say, "Oh, from season # it was great" - so generally, the show just improved rather than having any memorable episodes!
me not understanding the point you`re trying to make.
Are you disliking/complaining about TOS, or TNG?
******************************** John Smith: So what am I then? Nothing. I`m just a story.
Doctor: You`re an echo. That`s all. A TimeLord is so much more. A sum of knowledge; a code. A shared history. A shared suffering. Only it`s gone now, all of it. Gone forever.
My point is really a question of weather the post original series Star Trek, stands up as well as the original series and whether it's - as I think it is - a case of quantity over quality. This is more a criticism of modern – multi-season sci-fi ‘franchises’ rather than just Star Trek.
Certainly few people say “make it so” or “you will be assimilated” (which is really a take on the Dr Who Dalek catchphrase, anyway) like they do “beam me up mr spock [sic]” or “Set phasers to stun”, so the shows since, seem have much less influence on non-geeks.
Whereas the original series was episodic and can be dipped in and out of, the newer Star Treks have a soapy, "will they, won't they” undercurrent and 'story arcs' that last the whole series. Miss one, miss them all! I didn’t care if Riker and Troi, Warf and Trio, Janeway and Chakotay and a few others became a couple and I always thought these had a rather eye-rolling and tedious and predictable politically correct subtext.
While I can see that this ensured that the shows were given season after season, I find them more or less unwatchable, unmemorable and wonder how well these shows do now they are on their re-runs.
tng and ds9 are the best post TOS spin offs, really delving into the political machinations of the alpha quadrant. ds9 also has the best main and supporting cast in trek.
I`m old enough to have been watching TOS from the start.
I loved it, this encouraged me to watch TNG. Which I also like, a lot. I thought that it didn`t compare to my memory of TOS.
Then TOS was shown on TV again, and I couldn`t believe that I actually liked it. It was racist, sexist, and incredibly dated. The whole the time I was watching it, all I could think of was the Firm`s hit record "We come in peace, shoot to kill".
TNG is by far the most superior of the Star Trek Franchise, as far I am concerned.
I disliked Enterprise. I didn`t really get into Janeway`s adventures, although I enjoyed those eps I did manage to watch. The same with DS9, I enjoyed the ones I watched, but didn`t worry if I had to miss an ep or two.
I must also add that I do like the films that had TOS charactors in. Not because of the special effects, but because the charactors are more in line with the adult me`s way of thinking.
******************************** John Smith: So what am I then? Nothing. I`m just a story.
Doctor: You`re an echo. That`s all. A TimeLord is so much more. A sum of knowledge; a code. A shared history. A shared suffering. Only it`s gone now, all of it. Gone forever.
voyager and enterprise were designed to be episodic like tng to gain back that show's huge raitngs. the mediocre writting screwed that up. enterprise became better when serialised in season3/4.
Originally posted by antonyD: voyager and enterprise were designed to be episodic like tng to gain back that show's huge raitngs. the mediocre writting screwed that up. enterprise became better when serialised in season3/4.
True, but that bad writing was a symptom, in my view, of taking a show and planning to spread it over 7 (or 8?) 'seasons'.
It's really difficult to remember anything about Voyager.
Those shows also included a will-they? won't-they? soapy element with (especially in Voyager's case) the utterly implausible but at the same time, still tedious, Nelix/Kes soap opera. When they finally got rid of drippy Kes, almost every episode had to be about Janeway and 7-of-9's personality clashes.
I think things like that make the shows unwatchable. By the end of Enterprise they looked absolutely desperate for ideas, and started to use typical original series plots such as the 'what if?' Nazis invading America plot. Even then, it had to be stretched over several episodes. As with Voyager, I find it amazing that Enterprise ran for so long, but produced so few stand out episodes.
Originally posted by Angelus the Vampire: I`m old enough to have been watching TOS from the start.
I loved it, this encouraged me to watch TNG. Which I also like, a lot. I thought that it didn`t compare to my memory of TOS.
Then TOS was shown on TV again, and I couldn`t believe that I actually liked it. It was racist, sexist, and incredibly dated. The whole the time I was watching it, all I could think of was the Firm`s hit record "We come in peace, shoot to kill".
TNG is by far the most superior of the Star Trek Franchise, as far I am concerned.
I disliked Enterprise. I didn`t really get into Janeway`s adventures, although I enjoyed those eps I did manage to watch. The same with DS9, I enjoyed the ones I watched, but didn`t worry if I had to miss an ep or two.
I must also add that I do like the films that had TOS charactors in. Not because of the special effects, but because the charactors are more in line with the adult me`s way of thinking.
As you may guess, I think TNG was were the rot set in. This show was the template for all subsequent shows, in that it added a crushing level of political correctness and soapy character-driven plotlines.
Another thing it exploited much more was the eye-roll-inducing get-out-of-jail-free-card, whereby no matter what the danger was, it would be the turn of one crew member to 'shine' and just invent an entirely new engineering process, such as "recoupling and depolarising the antimatter/tachion emitter", funny that the whole of Starfleet never thought of it before, though.
If Gene roddenbury had lived, then I doubt that DS9, Voyager or Enterprise would have been as bad as they were......IF they were ever made.
I heard a rumour that the original plan was to get TOS bought back. But instead of a new series, they ended up with the Motion Picture. Possibly because the cast didn`t want to be tied to a series, especially with charactors they played 20+years previously.
Sorry. but i don`t agree the the rot set in with TNG.
******************************** John Smith: So what am I then? Nothing. I`m just a story.
Doctor: You`re an echo. That`s all. A TimeLord is so much more. A sum of knowledge; a code. A shared history. A shared suffering. Only it`s gone now, all of it. Gone forever.
star trek phase II was a attempt in mid 70s at tv revival for a possible new tv network from paramount-they created UPN in 90s-with all original actors on board save for nimoy.
he was to b replaced by new vulcan character with illia and decker as new faces. the pre prodcution design and budget was absorbed into the making of TMP.
Oh, yes, another petty grating thing that annoyed me about Enterprise was how they worked in a reference to Zephran Cochran in almost EVERY single episode.
As sad as this sounds, that was the only fun to be had from watching Enterprise. Once you know it's there and you're listening out for it, you'll notice that the namecheck was dropped sometimes twice in a single episode.
