Star Trek Beginning to End: VOY

Continuing in the posts that rank my favorite series in the franchise, but not in order of most to least or vice-versa.  I'll rank them in the order they've run.

Needless to say, I was psyched and ready for the next Star Trek series, Star Trek Voyager.  The concepts was great.  Another "different" premise with a lot of potential.  I was okay with the idea of a woman captain.  I figured they'd do that at some point; just not make such a big deal of it.  I was happy that the uniforms weren't going to change again. Lol.  It never bothered me from TNG to DS9, but it did seem to be a trend.  So, I tuned in enthusiastically for another installation of Star Trek.  But, ultimately I was disappointed.

I don't want to complain too much.  What took the wind out of the sails for me is that with all the progress the Trek franchise seemed to be making, it's like it did an about-face and tried to revert back to TOS or the first two seasons of TNG.  Shame on America for the Indians.  Shame on America for women.  Shame on humans (Americans) who still need to be brought down a peg or two.  Shame, shame.  I went over all of this in my TNG review, so I'll not dish it all out again.  I quit this series very quickly, I'm afraid.  Later, I caught some reruns and I tried to give it a second chance, but I still couldn't shake the feeling of a condescending attitude off this show.

I liked the Doctor, Kes, and Neelix. When the comic elements are good, like the doctor, I appreciate it.  I also liked the idea of a beauty and the beast type of relationship between Neelix and Kes.  The character of Kes was interesting to me... this elf or fairy-like, gentle being.  I though she had a lot of potential.  I was also interested in Tuvok because Vulcans hadn't had any real representation since Spock. But, in all the episodes I saw, I never saw any more cultural development of Vulcans through this character.  You know how I feel about Janeway.  If they'd just let her stand without the political crutch, I may have liked her a little better.  Chakotay and Kim didn't interest me much at the time. I don't know why I've had it in my head all these years that Torres was supposed to be half Klingon and half Vulcan, which seemed like kind of a stretch.  I've read since that she's just another Klingong/Human hybrid.  She seemed high strung and hard to watch.  My biggest disappointment was in Tom Paris.  I mean, the character was okay, but all I could see him as was a missed opportunity to connect this series ever so slightly to the other two, just as there was a small Picard-Sisko connection in DS9.  Why didn't they just reprise him as Nick Locarno?  Disgraced cadet working a civilian job aboard Voyager gets to prove himself a worthy and honorable officer again over the course of Voyager's run.  It's ready made!  And, in flashbacks, you could sneak in a guest appearance by some former TNG people or even DS9.  Who knows.

I think it's obvious that Star Trek Voyager is my least favorite of the Star Trek franchise.  I admit I didn't give it a huge chance, but everything I did see seemed to encourage my initial reaction to it.  I understand that it had a definite ending like DS9 did.  I appreciate that as well.  Perhaps one day I'll watch it all the way through, if for nothing else than just to make sure my Trek knowledge from this era (of the 4 big spinoff series) is complete.

Saturday Silliness

I don't have time to write and drone on on the weekends, so here's some Dr. Who outtakes. Enjoy!

Star Trek Beginning to End: DS9

Continuing in the posts that rank my favorite series in the franchise, but not in order of most to least or vice-versa.  I'll rank them in the order they've run.

I was a little apprehensive about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine when it came out.  I'm wary of too many sequels and when this show debuted, there were two Star Trek series and 6 movies out so far, so I was afraid that this may be overreaching a little.  But my fears were needless.  The creative writing that was set loose in the last 4 seasons of TNG was still on an upward climb.  TNG probably didn't necessarily need to end when it did, but I think the producers were afraid of burning it out and wanted to proceed with movies with the new cast before they got too old.  Consequently, it stopped at it's peak and as it turns out, there was still so much left to build on and so much good material left to write.

Deep Space Nine ended up being the Star Trek series that was least like Star Trek and I don't think a lot of people liked that.  Personally I loved it.  The first 2 seasons were typical of something new.  They threw a lot of stuff up on the wall to see what would stick and there were a lot of stand alone episodes.  But, through it all they continued the thread begun in TNG regarding the uneasy peace between the Cardassians and Bajorans.  This made a solid canvass to paint on.  Just as the Klingons and Romulans were further developed in TNG, the Ferengi, Cardassians, and Bajorans were further developed in this series.  And without the standards and expectations attributed to the starship exploration versions of Star Trek, they were free to be completely forward and honest about things that will never actually go away: money and spirituality as personified in the Ferengi and Bajoran races.  Yes, the audience is told without a doubt the the wormhole aliens are not actually gods so as to keep with the party line that religion is false, but as I said yesterday, at least there was some kind of representation that was not always evil and corrupt. Then they managed to strike gold again with a primary adversary.  In TOS it was the Klingons, mostly.  In TNG it was the Borg.  And in DS9, it was the Dominion.  And as many times as wars have been talked about in the all previous Star Treks to date, we never got to see one in real time.  So, DS9 made a war story.  And the underlying war plot had so much depth and so many points of view to explore that, as I said, it became the least like Star Trek of any Star Trek. That's what set it apart. It was more progress in the Star Trek evolution.  I don't think it was as popular on the whole, but it has more than earned respect, at least my respect, for boldy being different... going where no Star Trek has gone before. 

My favorite character was Garak, hands down.  He was the cherry on top.  Just the right amount of spice.  Not overused, but always important.  He was one of those bad good guys who got to get away with a lot of things that the regular good characters didn't.  It's immensely satisfying to the darker sides of most good people who like to see the rules broken in favor of the right side of issues for a change, even though they can't do it themselves.  My favorite in the main cast after Odo (always love the lonely, unique characters) was Jadzia Dax and I was so, so, very thankful they'd modified the Trill race from the original prototype introduced in a one-off episode of TNG. It made her character complex, fascinating, and versatile.  In connection, I have to mention Ezri Dax.  I thought they started her out right, but in effort to "wrap up" her character, they totally ruined it.  I would've done things differently and I wish they would've just eased her away from the cast altogether by having her resign or reassigned after her introduction.  It would've given that character a much more dignified end.  My least favorite was Jake Sisko. Again, not for any fault of the actor.  I mean, maybe it's just because I'm not a kid person, I don't know.  But I though Jake was fairly boring and useless unless he was paired with Nog.

Deep Space Nine is my second favorite Star Trek series, but it's such a close second that I often count it as a tie with TNG.  I missed most of the last season, unfortunately.  I don't do the Netflix thing, but one day I hope to rewatch all of TOS and DS9.  (I still catch the TNG reruns on BBCA every day.)  I'd happily buy all the sets on DVD.... Star Trek is money well spent! :D

Star Trek Beginning to End: TNG

Continuing in the posts that rank my favorite series in the franchise, but not in order of most to least or vice-versa.  I'll rank them in the order they've run.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is the best of the 5 series.  It encompasses all of what Star Trek is about, good and bad. It created characters that were realistic and idealistic at the same time and all were truly loveable.  It expanded on Roddenberry's concept and was the real template for all of the other series to follow.

But it almost wasn't.  People probably think I despise Gene Roddenberry, but I don't.  Star Trek was his brain child after all.  But if a person is being honest, they have to admit that his vision was very limited and narrow.  The first two seasons of TNG were painful to watch. When they weren't essentially remaking episodes of TOS, they were becoming belligerent with the liberal ideology I complained about in the last entry.  It wasn't even disguised anymore - blame Earth/humans = blame America. Never once stopping to consider this question:  if humans had reached a perfect utopia where we were uber tolerant and beyond primitive things like religion and money, why exactly were we still being featured even more strongly than ever as the ones that need to learn a lesson?  Especially in the 80's when all barriers were broken and the sky was the limit.  Shame on American enterprise (greed), confidence (bullies of the world), and freedom (equal outcome is more fair than equal opportunity.) If America were to develop self esteem we could never be subjugated to a socialist movement that eventually leads to a tyrannical rule, so the guilt trips were being laid on pretty thick in the 80's from all angles of Hollywood and it's such a shame.  But people can only absorb so much negativity and senseless brow-beating for so long and had Roddenberry lived, I don't know if the show would've lasted 7 years.  After his death the writers began to be creative and explore more modern issues.  And, towards the end, a variety of viewpoints were being showcased, even more conservative ones.  They all had to abdicate to the superiority of liberal ideology, but at least they were being shown and not always as evil or entirely wrong.  Roddenberry would probably not have approved.

Favorites?  It's hard to say. Obviously I loved Data.  I'm sure he's the most popular character in this cast.  I also loved Q though.  The more he was in it, the better his character was, and the more they could break the rules of science fiction, the standards of which had been raised quite a bit since the olden days of stories that were written before the science had caught up to the fiction. My least favorite was Wesley, but not because of Will Wheaton.  I blame the writers entirely for the character of Wesley.  He actually had a lot of potential and then he just became a throw away character that I personally couldn't relate to, although I've seen that a lot of people in our age group considered him inspirational.  But Wheaton played the part as perfectly as one could want from that kind of character.  Other things to love about this incarnation of Trek was the bigger budget for better effects and leeway for character and culture development.  That's where my real love for Star Trek lies.  You can pretty much keep all the "messages" it preaches.  The creative writing process was set free with this series and just kept spiraling and branching out and sprouting new life.  They ended up retooling a lot of material from the first couple seasons and improving on it as well as improving on concepts from TOS instead of just remaking them.  Every individual had their own significance and story with no one character overshadowing another.  And the reoccurring and secondary characters became indispensable parts of the body of work. Superb, superb writing!

Star Trek TNG is obviously my favorite of the 5 series and I can't wait to start reviewing episode one by one.  I just have to get organized.

Star Trek Beginning to End: TOS

In the next few posts I'll rank my favorite series in the franchise, but not in order of most to least or vice-versa.  I'll rank them in the order they've run.

                  

I can't say that TOS is my favorite of the series, but it'll always have a special place in my heart.  I think most Trek fans will concur.  I've mentioned the simplicity and mustache twirling before, but I don't think of it in a bad way.  In fact, it fit in perfectly with the 1960's. Everything seemed a little corny back then, especially when it had a sci-fi or fantasy element.  Take Dark Shadows as an example. That makes it more appealing to me and gives off a feeling of being young at heart.

I also have no illusions to what Star Trek was created for: to advance liberal ideology; things like one world government, abolishment of religion, eliminating pride in our country and its accomplishments, and socialism being the ultimate utopia.  But these things were very casually hidden in the subtext and more of a springboard for conversation rather than outright preaching and shaming of America in particular.  Also, back in the time the original series was out there were certain genuine social issues that needed to be addressed.  Racism and sexism were actually a problem back then, and not the fabricated victimhood that has been encouraged since things actually started to become equal for all in order to divide and control the population through emotional manipulation.  It was on the hippie bandwagon of questioning the need for war, which I think was a mistake and only aggravated the way our military has been maligned and very nearly marginalized ever since (all part of the liberal ideological agenda after all), but it's too multifaceted of a topic to get into. So, on the whole, I don't have many complaints about the socio-political atmosphere of TOS.  It was the first series and it was well constructed.  It had the heart to survive cancellation and progress into something wonderful with the movies.

My favorite character was Bones.  I'm always odd like that... I never go for the most popular characters, in this case Spock.  Bones was the "straight man" as it were.  The observational viewpoint; watching all the craziness from the sidelines. My least favorite was Christine Chapel.  It seemed like a serious downgrade from Number One in the pilot. and the way she pined for Spock was a little overdone.  Of course, character development wasn't crucial back then.  The biggest goal was making sure everything was fast paced and action packed.  But all of the characters were enjoyable and this series had mostly one star - Shatner.  Although Nimoy and Kelly got equal billing, this product was mostly the Captain Kirk show, at least when it was in the T.V. series format.  It helped to make it simple and easy to watch.  I don't feel the need to lament the other characters being sidelined or pigeon holed though since this series was a victim of the time it was produced in.  The movies leveled things out a little more.  Although, he movies were kind of hit-and-miss for me since Star Trek was designed for the small screen not the big screen.

Star Trek The Original Series is my 3rd favorite of the five television series to bear the name.  I should mention now that I don't count the animated series, and I don't think a lot of people do.  I've missed it entirely to be honest.  I don't think it's counted as canon anyway.  Some people are annoyed with the way that some fans like me stick to what is "canon", but there have to be some limitations, I think, as to what is considered legitimate in any set.  I'll get into that some other time though.

Garak!

My favorite!

Can't get enough! 

One of the best scenes ever!

Showing some Garak love today!

Who's Your Favorite Captain and Why?

5.  I guess I'll go in order of least favorite to favorite for me.  My least favorite captain was Katherine Janeway from Star Trek Voyager.

Oh my God, I don't like Janeway????  She's the first Female Captain!!  There have never been any other significant female characters because there's never been a woman captain!  Finally, a strong woman in Star Trek!

Look, if you have to keep pointing out the fact that she's a woman, she's not a strong woman.  Hogwash. And even the way Q was so enamored with a woman captain like it was something special.  Please! Majel Barrett's Number One was actually much more significant.  Not just because she was a woman in a position of power, but  because nobody in the crew behaved as if it were unusual. She wasn't shown as intimidating the men or the men questioning the fact that she was in charge when Pike wasn't there.  She was just accepted as the first officer of the ship with no questions.  There was attention called to it by the alien characters because it was the 60's and women were actually still in the peripherals of the workforce and of leadership positions, so that's how Roddenberry chose to address it.  But women are equal now whether they believe it or not.  To quote Thomas Sowell: "When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination." And this is what's been drilled into the heads of women and minorities for the last 3 decades.  The beginning of the video clip demonstrates it.  I don't appreciate being told what I have to like because there's some kind of social significance attached to it.  They could've let Janeway stand alone with no gender significance attached to it.  Nobody seems to think that Captain Rachel Garrett was significant.  They'd say it's because it was a one-off episode, but the fact is, nobody called attention to the fact that she was a woman, war-time captain.  She was Picard's equal and it was accepted without even giving it a second thought.  And they conveniently forget that both Dr. Crusher and Deanna Troi were qualified to take watches on the bridge in command and did.  But it was a just a small part of the respective episodes, so naturally, it means that women are still being discriminated against.  Shame on all of us for not seeing that.  And my personal all time favorite female characters were Kira Nerys and Jadzia Dax.  These were better strong woman characters, in my opinion even though they weren't in command.  It seems like a show of insecurity to marginalize these other women in favor of the first female captain of a whole series.
I'm sure it got better.  I didn't see as much of Voyager as the other series because I didn't care for it, but I'm sure it wasn't all girl power all the time.  I'm sure they let her grow.  But, all clips and episodes I've seen with her, I find annoying.


 4.  Next up in the list is Captain Benjamin Sisko, which is strange because I loved Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

The thing about Sisko is that he came off to me as what people initially thought of Picard when TNG started: Boring.  He was kind of boring. The character of Sisko wasn't broad enough to utilize the acting abilities of Avery Brooks at first.  I mean, I get it... They were wanting to continue in the tradition of having an adult as a captain as opposed to Kirk's overly playful captain.  The reserve suited Picard but not Sisko. Making him angry at Picard at the beginning was a good angle.  But then he remained unnecessarily brooding and moody all the time.  Honestly, he did better when he was turned loose to be bad or shady.  The Mirror Mirror Sisko was much more interesting to watch.  And he got to stretch his acting abilities when he played the embodiment of the Joran Dax symbiont.  Of course he got better as the primary story thread gained traction and got better.  The clip is from one of the best episodes of any Star Trek ever made.


3.  I'm putting Captain Kirk from Star Trek The Original Series in the third spot.

When you take the franchise as a whole, his captain was fairly unstable.  He was not someone who would likely be in command.   Swaggering ladies' man; a little on the immature side to play to a younger audience.   Fight before diplomacy.  I realize the fault lies with the time the show was produced in.  Simplicity was needed.  Lots of action and mustache twirling.  (Although, I did find one of his more excellent moments for the video clip.)  Charisma is necessary in any era though, and Kirk had it.  It's a shame the character development wasn't more encouraged back then.  We don't see Kirk begin to grow until the movies started coming out.  I actually doubt Roddenberry's ability for character development, though, so maybe it's best this way.



2.  Captain Johnathan Archer, Star Trek Enterprise. 

 When they made Archer, I think they were trying to go back to the adventurous sort that Kirk was, but without the instability.  That way he could fit in as a believable precursor to Kirk with a flare for the dramatic, but also be more of a leader type like the other modern captains.  Kind of an improvement on the character of Kirk.  I didn't get to see much of Enterprise either, and on the whole I give it a "B", but I liked Archer's genuine and "normal guy" type of personality.  It helped with the believability of the time in which Enterprise took place.  Just a boy and his dog kind of charm.  It's a kind of like Kirk's charisma with the edge taken off.  I really want to see the rest of the Enterprise series one day. 



1. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek The Next Generation.

Nobody did it like Picard.  Firm command; honorable; steady; just human enough to be entertaining without being unbelievable as a captain.  The first 2 seasons of TNG were painful to watch.  Roddenberry, R.I.P and no disrespect intended, was a one trick pony and in the beginning, Picard was starting out to be a bit of a drama queen.  After a while he was proved to be versatile and funny without losing a bit of his command persona.  They struck gold when they created O Captain, our Captain Picard.  There are no words!  
    
     
So many great moments.  So much fodder for conversation, action and laughter.  I love Captain Picard!



Honorable Mention:  Captain Christopher Pike Star Trek original Pilot. 

Jeffrey Hunter, who also played Jesus in King of Kings, played the first captain of the entire Star Trek universe.  I can't imagine how his character would've developed over the years, but I'm sure many have tried in fan fiction.  If it weren't for this pilot episode, Star Trek wouldn't be here today.  Never forget the first.