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The Human Adventure Continues: Talking About Star Trek
- Thread starter Johnny Unusual
- Start date
"family-friendly," of course, didn't include queer people
Yuuuuup. That's one of the many things the guy ought to be held to task for. I also don't hear many people talk about this either, and I'd love to see someone try and crunch some numbers on it too. But if you ever look at the background characters for any given Star Trek show, just pay attention to the kinds of faces you see. In TOS, Gene made it a point to have diversity walk the hallways of the Enterprise to show an integrated workforce. That ethos was still there in the first season or two of TNG. Once Berman took over though, I can't help but feel like the background characters filling the hallways or inhabiting alien worlds all of a sudden started looking a lot more like 90s Hollywood - e.g. almost exclusively white. I always think back on Jonathan Frakes' director's commentary on Insurrection where he just unprompted starts opining, "Ever notice the casting of this Baku village? How this harmonious, perfect society, everyone in it just happens to look Sweedish? Weird, right?" Star Trek gets a lot of credit for its portrayal of diversity, but the Berman years, at the very least, coasted on that reputation and did a bare minimum to appear diverse when they could have done a lot more.
First two episodes were good. Not amazing or anything, but the show is fun and comforting. It's been over two years (!!!) since we had new Disco, and a half year since any new Star Trek in general. This Writer's Strike drought friggin' sucks, but it's nice to have something to look forward to every week now for the next few months.
In other Star Trek news - today is First Contact Day. And apparently, a French broadcasting affiliate dropped all of Prodigy Season 2 a few weeks ago. So if you speak French you can go watch that show early lol. But beware because I'm sure spoilers are now lurking the internet for that show.
Watched a bunch more, and there's a lot of interesting stuff in mid Season 6 (even if also some disappointments... I don't know if I'd have thought about it if I hadn't seen it pointed out but the show has definitely backed way off on Garak/Bashir times, which is a shame.)
Resurrection - A mirror universe ep where nobody actually goes to the mirror universe. Manages to make one of Kira's white guy love interests slightly less boring for moment I guess?
Statistical Probabilities - Okay, this is the one with Bashir and a bunch of more severely modified folks who are pretttty clearly an extrapolation of being on the spectrum. It... could've been a lot worse, I guess? They're painted in broad strokes but the show treats them somewhat sympathetically overall, and with at least a little nuance here and there. The idea that they're so smart they basically just invented psycho-history on the spot is a bit of a stretch, but whatevs.
The Magnificent Ferengi - was pretty fun as was Who Mourns for Morn? and Honey I Shrunk the Runabout I mean One Little Ship.
And then we hit some biggies - Waltz and Far Beyond the Stars. (Which is to say, if you forget titles, the one with Sisko stranded with an increasingly unhinged Dukat, and the one where he's an SF writer in the '60s.) Pretty sure both of those have been discussed to death in Trek circles as I kinda remember them just from osmosis, so I don't know that I have much to add, but yeah. Powerful stuff, with Avery Brooks puttin in some serious work. (Also fun times trying to recognize everyone out of makeup in the latter.)
Oh and I almost forgot we just saw Honor Among Thieves, where O'Brien gets to do a solo *non*-period noir piece, that was pretty good too (even if the setup is a super weird thing for Starfleet to do... sure, let's send the brilliant engineer keeping our most strategically important outpost running on an extremely dangerous undercover mission somewhere entirely else for... reasons.)
Resurrection - A mirror universe ep where nobody actually goes to the mirror universe. Manages to make one of Kira's white guy love interests slightly less boring for moment I guess?
Statistical Probabilities - Okay, this is the one with Bashir and a bunch of more severely modified folks who are pretttty clearly an extrapolation of being on the spectrum. It... could've been a lot worse, I guess? They're painted in broad strokes but the show treats them somewhat sympathetically overall, and with at least a little nuance here and there. The idea that they're so smart they basically just invented psycho-history on the spot is a bit of a stretch, but whatevs.
The Magnificent Ferengi - was pretty fun as was Who Mourns for Morn? and Honey I Shrunk the Runabout I mean One Little Ship.
And then we hit some biggies - Waltz and Far Beyond the Stars. (Which is to say, if you forget titles, the one with Sisko stranded with an increasingly unhinged Dukat, and the one where he's an SF writer in the '60s.) Pretty sure both of those have been discussed to death in Trek circles as I kinda remember them just from osmosis, so I don't know that I have much to add, but yeah. Powerful stuff, with Avery Brooks puttin in some serious work. (Also fun times trying to recognize everyone out of makeup in the latter.)
Oh and I almost forgot we just saw Honor Among Thieves, where O'Brien gets to do a solo *non*-period noir piece, that was pretty good too (even if the setup is a super weird thing for Starfleet to do... sure, let's send the brilliant engineer keeping our most strategically important outpost running on an extremely dangerous undercover mission somewhere entirely else for... reasons.)
I just watched all of these episodes very recently so they're very fresh in my mind. Was waiting on you catching up Kirin to see what you had to say about them though before blabbing on myself. Glad you've enjoyed everything so far. Some quick notes from myself:
Far Beyond the Stars takes place in the 50s, not the 60s. All the accoutrements are starkly 50s not 60s, but for me one of the bigger giveaways is that Michael Dorn is ostensibly playing Willie Mays (though he wears a different number, he's called Willie and is very clearly an allusion to Maes - the greatest baseball player of all time) who played for the New York Giants starting in 1951 through 1957 - when the team was then moved to SF.
I also really like that Nana Visitor's character in that episode has to go by a pen name "K.C. Hunter" which IMO is a pretty clear/obvious nod to D.C. Fontana who had to hide the fact she was a woman while writing for the Original Series.
Also like that René Auberjonois played the spineless, racist-apologist editor. And that he couldn't bring himself to look Benny in the eyes when giving him the bad news. It fits in perfectly with Odo's character, who was essentially just that during The Cardassian Occupation. "Just doing his job" and telling himself he was trying to be fair, but ultimately carrying water for an inherently unfair and oppressive system.
That episode REALLY felt like it should have been a Bashir joint, but then we don't see him get picked up by Section 31 until later.
Mr Bean
Chief Detective
Magnificent Ferengi has one of my favorite Trek comedy moments:
Sisko no-selling it just makes me giggle every time.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
It also has Iggy Pop as the best non-Coombs Vorta.
Well that's a fun bit of trivia I'd missed.
Meanwhile, Change of Heart is extra gut-wrenching, knowing what's coming.
Oh hey, I kind of fell off on reporting on my DS9 watch-through; we're more than halfway through S7 now. I gather a lot of fans are a bit down on the final season, and while I definitely miss Jadzia and there have been a few snoozers, Ezri isn't bad taken at face value, and I've definitely enjoyed a lot of recent episodes as well. I gotta say I never would've guess the show was gonna lean so hard into Vic Fontaine when he first showed up - guess they're getting their money's worth out of that Vegas set - but I don't generally mind as most of his eps are fun enough. He's fresh in my mind since we just watched Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang which, sure, casino heist episode? Why not?
So let's see going back to way back when I left off... oh, looks like I stopped reporting just before In The Pale Moonlight, that was a doozy. People talk about Janeway as the war crimes captain, but Sisko sure pushes it for the title, if arguably from necessity. Yet another command performance from Brooks, with Garak also getting in a lot of good moments.
Let's see, what also catches my eye in the ep list... oh, Valiant, dang. A Children's Crusade episode and straight up pretty much everyone dies. Dang. Realistic enough but I was a little surprised they went there.
Time's Orphan was another emotionally rough one. I don't think I really bought the ending, reset-by-sheer-luck aside. Yes, a parent would do anything to ensure their child's happiness, but I don't really thing surviving solo in the wilderness forever is really a better option than a bit more therapy for her long-term well-being.
Meanwhile, in the span between seasons - we were just talking about all Kira's useless boyfriends, and a I know a lot of folks aren't keen on her getting together with Odo either, but I'm honestly not mad at it. Yeah, at first it kind of smacked of "just because the writers wanted to" but since it's been given a chance to develop over a whole season's worth of time it's had a chance to grow a bit and really feels like they respect each other and have a healthy partnership going. I thought the end of Chimera was pretty sweet. Granted, I'd also like Kira to get to do more on her own - I think the only S7 episode that's focused on her so far is Covenant which is yet another one where she has to spend the whole ep fending off Dukat coming in with another crazy angle of his.
Let's see, what else in season 7 - oh, finally got to the baseball episode, which was fun enough, if lightweight. Oh, and there's that Bashir episode people alluded to earlier, which... yeah, dude, shoulda' known better, but at least it blew up in his face appropriately. Once More Into the Breach was an interesting study in the collision between Klingon culture and elderly dementia. The requisite Mirror Universe episode and the requisite Ferengi Shenanigans episode got merged into one this season with entertaining enough results. Seige of AR-558 was pretty brutal, and the followup Only a Paper Moon was a nice enough exploration of PTSD.
I dunno, I guess maybe there are fewer epsidoes that hit it out of the park this season than in the previous few, but mostly I've still been enjoying it. Less than a dozen eps to go!
So let's see going back to way back when I left off... oh, looks like I stopped reporting just before In The Pale Moonlight, that was a doozy. People talk about Janeway as the war crimes captain, but Sisko sure pushes it for the title, if arguably from necessity. Yet another command performance from Brooks, with Garak also getting in a lot of good moments.
Let's see, what also catches my eye in the ep list... oh, Valiant, dang. A Children's Crusade episode and straight up pretty much everyone dies. Dang. Realistic enough but I was a little surprised they went there.
Time's Orphan was another emotionally rough one. I don't think I really bought the ending, reset-by-sheer-luck aside. Yes, a parent would do anything to ensure their child's happiness, but I don't really thing surviving solo in the wilderness forever is really a better option than a bit more therapy for her long-term well-being.
Meanwhile, in the span between seasons - we were just talking about all Kira's useless boyfriends, and a I know a lot of folks aren't keen on her getting together with Odo either, but I'm honestly not mad at it. Yeah, at first it kind of smacked of "just because the writers wanted to" but since it's been given a chance to develop over a whole season's worth of time it's had a chance to grow a bit and really feels like they respect each other and have a healthy partnership going. I thought the end of Chimera was pretty sweet. Granted, I'd also like Kira to get to do more on her own - I think the only S7 episode that's focused on her so far is Covenant which is yet another one where she has to spend the whole ep fending off Dukat coming in with another crazy angle of his.
Let's see, what else in season 7 - oh, finally got to the baseball episode, which was fun enough, if lightweight. Oh, and there's that Bashir episode people alluded to earlier, which... yeah, dude, shoulda' known better, but at least it blew up in his face appropriately. Once More Into the Breach was an interesting study in the collision between Klingon culture and elderly dementia. The requisite Mirror Universe episode and the requisite Ferengi Shenanigans episode got merged into one this season with entertaining enough results. Seige of AR-558 was pretty brutal, and the followup Only a Paper Moon was a nice enough exploration of PTSD.
I dunno, I guess maybe there are fewer epsidoes that hit it out of the park this season than in the previous few, but mostly I've still been enjoying it. Less than a dozen eps to go!
FelixSH
(He/Him)
Ezri is fine. I think they should have explored that part of the Trill one or two seasons earlier, giving it more time to breath.
Vic is whatever. Never worked for me, , just don't like thw whole vibe. But it's not too much.
Elsewise, yeah, the last few episodes are a fun ride. A fine season, on the whole, I just don't like how they handle Dukat here.
Vic is whatever. Never worked for me, , just don't like thw whole vibe. But it's not too much.
Elsewise, yeah, the last few episodes are a fun ride. A fine season, on the whole, I just don't like how they handle Dukat here.
DS9's ending is a marathon. Probably one of the greater achievements in the franchise's history regarding serialized storytelling outside of ENT S3 and the work Prodigy has done in its 2nd Season.
Ezri was just kinda... compromised as a character, because Berman wrote Terry Farrell out when she wouldn't commit to the full seventh season (she wanted to be recurring to ease up on the schedule) and then had to do something with Dax about it. It wasn't a "let's explore what happens when" kind of decision, and the scramble is kinda clear.
Vic was someone's beloved pet character idea, and he really feels like it.
Vic was someone's beloved pet character idea, and he really feels like it.
Ezri's biggest sin is that the way she's shoehorned in reminds me that I'm watching a TV show.
I don't think that Only a Paper Moon justifies Vic's entire existence, but it's the closest the show ever gets to a payoff for the character's presence.
I don't think that Only a Paper Moon justifies Vic's entire existence, but it's the closest the show ever gets to a payoff for the character's presence.
I actually like Ezri a whole lot. She has more of a personality than Jadzia, who seems to shift about depending on what the writers need at any given moment. And I'm lowkey glad they wrote Terry Farrell off the show? Not that I wanted her to get replaced/lose her job. I like her and her character a ton. But the whole point of her character's gimmick is that she basically gets reincarnated, and it would have been a massive waste of potential/a good premise for the show to not actually explore that and what it would be like for those around her. Like imagine watching a Superman show where Superman never flies lol. They honestly should have done the switcheroo even earlier, to have more time exploring Ezri. And also, not burn bridges with Farrell so that Jadzia could show up again once or twice, OFC.
Seconded on all counts. On a show when even tertiary characters can get interesting arcs, I feel like Jadzia doesn’t get nearly as many good story hooks as, say, Garak, despite being on paper a much more central character.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I both came around on the character of Jadzia as kind of a Riker-esque figure who parties her way across the galaxy while still remaining super professional but the problem is she is saddled with bad stories and the fact that her and Worf are a pairing I don't care for (keep in mind I also disliked Kira and Odo as a romantic pairing). It's a good character who rarely has anything good to do.
Vic is so fucking weird. His energy is fanfic insert character because everyone likes and/or respects him just a little TOO MUCH and he's just Frank Sinatra. In fact, this specifically feels like Seth MacFarlane fanfic.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
It's like if a character everyone loved named Bavid Dowie entered the show and suddenly everyone in the universe was super into glam rock despite the fact that realistically you know the only people into glam rock on the station are Jadzia and Nog.
Garak actually loves human glam rock, but he puts all of his Obsidian Order training to work in hiding that fact.
I love this analogy.
FelixSH
(He/Him)
I could never put my finger on why exactly I found Vic weird, but people here put it pretty well. Weirdly fanfic-y, super wise, bestie with everyone.
Oh, yeah, I know she just exists because someone from the production team was an asshole. My point was more what WH later argued, that we totally should see how it works out, when a trill host dies. It's so essential to that society. It's just too late at that point, and it should be actually have been made to show that side of Dax. Not as the result of a shitty power play.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I can definitely think of good characters with these qualities but it's always weird when it feels unearned in a group of characters for whom that should mean very different things and when it comes out of nowhere, it feels like someone is trying very hard to make something happen. USUALLY when a show tries that hard it feels like a backdoor pilot. Which would be wild in this case.
If y'all haven't seen the DS9 documentary from 2018, watch it because it becomes obvious really fast that it's all Ira Steven Behr's fault. That he was That Guy.