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The Human Adventure Continues: Talking About Star Trek
- Thread starter Johnny Unusual
- Start date
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
The second Section 31 episode. It was fine. I feel like its trod similar ground to Bashir finding out the dark side of espionage. This time, he knows this going in and find new things to hate about it. I'm still not super interested in Section 31 as a late season addition to the series, as I'm much more interested in the Dominion but maybe it'll dovetail nicely.
The second Section 31 episode. It was fine. I feel like its trod similar ground to Bashir finding out the dark side of espionage. This time, he knows this going in and find new things to hate about it. I'm still not super interested in Section 31 as a late season addition to the series, as I'm much more interested in the Dominion but maybe it'll dovetail nicely.
ArugulaZ
Fearful asymmetry
What was the one episode... Let He Who Is Without Sin? Worf was like the king of wet blankets there. He was written so broadly I was thinking he was the Worf from the last episode of Webster. ("Fun? What is this fun of which you speak? We have nothing of the sort on the Klingon homeworld. It sounds like it would waste time better spent on being dour and work-obsessed.")
The Irish Holodeck episodes are truly bad. I guess they felt they needed to mix up having the French Cafe being the sometimes hangout, so they went to Ireland? It always felt so weird and out of character; Harry is in there OH YEAH OLD IRELAND RULES and it's like...why does Harry like this? Why does ANYONE like this? It's very odd, but it's thankfully not around a lot
I appreciate them for the capacity of giving Janeway the "romantic interest but she can't because she's The Captain" treatment. But uh... otherwise... eh.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Assuming that's the "Worf uses a weather machine to attack the concept of fun at the beach", yeah. Jadzia is way to accommodating to Worf's childish petulance.
zonetrope
(he/him)
I like the idea of a holodeck hangout that changes every season, once you handwave away how absurd it is that they're using the holodeck at all. But the old-timey sci-fi serials in season 5 are the only instance where the concept has been any fun.
My wife and I have a headcanon that Janeway and Chakotay have been banging off-screen since the episode where they get quarantined on the same planet and become homemakers. They certainly have a lot of romantic candlelight dinners for platonic friends. And even if it isn't true, it's a way to make Chakotay interesting at all.
Is it weird that I like those episodes? Like a lot? They're basically Slice-of-Life episodes where we get to see the cast just kinda, hang out and do leisure activities instead of saving entire civilizations or bravely fighting the unknown. I could watch a whole show like that. They're a nice change of pace, and they put the characters into fun scenarios so that the actors can ham them up, like when the Doctor gets to pretend to be a preacher.
They lay on the chemistry between the two and tease it through multiple seasons like they continually do with Picard and Bev, but likewise the writers/show runners seem to come to the conclusion that it's a bad idea after a while and then kinda just drop it all together.
Isn't that also the episode where Jadzia brushes off every one of Worf's attempts to get them to talk about where their relationship is going?
Know what they remind me of?
Sub Rosa.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Don't remember that but I completely believe it. This was a bad relationship.
Fun little info-dump about the characters/cast of the upcoming Star Trek: Prodigy.
blog.trekcore.com
The roboty character it turns out, is a Medusan. That's a pretty radical callback. And the rock-person, is a reference to the old 90s Starfleet Academy books. There's also a few stills released too, show is lookin' good so far:
Meet the STAR TREK: PRODIGY Cast and Characters — And See New Images From the Animated Series!
Come meet the cast and characters of STAR TREK: PRODIGY — and take a look at some first images from the upcoming series
blog.trekcore.com
The roboty character it turns out, is a Medusan. That's a pretty radical callback. And the rock-person, is a reference to the old 90s Starfleet Academy books. There's also a few stills released too, show is lookin' good so far:
I watched an Enterprise episode and it was a decent Klingon episode, but they had a character conveniently named Duras in there and it's like...
...guys, there are other Klingons...it added literally nothing, except establishing that that family I guess has always been assholes.
...guys, there are other Klingons...it added literally nothing, except establishing that that family I guess has always been assholes.
This news might not matter to some or maybe most of y'all, but it's of intense interest to myself:
The first news being:
www.startrek.com
4K remasters of the first four TOS films. Now, I would not normally find this all that interesting, as the original masters for these movies are old, scuffed, and not particularly highly detailed. Doing another digital transfer but this time in 4K isn't going to do much for these movies when the original masters were already kinda blurry in 2K. But the thing that peaks my interest is this tidbit:
www.startrek.com
They're going to remake the Director's Cut of TMP in 4K as well. And this gets me excited because this was a dream of mine for quite some time. Since the Director's Cut was originally mastered for DVD, and all its new art assets only existed at SD resolutions, a 4K or even 2K release would have required a not-insignificant commitment of resources and a more extensive remastering process versus a simple scanning and cleaning of the old theatrical masters.
The "Original 4-Movie Collection" is scheduled to hit retail on Sept 7th in the US to commemorate the 55th Anniversary of TOS first going on air. The TMP Director's Cut is going directly to Paramount+ first (will probably get a physical release later at some point I'm sure) and is expected to take 6-8 months to complete.
I probably won't purchase this boxset (I *just* bought a boxset of all the Prime movies) but it's good to know this is happening. And I expect after a certain amount of time, these remasters will probably replace most versions of these films digitally on streaming. And if these first four movies are being done, it's just a matter of time until the rest of the Prime movies get the same treatment. We might get TNG in 4K at some point in the not too distant future too. Exciting stuff for me personally. Things made for 4K look really great if you've got the equipment.
Meanwhile, I'm currently rewatching Voyager, and it's pretty sad at how interlaced a lot of this show is on Amazon. I could have sworn I've seen the show in progressive scan before; I wonder if Amazon was forced to use an older or worse version of the show. It's very distracting at times. I really wish both it and DS9 would get proper remasters. It would make for wonderful content for Paramount+.
The first news being:
Celebrate the 55th Anniversary with These New Star Trek Releases and More
Add these to your collection!
www.startrek.com
Which is vague but sounds a lot like they're going to remaster this the way TOS/TNG was - which is going directly to the originally shot film and then re-cutting the film together from that, versus just rescanning the old theatrical masters one more time. If that's the case, we stand a good chance of some appreciable upgrades in both clarity/sharpness, as well as updating some of the more blurry practical film effects with digital composites. If that's the case, I'm very here for this. And I think that's going to be the case because this news was coupled with this news:
Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture Set to Be Fully Restored
The restoration is expected to take 6-8 months.
www.startrek.com
The "Original 4-Movie Collection" is scheduled to hit retail on Sept 7th in the US to commemorate the 55th Anniversary of TOS first going on air. The TMP Director's Cut is going directly to Paramount+ first (will probably get a physical release later at some point I'm sure) and is expected to take 6-8 months to complete.
I probably won't purchase this boxset (I *just* bought a boxset of all the Prime movies) but it's good to know this is happening. And I expect after a certain amount of time, these remasters will probably replace most versions of these films digitally on streaming. And if these first four movies are being done, it's just a matter of time until the rest of the Prime movies get the same treatment. We might get TNG in 4K at some point in the not too distant future too. Exciting stuff for me personally. Things made for 4K look really great if you've got the equipment.
Meanwhile, I'm currently rewatching Voyager, and it's pretty sad at how interlaced a lot of this show is on Amazon. I could have sworn I've seen the show in progressive scan before; I wonder if Amazon was forced to use an older or worse version of the show. It's very distracting at times. I really wish both it and DS9 would get proper remasters. It would make for wonderful content for Paramount+.
Oh hell yes!
It feels slightly ironic that I've been hoping for new releases of the uneditet versions of the original Star Wars movies, but I've also been hoping for a new release of the edited version of The Motion Picture.
First real teaser for Star Trek: Prodigy just went up
Looks fantastic!
Edit: So did the trailer for Lower Decks Season 2
See if you can spot the Jeffrey Combs cameo.
Mid-August can't come soon enough!
Looks fantastic!
Edit: So did the trailer for Lower Decks Season 2
See if you can spot the Jeffrey Combs cameo.
Mid-August can't come soon enough!
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Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Seriously, CBS, what do you have against non-Americans watching the commercials for your show?
It's a distribution/legal thing. Crave has the distribution rights in Canada for these shows, and that includes CMs and promotional stuff. It's not CBS's fault, blame IP/copyright laws.
Edit: These should be able to be accessible internationally:
Trailer | Star Trek: Lower Decks - Season 2
intl.startrek.com
First Look at Star Trek: Prodigy
intl.startrek.com
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Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I meant to put this up months ago but
Penumbra/Till Death Do Us Part
Let's see, not really into the Worf/Ezra stuff, particularly the reveal that THE BREEN HAVE JOINED THE OTHER SIDE! NOT THE BREEN, ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE STAR TREK RACES THAT EVERYONE KNOWS AND CARES ABOUT! THIS IS A BIG DEAL, AUDIENCE! I MEAN, WEYOUN JUST SAID SO! I also feel like the destination of Sisko's story is pretty obvious (pretty sure Yates is gettin' fridged), so I'm not as interested in his issue. The best stuff was actually the Dukat stuff. I maintain the character's arc was basically completed seasons ago and now its a mix of more of the same and Lex Luthor-y plotting but it helps that its really a story about Winn, a character who has been slightly more sympathetic in the last few season and revisiting the stuff that made us love to hate her but also having it be a tragedy where the enemy is preying on her ambition, self-righteousness and xenophobia. I like that this character gets to have depth while the audience can still hiss and boo her. It actually stands in contrast to Dukat, who gets some good episodes still but I feel like there's not more to mine with the character.
Penumbra/Till Death Do Us Part
Let's see, not really into the Worf/Ezra stuff, particularly the reveal that THE BREEN HAVE JOINED THE OTHER SIDE! NOT THE BREEN, ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE STAR TREK RACES THAT EVERYONE KNOWS AND CARES ABOUT! THIS IS A BIG DEAL, AUDIENCE! I MEAN, WEYOUN JUST SAID SO! I also feel like the destination of Sisko's story is pretty obvious (pretty sure Yates is gettin' fridged), so I'm not as interested in his issue. The best stuff was actually the Dukat stuff. I maintain the character's arc was basically completed seasons ago and now its a mix of more of the same and Lex Luthor-y plotting but it helps that its really a story about Winn, a character who has been slightly more sympathetic in the last few season and revisiting the stuff that made us love to hate her but also having it be a tragedy where the enemy is preying on her ambition, self-righteousness and xenophobia. I like that this character gets to have depth while the audience can still hiss and boo her. It actually stands in contrast to Dukat, who gets some good episodes still but I feel like there's not more to mine with the character.
I love the Breen.
So Breen have prior to this been mentioned here and there, even in TNG. Never seen on screen. Here is why they rule - it's to show the meaningless of Dominion promises. They aren't a thing unto themselves, (Do not unspoiler if you are watching for first time):
So Breen have prior to this been mentioned here and there, even in TNG. Never seen on screen. Here is why they rule - it's to show the meaningless of Dominion promises. They aren't a thing unto themselves, (Do not unspoiler if you are watching for first time):
they are a motivator for secret s7 MVP: Damar
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Almost done.
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Tacking the Wind
At this point, after watching them, they kind of run together with their various threads. So I'll judge them on that...
Extreme Measures
There's a little bit of padding here but overall its a good episode. Despite who the episode is ostensibly about saving, it really is a Bashir/O'Brien story and it feels like their last ride together, presumably because for the finale it'll make more sense for them to be in their stations. I really like the idea of part of Sloan wanting to be open and then killing that part of him on his deathbed. So much of the character felt like hollow posturing and I like taking time to show he believed in what he did but also really liked Bashir and felt regretful not for his actions for the personal relationships he sacrificed for them but that despite everything, he'd probably do everything again. The end of "tempting Julian with greedy secret" seemed a little on the nose but overall I liked it. I also like the moment where the two sort their friend feelings out.
The Dogs of War
Good table setting episode. I like Bashir seriously taking to task the problem with Sisko's pragmatism in the face of genocide. Like we've been here before but I like the reminder that in the war, some of our heroes sacrificed certain moral high grounds and there are still choices to be made. Pretty safe to say how even a darker trek like DS9 will end the cure for the Founders but they play it well. The Kira arc is the best and though this isn't the best Quark story, its fun enough and a good way to end this part of the series.
Can't wait to see the finale!
Strange Bedfellows
The Changing Face of Evil
When It Rains...
Tacking the Wind
At this point, after watching them, they kind of run together with their various threads. So I'll judge them on that...
Let's see...
As Chud noted, the Breen don't work as a cliffhanger or as characters but work well as a plot point, particularly in that they have the same sort of swagger and assumed superiority and "might makes right" mentality as the Cardassians. They are "better" but really just the same and it works well for Damar. I like his arc. Its not a heel turn. He never seems like he's feeling bad about his misdeeds. But unlike Dukat, once Damar sobers up, he's pragmatic and practical and believes in something beyond himself. He'll never be good or redeem himself but, ironically, he can do good and it is a smart journey for the character who is primarily a flunky in a much of the series and it culimates well in Dogs of War. Kira's story is good too but much of it is in favour of Damar's. I don't mind necessarily that the don't dig into Kira's mixed feelings too heavily but it certainly plays into the performance.
Sisko doesn't really get to do a lot here except calm before the storm stuff of enjoying his marriage
Kinds don't care about Ezri/Bashir.
Worf's story is pretty good. Throwing him into Klingon politics is almost invariably a great way to distract us that he's basically reverted to a petulant brat when it comes to his social life.
I really liked the start of Kai Winn's story but it feels like its petered out in trying to keep the story kicking until they come back for the finale.
As Chud noted, the Breen don't work as a cliffhanger or as characters but work well as a plot point, particularly in that they have the same sort of swagger and assumed superiority and "might makes right" mentality as the Cardassians. They are "better" but really just the same and it works well for Damar. I like his arc. Its not a heel turn. He never seems like he's feeling bad about his misdeeds. But unlike Dukat, once Damar sobers up, he's pragmatic and practical and believes in something beyond himself. He'll never be good or redeem himself but, ironically, he can do good and it is a smart journey for the character who is primarily a flunky in a much of the series and it culimates well in Dogs of War. Kira's story is good too but much of it is in favour of Damar's. I don't mind necessarily that the don't dig into Kira's mixed feelings too heavily but it certainly plays into the performance.
Sisko doesn't really get to do a lot here except calm before the storm stuff of enjoying his marriage
Kinds don't care about Ezri/Bashir.
Worf's story is pretty good. Throwing him into Klingon politics is almost invariably a great way to distract us that he's basically reverted to a petulant brat when it comes to his social life.
I really liked the start of Kai Winn's story but it feels like its petered out in trying to keep the story kicking until they come back for the finale.
Extreme Measures
There's a little bit of padding here but overall its a good episode. Despite who the episode is ostensibly about saving, it really is a Bashir/O'Brien story and it feels like their last ride together, presumably because for the finale it'll make more sense for them to be in their stations. I really like the idea of part of Sloan wanting to be open and then killing that part of him on his deathbed. So much of the character felt like hollow posturing and I like taking time to show he believed in what he did but also really liked Bashir and felt regretful not for his actions for the personal relationships he sacrificed for them but that despite everything, he'd probably do everything again. The end of "tempting Julian with greedy secret" seemed a little on the nose but overall I liked it. I also like the moment where the two sort their friend feelings out.
The Dogs of War
Good table setting episode. I like Bashir seriously taking to task the problem with Sisko's pragmatism in the face of genocide. Like we've been here before but I like the reminder that in the war, some of our heroes sacrificed certain moral high grounds and there are still choices to be made. Pretty safe to say how even a darker trek like DS9 will end the cure for the Founders but they play it well. The Kira arc is the best and though this isn't the best Quark story, its fun enough and a good way to end this part of the series.
Can't wait to see the finale!
Re: Johnny reaching the end of DS9:
I feel like nobody making the show did, because they dedicate way more time and effort to Bashir's and Ezri's other relationships like Bashir/O'Brien. Like, there's even a gay love confession. Ezri/Bashir feels like Rick Berman mandate. I actually kinda like them hooking up in theory now that both are changed people and have grown a lot. But the show is way more interested in showing how that affects say, Worf, than to actually make a convincing romance of its own.
Kai Winn's entire plotline in the 7th Season is just so weird. Because it happens almost entirely divorced from the rest of the show. She's basically just hanging out by herself and stops having anything to do with anyone else. It makes sense for where they eventually take it, but it's just so disjointed and kinda inorganic. And it's all in service to wrapping up a plot thread that's really the least interesting part of DS9.
Lotta people dislike that last episode because it basically establishes Quark as having not grown in the slightest during the course of the show. But I kinda like that? Quark isn't a good person. There are times he does the right thing, but overwhelmingly he's still a scuzzy, manipulative, chauvanistic, greedy, capitalist. His escapades are fun, but we're not meant to root for him. And it was a wonderful juxtoposition of showing him clutching his metaphorical MAGA cap and refusing to change with the times, versus his brother who showed a lot of real growth over the series and turned into someone you really can root for.