MzpipšØš¦Star Trek Is Showing More Love To Scott Bakulaās Enterprise
KlankyAfter watching it completely through within the last few years, I can say I rank it higher than Voyager.
ā¦i mean, letās be fair: voyager set the bar so low the franchise nearly fizzled-out in its wake, and arguably never recovered despite enterpriseās strengthsā¦
FalI donāt understand the hate for voyager. Sure it had some problems, but I thought it was great. Both at the time and looking back on it
andyburkeAs someone who watched it with no nostalgia glasses: it is not good trek.
I can't think of a really outstanding episode off the top of my head (maybe the Tuvix one? But even that is just ... rough?). And there are some episodes in there that I actively dislike in a way I don't with most of the other series.
I like Kate Mulgrew, she was a strong actor for the role and the theme is a banger, otherwise .. meh.
I also think it's fairly weak overall but there are some really great outstanding episodes. Blink of an Eye, Counterpoint, Scorpion, for some examples. And I also agree that the worst Voyagers are really very bad, but are they that much worse than other series' follies? Is Threshold worse than Code of Honor? Sacred Ground worse than Turnabout Intruder? Fair Haven worse than Profit and Lace?
richieadlerIs Threshold worse than Code of Honor?
Iād say itās worst. Being racist is horrible, but it wasnāt until āThresholdā that ST became actively and willingly stupid.
But āThresholdā won an emmy!
Originally sole canadian actress was hired to play Janewayā¦forgot her name, but you can see some original footage on YouTube, she was so bad as captain Janeway. Mulgrew took the character to a whole other level.
Personally enjoyed Voyager, skipping some episodes however, mostly those personal questsā¦ And Neelix didnāt bring much as well.
Enterprise wasā¦meh. Learned to like it and by the third season it felt like they finally found the right direction. Loved the doctor in that series. And the theme song, my god who decided that. Awful.
Strange new worlds is great, feels like it has everything I expect from a star trek series. Atmosphere, decors, characters, theme songā¦
I will die on the Enterprise theme song hill.
It's been a long way...
Iām retroactively annoyed at the stranded but in good repair situation. But voyager failing made Battlestar a thing soā¦
I also think itās just a weird transition period for tv. Still had crap budgets and weird unpolished plotlines due to the need for season-long fillers. If you cut each season down to 8-10 episodes as we sometimes do today, could be a fine show.
Star Trek really has 2 different genres, there's action/adventure and there's real hard sci-fi where philosophy is at the forefront. Voyager generally appeals more to the action/adventure fans, whereas the previous iterations appeared like the entire series was heading in a more philosophical direction with TOS to TNG to DS9 increasing in their thoughtfulness. VOY was seen as a huge backslide to people who were tuning in largely for the philosophical aspect of the show.
Considering there was and still are very few popular philosophical and thought provoking shows that challenge the viewer's world view and biases, I think it's fair to be upset that the new direction of the show is to dumb down everything and focus more on the action.
Of course, that's not to say that Voyager was completely devoid of any philosophical debate, but I don't think anyone can make the case that it's equally as intelligent as TNG and DS9.
ManabiI think thatās part of why bringing in Seven of Nine helped the series a lot. Exploring how she adapted to being a human, when sheād been a Borg since she was a child, was much more philosophical and led to a lot of really great episodes.
Same here. I also donāt see the issue with it. It. Very much fits the vibe of DS9 and TNG and gave us some very iconic characters.
Voyager was probably the most high concept of the eraās Trek and didnāt really fulfill that promise. It is funny that DS9 kept better track of its roundabouts over Voyagerās shuttles.
They really didnāt nail down the writing of the crew. The Doctor and Seven are the best written. However, out of the rest of the crew, only Tom Paris seems somewhat consistent.
You get some good episodes out of it, but I donāt think it plays with the parts of Trek they were given to its fullest extent. I also feel like, while some of the shows are pure Trek, they arenāt Voyager.
A big part of Voyagerās problem was that the writers had absolutely no clue what to do with Kes. You had one of the main characters being just kind of there and largely useless. Once they brought Seven of Nine in and dropped Kes Voyager got a lot better. The writers had a clear understanding of how to write for Seven and she had a ton of character development over the final four seasons. Hell, Iād even say they did a better job with Neelix once they got rid of Kes, since they couldnāt keep falling back on āNeelix is super jealous of Kes interacting with any male on the crewā BS they did a lot of. (And dear god was that annoying as hell. And I like Voyager!)
I feel like it wasnāt just Kes who had this problem.
The Doctor and Seven were probably the best written characters. Tom and BāLenna were probably the next two after that. Janeway only got better because she could act as a bad parent to Seven, which vastly improved her character and gave her focus. Neelix and Tuvok kind of drifted off to the background. Kim and Chakotay were blander than that, although Kim got a few decent character beats.
Iām not going to fault the actors on this, since this was the writing.
And Robert Beltran kept upping his salary demands each season hoping theyād fire him, since they were giving him so little acting to do. But they saying yes, so he stayed.
Iām a voyager fanboy since it aired, but it really doesnāt hold up well.
Nevermind the fact that it is low quality visually and will never be remastered, but the practically non existint continuity really really really hurts it.
I still recommend people watch it, but it would be 3rd of the āoldā shows Iād suggest. (DS9 1st always because it is fucking awesome, then TNG because it brought Star Trek to the masses and solidified a lot of ācanonā)
I actually never watched ds9, but LOVED voyager. I hated Enterprise and could never get into it. I think all this new Trek happening is killer though!
I really enjoyed Voyager. Saw it for the first time in 2020-2023, so maybe that played a part. Of course Tuvok, Seven, EMH, and Janeway were great, but I even liked Neelix as a character.
Id rank the last two seasons of ENT higher than Voyager
1984Enterprise was my favorite star trek. I canāt even watch discovery, itās horrible.
Greg ClarkeI agree. Discovery is the least progressive Star Trek series and is already aging poorly. The other series use the Star Trek universe to cleverly explore present day issues whereas Discovery lazily frames todayās social issues as if theyāre universal truths. It was a real back step for the franchise.
astronaut_slothItās not that Disco isnāt progressive; itās just lazily progressive. Case in point: the scene that bothers me to this day is Adira coming out as non-binary, just beyond cringe-worthy and very 21st century. As a viewer, the scene read like Adira was waiting to be judged harshly for their identity, and it just totally took me out of the era. By the 32nd century, Iād expect that being judged harshly for oneās gender identity would be at least a millennium behind us, and the conversation should either have not happened or been so matter-of-fact that it was treated as nothing. I get what the writers were trying to do, and it fell so flat and felt so bluntly obvious. Iām all for the message, but the delivery was not great.
The saddest thing about Disco to me is that there were great ideas and great intentions, but the execution of those ideas was so poor. Really, it just shows that you can have great actors, great directors, and great concepts, but if the writers canāt make it work, it just all comes apart.
Value SubtractedThat rather ignores the fact that Adira was an amnesiac stowaway at the time, with some pretty understandable trust issues.
It also ignores that the characters in the scene in exactly the way youāre saying they should have.
I see your point, but I still donāt think the scene works, but thinking about it like that makes it much more watchable. My point is that the scene is simultaneously poignant and a throw-away. Itās a ābig dealā but also just one scene.
By the 32nd century, something like that should be such a non-issue for humans, that it would be like stating just another fact about yourself (amnesia and trust-issues aside), which lends itself to being a throw-awayā¦but that defeats the purpose of the scene. Again, I am all about the message and Stametsā reaction, but it felt very 21st century and on-the-nose.
Iād have preferred if Adira were just non-binary from the beginning and maybe have a quick correction of someone when they were misgendered. Or, let that scene be the reveal of something else, like the symbiont. With that change (Iād have to rewatch the season to see where this scene was in relation to the symbiont reveal), I think the scene would still work while tightening up the writing. I also think itād get the message across, too.
Now, if the writers really wanted that scene to stay as-is, there are options. Make them an alien from a culture not as enlightened (which would cause other issues) or have this scene play into a bigger theme of Earth backsliding post-Burn (like a Dark Ages) to have mores closer to the 21st century and show the 23rd century crew as horrified by it and work to bring Earth and humanity back toward enlightenment.
This kinda sums up my main problem with Disco. There were great options on the table to realize a concept, but they just wrote it in an awkward way that is unsatisfying (at least to me).
The problem I had with that scene (and the whole series, really, especially season 3) was that it framed human culture of the future as being generally oppressive and backwards. Acceptance shouldnāt be portrayed as radical or exceptional. It should be normal and taken for granted among humans in the future. Like in TOS, Uhuraās role was a big deal for viewers specifically because it was not a big deal for the characters. They just showed us a better future, where a black woman in a respected professional position was normal.
Discovery didnāt show us a better future. It showed us a shitty future with a handful of decent people in it. This is just one example, but itās one that stuck in my mind as well.
What, in your view, was āexceptionalā about Stametsā acceptance in that scene?
It was presented as exceptional in-universe, from Adiraās perspective. The fact that Adira felt weird about it at all paints the culture they grew up in as backwards.
Again, though, that completely removes the context of Adiraās character arc.
How so? Perhaps Iām misremembering, but they were born on Earth and raised among humans, right? Does that not say something about the human culture of their time?
They were amnesiac following being joined with the Tal symbiont - they only sorted out these identity issues after Discovery took them to Trill.
DaleGribble88Iāve only made it to season 2, so Iām holding out hope that it gets better, but lazily progressive seems to describe it pretty well.
The one that really runs me rough it how Tilly is very clearly coded to be some type of neuro divergent, probably autistic, but also only when it is convenient and quirky and will not interfere with the plot too much.
Her suddenly being very socially adept when the plot needed her to pretend to be an evil commander or whatever, and she dropped all of her character flaws to make it happen just felt so out of character and lazy.
Also the scenes with Spock and āchild abuse badā at the start of the red angel arc was very ham fisted.
I much preferred how SNW handled the āour wonderful society is supported by horrible child labor and deathā arc. Still about as subtle as a brick, but it at least felt like an attempt was made to encode a message, and not just saying it at the viewer like a pre-school cartoon recapping the message of the episode.
The scene youāre describing is a good example. Though I would argue that given this story line is set a millennium in the future, it isnāt just lazily progressive, itās an ultra-conservative view of the future. It perpetuates todayās bigotries as universal truths instead of challenging the audience to perceive of a future without our current bigotries like the Kirk / Uhura kiss did 50 years ago.
Yeah someone being non-binary or whatever and no one caring or commenting on it at all is a lot more progressive and meaningful. TOS did that really well with Uhura on the bridge. She was a black woman and absolutely no one on the ship acted like that was remotely odd. It sent a very powerful message.
It also felt like it was shoehorning in all the progressiveness for the sake of being progressive which sends the exact opposite message than they hoped for. The crew was so amazingly diverse representing so many different things that any adult would look at it and go āthe odds of all these different sexualities/etc. being on one ship at once are so improbable as to be impossible.ā That makes it feel like pandering, not being progressive. That could work for kids, just being able to see someone like them on screen helps a lot, but Discovery is very much not meant for kids to watch.
Basically they tried too hard and didnāt understand what they were doing.
Daniel QuinnCan you give some examples of this? Admittedly I didnāt much care for Discovery and didnāt pay a lot of attention through it as a result, but Iām not picking up what youāre laying down ;-)
The original series was based in a post-race society. When Kirk and Uhura kiss, it wasnāt an interracial kiss in the show because the concept of race doesnāt exist in the 24th century universe. It got backlash when it aired because some people couldnāt contemplate a the future without their current bigotry existing. Star Trek explored current social issues by visiting some planet with a veiled of that issue.
Contrast that to Discovery where Burnham is having a conversation with an Admiral and the Admiral brings up Burnhamās familyās history of slavery.
Ah yeah, I remember a moment like that in DS9, where Sisko is lamenting the crewās interest in a holosuite program set in the 50s because of how āour peopleā were treated back then. It always felt out of place for me, though DS9 is still my favourite Star Trek.
Itās been a long rong
cm0002getting from here to there
Itās been a long time
southsamuraiI very much enjoyed enterprise at the time, despite the horrible theme song and the flaws in writing that spotted most episodes.
Now, part of that is being a huge Bakula fan. I love the way he throws himself into roles. I think though, had there been another age actor in the role I still would have enjoyed the show.
It wasnāt great Trek. Probably the weakest of the older series, depending on tastes and criteria. Certainly wasnāt up to TNG, TOS, or DS 9. Iād put it on par with Voyager, though it was both bad and good in different ways, with the lack of attention being paid to established Vulcan history in Enterprise tipping the scales to it being lesser than Voyager.
But I really liked that they tried to go back to the whole āwagon train in spaceā vibe. And the cast was great. Canāt hold the iffy writing against the cast, and there were some great moments where the actors kept things from being worse just by virtue of how they carried their characters.
I donāt rewatch any of the series as a binge though, so my opinion might change when the flaws are showing up in rapid succession compared to the original pace of watching week by week and over time. I know binge watching made me almost hate shows I used to like a good bit (like Bones as an example).
I canāt compare anything to the newer shows since Iāve kinda stopped watching much in the way of ātvā the last few years, so I havenāt caught any of the stuff that has been done in the last decade. Could be that one of the new shows would be worse, in comparison to the earlier shows, I dunno. Doesnāt help that I despise the reboot movies, and the fact e that they happened kinda soured me on new Trek overall. The folks running things donāt seem to be interested in the kind of shows that made me enjoy Trek in the first place, but thatās second hand impression from seeing what people say online
All of them hold up pretty well when binging them, although I do fairly slow binges, maybe watching 3 - 4 episodes a day at most. There are episodes I dislike and I simply skip those when binging, which helps a lot. (For example DS9 is my favorite Trek but I really, really hate Vedik/Kai Wynn and skip the earlier episodes where sheās being an annoying bitch. I do watch the later episodes where sheās a lot more important, but I still hate her character so much. For TNG I skip all of season 1 and most of season 2.)
Enterprise, when it wasnāt actively sexually harrassing Tāpol, was great.
The problem is, the episodes where B&B are using Jolene Blalock as a sounding board for their fetishes are so bad, that it drags down the series as a whole.
They were doing the breast they can š
when it wasnāt actively sexually harrassing Tāpol
I never understood that need. Tāpol was already fiercely exotic, what with her flawless face and remote Vulcan disdain. They could have put her into a spacesuit for the entire series and she would have still been attractive AF purely due to her personality and strength of character. About the only improvement I would have liked to see is more of her character arc being in conflict with her Vulcan upbringing, particularly in trying to deal with those infuriatingly irrational humans, and her emotional entanglement with Trip.
Iām not a huge trek nerd, but recently watched the whole series, and the two main irritations were the blatant/unnecessary/annoying/offensive sexualization, and the theme song.
Itās easy to skip the opening sequence but the gratuitous fetishizing was pretty awful. The whole series would have been better without.
David Benfell, Ph.D. (he/him/his)@Scirocco @RizzRustbolt I assume you refer to the original series?
It was the 1960s. The anti-sex second wave of feminism wouldnāt really start to take hold until the 1970s (the first wave won womenās suffrage). One of the slogans of the era was āPeace, Love, and Rock and Roll,ā with āloveā quite possibly referring to another slogan, āMake Love, Not War.ā
Weāve been in a backlash to the anti-war, liberation, and counterculture movements of this era ever since. Neoconservatism was *born* with this backlash (you wanna talk about whoās ācome a long way, baby?ā). So the sensibilities are very different.
In some ways #TOS was ahead of its timeāthe first interracial kiss on television, for example (I believe #allstartrek was just discussing that episode, if memory serves?)ābut from a feminist perspective, those micro-minidress uniforms and James Kirk āgetting the girlā each and every episode (well, almost every episode, anyway), the series does seem incredibly dated, chauvinistic, and patriarchal. Between that and the cheesy special effects, which were actually great for their day, itās not a good look today.
Kevin C š¬@benfell @Scirocco @RizzRustbolt
As far as exploiting the actor's physical attractiveness, all I ask for in #StarTrek these days is parity. At least #StarTrekEnterprise and #StarTrekTOS series had Trip (Malcolm and Mayweather?) and Kirk shirtless and in tight body hugging shorts a bunch of times.
#StarTrekTNG and #StarTrekVoyager tho, they were just throwing Marina Sirtis and Jerry Ryan at you (not that I'm complaining). š¤·āāļø
@kcarr2015 @Scirocco @RizzRustbolt Parity was definitely not a thing then. Much as I loved #TOS in my somewhat younger days, when it was the only #StarTrek, I donāt think I could even watch most of the episodes now. City on the Edge of Forever maybe.
The scenes in the isolation chamber in underwear applying gel to each other were totally unnecessary and unpleasant to watch, especially nowadays. They have aged very poorly.
They were the reason I stopped watching when it first aired. Iām glad society is catching on.
The scenes in the isolation chamber in underwear applying gel to each other were totally unnecessary
I thought so at the time but later realized that was a key scene of the whole entire show. You missed a lot of the nuance. That was where Tāpol developed her crush on Trip. Her crush on Trip was the only reason she became the first Vulcan to be able to stay aboard a human ship for longer than a few weeks. And Tāpolās presence on the ship advising Archer was what made Archer so successful in laying the groundwork of the entire federation.
mriormroLOL! But whether or not you like the theme song, I maintain that the visuals of the opening credits are the most imaginative of all the treks.
If not the most imaginative, certainly the most inspiring, and it evokes a strong insertion in our reality.
My grandpa was a reactor monkey on the CVN Enterprise and the primary reason Iām such a huge sci-fi nerd, every time I see Big E in the intro it makes me think of him and hopeful weāll see NCC-1701 someday.
A_Chilean_CyborgThe song is heavily meh, but the visuals may as well be the best of any intro.
If they composed something more trek-y, it would be the best intro of them all!
Back when Enterprise was airing some fan took the opening video and put it to an instrumental instead of the song and it was awesome as hell. Really wish Iād saved a copy of that now.