Oh, yes, sorry, I was addressing Dareau in that bit, not you. Yes, what I was saying was that a character from a sufficiently foreign human culture would also have that same feature of sometimes thinking in ways that to the others seem weird or shocking. Yes, there is more to the dynamics with Spock than just the fact that he's "not from around here" - but, as with the other example, those aren't restricted to sci-fi.
Oh, yes, sorry, I was addressing Dareau in that bit, not you. Yes, what I was saying was that a character from a sufficiently foreign human culture would also have that same feature of sometimes thinking in ways that to the others seem weird or shocking. Yes, there is more to the dynamics with Spock than just the fact that he's "not from around here" - but, as with the other example, those aren't restricted to sci-fi.
Ahh, my mistake... And absolutely, your canibalism example is exactly such a case of culture clashes, and how they can take different forms... It would appear that dareau and jonsills simply want to put Kirk and Spock on a sailing ship, and pointing out the flaws why that wouldn't be possible, rather than being able to take the lateral step to replacing a character with a near-equivalent, which would still fit the role
Because that's moving the goalposts. The question was whether you could take Star Trek as it is, put it on a sailing ship, and have a good show. Not whether you could use the characters as inspiration for a very different show altogether, using totally different plots, which might or might not work.
On the other hand, anyone who sees the banter between Spock and McCoy and thinks "racist" is not someone whose judgement I can trust in this matter anyway.
Because that's moving the goalposts. The question was whether you could take Star Trek as it is, put it on a sailing ship, and have a good show. Not whether you could use the characters as inspiration for a very different show altogether, using totally different plots, which might or might not work.
It's not moving the goalposts at all, you're just taking the question way too literally... Here's the OP as a reminder:
An assertion has been made that if you had removed all the sci-fi future tech from Star Trek and made into a show about wooden sailing ships, it would still be as successful as it is now, on the strength of good scriptwriting/story.
So I thought, let's find out what the STO Players think of that idea.
Would you have still be interested in the franchise if it didn't have any sci-fi at all?
If it's a show about wooden sailing ships, that means it's a series being set in the era. It also does not say that existing characters are being directly ported in whole-sale. It would be an entirely new series, not the Generations holodeck scene... My assertion, is that Star Trek series' (and the best of the episodes) have always focussed on the characters and their interractions, not the trappings of 23rd/24th Century life.
It clearly says 'on the strength of good scriptwriting/story', so it's the scriptwriting and story we're looking at, not the fine details...
If we're looking at stories most of them can be re-told in any era. Details are different, the story remains (more or less) the same.
Ulysses 31 is a prime example of this, but in reverse, and transposing what we now consider 'classic mythology' into a futuristic setting. Sure, the fine fiddly details are different, but the story is still there, albeit with necessary tweaks to allow the story to still work in that different setting. That's not shifting the goalposts, but making a reasonable look at the subject, and seeing that putting Star Trek onto the high-seas requires similar transition. It means having a savant instead of an android... It means having a Polynesian instead of a Klingon... It means Kirk's Evil Half, has to become a completely different person, but who is still a mirror image of Captain Hero, so as I said before, we're talking a brother/cousin who's life is full of anger and hostility. A pirate, rather than an officer(or at least legitimate sailor) You are viewing it way too literally and missing the wood for the trees... The question was about the strength of story, not literally putting the existing characters on a boat and seeing how it plays out (ie Geordi putting a telescope to his VISOR in the same place as where his organic eye is behind it...)
On the other hand, anyone who sees the banter between Spock and McCoy and thinks "racist" is not someone whose judgement I can trust in this matter anyway.
Calling a Vulcan a 'green-blooded hobgoblin' isn't racist??
[Insert pic of ORLY Owl here]
Go up to one of your African-American friends and say "Wassup, mah n*gga?"
I dare you.
"Oh but we're friends, we rip on each other like that..."
Just because a friend gives another friend freedom to speak thus without taking it as an insult, that does not stop the behaviour itself from being insulting and/or racist, it just means that it's tolerated.
Did McCoy ever treat any other crewmember to such 'friendly' terms? Is it not fair to say that McCoy was simply a work-place bully who had singled out a victim, and who others enabled in said bullying? There were times McCoy even roped Kirk into the teasing (although Kirk never reduced himself to using slurs) Great friend that is, someone who lets a friend rope him into making fun of another friend. Oh I know 'busting chops' is an American passtime, but to non-Americans, it can come across as just being a d*ck...
Spock's reactions to McCoy's 'banter' suggests that he receives them as no different to the bullying he received as a child. He just doesn't react to them because a) he's a Vulcan (or rather a half-breed who has always tried to prove himself as being 'as Vulcan' as any other, so has to be 'more Vulcan than Vulcan') b) he's not a child anymore, he's learned how to deal with the situations and not react with his fists, and c) he's an officer, so has behavioural standards to maintain.
What makes you think that your judgement is trustworthy, when you can't even see both deliberate and institutionalized racism?
(Cool it, Marcus.)
It's maybe not racism in the most obvious way; McCoy is rude to Spock because Spock is annoying, not because he has anything against aliens per se. (Especially if they're pretty girls. ) That confuses things. Or sometimes because that's McCoy's idea of a friendly joke. But it's definitely the kind of friendly joke that, depending on your mood and how many times they've already said it today, sometimes seems funny and sometimes just makes you want to punch them. And, on the other side, think how some of the things Spock himself says would sound if he was a Vulcan officer addressing the only human on the ship. It totally is racism. As frequently happens, they're winding each other up for other reasons, but the way they do it is still clearly below the belt. Think about it - if you don't feel, in some way, that they had no business saying that, why is it such a particularly joyful moment when the other one eventually ends up getting his own back?
On the original question: I think the point of the OP's question is, whether it's the other stuff that isn't dependent on the science fiction - i.e., the main characters and the interactions between them, and the general fact of them being in the Navy and stuck on a ship together and having adventures, and how well or badly those adventures are written - that makes Star Trek so popular, not really the science fiction elements. (That assumes that all of those things could still exist without the science fiction, but I do think that most of the same interactions that arise from one of the characters being an alien could happen in other situations, as Marcus says, so in theory a show could have those interactions without having an alien in it. But if not, whatever, let's just count Spock's various dramas as part of the science fiction plots rather than part of the character set-up.)
Well, I've actually only watched TOS and DS9 myself, but going only by those, I'd say certainly it wouldn't be worth half as much without the philosophical questions that get themselves into the plots. Those are what makes up for the various things that it (or TOS and DS9, anyway) aren't particularly great on.
As actual adventure stories they're sometimes high quality but other times, with all the outrageous twists, pow-pow-ing and plot holes, remind you of something kids would make up in the playground; it presumably depends on who wrote that episode.
The dialogue and interactions of the main characters are always pretty joyful, but that isn't enough to justify the show all by itself, unless you're actually going to make it into a sitcom. And the incidental characters are frequently terrible (those women crew members, aforesaid).
And, on the other side of the question, it's definitely not the insight into actual science that makes it interesting, either, because there usually isn't any. An equivalent show set in the Age of Sail would have penguins in the Arctic and lions in the Amazon jungle, and name several oceans that don't exist. Changing the background to something that was harder to get wrong like that would probably improve the show, it's easier to identify with a situation when you can actually believe in it.
So to me the deciding factor is, whether you could play with philosophical questions to the same extent without using the science fiction? It would be an unusual thing to do, picking that setting for that purpose, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. I suppose you can only answer that question by experiment, i.e., as we've been doing, thinking of possible plots.
An assertion has been made that if you had removed all the sci-fi future tech from Star Trek and made into a show about wooden sailing ships, it would still be as successful as it is now, on the strength of good scriptwriting/story.
And I sit here saying that no, you cannot make a show "as successful as Trek was" based purely on scriptwriting and strength of story.
Do you need me to spell out how, say, "Patterns of Force" can be rewritten to be lonely Madagascan Islands inhabited by a sect that was converted to Christianity by Pastor Gill and the other island with an Islamic Sect, and a Crusade started? I've not denied that it's entirely possible to convert plots, especially "war" or "political" type plots, from one genre to another.
However, part of this discussion, as the recent quote reminds us, is overall success. And I say that since a large part of Trek's success was the Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic - of which this scenario throws out the entire "Spock" portion - the overall success just won't be there, and I've given the reasons already...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
An assertion has been made that if you had removed all the sci-fi future tech from Star Trek and made into a show about wooden sailing ships, it would still be as successful as it is now, on the strength of good scriptwriting/story.
And I sit here saying that no, you cannot make a show "as successful as Trek was" based purely on scriptwriting and strength of story.
I agree, because to be honest, there were times when the writing on Trek was awful, so it takes more than just the writing to make a successful series. I'd argue that what 'makes a show successful' is audience appreciation and engagement. A show could be the best show in the world, with the best writing, the tightest direction, the most famous actors, but if no one watches it, it's nothing...
But I don't believe that is what the OP was meaning to discuss, but if Star Trek was set in the Age of Sail, would it still work thematically. Popularity is impossible to gauge or predict, especially with hypotheticals, and becomes a case of 'my show's better than your show because I say so...' so the more logical notion, is that the themes and stories themselves be put under the scrutiny of if they would still work if transposed, and I'm saying that the vast majority of them would...
Do you need me to spell out how, say, "Patterns of Force" can be rewritten to be lonely Madagascan Islands inhabited by a sect that was converted to Christianity by Pastor Gill and the other island with an Islamic Sect, and a Crusade started? I've not denied that it's entirely possible to convert plots, especially "war" or "political" type plots, from one genre to another.
And that's why you'd said to take any 'political themes' out of the discussion, because indeed, falsely-flown flag on a boat, empty freighter with a rigged transponder, it doesn't really make any difference, because the core notion is still the same...
And as I illustrated upthread, even an episode like Masks could be transposed if done correctly...
However, part of this discussion, as the recent quote reminds us, is overall success. And I say that since a large part of Trek's success was the Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic - of which this scenario throws out the entire "Spock" portion - the overall success just won't be there, and I've given the reasons already...
Only TOS had Kirk/Spock/McCoy... TNG was popular in its own right. DS-9 was popular in its own right (as was Babylon 5 ) Voyager was popular in its own right... Enterprise ...got cancelled... That dynamic may have been popular, but I dispute that it was what actually made the show successful. Certainly not successful to the point that any series without that would be unsuccessful...
Upthread, I mentioned Master and Commander:Farside of the World. In that, the captain's best friend was indeed the ship's surgeon, so let's for a moment add that dynamic into my suggestion of the Voyages of Captain Hero... Captain Hero is best friends with the ship's surgeon. Captain Hero has had to take guardianship for his savant nephew. There's your Kirk/McCoy/Spock trifecta in a near perfect recreation... Equally, perhaps Captain Hero's best friend isn't the ship's surgeon, but the ship's cook (because he's the only one who can recreate his Great-Aunt Sadie's gravy recipe perfectly) or perhaps his best friend is the old-sailmaker (who's sailed the globe a dozen times and seen everything the world has to offer...)
If the core strength of Star Trek is that It's About People, it doesn't really matter who those people are, and that the Plot will hang on whatever characters it's put onto, and stand or fall on the strength of what's written...
And the story with Worf depended on the fact that he assumed the ship he fired on might have been with the enemy.
And should have been with the enemy, given that there is no sane reason for a civilian starship to either, A, be in possession of a cloaking device in the first place, or B, come anywhere within a hundred thousand kilometers of an ongoing firefight in space, where you have a ridiculous amount of room to maneuver, unless it was part of the convoy that Worf was protecting. Worf had every reason to believe he was firing on an enemy bird-of-prey. That entire episode is a logical clusterf*ck.
I can't speak for everyone, but in my case, if they had gone down the fantasy route, my reaction to that is always "oh no, not another one!".
Because they are just too common.
All that would achieve is just to push me away.
And that principle applies to everything, games, movies, etc, you make it only with fantasy and I instantly lose interest.
Only sci-fi draws me in.
But let's go with that for a moment, it works for Kirk, but Picard is an entirely different kind of captain.
He can fight you physically if he has to, but I get the impression he prefers to use his mind more.
So I'm not sure you could keep doing Kirk style stuff with someone who isn't Kirk.
I don't know how Sisko and Janeway would have worked under that format.
At least a seafaring based show would be moderately unique that it might find it's niche.
Off the top of my head, I can't recall any long lasting naval dramas.
Or even short lived ones.
If you know of any, feel free to name them.
The closest I could name to a series would be Hornblower, but even that wasn't an ongoing series like Star Trek (or any other sci-fi series) but just a series of feature-length episodes (like Sharpe) But, it was good... I'd also give Master and Commander:Farside of the World an honorable mention
Master and Commander was good, but there was a reason it didn't become a franchise. Didn't have to do with money, the film was profitable. It was just the fact that filming a movie on a sailing ship is extremely technically difficult.
There have been a couple recent modern navy series, though. ABC had Last Resort, a political intrigue show set around a ballistic missile sub (which was good, but unfortunately got scheduled for ABC's cursed Thursday 8PM timeslot and was cancelled after half a season due to being outperformed by freaking Vampire Diaries), and TNT has The Last Ship which they've already ordered a fifth season for (and they haven't even finished airing season three!).
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
I am starting to wonder a bit though, on certain topics.
There are concepts that I am sure could not be included on the hypothetical "Sea Trek" show we are envisioning.
First of all, the Borg.
How could you introduce a species that absorbs other species into their hive mind/biology against their will, reducing them to little more then a single cell in an immense body?
And their enemies Species 8472, who made them look like sardines by comparison and live in a place where "nobody else lives there".
Then we have the Q.
Omnipotent all powerful entities completely lacking in imagination or direction.
And what about the Prophets?
They exist in a reality conjecture (the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant) outside of normal time and space, seeing all reality as one.
Those are just some of the basic ideas that relied on the sci-fi aspect being part of the show, without it, they simply wouldn't exist.
How would the absence of such concepts affect the story?
And about those cannibals, from what I read, they had to give that funeral ceremony up.
According to the info I found, there was a disease called Kuru taking hold in their population.
It's similar to CJD.
The replicating protein fragment (prion) that causes the disease spreads by consumption of infected meat.
The more people who died from it, the more funerals they held, the more victims got infected.
They were literally on a vicious cycle to extinction before our scientists pointed out they had to stop or cease to exist completely.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
And the story with Worf depended on the fact that he assumed the ship he fired on might have been with the enemy.
And should have been with the enemy, given that there is no sane reason for a civilian starship to either, A, be in possession of a cloaking device in the first place, or B, come anywhere within a hundred thousand kilometers of an ongoing firefight in space, where you have a ridiculous amount of room to maneuver, unless it was part of the convoy that Worf was protecting. Worf had every reason to believe he was firing on an enemy bird-of-prey. That entire episode is a logical clusterf*ck.
Absolutely, but the point which was raised, was that he still should have confirmed the target before firing... (This incident, is the first of three which dirctly prove that Worf was temperementally unsuited to actually have a command...)
I can't speak for everyone, but in my case, if they had gone down the fantasy route, my reaction to that is always "oh no, not another one!".
Because they are just too common.
All that would achieve is just to push me away.
And that principle applies to everything, games, movies, etc, you make it only with fantasy and I instantly lose interest.
Only sci-fi draws me in.
But let's go with that for a moment, it works for Kirk, but Picard is an entirely different kind of captain.
He can fight you physically if he has to, but I get the impression he prefers to use his mind more.
So I'm not sure you could keep doing Kirk style stuff with someone who isn't Kirk.
I don't know how Sisko and Janeway would have worked under that format.
At least a seafaring based show would be moderately unique that it might find it's niche.
Off the top of my head, I can't recall any long lasting naval dramas.
Or even short lived ones.
If you know of any, feel free to name them.
The closest I could name to a series would be Hornblower, but even that wasn't an ongoing series like Star Trek (or any other sci-fi series) but just a series of feature-length episodes (like Sharpe) But, it was good... I'd also give Master and Commander:Farside of the World an honorable mention
Master and Commander was good, but there was a reason it didn't become a franchise. Didn't have to do with money, the film was profitable. It was just the fact that filming a movie on a sailing ship is extremely technically difficult.
There have been a couple recent modern navy series, though. ABC had Last Resort, a political intrigue show set around a ballistic missile sub (which was good, but unfortunately got scheduled for ABC's cursed Thursday 8PM timeslot and was cancelled after half a season due to being outperformed by freaking Vampire Diaries), and TNT has The Last Ship which they've already ordered a fifth season for (and they haven't even finished airing season three!).
Difficult, yes, but not impossible... Have you ever seen any episodes of Hornblower? Fantastic series, in my opinion, and my strongest evidence as to why Trek could be transposed (Especially as the character of Kirk was in itself inspired by the character of Horatio Hornblower) There was another 'ship series' a while back called The Last Ship, which had Rhona Mitra in it. I never watched it myself, but I've heard positive things from folks who did
I am starting to wonder a bit though, on certain topics.
There are concepts that I am sure could not be included on the hypothetical "Sea Trek" show we are envisioning.
First of all, the Borg.
How could you introduce a species that absorbs other species into their hive mind/biology against their will, reducing them to little more then a single cell in an immense body?
And their enemies Species 8472, who made them look like sardines by comparison and live in a place where "nobody else lives there".
Then we have the Q.
Omnipotent all powerful entities completely lacking in imagination or direction.
And what about the Prophets?
They exist in a reality conjecture (the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant) outside of normal time and space, seeing all reality as one.
Those are just some of the basic ideas that relied on the sci-fi aspect being part of the show, without it, they simply wouldn't exist.
How would the absence of such concepts affect the story?
And about those cannibals, from what I read, they had to give that funeral ceremony up.
According to the info I found, there was a disease called Kuru taking hold in their population.
It's similar to CJD.
The replicating protein fragment (prion) that causes the disease spreads by consumption of infected meat.
The more people who died from it, the more funerals they held, the more victims got infected.
They were literally on a vicious cycle to extinction before our scientists pointed out they had to stop or cease to exist completely.
Oh I freely admit, not absolutely every concept or episode would work... The Borg are certainly a challenge... Maybe an Ultra-Conservative religeous sect who go around kidnapping people, then using Haitian voodoo drugs to pacify them into becoming part of their crew (not sure how safe a ship would be for a drugged sailor, but maybe that's why they need to 'keep recruiting' )
With regards kuru, I seem to remember reading something about ten years or so ago, that people were only infected if they were lacking in some enzyme or protein of their own...
I suppose what the question boils down to is, is the main thing that makes the show popular the situation of a ship going on adventures and having to deal with very strange things and the baffling situations and decisions they lead to (and I think we've established that very strange things do not require fictional science), along with the good characters and interactions among the crew themselves? Or is it particular things like the Borg and the Q that keep people coming back? And, if so, could writers who could come up with those have come up with equally compelling recurring strange things for a "Sea Trek" show, or do the science-fiction things have a particular appeal as science-fiction things? I suppose you can only answer that for yourself.
Marcus's zombies (literal Zombies) are a bit of a stretch as an equivalent to the Borg (as anything would be), but they sound like a great plot in their own right!
With regard to kuru: the version of events I read, it was actually the other way round. It was only after the missionaries had mostly forced them to give up that practice that scientists worked out that that was what had been spreading the disease. (Possibly it was the fact that it had decreased as they stopped doing that that provided the clue.) So (if that version of events is right) the missionaries actually saved their lives, but entirely by accident. How's that for complicated irony? I didn't know that about there being a susceptibility factor for kuru, Marcus, I'll have to look that up.
I suppose what the question boils down to is, is the main thing that makes the show popular the situation of a ship going on adventures and having to deal with very strange things and the baffling situations and decisions they lead to (and I think we've established that very strange things do not require fictional science), along with the good characters and interactions among the crew themselves? Or is it particular things like the Borg and the Q that keep people coming back? And, if so, could writers who could come up with those have come up with equally compelling recurring strange things for a "Sea Trek" show, or do the science-fiction things have a particular appeal as science-fiction things? I suppose you can only answer that for yourself.
Marcus's zombies (literal Zombies) are a bit of a stretch as an equivalent to the Borg (as anything would be), but they sound like a great plot in their own right!
With regard to kuru: the version of events I read, it was actually the other way round. It was only after the missionaries had mostly forced them to give up that practice that scientists worked out that that was what had been spreading the disease. (Possibly it was the fact that it had decreased as they stopped doing that that provided the clue.) So (if that version of events is right) the missionaries actually saved their lives, but entirely by accident. How's that for complicated irony? I didn't know that about there being a susceptibility factor for kuru, Marcus, I'll have to look that up.
I admit, zombies are a bit of a stretch, I was just thinking of them being an equivalent to the mindlessness of a drone, and combining that with Ultra Conservative religious zealotry, I thought that kind of 'forced conversion' might have provided a parallel to the idea of assimilation...
As said, it was a fair while ago that I read the piece, but it made it sound a bit like how some folks are lactose intolerant. Most people can consume it, but a few can't, and that was what it suggested about kuru (and BSE) that it's actually only a minority who actually contract kuru, and that if you don't get kuru, chances are you wouldn't get BSE either (not that it's easy to prove kuru immunity )
Only TOS had Kirk/Spock/McCoy... TNG was popular in its own right. DS-9 was popular in its own right (as was Babylon 5 ) Voyager was popular in its own right... Enterprise ...got cancelled... That dynamic may have been popular, but I dispute that it was what actually made the show successful. Certainly not successful to the point that any series without that would be unsuccessful...
Did you watch TNG Season 1, or manage to remember reading any of the critics back then? (Pre-Internet, so the "histories" may be harder to find...) The only reason quite a few critics claim that TNG made it through Season 1 was the name Star Trek, the ways that the crew were being written as "representations of certain aspects of the TOS crew, like Riker being the "adventurous" side of Kirk, Picard the "diplomatic" side, Data the "disconnect with Humanity and potential source of pure logic as a literal 'walking computer'", Troi the source of "compassionate counterpoints", etc. being "re-shoehorned" into such blatant rip offs of TOS situations that the episode name and final solution were pulled straight from TOS?
To remind you, that setup was panned as a "complete and utter failure", so much so that instead of trying to continue on with that formula in Season 2 they replaced the doctor with a curmudgeon (Pulaski) and actually let the crew start growing into their own characters... (and let Riker grow a beard... )
Do you remember a ton of the "early" seasons of DS9, when the show's concept was "let's explore the interactions of the crew in a stationary setting so that one can tell it's a show about the crew's interplay, not how they interact with the universe"? How's about your recollections about DS9 when it became Trek's version of Babylon 5, complete with "Dominion War" to have a big bad that the station had to protect against?
Why was Seven of Nine never given an authentic Starfleet Uniform with an "ex-borg" rank instead of a Starfleet or Maquis one, instead she wore a rankless catsuit that can only be justified because of her... feminine assets?
And remember, Enterprise consciously went three seasons without the moniker "Star Trek" in it's title... Which lets one readily and easily understand that the previous shows were allowed to flounder long enough to "grow into their own" because they actually used the Star Trek name.
So, now that I've "discredited" the concept that all of "Post TOS" Trek was such a resounding success for the entirety of their runs, let's go back and rethink some why TOS would be "so popular" all so many years later to generate a 50th anniversary celebration while other shows of the era are banished to TV Land...
And the best way I have of illustrating that is perhaps a look at another recent trend and the "franchises" that exemplify it.
NCIS: The Original is still ongoing, while their LA and NO spinoffs are closed off and therefore considered "failures".
CSI: Miami outlasted CSI (LV)'s cast overhaul.
Both of these shows illustrate that a successful series is not built strictly off of plot points and/or setting(s). They require a third aspect - acting, to "push them over the edge" and into bona-fide success territory. NCIS:LA and NCIS:NO never had them, CSI(LV) and CSI:Miami both "had" it, Miami kept it for a longer time than LV's crew overhaul.
Success in entertainment is predicated on a "perfect blend" of a lot more aspects than one thing. Perhaps the OP missed it, but I recall reading an early (pre-internet) theory somewhere that if it weren't for Shatner/Nimoy/Kelley and their acting abilities, Trek would be in the dustbin next to Seaquest DSV, Battlestar Galactica (TOS), Lone Ranger, etc. etc. etc. as a potential "cult hit" that never really gained traction...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
I am uncertain as to how far they could stretch the truth without it becoming totally implausible.
If Sea Trek was to be a mostly factual based show, then you'd have to keep within those limits, you couldn't have giant octopi or vengeful lava gods from the sea attacking the crew every 10 episodes.
Truth of the matter, most sea journeys were pretty uneventiful, months at sea with nothing to do but maintain the ship, carve objects and write in your diary.
Picard: What did you do today Number One?
Riker: I thought I saw a white flag on the horizon, but it turned out just to be a stray seagull.
Picard: Carry on.
And unlike Star Trek, they wouldn't have the luxury of simply "warping out" to get somewhere fast.
If it took them months to get there, it would take them months to get back.
Not to mention they'd basically be out of contact with their command structure, no radio existed in that time.
Actually, it was Kirk who drove me away from TOS in the first place.
A egotistic skirt-chasing captain is a horrible choice for a lead character.
I preferred Pike better, but that pilot episode didn't even survive "First Contact" with the test audience, pardon the pun.
Also, I took exception to the fact that they rejected Majel Barrett as the original "Number One".
If you were going to set an example for the best future of humanity, put women in the command structure!
It wasn't until Picard came along that I got interested in Star Trek.
And I liked the concept of Deep Space Nine where they couldn't actually go anywhere, they had to solve problems at home.
I think the Defiant upset that a fair bit, giving them a reason to get the crew out and away.
If it was me, I'd have kept the Defiant as a mobile defense platform and stationed a small flotilla nearby to do the actual exploring.
Plus, it seems they were always attacked when the Defiant wasn't there!
From my point of view, NCIS and it's myriad spinoffs were a failure.
Because it's just mundane ordinary stuff, forensic investigations or whatever they did on a weekly basis.
I've always held the opinion that you watch tv to see things that can't happen, not see a dramatized version of real life.
If you find that fun, go spend a year as an assistant to a real Forensic Pathologist/crime division!
Here is a weblink describing Kuru.
According to that, it would appear my version is the correct one, as it references outside scientists making the discovery.
Spongeiform enchalopathy is the most serious disease we have encountered, because of it's ability to leap the species barrier.
I was studying biology when the CJD iteration came out and the target species were identified as such:
Primates
Cows
Felines
Seals
That's an unusual spectrum, most infections can only target two species at best.
Maybe it's because Prions aren't your normal kind of transmission agent, from what I understand, they exist to consume neural tissue, which anything with a central nervous system possesses.
And that's most living creatures!
So in theory, Prions could infect anything that has a brain and spinal cord.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
I got the impression that the same thing was true to some extent in Star Trek - the episodes weren't meant to be straight after each other, there'd be long periods of nothing happening in between. Sometimes there would be a mention at the start of an episode that "it's weeks since we last docked anywhere and the crew are cracking up a bit".
CJD certainly does have a big range, I didn't realise that. If I remember rightly (I studied BSE in my science course too!), prions don't exactly "consume neural tissue" as such, they interfere with one specific protein - they're misfolded forms of a protein, and any of that particular protein that comes into contact with them turns into more prion. It's almost like they're as much like a chemical poison as they are like a germ - the only thing that makes them sort of an "infection" rather than a poison is that they can multiply themselves.
Perhaps that's why the unusually wide range compared to bacteria and viruses? Bacteria are alive and require various conditions and nutrients to survive. Viruses even more so, because they don't have all the equipment necessary to multiply themselves and need to hijack a suitable host cell to copy their RNA for them. But all a prion needs is its protein, in theory, if it has that one thing, it's OK. I've just been looking up the protein attacked by CJD (and kuru, and some other related diseases), called PrP; it seems to be something that occurs in nearly all mammals. Marcus was right, there are genetic variations in its structure that make it easier or harder for it to be folded into the prion form. Oddly, it seems to exist throughout the body, not just in neural tissue, but there is more in neural tissue.
"Prion" also turns out to be the name of a rather sweet-looking sea bird.
From my point of view, NCIS and it's myriad spinoffs were a failure.
Because it's just mundane ordinary stuff, forensic investigations or whatever they did on a weekly basis.
I've always held the opinion that you watch tv to see things that can't happen, not see a dramatized version of real life.
If you find that fun, go spend a year as an assistant to a real Forensic Pathologist/crime division!
I think you missed the point on this one, though your stances do hint to me that you might have a bit of a "hard time" understanding exactly what's going on.
NCIS (Original) is about to start Season 14. Whether you, or I, individually, care about the show is irrelevant. The fact that the show is "considered successful enough" to warrant the release of a 14th season (when no Trek show has lasted more than 7) is a testament to "it's success"...
And yet, when they "span off" to LA or NO, neither one of those variants lasted more than a few years. Which then beggars the question, why?
Because a show is not just the "plot standard", it's the "entire composition" of actors, characters, settings, etc. Tweaking even one can blow the whole mixture to smithereens, or take a borderline failure and turn it into a success.
Going way way back to the OP, it's been speculated that Star Trek, in large part, succeeded because - again, whether you, I or whoever like it or not - the adventures and interactions of Shatner/Nimoy/Kelley as Kirk/Spock/McCoy on a starship named "Enterprise" some 400 years in the future was "popular enough" to warrant two more seasons of the show. Or after TNG Season 2 ended, and the new staff was given the time and chance to "grow into their roles/places", the interactions of Stewart/Frakes/Dorn/Spiner/et. al. playing Picard/Riker/Worf/Data/etc. on a new starship Enterprise 85 years after the ending of the "original crew's" movies were again popular enough to warrant an additional 5 seasons. Meanwhile, the interactions of Archer/T'Pol/Tripp/Etc., especially when they weren't given the "Star Trek" name to begin with, fell flat on face and while Season 4 (bringing back the Trek name, BTW) was being seen as "redemption" for that staff, the plug was pulled.
Again, it's not just our preferences being played out in this thought discussion. It's the preferences of the "entire assembled viewership" - noticed that lovely new STO timeline and "sources of our episodes" thing, and noticed that very few "early season" TNG, DS9, or VOY episodes were cited as "inspirations" for the devs, outside of Caretaker (Voy S1 E1), the only "early season" TNG-era show in that list was the first "re-"appearance of the Romulans.
You may have loved the "earlier" DS9 episodes where they were attempting to focus on the magical interaction of the crew of the space station in one "gigantic ongoing bridge episode", but the general populace seems to enjoy (and remember) the latter Babylon 5 "clone episodes" from Dominion War on...
Why? Acting, setting, scenario. Pull one, and show could fail, spectacularly. Change one (like DS9 added the Dominion War scenario) and a borderline "general public failure" can become a "general public success"...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
And the story with Worf depended on the fact that he assumed the ship he fired on might have been with the enemy.
And should have been with the enemy, given that there is no sane reason for a civilian starship to either, A, be in possession of a cloaking device in the first place, or B, come anywhere within a hundred thousand kilometers of an ongoing firefight in space, where you have a ridiculous amount of room to maneuver, unless it was part of the convoy that Worf was protecting. Worf had every reason to believe he was firing on an enemy bird-of-prey. That entire episode is a logical clusterf*ck.
Absolutely, but the point which was raised, was that he still should have confirmed the target before firing... (This incident, is the first of three which dirctly prove that Worf was temperementally unsuited to actually have a command...)
The same logic can be applied to Kirk firing on the BoP in TUC, and he didn't even bother to let it decloak before it fired. As a matter of fact, Kirk fired a weapon that could potentially have locked onto any ship in the vicinity that had a similar emissions signature, rather than using line-of-sight weapons on the one actively involved in hostilities. Clearly Kirk is temperamentally unsuited to be in command, too.
There is thematically no room for double standards in Star Trek. The other two instances are debatable, but in "Rules of Engagement" Worf did everything right and the Federation tried to throw him under the bus for political reasons, it's that simple.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
The Worf situation could best be re-imagined as involving a ship flying with no flag at all. The HMS Defiant is escorting a convoy when out of a fog bank an unmarked ship suddenly appears right in the midst of the convoy, in that split second moment the captain must make the fateful judgment call. It isn't even remotely far fetched either, just look at how many times in modern history we have seen people detained or shot on charges of espionage with their homeland claiming they were just innocent tourists who chose to travel through a hostile nations territory.
As for Q, the Borg, and the many other fanciful creatures the heroes have encountered in Star Trek. They would be right at home in a fantasy setting with sailors. Countless tales revolve around sailors being tormented by spiteful gods, people being abducted and physically altered, and strange sea monsters terrorizing the deep.
This is only hard because you guys keep trying to make Star Trek out to be more scientifically grounded than it actually is. At its core Star Trek leans more towards fantasy than science. If Trek was reimagined on the high seas it would most certainly not be a historically accurate documentary, it would most certainly be done in the style of the Greek classics. Instead of distant planets we would have fictional cities, and instead of aliens we would have supernatural spirits and creatures.
Only TOS had Kirk/Spock/McCoy... TNG was popular in its own right. DS-9 was popular in its own right (as was Babylon 5 ) Voyager was popular in its own right... Enterprise ...got cancelled... That dynamic may have been popular, but I dispute that it was what actually made the show successful. Certainly not successful to the point that any series without that would be unsuccessful...
Did you watch TNG Season 1, or manage to remember reading any of the critics back then? (Pre-Internet, so the "histories" may be harder to find...) The only reason quite a few critics claim that TNG made it through Season 1 was the name Star Trek, the ways that the crew were being written as "representations of certain aspects of the TOS crew, like Riker being the "adventurous" side of Kirk, Picard the "diplomatic" side, Data the "disconnect with Humanity and potential source of pure logic as a literal 'walking computer'", Troi the source of "compassionate counterpoints", etc. being "re-shoehorned" into such blatant rip offs of TOS situations that the episode name and final solution were pulled straight from TOS?
To remind you, that setup was panned as a "complete and utter failure", so much so that instead of trying to continue on with that formula in Season 2 they replaced the doctor with a curmudgeon (Pulaski) and actually let the crew start growing into their own characters... (and let Riker grow a beard... )
Do you remember a ton of the "early" seasons of DS9, when the show's concept was "let's explore the interactions of the crew in a stationary setting so that one can tell it's a show about the crew's interplay, not how they interact with the universe"? How's about your recollections about DS9 when it became Trek's version of Babylon 5, complete with "Dominion War" to have a big bad that the station had to protect against?
So what?? They both ran for seven seasons, so shaky beginnings aside, they were still successes, with massive ongoing fanbases...
Not sure why you've itemised the characters... And unless you'd care to explain Gates McFadden's departure in Season One, then Diana Muldaur's departure in Season Two, I don't know why you even mentioned it... Denise Crosby also left during Season One, because she didn't like how Tasha was being written, and has been doing everything possible to stay attached to the Star Trek franchise ever since! (And for the record, Tasha was, and still is, one of my favorites...)
Why was Seven of Nine never given an authentic Starfleet Uniform with an "ex-borg" rank instead of a Starfleet or Maquis one, instead she wore a rankless catsuit that can only be justified because of her... feminine assets?
Well that is why Jeri Ryan was hired... Adding sex-appeal to boost flagging ratings...
And remember, Enterprise consciously went three seasons without the moniker "Star Trek" in it's title... Which lets one readily and easily understand that the previous shows were allowed to flounder long enough to "grow into their own" because they actually used the Star Trek name.
Hmmm... The lack of the name 'Star Trek' was clearly what kept/drove people away from it... :rolleyes:
So, now that I've "discredited" the concept that all of "Post TOS" Trek was such a resounding success for the entirety of their runs, let's go back and rethink some why TOS would be "so popular" all so many years later to generate a 50th anniversary celebration while other shows of the era are banished to TV Land...
And the best way I have of illustrating that is perhaps a look at another recent trend and the "franchises" that exemplify it.
NCIS: The Original is still ongoing, while their LA and NO spinoffs are closed off and therefore considered "failures".
CSI: Miami outlasted CSI (LV)'s cast overhaul.
Both of these shows illustrate that a successful series is not built strictly off of plot points and/or setting(s). They require a third aspect - acting, to "push them over the edge" and into bona-fide success territory. NCIS:LA and NCIS:NO never had them, CSI(LV) and CSI:Miami both "had" it, Miami kept it for a longer time than LV's crew overhaul.
Success in entertainment is predicated on a "perfect blend" of a lot more aspects than one thing. Perhaps the OP missed it, but I recall reading an early (pre-internet) theory somewhere that if it weren't for Shatner/Nimoy/Kelley and their acting abilities, Trek would be in the dustbin next to Seaquest DSV, Battlestar Galactica (TOS), Lone Ranger, etc. etc. etc. as a potential "cult hit" that never really gained traction...
You've just made a series of snarky, reductive quips, you've discredited absolutely nothing.
Absolute, NCIS and CSI seem destined to keep running indefinitely... I stopped watching NCIS years ago, never liked the look of NCIS:LA and refuse to look at NCIS:NO because of Scott Bakula's attachment to the series. CSI never really took my interest either. But it's not about what I like, but what is popular enough to keep going...
TOS DID wind up in the bin! After two seasons! It was only fans writing into the studio that the third season even came to pass, and it still got cancelled! Even Enterprise had a longer run! So f*ck Shatner/Nimoy/Kelley, and the horses they rode in on!
If everything which made TOS what it was as a series (other than the sci-fi setting) had been used in any other production, I don't see why it wouldn't've been just as good (and bad) And the vast majority of the episodes still would have worked!
And the story with Worf depended on the fact that he assumed the ship he fired on might have been with the enemy.
And should have been with the enemy, given that there is no sane reason for a civilian starship to either, A, be in possession of a cloaking device in the first place, or B, come anywhere within a hundred thousand kilometers of an ongoing firefight in space, where you have a ridiculous amount of room to maneuver, unless it was part of the convoy that Worf was protecting. Worf had every reason to believe he was firing on an enemy bird-of-prey. That entire episode is a logical clusterf*ck.
Absolutely, but the point which was raised, was that he still should have confirmed the target before firing... (This incident, is the first of three which dirctly prove that Worf was temperementally unsuited to actually have a command...)
The same logic can be applied to Kirk firing on the BoP in TUC, and he didn't even bother to let it decloak before it fired. As a matter of fact, Kirk fired a weapon that could potentially have locked onto any ship in the vicinity that had a similar emissions signature, rather than using line-of-sight weapons on the one actively involved in hostilities. Clearly Kirk is temperamentally unsuited to be in command, too.
There is thematically no room for double standards in Star Trek. The other two instances are debatable, but in "Rules of Engagement" Worf did everything right and the Federation tried to throw him under the bus for political reasons, it's that simple.
Am I supposed to take the opposite view to that point? Kirk could be a real prick at times, I question wether he was suited to be in command (look at the sh*tty way he threw his weight around and treated Decker at the begining of TMP...)
In Kirk's defence in that scenario, I'd have to say that there really was only one target in the area, which was actively attacking the Enterprise, and unlikely to be anything else. It was the right call for that specific engagement. The rule book is the beginning of a commander's discretion, not the end of it. A good commander knows when to bend them, and when to follow them...
O'Brien's testimony, and Sisko's lecture, made very clear that Worf didn't do everything right... Had Plot not been on Worf's side, he could (and probably should) have wound up in Ro's old cell in the stockade...
The other two really aren't debatable at all... In First Contact, Worf ordered a collision course with the cube, ie go out in a blaze of glory, and f*ck everyone else on board (the same Klingon bloodlust which got him in a tribunal in Rules of Engagement, so clearly he did not learn his lesson) It was only the conn officer having the sense to ignore the order (because of the Enterprise's arrival, which saved their lives... The other, putting his personal feelings above the mission, completely and utterly inexcuseable. Sisko even said that the incident meant Worf would [probably]never be given a command of his own. Three strikes...
And the story with Worf depended on the fact that he assumed the ship he fired on might have been with the enemy.
And should have been with the enemy, given that there is no sane reason for a civilian starship to either, A, be in possession of a cloaking device in the first place, or B, come anywhere within a hundred thousand kilometers of an ongoing firefight in space, where you have a ridiculous amount of room to maneuver, unless it was part of the convoy that Worf was protecting. Worf had every reason to believe he was firing on an enemy bird-of-prey. That entire episode is a logical clusterf*ck.
Absolutely, but the point which was raised, was that he still should have confirmed the target before firing... (This incident, is the first of three which dirctly prove that Worf was temperementally unsuited to actually have a command...)
The same logic can be applied to Kirk firing on the BoP in TUC, and he didn't even bother to let it decloak before it fired. As a matter of fact, Kirk fired a weapon that could potentially have locked onto any ship in the vicinity that had a similar emissions signature, rather than using line-of-sight weapons on the one actively involved in hostilities. Clearly Kirk is temperamentally unsuited to be in command, too.
There is thematically no room for double standards in Star Trek. The other two instances are debatable, but in "Rules of Engagement" Worf did everything right and the Federation tried to throw him under the bus for political reasons, it's that simple.
Am I supposed to take the opposite view to that point? Kirk could be a real prick at times, I question wether he was suited to be in command (look at the sh*tty way he threw his weight around and treated Decker at the begining of TMP...)
In Kirk's defence in that scenario, I'd have to say that there really was only one target in the area, which was actively attacking the Enterprise, and unlikely to be anything else. It was the right call for that specific engagement. The rule book is the beginning of a commander's discretion, not the end of it. A good commander knows when to bend them, and when to follow them...
O'Brien's testimony, and Sisko's lecture, made very clear that Worf didn't do everything right... Had Plot not been on Worf's side, he could (and probably should) have wound up in Ro's old cell in the stockade...
The other two really aren't debatable at all... In First Contact, Worf ordered a collision course with the cube, ie go out in a blaze of glory, and f*ck everyone else on board (the same Klingon bloodlust which got him in a tribunal in Rules of Engagement, so clearly he did not learn his lesson) It was only the conn officer having the sense to ignore the order (because of the Enterprise's arrival, which saved their lives... The other, putting his personal feelings above the mission, completely and utterly inexcuseable. Sisko even said that the incident meant Worf would [probably]never be given a command of his own. Three strikes...
Eh, in Kirk's situation he had already burned his bridges behind him when he stole the Enterprise and traveled to a forbidden planet. Considering that the USS Grissom was the only ship that was supposed to be in the area, gunning down a cloaked ship in a quarantine zone was the right call. In the end Kirk's "demotion" was more of a way for Starfleet to stick it to the Klingons who were clearly the ones in the wrong.
Worf, on the other hand, is a character I've always felt got a free pass for the most part. He has a long sordid history of bad judgment which never had any noteworthy repercussions until "Rules of Engagement". In all honesty Worf's career should have ended the moment he murdered Duras.
In Kirk's defence in that scenario, I'd have to say that there really was only one target in the area, which was actively attacking the Enterprise, and unlikely to be anything else. It was the right call for that specific engagement. The rule book is the beginning of a commander's discretion, not the end of it. A good commander knows when to bend them, and when to follow them...
"In Worf's defense in that scenario, I'd have to say that there was really only one target in the area, which was actively attacking the Defiant and its convoy, and unlikely to be anything else. It was the right call for that specific engagement. The rule book is the beginning of a commander's discretion, not the end of it. A good commander knows when to bend them, and when to follow them..."
You see the problem here? Lack of a target that could fire through its cloak aside, the two setups are exactly the same. But for some reason Worf gets pilloried for making the exact same tactical decision that Kirk did and got lauded for, just because he hit another ship that had, as already proven, no logical reason to be there other than, as it turned out, to deliberately get him to hit it.
The Worf situation could best be re-imagined as involving a ship flying with no flag at all. The HMS Defiant is escorting a convoy when out of a fog bank an unmarked ship suddenly appears right in the midst of the convoy, in that split second moment the captain must make the fateful judgment call. It isn't even remotely far fetched either, just look at how many times in modern history we have seen people detained or shot on charges of espionage with their homeland claiming they were just innocent tourists who chose to travel through a hostile nations territory.
Yeah, see, that's the thing: this is actually the opposite case from what the OP asks. "Rules of Engagement" works fine in a terrestrial or wet-navy setting where it's believable that a civilian could've simply blundered into the line of fire. It doesn't work as a space opera story because the scale is way off: in clear space as depicted in the episode, any civilian ship passing through has literally tens thousands of kilometers to make a trivial course correction and avoid the firefight entirely. Just a fraction of a degree is all it would take. And there was no mention of any ECM or what-have-you that could've confused them. Any honest judge would have concluded that the crew of the transport were committing mass suicide (which means the deaths of any passengers are the shipping company's problem, not Starfleet's).
Which means that the judge is not honest, because it's established in the first five minutes that under Starfleet rules of engagement, the only rules that legally apply to an active-duty Starfleet officer in combat, he did everything right. And yet for some reason she feels compelled to allow the Klingons to try him under Klingon law despite the fact he was engaged in combat against the Klingons, during a time of war against the Klingons. Which means the judge is transparently corrupt and there's a lot worse things going on than are hinted at in the episode.
Eh, in Kirk's situation he had already burned his bridges behind him when he stole the Enterprise and traveled to a forbidden planet. Considering that the USS Grissom was the only ship that was supposed to be in the area, gunning down a cloaked ship in a quarantine zone was the right call. In the end Kirk's "demotion" was more of a way for Starfleet to stick it to the Klingons who were clearly the ones in the wrong.
You've got your movies mixed up there, I was referring to the battle with the BoP in The Undiscovered Country.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
(...)
From my point of view, NCIS and it's myriad spinoffs were a failure.
Because it's just mundane ordinary stuff, forensic investigations or whatever they did on a weekly basis.
I've always held the opinion that you watch tv to see things that can't happen, not see a dramatized version of real life.
If you find that fun, go spend a year as an assistant to a real Forensic Pathologist/crime division!
(...)
NCIS, CSI et al. are as far from "mundane tasks" as it can be. It depicts agents of fictional super agencies which perform forensics AND the investigations AND the arrests AND all of that in, like, a 24 hour window This is as if the police officers from Law and Order had also trialed and sentenced the criminals they arrested themselves.
If the show would truly be about work in a forensics lab the audience would have fallen asleep during the pilot and never woke up again
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Sci-fi is a huge element of the success of Star Trek. It's a bit hard to judge as the science fiction is all encompassing so lets look at another science fiction show... Doctor Who (proudly blocking Star Trek from the record books since 1963).
This started out with a mixture of science fiction and historical drama, within three years the historical dramas were axed. They were not popular, people watched for the aliens. Forget your CSIs passing a decade, Doctor Who made it through 22 years... the only reason it came down is because of a BBC conspiracy to destroy it (if you can even call it a conspiracy, they were practically shouting it from the rooftop of Television Centre) and even then it took a further four years to destroy the ratings. Then it came back, and returned to its former glory, again science fiction dominating.
So yes, the science fiction elements can have a massive impact on a TV show and its success. As much as the fans may care about the story, what ultimately makes it successful is Joe Public wanting to see some monsters and Kirk/Riker getting some action.
In Kirk's defence in that scenario, I'd have to say that there really was only one target in the area, which was actively attacking the Enterprise, and unlikely to be anything else. It was the right call for that specific engagement. The rule book is the beginning of a commander's discretion, not the end of it. A good commander knows when to bend them, and when to follow them...
"In Worf's defense in that scenario, I'd have to say that there was really only one target in the area, which was actively attacking the Defiant and its convoy, and unlikely to be anything else. It was the right call for that specific engagement. The rule book is the beginning of a commander's discretion, not the end of it. A good commander knows when to bend them, and when to follow them..."
You see the problem here? Lack of a target that could fire through its cloak aside, the two setups are exactly the same. But for some reason Worf gets pilloried for making the exact same tactical decision that Kirk did and got lauded for, just because he hit another ship that had, as already proven, no logical reason to be there other than, as it turned out, to deliberately get him to hit it.
I'd need to see the episode again to be sure, but was the Defiant either in combat when the freighter decloaked, or passing through an active battle-zone? Kirk blew Chang out of the sky over Khitomer, where there shouldn't've been other cloaked/hostile vessels (minimal risk of collateral damage) Worf was in an area where he knew to expect that he would be coming under fire. The scenarios are the same, but the setup and specifics are very different, IMHO... That's not to say Kirk deserves a free pass, as pointed out above, his shenanigans in the other movies deserved to see him kicked out of Starfleet, not given a free pass because he happened to save Earth. Kirk and Worf:Plot Armor to Maximum!!!
Which means that the judge is not honest, because it's established in the first five minutes that under Starfleet rules of engagement, the only rules that legally apply to an active-duty Starfleet officer in combat, he did everything right. And yet for some reason she feels compelled to allow the Klingons to try him under Klingon law despite the fact he was engaged in combat against the Klingons, during a time of war against the Klingons. Which means the judge is transparently corrupt and there's a lot worse things going on than are hinted at in the episode.
Not so... I believe the UCMJ allows for foreign powers to extradite someone who has broken their laws... In this instance, the Klingons were the aggrieved party, so they were within their rights to choose if they wanted to extradite Worf to face Klingon 'justice', or let Starfleet deal with him in their own way... As before, both O'Brien and Sisko said that Worf should have confirmed his target, so arguably, he wasn't following Starfleet's rules of engagement (I believe, that actual rules of engagement can vary depending upon deployment, they aren't necessarily always the same...) or, to be more accurate, best practice'.
(...)
From my point of view, NCIS and it's myriad spinoffs were a failure.
Because it's just mundane ordinary stuff, forensic investigations or whatever they did on a weekly basis.
I've always held the opinion that you watch tv to see things that can't happen, not see a dramatized version of real life.
If you find that fun, go spend a year as an assistant to a real Forensic Pathologist/crime division!
(...)
NCIS, CSI et al. are as far from "mundane tasks" as it can be. It depicts agents of fictional super agencies which perform forensics AND the investigations AND the arrests AND all of that in, like, a 24 hour window This is as if the police officers from Law and Order had also trialed and sentenced the criminals they arrested themselves.
If the show would truly be about work in a forensics lab the audience would have fallen asleep during the pilot and never woke up again
"Did you order the 40mL test tubes?"
"I asked you to order them."
"Oh well, shelve 'em 'til tomorrow."
"Bugger, the ICPMS is on the blink again it'll be another month until the engineer can come in."
"You haven't for the full sample ID path on the registration form. Submit an anomaly form to the helpdesk and get back to us in a week or so."
"Has somebody nicked me bloody spatula again? Not that one, the little one. That one. I can see you using it as a package opener. Just use a damn knife in future yeah?"
"This is a nice unlabelled 1000mL flask lying around full of clear liquid. DI water or Phosphoric acid? Should we do a taste test on whichever pillock can't use a sharpie?
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
In Kirk's defence in that scenario, I'd have to say that there really was only one target in the area, which was actively attacking the Enterprise, and unlikely to be anything else. It was the right call for that specific engagement. The rule book is the beginning of a commander's discretion, not the end of it. A good commander knows when to bend them, and when to follow them...
"In Worf's defense in that scenario, I'd have to say that there was really only one target in the area, which was actively attacking the Defiant and its convoy, and unlikely to be anything else. It was the right call for that specific engagement. The rule book is the beginning of a commander's discretion, not the end of it. A good commander knows when to bend them, and when to follow them..."
You see the problem here? Lack of a target that could fire through its cloak aside, the two setups are exactly the same. But for some reason Worf gets pilloried for making the exact same tactical decision that Kirk did and got lauded for, just because he hit another ship that had, as already proven, no logical reason to be there other than, as it turned out, to deliberately get him to hit it.
I think you don't see the real difference here. Kirk blew up a Bird of Prey that was attacking the Enterprise and the Excelsior. Worf allegedly blew up a civilian starship.
"Ubi non accusator, ibi non iudex!" - If there's no claimant, there's no judge.
People break laws and regulations all the time. If no one is harmed, if no one looks close enough, nothing happens. If they do, you might be screwed. That's exactly what happened to Worf.
Of course, that makes Sisko's talk to him still questionable.
But there is another aspect: For Chang's Bird of Prey, it was not actually feasible to scan first if it was the right target, since the ship was cloaked the entire time, until it was hit the first time, and there was no guarantee it would remain visible for any amount of time. The ship still needed to be destroyed, or lives would be lost. This wasn't apparently the case for Worf - he could have asked to confirm the target, it would still have allowed him to take it out.
All that doesn't change that the situation was incredibly and ridicilously contrived. It still had good character moments, and I liked the Klingon lawyer.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Comments
Ahh, my mistake... And absolutely, your canibalism example is exactly such a case of culture clashes, and how they can take different forms... It would appear that dareau and jonsills simply want to put Kirk and Spock on a sailing ship, and pointing out the flaws why that wouldn't be possible, rather than being able to take the lateral step to replacing a character with a near-equivalent, which would still fit the role
On the other hand, anyone who sees the banter between Spock and McCoy and thinks "racist" is not someone whose judgement I can trust in this matter anyway.
It's not moving the goalposts at all, you're just taking the question way too literally... Here's the OP as a reminder:
If it's a show about wooden sailing ships, that means it's a series being set in the era. It also does not say that existing characters are being directly ported in whole-sale. It would be an entirely new series, not the Generations holodeck scene... My assertion, is that Star Trek series' (and the best of the episodes) have always focussed on the characters and their interractions, not the trappings of 23rd/24th Century life.
It clearly says 'on the strength of good scriptwriting/story', so it's the scriptwriting and story we're looking at, not the fine details...
If we're looking at stories most of them can be re-told in any era. Details are different, the story remains (more or less) the same.
Ulysses 31 is a prime example of this, but in reverse, and transposing what we now consider 'classic mythology' into a futuristic setting. Sure, the fine fiddly details are different, but the story is still there, albeit with necessary tweaks to allow the story to still work in that different setting. That's not shifting the goalposts, but making a reasonable look at the subject, and seeing that putting Star Trek onto the high-seas requires similar transition. It means having a savant instead of an android... It means having a Polynesian instead of a Klingon... It means Kirk's Evil Half, has to become a completely different person, but who is still a mirror image of Captain Hero, so as I said before, we're talking a brother/cousin who's life is full of anger and hostility. A pirate, rather than an officer(or at least legitimate sailor) You are viewing it way too literally and missing the wood for the trees... The question was about the strength of story, not literally putting the existing characters on a boat and seeing how it plays out (ie Geordi putting a telescope to his VISOR in the same place as where his organic eye is behind it...)
Calling a Vulcan a 'green-blooded hobgoblin' isn't racist??
[Insert pic of ORLY Owl here]
Go up to one of your African-American friends and say "Wassup, mah n*gga?"
I dare you.
"Oh but we're friends, we rip on each other like that..."
Just because a friend gives another friend freedom to speak thus without taking it as an insult, that does not stop the behaviour itself from being insulting and/or racist, it just means that it's tolerated.
Did McCoy ever treat any other crewmember to such 'friendly' terms? Is it not fair to say that McCoy was simply a work-place bully who had singled out a victim, and who others enabled in said bullying? There were times McCoy even roped Kirk into the teasing (although Kirk never reduced himself to using slurs) Great friend that is, someone who lets a friend rope him into making fun of another friend. Oh I know 'busting chops' is an American passtime, but to non-Americans, it can come across as just being a d*ck...
Spock's reactions to McCoy's 'banter' suggests that he receives them as no different to the bullying he received as a child. He just doesn't react to them because a) he's a Vulcan (or rather a half-breed who has always tried to prove himself as being 'as Vulcan' as any other, so has to be 'more Vulcan than Vulcan') b) he's not a child anymore, he's learned how to deal with the situations and not react with his fists, and c) he's an officer, so has behavioural standards to maintain.
What makes you think that your judgement is trustworthy, when you can't even see both deliberate and institutionalized racism?
It's maybe not racism in the most obvious way; McCoy is rude to Spock because Spock is annoying, not because he has anything against aliens per se. (Especially if they're pretty girls.
On the original question: I think the point of the OP's question is, whether it's the other stuff that isn't dependent on the science fiction - i.e., the main characters and the interactions between them, and the general fact of them being in the Navy and stuck on a ship together and having adventures, and how well or badly those adventures are written - that makes Star Trek so popular, not really the science fiction elements. (That assumes that all of those things could still exist without the science fiction, but I do think that most of the same interactions that arise from one of the characters being an alien could happen in other situations, as Marcus says, so in theory a show could have those interactions without having an alien in it. But if not, whatever, let's just count Spock's various dramas as part of the science fiction plots rather than part of the character set-up.)
Well, I've actually only watched TOS and DS9 myself, but going only by those, I'd say certainly it wouldn't be worth half as much without the philosophical questions that get themselves into the plots. Those are what makes up for the various things that it (or TOS and DS9, anyway) aren't particularly great on.
As actual adventure stories they're sometimes high quality but other times, with all the outrageous twists, pow-pow-ing and plot holes, remind you of something kids would make up in the playground; it presumably depends on who wrote that episode.
The dialogue and interactions of the main characters are always pretty joyful, but that isn't enough to justify the show all by itself, unless you're actually going to make it into a sitcom. And the incidental characters are frequently terrible (those women crew members, aforesaid).
And, on the other side of the question, it's definitely not the insight into actual science that makes it interesting, either, because there usually isn't any. An equivalent show set in the Age of Sail would have penguins in the Arctic and lions in the Amazon jungle, and name several oceans that don't exist. Changing the background to something that was harder to get wrong like that would probably improve the show, it's easier to identify with a situation when you can actually believe in it.
So to me the deciding factor is, whether you could play with philosophical questions to the same extent without using the science fiction? It would be an unusual thing to do, picking that setting for that purpose, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. I suppose you can only answer that question by experiment, i.e., as we've been doing, thinking of possible plots.
No I am not. Remember the point made in the OP:
And I sit here saying that no, you cannot make a show "as successful as Trek was" based purely on scriptwriting and strength of story.
Do you need me to spell out how, say, "Patterns of Force" can be rewritten to be lonely Madagascan Islands inhabited by a sect that was converted to Christianity by Pastor Gill and the other island with an Islamic Sect, and a Crusade started? I've not denied that it's entirely possible to convert plots, especially "war" or "political" type plots, from one genre to another.
However, part of this discussion, as the recent quote reminds us, is overall success. And I say that since a large part of Trek's success was the Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic - of which this scenario throws out the entire "Spock" portion - the overall success just won't be there, and I've given the reasons already...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
But I don't believe that is what the OP was meaning to discuss, but if Star Trek was set in the Age of Sail, would it still work thematically. Popularity is impossible to gauge or predict, especially with hypotheticals, and becomes a case of 'my show's better than your show because I say so...' so the more logical notion, is that the themes and stories themselves be put under the scrutiny of if they would still work if transposed, and I'm saying that the vast majority of them would...
And that's why you'd said to take any 'political themes' out of the discussion, because indeed, falsely-flown flag on a boat, empty freighter with a rigged transponder, it doesn't really make any difference, because the core notion is still the same...
And as I illustrated upthread, even an episode like Masks could be transposed if done correctly...
Only TOS had Kirk/Spock/McCoy... TNG was popular in its own right. DS-9 was popular in its own right (as was Babylon 5
Upthread, I mentioned Master and Commander:Farside of the World. In that, the captain's best friend was indeed the ship's surgeon, so let's for a moment add that dynamic into my suggestion of the Voyages of Captain Hero... Captain Hero is best friends with the ship's surgeon. Captain Hero has had to take guardianship for his savant nephew. There's your Kirk/McCoy/Spock trifecta in a near perfect recreation... Equally, perhaps Captain Hero's best friend isn't the ship's surgeon, but the ship's cook (because he's the only one who can recreate his Great-Aunt Sadie's gravy recipe perfectly) or perhaps his best friend is the old-sailmaker (who's sailed the globe a dozen times and seen everything the world has to offer...)
If the core strength of Star Trek is that It's About People, it doesn't really matter who those people are, and that the Plot will hang on whatever characters it's put onto, and stand or fall on the strength of what's written...
And should have been with the enemy, given that there is no sane reason for a civilian starship to either, A, be in possession of a cloaking device in the first place, or B, come anywhere within a hundred thousand kilometers of an ongoing firefight in space, where you have a ridiculous amount of room to maneuver, unless it was part of the convoy that Worf was protecting. Worf had every reason to believe he was firing on an enemy bird-of-prey. That entire episode is a logical clusterf*ck.
Master and Commander was good, but there was a reason it didn't become a franchise. Didn't have to do with money, the film was profitable. It was just the fact that filming a movie on a sailing ship is extremely technically difficult.
There have been a couple recent modern navy series, though. ABC had Last Resort, a political intrigue show set around a ballistic missile sub (which was good, but unfortunately got scheduled for ABC's cursed Thursday 8PM timeslot and was cancelled after half a season due to being outperformed by freaking Vampire Diaries), and TNT has The Last Ship which they've already ordered a fifth season for (and they haven't even finished airing season three!).
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
There are concepts that I am sure could not be included on the hypothetical "Sea Trek" show we are envisioning.
First of all, the Borg.
How could you introduce a species that absorbs other species into their hive mind/biology against their will, reducing them to little more then a single cell in an immense body?
And their enemies Species 8472, who made them look like sardines by comparison and live in a place where "nobody else lives there".
Then we have the Q.
Omnipotent all powerful entities completely lacking in imagination or direction.
And what about the Prophets?
They exist in a reality conjecture (the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant) outside of normal time and space, seeing all reality as one.
Those are just some of the basic ideas that relied on the sci-fi aspect being part of the show, without it, they simply wouldn't exist.
How would the absence of such concepts affect the story?
And about those cannibals, from what I read, they had to give that funeral ceremony up.
According to the info I found, there was a disease called Kuru taking hold in their population.
It's similar to CJD.
The replicating protein fragment (prion) that causes the disease spreads by consumption of infected meat.
The more people who died from it, the more funerals they held, the more victims got infected.
They were literally on a vicious cycle to extinction before our scientists pointed out they had to stop or cease to exist completely.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Difficult, yes, but not impossible... Have you ever seen any episodes of Hornblower? Fantastic series, in my opinion, and my strongest evidence as to why Trek could be transposed (Especially as the character of Kirk was in itself inspired by the character of Horatio Hornblower) There was another 'ship series' a while back called The Last Ship, which had Rhona Mitra in it. I never watched it myself, but I've heard positive things from folks who did
With regards kuru, I seem to remember reading something about ten years or so ago, that people were only infected if they were lacking in some enzyme or protein of their own...
Marcus's zombies (literal Zombies) are a bit of a stretch as an equivalent to the Borg (as anything would be), but they sound like a great plot in their own right!
With regard to kuru: the version of events I read, it was actually the other way round. It was only after the missionaries had mostly forced them to give up that practice that scientists worked out that that was what had been spreading the disease. (Possibly it was the fact that it had decreased as they stopped doing that that provided the clue.) So (if that version of events is right) the missionaries actually saved their lives, but entirely by accident. How's that for complicated irony? I didn't know that about there being a susceptibility factor for kuru, Marcus, I'll have to look that up.
As said, it was a fair while ago that I read the piece, but it made it sound a bit like how some folks are lactose intolerant. Most people can consume it, but a few can't, and that was what it suggested about kuru (and BSE) that it's actually only a minority who actually contract kuru, and that if you don't get kuru, chances are you wouldn't get BSE either (not that it's easy to prove kuru immunity
Did you watch TNG Season 1, or manage to remember reading any of the critics back then? (Pre-Internet, so the "histories" may be harder to find...) The only reason quite a few critics claim that TNG made it through Season 1 was the name Star Trek, the ways that the crew were being written as "representations of certain aspects of the TOS crew, like Riker being the "adventurous" side of Kirk, Picard the "diplomatic" side, Data the "disconnect with Humanity and potential source of pure logic as a literal 'walking computer'", Troi the source of "compassionate counterpoints", etc. being "re-shoehorned" into such blatant rip offs of TOS situations that the episode name and final solution were pulled straight from TOS?
To remind you, that setup was panned as a "complete and utter failure", so much so that instead of trying to continue on with that formula in Season 2 they replaced the doctor with a curmudgeon (Pulaski) and actually let the crew start growing into their own characters... (and let Riker grow a beard...
Do you remember a ton of the "early" seasons of DS9, when the show's concept was "let's explore the interactions of the crew in a stationary setting so that one can tell it's a show about the crew's interplay, not how they interact with the universe"? How's about your recollections about DS9 when it became Trek's version of Babylon 5, complete with "Dominion War" to have a big bad that the station had to protect against?
Why was Seven of Nine never given an authentic Starfleet Uniform with an "ex-borg" rank instead of a Starfleet or Maquis one, instead she wore a rankless catsuit that can only be justified because of her... feminine assets?
And remember, Enterprise consciously went three seasons without the moniker "Star Trek" in it's title... Which lets one readily and easily understand that the previous shows were allowed to flounder long enough to "grow into their own" because they actually used the Star Trek name.
So, now that I've "discredited" the concept that all of "Post TOS" Trek was such a resounding success for the entirety of their runs, let's go back and rethink some why TOS would be "so popular" all so many years later to generate a 50th anniversary celebration while other shows of the era are banished to TV Land...
And the best way I have of illustrating that is perhaps a look at another recent trend and the "franchises" that exemplify it.
NCIS: The Original is still ongoing, while their LA and NO spinoffs are closed off and therefore considered "failures".
CSI: Miami outlasted CSI (LV)'s cast overhaul.
Both of these shows illustrate that a successful series is not built strictly off of plot points and/or setting(s). They require a third aspect - acting, to "push them over the edge" and into bona-fide success territory. NCIS:LA and NCIS:NO never had them, CSI(LV) and CSI:Miami both "had" it, Miami kept it for a longer time than LV's crew overhaul.
Success in entertainment is predicated on a "perfect blend" of a lot more aspects than one thing. Perhaps the OP missed it, but I recall reading an early (pre-internet) theory somewhere that if it weren't for Shatner/Nimoy/Kelley and their acting abilities, Trek would be in the dustbin next to Seaquest DSV, Battlestar Galactica (TOS), Lone Ranger, etc. etc. etc. as a potential "cult hit" that never really gained traction...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
If Sea Trek was to be a mostly factual based show, then you'd have to keep within those limits, you couldn't have giant octopi or vengeful lava gods from the sea attacking the crew every 10 episodes.
Truth of the matter, most sea journeys were pretty uneventiful, months at sea with nothing to do but maintain the ship, carve objects and write in your diary.
Picard: What did you do today Number One?
Riker: I thought I saw a white flag on the horizon, but it turned out just to be a stray seagull.
Picard: Carry on.
And unlike Star Trek, they wouldn't have the luxury of simply "warping out" to get somewhere fast.
If it took them months to get there, it would take them months to get back.
Not to mention they'd basically be out of contact with their command structure, no radio existed in that time.
Actually, it was Kirk who drove me away from TOS in the first place.
A egotistic skirt-chasing captain is a horrible choice for a lead character.
I preferred Pike better, but that pilot episode didn't even survive "First Contact" with the test audience, pardon the pun.
Also, I took exception to the fact that they rejected Majel Barrett as the original "Number One".
If you were going to set an example for the best future of humanity, put women in the command structure!
It wasn't until Picard came along that I got interested in Star Trek.
And I liked the concept of Deep Space Nine where they couldn't actually go anywhere, they had to solve problems at home.
I think the Defiant upset that a fair bit, giving them a reason to get the crew out and away.
If it was me, I'd have kept the Defiant as a mobile defense platform and stationed a small flotilla nearby to do the actual exploring.
Plus, it seems they were always attacked when the Defiant wasn't there!
From my point of view, NCIS and it's myriad spinoffs were a failure.
Because it's just mundane ordinary stuff, forensic investigations or whatever they did on a weekly basis.
I've always held the opinion that you watch tv to see things that can't happen, not see a dramatized version of real life.
If you find that fun, go spend a year as an assistant to a real Forensic Pathologist/crime division!
Here is a weblink describing Kuru.
According to that, it would appear my version is the correct one, as it references outside scientists making the discovery.
Spongeiform enchalopathy is the most serious disease we have encountered, because of it's ability to leap the species barrier.
I was studying biology when the CJD iteration came out and the target species were identified as such:
- Primates
- Cows
- Felines
- Seals
That's an unusual spectrum, most infections can only target two species at best.Maybe it's because Prions aren't your normal kind of transmission agent, from what I understand, they exist to consume neural tissue, which anything with a central nervous system possesses.
And that's most living creatures!
So in theory, Prions could infect anything that has a brain and spinal cord.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
CJD certainly does have a big range, I didn't realise that. If I remember rightly (I studied BSE in my science course too!), prions don't exactly "consume neural tissue" as such, they interfere with one specific protein - they're misfolded forms of a protein, and any of that particular protein that comes into contact with them turns into more prion. It's almost like they're as much like a chemical poison as they are like a germ - the only thing that makes them sort of an "infection" rather than a poison is that they can multiply themselves.
Perhaps that's why the unusually wide range compared to bacteria and viruses? Bacteria are alive and require various conditions and nutrients to survive. Viruses even more so, because they don't have all the equipment necessary to multiply themselves and need to hijack a suitable host cell to copy their RNA for them. But all a prion needs is its protein, in theory, if it has that one thing, it's OK. I've just been looking up the protein attacked by CJD (and kuru, and some other related diseases), called PrP; it seems to be something that occurs in nearly all mammals. Marcus was right, there are genetic variations in its structure that make it easier or harder for it to be folded into the prion form. Oddly, it seems to exist throughout the body, not just in neural tissue, but there is more in neural tissue.
"Prion" also turns out to be the name of a rather sweet-looking sea bird.
I think you missed the point on this one, though your stances do hint to me that you might have a bit of a "hard time" understanding exactly what's going on.
NCIS (Original) is about to start Season 14. Whether you, or I, individually, care about the show is irrelevant. The fact that the show is "considered successful enough" to warrant the release of a 14th season (when no Trek show has lasted more than 7) is a testament to "it's success"...
And yet, when they "span off" to LA or NO, neither one of those variants lasted more than a few years. Which then beggars the question, why?
Because a show is not just the "plot standard", it's the "entire composition" of actors, characters, settings, etc. Tweaking even one can blow the whole mixture to smithereens, or take a borderline failure and turn it into a success.
Going way way back to the OP, it's been speculated that Star Trek, in large part, succeeded because - again, whether you, I or whoever like it or not - the adventures and interactions of Shatner/Nimoy/Kelley as Kirk/Spock/McCoy on a starship named "Enterprise" some 400 years in the future was "popular enough" to warrant two more seasons of the show. Or after TNG Season 2 ended, and the new staff was given the time and chance to "grow into their roles/places", the interactions of Stewart/Frakes/Dorn/Spiner/et. al. playing Picard/Riker/Worf/Data/etc. on a new starship Enterprise 85 years after the ending of the "original crew's" movies were again popular enough to warrant an additional 5 seasons. Meanwhile, the interactions of Archer/T'Pol/Tripp/Etc., especially when they weren't given the "Star Trek" name to begin with, fell flat on face and while Season 4 (bringing back the Trek name, BTW) was being seen as "redemption" for that staff, the plug was pulled.
Again, it's not just our preferences being played out in this thought discussion. It's the preferences of the "entire assembled viewership" - noticed that lovely new STO timeline and "sources of our episodes" thing, and noticed that very few "early season" TNG, DS9, or VOY episodes were cited as "inspirations" for the devs, outside of Caretaker (Voy S1 E1), the only "early season" TNG-era show in that list was the first "re-"appearance of the Romulans.
You may have loved the "earlier" DS9 episodes where they were attempting to focus on the magical interaction of the crew of the space station in one "gigantic ongoing bridge episode", but the general populace seems to enjoy (and remember) the latter Babylon 5 "clone episodes" from Dominion War on...
Why? Acting, setting, scenario. Pull one, and show could fail, spectacularly. Change one (like DS9 added the Dominion War scenario) and a borderline "general public failure" can become a "general public success"...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
There is thematically no room for double standards in Star Trek. The other two instances are debatable, but in "Rules of Engagement" Worf did everything right and the Federation tried to throw him under the bus for political reasons, it's that simple.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
As for Q, the Borg, and the many other fanciful creatures the heroes have encountered in Star Trek. They would be right at home in a fantasy setting with sailors. Countless tales revolve around sailors being tormented by spiteful gods, people being abducted and physically altered, and strange sea monsters terrorizing the deep.
This is only hard because you guys keep trying to make Star Trek out to be more scientifically grounded than it actually is. At its core Star Trek leans more towards fantasy than science. If Trek was reimagined on the high seas it would most certainly not be a historically accurate documentary, it would most certainly be done in the style of the Greek classics. Instead of distant planets we would have fictional cities, and instead of aliens we would have supernatural spirits and creatures.
Not sure why you've itemised the characters... And unless you'd care to explain Gates McFadden's departure in Season One, then Diana Muldaur's departure in Season Two, I don't know why you even mentioned it... Denise Crosby also left during Season One, because she didn't like how Tasha was being written, and has been doing everything possible to stay attached to the Star Trek franchise ever since! (And for the record, Tasha was, and still is, one of my favorites...)
Well that is why Jeri Ryan was hired... Adding sex-appeal to boost flagging ratings...
Hmmm... The lack of the name 'Star Trek' was clearly what kept/drove people away from it... :rolleyes:
You've just made a series of snarky, reductive quips, you've discredited absolutely nothing.
Absolute, NCIS and CSI seem destined to keep running indefinitely... I stopped watching NCIS years ago, never liked the look of NCIS:LA and refuse to look at NCIS:NO because of Scott Bakula's attachment to the series. CSI never really took my interest either. But it's not about what I like, but what is popular enough to keep going...
TOS DID wind up in the bin! After two seasons! It was only fans writing into the studio that the third season even came to pass, and it still got cancelled! Even Enterprise had a longer run! So f*ck Shatner/Nimoy/Kelley, and the horses they rode in on!
If everything which made TOS what it was as a series (other than the sci-fi setting) had been used in any other production, I don't see why it wouldn't've been just as good (and bad) And the vast majority of the episodes still would have worked!
In Kirk's defence in that scenario, I'd have to say that there really was only one target in the area, which was actively attacking the Enterprise, and unlikely to be anything else. It was the right call for that specific engagement. The rule book is the beginning of a commander's discretion, not the end of it. A good commander knows when to bend them, and when to follow them...
O'Brien's testimony, and Sisko's lecture, made very clear that Worf didn't do everything right... Had Plot not been on Worf's side, he could (and probably should) have wound up in Ro's old cell in the stockade...
The other two really aren't debatable at all... In First Contact, Worf ordered a collision course with the cube, ie go out in a blaze of glory, and f*ck everyone else on board (the same Klingon bloodlust which got him in a tribunal in Rules of Engagement, so clearly he did not learn his lesson) It was only the conn officer having the sense to ignore the order (because of the Enterprise's arrival, which saved their lives... The other, putting his personal feelings above the mission, completely and utterly inexcuseable. Sisko even said that the incident meant Worf would [probably]never be given a command of his own. Three strikes...
Eh, in Kirk's situation he had already burned his bridges behind him when he stole the Enterprise and traveled to a forbidden planet. Considering that the USS Grissom was the only ship that was supposed to be in the area, gunning down a cloaked ship in a quarantine zone was the right call. In the end Kirk's "demotion" was more of a way for Starfleet to stick it to the Klingons who were clearly the ones in the wrong.
Worf, on the other hand, is a character I've always felt got a free pass for the most part. He has a long sordid history of bad judgment which never had any noteworthy repercussions until "Rules of Engagement". In all honesty Worf's career should have ended the moment he murdered Duras.
You see the problem here? Lack of a target that could fire through its cloak aside, the two setups are exactly the same. But for some reason Worf gets pilloried for making the exact same tactical decision that Kirk did and got lauded for, just because he hit another ship that had, as already proven, no logical reason to be there other than, as it turned out, to deliberately get him to hit it.
Yeah, see, that's the thing: this is actually the opposite case from what the OP asks. "Rules of Engagement" works fine in a terrestrial or wet-navy setting where it's believable that a civilian could've simply blundered into the line of fire. It doesn't work as a space opera story because the scale is way off: in clear space as depicted in the episode, any civilian ship passing through has literally tens thousands of kilometers to make a trivial course correction and avoid the firefight entirely. Just a fraction of a degree is all it would take. And there was no mention of any ECM or what-have-you that could've confused them. Any honest judge would have concluded that the crew of the transport were committing mass suicide (which means the deaths of any passengers are the shipping company's problem, not Starfleet's).
Which means that the judge is not honest, because it's established in the first five minutes that under Starfleet rules of engagement, the only rules that legally apply to an active-duty Starfleet officer in combat, he did everything right. And yet for some reason she feels compelled to allow the Klingons to try him under Klingon law despite the fact he was engaged in combat against the Klingons, during a time of war against the Klingons. Which means the judge is transparently corrupt and there's a lot worse things going on than are hinted at in the episode.
You've got your movies mixed up there, I was referring to the battle with the BoP in The Undiscovered Country.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
NCIS, CSI et al. are as far from "mundane tasks" as it can be. It depicts agents of fictional super agencies which perform forensics AND the investigations AND the arrests AND all of that in, like, a 24 hour window
If the show would truly be about work in a forensics lab the audience would have fallen asleep during the pilot and never woke up again
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
This started out with a mixture of science fiction and historical drama, within three years the historical dramas were axed. They were not popular, people watched for the aliens. Forget your CSIs passing a decade, Doctor Who made it through 22 years... the only reason it came down is because of a BBC conspiracy to destroy it (if you can even call it a conspiracy, they were practically shouting it from the rooftop of Television Centre) and even then it took a further four years to destroy the ratings. Then it came back, and returned to its former glory, again science fiction dominating.
So yes, the science fiction elements can have a massive impact on a TV show and its success. As much as the fans may care about the story, what ultimately makes it successful is Joe Public wanting to see some monsters and Kirk/Riker getting some action.
"Did you order the 40mL test tubes?"
"I asked you to order them."
"Oh well, shelve 'em 'til tomorrow."
"Bugger, the ICPMS is on the blink again it'll be another month until the engineer can come in."
"You haven't for the full sample ID path on the registration form. Submit an anomaly form to the helpdesk and get back to us in a week or so."
"Has somebody nicked me bloody spatula again? Not that one, the little one. That one. I can see you using it as a package opener. Just use a damn knife in future yeah?"
"This is a nice unlabelled 1000mL flask lying around full of clear liquid. DI water or Phosphoric acid? Should we do a taste test on whichever pillock can't use a sharpie?
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I think you don't see the real difference here. Kirk blew up a Bird of Prey that was attacking the Enterprise and the Excelsior. Worf allegedly blew up a civilian starship.
"Ubi non accusator, ibi non iudex!" - If there's no claimant, there's no judge.
People break laws and regulations all the time. If no one is harmed, if no one looks close enough, nothing happens. If they do, you might be screwed. That's exactly what happened to Worf.
Of course, that makes Sisko's talk to him still questionable.
But there is another aspect: For Chang's Bird of Prey, it was not actually feasible to scan first if it was the right target, since the ship was cloaked the entire time, until it was hit the first time, and there was no guarantee it would remain visible for any amount of time. The ship still needed to be destroyed, or lives would be lost. This wasn't apparently the case for Worf - he could have asked to confirm the target, it would still have allowed him to take it out.
All that doesn't change that the situation was incredibly and ridicilously contrived. It still had good character moments, and I liked the Klingon lawyer.