test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Need help! Really trying to like Star Trek!
salynrayder
Member Posts: 139 Arc User
Ok, so I have been a Star Wars fan my whole life until Lucas ruined it with those travesties of film, the prequels. I tried STO just to see how I'd like it and I'm pleasantly surprised. I find the game to be a lot of fun and I don't have to play 12 hours a day to get decent stuff. In order to better understand the lore of the game and some of the allusions made to the t.v. shows and movies I've been watching the shows on Netflix, and there is where I'm having trouble.
Let me say that, thus far, I do like the movies. My problem is with the shows. I've been switching back and forth between TOS and TNG and plan on moving on from there. My problem is that there isn't a lot going on so far. It seems that in both series, the most common problem (I am still in season 1 of both) is a ship-wide disease or phenomenon that either changes everyone to a different person or lays the crew low until someone comes up with a solution in the nick of time. If it isn't that, it seems the away team is cut off from the Enterprise and can't beam up because _____________________________.
When do the Klingons and Romulans make an appearance? When do the plots become more varied? Do they? Please tell me it gets better. I really like the game and the whole idea of Star Trek, but I need something to keep me watching the t.v. shows. Anyone?
Let me say that, thus far, I do like the movies. My problem is with the shows. I've been switching back and forth between TOS and TNG and plan on moving on from there. My problem is that there isn't a lot going on so far. It seems that in both series, the most common problem (I am still in season 1 of both) is a ship-wide disease or phenomenon that either changes everyone to a different person or lays the crew low until someone comes up with a solution in the nick of time. If it isn't that, it seems the away team is cut off from the Enterprise and can't beam up because _____________________________.
When do the Klingons and Romulans make an appearance? When do the plots become more varied? Do they? Please tell me it gets better. I really like the game and the whole idea of Star Trek, but I need something to keep me watching the t.v. shows. Anyone?
Post edited by salynrayder on
0
Comments
In TNG, the shift to stuff that's actually good occurs sometime around the second season, and is more or less simultaneous with Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) growing a beard, with the result that "growing the beard" is enshrined in fan jargon as the moment when a show does just that. This isn't to say there weren't some good episodes in the first season of both that and TOS, but the odds are in your favor from second season on that any given episode will be worth watching.
Third season of TOS is likely to be... disappointing for you, but not as much as for the fans who, fifty years ago, had a then-unprecedented letter-writing campaign to keep it on the air, only to be rewarded with such notoriously silly scripts as "Spock's Brain". TNG managed to avoid that fate and just keep getting better. Consider yourself warned and encouraged.
As someone who's been a fan of both Star * franchises since the 70s, welcome to this side! If you have a little patience and an open mind, I think you'll be rewarded. Just think of the first season(s) as having to sit through the prequels before getting to the classic trilogy.
Your patience will be rewarded, it took till about the end of season one for tng to find it's wings, sorta the same with tos to answer your question about romulans they show up in the very last episode of season 1 for tng and it picks up the pace in season two onwards. I just looked up memory alpha in tos the rommies show up in the episode balance of terror and Klingons in errand of mercy in season one.
I grew up with re-runs, being born in the early 90's and all.
[/SIGPIC]
From what I hear, TNG really started to get good at the beginning of season two. Like TMP, the first season had a case of "We listen to Roddenberry too much."* This is coincidentally when Jonathan Frakes grew his beard (even Roddenberry though Riker looked better), hence where we get the term "Growing the Beard". After this point, Riker stops being an expy of Kirk and the cast settles into better-defined roles. It also doesn't hurt that season one took place during a writers' strike, which ended over that summer.
* TNG initially had one of the same problems as the SW prequels, believe it or not: The mind behind the show (Roddenberry, Lucas) didn't have somebody with the authority and/or courage to tell him, "No, Gene/George, that's stupid."
EDIT: Ninja'd twice!
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
By about season 3 TNG is rapidly turning into the best sci-fi show ever made so do stick with it as you will be rewarded. The difference between season 1 and 3 is almost beyond belief.
Also DS9 being my favourite series is also one to check out later, especially the later seasons which are heavily focused on character arcs, and a widescale galactic war.
Voyager and Ent are pretty fun too and the most modern of the trek's.
That was not intended to rhyme, but it works.
There are a few appearances by the Romulans before that, but really TNG was stiff and cardboard-like, and suffered from serious writing problems in terms of idealism, among other things. Season 2 was better, but had its own problems. Season 3 seems to have been where things really got their shakedown, and things were moving at a steady clip at the season 3-4 break, where Best of Both Worlds happens.
There are a very few important season 1 and 2 episodes that you would do well to see (e.g. Encounter at Farpoint, just to introduce Q, and the Borg make their debut in season 2). However, beyond those, most of it's pretty skip-able.
Additionally you may consider Deep Space 9, but remember that it, too, took a bit to find its groove.
As for TOS.... in my mind, season 1 and 2 stayed the same. I really liked them and thought they had their groove from the get go (season 3.... The Enterprise Incident was the best ep, but there was some shoddy work in there), but they are a product of the 60's. There are some stand out episodes though, such as Space Seed, which introduces Khan from the second film, and 'Balance of Terror' which introduces the Romulans in a fantastic cat and mouse style. You should at least see those two episodes, as well as The Doomsday Machine if you like character pieces. But you do have to be able to get past the cheesiness of the 60's to enjoy TOS.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
How I know?
You have seen Star Trek and what you have seen is all there is to it.
A bunch of people traveling some place, getting into trouble, trying to find out the cause of the trouble and then fix it.
Thats it!
Oh, there are a few battles and fights here and there. So, if you are looking for that then just search youtube for the clips. Other then that, go back to Star Wars.
Best sci-fi show ever made ? Seriously revo ?
OP- skip Voyager, watch DS9 and only the Klingon episodes from TNG. Better yet, save yourself the grief and watch babylon 5 instead.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Some people hate all of it. That's ok by me. I celebrate people's ability to like or dislike things in different ways. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.
However I would echo the sentiments of my peers here, TNG, DS9 and Voyager for sure all had trouble finding their footing until after their first season (or later). In fact the phrase "Growing The Beard" is used to describe the point when a show sheds its awkward beginning phase and really gets firing on all cylinders precisely because The Next Generation started to get really good after Season 2 when Riker grew his beard.
As for TOS, it's before my time and as was said earlier, it is very 60s and I do find a lot of episodes are not really to my taste. There are definitely a few "must watch" episodes. Again, subjective, and everyone will have a different list, but here's mine:
-Balance of Terror
-Mirror Mirror
-The Trouble With Tribbles
-The Menagerie
-Arena
-The Devil in the Dark
-Space Seed
-The City on the Edge of Forever
-The Doomsday Machine
-Journey to Babel
-The Tholian Web
TOS was the first of it's kind, and the first season the very first experimenting with this kind of show (the initial pilot episode featured a different cast...you can see it used in 'The Menagerie' as log recordings played by Spock to justify his actions). At the same time, it was under a lot more network restrictions than shows today (and broke quite a few of them during its run). With what they had to work with, they did wonders. I would direct you to the episodes 'The Doomsday Machine', 'Balance of Terror', 'City on the Edge of Forever', 'Mirror Mirror', 'Amok Time', and 'Court Martial' for some of the better episodes.
TNG was the first attempt to put Trek back onto the small screen, but still keep with the kind of quality fans had come to expect from the movies. It succeeded, and made it clear that Trek could be a worthwhile show to bring back into being. While it started off very much as the vision of the series' creator in that Man would become an enlightened civilization that would have no need for fighting or money, that gradually changed as the series went on and the show began to explore how Humans had not really changed as much as that. As some others have said, the show's second season is where it started to run good. Some of the more notable episodes (across all the seasons) are 'Conspiracy', 'Time Squared', 'Q Who', 'Yesterday's Enterprise', 'Best of Both Worlds', 'The First Duty', 'The Inner Light', 'Relics', 'Tapestry', 'The Pegasus', and 'All Good Things'.
If you branch out into the series after these, Deep Space Nine began about mid-point of TNG's run, and had a bit of a harder-edge in the command style, while Voyager was supposed to be the family-oriented Trek series. Both of these, also, generally got better as they went, with them gaining more serious storylines once TNG ended.
Enterprise was an attempt to look into the times before TOS, but from the very first episode played havoc with established Trek situations and history (notoriously, the Klingon homeworld was only hours away from Earth in the pilot episode, and the Borg were encountered long before their supposed first meeting with Starfleet in TNG). There were some gems in this series, though, including the 'Mirror' episodes at the end season.
I guess I will sum up with my own observations as an enjoyer of both Star series. Star Wars is mainly about individual 'civilian' heroes doing their own plans while trying to exist in a galaxy that is mostly unregulated and unconnected to its parts, while Star Trek is mainly about members of a regulated star fleet that patrols a galaxy that is very much connected into various Empires, along with the politics and crisis that come from that. The two have quite different viewpoints, and as long as you accept which one you are going to be seeing the universe through, I think you can appreciate each for what they bring to you.
Hope this helps!
Yes, really. Its personal opinion as there is no definitive number one, and perhaps i should have said 'one of the best' to be more accurate but yes it is. I would argue it against any sci-fi show.
you are entitled to think that only the klingon episodes should be watched, or voyager should be skipped or that watching DS9 is not much more than giving the OP grief. I just dont expect too many people here to agree with that.
With TNG it really picks up in series 3.
DS9 is... slowish for the first 3 series, but I think that the first 3 series of DS9 are still better than the first 3 of TNG.
If you are going to watch VOY it is similar to TOS, good episodes here and there surrounded by dros.
As for ENT, formulate an opinion yourself asking the fandom to analyse that series gets heated.
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!
- "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (the "official" official pilot...)
- "Mudd's Women" (Yeah, it's sexist. But that Harry Mudd...)
- "The Squire of Gothos" (Big inspiration for Q of TNG)
- "A Taste of Armageddon" (major treatise on the morality of total war)
- "A Private Little War" (treatise on the morality of war-by-proxy)
- "The Ultimate Computer" (or, why you do NOT want a self-driving car)
- "The Savage Curtain" (if you want to see Abraham Lincoln fight Kahless the Unforgettable)
If you feel like braving the abject silliness of The Animated Series, I can steer you toward a few gems there as well.
(Yeah, I'm another one of those people who looks for a way to enjoy every bit of Trek. Even the space-hippie episode "The Way to Eden")
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
No. He tapers off after season 3 and does not appear at all in season 6 (which coincidentally, is IMHO the single best overall season of TNG.)
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Ya, you're right. I should know better than to knock the franchise as their fans are the most rabid fanatics of any sci-fi franchise ever. But in my defense I must add myself to that lot, not because of whats 'canon' but what isn't. I remained a loyal fan all these years by taking canon with a grain of salt and concentrating on the rich expanded universe found in non-canon content.
It's what the fanatics insist that canon IS that I hate the most about the franchise, that's why I hate most of the TV shows and late movies so much.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Thank you SO MUCH for saying that.
To be honest, our idea of 'canon' is pretty much a 20th and 21st century invention - and pretty artificial. Much of what was considered storytelling before could well be considered fanfic, especially different versions of ancient tales that could be considered fanfic remakes.
Although I have my guesses, I am uncertain why people enshrine a particular interpretation of a series, theme, source material, etc. as infallible truth for that particular tale, whether potential add-ons exist from different parts of canon (the animated series), fanon (many good fanfics DO exist, if you're willing to look for them), and "second-tier" canon (e.g. the books). However, it is a very unfortunate development, and it is my hope that it softens over time.
In fact, I read about this once not too long ago. Part of what kept Star Trek alive during the 1970s when it was languishing in syndication was the fans and their ability to produce their own content, as well as the myriad of sources of secondary canon of varying levels of semi-officialness and officialness. That a mythos can only be what a corporation thinks will get them the nicest looking profit results for their next financial quarter is disheartening at times.
lets see here (1) a bunch of people traveling some place: Princess leia traveling to alderaan with the stolen plans (2) Getting into trouble: Darth vader capturing princess leia over tatooine. (3) Trying to find out the cause of the trouble: I.e. luke finding R2D2 with the stolen plans for the deathstar. (4) fixing it: Rescuing princess leia giving the plans to the rebel alliance and destroying the deathstar.
rinse and repeat general formula with each movie. But of course star wars is waaaaay different. :rolleyes: :P
[/SIGPIC]