Hatrack River Forum: Synesthesia (ST: TNG nerds -Darmok)

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Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :

quote:
I love that episode of ST:NG
I should watch it again one day.

Your wish is my command. It's on Spike today. Second episode.

[Cool]

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

We don't have Spike here.

We do however have a very good video store near-ish: with all TNG in stock.

Mmm. Star Trek.

[Smile]

(Although, Voyager is still my sentimental favourite. *prepares to be burned*)

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

Do you think that Voyager got better or worse with the replacement of Kess with 7 of 9?

Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :

Worse. Did you know that Jeri Ryan actually passed out on a regular basis the first season because of that outfit? Then they fixed the outfit so she could actually breathe.

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

I didn't know that, no. I'm not surprised though--that costume was ridiculous. I think that the show dramatically improved with the introduction of 7 though. When I heard that they were introducing the character and saw pictures of her I thought "Oh, god, why do they always try to bring in a pair of breasts in high heels to bolster their ratings?", and stopped watching the show entirely for a while. When I tuned back in, though, I discovered that Ryan was actually an incredibly good actor, who brought a lot to the show. Ridiculous outfit aside, I think that she and Robert Picardo are basically the two reasons that show ended up not sucking.

Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :

Okay, yes, it didn't suck after she came. She got a bit annoying occasionally, but I liked how the doc was in love with her. It just really chapped my hide that they replaced Kess with some hottie. That's the only reason what's her name is on Enterprise. I mean, come on, how many times did T'Pol end up in that box rubbing lotion all over herself or someone else doing it in the first season alone? Bah.

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

Oh, yeah, I agree, they just brought her on for the sex appeal. It just turned out that she was great. Two episodes that I thought really showcased her acting abilities were the one where the doctor's program is downloaded into her, and she goes back and forth between playing an amazingly good doctor and her usual character, and the one where all of the various assimilated personalities start coming to the fore.

It helped that I never really warmed to Kess, I suppose.

I agree with you about T'Pol on Enterprise, by the way.

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :

I liked both Kess and 7of9, but of the two, I would have to say I liked 7 of 9 better...

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

Something about Kess just bugged me, for some reason. I was irritated when they brought her back in that one episode.

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

I never liked Kess. Certainly not as a major character. She seemed too 'everyone's-in-love-with-me-and-i'm-so-nice' for me to empathise with her.

And I really *really* liked the seven character - ridiculous costume or not.

The main reason I liked her was the interaction with Janeway. I liked the way she made Janeway re-evaluate her own beliefs.

I also liked as Jeri Ryan as an actress - I liked her scenes with Harry Kim, her scenes with the doctor, and even her final scenes with Jakotay.

Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :

Wow, it was just last night when I said "I would kill to see an episode of Voyager right now." Creepy.

I prefer Seven to Kes; I thought Kes was just annoying. The show got better with the emphasis on Seven and the Doctor, but worse whenever they had a Chakotay episode.

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

The Doctor was far and away the best part of Voyager, and Seven worked out surprisingly well as well. (How's that for an awkward sentence!)

But even though the doctor was my favorite part, he bugged me to no end. Not because of the writing or the actor, but because of the lame-*** explinations they gave for him.

Can somebody please, PLEASE tell me why they couldn't burn a backup of the doctor to a disc or a storage crystal or some such thing?

Answer: Because that would not be convenient for the drama of the series.

[Grumble]

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

Do you mean a back-up of his original programming? Or the changes he made along the way?

I always thought that the point was he *exceeded* his programming and became an individual - even if he was backed up, the duplicate wouldn't be the same doctor.

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

Back up what he has become.

Why couldn't they back it up? He's a frickin' program! He's made up of a bunch of 1s and 0s.

Edit: Yes, they do some hand-waving to explain why they can't do that, but it is really no more than hand-waving. The real reason they can't back him up or copy him is because then the doctor would be less like a human, and we wouldn't love him as much.

They did the exact same thing with Data.

[ January 13, 2005, 11:12 AM: Message edited by: mr_porteiro_head ]

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

I guess I saw the issue as being that he became more than a frickin' program - in essence, he gained a soul (or any other measure of humanity/human life).

So any reproduction would have short charged that.

**

Wow. I have spent *way* too much time thinking about the status of a fictional holographic character.

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

Yeah, that always bugged me about the doctor too. Why not just run an incremental backup every day or something?

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

Exactly. There is no feasble technical explination. The whole reason is that he is a major character, and they didn't want to make him too alien.

Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :

Here's another vote for Seven instead of Kess. I loved the comedy that occured because of her character and all the great new sides we saw of everyone else because of her presence. [Smile]

As for Darmok, that episode has the effect of making me want to chew off my arm. [Big Grin]

I guess I just have to be in the mood for the constant repetition. We got my sister this cool DVD compilation of Patrick Steward episodes and that one is the only one we haven't sat down to watch yet. I think we're avoiding it.

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

And a post after m_p_h's edit - yes, I'm sure that's partly the reason.

(The identifying with the human character)

But I also saw it as trying to ask questions as to what is human and what isn't - and then the metaphors from one human-outsider(be it hologram or robot) relation to our known race/religion/gender relations.

Edit: moving too slow!

[ January 13, 2005, 11:19 AM: Message edited by: imogen ]

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

I also started enjoying Neelix a tiny bit after he no longer had Tess to mother hen over.

So, I guess this is another reluctant vote for seven.

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

I enjoyed Neelix ever since the Tuvox episode. [Smile]

Edit: Tuvix?

[ January 13, 2005, 11:39 AM: Message edited by: imogen ]

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

That one wasn't half bad.

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

*ha ha ha*

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

::never really warmed to Nelix::

Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :

I had no idea there were so many Voyager fans hereabouts. I could never get into it, myself. Don't really know why. I'm a TNG man, myself. And there really weren't any hot babes on that one. (At least, not as regulars.)

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

As far as Trek goes, I'm much more of a DS9 man, myself. Best. Trek. Ever.

Wish they'd do some DS9 movies, and find a way to bring Terry Ferrell back.

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

Noemen: We've been rewatching season 1 - I kinda like the sence with Neelix in the bath.

That said - he wasn't my favorite charcter.

Still prefered him to Kes though!

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

My big problem with Voyager is that I hate Janeway as a captain.

It's not her character that I mind -- I actually like her. What I can't stand are the tactical/strategic choices she makes.

Every other episode, she would risk the destruction of the entire ship in order to save one or two crew members. She kept gambling over and over -- she should have *eventually* lost before she could ever make it back to earth.

And don't even get me started on her stupid decision to strand them there in the pilot...

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

I'm an equal DS9/Voyager fan.

I did love Terry Farrell though (Becker re-runs are airing over summer here. I was watching earlier tonight and was thinking "You left Dax for *this*?").

From the girl side, I also very much liked Alexander Siddig (Dr Bashir).

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

Aw, but she had to do that mph.

Otherwise it wouldn't have been a series!

That said, I agree. [Smile]

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

Yeah, that bath scene was pretty good, wasn't it? And Neelix did get more palatable to me as the show wore on, but that could have just been due to familiarity.

There were a lot of things that bugged me about early Voyager though. I hated how easily the two crews put aside their differences and became one big happy family. It should have taken seasons to resolve issues that were wrapped up in the first few episodes.

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

Not surprisingly, I completely agree with Porter about Janeway. And imogen, I loved Bashir too, although perhaps not for the same reasons you did. The only regular character on that show that bugged me was Jake.

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

Jake transformed too quickly and too completely I thought.

And Noemen - I was, of course, talking about the character development of Bashir.
What else?

Seriously, I think the reason I have a slight Bashir-crush is because of the development of that character.

Kind of like my Wesley crush in Angel. Both completely character related. Nothing to do with the actors.

Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :

I'm a Harry Kim girl, myself.

And yes, imogen, it was Tuvix.

Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :

Really Carrie, Kim?

He always seemed a bit too.. rookie. Or over-eager. For my tastes at least. [Smile]

Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :

Kes was such a babe. I loved the episode they did when she was aging backwards. I think that's my favourite.
And she ended up marrying that one dude I did not like so much... which means they had to be stuck together for days... ew.. because they had a daughter and she married another one of the guys and she was rather hot too.
It was interesting how fast they aged. Sort of like rats or something.
I just don't like how the show turned into a Space Orgy, but I did like the episode where Janeway fell in love with a sweet lunky handsome Irish hologram and then changed it so she could not changed his personality. That raises interesting questions.

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

I'm not seeing the Space Orgy thing Syn. There were various romantic involvements on the show, sure, but the emphasis in them was more on the emotional aspects of those relationships rather than the sexual.

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

*shudder* Frankly, both Voyager and Enterprise feel like Space Orgies to me. I could never manage to get into either of them, and I even watched a fair number of episodes waiting for something good.

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

I haven't seen all *that* much of this season of Enterprise, but from what I've seen it feels to me like the show may finally be getting some traction, if you know what I mean. I seem to remember that they brought in new writers for this season, and if that's the case I think it's paying off.

Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :

I've always liked the young guys on Star Trek. Honestly, what 7- to 12-year-old girl didn't have a crush on Wesley Crusher? Then I didn't watch much DS9, then it was Harry Kim, and now it's Travis (Enterprise - he's the token black guy).

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

<-- doesn't know what a space orgy feels like

Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :

I imagine it would involve a lot of floating...

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

Nobody floats in ST.

It's too expensive.

Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :

*sigh* Mmm. Dr. Bashir.

Such nice eyes...such a beautiful accent.

*sighs again*

I really love O'Brien too. [Big Grin]

Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :

Actually, there was an episode, Living Witness, that featured a backup of the Doctor on a world 400 years later that believed Voyager had been evil and murderous. They have sort of holodeck that shows the Voyager Encounter and the way Janeway ordered numerous atrocities. There's alot about political correctness and historical revisionism in this one (directed by Tim Russ- Tuvok) and it is quite humerous and interesting.

Of course ALL TREKS have this sort of lame inconsistancy. They create a device, can't do something, or bring on a new species, all for dramatic purposes- and then they either ignore it or contradict it. DS9 largely escaped this, thankfully. Voyager, TOS, and TNG DID NOT. I cannot even begin to tell you how many time TNG has irritated me with this artificial drama.

Still good shows and enjoyable episodes, though.

And I like Janeway. She was the quintissential "mother bear" who'd do anything to save her crew. She'd gladly consign herself to hell (literally or by doing something that violated her principles) if it meant saving her crew. But she would never let her crew do the same and degenerate like the crew of the Equinox did. They would get home intact.

I love that show, no matter what Tom says.

EDIT: As for Darmok, I could not get past the believability of it. How on earth is a Universal Translator translating those expressions without getting the meanings of them? "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" means two friends bonding and fighting together at a difficult place. If the UT is getting the actual words by processing brain waves of the other person and matching it to the DB of what words those waves mean, then why is it not getting the semantic meaning rather than the literal meaning? It would have worked better if the people had been human and had developed this language and lost 'normal' English.

[ January 13, 2005, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: IanO ]

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

quote:
And I like Janeway. She was the quintissential "mother bear" who'd do anything to save her crew.

She'd do anything to save individuals in her crew. Including throwing away the entire crew. She had the worst qualities of an irrational mother bear.

Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :

No one said she was logical. But really, when you're all alone and a group of Vidians show up and are willing to harvest your crew, how do you make them leave? Or when aliens are performing experiments on you and they won't leave? Fly through a sun's corona, right? What else can you do?

I seem to remember Picard doing the same thing with Nagelum (season 2), when they wandered into that 'mouse trap' and Nagelum wanted to study death. It was going to take, 'oh, about a third of the crew'. Rather than take that as acceptable losses (after all, 2/3 are left) Picard set the self destruct. Nagelum let them go. And I know Picard threatened it more than once.

When you only have one hand in a particular situation, you have to play it. There's no folding.

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

It just bugged me that she seemed to do that every other episode. Maybe my complaint is with the stories, not the character of Janeway. [Dont Know]

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :

quote:
Every other episode, she would risk the destruction of the entire ship in order to save one or two crew members.

Well, actually this stays in line with the original. James T. Kirk would do that as well...

FG

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

quote:
Well, actually this stays in line with the original. James T. Kirk would do that as well...

That's no excuse. [Razz]

Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :

Just because it's bugging me. . .

Chakotay
Tuvok

I hated the Tom Paris episodes with the fascination on the 1950s. Ugh.

I also didn't like Worf episode on TNG or DS9.

Verily, Gates McFadden was hot.

The thing I always hated about TNG was the damned holodeck. Why Starfleet allowed those things on ships is beyond me. As often as they malfunctioned, I just don't get it.

I haven't been watching Enterprise this season. They started it before I knew they moved it and, well, oh well. I didn't want to try and play catch-up.

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :

I could just never get into Deep Space 9, even though I was fanatical about all the other versions...

Okay - I give up. Which episode is Darmok?

Farmgirl

Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :

Back to the original topic...

I also love the Darmok episode!

EDIT: It's the episode with the people who speak in metaphors and so no one can understand them unless they understand what's behind the metaphor.

[ January 13, 2005, 01:56 PM: Message edited by: Teshi ]

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :

Ah yea, I found it.
Pictures help my brain remember.

FG

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

It's starting right now!

Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :

Deep space Nine will always be my favorite series. THG was good pioneering the new age of Star Trek, and the movies were fantastic.

But DS9 had awesome battle scenes in the later seasons. The characters were awesome, I especially loved the interaction between O'Brien and Bashir. It was a show I actually cared about.

Voyager was good, though it wouldn't have been if Robert Picardo weren't on the show. My favorite episode is the one with him on the planet of people who just discovered music, and he's the first pop star, great episode. I also liked "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy." "Year of Hell" and "Equinox" are also good. Lots of moral issues dealt with in that show.

Enterprise. I watched two episodes and lost interest. I'm hoping for a DS9 movie, or a far better show starting this coming fall or next year that picks back up sometime during the "present," meaning back during the Voyager/DS9 timeline. It gets more complicated after DS9 simply because there isn't much conflict left. After the war, much is in shambles. Though I could see the Borg being a big problem now, finally ready for a major war with them with the peoples of the Alpha quadrant in an alliance. Which will be sweet with the new technology they have from Voyager, and with new ships like the Prometheus Class from "Message in a Bottle."

I just pray that they don't end the series, or do another past show like Enterprise, cause quite frankly they aren't measuring up.

Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :

Lucky you people who have cable and can see that.

Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :

Except for some reason I never LIKED this episode.

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

I don't like it either. It doesn't seem to me that a race that can *only* communicate in that way could build an automobile, let alone a starship.

Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :

quote:
Though I could see the Borg being a big problem now, finally ready for a major war with them with the peoples of the Alpha quadrant in an alliance.

Borg = most overdone storyline ever. I, personally, was content when Janeway and crew destroyed them. And then I was horrified when Enterprise had their Borg episode.

My favourite (VOY) episodes were "Timeless" (Season 5) and "The Omega Directive" (Season 4), off the top of my head. I've seen all of them at one point. It's too bad they're not syndicated in this area anymore [Frown]

Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :

I love the Borg, but they should never had been brought back. Destroy them, and have done with them.

Plot lines should never be stretched so far they loose their effectiveness.

Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :

The Borg are far from destroyed. They have that huge empire in the Delta Quadrant, and they can't be ignored forever. Besides, there is still the issue of Hugh that was never resolved (or was it resolved in that one Lor episode?).

And if not the Borg then who? Some magical entity that appears out of nowhere from the Beta quadrant that we've never heard of before that happens to have a thousand ships and armies as far as the eye can see?

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :

I always loved Q -- just the character of Q. It made it so that so many different plots could be created, because he/it/the continuim could do anything.

Farmgirl

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

quote:
The Borg are far from destroyed. They have that huge empire in the Delta Quadrant, and they can't be ignored forever

If the writers really concentrate, I'll bet they could ignore the Borg forever.

[ January 13, 2005, 02:44 PM: Message edited by: mr_porteiro_head ]

Posted by MyrddinFyre (Member # 2576) on :

Me too, Farmgirl. I was always excited when he showed up, especially if the characters didn't know it until the end!

Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :

Q's son was a cutie [Wink]

Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :

quote:
I always loved Q -- just the character of Q. It made it so that so many different plots could be created, because he/it/the continuim could do anything.

I brought up Q as an example of the testing of the human race in a class (ancient Narrative) on Tuesday. I knew it was kind of out there, but no one else was speaking and the professor was begging hte class to come up with anything that Gawain and the Green Knight made us think of. It made me think of Q and Picard, so I put up my hand.

Mentioning Star Trek is like Major Gnork Not Done Thing. You could feel the distain just seeping...

Ah well [Wink]

. I told him twice before that he wasn't going to like it.

I can't decide whether it was a good thing or a terrible thing to do. It gave the class a laugh, after all.

Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :

As a side note concerning the Borg. Christie Golden has started the "re-launch" of the Voyager series with 4 books: Homecoming, The Far Shore, Spirit Walk, Enemy of My Enemy. They're set almost right after the final episode of VOY and they're not too bad. The writing's a little thin and the characterization is a little artificial at times. But all in all, pretty good.

But what I like about it is that she came up with a plausible reason why the Borg can keep going when their Queen dies. It was one of the things that bugged me about VOY after First Contact. I thought that with the destruction of the Queen the Borg were gone. So to have them show up later in VOY was not linear. Here's the explanation:
(thar be SPOILERS ahead)

In the story, the destruction of the Borg sphere over earth dispersed numerous nano-probe like microbes over the earth that have lain dormant since that time. The idea is that even if the Borg are defeated, given time, those infected with those microbes can be assimilated when the command is given. Well, someone is giving that command. It turns out (and I don't exactly remember how they get a copy of this) but the Borg queen is actually a program. When the Queen dies, one of the drones is chosen by the collective and promoted, so to speak. The "Royal Protocol", they call it, is downloaded into the drone and is begins taking all the the Queen functionality. It's actually quite brilliant. In the story, someone on earth is trying to become the Queen. What with the return of 7 of 9 and Icheb, the borgification of some humans causes them to be suspects and be quarantined (and their rights violated).

Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :

Gah. The Borg are so boring! Sure they have cool outfits, but for the most part they are dull as all hell.

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

You know, I've always thought that O'Brian looked like a human pastry. Seriously, the man looks like a sweet baked good made flesh. I'm aware of how odd that is, but there you go. I like his character on DS9, and his relationship with Bashir, but his look bugs the living hell out of me.

Another thing about Trek that bothers me is that they almost never use their technology is the sort of creative ways that you know they would in real life. How about transport weapons? Beam some guy's head to the left about an inch and he isn't going to be getting back up. Why not create a phaser that randomly changes frequency with every shot? That would keep the Borg from becoming immune to the blasts, wouldn't it (Actually, they may have done this in an episode--it's ringing a bell). For that matter, why not use old fashioned projectile weapons on the Borg? They seem to be quite vulnerable to them.

Remember the episode where Data was playing Holmes on the Holodeck, and asked for a Moriarty who could best him, or something to that effect, and the holodeck created a brilliant and sentient being? Why not outfit entire ships with holoemitters, and crew it entirely with superlative holobeings? Apparently they can be cooked up as easily as just asking for them to exist.

Warp core breaches seem to be pretty devistating in the intensity of their explosions--might they be harnessable as a weapon? Seems like firing one of those at an enemy ship would take it out of commission pretty quickly.

The list goes on and on--this is just the very tip of the tip of the iceburg.

Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :

You can take Transporter technology even farther than that. With it, you should be immortal. I mean, if the transporter is recreating you from your constituant atoms, then it can recreate you in any way you want. So why not use the same pattern everytime, except for the pattern of the brain. Boom. Everytime you materialize, you're the same age as you were when the pattern first was made. Realistically, eventually enough entropy would work its way into the data that the pattern derived from that living tissue and would no longer be viable. But if the living tissue is just raw material and the pattern is stored online (in redundant multiple locations for safety) then that doesn't become an issue. You can continue as long as the storage doesn't break down or transporter technology is lost.

Heck, lost limb (supply a little extra raw material)? non-hereditary illness? Run them through the transporter and there you go. They even DID THE VERY THING with Doctor Polaski in TNG, for crying out loud.

You could clone people (Thomas Riker, anyone?), clone Androids (an army of Data's). I never understood why they couldn't move holodeck items. ITS THE SAME TECHNOLOGY. Maybe not characters unless you made them automatrons controlled by the ships computer (as they already are on the holodeck.)

There are an infinite number of uses for transporters that is never used.

Grrrr!

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

Too true! [ROFL]