New Star Trek Series Premieres January 2017

[Camacha]

I hope it will be better than DS9 was. I haven't seen any episodes of Voyager or Enterprise, but I've heard they aren't much better.

What are you talking about? DS9 and Voyager both were rather enjoyable.

[pTrevTrevs]

What are you talking about? DS9 and Voyager both were rather enjoyable.

Well, the characters are either annoying or boring, and the plots of the episodes fall drastically short of those from TOS or TNG. When I watched the first DS9 episode where Q shows up to mess with the characters, I was happy, in a machosistic way.

Can you feel der Schadenfreude?

[KerbMav]

Can you feel die Schadenfreude?

[Camacha]

Well, the characters are either annoying or boring, and the plots of the episodes fall drastically short of those from TOS or TNG.

I am probably not going to make many friends by saying this, but I find the original series hardly watchable. Fun as a cult item, but that is about it.

[UmbralRaptor]

Considering the nature of the post-reboot films, no. Not interested.

[Randazzo]

DS9 and Enterprise aren't actually bad, per se--but they're weak and pathetic compared to ST:OS and ST:TNG (well, actually, TNG pales in comparison to OS). And DS9 failed at the "darker and edgier" thing; they were sissies about it, too scared to ditch political correctness, and they barely dipped their pinky toes in the dark and edgy waters. If you want to actually make Star Trek dark and edgy, what you do is you have the United Federation of Planets declare war on the Romulans and bomb both Romulan homeworlds into radioactive extinction. But, of course, we can't allow the good guys to win a war that way, can we???

Well, since the writing of DS9 and Enterprise, the audience has changed in a very noticeable way. Have you ever heard of the "Galactic Civilizations" series of sci-fi strategy games? Head to YouTube and watch the trailers for Galactic Civilizations 3.

Naturally, this entire discussion is subject to the opinions of each individual. I don't agree with yours, but I'm not going to force mine upon you. I will say that the situation you describe with the Federation could not occur without breaking up said Federation and becoming something else, hence why it didn't happen. It also wouldn't have been dark and edgy for that to happen, it would have been childish and ridiculous.

I do know the GalCiv storyline, where the Drengin wage a genocidal war on Humanity for the crusade that hasn't happened yet, thereby triggering said crusade, paradoxes, minds blown. Not really the same thing. (or at least that's how it was when I last played GalCiv 2. Haven't played 3.)

Also, people in Youtube comments are idiots.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Randazzo

[Just Jim]

Oh, we could argue which series is better all day... It just depends on the person.

But I think the one thing we can all agree on is no matter what ship or crew it is, we all want awesome writing combined with killer special effects.

So get it right CBS.... the Kerbins are watching you...

[vger]

Oh, we could argue which series is better all day... It just depends on the person.

But I think the one thing we can all agree on is no matter what ship or crew it is, we all want awesome writing combined with killer special effects.

Or simply: a Star Trek that does what old Star Trek did for society: inspires people to get involved in science and exploration. Nobody is going to get inspired to become an astronaut after watching AbramsTrek.

[GeneralVeers]

I will say that the situation you describe with the Federation could not occur without breaking up said Federation and becoming something else

And warp drive isn't actually possible, and robot planet killers can't be armored with neutronium (which is a FLUID, not a solid!) etc etc blah blah blah. The whole point of science fiction IS to explore things that "can't" happen.

hence why it didn't happen. It also wouldn't have been dark and edgy for that to happen, it would have been childish and ridiculous.

And guess what, Star Trek TOS did in fact have a few generous helpings of things childish and ridiculous. Tribbles for the win.

A whole planet based on Roaring Twenties mob society? Even as a six-year-old kid I found the concept silly and outlandish, but the episode was still great fun.

A war between alien races who are black (the color) on one side of their face and white (the color) on the other? Gene Roddenberry used that concept in that particular episode precisely because it was ridiculous; his whole intent was to ridicule race wars, and one of the basic methods for writing good social commentary or comedy (whether sci-fi or otherwise) is to take ice-cold logic and apply it to the absurd.

Also, people in Youtube comments are idiots.

Of course they're idiots. That's irrelevant; it's their reaction, whether reasonable or not, that's important. Human beings (including the idiots) are changing in what they want to see on the movie screen and the computer screen; the old Seventies anti-war sentiment is pretty much gone. Lucasfilm Games was very worried that people would be opposed to flying for the Galactic Empire in "Tie Fighter", the sequel to their colossally successful "X-Wing" spaceflight simulator, and they were wrong. People had no objections to flying TIE fighters, and did so with great enthusiasm.

Naturally Hollywood is not going along with this willingly, trying to stick to the old worn-out tropes where the good guy has inferior weapons, is forbidden to pick up the bad guy's superior weapons after killing a bad guy, is not allowed to kill but is allowed to put a planet of a billion people at risk to avoid killing one person, is not allowed to keep the money gained after defeating a bad guy, etc etc etc. The Hollywood writers who get over themselves and their agendas will cash in big time; those who don't will fall by the wayside.

[Brethern]

Because they didn't learn from their failures at writing DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise.

Gene Roddenberry is gone. The idiot writers now mangling Star Trek are not Gene Roddenberry and cannot replicate his genius.

Don't mess with classic literature. Conjure up a little creativity and come up with a sci-fi universe of your own.

I suggest you rewatch the bad star trek that he directly had a hand in creating. He's not a genius, He's a man who got lucky. Nothing more.

[vger]

And warp drive isn't actually possible, and robot planet killers can't be armored with neutronium (which is a FLUID, not a solid!) etc etc blah blah blah. The whole point of science fiction IS to explore things that "can't" happen. And guess what, Star Trek TOS did in fact have a few generous helpings of things childish and ridiculous. Tribbles for the win. A whole planet based on Roaring Twenties mob society? Even as a six-year-old kid I found the concept silly and outlandish, but the episode was still great fun.

What's important to keep intact though is how the Federation tries to deal with those situations. Absurdism isn't the point of Star Trek. If that were the case, it'd be no different from Pigs In Space. The situation can be ludicrous, but how they react to those situations is what is important. Star Trek was my ONLY source of guidance for how a civilized species should behave, and it very likely kept me out of a LOT of trouble while growing up.

A war between alien races who are black (the color) on one side of their face and white (the color) on the other? Gene Roddenberry used that concept in that particular episode precisely because it was ridiculous; his whole intent was to ridicule race wars, and one of the basic methods for writing good social commentary or comedy (whether sci-fi or otherwise) is to take ice-cold logic and apply it to the absurd.

I may have to watch that episode again because I didn't find it to be comedic. Is it absurd? Sure. But was Roddenberry trying to make us laugh at it? No. That would be no different than trying to make Ferguson seem funny. Their race war may have looked ridiculous to us as humans, but that was the point. An alien looking at our own petty squabbles would just scratch his head and ask, "Why?" The dual-colored faces in that episode was a brilliant bit of psychology because the difference between them was something that the audience would never have noticed. All we were thinking is, "They look the same," just like Kirk did. If only we could look at our own race that way. Satire maybe, but not comedy. It wasn't meant to make us laugh. If you want a comedic satire of racism, try South Park.

[GeneralVeers]

I suggest you rewatch the bad star trek that he directly had a hand in creating.

I see no reason to demand that Gene Roddenberry or any other genius be perfect. Hell, even Albert Einstein screwed up now and then.

What's important to keep intact though is how the Federation tries to deal with those situations.

I see no reason to demand that the Federation be perfect, either. In fact, I disagree with how the Federation did things on several occasions. Far too many times, pacifism on the part of the Federation did a lot more harm than good. Naturally you disagree, and to that I reply "tough noogies".

Star Trek was my ONLY source of guidance for how a civilized species should behave

You were misguided. The Star Trek TV show lured you into a life of evil and you never knew it.

You disagree, right? There's the catch. How did you know (at the time you were watching the show) that the Federation wasn't evil? How did you know (again, at the time) that the United Federation of Planets was a healthy moral compass? I'm going to make a guess here and say: "you didn't. You took it on faith."

How do you know today that the Federation didn't misguide you? Probably from moral lessons you learned elsewhere. How do you know those moral lessons weren't deceptive? And once again, we get down to the real nitty gritty: in the end there's no "how". There has to be a leap of faith somewhere. (the real irony here being that the guy who typed this post is an atheist.....)

and it very likely kept me out of a LOT of trouble while growing up.

Well, the exact opposite kept me out of trouble. Kirk taught me that the proper way to deal with the school bully was to break some teeth out of his head--and he was right! One fight, and a few teeth broken out of his head (literally) and the school bully never bothered me again.

Different strokes for different folks, eh? For me, the correct stroke was a right hook.

An alien looking at our own petty squabbles would just scratch his head and ask, "Why?"

Until we meet some real aliens and find out, the above is entirely hypothetical, and I see no reason to believe it.

In fact, if you look at world history from the proper (i.e. impartial) viewpoint, humans have already met "aliens". Just that instead of humans it's Europeans, and it's the high seas instead of outer space, and instead of aliens it's other civilizations--in Africa, in the Far East, in South America, and in what would become the United States. When Europeans encountered these other civilizations for the first time, what did those explorers find? Civilizations that already had war and theft and murder and racism and prostitution and drugs and political intrigue and other vices.

The dual-colored faces in that episode was a brilliant bit of psychology because the difference between them was something that the audience would never have noticed.

I noticed it. And I was six at the time.

If you want a comedic satire of racism, try South Park.

Heheh. Nice try, but I'm ahead of you by like eight years.

Bottom line: if you and I (and others) disagree on what is moral, there's no reason science fiction can't screw around with the formula now and then. However, the Star Trek franchise is pretty much done, and the world's writers should be coming up with new settings.

[vger]

I see no reason to demand that Gene Roddenberry or any other genius be perfect. Hell, even Albert Einstein screwed up now and then.

I see no reason to demand that the Federation be perfect, either. In fact, I disagree with how the Federation did things on several occasions. Far too many times, pacifism on the part of the Federation did a lot more harm than good. Naturally you disagree, and to that I reply "tough noogies".

Ah, heh. No, I never felt the Federation was perfect. And frankly, I never expected them to be. Sometimes firing a shot was warranted (alluding to your pummeling of the school bully, which I also did once, and got the same long-term response - actually, he and I became great friends after that). In other cases, all beating somebody up (if I was lucky enough to win) would have accomplished is me having to fight him AND his friends the next time). Overall, I'm a peacenick, but one of my favorite ST-TOS quotes remains, "The best diplomat I know is a fully-operative phaser-bank." Star Trek sufficiently made the point in that same episode that sometimes you can't negotiate your way out of everything and just have to resort to swinging the big stick. Don't use it though until you've explored less-destructive alternatives.

You were misguided. The Star Trek TV show lured you into a life of evil and you never knew it.

You disagree, right? There's the catch. How did you know (at the time you were watching the show) that the Federation wasn't evil? How did you know (again, at the time) that the United Federation of Planets was a healthy moral compass? I'm going to make a guess here and say: "you didn't. You took it on faith."

How do you know today that the Federation didn't misguide you? Probably from moral lessons you learned elsewhere. How do you know those moral lessons weren't deceptive? And once again, we get down to the real nitty gritty: in the end there's no "how". There has to be a leap of faith somewhere. (the real irony here being that the guy who typed this post is an atheist.....)

Ehh.... I'm not sure if I find it ironic at all, if you're simply assuming that the Federation is my "Church." There were some good episodes about corruption in the UFP as well. I don't see a problem with that. We're human, we're not perfect, and therefore, any system of government we can create is going to be imperfect (unless maybe we do the "Day the Earth Stood Still" thing and let machines govern us). But yeah, that's a lovely paradox of the human condition. In the absence of an actual deity coming to tell us what is what, we're all stuck with trying to make sense of relativistic morality. We can try to make an educated guess about what is good or bad, based on what impact it has on our society if we choose to allow it. Generally, destruction doesn't result in positive results though.

Edited November 7, 2015 by vger

[Brethern]

I see no reason to demand that Gene Roddenberry or any other genius be perfect. Hell, even Albert Einstein screwed up now and then.

I see no reason to demand that the Federation be perfect, either. In fact, I disagree with how the Federation did things on several occasions. Far too many times, pacifism on the part of the Federation did a lot more harm than good. Naturally you disagree, and to that I reply "tough noogies".

Screwing up is writing a bad episode like catspaw or threshold. What we tried to do with the ferengi is him hating capitalism beyond the point of sound judgement.

Ok so you want the ferengi to be all the bad parts of capitalism? Make them pirates, and thieves that steal whatever they can and then sell it to the highest bidder. Have them exploit people with outrageous fees payment plans and all that stuff.

Having females unclothed because clothes cost money is a joke. Having the ferengi act borderline feral means no one is going to get the message. Make them like Quark cunning and always waiting for an opportunity.

[G'th]

People always say how bad Voyager was, but honestly I think that was just the beginning season(s) and the finale that were really really bad. Everything in between was pretty good from what I remember. Year in Hell being a notable example. Granted they seemed to just selectively decide whether or not the crew was in a dire situation trying to get home or just on a typical 5 Year, and then that Episode-That-Should-Not-Be-Mentioned happened, but even so.

[GeneralVeers]

Overall, I'm a peacenick, but one of my favorite ST-TOS quotes remains, "The best diplomat I know is a fully-operative phaser-bank."

+Rep to Scotty!

Cue Spock: "The sole purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis". A snippet of wisdom that had that much more impact because it was Spock saying it.

Star Trek sufficiently made the point in that same episode that sometimes you can't negotiate your way out of everything and just have to resort to swinging the big stick. Don't use it though until you've explored less-destructive alternatives.

That's not really the angle ST:OS came from. Keep in mind there were two or three episodes where the Enterprise (yes, the Old School Enterprise!) committed outright genocide/extinction of various species. There was at least one episode where the Enterprise deliberately violated the Neutral Zone in order to draw in a Romulan ship and steal a cloaking device (when the United States does that kind of thing out here in the real world, there's international outrage). And also there were a couple of episodes where the Enterprise went in and intentionally changed the course of history for entire civilizations, Prime Directive be damned.

Overall, there's enough politically-incorrect stuff in there that modern day liberals would definitely NOT consider it a good moral compass......

Ehh.... I'm not sure if I find it ironic at all, if you're simply assuming that the Federation is my "Church." There were some good episodes about corruption in the UFP as well.

Government corruption is a fiction story trope that's as old as Sarek's grandfather, and I was perfectly content to watch entire seasons of ST:OS that had ZERO episodes about government corruption. At all. Know what else the Original Series never had in it?

Screwing up is writing a bad episode like catspaw or threshold. What we tried to do with the ferengi is him hating capitalism beyond the point of sound judgement.

The Original Series never had the old worn-out trope about evil capitalists, either. If memory serves, corporations and business were never mentioned once in the entire series. Money was mentioned at least once, but the only case of that I can remember is Harvey Mudd conveniently neglecting to pay royalties when he sold the Denebians the patent rights for a fuel synthesizer......

All in all, ST:OS is proof that you can write a good story (or an entire season of them!) without resorting to the old worn-out trope about greed or business or capitalism. Writers who do resort to this trope are pathetic amateurs.

In the absence of an actual deity coming to tell us what is what, we're all stuck with trying to make sense of relativistic morality.

Heheheh. To complicate things even further, ST:OS had that too. Dieties coming along and telling us (i.e. the crew of the Enterprise) what was good and what wasn't.

Generally, destruction doesn't result in positive results though.

Pssh. The bad guys can't do bad guy things if they're dead.

[Spearka]

the poster says 2017 yet the text says 2016

[Brethern]

+Rep to Scotty!

Cue Spock: "The sole purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis". A snippet of wisdom that had that much more impact because it was Spock saying it.

That's not really the angle ST:OS came from. Keep in mind there were two or three episodes where the Enterprise (yes, the Old School Enterprise!) committed outright genocide/extinction of various species. There was at least one episode where the Enterprise deliberately violated the Neutral Zone in order to draw in a Romulan ship and steal a cloaking device (when the United States does that kind of thing out here in the real world, there's international outrage). And also there were a couple of episodes where the Enterprise went in and intentionally changed the course of history for entire civilizations, Prime Directive be damned.

Overall, there's enough politically-incorrect stuff in there that modern day liberals would definitely NOT consider it a good moral compass......

Government corruption is a fiction story trope that's as old as Sarek's grandfather, and I was perfectly content to watch entire seasons of ST:OS that had ZERO episodes about government corruption. At all. Know what else the Original Series never had in it?

The Original Series never had the old worn-out trope about evil capitalists, either. If memory serves, corporations and business were never mentioned once in the entire series. Money was mentioned at least once, but the only case of that I can remember is Harvey Mudd conveniently neglecting to pay royalties when he sold the Denebians the patent rights for a fuel synthesizer......

All in all, ST:OS is proof that you can write a good story (or an entire season of them!) without resorting to the old worn-out trope about greed or business or capitalism. Writers who do resort to this trope are pathetic amateurs.

Heheheh. To complicate things even further, ST:OS had that too. Dieties coming along and telling us (i.e. the crew of the Enterprise) what was good and what wasn't.

Pssh. The bad guys can't do bad guy things if they're dead.

The entire message behind the original series was supposed to be an allegory to the cold war. TNG was "after" the cold war, and so forth.

As it stands Kirks federation is a completely different beast than Picards and companies federation. They were on the verge of war with the Klingons, they had to do what it took to ensure the federations survival, such as stealing cloaking devices.

But somewhere along the line it became policy to lobotomize all federation people and remove their spines. Hiding behind the prime directive and such.

[GeneralVeers]

Exactly. A Romulan plot. Lobotomize and de-spine the Federation.

If the Federation was spiny during the Original Series, you should go back a few additional years. I had a couple of Star Trek comic books from around 1970 (yes, way back in the Dark Ages when comics were written on ACTUAL PAPER!), and one of the stories in that book would scare the pants off politically-correct people of today. Here's the short version:

The Enterprise comes across an Earth-like planet designated K-G (for "Kelly Green" because planet names back then were even cheesier than in 70's sci-fi). The planet is seemingly a Garden-of-Eden type, with plant life everywhere. Of course, nothing is ever as it seems in a Star Trek story, is it? The away team beams down, and very quickly discovers the plant life is intelligent, mobile, extremely hostile--and carnivorous. And also an extreme biohazard. Spores from the plants infect one of the Red Shirts, who in a matter of seconds is mutated into a decidedly not-human plant form that LUMBERS away (captain, I'm detecting a bad pun on the tricorder). A lot of violence follows: large amounts of phaser fire exchanged with hostile plants, the discovery of a farm where the plants harvest and eat animals (basically it's a planet where the normal order of nature is all backwards and the animals are the food), and the requisite Epic Battle against a really big plant monster that almost eats the entire remaining away team--until the previously mutated Red Shirt shows up and kills the Boss Monster, revealing that it was only his body and not his mind that was mutated. Cue Convenient Plot Hole Closure; the mutated Red Shirt is mortally wounded in the battle against the Boss and dies shortly after, thereby removing the ethical problem of trying to restore him to normal. (well, hey, that's what Red Shirts are for!)

Here's the good part. After returning to the Enterprise, Spock determines that planet K-G is a threat to every nearby world in the quadrant, because the plants' spores are viable in outer space! They could infect other planets, turning them into K-G types. There's only one "logical" solution......

......and in the final scene, the Enterprise initiates a Base Delta Zero (yes, I know--wrong genre), incinerating the entire surface of the planet with phaser and torpedo fire and exterminating all life upon it.

Yes, it was SPOCK who recommended this course of action. In retrospect, I find that pretty scary.

[Brethern]

Exactly. A Romulan plot. Lobotomize and de-spine the Federation.

If the Federation was spiny during the Original Series, you should go back a few additional years. I had a couple of Star Trek comic books from around 1970 (yes, way back in the Dark Ages when comics were written on ACTUAL PAPER!), and one of the stories in that book would scare the pants off politically-correct people of today. Here's the short version:

The Enterprise comes across an Earth-like planet designated K-G (for "Kelly Green" because planet names back then were even cheesier than in 70's sci-fi). The planet is seemingly a Garden-of-Eden type, with plant life everywhere. Of course, nothing is ever as it seems in a Star Trek story, is it? The away team beams down, and very quickly discovers the plant life is intelligent, mobile, extremely hostile--and carnivorous. And also an extreme biohazard. Spores from the plants infect one of the Red Shirts, who in a matter of seconds is mutated into a decidedly not-human plant form that LUMBERS away (captain, I'm detecting a bad pun on the tricorder). A lot of violence follows: large amounts of phaser fire exchanged with hostile plants, the discovery of a farm where the plants harvest and eat animals (basically it's a planet where the normal order of nature is all backwards and the animals are the food), and the requisite Epic Battle against a really big plant monster that almost eats the entire remaining away team--until the previously mutated Red Shirt shows up and kills the Boss Monster, revealing that it was only his body and not his mind that was mutated. Cue Convenient Plot Hole Closure; the mutated Red Shirt is mortally wounded in the battle against the Boss and dies shortly after, thereby removing the ethical problem of trying to restore him to normal. (well, hey, that's what Red Shirts are for!)

Here's the good part. After returning to the Enterprise, Spock determines that planet K-G is a threat to every nearby world in the quadrant, because the plants' spores are viable in outer space! They could infect other planets, turning them into K-G types. There's only one "logical" solution......

......and in the final scene, the Enterprise initiates a Base Delta Zero (yes, I know--wrong genre), incinerating the entire surface of the planet with phaser and torpedo fire and exterminating all life upon it.

Yes, it was SPOCK who recommended this course of action. In retrospect, I find that pretty scary.

Base delta zero for star fleet is general order 24.

[GeneralVeers]

Ahhh, yes.....so it was. That, by the way, was also a very good episode. +5 badass points to Scotty for delivering the ultimatum.

<--- Montgomery Scott. DO NOT MESS WITH THIS GUY.

[Superfluous J]

Money was mentioned at least once, but the only case of that I can remember is Harvey Mudd conveniently neglecting to pay royalties when he sold the Denebians the patent rights for a fuel synthesizer.

Also, Kirk on several occasions told crewmembers (I distinctly remember Chekov, maybe it was only him) that they'd earned their pay for the week by doing something well.

[Bill Phil]

Also, Kirk on several occasions told crewmembers (I distinctly remember Chekov, maybe it was only him) that they'd earned their pay for the week by doing something well.

It may have just been a cultural carry over from our era.

[KerbMav]

It may have just been a cultural carry over from our era.

Money is a strange subject in Star Trek.

For all we know, only humans on Earth gave up on money, including their colonies probably. How that exactly works - apart from "apparently quite well" - is never really explained. Maybe in novels or the like, but not if we take only TV and cinema as hard canon and the only series that really dealt with money issues was DS9, but in these cases it always corresponded to transactions with non-humans/non-Federation citizens.

There seems to be some form of credit system, as Sisko mentioned using up all his transporter credits while he was at the Academy just do be at home every evening for dinner - but his might not have anything to do with rationing.

Crew members are seen buying stuff and ordering drinks and food during shore leave. The local shopkeepers will certainly not give away their goods just because their customer is a human from Earth, so these are somehow being paid for. Here we have to speculate - or draw upon "secondary literature" after all (which I do not remember, only that I read something somewhere):

A member of Starfleet does not need money, food and clothing is readily available at the next replicator. Maybe "earning your pay" in Starfleet means some form of allowance, spending money for expenses during shore leave - or metaphorically speaking "showing ones worth to serve aboard a ship".

The concept of money might not be dead completely, maybe Earth's government just provides every citizen with everything they need (a place to live in and a replicator, they perfected fusion after all, so energy on a planet might be abundant) and if you wish for "more" you still have to pick up a job and earn money.

[Pixel of Life]

Yet another subscription service... No thanks, I'm not paying another $10 a month just to watch one show. Doesn't mean I won't be watching it though. Arrrrrr!