Star Trek: Picard

Cyric Loften was just a shitty actor, but he was cast so young it was basically a gamble on their part. And fuck anyone who did not like Nog. Nog and his dad actually grew as characters more than anyone else in the series. I agree there was too much fucking Vic and that S7 got a bit too soap opera like, but they were saving budget to do the final stretch of the Dominion War, which if I am not mistaken was one of the most expensive ten episode arcs ever to be done at that point. Plus its pretty much a given that Garrek was one of the best written characters in Star Trek history. DS9 might edge out TOS for me, honestly.

TNG does not hold up well at all, though it has some really good social commentary episodes. It really did not have the level of naked through provoking science episodes, outside of the Super Barkley and maybe the Relics episodes, both of which depended on guest stars to carry them. You basically had to skip nearly any Troi or Crusher episode to tolerate the show and it does not even get watchable until the Borg start showing up. Middle seasons were pretty good, peaking with Dalmak and Jallod. The last couple seasons had the issue of the show being too far up its own ass and indulging the actors too much. They redeemed it a bit with the finale which had good scientific thought provoking ideas and focused solely on the main cast. People accuse DS9 of having secondary characters that were better than the main ones, but holy fuck if there was not a noticeable difference in quality in episodes where Barkley was involved. Or Gowron, Chief O'Brian, Q, Spock, or even Scotty. The show was just all politics and no character driven aspects. And that was TOS's main strength, that you were more interested in how the main three were tackling the issue while TNG made the issue itself the central star most of the time. Outside of Barkely and MAYBE Data there is zero character growth for any character in the serious, even compared to TOS which was written in an era where character arcs were not even a thing.

And the sad thing is TNG never even managed to execute its primary goal of political/social episodes as well as other treks. The Borg were arguably more interesting (though over used) in both Voyager and even Enterprise. In the Pale Moonlight is undoubtedly the best political episode in Trek history. Let that be your last Battlefield (Black White aliens) tackled racism the best of any trek episode ever with zero pandering. The Ferrengi went from laughably bad antagonists to guys you understood and even rooted for in DS9. Enterprise actually fucking did something with the Vulcans and their history. TNG was literally the second best (maybe worse) at what it was trying hardest to do.

Voyager had some major issues, mostly due to shit tier actors (Harry and Tom, Bellana was pretty meh too mostly) and the usual sluggish start modern era treks have. They also basically pissed off Ron Moore into bailing and then the writers only knew how to create stories around 7of9 and the Doctor. And those characters (and the actors) were great, but they just went to the well on them (and the Borg) way too many fucking times. It stands up a little better on rewatch than TNG, mostly because the characters evolved over the course of the show even if they were underutilized. The last season was utter depressing shit, outside of the finale and maybe the one where 7 and Chekote are stranded on that planet evading an army. The episode with the goop duplicates where they failed to even manage to have any impact on the main characters or story is particularly egregious nihilistic shit with zero reason to exist in a season that was getting ready to roll up the tent anyhow.

Enterprise took a while to get going and spent way to much fucking time on the Temporal Cold War bullshit. The character arcs were good, especially with Archer, Trip, and Tpol, but everyone else other than the Doctor were pretty forgettable. IT seemed to really be righting the rudder in season four when they began tackling some TOS backlore and building to a Romulan conflict, but then they pulled the plug. And that finale, written as a fucking TNG episode, was a massive rage inducing way to end the show.

The animated TOS series is pretty good for its time, as it was mostly script ideas for TOS that were never used due to either budgets or the cancellation. A lot of shlock, but some good stuff in there if you look past the cheese. If you like TOS, its worth a look.

moonarchia said:

There is another! But mostly because it wasn't about teenage Jake.

The Visitor (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Click to expand...

Also, fucking Tony Todd might be one of the best recurring Trek actors to play multiple great parts. Worfs bro, the Hirojen Hunter, and older Jake. Only Jeffry Combs is better in that capacity, with Weyoon, Brunt, Shram, and like six other one shot parts. The guy who plays Martok also did a bunch of different roles to Trek over the years. The Moore era really had a deep bench with its secondary actors.

Andrew Robinson is basically a craftsman in the eyes of the acting community. I think he spent a good portion of his career teaching acting, in fact. A lot of what went into Garrak was his work developing the character. There is a pretty good clip on You Tube where Armin Shimmerman and him discuss a scene they worked out where they basically acted it completely different than what was written (Moore wrote it as a comedy scene where they are discussing the Dominion War) and the two of them spent an entire day on their own practicing executing it differently. Moore saw their version and basically greenlighted both of them to contribute any way they wanted going forward. Just drives home how skilled that the team on that show was for the most part, and thus its not a shock that his daughter went into the family business.

Not to say DS9 did not have some shitty writing or some clunkers as actors (could not fucking stand Kira until the later seasons), but it generally played towards the strengths of its actors when they were sub par in some way (see Lita, Jake, Damar, or the Jedzia Dax) that made them shine at times. It is kind of Moore's forte to make you start hating a character who you eventually root for (see both Col Tigh and Baltar in BSG), so you had a lot of development of side stories. The only shit he really botched was the whole Bajor religious crap and I am glad he largely abandoned it after season three. Also prior to DS9, there had not been a "grey" Star Trek so that was a tough transition for fans and those working on the show to handle in some ways. It took them a couple seasons to really hit the right stride, but once they did it was amazing.

As far as Dukat, I found him great even in season seven as a man so certain the universe owes him that he basically intentionally becomes Bajoran Satan to get back at those he felt wronged him. His attempts, both real and fake, to turn away from being a bad guy are pretty solid writing, especially his numerous conversations with Weyoun the season that the Dominion occupied the station. The episode where he and Sisko are crashed on a planet and he goes slowly nuts in what amounts to a retread of Misery was really good, imo. A good villian thats relatable is easy to pull off. Making a guy who is absolutely unrepentant evil is much tougher.

Deathwing said:

You were surprised by nepotism?

Click to expand...

Fun fact, he was also the director of some courtroom show for a season where his daughter was a regular for the season story arc. I want to say Judging Amy, but I think thats the wrong one.

I give Frakes a pass because he was actually more of a director. He also had the only functioning set of balls on that entire fucking show. Some of the better actual hard science episodes and action episodes were central to him (Best of Both Worlds part 2, the one where he is in a simulation of an insane asylum, the Phoenix episode are all pretty solid from him) but admittedly there were not a lot of those. His main function was to be "not Picard" which he was serviceable at.

Most of the female actresses were among the worst ones during Star Trek's run, but really a lot of it was that they were written annoying in some manner. Luaxana Trois stands out as a character that was made so fucking annoying that you actually cheered when she got shit on repeatedly. Tasha Yar was played poorly, but also had some horrific writing that did not get better until they killed her off. Beverly Crusher was very cringe inducing and going to be a hate magnet just for being Wesley's mom, but the ghost story episode is probably one of the worst TNG episodes ever made. Crusher was decent in later episodes and the movies, though.

Actual shit tier acting from a regular character? Well Harry Kim has to get honorable mention for having no career after Voyager folded tents. Kira was horribad, but gradually improved over the course of DS9, so I put her above Harry who's only job seemed to be to get attacked by whatever the bad thing of the episode happened to be. Jake was a bad actor, but they kept him in his limited lane most of the time. But the top three worst were definitely all women, as far as horrible acting.

3) Wesley- Shitty acting combined with horrific cringe inducing writing with tons of Mary Sue overloading. Arguably the sole reason so much of the early seasons of TNG were so bad. And the guy is best known for being a literal beta cuck who lets his wife get railed by other nerds. What a fucking shit show. Still not the worst of all time, in terms of acting, but arguably the single worst trek character ever to exist prior to the current STD and PIC shit show era I will not even call Trek.

2) Hoshi Sato- Enterprise gets overlooked a lot and had a lot of forgettable characters, but Hoshi was badly enough acted that I wanted to punch her in the fucking face every time she was on screen in that show. The evil universe episodes were the only ones she remotely pulled off and managed to have more than her one note distracted asian derp face monotone expression. But considering as an attractive korean girl she could never land anything after Enterprise wrapped, its a safe bet that sleeping her way into a job is something she had a degree of familiarity with. But holy shit the combination of listening to her whine and contrasting her against Bakula and Dr Flox, in terms of talent, just amplified how bad she was.

1) Trois- There are episodes that are completely unwatchable to me to the point where I skip them. Not just on rewatch, but I remember turning off the channel when I realized it was going to be a Trois centered episode back in the original run. Sirtis is a completely unhinged unlikable person and it seeps through her character. She made Riker less likable just by fucking being there. They tried to make it so she could carry an episode, but she never could. The best thing they did with her was make her date Worf for a while (Fist Full of Data's she is ok, but is not really doing anything) and even that got ditched by the writers. She really stunk up the movies that came afterwards too. Just fucking aweful on every level and I have never seen her in anything where she has been anything other than this cunty bitch delivering lines like she is reading a teleprompter. It took two decades for Will Smith to shove his son into a movie to get a worse performance in a Sci-Fi piece. College girls that get hired for Z grade sci-fi horror movies just to show their tits are better at delivering their lines. And there is a good reason Picard stopped having his moral dilemma conversations with the ship shrink and diverted into diversity hire bartender instead. Hell, he had more compelling moral exchanges with a fucking literal robot than her. Complete fucking dogshit actress on every level.

Edit- Just noticed the Chekov thing. That role might have been a bit over the top, but remember he was an american dude who was trying to portray a likable russian at the height of the cold war. His career shifted more to writing (he created most of the story for the original Land of the Lost among other thing) and directing, but his role as Bester demonstrates that he could act. Most of the issues with him were that he was being divided between being the Spock apprentice character and hothead, plus Shatner was stealing his screen time by demanding rewrites to channel story to him away from Koenig (he did this a bunch with everyone). In the later movies, they just did not know what to do with him (he was good in ST2 and solid comic relief in ST6) to an extent. When the guy was given something to work with, like he had in B5, he was great.

lurkingdirk said:

Aw man, Geordi was okay.

Click to expand...

Geordi was the forever alone guy before that meme existed. Dude struck out with every woman he tried to get with and was thistier than fucking Harry Kim, who arguably had a better wing man. Even Data got more pussy on that show. For what it was, once they stopped sucking at writing, he became a solid secondary character and the episodes focused on him were decent, aside from his cringe level of cock blocking himself.