Star Trek: Picard

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lurkingdirk

lurkingdirk

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The Ferengi development in DS9 is, indeed, fantastic. You even gain some sympathy for why they are the way they are. The Nagus is ridiculous and irritating, though.

Jake episodes were absolutely weak, just like Kira episodes. You can only do so much with shit actors.
 
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Arbitrary

Arbitrary

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DS9 was a show that recognized opportunities. Garak was originally only going to be in the one episode, they had killed off Weyoon but brought him back, Dumar was a lackey and nothing else, etc. Nog has a huge arc given where he starts and gets some solid episodes. They bring Worf on to the show and he's great.

It's part of why Voyager is such a disappointment. That show did the exact fucking opposite. It mashed the reset button every single week with almost no one growing. Ever.
 
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Cybsled

Cybsled

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DS9 was loved, but in the ratings department it always languished. It was a very character driven show and the final seasons skip the syndicated adventure of the week and just go straight Sci-fi Serial.

Going back to the "adventure of the week" did feel kind of lame. They did give some characters some growth, but it wasn't as defined as DS9. Doctor and 7 of 9 were probably the closest in depth of development.
 
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Phazael

Phazael

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Aside from TOS, DS9 is probably the most rewatched trek in history. There have been articles on it being a syndication power house, even compared to TNG. I credit Ron Moore and his ability to adjust to the talent at his disposal (Andrew Robinson and Jeffery Combs being the best examples) and setting up stories to focus on the working character interactions and arcs. Them hamstringing him is pretty much why he bailed on Voyager and fucked off to work on the BSG remake.

Ironically, Roddenberry always wanted to do a political Trek (TNG was so much fucking diplomacy boredom) but DS9 actually realized that goal thanks to the crew working on that show and it immediately caught fire the moment Roddenberry croaked and his interference stopped. Basically, sidelining all the stupid Bajor shit that did not tie into the Dominion arc they were building was the turning point where the show became near perfect. That and Cisco growing his balls back. I mean, even Kira got good towards the end and I wanted that character gone from day one. The only total flop of a character was Jake and even he got one good episode (the time travel one with Tony Todd as future Jake).

The only slip up towards the end was fucking Terry Farrel bailing to do some shitty comedy show with Ted Danson and leaving us with a bunch of Ezri shit. And even that would have been fine if they had not spent so much time on her and instead kept it to the rest of the cast mostly. I think some of that was them having to adapt episodes meant for Farrel to the new character on the fly. And even then, that last ten plus episode run of the Dominion War is probably one of the most epic story arcs we will ever see in sci-fi. You could have practically made an entire other series with a lot of what they covered.

Everything that has followed DS9 has been a letdown (Voyager had some moments, Enterprise was getting its footing once the time travel shit was over but far too late to save it, and well anything post Enterprise is shit) and shitting on the fans/cannon that built this franchise.
 
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chaos

chaos

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Arbitrary said:
DS9 was a show that recognized opportunities. Garak was originally only going to be in the one episode, they had killed off Weyoon but brought him back, Dumar was a lackey and nothing else, etc. Nog has a huge arc given where he starts and gets some solid episodes. They bring Worf on to the show and he's great.

It's part of why Voyager is such a disappointment. That show did the exact fucking opposite. It mashed the reset button every single week with almost no one growing. Ever.
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I really liked that part of the show. It had a lot of the same traps that other Star Trek shows fall into, but the growth of these characters over the series really stands out in all of Trek. Dumar is a good example, but I think Dukat is a more negative example. His whole thing after the death of Ziyal was just lame and kind of absurd. Ferengenar becoming a socialist workers paradise is hilarious but I feel like Quark got shafted. Sisko's ending was ok, idk, I feel like they went a little too deep with the prophets and the pai wraiths but whatever, it works I guess.

I also feel like the resolution re: The Dominion wasn't earned. Especially after they did the storyline where Odo was a fascist collaborator and shacked up with the female changeling for months on end linking like crazy. The female changeling was a hard as fuck, ride or die gangster right up until she wasn't and there's no real explanation for that other than "lol show's ending". But, overall, better than TNG I'd say. My wife hates Janeway so I doubt we'll be rewatching Voyager, sadly.
 
chaos

chaos

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Deathwing said:
Farrel was essentially forced out, she didn't bail.
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I read some article where she said that she didn't reup the contract because it was only for 1 year and she thought Becker had potential to take off. Then it didn't work out, but she was already written out and one of the main issues she had with the show was the schedule anyway.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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chaos said:
I read some article where she said that she didn't reup the contract because it was only for 1 year and she thought Becker had potential to take off. Then it didn't work out, but she was already written out and one of the main issues she had with the show was the schedule anyway.
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I'll back off that a bit. My recollection came from RLM discussing the matter that basically Rick Berman was a passive aggressive asshole to certain cast members but wouldn't actually fire them.
 
chaos

chaos

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Yeah I have a faint memory of there being some kind of conflict surrounding both her exit and Tasha Yar's, but when I looked it up there was nothing.
 
Gavinmad

Gavinmad

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Phazael said:
Ironically, Roddenberry always wanted to do a political Trek (TNG was so much fucking diplomacy boredom) but DS9 actually realized that goal thanks to the crew working on that show and it immediately caught fire the moment Roddenberry croaked and his interference stopped. Basically, sidelining all the stupid Bajor shit that did not tie into the Dominion arc they were building was the turning point where the show became near perfect. That and Cisco growing his balls back. I mean, even Kira got good towards the end and I wanted that character gone from day one. The only total flop of a character was Jake and even he got one good episode (the time travel one with Tony Todd as future Jake).
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The counter argument to this is that the impositions of the Roddenberry box are what required writers to actually be creative and the precedents set by DS9 gave far lazier/less talented writers years later all the room they needed to just shit all over the IP.
 
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Phazael

Phazael

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If you want to look at it that way. But the fact is DS9 was slow and the Bajoran stuff was simply not very interesting. The moment Gene croaked, the show really took off. Most of what went wrong with Voyager and after can be directly attributed to Rick Berman. I wonder what trek would be like today if Moore had remained and Berman got pushed out.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Gavinmad said:
The counter argument to this is that the impositions of the Roddenberry box are what required writers to actually be creative and the precedents set by DS9 gave far lazier/less talented writers years later all the room they needed to just shit all over the IP.
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How about both? In The Pale Moonlight or The Siege of AR-558 are memorable in part because of their contrast to "regular" Star Trek. Ron Moore went on to BSG and the darker tones were the norm there, so they never stood out. That show had other issues that hampered it, so perhaps I'm not being completely fair.
 
Gavinmad

Gavinmad

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It wasn't meant as a criticism of DS9, just saying that what DS9 did sort of laid the groundwork for the NuTrek trash we have now.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Gavinmad said:
It wasn't meant as a criticism of DS9, just saying that what DS9 did sort of laid the groundwork for the NuTrek trash we have now.
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It's not without merit. But at the same time, I kinda feel like some guy shows you how to fire a gun complete with all the proper safety precautions then JJ Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Rian Johnson proceed to shoot themselves in the foot.
 
Grim1

Grim1

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Phazael said:
Aside from TOS, DS9 is probably the most rewatched trek in history. There have been articles on it being a syndication power house, even compared to TNG. I credit Ron Moore and his ability to adjust to the talent at his disposal (Andrew Robinson and Jeffery Combs being the best examples) and setting up stories to focus on the working character interactions and arcs. Them hamstringing him is pretty much why he bailed on Voyager and fucked off to work on the BSG remake.

Ironically, Roddenberry always wanted to do a political Trek (TNG was so much fucking diplomacy boredom) but DS9 actually realized that goal thanks to the crew working on that show and it immediately caught fire the moment Roddenberry croaked and his interference stopped. Basically, sidelining all the stupid Bajor shit that did not tie into the Dominion arc they were building was the turning point where the show became near perfect. That and Cisco growing his balls back. I mean, even Kira got good towards the end and I wanted that character gone from day one. The only total flop of a character was Jake and even he got one good episode (the time travel one with Tony Todd as future Jake).

The only slip up towards the end was fucking Terry Farrel bailing to do some shitty comedy show with Ted Danson and leaving us with a bunch of Ezri shit. And even that would have been fine if they had not spent so much time on her and instead kept it to the rest of the cast mostly. I think some of that was them having to adapt episodes meant for Farrel to the new character on the fly. And even then, that last ten plus episode run of the Dominion War is probably one of the most epic story arcs we will ever see in sci-fi. You could have practically made an entire other series with a lot of what they covered.

Everything that has followed DS9 has been a letdown (Voyager had some moments, Enterprise was getting its footing once the time travel shit was over but far too late to save it, and well anything post Enterprise is shit) and shitting on the fans/cannon that built this franchise.
Click to expand...

Hated DS9 when it came out. Called it "Deep Space Slime". Hated the Bjorn losers, the ugly changelings, Kira, the boring space station and the lack of exploration. It was a blatant rip off of Babylon 5 and I hated that show too. Thought Voyager was better because it at least explored "strange new worlds".

But in a fit of boredom, after having watched the other series many times, and giving up on Enterprise, I forced myself to watch every season of DS9. It was a chore at first. Sisko, Dax and Quark were the only reason I kept with it. But somehow by the end of the series I became attached to all of the characters (except the idiotic changelings).

That last episode was hard to watch, not because it was bad, but because I knew I was going to miss these people and their lives. And I very much did.
 
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Lambourne

Lambourne

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Grim1 said:
Hated DS9 when it came out. Called it "Deep Space Slime". Hated the Bjorn losers, the ugly changelings, Kira, the boring space station and the lack of exploration. It was a blatant rip off of Babylon 5 and I hated that show too. Thought Voyager was better because it at least explored "strange new worlds".

But in a fit of boredom, after having watched the other series many times, and giving up on Enterprise, I forced myself to watch every season of DS9. It was a chore at first. Sisko, Dax and Quark were the only reason I kept with it. But somehow by the end of the series I became attached to all of the characters (except the idiotic changelings).

That last episode was hard to watch, not because it was bad, but because I knew I was going to miss these people and their lives. And I very much did.
Click to expand...

Had much the same experience, never got into DS9 when it first aired and stopped watching it. Watched it a few years ago and really enjoyed it, I think there are certain aspects to it that just didn't land for me at all when I was 20 years old but that I appreciate now.

I think the Enterprise Star Trek fatigue theory holds water, I never bothered to watch a single episode when it first aired. Been watching it for the first time this year and I think it's decent, some really good episodes here and there. Jeffrey Combs nails it each time.
 
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