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 odinsgrandson wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Well, Oh did want to nuke the entire planet. Even then, given the power of capital ships in that era, a dozen or two at most should have been sufficient, and that would have let them be much more spread out on the screen, while still being more than impressive enough as a fleet spectacle.

Although it seems showing the distance between ships was something the animators just had some difficulty with... when Narek is following them, they mention him being right at the edge of sensor range, while the external shot showed him practically knocking up against their rear bumper.

The depictions of space combat in Star Trek are just as absurd and unrealistic as other depictions.



There are a few things to remember about space:

1- There is a LOT of nothing in space. Like, a mind bogglingly massive amount of nothing. We constantly get the wrong impression from the solar system maps that we make, but in reality, there's so much space between planets that the next closest planet is only a speck in the sky. If you're fighting around one planet, the other planets in the solar system will be unseeable. Looking out the window to see another ship is simply not going to happen, and likewise, a camera taking a picture of a space combat will only be able to see one ship at a time.

BUT we can see all of those with the right equipment. With some better sensors that know what to look for, we would be able to detect another ship a crazy distance away (remember, there's a whole lot of 'nothing' out there, so finding a small something isn't all that hard).

So when two ships are doing combat in space, they should look like the intro to Mass Effect 2- a ship that is too far away for us to see out the window has just started shooting, and all we really know is that it hit us really hard.


- Things move really fast in space. "Stopping" in space isn't really a thing. It wastes a lot of energy to bring your ship to a stand still, and there's no reason to stop because there is so much nothing to run into. Plus, if you're close to a planet (close enough for it to make a nice looking picture) you're going to be pulled into its gravity unless you keep moving in a constant orbit around it, and orbiting objects move at crazy fast speeds).

So space combat would really look like two ships firing projectiles at one another from impossible distances away,"

So the "lock on" mechanic in Star Trek does make sense, because there would be no other way to actually hit anything, but the depictions of ships in space are silly. Even the Romulan and Klingon cloaking devices are silly (since you really need to fool the sensors- that's different from making an invisible ship- especially when Kirk can spot a cloaked ship based on how it distorts the stars behind it.




But, like most of the science fiction in Star Trek, the depictions always favor what makes life easier for making a television show. It is a lot easier to depict space combat with a couple of models hovering in front of a planet backdrop, so that's the direction they go with it.

I really liked the space combat in The Expanse. They did a lot more with the vast distance and momentum and vacuum and what have you.

 warboss wrote:

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:
Ah dang, I just bought it a few weeks ago. Ah well. I did enjoy it, although I felt the jazz number at the end was pretty unnecessary (and I'm happy to go on the record as saying I think bringing in Vic Fontane was one of the more baffling choices that Ira Behr made).

One thing I really liked was the framing device of making the first episode of Season 8. It was interesting to hear where they thought the characters would end up after so long, and input from each of the actors. It's a little bittersweet though because it was released only a few months before Aron Eisenberg and Rene Auberjonois died.

The only complaint I have with the film is the complaint I have with all of DS9, which is: more Nana Visitor, please.

The one thing I didn't like about the plot they described was the the spoilered part below but I fully admit that the more recent experiences with nuTrek have soured me on the now waaaaay overused idea.

Spoiler:

It was all Section 31's doing! Curses! And they'd have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling Starfleet officers!

@AduroT - agreed, I'm a huge fan of the Expanse books and show (I haven't seen Season 4 yet, but I'm in no rush; Cibola Burn was far from my favorite book in the series). There's an amazing sequence in Season 2, I think when they're raiding the Protogen Lab, and they're in Zero G and the sparks and bullet casings are floating in mid-air, then they do a tight barrel roll and they all fall to the floor. Really good use of CGI to get the Zero G effects.

 AduroT wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Well, Oh did want to nuke the entire planet. Even then, given the power of capital ships in that era, a dozen or two at most should have been sufficient, and that would have let them be much more spread out on the screen, while still being more than impressive enough as a fleet spectacle.

Although it seems showing the distance between ships was something the animators just had some difficulty with... when Narek is following them, they mention him being right at the edge of sensor range, while the external shot showed him practically knocking up against their rear bumper.

The depictions of space combat in Star Trek are just as absurd and unrealistic as other depictions.



There are a few things to remember about space:

1- There is a LOT of nothing in space. Like, a mind bogglingly massive amount of nothing. We constantly get the wrong impression from the solar system maps that we make, but in reality, there's so much space between planets that the next closest planet is only a speck in the sky. If you're fighting around one planet, the other planets in the solar system will be unseeable. Looking out the window to see another ship is simply not going to happen, and likewise, a camera taking a picture of a space combat will only be able to see one ship at a time.

BUT we can see all of those with the right equipment. With some better sensors that know what to look for, we would be able to detect another ship a crazy distance away (remember, there's a whole lot of 'nothing' out there, so finding a small something isn't all that hard).

So when two ships are doing combat in space, they should look like the intro to Mass Effect 2- a ship that is too far away for us to see out the window has just started shooting, and all we really know is that it hit us really hard.


- Things move really fast in space. "Stopping" in space isn't really a thing. It wastes a lot of energy to bring your ship to a stand still, and there's no reason to stop because there is so much nothing to run into. Plus, if you're close to a planet (close enough for it to make a nice looking picture) you're going to be pulled into its gravity unless you keep moving in a constant orbit around it, and orbiting objects move at crazy fast speeds).

So space combat would really look like two ships firing projectiles at one another from impossible distances away,"

So the "lock on" mechanic in Star Trek does make sense, because there would be no other way to actually hit anything, but the depictions of ships in space are silly. Even the Romulan and Klingon cloaking devices are silly (since you really need to fool the sensors- that's different from making an invisible ship- especially when Kirk can spot a cloaked ship based on how it distorts the stars behind it.




But, like most of the science fiction in Star Trek, the depictions always favor what makes life easier for making a television show. It is a lot easier to depict space combat with a couple of models hovering in front of a planet backdrop, so that's the direction they go with it.

I really liked the space combat in The Expanse. They did a lot more with the vast distance and momentum and vacuum and what have you.

I have not seen the expanse yet, but my friend last night was saying exactly the same thing (and also that it was a very good show). He said that they incorporated the physics of space travel in a lot of ways that most shows simply skip.



Hard science fiction is kind of rare, and even films that try tend to screw things up like having people immediately explode or freeze when subjected to a vaccuum*



*Look, you stay conscious for about 15 seconds, but you don't freeze because the vacuum is a very effective insulator (there are no cold particles to bring your temperature down) and you don't explode because your skin can handle the pressure your blood exerts. Your blood does not boil because the internal pressure inside your body remains the same. Your eyes are also protected against the pressure they exert from the inside and would not boil.

And we know all of this because Jim Leblanc was subjected to hard vacuum in a NASA accident, and he stayed conscious for about 15 seconds, his skin did not explode, he did not insta-freeze and his eyes did not boil. He was rescued after 25 seconds of exposure, and it is conjectured that it would have taken about 90 seconds for him to die of oxygen starvation.

I'm not certain about the reports that a person subjected to a vacuum should exhale, since that is based on the idea that the air inside your lungs would quickly expand and burst your lungs, but that's foolishness- the air would only expand by following the path of least resistance (ie- into the vacuum, not into your body) while the pressure of the air contained in your lungs would be no different than if you were not exposed to a vacuum (since all of the factors that determine the internal pressure of your body remain the same). But Arthur C. Clarke says that holding your breath is a bad idea, so we usually go with that.

Expanse space combat is like a current day B5 in regards to physics in space. It has a primary focus though on capital ships (albeit smaller ones on average) instead of the split focus on b5 between ships and fighters.

That said.. I like the variety of styles of space combat between the ww2 style of Star Wars to the relatively weighty Star Trek (at least prior to pew pew nuTrek) to the double flip on the axis backward shooting fighter dance of b5. I enjoy the different styles and dislike it the more modern attempts to forget what made them famous and morph into something else. YMMV.

 warboss wrote:
Expanse space combat is like a current day B5 in regards to physics in space. It has a primary focus though on capital ships (albeit smaller ones on average) instead of the split focus on b5 between ships and fighters.

That said.. I like the variety of styles of space combat between the ww2 style of Star Wars to the relatively weighty Star Trek (at least prior to pew pew nuTrek) to the double flip on the axis backward shooting fighter dance of b5. I enjoy the different styles and dislike it the more modern attempts to forget what made them famous and morph into something else. YMMV.

It does strike me as very odd the way that space combat is so much different in newer Star Trek.


Star Wars famously references WW2 dogfight films as its source of course.
Star Trek's reference is battleships at war (large, lumbering floating bastions with weapons firing at each other by a lot of separate crewmen).
Battlestar Galactica is an aircraft carrier.


Nothing wrong with any of them.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
Look, you stay conscious for about 15 seconds, but you don't freeze because the vacuum is a very effective insulator (there are no cold particles to bring your temperature down) and you don't explode because your skin can handle the pressure your blood exerts. Your blood does not boil because the internal pressure inside your body remains the same. Your eyes are also protected against the pressure they exert from the inside and would not boil.

And we know all of this because Jim Leblanc was subjected to hard vacuum in a NASA accident, and he stayed conscious for about 15 seconds, his skin did not explode, he did not insta-freeze and his eyes did not boil. He was rescued after 25 seconds of exposure, and it is conjectured that it would have taken about 90 seconds for him to die of oxygen starvation.

I'm not certain about the reports that a person subjected to a vacuum should exhale, since that is based on the idea that the air inside your lungs would quickly expand and burst your lungs, but that's foolishness- the air would only expand by following the path of least resistance (ie- into the vacuum, not into your body) while the pressure of the air contained in your lungs would be no different than if you were not exposed to a vacuum (since all of the factors that determine the internal pressure of your body remain the same). But Arthur C. Clarke says that holding your breath is a bad idea, so we usually go with that.

Thanks for sharing, no spoilers but it sounds like that's another thing that the Expanse got right - in the fifth book (which was already one of my favorites) a character does a jump from one ship to another and it worked out about as you describe.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Roddenberry famously insisted every character interaction full of conflict, the future painted in suffering.

I was wondering what people think of the way Star Trek evolved post Roddenbury.

To be perfectly honest, I find Roddenbury's optimism about the future to be obtuse. He sincerely seemed to believe that all human problems that cause suffering, philosophical differences in humans and the desire for free sovereignty were things that could be cured by adding more science. To him, science definitely does not lead to more efficient ways for us to victimize other humans (the way most of history seems to indicate).

At first, Star Trek mostly painted the humans of the future as the paramount of morality who go about forcing their ideology through good old fashioned colonial values. The show never really considers that sometimes a planet might be better off without Kirk destroying their way of life (even when he has no reason to do so).

With TNG, things get a bit more mature about it, but mostly stayed simple. Characters weigh philosophical decisions and often break out of character so that we can have an ethics argument about whether to keep the prime directive or save people's lives. But the right decision is usually pretty obvious, and the Prime Directive is just an obstacle that we should usually dismiss or subvert.



But it seems that after Rodenbury's death, a lot of Star Trek became less black and white. Deep Space 9 was mostly about those left behind in the consequences of Federation interference- and Star Trek evolved mostly along those lines.

Now Picard is all about how the idealist Captain that we watched on TNG would not go along with the expedient paths chosen for political reasons that we saw in later Trek.


But what doe you all think about it? What era of Star Trek is ideal, and it is before or after Roddenbury?

 warboss wrote:
I should probably do the same. I'm more familiar with literally everything else in trek more so than with the original series (and even rewatched alot of TAS in the past few years). I haven't watched the original literally in decades in any concerted way (maybe since the early 90s?) back when TNG was still in production.

Also, if you compare TOS to later Trek, Fed vs. are extremely powerful. These are ships fighting at FTL as a norm, the Enterprise is repeatedly noted as being able to waste every city on a planet, phasers take out the sides of buildings, that sort of thing.

Everyone is generally competent, even the bad guys.
Also people tend to act like...people. Something not seen again until DS9.

Have you watched Balance of Terror yet?

Whether I find the Roddenberry future realistic or plausible is a completely different question to whether I think it’s Star Trek. For me, Star Trek needs that level of optimism, that root beer saccharine quality, in order to work as Star Trek.

My favorite era is TNG, although I’m also a fan of DS9 and some episodes of Voyager. The series did well after Roddenberry passed, but even DS9 looks like carebears next to the nuTrek tone. (And no, I don’t want to get into a debate about which series technically had more evil admirals. If a poster can’t tell the difference in feeling between pre-nuBSG and post-nuBSG Trek, that’s not a problem I can fix.)

The Orville is the only current sci fi show I know of with a setting that still looks like it would be fun to visit.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Roddenberry famously insisted every character interaction full of conflict, the future painted in suffering.

I was wondering what people think of the way Star Trek evolved post Roddenbury.

To be perfectly honest, I find Roddenbury's optimism about the future to be obtuse. He sincerely seemed to believe that all human problems that cause suffering, philosophical differences in humans and the desire for free sovereignty were things that could be cured by adding more science. To him, science definitely does not lead to more efficient ways for us to victimize other humans (the way most of history seems to indicate).

At first, Star Trek mostly painted the humans of the future as the paramount of morality who go about forcing their ideology through good old fashioned colonial values. The show never really considers that sometimes a planet might be better off without Kirk destroying their way of life (even when he has no reason to do so).

With TNG, things get a bit more mature about it, but mostly stayed simple. Characters weigh philosophical decisions and often break out of character so that we can have an ethics argument about whether to keep the prime directive or save people's lives. But the right decision is usually pretty obvious, and the Prime Directive is just an obstacle that we should usually dismiss or subvert.



But it seems that after Rodenbury's death, a lot of Star Trek became less black and white. Deep Space 9 was mostly about those left behind in the consequences of Federation interference- and Star Trek evolved mostly along those lines.

Now Picard is all about how the idealist Captain that we watched on TNG would not go along with the expedient paths chosen for political reasons that we saw in later Trek.


But what doe you all think about it? What era of Star Trek is ideal, and it is before or after Roddenbury?

I think about this all the time. I like Deep Space 9 a lot because it shows that maintaining the Federation morality on the periphery is hard, but I don't like that very often characters had to play dirty in order to get ahead (as much as I love the episode "The Pale Moonlight" in terms of what it means for Sisko's character, and just in general the way the story is told and Avery Brooks's and Garrak's performances). I just watched "A Taste of Armageddon" last night, and loved Kirk's speech at the end; you say the only option is suicide or escalation, but there's a third option, which is peace, buddy. I think that's what I like most about Star Trek is those moments when it chooses a third path. Often the story is a little contrived or the characters manipulated to get us there, but it still works for me every time. The TNG episodes "Who Watches the Watchers" and "Pen Pals" are both good examples. There's plenty of great examples throughout other series too - but towards the end of DS9 they made more of the darker choices. Which again, work for me on a story and character level.

I don't have many positive things to say about STP, but it kind of turned it on its head. I've heard people say "Well the Federation wasn't the Utopia, it was Picard's Enterprise that was the Utopia." Buddy, have you seen "The Menagerie?" Have you seen "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost?" Have you seen "The Drumhead?"

I've started to incorporate what I call the Rodenberry ideal into my theory of change - societal improvement through mutual aid and tolerance, giving the individual the tools they need to empower themselves in the way that they choose - through art, science, or anything else - and therefore uplifting the whole community.

That said, odinsgrandson is absolutely right that, if not properly handled, the Rodenberry ideal becomes paternalistic and colonial. It's such a delicate needle to thread, and for me it's the difference between The Federation and The Culture; the latter is kind of like a benevolent Grey Goo scenario, whereas the former is something more concrete, something that takes work to build and maintain. Also a really good point about the use of science and technology to empower technocrats and accumulate biopower. This is about empowering everybody equally, not entrusting more and more technical power to fewer and fewer people.

I totally agree with Bobtheinquistor also - Star Trek is a utopia that we can aspire towards, but isn't always super practical for the problems that we face in the day to day. It's a fantasy, and one very rooted in the positionality of its creator, but is nevertheless I believe a good one, a wholesome one. I think Rodenberry would welcome these kinds of critiques and would accept that certain aspects of his vision would have to change (more emphasis on social solutions to social problems).

 Frazzled wrote:

Have you watched Balance of Terror yet?

I've watched all of them at some point during the Reagan/BushSr/Clinton eras... but Balance of Terror would be one of the episodes that I absolutely have rewatched in the last couple of years along with Space Seed, the Mudd episodes, the Trouble with Tribbles, the Horta episode, and the Doomsday Machine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Whether I find the Roddenberry future realistic or plausible is a completely different question to whether I think it’s Star Trek. For me, Star Trek needs that level of optimism, that root beer saccharine quality, in order to work as Star Trek.

My favorite era is TNG, although I’m also a fan of DS9 and some episodes of Voyager. The series did well after Roddenberry passed, but even DS9 looks like carebears next to the nuTrek tone. (And no, I don’t want to get into a debate about which series technically had more evil admirals. If a poster can’t tell the difference in feeling between pre-nuBSG and post-nuBSG Trek, that’s not a problem I can fix.)

The Orville is the only current sci fi show I know of with a setting that still looks like it would be fun to visit.

DS9 after season 2 became my favorite specifically because it was a break from the status quo in TOS/TNG at the time. I just didn't think it would eventually not only become the norm but the diet watered down predecessor to dystopiTrek we have today. I like parts of the Orville but it's so uneven IMO that it's hard for me to really like it overall.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:

That said, odinsgrandson is absolutely right that, if not properly handled, the Rodenberry ideal becomes paternalistic and colonial. It's such a delicate needle to thread,

Well, if I've learned anything since 2016, it's that Hollywood and international equivalents like the BBC will approach every complex subject with a reasoned and nuanced approach to evaluating all the possible angles without any obvious bias or preconcieved notions.

Whilst I liked Picard it was clear someone really wanted it to be nu-nu-bsg, even down to thinky bots bad m'kay and jamming in allusions to our current world, which is the first rule of sci-fi, should always be the slow blade rather than cracking skulls

Not to get too far off topic, but the Orville is kind of a good reflection of TNG. The episodes are uneven, yeah. If I was only watching for quality plotting or direction, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much. But the Orville has that sense of comraderie that TNG has, that the crew basically get along, mostly like each other, and will have each others’ backs in a crisis. The interpersonal drama is pretty light and aims more to entertain than to hit the gut or hindbrain. The setting is generally positive, the people generally nice, the conflicts less cynical. I’d rather have on a show that is comfortable, but perhaps unambitious than some soul-crushing drama that leaves me feeling wrung out.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Not to get too far off topic, but the Orville is kind of a good reflection of TNG. The episodes are uneven, yeah. If I was only watching for quality plotting or direction, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much. But the Orville has that sense of comraderie that TNG has, that the crew basically get along, mostly like each other, and will have each others’ backs in a crisis. The interpersonal drama is pretty light and aims more to entertain than to hit the gut or hindbrain. The setting is generally positive, the people generally nice, the conflicts less cynical. I’d rather have on a show that is comfortable, but perhaps unambitious than some soul-crushing drama that leaves me feeling wrung out.

The Orville was a really pleasant surprise. I was expecting a fluffy spoof show, and it turned out to be a really good Star Trek show.


So far as Trek itself goes, I actually like how it has evolved over the years. It's kind of a necessary progression, to avoid all of the shows blending into the same thing, and lets them revisit concepts without them getting stale. Some of it is possibly timing as well... I started out with the Original series as a kid, and it seems like Star Trek got darker and more disillusioned with the future at around the same rate that I did...

But while I find newer Trek a more plausible vision of the future, I also still enjoy the brighter tomorrow promised by the original series.

It’s kind of sad that the more “plausible” future is the crapsack one. I guess it’s like a classic Trek character once said:

Just where is our future? The things we’ve done and said,
We should push the button; we’d be better off dead. ...
The sins of our fathers dumped on us, the sons.
The only question left is, “How many megatons?” ...
We’re all bloody worthless, just breeding human scum.
The numbers all add up to a negative sum. ...
I hate you.

The Star Trek: Lower Decks Trailer is Reporting for Duty

That looks fun. Here's hoping they haven't just pulled out all of the good bits for the trailer...

I did have two or three good laughs during the trailer. I am a little worried because I do take my Star Trek more seriously than I probably should, and I hope they take the core tenants of Star Trek seriously. That said, science fiction and humor are absolutely compatible, and being an animated series there's some good high-concept sci-fi concepts they could do without breaking the budget.

That said I think the biggest red flag is that the animation style and color palette are very reminiscent of Rick and Morty, and I hope it doesn't rely on shock gags and nihilism for humor. Not that I have an issue with that, just that I would assume that Rick and Morty can be infinitely more shocking and nihilistic than a show produced for CBS all-access (although the bit when one of the characters started pumping the heart outside of the guy's chest was one of my laugh moments).

So: the things I think look promising and the things that look less promising kind of balance each other out, leaving me interested in the show. There's a lot of good choices they could make here - for me, it comes down to what the subject of the humor is - as long as they don't turn Star Fleet into a joke they can do pretty much anything.

The previously untitled animated series has been announced as Star Trek: Prodigy -

Nickelodeon Announces Animated Star Trek: Prodigy from Trollhunters Writers




Automatically Appended Next Post:
(And a new Lower Decks trailer)

Doesn't seem like there's actually any information about it, other than the logo. Probably not for me, which is totally fine - nothing wrong with kids enjoying content for kids. That said, I started watching TNG at a pretty young age, seven or eight, and I was still taken with the lore and the vibe of the series. Dated effects and aspect ratios don't mean as much when you're younger - I ate up Ray Harry Hausen and Tokusatsu movies. All this just to say that kids do not only enjoy content made for kids; they enjoy being challenged and thinking through problems just like any other audience. Of course, Star Trek: Prodigy could be great! And if it gets more people to watch more Trek I'm all for it.

I'm not a fan of Alex Kurtzman but he and Heather Kadin came across as fairly benign in the Comic Con virtual panel. They're vision is a more accessible, Hollywood vision of Star Trek. Not quite what I want. At some point I'll probably give Discovery a watch but I've heard so much bad press I don't know if I'll be able to give it a fair, objective viewing. I'm in no rush I suppose; still have all of Enterprise and TOS to watch.

Edit: got to the bit about Lower Decks. Actually kind of optimistic about it.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Roddenberry famously insisted every character interaction full of conflict, the future painted in suffering.

I was wondering what people think of the way Star Trek evolved post Roddenbury.

To be perfectly honest, I find Roddenbury's optimism about the future to be obtuse. He sincerely seemed to believe that all human problems that cause suffering, philosophical differences in humans and the desire for free sovereignty were things that could be cured by adding more science. To him, science definitely does not lead to more efficient ways for us to victimize other humans (the way most of history seems to indicate).

At first, Star Trek mostly painted the humans of the future as the paramount of morality who go about forcing their ideology through good old fashioned colonial values. The show never really considers that sometimes a planet might be better off without Kirk destroying their way of life (even when he has no reason to do so).

With TNG, things get a bit more mature about it, but mostly stayed simple. Characters weigh philosophical decisions and often break out of character so that we can have an ethics argument about whether to keep the prime directive or save people's lives. But the right decision is usually pretty obvious, and the Prime Directive is just an obstacle that we should usually dismiss or subvert.



But it seems that after Rodenbury's death, a lot of Star Trek became less black and white. Deep Space 9 was mostly about those left behind in the consequences of Federation interference- and Star Trek evolved mostly along those lines.

Now Picard is all about how the idealist Captain that we watched on TNG would not go along with the expedient paths chosen for political reasons that we saw in later Trek.


But what doe you all think about it? What era of Star Trek is ideal, and it is before or after Roddenbury?

For me, Star Trek is TNG, DS9 and Voyager. I can't get into the original, it's just too old for me. But I grew up with the three 90s shows. Enterprise is okay, nothing to terrible.

Everything since Enterprise has just been one long slide into irrelevancy for me. Anaxanar is the trek I want, but for some reason Paramount or CBS or whoever keeps thinking this JJ/Kushner (or whatever his name is) stuff is real star trek. It isn't. It's all trash.

Yeah, I just can’t enjoy TOS either.

I’ve nowt against it, just can’t get into it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yeah, I just can’t enjoy TOS either.

I’ve nowt against it, just can’t get into it.

I'll watch the odd episode if it's on the telly, but won't go out of my way to binge-watch it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yeah, I just can’t enjoy TOS either.

I’ve nowt against it, just can’t get into it.

Same, there are some good episodes and I've watched it all. But, I can rewatch TNG/DS9 1000 times. Easily.

 Togusa wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yeah, I just can’t enjoy TOS either.

I’ve nowt against it, just can’t get into it.

Same, there are some good episodes and I've watched it all. But, I can rewatch TNG/DS9 1000 times. Easily.

Yeah, I think TOS has taken on a bit of a mythic status as this seminal sci-fi show that shattered all these boundaries and blazed a trail. In many ways that's correct, but at the same time there's some severely rose-tinted viewing going on there. A lot of the episodes are pretty bad by anyone's standards. The stand-out episodes are brilliant even today but there's a hell of a lot of filler it TOS.

Slipspace wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yeah, I just can’t enjoy TOS either.

I’ve nowt against it, just can’t get into it.

Same, there are some good episodes and I've watched it all. But, I can rewatch TNG/DS9 1000 times. Easily.

Yeah, I think TOS has taken on a bit of a mythic status as this seminal sci-fi show that shattered all these boundaries and blazed a trail. In many ways that's correct, but at the same time there's some severely rose-tinted viewing going on there. A lot of the episodes are pretty bad by anyone's standards. The stand-out episodes are brilliant even today but there's a hell of a lot of filler it TOS.

I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I've been watching TOS for the first time as a(n unjustifiably) cynical modern viewer, and am loving the hell out of it. Especially as compared to the first season of TNG or DS9 (Code of Honor, anyone? Q-Less?), there's a lot higher wheat-to-chaff ratio in TOS. The only stand-out stinkers in the first season are probably Charlie X, The Naked Time, and Mudd's Women. Everything else I really enjoyed. Maybe it's because I lean into the camp - it doesn't make me take the science fiction any less seriously. Considering the very severe limitations they were up against, they were able to express some really cool ideas. Season 1 of DS9 is a bit easier to swallow, but you have to take on faith that TNG gets better because the first season and a half doesn't have a lot going for it (with notable exceptions; Skin of Evil, Conspiracy, etc.).

TOS starts strong, but gets weaker as it goes along. The third season is as bad as TNG’s first.

I tend to rewatch TNG and DS9 the most and TOS when I want to show my son a particular episode for some reason.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
TOS starts strong, but gets weaker as it goes along. The third season is as bad as TNG’s first.

I tend to rewatch TNG and DS9 the most and TOS when I want to show my son a particular episode for some reason.

I've heard that before; not really looking forward to the third season. But I'm not a completionist, so if after a few episodes I'm not getting anything out of it, I won't feel obligated to finish; I'll just skip to the Motion Picture.

The Motion Picture is an odd film. It’s not my favorite Star Trek movie by a long way, but it is the one I rewatch the most.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
TOS starts strong, but gets weaker as it goes along. The third season is as bad as TNG’s first.

I tend to rewatch TNG and DS9 the most and TOS when I want to show my son a particular episode for some reason.

TOS third season is when they got a producer who hated science fiction. This is documented.

TNG's second season (mercifully the shortest) was made during the 1980s Hollywood writer's strike (so they could use scripts they already had, tweaked and updated, but not get new stuff) but yeah, it took that show about 3 seasons to find its feet. Just like DS9. Enterprise started to settle in during the latter half of season 3. Voyager had a rough first 3 seasons, too - but then kept on sucking like a hoover.