Topic: Star Trek Fan Club

@warioswoods: I take it you didn't like Enterprise because it had too much action? I agree it had a lot more and some things were just preposterous (Trip travelling between two ships at warp with the grappler? Please!) but I don't think it had too much. It had a good balance and Flox is the best character in Star Trek besides Q!

"Third star on the right, and straight on till morning"

_{sorry, that was random, im off to watch my daily tng repeat, sweet}

Wuh?

Elite Force II did a lot more with the Tricorder and had some pretty strong story elements, so I thought it came close, but yeah, more "critter" aliens to shoot en masse is not exactly Trek!

@Starkiller: Oops sorry, it's a classic quote from Star Trek, and one I miss-quoted. Doh! . It's actually 'second star', which was borrowed from Peter Pan.

Today's TNG is Angel One, which isn't one of the best. Riker has his sexy hairy chest on full display for the lady-planet.

EDIT: So anyway, I think we should all try and pick our top few episodes (from each series, or overall, whichever you prefer), mine will take a while, but I'm on it!

I've got all of TNG and DS9 on DVD, I've thought about VOY and ENT, but cannot find the motivation. Someday I'll have the TOS Remastered ones, but DVDs take a back seat to games.

Regarding the games again, I agree that the Elite Force series, while entertaining from a basic gaming perspective, wasn't really what I want out of a Trek game, and that something with more thinking, puzzles, exploration, and story would be much more desirable. I would be in favor of even a point-and-click style game if done well, but I don't see that sort of thing happening due to the general disinterest in those genres.

@Machu

I could spend all day coming up with favorite episodes, and I'm not sure I could ever give them a proper ranking, so I'll just name ones now and then as they come to mind.

At the moment, I'm going to refer to one of my favorite TNG episodes, which is quite possibly Star Trek's finest moment: Tapestry. Not only does the episode feature fine acting from Stewart and DeLancie -- two of the greatest characters and actors to grace any Trek series -- but it also tackled some human issues with remarkable depth and care. For those who don't recall by name, I'm referring to the episode in which Picard's artificial heart fails, leading to his moment of death on the Enterprise, and Q visits him in order to make an offer: Picard will be sent back in time to when he was a Starfleet cadet, and can choose to avoid the pointless fight that ended up causing him to have his heart replaced all those years ago, thereby also avoiding the premature death many years later on the Enterprise.

So, Picard does start changing his past decisions, based on his matured understanding of things and on the basis of correcting various regrets. Not only does he end up choosing to avoid the stupid stunt and resulting fight that injured him, but he also begins to make some advances towards the girl who was then only his friend but towards whom he had a longing that he never revealed. Both of these changes end up making his life considerably worse, of course; his much cherished friendship with the girl falls apart, as it does with his other friend whom he chides for being so foolish, and after he avoids the injury, Q zooms forward to the same point in his life when he died on the Enterprise, except he now finds that, while he's certainly alive, he's just an ensign, and never made it to the point of any high rank, let alone captain.

The message there is fairly clear, and of course he protests to the point where he demands to be sent backwards again, and this time he gladly rushes into the fight and accepts his wound, even letting out a wonderfully accepting laugh as he falls down after the stab through the heart. That's my favorite image from the entire series, with Picard accepting that he'd rather die and leave his life as it is than try to alter it so that he might end up living longer or "correct" his mistakes. That touches on an entire theme that I'm fascinated by in other works (Nietzsche and Kundera being the most obvious), with the question of how you look backwards towards your decisions and regrets, and whether you're willing to own and accept that life so that you'd gladly repeat it again, including all its stupid mistakes and idiotic moments. It also deals with the issue of those persisting and torturous questions you may have regarding this or that relationship or situation that could have been or that could have gone differently, but that, were you to actually have a chance to live out, would likely only end in greater disappointment.

Quite a lot going on for an episode on television, and, while it wouldn't win any literature prize on the strength of the script alone, the excellent acting brings it together into a package that's of such a rare quality. Now, I should probably stop spending so much time reminiscing about Star Trek at the office...

@warioswoods: have you ever played Star Trek: Borg before? it was a game for Windows 95/98 and it was totally a point-and-click Star Trek adventure featuring Q as he 'helps' a cadet to save his father back at Wolf 359. It's kind of a short game, but it's both absolutely hilarious and awesome... and the best part is that it totally takes advantage of the Tapestry situation (with Q in the white room playing God every time you make a decision that winds up with you dying, lol).

anyway, back to the original post... my husband and I are both huge Star Trek fans; TOS is my absolute favorite, but he got me loving DS9 a couple years back. I never could stand DS9 back when it was airing new, but now i guess i can understand it better than when i was younger, lol. And don't blame me for not watching Enterprise enough... toward the end, they kept moving it around different channels and time-slots, so i was either always working or watching something else. I'm pretty sure it was on against wrestling at one point as well... sorry, ENT, but you'll be on DVD someday, and mah testosterone-y soaps run live. :3

and re: absolute favorite ST episodes, my favorite TOS ep is The Empath. It centered on the Trio (i loves me some Kirk, Spock, and McCoy interaction kthx), and it showed how much they really cared (in a totally platonic way) for each other, that they would each go out of their way to be the one to lay down his life so that the others would be spared. The Vians and Gem were nearly incidental to what played out between the Trio in that episode.

@theblackdragon

Ah yes, haha, I did indeed own both Borg and its predecessor game, Klingon. They were fairly enjoyable, with the whole fun of getting a first-person perspective on a Trek ship and scenario. Now, they were sort of point-and-click, but of course it was really in the style of an interactive movie, so you had to be quick when a decision came, and it wasn't point-and-click at all in the usual sense of puzzles, taking your time, etc. But good stuff for a fan, with the deLancie bonus as you mentioned.

@warioswoods: seriously, i could use me more of those kinds of games. pure fanservice, that's what Borg was. i loved the wrong-decision part where all the actors are like 'are you serious?' and just walk off the set, lol.

No Trek game has ever come close to the fun I had playing Star Trek 25th Anniversary on the PC, that was an awesome game. It even had the original cast. I was 14/15 at the time and remember playing it alongside Day of the Tentacle. That was a great few weeks.

@warioswoods: A fantastic episode you picked there, a real classic, and I loved reading your thoughts on it. That scene were Picard is laughing at fate, with a Klingon blade protruding from his chest, is priceless.

@tbd: I know why you like that episode. Seriously though, I love those three guys, they are like the points of a triangle. Their relationship created much so much humour and emotion throughout the series and movies. Bless 'em.

I too could never pick a list, as I'll only forget an episode, or change my mind the following week, so I too will just mention episodes of note....

Yesterdays Enterprise:
I love all episodes of TNG that messed with time, as they always did it so well. This episode starts with Worf discovering Prune juice, which he calls a 'warriors drink' (every single time he orders that drink at Quarks I smile, remembering the moment Guinan introduced him). Then, when the Enterprise C comes through the rift and the timeline changes, Picard turns to Tasha Yar, at the time I was like "woah!" "she's dead!". The episode that followed is easily one of the best episodes of anything I've ever seen, as it linked backwards and forwards through time. Because the Enterprise C ducked out of the battle with the Romulans and fell into the temporal rift, war between the Federation and The Klingons ensued, and explained the war like Federation we were witnessing in the alternate timeline. Thanks to Guinan's perceptive skills though (which she uses in a similar manner during Generations), Picard (and Tasha) are made aware of the fact they are in the wrong timeline, and the decision is made to send the Enterprise C (with Tasha onboard) back through the temporal rift, in the hope of fixing said timeline. Which they do, and everything is hunkydory. At least until Season 5, when it is revealed that Tasha became pregnant by some horrible Romulan and gave birth to Sela .

More favourites to follow....

@'Chu: i was never a huge Yar fan, but that was a good episode. I enjoyed it when they played around with alternate realities/dimensions/whatever... one of my favorite eps like that was 'Parallels', with Worf coming back from the bat'leth tournament over and over and over... and over again, lol. it was interesting to see how everything had changed in each quantum reality (the way his room/party was set up, Data's painting, etc.), though the whole married-to-Troi thing was kinda... yeah, no. hahaha, i'm so glad they didn't continue down that line with the series. :3

Yesterdays Enterprise was one of TNGs finest episodes. My favourite scene in all Star Trek:
"A warriors drink! What is it?"
"Prune Juice."
I've really got to watch TNG again. Me and my family watch a Star Trek episode in chronological order each night, and TNG is coming up soon.

@tng: Oh yes, I loved that one lots, especially the crazy Riker, unwilling to be sent back to a timeline where the Borg had all but destroyed the Federation. Ha. 'Cause and Effect' was another time based episode that I really really enjoyed, the first time I watched it was so confusing, watching the Enterprise blow up in the opening scene. Awesome! And what's the one where the Enterprise and a Romulan ship are frozen in space, erm... 'Timescape' that was it. Fantastic episode, but then, so many were.

I've just reminded myself of 'The Chase', a really good episode that went some way to explain all the crap prosthetics that they used to make alien races, who always just happened to be humanoid. How convenient. But at least this episode went some way to explain it away.

EDIT: Ahahahah , I just called you tng, tbd, star trek on the brain!!!

I'm certainly not a fan of the show, but Star Trek (the movie that just came out) was one of the greatest sci-fi action movies I've ever seen!

And all I wanted was a good Star Trek movie, but I didn't get it. I'm glad the non-Trekkies enjoyed it though, but it wasn't a Trek movie, so they are bound to.

Ahh stop your complaining. Star Trek was a great movie. Whatever a "Trek movie" is, I'm sure it wouldn't be as good. Plus you you can totally rub the movie in all those Star Wars fans faces--it put the Star Wars prequel to shame.

I was pretty disappointed with the movie as it was not the Star Trek I have been watching for the last 25 year on television. But thanks to the non -Trekkies we will probably get a sequel thats still not a true Trek movie. Thats it I am off to read my Star Trek Encyclopedia.....................................

Why would you want to watch the same exact thing for 25 years? Don't you ever want it to change? To progress? I've seen some Star Trek and it's almost unwatchable--impossible to take seriously. The only reason you didn't like it is because it's different. Star Trek may be different, but whatever it changed, I'm sure it was for the better.

@Machu: 'The Chase' was kinda lame in the end, but this is why I love 'Timescape'. :3 though I must admit i always get 'Timescape' confused with 'The Next Phase', the one with Geordi and Ensign Ro both stuck out of phase, and then they finally manage to get people to realize what's happened to them at their own memorial-service party... when Ro knocks that Romulan out into space, that part creeps me out. just flying off into space like that... ugh. D:

and speaking of good TNG episodes, the one with the four cadets going through their promotion dramas is excellent... 'Lower Decks', I think it was called. I love eps that reference things that have happened before, and that one always makes me kinda sad because you get to liking the group of friends, and poor Ensign Sito had pretty much redeemed herself after the events of 'The First Duty', and then that happens. And her friends have to deal with it afterward, with Lavelle wondering if he would've gotten the promotion if she'd still been around and all that... :/