I recently became a trek fan. I grew up a Star Wars kid (the re-release was timed just right for me to enjoy it a lot), but lately I have been working my way through TNG on Netflix and enjoying it immensely. As an adult I like how they try to have consistent rules in their universe, richer story, etc. For example, I don’t think the more recent star wars properties are bad, but for me they were things I watched once, enjoyed, and don’t have a burning desire to watch again. Star Trek seems more story driven…
Do @orenwolf or others have suggestions on where to go from here? I plan to start DS9 after TNG rather than watch the episodes exactly in the order they aired, then after DS9 watch Voyager.
Whaty else should I check out? There’s films I know - I saw Wrath of Khan in college a while back. I’ve seen bits and pieces of the original series - enough that I chose to start with TNG because I like to binge new media, not constantly be skipping stuff I’ve seen. (Some have told me I should have started with the original, but I hate b inging stuff I’ve seen some of the eps for but not others, I want to be able to sit back and just click “next”. Does anyone else have that neuroticism?)
Anyways, to be frank I’m worried Netflix will catch on I found something I like and remove it - both scrubs and Malcolm in the Middle got yanked shortly after I binged them…
in my head I’ve always called tribbles “space crickets”. If you wonder why, dump out a box of crickets in your house and come back to this topic in a week and you will understand
DS9 suffers from the same problem TNG did - it takes a long time to get going, but the payoff is worth it. The latter half of DS9 is less episodic and more long arcs, so if you’re into that sort of thing, push through the first 2-3 seasons of DS9 for the payoff.
There’s a lot of great Original Trek episiodes, and you’re missing out if you don’t watch Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. After you’ve watched some of the original series, watch Generations and First Contact as well.
Also, Discovery really grew on me as it got it’s legs under it. That’s especially true after meeting the actors playing the Klingons - they really take what they’re doing seriously, and they repeated over and over again how painstaking the writing process has been for the new show. The writers have big boards up with “Hard Canon”, “Soft Canon”, “Movie Canon”, “Book Canon”, “Comic Canon” etc, and they emphasized that while folks may not like some of the choices they made in the new series, there was blood on the walls with some of the arguing and debate over the decisions they made to the story. I think it pays off, and that’s especially true with the season 2 information we got on the cruise (which I’m not going to spoil!).
I haven’t seen any of Discovery yet… I figured I’d wait and binge it since maybe I’ll appreciate it more fully grasping the backstory. Is it bad or just different? The newer ones… I think I saw the 2009 and 2013 films IIRC… they weren’t bad IMHO just maybe a little modern? But to be fair it’s hard to do unironic techno-utopianism-with-no-grey in a post 9/11 world… IIRC Voyager wrapped up just prior to 9/11.
Some of my best memories are from science fiction conventions. This sounds marvelous. ( I just wish this kind of experience co u ld be packaged someplace besides a cruise ship. Seriously, cruise ships are aweful. From the carbon footprint to the water pollution to the crappy work environment to the overabundant empty calories… I can think of better ways to organize a long form vacation/convention.)
I only saw a few minutes of “Discovery” so I didn’t realize it’s not set in the same timeline as the Abrams films. If it’s supposed to be in the same timeline as the original series and its spinoffs then did they ever explain why the Klingons don’t resemble either the old school 1960s Klingons or Next Generation Klingons?
I know Enterprise did some kind of retcon story arc explaining why the Klingons of Kirk’s day don’t look like the Klingons of Picard’s day but adding yet another version of Klingons seems goofy.
This was my biggest complaint about the series, honestly. I hope they come up with an explanation that makes sense (they did in Enterprise for the Klingons without ridges in TOS).
Obviously we all know the REAL reason is that the show producers had much better prosthetic makeup available in the 90s than they did in the 60s, but I liked the way they addressed it in that episode of Deep Space Nine when the crew traveled back in time to do the Forrest Gump thing with the original cast.
When Worf is asked what the deal is with the Klingons of that era he just says “It’s a long story. We don’t discuss it with outsiders.”
So, that actually came up during the discovery panel.
According to the panelists, Roddenberry had always wanted alien looking aliens. In the ’60s, the reason for not having them was cultural (they actually airbrushed Spock’s ears out of early promotional shots for fear of backlash!). This is why when they did The Motion Picture, Klingons were radically transformed with the most reasonable prosthetics they could manage at the time.
Fast forward to now, and they explained they now 3D print their prosthetics(!) and they are leaps and bounds beyond what was possible before, so now Klingons can truly look alien, as Roddenberry originally wanted.
It still takes nearly 3 hours to get them in the prosthetics though. Mary Chieffo (L’Rell) told us that in season 2, with the war over, Klingons will stop shaving their heads and her outfits will include the trademark Klingon female cleavage, which she is happy about, but now it’s going to take another hour - every day - to transform her. (”You all better appreciate it!” was her comment if I recall)
I’m not sure how that makes sense given all the other “alien”-looking aliens in the show. They had blue-skinned folks with antennae, jolly green nymphomaniacs, albino unicorn apes, pig-faced dignitaries, black & white metaphors for 1960s racism, etc. I think it was just a budget thing.
As the series began production, the use of Spock’s pointed ears was cause of great controversy between the Star Trek production team and the television network. “In 1965, the NBC Sales Department was concerned,” recalled Herb Solow, Desilu executive in charge of Star Trek at the time. “It was as if they believed that, after Satan had been cast out the the Garden of Eden, he was reincarnated as actor Leonard Nimoy and cast into Star Trek as science officer Spock, a pointed eared, arched eyebrowed ‘satanic’ Vulcan alien.” NBC feared its advertisers and local stations would be targets of a religious backlash protesting this “devil incarnate.”
“It took several weeks for us to learn the extent to which NBC Sales had gone to disguise Spock’s ‘satanic’ pointed ears,” says Solow.
NBC had sent a very attractive Star Trek sales brochure to its station affiliates and advertisers. Close scrutiny showed, however, that an artist working for the NBC Sales Department had airbrushed Spock’s pointy ears round in all the photographs.
In order to placate the network, which was strongly advocating the use of regular ears and eyebrows on the Spock character — a move that would have seriously undermined the concept that an alien was serving onboard the Enterprise — the Star Trek production team decided to “tell NBC what they wanted to hear” in agreeing to greatly reduce Spock’s visibility in the show for the first thirteen weeks while actually proceeding without limitations on the use of the Vulcan first officer.
Star Trek wanted alien alien characters. First the religious, then budget, then technology held them back. Finally now they can create the vision as intended, and I for one am excited by the prospect, especially if it helps facilitate stories of ”humanity” even in those who may not look like we do.
I get the “Spock looked too demonic to be a central protagonist” part, but I don’t see how that relates to the appearance of the Klingons who were meant as antagonists and would have hardly been the first or the only aliens on the original series to have an exotic appearance.
