Star Trek Life Support

[Eternal_Freedom]

I loved reading the rationalisation in the Mike Okuda text commentary. "Picard must have been intentionally deceiving Lily, as it's inconceivable that he doesn't know how many decks are on his own ship."

[Stofsk]

To be fair, Moore probably had a lot of ideas bouncing around in his head over the... what, 4 years between them? It's easy to forget details over that time in general, and even more so if you have a lot of similar ideas in your head at the same time.

Yeah but Generations was so shit I like to blame Moore for it (and Braga too I 'spose, but blaming him is a given). Besides, there were heaps of continuity errors in those videos which are pretty bad, yet comparatively few from TOS, which I think speaks volumes on the different production staff. The big ones from TOS are like Khan recognising Chekov, but that's something I think is overstated (just because Chekov wasn't a part of the cast until season two doesn't mean he wasn't onboard the Enterprise at the time, just not a bridge officer). Things like - Data has no breath in 'Insurrection' but does when he's talking to Bashir, or like he's afraid of a guy with a phaser on stun in one episode, but in the episode where he's possessed by that ghost he's not afraid at all and even gets shot and it has not effect - shit like that just bugs me. It's just sloppy. The guys who wrote for TOS just had more of a handle on these things, albeit they weren't perfect either (Vulcan has no moons! Oh wait, it does).

EDIT:

I loved reading the rationalisation in the Mike Okuda text commentary. "Picard must have been intentionally deceiving Lily, as it's inconceivable that he doesn't know how many decks are on his own ship."

See this is the problem with looking for in-universe rationalisations to explain inconsistencies all the time. It doesn't always work and sometimes the explanation is worse than the error itself (like now Picard's a liar, or Data's an idiot or Spock doesn't even know whether the planet of his birth has moons or not)

[Stofsk]

Yeah, some of it is petty 'haha lets laugh at them' mistakes, but they're a symptom of a larger problem. If they can't be arsed to keep the small details in check, then the larger, more important details have a bigger chance now of being ignored. Voyager, and Enterprise, are outright messes because of this kind of sloppiness. Like over the whole show's run how many shuttles did Voyager lose? How many torpedoes did they fire? Had to be more than 40, and Janeway said in 'Dreadnought' that they had no way to replace them once fired. And these are all factors of the show's premise which is supposed to drive it - they're out there all alone, every photorp counts, every shuttle that gets destroyed is one they'll never replace. Every crewmember who dies is someone they're never going to be able to replace either.

Stuff like that can actually drive future stories. Imagine if after one particular battle, Tuvok goes 'like, we're down to half a dozen torpedoes' and then they have to puzzle out a solution. Can they replicate the materials and construct replacements? Can they find a weapons dealer and try to adapt DQ munitions to their launchers? Same goes for the shuttles. Although the Delta Flyer is, I suppose, a way of dealing with that issue, but what would have been better is if they just found or bought new shuttlecraft after counting how many the ship had and how many it had lost. If I was doing Voyager I would have set up a huge chart on the writer's wall of every member of the crew. I wouldn't give them names or whatever, but I'd say 'ok security has x number of dudes, here's how many are starfleet and maquis' and do the same for engineering, science, etc. Then as you go along and write the scripts, you gradually flesh out the crew - this week we'll have some guy from security, give him a name, etc. Next week it might be from science who's helping Ensign Kim solve the Riddle of the Week. Then when you kill him off, he stays off, and suddenly you've got one less position on the board. Bit by bit this will add up, and it can drive story-telling. Have one scene in a later season where you have guys doing double shifts because over the whole course of the show guys have died due to battles and shit, so the survivors have to do twice the work and it's having consequences. The ship loses efficiency as a result of the shit it goes through, so they have to find some solution to it.

[Gandalf]

Curiously, some writers were aware of the fact that Voyager should be getting run down. The episode Retrospect featured Voyager trying to buy arms from what I'm pretty sure was a planet of arms traders. It was just there to lead into the main plot, but someone thought to put it there.

Interestingly, one of the season seven showrunners (Braga, I think) was discussing that the ship and crew would be showing signs of wear. Apparently Janeway was to have an arc where she considers just what her decision to stay in the DQ has cost her crew.

[Skylon]

Curiously, some writers were aware of the fact that Voyager should be getting run down. The episode Retrospect featured Voyager trying to buy arms from what I'm pretty sure was a planet of arms traders. It was just there to lead into the main plot, but someone thought to put it there.

Interestingly, one of the season seven showrunners (Braga, I think) was discussing that the ship and crew would be showing signs of wear. Apparently Janeway was to have an arc where she considers just what her decision to stay in the DQ has cost her crew.

After his very brief stint on VGR, RDM was quite vocal that SOD was taken way too far in regards to things like photon torpedoes, shuttles etc. In some ways nBSG seems like RDM's direct counter to VGR...like he was saying he could do the lost in space scenario better. On a show where the crew did regularly deal with supply issues, lack of personnel and ultimately the ship itself falling apart.

I thought some of the VGR writers really did want to do a "Year of Hell" season but were overridden.

[DaveJB]

Yeah, that was the original idea for Season 4. After First Contact was a hit in cinemas though, they made the Voyager team retool the show and bring in the Borg as the main recurring villains (along with introducing 7 of 9) to try and shore up the falling ratings.

[Swindle1984]

Data can go in space and underwater because he doesn't need to breath. It's stated at least once in TNG that Data can grow his hair longer, perspire, salivate, etc. to simulate being human. Wouldn't it make sense for him to simulate breathing as well?

I also handwave contradictions between Data being insufficiently bouyant and sinking, then later "serving as a flotation device" as Data simply having learned from past mistakes and upgrading himself to compensate.

Also, being pierced by an arrow, but unharmed from 9mm bullets isn't a problem; most modern body armor will stop a 9mm bullet, but an arrow will go right through. He could also be threatened with a Colt SAA .45 by virtue of it firing large, heavy, and slow bullets; it might not penetrate, just like the 9mm, but it could smash him enough to damage internal parts. Getting shot with a 9mm while wearing body armor will often leave a nasty bruise; larger caliber handguns and shotgun slugs can crack ribs and bruise internal organs, even stop the heart from the shock, despite not penetrating the vest.

[Jawawithagun]

Data can go in space and underwater because he doesn't need to breath. It's stated at least once in TNG that Data can grow his hair longer, perspire, salivate, etc. to simulate being human. Wouldn't it make sense for him to simulate breathing as well?

"Doesn't need to", "able to simulate" ... what's your problem?

[Crazedwraith]

I think the point is there the 'mistake' outlined by the video is not a mistake at all. Bashir says 'you're breathing' when he noticed that Data's chest goes up and down. While Data simulates breathing, he doesn't need oxygen to survive. Hence Picard's comment when he goes underwater.

Some of the other 'mistakes' seem a bit dodgy as well. Especially in regards to the borg. 'Oh noes. Shelby's speculation turned out to be wrong. MISTAKE!'