What was the greatest waste in all of Star Trek?

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-02-04 07:07am

Hey, even Lord Poe likes Voyager. He's said so on more than one occasion. I haven't seen much of it, but every episode I've seen has never been compelling enough for me to sit through it.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-02-04 07:39am

Vympel wrote:Hey, even Lord Poe likes Voyager. He's said so on more than one occasion. I haven't seen much of it, but every episode I've seen has never been compelling enough for me to sit through it.

It has it's moments. Timeless is still one of my favourite Star Trek episodes, with tons of great scenes (especially as Chakotay shines his flashlight over the frozen corpses of Paris and Janeway - spine-chilling stuff. Burton really is quite a good director)

Doctor Doom · Post by **Doctor Doom** » 2006-02-04 01:24pm

Star Trek IV was an amusing movie. While I agree that they could have done something more epic in its stead, I don't think a simple comedy can really be considered to be a nail in the coffin of the franchise, especially when compared to the other drivel thats been churned out since.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2006-02-04 02:15pm

JME2 wrote:For television, ENT. I thought that with everything that had happened with VGR, the studio would get is shit together. Now, "Broken Bow" had flaws to be sure. But it was also exciting and really captured the spirit of being out in space and the prequel setting. We were finally going to see the Earth-Romulan Wars and the formation of the UFP.

And what did we get? The following episode focused on a slug. Too bad Manny Cote wasn't on board from the start. And sympathies go out to Pocket Books for their planned ENT novel relaunch; imagine having to connect Season 4 with the POS of TATV...

The following episode focused on the ship coming across a derelict with a murdered crew that were strung up onto the ceiling so that their bodily fluids could be sucked out for unknown purposes. The slug was a really minor element in it.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-02-04 02:21pm

The following episode focused on the ship coming across a derelict with a murdered crew that were strung up onto the ceiling so that their bodily fluids could be sucked out for unknown purposes. The slug was a really minor element in it.

Didn't the one where Trip got pregnant come before the one with the vampires

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2006-02-04 02:47pm

Bounty wrote:
The following episode focused on the ship coming across a derelict with a murdered crew that were strung up onto the ceiling so that their bodily fluids could be sucked out for unknown purposes. The slug was a really minor element in it.
Didn't the one where Trip got pregnant come before the one with the vampires :?

No, that was after. And that episode really was terrible.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2006-02-08 01:34am

Given the contempt I've developed for all things Berman in the Franchise —hell, for the Franchise itself— it'd have been easy for me to offer a pithy comment about the whole TNG era. But if I had to give a serious answer on the question, I'd say the biggest waste was Deep Space Nine. It had interesting characters, a potentially winning background story, and a different perspective on the supposedly all-perfect Federation. It was all pissed away first for a PR-stunt Fed/Klingon War and then when that didn't work, they went straight for a pallid ripoff of Babylon 5. They turned Odo into a lovesick simp and Dukat into a gibbering Snidley Whiplash with red contact-lenses. A real waste. Terry Farrell was smart to bail out when the opportunity presented itself to get on a real show.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-02-08 01:36am

Just to add Patrick Degan's post (in the uniform thread that he meant to put here and which he is surely at this very moment actually putting here)- Gul Dukat. Why the hell did they turn him into some sort of Pah-Wraith religious nut? Did anyone else think he'd be better off in Damar's positon?

Eframepilot · Post by **Eframepilot** » 2006-02-08 05:43am

Vympel wrote:Just to add Patrick Degan's post (in the uniform thread that he meant to put here and which he is surely at this very moment actually putting here)- Gul Dukat. Why the hell did they turn him into some sort of Pah-Wraith religious nut? Did anyone else think he'd be better off in Damar's positon?

The writers apparently got interested in bringing back Sisko's mystical role as Emissary as an important part of his character, so they turned his archenemy Gul Dukat into the Anti-Emissary. I didn't mind the transformation so much as the really lame way they resolved it, with some book that had never been mentioned before being the key to everything and Sisko and Dukhat's plunge into the fires of Mount Doom. Very anticlimactic and unconnected to the Dominion War.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2006-02-08 05:52am

I've got to agree on the Gul Dukat issue. One didn't need an "anti-emmissary" to expand on Sisko's role of "emissary", which is really that of bridging two very different worlds that are connected to each other. We didn't need any of the pseudo Christian Christ-AntiChrist business. Gul Dukat was far more interesting as a man whose megalomania overshadowed and subverted all of his virtues.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-02-08 05:52am

Did anyone else think he'd be better off in Damar's positon?

No. Sacrifice of Angels made it clear he finally went off the deep end. There was a subtle buildup for weeks (just look at his conversations with Kira, where he wonders why the Bajorans never gave him a statue - the man was a few fries short of a Happy Meal, he just hid it well) and the loss of Ziyal kicked him over the edge. He was broken, nuts and a traitor, which sorta gets in the way of putting him in charge of the Cardassian military.

As a resistance fighter...maybe that would've worked, but then you wouldn't have the Damar/Weyoun interactions building up to his treason.

I didn't like the mystical crap either, but it didn't bother me.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-02-08 07:37am

He never appeared a few fries short of a happy meal before he was written that way. The writers fucked him up, hence a waste. He was a complicated character before that.

Kenoshi · Post by **Kenoshi** » 2006-02-08 08:00am

Biggest waste in my eyes was Data. Throughout TNG they built up his character, showing some real hope that he could evolve and eventually fulfill his quest to have emotions of his own. Then on the two parter that led into the fifth season they really got my hopes up, making it look like he finally did have feelings, only to have it be his brother Lore messing with him. And it just went downhill from there....in Generations they undercut all that development and just plugged an emotion chip into him and turned it into an excuse for a bunch of lame humor. Then in First Contact he could just turn his emotions on and off at will, then by Insurrection they were gone. And I won't even get into how Nemesis screwed things up.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-02-08 08:02am

then by Insurrection they were gone

Considering he was smiling and cracking jokes throughout the movie, I think it was on.

Kenoshi · Post by **Kenoshi** » 2006-02-08 08:03am

Bounty wrote:
then by Insurrection they were gone
Considering he was smiling and cracking jokes throughout the movie, I think it was on.

Mmmm, then it was in Nemesis that it was gone. Admittedly Insurrection is one big unpleasent blur in my memory by now.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-02-08 10:50am

I wonder how many people who are rallying against DS9 would think differently had DS9 had the time to have a proper ending and not make use od a Dues Ex style series finale episode.

Some times good stories are ruined by Dues Ex endings, or in the very least rushed endings.

DS9 had the build up to a massive war. They actualy bothered to fight it over 2 seasons (better then the 4 episode war Berman wanted), and then suddenly the entire war is finished in a single series finale.

I have to wonder how DS9 might have gone had Ira Steven Behr been able to tell Berman to fuck off completely. Berman butted his head into that series on more then one ocassion. Ever notice how DS9 almost had some very emotional stunning moments, almost but not quite? That was Berman telling them to tone it down. Dax was supposed to be killed in cold blood, shot in the back. Berman wanted Dax to get off a shot in defense.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2006-02-08 11:33am

In terms of a series being a 'waste'; Voyager. Though Enterprise is a close second. Enterprise became a waste the first three minutes into the pilot when a Klingon crashed on earth instead of a Romulan. It reaffirmed it's waste title in the next four or five episodes with a Klingon Battle Cruiser, holodecks, and 'stealth' like cloaks.

But as I was saying, Voyager is probably the worst in terms of a wasted series. A lone ship, off in the final frontier, where no man/woman has gone before. And what do we get? Same old shit from TNG, complete with various holodeck episodes.

But for the real waste of Star Trek, you have to dig a few layers down. The lack of memory of the writters and continuity from show to show or even in the shows themselves. Great characters or potentially great characters that are never seen again. Great plot lines or even cool plot devices that fall into oblivion.

Where's Maxwell, Leyton, Pressman or Shelby again? Brenteen? Great characters. Where the fuck is Thomas Riker? Yeah he got another episode in DS9, then nothing.

If you don't show these people, why not refer to them? After the break out of the Dominion War, why wasn't Leyton a rallying call for disgruntled Starfleet Personel?

The 'waste' of Star Trek is they do a self contained episode with every single episode where every character development (or if not all, a shit load) is forgotten by the next writter and the next episode, as are the events. Where are the Warp speed limits? Solution Waves? Transwarp and Slipstream?

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2006-02-08 11:44am

Alyeska wrote:I wonder how many people who are rallying against DS9 would think differently had DS9 had the time to have a proper ending and not make use od a Dues Ex style series finale episode.

DS9 had all the time in the world to do a decent finale, they just would have to ditch the baseball episode and the like and use them for the war story.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-02-08 11:47am

Crazedwraith wrote:
Alyeska wrote:I wonder how many people who are rallying against DS9 would think differently had DS9 had the time to have a proper ending and not make use od a Dues Ex style series finale episode.
DS9 had all the time in the world to do a decent finale, they just would have to ditch the baseball episode and the like and use them for the war story.

The baseball episode was awesome. I don't get why people hate it so much...I can understand if you want to get rid of the MU episodes or the Ferengi comedy, but TMOTTH ?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-02-08 11:50am

Alyeska wrote:I wonder how many people who are rallying against DS9 would think differently had DS9 had the time to have a proper ending and not make use od a Dues Ex style series finale episode.

I only barely watched the series finale and I consider most of DS9 to be a waste; just a half-assed Babylon 5 copy without the suicide-inducing dialogue.

I'm personally almost ready to just swear off everything post-TOS. Overall, for me there's really nothing worth it anymore, and my childhood interest has gradually transformed from disinterest into hatred and contempt...

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2006-02-08 11:50am

I thought it was a good episode it was merely an example on an episode that could have been done in any series and didn't advance the war plot at all.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-02-08 11:56am

Overall, for me there's really nothing worth it anymore, and my childhood interest has gradually transformed from disinterest into hatred and contempt...

My, my, aren't we bitter...

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-02-08 12:00pm

I'm not bitter about it, I simply don't like it anymore. And it's not my fault that modern Star Trek has developed a bitter taste with time. It has become almost the ultimate expression in television mediocrity.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-02-08 12:02pm

Well for those of us who never saw B5, DS9 wasn't a copy of B5 and was quoite enjoyable in that sense.

Sonnenburg · Post by **Sonnenburg** » 2006-02-08 05:41pm

I've always enjoyed DS9. I think the reason was in part that they had the annoying character (because modern Trek must have an annoying character) and instead of saying, "They don't like Bashir, what's wrong with them?" they said "They don't like Bashir, what's wrong with him?" and fixed it.

Take Voyager, on the other hand, and it's "They don't like Neelix... perhaps more Neelix episodes will change their mind."