Star Trek meme!

[selenak]

From several people on my flist by now, and because, as artaxastra remarked the other day, I am a fandom dinosaur...



FAVORITE THINGS:

Star Trek Series: DS9, with TNG right behind it

Star Trek Movie: Wrath of Khan, followed closely by First Contact

Star Trek Character: One for the entire freakin' universe? Ah, well. Quark wins over Garak and Jean-Luc Picard and Dax and Spock and Q and Seven, all of whom I do love dearly.

Star Trek Pairing: Garak/Bashir ties with Dax/Quark. What? "All true love is unrequited", to quote another space show.

Alien Race: Cardassian-Ferengi tie. It really depends on my mood.

Alien World: Cardassia. Not in the sense of wanting to live there, of course! Closely followed by: Vulcan.

Federation Class Starship: Galaxy Class. Enterprise-D, my favourite E of them all.

TOS Episode: "The Trouble with Tribbles" (won't ever be not funny) ties with "Journey to Babel" (Vulcan family drama!)

TNG Episode: "All Good Things..." , the finale. Still, imo, the best of the Trek finales. It served the entire ensemble well, summed up what I loved about the show, and had it ending on a high note. If it doesn't count because it is technically two episodes, I'm going with "Family", which is the episode that made me fall in love, and also the one which retrospectively was crucial for Trek, because it was the first time something major that happened to a character (Picard's stint as Locutus of Borg) wasn't ignored in the next episode but written as a lingering emotional trauma he needed to deal with.

DS9 Episode: "In the Pale Moonlight" certainly gets my vote for best and most quintessential DS9 episode, but do I love it most? Mmmm. On some days. On others, I'm going with "Trials and Tribble-ations" as the best Trek/Trek crossover ever and such a love declaration to both ensembles, or with "The Wire" because among tough competition, it's my favourite episode for either Garak and Bashir, or with "House of Quark" because Ferengi/Klingon culture clash for the win, and Quark wins the day by being clever and brave in a Ferengi, not a Klingon way, and first signs of Quark-Rom fraternal love and... you see my problem?

VOY Episode: "Someone to Watch Over Me" (aka the Doctor and Seven show; who just happen to be my favourite VOY characters)

ENT Episode: only saw three of the first season and all of the fourth. The Mirror Universe one, probably.

Star Trek Quote:

"Jean-Luc, Jean-Luc, sometimes I think the only reason why I come here are those wonderful speeches of yours." Q in "True Q".


LEAST FAVORITE THINGS:

Star Trek Series: ENT. Sorry, guys.

Star Trek Movie: To my surprise, it's not ST V (aka What Does God Want With A Space Ship?); no, I dislike ST: The Slow Motion Picture even more. The Shatnerian extravaganza had some fun moments.

Star Trek Character: Jonathan Archer

Star Trek Paring: Chakotay/Seven. On Seven's behalf, not Chakotay's.

Alien Race: the Kazon. Poor, underdeveloped and badly written things. See, the Ferengi started out badly, too, but then they got DS9, so a bad start is no excuse!

Alien World: Dead heat between several "just like Earth in historical period X" worlds on TOS. So not fond of this concept. But the chicago gangsters were semi-amusing and the Romans allowed for some cute cracks about ratings and tv, so really, how to beat the Yanks and the Coms and Kirk reading from the Declaration of Independence? Easy. The winner is: the planet featured in "Patterns of Force". Yep, the one with the Nazis.

Federation Class Starship: no objections to any of them.

TOS Episode: "Patterns of Force". As opposed to "Spock's Brain", which is unintentionally hilarious, this is just insultingly dumb. Closely followed by: Turnabout Intruder. ST sexism at its worst.

TNG Episode: Which one was the Riker-centric endless flashback show?

DS9 Episode: The one with teenage Molly, wild-child. It's even worse to watch now because AtS sort of went there with Connor and did it so much better...

VOY Episode: "Threshold"

ENT Episode: The series finale. People, even with my very limited show knowledge, what were you thinking? You could have done that episode in the middle of any season and it would have been okay. Not bad, not excellent, just okay. But as a show finale, it was horrible.


Star Trek Quote:

Can't quote it by heart, but it's O'Brien calling Sisko the best Captain he ever served with in the s3 finale. This is where my inner child gets active and yells "you served with Jean-Luc Picard, too, Miles, and I don't care whether the Sisko becomes a god or not, the Picard is better!"


CHOICES:

Trekkie or Trekker? Either.

Kirk or Picard? Picard. Oh Captain, my Captain.

Defiant or Delta Flyer? Defiant.

Tribbles or Targs? Tribbles

Coffee, Black or Tea, Earl Grey? Tea.

Porthos or Spot? Spot, of course. Insert Data's ode here.

EMH or Data? EMH. I mean, I like Data, but the Doctor (no, not that one) is for the win, even if his show isn't.

Pah-wraiths or Prophets? Neither. Bah. Loathe the Prophets. I have serious Prophet issues. Gimme Q any time, if it has to be one of these semi-divine beings.

Comments

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm working my way through TNG right now, and I feel like I'm doing some kind of archeological work or something--digging through all the fannish tropes from the time when they weren't actually tropes yet. Kind of like re-reading LotR, but with sci-fi instead of fantasy. It's very interesting.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Though I was thinking about wild Molly the other day, when there was that story about the Cambodian woman who may or may not have spent 18 years living wild in the jungle.

[leyenn.livejournal.com]

Damn it, another meme I'm going to have to steal from you!

[crossoverman.livejournal.com]

I loathe ENT, so I don't care if the last episode pissed off any of its fans - it was like a bonus episode of TNG. And the Trek send-off at the end was wonderful.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Alien World: [...] Closely followed by: Vulcan.

Hooray!

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

TOS Episode: [...] ties with "Journey to Babel" (Vulcan family drama!)

Hooray!

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Which one was the Riker-centric endless flashback show?

"Shades of Grey." And that one definitely gets my vote, too. :P

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Archaelogy is a good word for it, and I can see the comparison with LotR after one is familiar with so much later fantasy first. I'm really glad I watched TNG back when it aired, because if it were a new show today, I doubt I would make it through the very shaky first season... and I would have missed a lot, later.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

It's not the concept I had a problem with but the execution. Stories about wild children - the French "wolf boy" or Kaspar Hauser, for example - always fascinated me, but that episode? Fell flat. IMO, of course.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Do your best.*g*

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I had no passionate feeling about ENT one way or the other (well, except for: how come Firefly didn't get renewed but this was, and you know, boys, you should give the Trek'verse a rest for a few years), and I loved TNG, but I still think that episode, in its context as a series finale, was bad. Especially since the much bashed Berman and Braga can and did do better. Just compare it with the Braga and Moore written TNG finale, which also presents the series characters several years in the future - but they have moved on, they have changed. You can see the writers thought about them, what their lives would be. Whereas the future ENT characters were precisely where they had been when the show started. So, as nice as it was to see Riker and Troi again, and as nostalgic as the send-off made me feel - it utterly failed as what it was intended to be, the finale of that particular show.

Speaking of bonus TNG, btw: even that was done better, by VOY - I'm thinking specifically of the episode centred around Barclay and Troi as his therapist. The reason why this works better for me is not just because Barclay and Troi are well written but because it contributes to the show it's actually in. There is important progress achieved - Barclay doesn't just work through his own issues but at the end has found a genuine way for the Voyager people to communicate with the Alpha Quadrant - and that way is used for the rest of the show.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Spock, Amanda and Sarek: the original dysfunctional Trek family. I love them a lot.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Worst clip show ever. You know, Xena actually came up with a way to make one of those that wasn't boring and an obvious cheap way to save money but entertaining, so "the writers were on strike and we needed to save budget" is no excuse...

[crossoverman.livejournal.com]

I had given up on VOY by the time that episode aired - and I never got around to watching it. VOY also had a terrible final episode.

Now I know that Braga did better in the past (on TNG, with Moore), but Berman isn't responsible for writing anything terribly good. I'm going to say the pilot of DS9 was all Michael Piller - and Berman just got credit because he was the Exec Producer and "creator".

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Sarek is, without a doubt, my top ST character. In some alternate universe, 1973 heralded the spinoff "Star Trek: Vulcan Embassy", and I own every episode on DVD.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Which was the Xena one?

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I don't remember that one at all. Perhaps fortunately, because I thought Riker was a waste of their oxygen supply.

(I'm in this great position where Trek has faded in my memory to the extent that pretty much only the interesting things are left, and most of the bad things are gone. Except for a couple of Voyager eps where Seven is teaching grade school. But they'll go soon.)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I think the title was "The Xena Scrolls". Renee O'Connor plays an Indiana-Jones type archaelogist who unearths evidence Xena lived. Lucy Lawless is... reporter, I think? It's been a while. Ted Raimi is the French archaelogist competitor. Ares, being a god, is still around as himself. In between there are clips, and it's really funny and entertaining.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd love to have seen that. How I rejoiced when they brought him back for TNG's episode Sarek!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Well, for one thing, Berman was de facto main producer for TNG from the second season onwards, and TNG definitely benefited from it. For another, here are some of the episodes where he's credited as writer or co-writer:

"Brothers" (aka the one where Data takes over the Enterprise and has his family meeting with Lore and Dr. Soong - still the most effective use of either Lore or Soong on TNG, I think); the credit says "written by Rick Berman"

"Ensign Ro" ("story by Rick Berman and Michael Piller")

"Unification I and II" (story by...)

"The Maquis I and II" (story by...)

So yes, he can do better. Even if he's just providing the story, or part of same.

[crossoverman.livejournal.com]

Well, okay, I'll concede that Brothers is a very good episode.

However, a "story by" credit doesn't prove much at all.

Certainly "Unification" was probably Berman saying "Hey, I got Leonard Nimoy on board - go write an episode!"

And "The Maquis" was written to set up VOY.

While Roddenberry did leave him in charge of TNG, I certainly think the writing staff at large were the major force of creativity - given how wildly off the tracks things became when he started getting regular story credits on VOY and co-writing eps of ENT.

For all intents and purposes, Berman was the money side of the Berman/Piller team. Piller was the creative force that actually ran the writing room.

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

This made me smile so much! You are such a good fandom Pterodactyl! I'm with you on a lot of these, or I just edge out one episode with another. For example, the House of Quark is a wonderful episode, but I think I would have edged it out with Our Man Bashir. I might edge out Journey to Babel with Space Seed, though I love both episodes dearly. All Good Things is wonderful, but I also dearly love Starship Mine, Remember Me, and of course Best of Both Worlds extravagantly.

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, I *must* do this meme. And I'm so with you on most of it.

...though they should have a space for <>least fave pairing, so I can throw Janeway/Chakotay out an airlock. *rereads meme* Oh wait, they do. How did I mis that?


...damit, I need more Trek icons. Or at least one.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Embrace the Trek! Or something.*g*

There are some icon communities, though most of mine came from personal requests to icon makers....