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To boldly go...
As the year draws to a close, I'm hit with a nostalgia wave for Star Trek. To be specific, the kind of Star Trek certain people regard as talky, preachy, and not relevant for today's viewers. Now my dvds are in Munich, but thankfully, there is YouTube. Which means I can share some of my nostalgia and maybe convince non-Trek or non-Trek-past-TOS viewers to give the later shows another look.
One of my favourite TNG episodes is Darmok, in which the Enterprise comes across aliens who communicate in metaphor. Since these metaphors are drawn from stories the Enterprise crew isn't familiar with, it takes them a while to figure this out (the universal translator is no help, since it does only literal translation), but figure it out they do. In this scene, Picard, on a planet with one of the aliens, tells a story from human myth - Gilgamesh and Enkidu - to show he understands what has to be the basis now. Behold the days when tv didn't assume the audience would be bored by Sumerian myths, and we got Patrick Stewart's voice to tell them to us:
Darmok is one of the optimistic episodes, and in general TNG was an optimistic show, but they did start what later shows like DS9 did more thoroughly, occasionally explore the darker sides of the human experience. In the two parter Chains of Command, Picard gets captured by the Cardassians and tortured, in scenes pretty closely modelled on George Orwell's 1984. (With "how many lights do you see?" replacing "how many fingers do you see" - the correct answer is as many as your torturer say there are there.) What makes this treatment of torture different from, say, a TOS episode in which Kirk or Spock get captured and tortured, or even a much later variation of the "the hero gets captured and tortured by villains" principle like Babylon 5's Intersections in Real Time is the conclusion, the very last scene which shows Picard after everything is over, and what he admits there. Which makes it one of the most honest treatments of torture in fiction.
The use of torture is more than relevant today, of course. So is the question of civil liberties versus security. In the episode The Drumhead, a case of genuine sabotage has led to more and more paranoia, tighter and tighter security, and general attitudes changing. Then this happens, and think of everything that happened in the last eight years and tell me this isn't topical in a burning way:
Back to the lighter side of TNG. One of the most popular characters of the show was the android Data. The following excerpt from Data's Day is a fun example why, as well as showing the sense of family the TNG crew had:
Jean-Luc Picard - middle aged when we first meet him, restrained (or uptight, depending how you want to put it), uncomfortable with letting people in too close was in many ways the anti-Kirk (if we're thinking tv show era Kirk especially), and deliberately designed to be that way. Of course, Picard's general stoicism made his rare emotional outbursts all the more powerful, and it also created effective dynamics with those rare characters who did manage to get under his skin, and who were almost inevitably trickster types. (One can suspect Picard had a sneaking fondness for tricksters and would be justified.) Two of these were Vash (Indiana Jones style archaeologist and conwoman extraordinaire), with whom he had a fling while vacationing, and Q. (Nearly all powerful entity whose sarcasm doesn't help the fact he also got people killed the first few times Picard met him. Has a thing for the good captain.) Wouldn't you know it, once they visit at the same time:
Ron Moore - he who later went on to become the head honcho of BSG but who started out as a TNG scriptwriter (from TNG's second season till the end), then moved on to DS9 where he became one of the core writers from s3 till the end - once called the relationship between Q and Picard a love story. The actors had fun as well, as you can see in this scene from Tapestry:
After seven seasons, TNG had what is still my favourite finale of any Star Trek series. (Though to be fair, TOS didn't know it would need one, as it got cancelled and thus ended with the lamentably sexist (even for the 60s) "an evil woman snatches Kirk's body because she wants to be Captain" episode.) All Good Things... basically distilled what was best about the show, looked back on the last seven years, gave a glimpse forward and ended with this, which makes me still go awwwww whenever I see it:
DS9 is my favourite Trek incarnation and the one best suited to hit people with (preferably with the dvds, they're nicely heavy and cutting) when they drag out the "Star Trek always had reset buttons and never did any continuity and everyone is bland" clichés. DS9 was the show which, because it wasn't set on a space ship, dealt with ongoing politics in one specific situation - Bajor and Cardassia; the one which had the chance to really explore non-human cultures; the one which didn't just have one alien pov character (i.e. Spock in TOS, Data in TNG) but actually had the non-humans in a majority and the humans in a minority. And it could be deeply sarcastic. This scene basically sums it up. It's a conversation between two of my favourite characters, the Ferengi Quark (barkeep, businessman, and occasional doing the non profitable right thing against his will) and the Cardassian Garak (tailer, spy, endless source of one liners) about the Federation:
DS9 did the educational thing as well. This is Garak dissing Shakespeare when having it out with his favourite luncheon partner, Dr. Julian Bashir (aka the most slashed character on the show):
Julian Bashir at the start of DS9 is all youthful naivete. (Though he has a secret of his own.) By the end of the show, he's no longer naive, but still idealistic. Throughout, he has a fascination with all things espionage. Hence the start of his friendship with Garak, and also one of the funniest DS9 episodes, Our Man Bashir, in which Julian plays James Bond in a holosuite. Till Casino Royale came along, this was my favourite Bond on film, bar none, and way more entertaining than a good many of the 23 movies. Here is a vid summing the episode up:
Good old Voyager. You know, it had some great episodes, but it also was the show where you felt the collective creative spirit waning from the writers and where you - or I, at least - started to think it might be time for all things Star Trek to take a break so that in due time, there could be renewal with non-exhausted writers and new imput. However, Voyager had elements I really loved and enjoy revisiting. One of them is the relationship between the holographic Doctor (terrifically played by Robert Picardo) and the ex-Borg Seven of Nine. Here they are in my last clip:
One of my favourite TNG episodes is Darmok, in which the Enterprise comes across aliens who communicate in metaphor. Since these metaphors are drawn from stories the Enterprise crew isn't familiar with, it takes them a while to figure this out (the universal translator is no help, since it does only literal translation), but figure it out they do. In this scene, Picard, on a planet with one of the aliens, tells a story from human myth - Gilgamesh and Enkidu - to show he understands what has to be the basis now. Behold the days when tv didn't assume the audience would be bored by Sumerian myths, and we got Patrick Stewart's voice to tell them to us:
Darmok is one of the optimistic episodes, and in general TNG was an optimistic show, but they did start what later shows like DS9 did more thoroughly, occasionally explore the darker sides of the human experience. In the two parter Chains of Command, Picard gets captured by the Cardassians and tortured, in scenes pretty closely modelled on George Orwell's 1984. (With "how many lights do you see?" replacing "how many fingers do you see" - the correct answer is as many as your torturer say there are there.) What makes this treatment of torture different from, say, a TOS episode in which Kirk or Spock get captured and tortured, or even a much later variation of the "the hero gets captured and tortured by villains" principle like Babylon 5's Intersections in Real Time is the conclusion, the very last scene which shows Picard after everything is over, and what he admits there. Which makes it one of the most honest treatments of torture in fiction.
The use of torture is more than relevant today, of course. So is the question of civil liberties versus security. In the episode The Drumhead, a case of genuine sabotage has led to more and more paranoia, tighter and tighter security, and general attitudes changing. Then this happens, and think of everything that happened in the last eight years and tell me this isn't topical in a burning way:
Back to the lighter side of TNG. One of the most popular characters of the show was the android Data. The following excerpt from Data's Day is a fun example why, as well as showing the sense of family the TNG crew had:
Jean-Luc Picard - middle aged when we first meet him, restrained (or uptight, depending how you want to put it), uncomfortable with letting people in too close was in many ways the anti-Kirk (if we're thinking tv show era Kirk especially), and deliberately designed to be that way. Of course, Picard's general stoicism made his rare emotional outbursts all the more powerful, and it also created effective dynamics with those rare characters who did manage to get under his skin, and who were almost inevitably trickster types. (One can suspect Picard had a sneaking fondness for tricksters and would be justified.) Two of these were Vash (Indiana Jones style archaeologist and conwoman extraordinaire), with whom he had a fling while vacationing, and Q. (Nearly all powerful entity whose sarcasm doesn't help the fact he also got people killed the first few times Picard met him. Has a thing for the good captain.) Wouldn't you know it, once they visit at the same time:
Ron Moore - he who later went on to become the head honcho of BSG but who started out as a TNG scriptwriter (from TNG's second season till the end), then moved on to DS9 where he became one of the core writers from s3 till the end - once called the relationship between Q and Picard a love story. The actors had fun as well, as you can see in this scene from Tapestry:
After seven seasons, TNG had what is still my favourite finale of any Star Trek series. (Though to be fair, TOS didn't know it would need one, as it got cancelled and thus ended with the lamentably sexist (even for the 60s) "an evil woman snatches Kirk's body because she wants to be Captain" episode.) All Good Things... basically distilled what was best about the show, looked back on the last seven years, gave a glimpse forward and ended with this, which makes me still go awwwww whenever I see it:
DS9 is my favourite Trek incarnation and the one best suited to hit people with (preferably with the dvds, they're nicely heavy and cutting) when they drag out the "Star Trek always had reset buttons and never did any continuity and everyone is bland" clichés. DS9 was the show which, because it wasn't set on a space ship, dealt with ongoing politics in one specific situation - Bajor and Cardassia; the one which had the chance to really explore non-human cultures; the one which didn't just have one alien pov character (i.e. Spock in TOS, Data in TNG) but actually had the non-humans in a majority and the humans in a minority. And it could be deeply sarcastic. This scene basically sums it up. It's a conversation between two of my favourite characters, the Ferengi Quark (barkeep, businessman, and occasional doing the non profitable right thing against his will) and the Cardassian Garak (tailer, spy, endless source of one liners) about the Federation:
DS9 did the educational thing as well. This is Garak dissing Shakespeare when having it out with his favourite luncheon partner, Dr. Julian Bashir (aka the most slashed character on the show):
Julian Bashir at the start of DS9 is all youthful naivete. (Though he has a secret of his own.) By the end of the show, he's no longer naive, but still idealistic. Throughout, he has a fascination with all things espionage. Hence the start of his friendship with Garak, and also one of the funniest DS9 episodes, Our Man Bashir, in which Julian plays James Bond in a holosuite. Till Casino Royale came along, this was my favourite Bond on film, bar none, and way more entertaining than a good many of the 23 movies. Here is a vid summing the episode up:
Good old Voyager. You know, it had some great episodes, but it also was the show where you felt the collective creative spirit waning from the writers and where you - or I, at least - started to think it might be time for all things Star Trek to take a break so that in due time, there could be renewal with non-exhausted writers and new imput. However, Voyager had elements I really loved and enjoy revisiting. One of them is the relationship between the holographic Doctor (terrifically played by Robert Picardo) and the ex-Borg Seven of Nine. Here they are in my last clip:
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I've also somehow fallen into reading DS9 fic, so I'm getting the itch to start collecting those too; it was always the series I knew least well, but I do remember being fond of Quark and Odo. (Which, incidentally, led to me doing a tentative character filter search on ff.net, noting that there were only three stories listed and two of them were by you, and realising that, yup, my unerring talent for fixing on characters and relationships that fandom largely ignores has struck yet again. Although I do also quite like Bashir, so at least I've got something to read. I don't know/remember most of the other characters very well, though Garak is intriguing me in fic.)
I also loved the Holodoc and liked Seven of Nine, but I don't think enough to consider actually purchasing Voyager. I have a couple of episodes on the Q Fan Collective box set and I suspect that's going to be my limit. Unless marathoning the other series causes my obsessive desire to absorb all available canon to kick in. Which it might. Though at the rate I get around to watching DVDs it's probably going to take me till 2011 just to finish TNG.
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PS Re Quark
Re: PS Re Quark
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I hope the new movie brings about a new round of Star Trek love. I could find my Trek squee again.
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Another excellent set of clips.
The only TNG shows I have are the Q episodes and a few assorted others.
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I notice you left out "Enterprise." Good call. :-)
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I forget how good TNG could really be when they let Stewart work. Mainly my recollection of the show is the one, I think, somewhat shared by Ron Moore these days: there was a lot of beige, Borg and endless Spiner characters.
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And wrt Voyager, when I finally watched the whole thing (I had watched the pilot and finale when they first aired, and caught an episode here and there in between), I was surprised to find it better than I was expecting it to be. It did indeed in the end have an overall arc, examine the effects of being marooned from home, and explore hard hitting issues. Unfortunately though, not as much as I had wanted to see; what I had really been hoping the show would be I ultimately found in Firefly, Farscape, and Battlestar Galactica. :-/