"Threshold"?

...was it the one with Warp 10, two hearts and reptiles? Because yeah, I'm having trouble trying to forget that episode ever existed myself.  

Voyager was my least liked Star Trek series for one main reason: They made the Borg looks like complete wussies.  

 

I'd counter that with the fact Voyager had a lot of help in their encounters with the Borg either by using technology from the future or some other method, and still barely managed to survive several of those encounters. Not to mention their conflict with Species 8472 and the Unimatrix Zero resistance probably caused the Borg several set backs.

 

I lost all respect for the Borg in Voyager, in Scorpion Pt 2, where a Borg cube takes what, 2 shots from a bioship, and explodes, and Voyager takes 3, and it's shields go offline, but not one bit of structural damage, no carbon scoring, nothing.

I'd kind of kept up with Voyager until that point, then my trips to it became very few and far between. Ended up seeing most of the rest of the series at some point (my mum liked it because the constant resets meant she didn't need to remember ongoing plot) but far preferred DS9 at the time.

And I'm one of the big Ent fans. I grew up on TOS, and to me, Ent is the closest Trek has come to it. The last episode... eh. Big downer. But the novel that retold those happenings, for Earth security reasons I won't disclose (read the book!), made that episode really worthwhile. Go pick the book up.

 

Deep Space 9 is one of my favorite tv shows of all time, including non-Star Trek stuff. It had a great cast, fantastic writers, and it had a lot of cool ongoing plots. The last couple of seasons with the Dominion war were just fantastic. I only wish they'd killed off Jadzia earlier, as Ezri was one of my favorite characters but we only got her for one year.

Next Gen was a great show, too, but I thought it went downhill towards the end instead of getting better like DS9. The show's biggest problem was that it was pretty much purely episodic. We had a few two-parters and a couple of developing character arcs, but by and large the crew went somewhere, did something, then moved on and didn't look back. There were some great episodes, but I preferred all of the recurring characters and subplots that DS9 had.

Voyager was pretty much a train wreck from the word "go." The early seasons were full of forgettable alien menaces (a few which returned a lot in an obvious attempt to create the next Klingons or Romulans) and a lot of episodes about stupid space anomalies. For awhile there, it seemed like normal space was the actual anomaly, there were so many weird clouds or swirly things out there. Then the later seasons came along and the show basically alternated between two things: episodes about the Doctor or episodes about 7 of 9 (with her ridiculous fanboy pandering catsuit). On top of that, Voyager took the Borg - possibly the awesomest aliens in Star Trek history - and totally and completely ruined them.

Enterprise was also a disaster. The concept was cool enough, but the cast was entirely forgettable and it was painfully obvious that the show was continuing on in the same vein as Voyager (complete with the emotionless busty chick in a catsuit). Enterprise had two good episodes, and those technically didn't even involve the regular cast (I'm talking about the fantastic mirror universe two-parter from the very tail end of the show).

 

Yeah, insurrection was a pretty deflating experience. You get all hyped for a new Star Trek film and...it's...an episode of TNG that lasts for an hour and a half. And not even one of the good episodes of TNG, either - it's like one of those "aw, I don't want to watch 'Sub Rosa,' I'd MUCH rather watch 'Redemption'...but I guess I'll watch 'Sub Rosa' since it's on..." type episodes.

...and then we got Nemesis.  

 

See, this is the reason I ended up enjoying TNG more than I did DS9. It's always been nice and comfortable - at least, to me - to be able to turn on an episode of a TV show or a film and just let it go and enjoy the episode, without having to come to it with prior knowledge.

Now, on the complete other side of this, I love Battlestar Galactica and I really like DS9, but for laundry-folding TV or model-kit-making TV, Voyager and TNG are nice and convenient for their basic episodic structure. And that, in my opinion, makes them "fun" TV - I can come back to them and enjoy an isolated episode, now and then.

 

Borg shield technology works by adapting to what they are being hit with. Until they can adapt though, they are open targets. The problem is that the Borg couldn't figure out how to adapt to species 8472. Federation shields on the other hand are designed to block anything that could damage the ship. As such, the Borg were easy targets for Species 8472 while Voyager's shields could protect them for a couple hits.

 

Question for Trekkies-


What's something like this go for????

 

Money, I would imagine.

 

Or gold pressed latinum depending on location.

And I've only got three of those, but on a first season picture.

 

I love Deep Space Nine because it's deep and involving, and it's the least superficial of the Star Trek series with regards to the characters existing in a living universe.

Most ship-based shows never deal with consequences (or continuity, really) other than events existing in a particular episode. Once a crisis or problem is solved, then they warp off into the great unknown and never look back. Since Deep Space Nine is a station and they don't go off too far form home, stuff that happens in the past can come back later on. Another of DS9's strengths is it's strong guest cast of characters like Gul Dukat, the Female Founder, Damar, General Martok and the always fantastic Garak, and others whom you'll see as the seasons progress.

As the series was partly the responsibility of now Battlestar Galactica boss Ronald D. Moore, it was the Star Trek that pulled no punches. I'd say more but it would be spoiling things.

Deep Space Nine - I fucking love it.

You serious? Alot of people HATE the Ferengi, and for good reason. One of the episodes of that season, even Armin Shimmerman hated.

I tend to disagree with the Bajoran religion thing, since Sisko's Emissary deal IS the main story of Deep Space Nine. Pretty much everything is connected to it, and the actors didn't look uncomfortable at all (aside when required to by the story).

Plus, Emissary is undoubtably the strongest pilot episode of any of the Star Treks, as the story wasn't about going off and having adventures or even about discovering the Wormhole. It was about Sisko coming to terms with his wife's death, which, until he had his wormhold experience, he never did.

Actually, I think DS9 gets alot of flak from the hardcore 'trekkies' and 'trekkers' type of fans who grew up on TOS and TNG. The people who have very specific views about what Star Trek should be and how Our Heroes should conduct themselves. In other words, they believe what Gene Roddenberry (and later Rick Berman) set out, and see DS9 as the opposite of everything Roddenberry stood for.

Also, because Deep Space Nine doesn't 'explore strange new worlds', then it isn't Star Trek in their eyes.

From what I heard, there were plenty of problems with the production that Michael Piller was unhappy with it, Jonathan Frakes (director/Riker) didn't like it, the cast thought it was boring ect.

I question the timeline of Insurrection: it's set in Season 7 of Deep Space Nine, but for some reason the flagship of Starfleet is tooling around space holding gala luncheons for aliens while the rest of the fleet are on rations and fighting for their lives.

If there's one thing I hate about Star Trek as run by Rick Berman is that his productions barely acknowledged the Dominion War, since he personally hated the war and frequently argued with the DS9 producers over it.

 

I'd have to say Sisko eventually got over his wife's death. He ended up getting married to Kasidy Yates after all, even with the Prophets telling him they "walk different paths".

 

I should have worded that better. I meant that before the Prophets forced him to confront his wife's death, he had never moved on. In essence, he never left the Saratoga, and he existed in the past.

I'll go edit the original post.

 

I'm glad to see so many DS9 fans. I just got season five in the mail today, which was the last season I didn't own, meaning I now have the whole series on DVD and it'll be non-stop from here on out.  

 

I understand, I was just going from personal experience. I guess I don't talk to many hardcore fans or convention goers or anything. Just a lot of people who are fans of Star Trek and have watched it pretty steadily really like DS9 from my dealings. Anyways, it will be a while but I do want to own the series to see it all myself.

 

Season 5 is probably the strongest of the entire series  

 

Insurrection took place 6 months after the end of the Dominion War, hence all the gala luncheons and stuff. The Son'a had provided ketracel white to the Dominion for their Jem'Hadar troops, but apparently largely escaped prosecution for it.

This information is also transmitted through the Collective, going by established information. Unless the cube's link to the Collective was cut off, two, maybe three cubes would be destroyed, and then Species 8472's primary weapons would be useless. Voyager also completely ignored previous usage of the Borg, specifically that in Voyager, they only became able to understand something by assimilating it - TNG they still sent boarders across to research. And, again, we come down to the fact that the Borg, whose shields can withstand a Federation fleet or two (not just via adapting, Wolf 359 showed little to no effect with modulation of weapons and shields in dialogue, as IIRC did First Contact), don't even have the defence a far larger and more armoured mass has than a teeny little starship (who again takes 3 shots that do NO DAMAGE). Voyager's credibility went out the window with me on this episode. I never saw Threshold, and most of the earlier episodes I'd been able to accept (like the Kazon having low warp tech but holding a massive empire and being able to get ahead of the far-faster Voyager to lay traps... gah), but Scorpion Pts 1 and 2 was where the show really jumped the shark for me.

 

I found this image of the ST galaxy while websurfing. Nice to have all the locations in perspective.

I tend to view it as my favorite for a number of reasons. The characters are my favorites out of any Trek series, apart from TOS. I really enjoyed the serialized feel of the series as well, and the general change of pace from a starship-based show. DS9's exploration of war over the course of the last two seasons was something Star Trek hadn't attempted on a large scale before. DS9 just did some different things with the Star Trek concept taht none of the other series attempted, and I think it paid off very well.

Conspiracy is a good episode, but every time I go back and revisit seasons one or two, I tend to cringe quite a bit at some of the storytelling and acting. The show didn't really find its groove until season three, though there are some strong episodes in the first two seasons. And of course, the much-missed Tasha Yar can only be seen regularly in the first season, so that's a point in its favor.

Case in point: I recently re-watched "Datalore", a show I remembered with some fondness. And it wasn't very good, to be honest. The crew are a bunch of idiots who get completely suckered by Lore, who couldn't telegraph "I'm evil" any more clearly if he stood on the bridge and shouted it. And what's with the 'let's beam a tree into space and shoot it" plan? Do they have oak trees stored on the Enterprise somewhere? And of course, Wesley figures out what the dumb adults can't, and saves the ship. I like Wesley later on, but he's amazingly annoying in those early episodes.

Well, if the thread is gone you'll just have to start a new one.  

It's a fine send-off for the original crew. As much as I enjoyed seeing Kirk, Scotty and Chekov in "Generations", I almost with that the shot of the Enterprise flying into the sunset had been the final curtain call for the original crew. It's such a good ending for them.

It's just too bad they had to spoil the quiet poignancy of the ending by having Spock tell Starfleet Command to "go to hell".  

Have a look on Ebay. I got season one as a Christmas present, but I bought used copies of all the other seasons on Ebay for a decent price. Seasons 4 and 5 were around $35 to $40 with shipping, but I got all the rest for under $30. I probably only spent $130-$140 (estimate off the top of my head) for the whole series.

TNG and DS9 seem pretty reasonable on Ebay. Voyager and Enterprise are more expensive, with the new version of TOS season 1 being very pricey.

That's the one. Ugh. What a psycho episode.

You know, I remember that Ezri was on the show, but I remember absolutely nothing about her. I was a junior in college when the last season was on the air, so I didn't see much of it at all. I'm looking forward to watching the DVDs.

Voyager never really believed in its premise. If you've ever seen "Year of Hell", that's what all seven seasons of Voyager should have been like, to a certain degree. More and more damage to the ship, loss of supplies, loss of crew.

Ron Moore had an excellent (if very long) take on why he thinks Voyager didn't work. A lot of what he says makes great sense.

http://hypatia.slashcity.org/trekshack/moore.html

Garak is one of the best characters on the show.  

One of the things I appreciate about DS9 is that it makes an attempt to challenge the views of the very humanistic Federation by introducing the Bajoran religion, and by making Sisko a religious figure to the Bajorans, something he's initially very uncomfortable with.

 

As promised, my review of Threshold. This episode has to be seen to be believed.

I remember watching this episode when it aired and saying to myself “What were they thinking?”

The sad thing is, “Threshold” starts with such promise. The idea that a way has been found to break the unbreakable “Warp 10” speed barrier is interesting, and a good hook to get the viewer’s attention. Warp 10 is characterized in the Star Trek universe as “infinite speed”, where the individual traveling at that speed occupies all points in the universe at the same time. Omni-presence. Of course this is a theoretical absurdity, but it is at least an interesting idea to explore, and the potential effects on humanity would be profound. As Janeway notes, “This could change the very nature of our existence.”

Hotshot pilot Tom Paris does the impossible and makes it into the record books. It’s a plot that suits the character well, and Robert McNeill gives a good, solid performance. And even when the episode spirals off into the deep end about halfway through, he still gives a good performance. But it’s not enough to save the story.

Throw scientific plausibility out the window. The warp 10 flight has somehow accelerated evolution for Paris. Never mind that the theory of evolution would indicate that evolution requires change over time for a population, not individuals. Never mind that all the highly-educated, technobabble-spouting 24th century crew of Voyager should know this, particularly the holographic doctor. Never mind that no explanation is ever given for how traveling at infinite speed could cause this “accelerated evolution” to occur. Apparently our bipedal species is destined to turn into some sort of amphibian-slug things that can mate and have offspring in less than three days. I suppose there had to be some plot device to prevent Voyager from traveling at Warp 10 and ending the series then and there, but come on!

And of course, even after Paris and Janeway lose 80% of their body mass and all their internal organs and their outer appearance changes from human to amphibian, the EMH is able to manipulate their DNA and make them fully human again! With no sign that they ever mutated!

At least Brannon Braga has had the good grace to admit that the episode failed. I’m not sure what he was trying to say or do with this episode, but it didn’t work at all.

The verdict: I suppose this episode is bizarrely entertaining in it’s own way, but it’s so wildly implausible that it’s difficult to enjoy. The promising and interesting concept of breaking the warp 10 barrier is ultimately wasted. Some good makeup and good acting and even a strong beginning can’t save this episode from the incredibly bizarre second half. Definitely one of the worst ever episodes of Star Trek.

 

Yeah, there were a lot of "tongue-in-cheek" to eye rolling moments, especially certian episodes when everyone seems to become completely ignorant. The episode in season 2 where Piccard goes to get his heart repaired, Samaritan Snare, and in that episode Riker takes command. Just for the storys sake, he acts completely out of protocol (sending Geordi to the alien ship alone) and decides that he doesn't care in any way about Troi's opinion or warning. And then they made some half-assed way to trick the aliens who instead of making Geordi "make them even stronger" they decide to say "oh your better then us nevermind". Probably my least liked episode of season 1 or 2.

However, it's just that watching now, I know what it was doing. It was still the late mid 80's, they were trying NOT to be corny or over the top, but still keep the cheesy vibe of TOS, and they had to test the waters a great deal to gage fan reaction. On top of that, the crew members had to establish their characters and impress people so obsessed with Kirk and the original cast. I guess I just view it as a fledgling series, trying to bring ST back to television after so many years, so I am forgiving. Again, that's just why I think that now, with more seasoned shows that really had their way paved with TNG, seem much better. Techinically, they are, but I just enjoy watching the episodes as is and enjoying the cheesiness.

I will!