Broke Warp 10, had magic space-lizard babies; the new STAR TREK thread.

[Greg Nog]

Old Star Trek thread was at 20 pages (y'all have no idea how much joy it brings me to type that).

Title is based on "Threshold", which is the single worst episode of any Star Trek I've ever seen.  It's an episode of Voyager that's so laughably terrible, it makes Season 1 of TNG look like Wrath of Khan.

[Ashley]

Greg what am I supposed to watch if not voyager.

[Greg Nog]

Farscape, maybe?  I've seen probably half of Voyager, and regretted it, and about half of Enterprise, and regetted it SEVERELY.

Although you should watch Threshold; it's not just bad, it's The Room bad.

[ellaguru]

I thought the first season of Enterprise was pretty good (relative to the first seasons of the other Star Trek series. But then the quality went through the floor so fast I only made it a few episodes into season two.

[Good Intentions]

Man, I was thinking for days what to call the new Star Trek thread. I was thinking 'Fundamental Attribution Error in Space', but that wasn't quite zingy enough. Same with 'USS Deus Ex Machina'. I was thinking of 'Saturday Morning Breakfast Holodeck', but not quite sold on it.

[mixed cats]

"Majel Barrett Narrates Your Life"?

[YojimboMonkey]

Supposedly my best friend for life is getting us tickets to a William Shatner meet & greet type opportunity this summer.  I think I'm going to get a copy of Has Been on vinyl and get him to sign it.  (The Transformed Man on vinyl is waaaaaaaaay too pricey)

[Greg Nog]

Tell the Shat we think he could beat Pine in a fistfight!

[davy]

Here's a question: Is there anything Stargate-related that is worth watching?

[Greg Nog]

Oh!  I have that same question!  It's a big sci-fi universe of which I know nothing!

[YojimboMonkey]

I watched the first several seasons of SG-1 on hulu recently.  I don't know why I stopped actually.  Anyway, there's a lot that's not great (the characters, the writing) but the universe does get more or less compelling as they build canon. 

I was watching Stargate:Universe for a while on DCDave's recommendation, it started out pretty strong mostly but the overall quality went down quickly (though there were still some strong episodes).  Though there is one character that is simultaneously both Alex Rogan and Seth Rogen.

[YojimboMonkey]

Basically SG-1 is like 10 seasons of poor to mediocre TNG

[dieblucasdie]

Well, that's a road I've never gone down myself, but seasons 6 and 7 (and then through 10) of SG-1 are generally what get repped for the hardest.  And the first few seasons of Atlantis.  

I generally have the understanding that SG-1 is a lot like TNG, actually:  a handful of talented actors, some sketchy ep-by-ep writing, and some amazing episodes scattered throughout its run, with a few unquestionably solid seasons towards the mid-end of its run, and despite (because?) of its flaws, it's responsible for a generation of sci-fi fans who grew up watching it in syndication.

And Amanda Tapping kind of rules; despite disliking the few episodes I've caught here and there, I have a sort of general goodwill toward the series because of her.

edit:

Maybe Voyager is the better comparison.  Imagine the best episodes of Voyager, made just a touch more boring.  But "boring" in a pleasant, Canadian sort of way

[YojimboMonkey]

holy shit look at this fuckin record player

[Greg Nog]

I can't see it!  Link?

[YojimboMonkey]

http://twitpic.com/178cjq

[Greg Nog]

Holy crap, that is excellent!

[Good Intentions]

'Disaster' starts off with another of those shamelessly manufactured self-contained crises that is the episodic-tv cross that Star Trekis nailed to, and you'd think given that just about every instalment starts this way they'd be better at giving Today's Hootenany a bit more weight. But they aren't. So, after a lamentably -- and typically -- limp opening places our regular cast outisde of their usual places, and the never-before-seen crew members squarely into harms way, we go on our way.

Except this episode is great. OK, the bridge crew built up so much momentum from their start at acting helpless and directionless that they continue doing so far, far too long. And the Crusher/La Forge events is yet another example of how Imaginary People with Made Up Expertise Save the Day (btw, now I know what I would've called the new Star Trek thread). But Patrick Stewart is his usual stellar self, outacting everybody in leaps and bounds (even in the face of a rather hammy script). I especially enjoyed the swap of roles between his character and Troi. And the Keiko/Worf arc is wonderfully pulled off. I was actually grinning at the end. One of the best bits of episodic TV I've seen.

[Greg Nog]

Yes!  My favorite part of that episode is when O'Brien and Ro are like, "We think we ran into a cosmic string" and Troi's all, "Oh!  Like in string theory!" and they both kind of stare at her for a second like neither one wants to be the person who has to say "God DAMN it you are so useless"

[Good Intentions]

And then the very next episode, 'The Game', sucks balls! And fucking Wesley Crusher saves the day again, after being on the ship for what, 10 hours? FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

[YojimboMonkey]

You got Unification coming up though, rad 2-parter

[Good Intentions]

First the crew have to finish chasing Wesley around the terminals in engineering.

I hope they catch him, lynch him, and then neckshot the writers for that episode. I fucking hate Wesley Crusher.

[Greg Nog]

It's bizarre how easily they just kind of dropped him from the universe.  I'd like to see a TNG movie where he's a waiter in some bar in Detroit or something.

[Good Intentions]

And then the disastrous calamity gets resolved in about 90 seconds, which is half as long as they then spend showing Wesley smooching somebody. What the fuck is this? Do they in fact air all the fan-written scripts that get sent to them, and use Wesley as the stand-in for the Mary Sue? What a shitty, shitty 44 minutes of television.

[YojimboMonkey]

In an epic bit of fan fiction that exists only in my head, due to the confluence of a decaying wormhole, an early slower-than-light colony ship, and an insane offshoot of Wesley's nanite colony, Wesley Crusher is at least partially at fault for the existence of the Borg collective (giving him more credit than is due, as the writers so often did, but at least this time he's likely to be lynched by survivors of planets devastated by the Borg or possibly even just straight-up shot in the head by Cpt Sisko.)