Category Archives: star trek

Re-watch of Star Trek TNG 1-2

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Recently Netflix carries the Star Trek series where I live, so I decided to make a re-watch of Star Trek Next Generation.
Just finished the first 2 seasons, occasionally while doing some other stuff, like ripping some CDs.
Let’s face it, seasons 1 and 2 are not too strong, so I often found me leaving the episode running while changing CD (and editing the CDDB entry), but a few episodes did catch me.
Unlike some others I do like Q, episodes, sometimes for the sense of fun, sometimes for the challenges to characters.
Q Who? is my favourite until the end of season 2. What can compete with Q, Guinan … and The Borg ? For me that is a winner combination
One other season 2 episode is just excellent : “The Measure of a Man”
In season 1 I would also mention Datalore (yes, the introduction of Lore), and The Neutral Zone (The Romulans are back, and we get the indication of a new, very powerful adversary).
In season 2 I would mention Where Silence has Lease, Contagion (The Iconians make for a fun episode, once more with the Romulans), The Emissary (turning a disadvantage into an advantage – and Peak Performance.
Elementary, dear Data for the fun gets an honourable mention from me.
Yes, this is all my own experience, feel free to disagree.

 

Starting Season 3 it is clear that here is where some better episodes begin to appear. More on that later, and also a list of stuff I have watched and read since I moved back to Denmark. The list is not exactly short, and I may write some quick reviews of some of those at a later stage.

Photo a Week #5 Fan model at Fedcon

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At a large convention like Fedcon you are likely to find a lot of people having built models (sometimes full size) of science fiction icons.

R2D2

R2D2 rolling around among participants of Fedcon

It is quite amazing how much attention to detail there is. The guy with the remote control told me that he built the whole thing – except for the dome that was machine made. Well done !

The other thing found rolling around was a Dalek from Doctor Who :

Photo a Week #4 Jonathan Frakes at Fedcon 2012

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This week’s photo was taken at the Fedcon in Düsseldorf, Germany in May this year.

A very entertaining actor, he suddenly left the stage and walked among the audience.
When he passed right by me I was quick enough with the camera to catch this picture :

Frakes walking by

Jonathan Frakes walking among the audience.

The colours come from the stage lighting, I like the mood of the picture.

As an experiment it may be worth trying to convert this picture to black/white.

Meta : A look at the “After Hugo2010” activities.

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When I have finished the reading/watching and voting for the Hugo Awards – some time in Early August I have a few things in mind that I would like to do, SciFi wise.

Audio stories :

Catching up on some podcasts – they all have some absolutely marvelous stories (even if not all will be to my liking, there wil be many I like :
– early Escape Pod
– Podcastle
– Starhip Sofa
and other audio drama/audio book podcasts

– Doctor Who (Big Finish) stories – there is a lot, some very good, some ok-ish

Video :

– All of Lost – whenever the last season DVD set is out – it will be an all new one for me long term
– Older Doctor Who , long term project
– Detailed rewatch of Babylon 5 with lots of comment on this blog – will take a lot of time, probably with watching almost every episode twice, so please be patient. Also some comparison to Star Trek DS9 – probably an episode every one or two weeks on average, yes, it will be a long term project
Since I have seen B5 a few times by now, each episode review will probably be a relatively spoiler free post, followed by a review in the context of the whole story – possibly with some extra comments on issues of special interest to me (and hopefully others)
– Rewatch of (more or less) all Star Trek, with blog comments on the episodes I enjoy – another long term project
– Supernatural (first watch) – it comes recommended
– Second seasons of Dollhouse and Fringe
– Chuck – that is a fun one

All this will be a bit at a time, no great marathons, except when I visit a good scifi friend

Dexter – not scifi, but good TV drama, *very dark*

… and much more

Books :

– All of George RR. Martin’s Son of Ice and Fire – well, what is out there, since he will be Guest of Honor at the Eastercon/Olympus2012 in London – I got through the first volume Game of thrones by now
More Dresden Files books – they are fun and I got through the first two for now
– Dan Simmons’ Hyperion series
– Babylon 5 books, including the script books series – partly in conjunction with re-watching the series

– Some graphic novels and comics, especially ones written by J. Michael Straczynski, but others, too

…and much more reading of scifi/fantasy old and new that I cannot yet specify

If this looks like a lot …. well, it is, and I am probably not going to get any of it done fast, but here we go, and I will see how much will be achieved

Lately I have re-entered into building electronics equipment, and this will take some time from the scifi stuff – yes , I am prioritizing, so some scifi stuff will be done

For now, until the end of July, the Hugo awards’ stuff has high priority

Charles Stross hates Star Trek and Babylon 5 etc.

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Here is a comment I made to Charles Stross’ blog post about scifi genre TV.

I find his views rather extreme, though he has, in part retracted his “hate” of B5, and some of the comments he makes are actually a bit on the comical side. Read his post and judge for yourself. I think he makes some sweeping generalisations that do not hold water.

I will add more comments later (yes I have some comments on the irony of what he has posted)

Comment :
*****
As someone possibly more dated as you, Charlie, allow me a few comments on your post.

Apologies for the lengthy comment. If you feel the need, please feel free to edit for length. I will be posting on the subject in more detail on my own blog as well.

I met you and had a bit of a chat at the small con in Copenhagen a few months ago, so I was aware of your dislike of space opera. I am, however, a bit surprised at the strength of that dislike.

I, for one actually like space opera. That you do not is not a problem, we just have to agree to disagree on that.

Since you base the main part of your reasoning about the ST:TNG pilot and the of the Trek derivates, I will start there. You saw some of it and hated it. Then you continue :

– “Babylon Five? Ditto. Battlestar Galactica? Didn’t even bother turning on the TV. I HATE THEM ALL.” (my emphasis)

I see your main complaints as the following (here limited to ST, BSG abd B5, since you imply that they all have exactly the same flaws) :

– “Technobabble”. Agreed, my least favourite aspect of Star Trek. ([tech] the [tech], how awful). I think we can agree that it is most often used as Deus ex Machina in Star Trek.

– “…hit the reset switch at the end of every episode”

– “Sometimes they make at least a token gesture towards a developing story arc but it’s frequently pathetic”

All too true for the majority of Star Trek episodes, even though there are some gems where the technobabble is hardly present and not a part of “the resolution”. Example : “The Inner light” where we get the story of how humans dealt with the situation of a dying ecosphere of their planet (even if they did not survive, they were at least able to tell the story).

I find that none of the above points are true for B5 or BSG, though BSG’s arc seems to have been on hold for a season or two.

Babylon 5 has a planned 5 year overarcing story (with a number of sub-arcs), with excursions into the distant past and distant future, this can hardly be seen as “a token gesture”, even if the last two years had to be compressed into one season, making it truly a 4 year arc due to studio decisions. Not ideal, but the arc was, in general, completed. What came after, when the studio revised its decision is a bit of an afterthought, and filling in some blanks in the original story. Actually, B5 has the structure of a novel, it has just been presented in the audiovisual format.

The BSG ending twist is certainly not very original, it literally has the taste of Deus ex Machina.

– “The biggest weakness of the *entire genre* is this: the protagonists don’t tell us anything interesting about the human condition under science fictional circumstances.”

How can you make such a sweeping generalisation if you have not seen them ? In conjunction with the above statement of “hate them all” I fell that it would be akin to saying “20 years ago I met this [insert *ethnic identity* of choice]. He pissed me off to no end, so now I hate all [*ethnic identity*], – after all they are all the same”. I think we all know what this sounds like, and I doubt that was your intention.

Finally, here comes the biggest surprise for me :
– “….modern audiences want squids in space, with added lasers!”
WHAT !? You can not be serious ! … If this is not a massively sweeping generalisation, I do not know what is. I am glad not every TV viewer in the world sees that statement. Are you psychic (and did not tell us), since you seem to know what all of the TV audience wants ? 😉

I should, however thank you, Charlie, since your post here has given me some input to an article comparing B5 and ST, you know, what it has in common and what not.

I have a few more things to say, but it is already a long comment, so that will have to wait.