i did see the ibm commercials... and i was very happy to see avery brooks! hearing his voice again gave me chills. ds9 was an incredible show... too bad it's over... those 7 years went by super fast. hopefully we'll see more of them in one of the future films. same goes for voyager.

anyway, just thought i'd throw in my two cents... or twelve. more like thirty. hehe.

night,
jeron

I might get lynched as well, btu let me preface my comments by saying I've been a Trek fan since the original series back in the 60's.

Now... I didn't see the season finale yet (I watched the Spin City finale), but I'm sure it's as bad as the whole season of Voyager. Compared to the other three series', Voyager needs to be blown up right away. It stinks. No wonder Paramount is making sure that the next series will be good.

Just my two cents.

Jeron

PS - Marian, I'm with you on DS9! I was *extremely* sad to see that show go... And yeah... it was fantastic from the beginning!

My favoprite episode was that one called "Sacrifice of Angels." Way cool space battle. They shoulda saved it for the Xth Trek movie.

On the other hand, I found "Deep Space Nine" to be completely engaging. It was the least popular of all the shows (I remember a friend of mine incensed about how all the Trekkers were complaining about how bad "Voyager" was while completely ignoring "DS9;" "Don't they have any idea what's going on in that show?" he lamented), but it had a gritty truth to it that I think didn't sit well with all the "In Star Trek the future is perfect" new-age type Trekkers.

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Originally posted by vulcantouch:
lotta people don't seem to grasp the nature of the episodic-tv beast, especially for a genre as ambitious as galactic sci-fi. they ridiculously expect every episode to be a keeper.

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Sure, there were some absolutely GREAT episodes, but they were sandwiched by utterly
stupid episodes.

Like one where they play baseball, against a group of....Vulcans?!

After dinking around with various villains and gimmiks for the first few years (most of them stupid.) It's like they RUINED whatever they touched. Honestly, who ever gave the Kazon ANY credence whatsoever? Who remembers how they made the Romulan Tal'Shiar, the deadliest covert organization this side of the Obsidian Order, into a group of bumbling nincompoops? Then they finally found the Borg.

Oops.

I continue to maintain that Voyager have CHEAPENED the idea of the Borg (of course, so did "First Contact") reducing them from what was once a powerful statement about dystopian collectivism to a hackneyed "individualism GOOD, Borg BAD!"

This is not to say Voyager is without its charms (Seven ) ... it has enormous potential, and every once and a while, an episode will come along that really knocks my socks off (Unimatrix Zero is NOT one of them ... and I was GROSSLY disappointed with Dark Frontier. Don't even get me started.) These episodes usually involve Robert Picardo.

I just watched the DS9 episode "Paradise" last night. That's what great Star Trek is all about. That scene when Sisko staggers back into the torturous "box" rather than give up his will always gets me.

By contrast, Janeway doesn't seem to HAVE either a strong center OR be very bright. Anyone remember "Night," when she spent the episode moping in her quarters because there were no stars to look at? ("Wah! Wah! I'm a terrible captain! Bzzzzzzzzz") For crying out loud! Just generate some fake pinpoints of light to look at! We have that technology NOW! We call it the SCREEN-SAVER!

I suggest that, ultimately, there are only really two things wrong with Star Trek Voyager: ... Rick ... Berman ...

"who ever gave the Kazon ANY credence whatsoever?"- not sure what you mean by "credence" considering this is scifi we're talking about, howEver: though your feelings about the kazon are widely shared, including by the show's staff, i found their eps, and the performances by the kazon actors, rollicking. what more must we require of a trek villian?

"they made the Romulan Tal'Shiar. . . into a group of bumbling nincompoops"- i assume you mean the marvelous "message in a bottle" which featured picardo & andy dick's snappy repartee. firstly, my pal enabran tain can assure you the tal shiar was Always sloppy secondly, ds9's fun "house of quark" showed high-council klingons bumbling their way thru financial record padds. That bit of comic license-taking didn't bring trek crashing down, so why worry? tal shiar recovered just fine, as seen in ds9's "inter arma, enim silent legis"

"what was once a powerful statement about dystopian collectivism"- oh, is That what the borg were? i thought they were cool-lookin' badasses with machines stickin' out of their faces i| (that's supposed to be a borg face emoticon ) again, i think the often-overtouted next gen's being given too much credit here for creating a Masterpiece that voy's subsequently defiled. i'd say the borg's resonance derives more from tapping into one of the 2 archetypes unique to 20th century art, the cyborg (the other is the clone. both are detailed in various art criticism; sally everett's essay anthology is a good one to consult), and the strong, impossible-to-dismiss contrast this provided against trek's usual humanist outlook.
meanwhile, posterity is not looking kindly upon simplistic, quasi-political, orwellian allegories of the sort you tout re the borg and ds9's "paradise". at least in the 60s, thusly-saddled trek eps were often enlivened by their naive, gung-ho tackiness. these days, when most of us know better (or should), they come off as heavy-handedly as "the green mile" thankfully, once roddenberry's lascivious snaws finally fell from trek's reigns we got far less of this kinda thing
i've no opinion about berman's influence one way or the other, though your opinion of him is also widely shared in my experience. maybe the rest of you know something (or have surmised something) about his influence that i don't. all i know is, if my fellow trekkies are looking for trek to make profound statements about the human condition every week, they should probably quit being so lazy and pick up the classics instead. they yearn for the good-ol days when they could get away with patting themselves on the back for being "enlightened" just for turning on the tv a certain time every week. my honorary-klingon, wrestling-fan pal would spit up his beer laughing such a conceit to death. trek is Television, which means it's gonna eschew ponderous pomposity and embrace stylin' whiz-bang not just for broad success but because that's its nature. if ya'll don't like it, toss the tube out the window and join the luddites, while the rest of us revel in today's robust culture
vt

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Originally posted by vulcantouch:
now That's more like it i hope the rest of you naysayers were watching; you're all still clueless, but as wedge just demonstrated, there's meatier & more engaging ways to be clueless

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Something tells me I should take umbrage at that. Oh, wait ... it was you.

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i found their eps, and the performances by the kazon actors, rollicking. what more must we require of a trek villian?

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Admittedly, they had a few moments. But can you honestly say any of them came even CLOSE to Dukat or Madred?

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"they made the Romulan Tal'Shiar. . . into a group of bumbling nincompoops"- i assume you mean the marvelous "message in a bottle" which featured picardo & andy dick's snappy repartee. firstly, my pal enabran tain can assure you the tal shiar was Always sloppy secondly, ds9's fun "house of quark" showed high-council klingons bumbling their way thru financial record padds. That bit of comic license-taking didn't bring trek crashing down, so why worry? tal shiar recovered just fine, as seen in ds9's "inter arma, enim silent legis"

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An excellent episode, that. I'm not saying I disliked "message in a bottle." I still get a kick out of "vector assault mode." And while we're debating the humor issue, Klingons have ALWAYS been portrayed less ... elegantly than Romulans. Good as it was, MIAB would have been even better with a more balanced script. Call me picky.

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"what was once a powerful statement about dystopian collectivism"- oh, is That what the borg were? i thought they were cool-lookin' badasses with machines stickin' out of their faces

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That too.

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i| (that's supposed to be a borg face emoticon )

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Heh.

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again, i think the often-overtouted next gen's being given too much credit here for creating a Masterpiece that voy's subsequently defiled.

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NextGen is ALWAYS "overtouted." My point is, Voyager can only rehash the same simple concept before whatever made it compelling in the first place vanishes.

I have to agree with Wedge that the cancer of modern trek is Rick Berman. I'm sure he is an interesting man with creative ideas but it is all too evident that he is under the influence of "Bottom Line" thinking. Someone put a fork in him and pluck him out! He's done. It's time for some new blood!...

Or it's time to say so long and put the Trek fanchise where all twenty-first century space travelers go for extended journeys... into cryo-genic freezing. I would love to see a bold new trek full of sparkling originality and fresh engaging stories but that is not likely to happen until a new generation can come into the trek universe without having coasted in off the fumes of a withered and emaciated Trek series corpse.

At least, that's how I see it.