#go little voy/ent man

[giffingthingsss]

The only reason I’m halfway rooting for Picard season 3 is because it’s manned by a Voyager intern. 

[lostyesterday]

I made the following graph because I was interested in which words show up most often in the titles of Star Trek episodes and movies:

I included episode titles from all twelve canon TV shows and all thirteen movies. I only counted nouns for the graph to avoid including boring words like “the” or “and”. I also counted plurals of a word as the same word (“stars” counts as “star”) and compound words where the singular word still carried the same meaning (“starship” counts as “star”). A complete list of episode/movie titles for each word listed in the graph is below the cut.

Time:

Amok Time (TOS)

The Time Trap (TAS)

The Naked Time (TNG)

Time Squared (TNG)

A Matter of Time (TNG)

Time’s Arrow (TNG)

Timescape (TNG)

Hard Time (DS9)

Children of Time (DS9)

A Time to Stand (DS9)

Time’s Orphan (DS9)

Time and Again (VOY)

Once Upon a Time (VOY)

Timeless (VOY)

Time Amok (PRO)

The Time Devouring Scavengers (PRO)

Star

Beyond the Furthest Star (TAS)

Starship Mine (TNG)

Starship Down (DS9)

Far Beyond the Stars (DS9)

North Star (ENT)

Battle at the Binary Stars (DIS)

The Brightest Star (Short Treks)

The Girl Who Made the Stars (Short Treks)

The Star Gazer (PIC)

The Stars at Night (Lower Decks)

Starstruck (PRO)

A Moral Star (PRO)

Man

The Man Trap (TOS)

Where No Man Has Gone Before (TOS)

The Schizoid Man (TNG)

The Measure of a Man (TNG)

Manhunt (TNG)

Tin Man (TNG)

Man of the People (TNG)

A Man Alone (DS9)

Our Man Bashir (DS9)

Inside Man (VOY)

Renaissance Man (VOY)

Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad (DIS)

Home

The Voyage Home (movie)

Home Soil (TNG)

Homeward (TNG)

Move Along Home (DS9)

The Homecoming (DS9)

Homefront (DS9)

Homestead (VOY)

Home (ENT)

Far From Home (DIS)

Coming Home (DIS)

Child

Friday’s Child (TOS)

And the Children Shall Lead (TOS)

Plato’s Stepchildren (TOS)

The Child (TNG)

Galaxy’s Child (TNG)

Children of Time (DS9)

Child’s Play (VOY)

Children of the Comet (SNW)

Children of Mars (Short Treks)

Life

Half a Life (TNG)

The Quality of Life (TNG)

Life Support (DS9)

Lifesigns (VOY)

Real Life (VOY)

Life Line (VOY)

Life, Itself (DIS)

Eye

Wink of an Eye (TOS)

The Eye of the Beholder (TAS)

The Mind’s Eye (TNG)

Eye of the Beholder (TNG)

Eye of the Needle (VOY)

Blink of an Eye (VOY)

Kayshon, His Eyes Open (Lower Decks)

Light

The Lights of Zetar (TOS)

The Inner Light (TNG)

The Darkness and the Light (DS9)

By Inferno’s Light (DS9)

In the Pale Moonlight (DS9)

Point of Light (DIS)

Light and Shadows (DIS)

War

A Private Little War (TOS)

The Dogs of War (DS9)

Warlord (VOY)

Warhead (VOY)

The War Within, the War Without (DIS)

Under the Cloak of War (SNW)

Night

Night Terrors (TNG)

Wrongs Darker than Death or Night (DS9)

Night (VOY)

Two Days and Two Nights (ENT)

A Night in Sickbay (ENT)

The Stars at Night (Lower Decks)

Game

The Gamesters of Triskelion (TOS)

The Game (TNG)

Armageddon Game (DS9)

The Killing Game (VOY)

Endgame (VOY)

The Least Dangerous Game (Lower Decks)

Shadow

Shadowplay (DS9)

In Purgatory’s Shadow (DS9)

Shadows and Symbols (DS9)

Shadows of P’Jem (ENT)

Light and Shadows (DIS)

Through the Valley of Shadows (DIS)

Mirror

Mirror Mirror (TOS)

Shattered Mirror (DS9)

In the Mirror, Darkly (ENT)

Mirrors (DIS)

The Mirror Universe (PRO)

Enemy

The Enemy Within (TOS)

The Enemy (TNG)

Face of the Enemy (TNG)

Silent Enemy (ENT)

Behind Enemy Lines (PRO)

Battle

Let that Be Your Last Battlefield (TOS)

The Battle (TNG)

Battle Lines (DS9)

Nor the Battle to the Strong (DS9)

Battle at the Binary Stars (DIS)

Mind

Dagger of the Mind (TOS)

The Mind’s Eye (TNG)

Frame of Mind (TNG)

Mining the Mind’s Mines (Lower Decks)

Mindwalk (PRO)

Blood

Bloodlines (TNG)

Blood Oath (DS9)

Ties of Blood and Water (DS9)

Blood Fever (VOY)

Flesh and Blood (VOY)

World

For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (TOS)

The Best of Both Worlds (TNG)

Strange New World (ENT)

All the World’s a Stage (PRO)

Strange New Worlds (SNW)

Ship

Ship in a Bottle (TNG)

Starship Mine (TNG)

Starship Down (DS9)

The Ship (DS9)

One Little Ship (DS9)

Day

Day of the Dove (TOS)

Data’s Day (TNG)

Day of Honor (VOY)

Thirty Days (VOY)

Two Days and Two Nights (ENT)

[quasi-normalcy]

Worst Episodes of Star Trek by season (Revised and Expanded).

TOS:

"The Alternative Factor" - I've tried to watch this episode many times, but I don't think I've ever managed to sit all of the way through it. It's just a bunch of boring, nonsensical bullshit for an hour.

"The Omega Glory" - This is the reason why I object to framing Gene Roddenberry as some kind of visionary auteur, because this one, beyond simply having a ridiculous premise, is also really racist.

"Turnabout Intruder" - Turns out body-swaps aren't always good. Like the above, but sexist rather than racist.

"The Lorelei Signal" - An episode where Uhura finally takes command should be good, but again, more sexism (and a pointless rapid aging plot)

TNG:

"Justice" - The first season is mostly just kind of generically weak, but...ugh, those costumes.

"Shades of Gray" - Clipshow.

"The Price" - None of this season's episodes are actually bad, but I really don't like Troi's boytoy

"The Host" - Odan isn't interesting, and the bit where Beverly has sex with Riker's body is just gross.

"Violations" - Lots of bad episodes about rape on this list.

"Man of the People" - See number 5.

"Sub Rosa" - See number 6. Also, ludicrous premise.

DS9:

"The Passenger" - Did Siddig-el-Fadil just kind of forget how to act this week?

"The Alternate" - Probably the worst instance of Trek demanding reconciliation with shitty, abusive parents.

"Meridian" - Brigadoon in Space. Also featuring yet another chemistry-devoid romance for a female crew member.

"Sons of Mogh" - So the 'solution' is just to surgically alter him and delete his memory without his consent? And Julian went along with this?

"Let He Who Is Without Sin..." - Jadzia seems like a complete doormat for not dumping Worf's ass after this one.

"Profit and Lace" - I can't even be offended by the transphobia or the misogyny because of how stupid this one is. I love it.

"The Emperor's New Cloak" - The mirror universe had already been kinda run into the ground by this point.

VOY:

"Time and Again" - So boring. So pointless.

"Tattoo" - White Man's Burden. In Space!

"Favourite Son" - I don't even want to get into it, it's just bad.

"Demon" - This one could have been good if it actually paid attention to its own plot points. And the silly "needing to go to a hell planet to get deuterium" thing.

"The Disease" - Alas, Harry Kim's love life

"Fury" - Character assassination wrapped in the series' worst time travel plot.

"Endgame" - What a lousy way to end the series. No payoffs; no follow up; and the time travel thing wipes out trillions of people's lives for no compellingly good reason, and it's never discussed. The Borg are also presented as completely unthreatening villains, but this had been the way for several seasons. And it's even worse when you compare the deleted version of the early 25th century with the canonical version we see on "Picard."

ENT:

"Dear Doctor" - The 'moral' obligation to commit genocide. Fuck off.

"Cogenitor" - The 'moral' obligation to give a sex slave back to their masters. Fuck off.

"Rajiin" - Some pointless T&A; a little bad acting; and it becomes clear that there is no plan to the Xindi arc.

"These Are the Voyages..." - What a terrible insult to the series that it's supposedly the finale of.

DIS:

"Vaulting Ambition" - There's thos one scene where Emperor Georgiou murders all of her aristocratic in slo-mo cinematic detail and it just never comes up again. I hate this sort of pornographic, cavalier treatment of violence. It offends me to see human life treated in this manner.

"Point of Light" - Brings back Ash Tyler and Emperor Georgiou for an utterly un-thought-out 'intrigue' plot.

"Die Trying" - The idea that Starfleet has been using the same seed vault for a thousand years, that this seed vault is in Space, where it's vastly more vulnerable than it would be on (or inside) a planet, and that it contains seeds from *every plant in the galaxy* is so ridiculous that it undermines everything else in the episode for me.

"The Galactic Barrier" - Where it becomes most apparent that they're trying to fit ten episodes of plot into thirteen episodes.

PIC:

"Broken Pieces" - This one gets points off for completely wasting the XB plot, but it's still good because I like the bits with Rios's holograms and the character work for Jurati.

"Monsters" - There's a lot wrong with the second season, but two things that worked were Q and the Jurati/Borg Queen arc. Both of them were largely absent from this episode, and the stuff with Picard's expansion pack Victorian childhood trauma is just dreadful.

"The Last Generation" - Themes? Weight? Meaning? Non-violent solutions? Continuity? Nah. Let's just bash TNG action figures together for an hour. Also featuring the hit single 'Found Family Ain't Shit, You Need a Biological Son'

LWD:

"Temporal Edict" - This one has a generic workplace sitcom plot that doesn't really work in the Star Trek universe and also makes Freeman look like a complete idiot right out the gate.

"Mugato Gumato" - I don't think that Shaxs tasting Mugato dung was as funny as the episode seemed to think it was, and I really didn't like seeing Mariner beat the shit out of Boimler and Rutherford in the before-credits scene.

"Room for Growth" - Not bad, just kind of...meh.

"Twovix" - Again, not bad, just weakest of the season.

SNW:

"All Those Who Wander" - Ruining the Gorn and wasting Hemmer, all in one episode.

"The Broken Circle" - We really, badly needed to have this ten minute sequence of our medical personnel getting fucked-up on Green Goblin juice and beating up a hundred Klingons, eh?

PRO:

"Kobayashi" - Again, this one isn't actually bad, but it's just nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia; and I think that Dal's character growth should be earned through interaction with his friends, rather than with stock audio of Leonard Nimoy.

[quasi-normalcy]

Next Gen or Lower Decks, easily. I did a whole post on it somewhere, but basically:

TOS is sitting at the table with the cool kid's, but you're the generic ensign in a red shirt and you're going to get eaten by a salt vampire. (AOS is just this but with more lens flare)

TNG is like living in a floating university town. Maybe it's a bit stuffy sometimes, but there's plenty of fun/interesting things you can do. Join a string quartet! Attend a seminar!

DS9 is like working in a half-dead shopping mall that keeps getting attacked by neonazi biker gangs. You don't want to serve on DS9 even if you think you do.

VOY is ruled out immediately on account of being stranded fuck off far away in the Delta Quadrant and surrounded by organ thieves. Not even the people on Voyager want to be on Voyager.

ENT seems exciting because it's almost like being a real-life astronaut! But then it turns out your boss is a nepotism hire and you keep getting caught up in pork-fisted post-9/11 political allegories

DIS would just be like living in a surreal horror movie. The ship is bigger than it possibly could be on the outside. One of your buddies was assigned to turbolift maintenance and you never saw him again (occasionally, you swear you can here the faint echo of him weeping from deep within the ship's unaccountably cavernous superstructure. People you know to be dead keep randomly coming back. People freeze in place whenever the main characters leave the room and can't be budged. You try to leave, but 900 years have gone by and everyone you know is dead.

SNW seems okay until you get invited to the captain's quarters and the entire senior staff seems really intensely into you.

LWD is a mess and you sleep in hallway, but it's also kind of a dream job. You have fun.

PRO is fine, but like...everyone on the ship is practically young enough to be your child and because you're older, they keep looking to you like you know what the hell you're doing (you do not)

PIC - Well, we have three options here, really. The first is okay; you sign on with a cargo ship, except the captain has a really lackadaisical attitude toward actually hauling cargo. You get along; man's a little weird, he keeps holograms who look like himself but who isn't a little eccentric. You could live without his cigar smoking and screaming post-traumatic stress nightmares, though. Second option, you sign on with a Federation starship randomly captained by the guy who was in command of the cargo ship. Except then one day, he randomly disappears and apparently died 400 years ago. Also the cute but neurotic scientist you met in the turbolift one time is now the Borg Queen. Third option is the worst: you're on a ship captained by a cynical terf with PTSD and no one turns up the fucking lights. The crew is so incompetent that they're immediately outshone by a bunch of old fossils and some insufferable daddy's boy with no education. Everyone gets massacred by Changelings and no one even notices. You get assimilated by the transporter and forced to kill your best friend. It's not a good time.

If you could serve with any star trek crew what one would you choose?

Feel free to explain why below

[lauraliansol]

After having watched all of the series of Star Trek from TOS up through ENT i want to expound some opinions:

As nerds there is constant comparison in our lives. Always one against another. Well, I've been told this is the goblin market so here's more of that pointless shit for my own personal trash pile.

Preface: I did not watch the series in any kind of order and i've only seen some of these episodes once so I'm gonna forget some details.

I started with TNG several years ago. That's how I fell in love with Star Trek. Captain Picard was the ultimate Space Dad. A man of ethics and conviction running around on an enormous starship handling dilemmas great and small.

Onward through the years I've watched DS9, VOY, and then TOS and I am just finishing ENT at time of writing.

After having gone through all of the available episodes of Star Trek and coming to love so much about all of the series I've always wanted to kind of put my thoughts together about some things.

My favorite captain is Sisko.

Truly the ultimate Space Dad. Literally starting out as being a dad is a big step. He's got a young son and he's a great father. Managing to balance running that Cardassian monstrosity while also caring for his boy. It touches me deeply every time I get to think about it.

Then you add in some of the very questionable choices he's made. Obviously we can talk about In the Pale Moonlight for eternity.

So let's

At this point we have seen Sisko as a definite Starfleet officer. A man who's ethics and morality is on par with Picard and yet he's willing to truly compromise his ideals for what he feels is the best. PIcard has made several compromises but never would he blow up a politician for any kind of gain. Even associating with someone who has Garak's reputation would have Picard questioning his involvement from the drop. Even if he were in that position PIcard would have done everything else in his power to ensure the proper solution was reached with no underhanded approaches. I'd rather blow up a Romulan and learn to live with it.

Sisko, though, Sisko will ensure his ends are met so his means can be justified. How would these other humans try and face down the Dominion? They're just right over there, on the other side of that wormhole and they know more about us than we even could have thought and can summon an overwhelming attack force, seemingly at will.

Sisko faced it down, though. He leveraged his connection to beings who don't even exist as we do, called on Gul Dukat to help execute infiltrating a party for Gowron and had every one of his officers kidnapped and tortured in some manner. What a fantastic place Terok Nor turned out to be.

Picard is a fantastic captain. The man is standard for Starfleet officers. If you know anything about Star Trek you know Kirk and Picard. He set a standard of how not only officers should conduct themselves but Starfleet in total. Thinking of the Drumhead and Measure of a Man and those wonderful speeches, those ideas and perspectives that are laid bare when grappling with personhood and corruption.

What does come to mind, however, is the episode The Wounded. The whole affair is Picard attempting to keep the peace between the Federation and Cardassia. With the context provided by DS9 this episode takes on a whole new context. Information on how a 50 year occupation left its mark upon the Bajoran people. Hindsight and all that, but I want to offer a different - possibly forgiving - approach. I think this episode gets better on rewatch. The Captain knows the evils Cardassia committed. He knows that Cardassian's would stoop to using metagenic weapons, torture, anything to get whatever they wanted.

Knowing this Picard still defends the peace between them, even at the end of the episode he shows that he has very little trust for the Cardassians but he wouldn't compromise his morals or Starfleet for anything, not even if the Cardassian's are going out of their way to break whatever rules they can.

Captain Kathryn Janeway got the short end of the stick in every way you could think. Her writers bungled the character, the show and half the episodes of VOY. There's tons of good stuff in VOY, the premise is intriguing and dangerous. The crew is fun and varied in age and experience, rife for conflict and fun character moments.

Janeway is fantastic. She always gives me those excellent Picard vibes. Her application of a similar morality is very different from both the captain's before her.

There's no way Janeway could blow up a senator. Even in the most dire of circumstances she is surprisingly rigid. Always attempting to push the moral and Starfleet ideal but she's faced with just such a harsh situation that holding onto those things is beyond commendable. Even in the finale - Endgame - young Janeway is absolutely still devout and upright in her view of rules and regulations, you don't break the Prime Directive or the Temporal Prime Directive.

Balancing this with the fucking Delta quadrant is just... I can't even describe my feelings. The Phage, the Borg, Species 8472 and the Krenim is just the long series of nonsense that Janeway had to deal with and desperately try to protect her crew and failing almost every other week.

She never stops, though, that Janeway. To push through all that shit, threaten to destroy the whole ship and crew just to protect her people from months of torture. A well deserved coffee break is all that she wants and deserves far much more. Yes I will continue to make jokes about her needing to be jailed but that's purely for the meme.

It's very hard when you turn the comparison lens onto VOY. It's got so much going for it. The characters are fun and the captain is sharp, observant and motivated and ship is really cool with the integration of biological components into the infrastructure. Justice for Janeway.

Archer is fun.

I love Archer and Enterprise. A man who let the chip on his shoulder dictate his behavior for over a year actually grew up to be a captain as good - I feel better - than Kirk.

For me that's the appeal of ENT. At first I was very turned off. The crew are all kind of mean to each other. It was very jarring to see how fast they are to distrust T'Pol in those early episodes. Through the series, though, Archer really comes into his own. He proves that he really does belong on that bridge.

Talking about willing to compromise morals seems to be half of Archer's deal. I love how it's portrayed because it's clear that he's presented with multiple, horrid scenarios.

The Xindi is the obvious arc to focus on, but I was immediately drawn to the Prime Directive implications and the formation of the Federation at the end of the series.

Mother Sun, please offer your blessings upon Jeffrey Combs. Who else could have given Shran the life he has on screen. Not only is his presence so weighty he's pulling it off next to Scott Bakula.

Handling the Romulan aggression and managing to physically best Shran to keep the Tellarites and the Andoreans on board was really kind of tense. Sure they're not going to have Archer die, but Shran was a reoccurring character, there was no guarantee he was coming back. Archer managed to learn the rules and made it work and kept one of his most important allies.

ENT really had this feeling of the crew of NX-01 being really on the edge. Archer could call back to Admiral Forest but that's it. There was no backup and there were no rules. We hit Warp 5, go have fun now that the Vulkans are in agreement.

This all leads me to Kirk.

An anomaly in comparison. The beginnings of working out a template always feel more noncomforming than what came after. The four other captains all feel like they fit this mold of Starfleet. Kirk is a man who somehow managed to get ahold of a starship and he just kept getting things right enough no one told him no. Hell, half the time Spock looks like he's just enjoying the ride as this insane human just cowboys his way around the quadrant giving him interesting issues to solve.

Kirk, I would say, is largely a good captain. He cares about his crew. He looks for alternatives and asks advice. Facing down the Gorn, the Tholian's, Romulan's and Klingons

There's always that issue of the sexism when you talk about Kirk, though. After having watched TOS it was there the whole time. One of the first things he talks about is that a captain is not allowed to fraternize with the crew. In the conversation - if you want to be generous - his tone could be interpreted as either somber and forlorn or neutral.

Kirk is very hard to reconcile because he feels out of place when thinking about the rest of the captains and how they conduct himself.

TOS is clearly a show of its era. Kirk is definitely a swashbuckling adventurer type dealing with fun science fiction scenarios. He really just feels like an action hero a lot episodes.

The feeling changes in certain instances, however. When there's a moment to sit down and there's a simple, low bass note playing over and over again as they discuss the issue. TOS has these quiet moments that are like a maelstrom of tar. Where No Man Has Gone before is really the first instance of this occurring and it really has a way of setting the tone.

It gave me chills the first time I watched that conversation between Kirk and Gary Mitchell. Mitchell's feelings and realizations and the very quick, but no overly insisted upon changes are horrifying as we watch a mortal man learn that he is becoming more.

In the end the Captain's are hard to compare. They all have their own ways and they fit so many different personalities. I am cursed, however, to enjoy these things. I must discuss, compare and contrast and prepare to fling my opinionated idiocy around as if it has any weight.

To round this off to complete the opinion in total:

Sisko is the best,

Picard, Archer, and Janeway are fantastic.

Kirk didn't show up for the meeting, he stole a ship and broke orders. We believe he's saving earth so it's whatever.

[narwhalsarefalling]

Hypothetically,,, if i were to start watching (or reading??) Star Trek, where should i start?

1. YOU MUST BE WILLING TO WATCH CRINGE SHIT BC I PROMISE THERES SOME SEASONS OF SOME TREKS THAT ARE JUST THE FUCKING WORSE BUT ARE SO VITAL TO WATCH SO YOU HAVE THE CONTEXT FOR LATER AND MUCH BETTER EPISODES.

2. OK BUCKLE UP YOU READY FOR AN IN DEPTH DISCUSSION ON WHICH TREKS ARE WHICH

heres a key bc im gonna be using some abbreviations

tos - the orginal series (the one with spock) tng - the next generation (the one with data) ds9 - deep space nine (the one with transgender worms) voy - voyager (the one with janeway, the best captain in the delta quadrant) ent - enterprise (nobody likes this one bc of the post 9/11 nationalism) (also known as the series that had mpreg in the second episode) aos - alternate original series (the one with spock but theyre homophobic) (aka the 2009 remakes) disco - discovery (the one with the mushrooms) picard - picard (picard) lds - lower decks (bobs burgers but its star trek)

OK, SO NOW THAT WE GOT THOSE ESTABLISHED WE GOTTA GET YOU THE VIEWING ORDERS THAT MOST PEOPLE USE

some people watch the show in CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER FROM RELEASE. this is the order from when the shows were made. it goes TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, AOS, DISCO, PICARD, LDS.

the benefits in watching it in chronological order is that you can slowly see the special effects get better over time, you can watch star trek from the "beginning" and have a good grasp on where the writers were going with each characters in each series. its pretty cool, because you can see the rise in popularity. the cons are that you have to start with the most horrible special effects of all fucking time and it gets worse before it gets better.

however, there is ANOTHER order that i like to call the "fun order" because it skips around the timeline a little. you start with TNG, then DS9, then VOY and then you can watch the other treks in whatever order you want. this is fun if you have less time and just want to get the main story out of the way so you can watch Lower Decks.

there's also the "timeline" order, which goes ENT, DISCO, TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, LSD, and then PICARD. AOS is not included in this list because its technically an alternative timeline, so you can just watch those three movies afterwards. the benefits is that you get to see humans starting out their exploration in the galaxy and expand as the show goes on. the cons are that it deffff jumps around in quality (disco is famous for being kinda like a netflix series, or one really drawn out movie while ent and tos are "monster of the week" style episodes). another con is that you have to watch ENT, which has a guy growing nipples on his hand in the 2nd episode because he put his hand in a bowl of rocks with an alien and got man pregnant. trust me this is not the worst episode you will watch.

theres also the "fuck around and find out" order where you read all of the wikipedia summeries of each show and start with the one with the coolest sounding plot

TLDR so the timeline in order of events goes ent, disco, tos, tng, ds9, voy, lsd, picard (as aos is an alternative timeline). the way it was released went tos, tng, ds9, voy, ent,aos, disco, picard, lsd. the way most people watch them go tng, ds9, voy, lsd, tos, ent, disco, picard.

tbh, you could start with any trek and just have fun.

you can also join my star trek server which welcomes people who havent watched anything of trek to get advice as well!

[qwertyfingers]

we know that bobby only watched ds9 and dean watched the tos movies for sure which implies he's seen tos as well (plus he calls jack spock). so what do you think everyone's favorite trek is? sam is without a doubt a tng fan first and foremost. i think out of all tos movies cas prefers the wrath of khan because he Feels Things when kirk and spock do the ta'al through the glass. charlie has definitely seen some trek (we've seen her llap), do you think she's into tos first and foremost? anyway let's talk about star trek nights in the bunker.

OKAY SO I HAVE. MANY MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS. SORRY THIS IS SO LONG.

like. like of COURSE bobby only likes ds9 of course he does i could have told you this without the show becuase like. bobby is That Bitch. i think rufus will have watched TOS at least because leonard nimoy worked hard on linking jewish faith and practices into the vulcan lore and i think that would mean something to him. bobby will catch rufus smiling at him sometimes while they’re watching ds9 and ask him what all gruffly and rufus will smirk at him and say something about sisko with jake and bobby with dean and bobby will just cough and take a swig of whiskey and rufus will raise his eyebrows but let it slide. rufus definitely makes a comment once about dean&cas being like jake&nog that totally flies over dean’s head but bobby is all knowing eyebrow raise about.

i think cas and jack would really like discovery. while it has some issues with inconsistency, pacing, being a little dark, it also does better than the other TV treks at utilising the nature of film as a medium to instill a sense of wonder, at space and the world, and that’s something they’d really appreciate. i have my own issues with disco, but an obol for charon is as close to the central core of trek that disco ever gets. cas and jack also like that one in particular because they like listening to all the different languages being spoken. they all love michael (everyone loves michael). cas’ faves are stamets and reno because they’re mean and gay, jack’s fave is tilly because she’s excitable and bright and he latches onto that. dean likes reno because she’s got spunk. sam’s fave is airiam and he will never forgive them for killing her off. sam, cas and dean all feel an uncomfortable kinship with both ash and culber - they’ve both been the one with monster teeming under the surface, controleld by something not themself, but they’ve also all spent that time in hell/purgatory, separated from everyone they love.

thinking about episodes that would really get to them all, darmok is. THE ONE. i have a whole unfinished essay about darmok as the platonic ideal of star trek; the perfect distillation of everything trek is SUPPOSED to be about. it doens’t always get there but by god it tries! that speech michael gives in the disco s2 finale - “There's a whole galaxy of people out there who will reach for you. You have to let them. Find that person who seems farthest from you and reach for them.” - that’s what darmok is about!!! it’s all about a situation where real communication seems impossible, where everything we know about talking and learning has broken down. and picard says, okay, i will find another way. i can’t relate to you, you can’t relate to me, but by god i’m going to try. we all meet people we have trouble communicating with in our lives, and often, those people will not care about changing their own ways to accommodate us. for people with autism, adhd, psychosis, the list goes on, this is a very common occurrence. it’s exhausting and frustrating and alienating. darmok is all about crossing that barrier. about reaching for someone through a world of difficulty and learning how to talk. learning how to share something with someone who seems out of our reach. it’s beautiful, it’s heartwrenching, it means more to me than i can easily put into words! 

anyway i think the bunker fam would experience a lot of emotions watching it together. there’s defintiely a lot of hugging eachother, sam cries a lot and won’t look at anyone until after the episode ends. jack just asks a lot of questions and talks about his progress learning sign language with cas. dean snakes his hand into cas’ halfway through and doesn’t let go. doesn’t show the emotion on his face, but he clutches harder at the emotional beats. cas runs his fingers through jack’s hair and thinks a lot, and decides not to say anything unless dean talks first. its just a Lot for everyone. 

dean def makes them marathon all the TOS and TNG movies. it’s an experience everyone needs at least once. i think you’re right about cas and TWOK with the ta’al through the glass, but also ‘this simple feeling’ and the hand hold would make him feel crazy. bones being the one that spock entrusts with his katra DEF makes dean feel some type of way because as much as destiel is kirkspock-coded, dean IS bones, and seeing spock trust bones so completely despite how at odds they were when they first knew eachother would dig deep into dean’s psyche and make him more than a little bit nutso. the movies are way too long for jack so he mostly sits and plays animal crossing while they watch and looks at the screen when everyone else gasps or when something exciting is happening that holds his attention for a while. sam’s fave is nemesis precisely because it’s terrible and he loves how camp it is.

dean has definitely seen all of trek. i refuse to believe someone who watches as much tv and films as dean wouldn’t sit and watch the whole shebang. i think he’s probably seen TOS and the TOS movies more than the others because its easier than sitting through 7 seasons, but i think rather than that being his favourite he’d just have really strong opinions about the best episodes of each one? like if you asked him what his favourite is he’d say you can’t answer that because they’re all so different from eachother

VOY - bride of chaotica, non seqitur, macrocosm for the favourite episodes. seven, janeway and tuvok would be his favourite characters. he think toms a bit of a knob but also feels a kinship with him for the similar brand of bab dad-ism but he wouldn’t be able to put that into words. he’s also a fierce defender of threshold being a good episode (he’s right for that)

DS9 - our man bashir it’s our man bashir. he doesn’t dislike ds9 but its very plot heavy and he didn’t care for it when he was younger. rewatching it after living through multiple supernatural wars he’d probably appreciate it more. i know for a fact he cries every time there’s an episode about sisko being a good dad. jadzia and garak are his faves

TNG - he LOVES q. he also absolutely will not be caught dead referencing how much loves q after cas comes into his life because sam will do the little brotherly knowing eyebrow raise at him and he will die of embarrassment. he regularly references ‘there are four lights’ because he’s a fucking nerd. he has made cas watch elementary my dear data and fistful of datas a half dozen times each at LEAST. cas KNEW how dean was going to be about the cowboy hat he’s defintiely got into full cowboy getup at home just for watching movies and in cas’ head star trek is fully to blame.

TOS - oh there are so many good TOS eps to choose from. obv he loves most of the series becuase TOS has MANY banger eps, his favourites are probably like. mirror mirror, amok time (baby dean defintiely had some kind of crisis watching it for the first time; i know the rituals are intricate). i know deep in my bones that dean watched the conscience of the king (introduction of the tarsus iv massacre) once and then spent his entire teenage years writing fic about that in his head, whether he posted it or not. dean related too much to those experiences of shared hunger. city on the edge of forever is one of everyone’s faves for a reason (and i’m STILL mad we never got a closer take on that episode in spn it could have been so fun). 

ENT - he definitely thinks enterprise is stupid and he’s not wrong but he has also definitely watched it and been very repressed about the whole thing. mans was like oh i feel a kinship with malcolm reed the obviously repressed queer man. i will never examine this feeling ever again thank you <3 he also makes fun of archer for being obsessed with, of all sports, water polo. shran is his favourite character because he’s a little shit and makes him laugh, and t’pol, because t’pol is a badass and he’d appreciate that. i can’t remember the title of a single episode off the top of my head though lol.

i can see what you’re saying about sam being a TNG stan. i’m conflicted though, I feel like TNG’s generally the favourite of 1) obnoxious nerds who think knowing trivia facts makes them smart, 2) men desperately trying to seem masculine and 3) people who’ve watched it three times and have extremely complex thoughts on the personhood and rights of robots. i could see sam fitting into the third group, but people who are in it for the robot feelings are a coin flip between voyager and tng being the fave, and i just have a feeling that voyager would be his favourite. i know kid sam is getting gender envy watching voyager in shitty motels while dad and dean are out, trying to find the words for it. his first semester at stanford he talks a friend into giving him the janeway haircut and rides that high for months. sam’s favourite characters are seven and EMH. 

sam and dean have definitely had dozens of long drawn out debates about philosophical topics in star trek. do the holograms deserve rights and if so which ones. are the romulans and vulcans still meaningfully the same people. was spock right for trying to foment reunification by going undercover on romulus. can the borg be redeemed. etc etc.

i haven’t seen any of picard at all so i can’t comment. i also think sam and dean probably read a lot of the trek books? they’re pretty common to find in secondhand bookstores and cheap, would have been even cheaper back in the day. sam probably doesn’t care for them much, dean has a few solid faves though. i’ve only read the disco books so i can’t comment anything specifically (besides the fact that i think dean read dead endless and cried like a baby), but some of the TOS and DS9 books are gay as hell and i know dean was eyes emoji-ing that shit. 

[strohller27]

I’ll agree with you on the execs thing. It really sucks when they won’t let the writers explore the premises that the show was based on, and the story does end up suffering from that.

Another issue Voyager ran into was that it was being aired during a turning point for TV shows, in which long series of standalone episodes were slowly giving way to longer strings of episodes that made up story arcs (you can see this transition start to happen in TNG with their higher percentages of two-parters and callback episodes. You can watch it happen in real time in the X-files and see the tail end of it in Enterprise). This transition is why sometimes you’d have a super depressing and real-feeling episode one week and then the next week things would be fine and dandy. (Thing is, Enterprise is *still* guilty of this, though less so than VOY or even DS9).

So I agree, Voyager *is* arguably a mess of wasted potential and I do always feel like it never quite satisfies the narrative tone that I want it to satisfy, but in the end, I can still enjoy it for its characters or the hundreds episodes I did enjoy for their storylines.

Tbh how many shuttles does the Voyager have because istg they lose one of them every 5 episodes. If it was the Enterprise crashing 8 shuttles a season I'd say sure, fine, they can just get new ones but Voy is alone out there. Are they just 3D copying new shuttles every week?

[racingliners]

Star Trek Comfort Episodes Megalist

Alrighty! So this idea has been in my head for a good few months now. I watch Star Trek a bunch anyway, but I found that when I would be feeling unwell or a little bit down I found myself re-watching the same few episodes over and over, so I decided to make it into a list! 

I've been working on it for a good few weeks, and it's about as finished as I can get it, as I don't know all the Treks equally. So I'm posting it as is, and if anyone who knows some of the shows better, I'm more than happy to take suggestions to add to it!

(Edit 08/11/21: Now includes episodes from Lower Decks)

TOS:

2x15 The Trouble With Tribbles

TNG:

4x11 Data’s Day

4x20 Qpid

5x05 Disaster

6x04 Relics

7x15 Lower Decks

DS9:

3x22 Explorers

4x07 Little Green Men

5x06 Trials and Tribble-ations

6x10 The Magnificent Ferengi

6x14 One Little Ship

7x04 Take Me Out to the Holosuite

7x15 Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang

VOY:

4x14 Message In a Bottle

5x12 Bride of Chaotica!

5x24 Relativity

6x10 Pathfinder

6x11 Fair Haven

6x12 Blink of an Eye

7x18 Q2

ENT:

1x07 Breaking the Ice 

1x18 Acquisition

2x02 Carbon Creek

2x09 Singularity 

2x05 A Night In Sickbay 

2x12 The Catwalk

4x07, 08 & 09 The Forge, Awakening, Kir’Shara

DIS:

1x07 Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad

2x01 Brother

3x07 Unification III

3x13 That Hope Is You (Part 2)

LDS:

1x01 Second Contact

2x03 We’ll Always Have Tom Paris

2x09 wej Duj

Movies:

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Star Trek Beyond

[entireoranges]

Trek fans are here and proud

An open letter to those who pitch thine fit and whine thine selves to sleep:

Do you wish to have some sharp cheddar with your whine? Perhaps some Camembert or a nice Brie? No? Alright. Thought I’d offer.

You are allowed to not like something. Thought it’d be best to get that out of the damn way. It’s 1,000% your right and I’m fine with it. That is your opinion and this is mine:

What I’m not fine with is the constant, unending, trite badmouthing. The moronic telling of outright lies, the instigation and insinuation that things are going to shit. You don’t know that. You are assuming.

Now, I might be talking about any old show in any old fandom, but no. This time I’m talking about Star Trek. Specifically the anger cast towards Discovery, and by association Picard.

Discovery didn’t have a good first year. I’ll freely admit to it. I thought it was damn clever, I liked the character arcs, I thought it was interesting. A little Klingon-heavy for my liking but all-in-all not too bad for a new show.

Before anyone says one word in the series the fandom at large on the internet doesn’t just REVOLT, they pepper their anger with acidic, hell acerbic remarks. Now recall these are mostly the same fans who haven’t had any Star Trek on TV since Enterprise left the air in the early 00’s. A show that in of itself had plenty of anger associated with it.

Burnham is a Mary-Sue or Tilly is annoying or that the show has nothing but politically correct SJW’s in it…hell…I’ve heard it all trust me. They were carrying on since second one. Was it because they made Micheal the adopted sister of Spock? Was it because the tone was too dark?

I don’t know what set them off but allow me to air some grievances:

1.) They’re all Politically Correct SJW’s: Well in a strictly Sci-Fi sense aren’t all members of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets PC SJW’s? I mean think about it for a second. They are a society that values truth, honesty, even footing for everyone, it’s a culture of inclusion (example: Geordi with the VISOR is treated no differently than anyone else with normal sight), they are even a bit self-righteous sometimes (Captains Janeway, Sisko) but they operate within a society at large that is open and by and large inclusive to everyone as long as you aren’t a homicidal maniac hell bent on destroying the galaxy. Remember they tried to make friends with the Borg before they were forced to cede that they were unreachable. You make it sound like it’s a bad thing to have virtues that the characters of this series have always had. And you make it sound like it’s a bad thing. It’s not. It makes sense.

2.) Micheal Burnham is a Mary-Sue. Nope. She’s not. If you didn’t watch Season 2, go do that. Again the first season of any show is uneven at best and we saw growth in her character by the end but it was still very much in the awkward first season way. The second season she grows in all sorts of ways. The character comes alive. I for one loved Sonequa Martin-Green from moment one. She commands the scenes with substance and a sense of purpose.

3.) It’s not Star Trek. This is patently absurd. It is Star Trek. It might not be what you grew up with but it is Star Trek. I’m sure this is what the parents of TNG fans thought when that show began airing in 1987. Think about it. Did any of those sets look “correct” or in line with what had been established? It’s a generational gap. This is how the creators want it to look and feel. But it’s still Star Trek.

4.) It’s in an alternate reality/it’s not chronologically accurate: Nope. Prime timeline. Look…was I disappointed that the sets didn’t look like 1966? A little. A very tiny bit of me, sure. Did I realistically expect it? No. Is chronology ruined? Not at all. People forget that ships can change, tech can advance quite fast, and Starfleet loves to change uniforms, and interfaces on a whim. Did Enterprise look like it was 120 or so years before TOS? Nope. Did anyone bitch? Yep. Was it a bad idea to do a prequel? Not at all. But Discovery isn’t alternative timeline. It’s merely a cosmetic choice to have it look different. And they’ve been true to established canon too. The Cage happened before Discovery and TOS after it.

5.) I gotta PAY for it? I never PAID for it before! Physical media is dead. Streaming is king. From a business standpoint this makes sense. Discs are comically available for holdouts on Discovery Season 1. At $50 you are essentially paying for as many months as it would’ve cost you to buy the service and have access to a huge library of other content not just Discovery or all Star Trek TV Shows. Broadcast TV wasn’t going to take a risk on a prime time Star Trek TV show but much as UPN was anchored by Voyager when it began they surmised All Access would have similarities and it’d do good there. It has.

6.) Cut the female empowerment crap out it isn’t Star Trek: This one cracks me up. It isn’t? So characters like Uhura, Crusher, Janeway, Torres, Kira, Dax, and T’Pol aren’t all bad asses? They are. All of them. Strong, powerful women who excel at their jobs. What’s truly sad is I just mentioned about every series regular on all the shows and I didn’t even come up with enough for a bridge crew. I for one am happy to see the empowerment. Keep it up. It’s very Star Trek.

7.) Fine but I’m not treating this as canon: Fine sit in the corner and cry. This is stick in the mud to no end! Believe whatever you’d like, just realize that everyone who enjoys it realizes it is canon and you’re woefully behind because you’d rather believe your own headcanon rather than capitulate to what is on the screen.

8.) I’m going to derisively refer to the show as STD even though the official abbreviation is DIS and that fits in line with every one word Star Trek title since Voyager (VOY, ENT): Sure man whatever floats your boat or flies your starship. You do you. Does it annoy me? Absolutely. Will I probably assume you’re a troll if you use that abbreviation? Yup.

Fact is: I realize not every fan is going to like every show. I’m not honestly expecting them to. That’d just be foolish. But the amount of pure anger and vitriol hurled at Star Trek is insane.

When I was a kid, the show was nerdy, outcast, people didn’t watch it mainstream and it wasn’t cool at all. Star Wars was, but not Trek. Now? It’s trying to be cool. More space battles, epic panoramas, vistas, planets, exotic aliens…they want to create more. Do more. Be more. If you can’t appreciate that then I’m sorry.

There’s a lot more of this kind of Star Trek on the way. You won’t be seeing a return to TOS or TNG anytime soon so either buckle in for the ride or sit at home and rewatch those shows on your choice of discs or streaming services.

Gene Roddenberry created this franchise, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga changed it, and Alex Kurtzman changed it again. It’s just what it is. And at its core it still stays true to the original concept. Again I’m sorry if you can’t or won’t see that but that’s what’s happening.

If you’re looking for new TOS, check out Star Trek Continues on YouTube. Fantastic acting, storylines, etc. a virtual love letter to 60’s-era Trek.

As for Picard: You have seen one teaser trailer lasting under two minutes. Patrick Stewart is heavily involved in its production. It won’t be bad. Trust me on this.

If you’re looking for new Star Trek, sit down and get ready. There’s a whole lot of it coming soon!

[trek-tracks]

Hiya, i wanted to know if there’s a particular order i should watch the star trek series in? I’ve seen the movies and Discovery but i want to get into the original canon. Thanks!

This is a great question, and there’s no one answer to it. If you’ve watched and liked the movies (do you mean the AOS movies, or some combination of the AOS, TOS, and/or TNG movies?), then it seems like you’d probably enjoy going straight into TOS, and then watching them in order of creation (TOS+movies, TNG+movies, DS9, VOY). If you already like the TOS characters, or the AOS versions of them, you’ll probably enjoy TOS. You have to take it with a grain of salt and a $0.25 budget. 

If what draws you to AOS and Disco are the effects and technology, you might want to skip over TOS for the time being. I love it, but for me it’s all about the character interaction and the hopeful social messaging in the script. I’ve never really been overly interested in effects or realistic technobabble. You might find going straight from Disco to TOS to be jarring, tech-wise, so TNG might be a better starting point. It was the starting point for a lot of people of my generation (the, uh, next generation?), and it’s also a favourite of mine. I started on TNG, loved it, then watched TOS to catch up on the references and loved it too. 

Bear in mind that the TNG pilot isn’t great; after watching it, I was reluctant to watch the rest of the series. Luckily (or unluckily, considering how much time I’ve spent creating Trek content), I persevered. You could start with an episode from season 2, like “Measure of a Man,” to hook you. I wouldn’t start just by watching S2, though, because it’s the one season where they replaced my favourite, Dr. Beverly Crusher, with another character (because the actress had been too outspoken of a feminist at work. Yeah, you also have to take the Trek writers and producers’ rooms with a massive grain of salt sometimes). 

There are some guest TOS appearances on TNG, starting in the pilot, that I did not get the full emotional impact from because I watched TNG first. On one hand, I kind of resent that. On the other hand, I feel like each one would have emotionally wrecked me if I’d seen TOS first and already had my love for those characters, so, again, it’s up to you.

DS9 is great for stories featuring a more complicated morality. You could start there, but I feel like it’s better to watch one of the more optimistic series (TOS, TNG), before getting into the nuances of what the Federation really means to the universe. I think it’s a more effective series if you’ve previously only seen the Federation through a largely positive light. (I’m not saying the other series don’t have nuance, but this one is a little darker in general.)

VOY is mostly a self-contained series, but you do lose a bunch of easter eggs if you haven’t seen TOS and TNG. Personally, I found it the least interesting overall of the series, though Captain Janeway is awesome.

Technically ENT comes before TOS in canon, but to be honest, I’ve never seen it due to many of my closest friends telling me that it’s not very good. I’m going to have to watch it eventually because I’m a completionist.

So, my advice would be either to do it in order of series airing, or to start with TNG and go back to TOS. However, I’m only one voice, and I’m speaking through my own experiences! If you’re watching one series, and you’re not enjoying it, skip to another one, and maybe go back later! There are no real rules, and there’s no gatekeeping here!

Whatever you watch, I hope you have a great time catching up with this great set of shows and this community! If you have any more questions, please ask!

[marta-bee]

I stumbled on a criticism of SNW that Spock wasn’t gay. To be clear, I’ve a) not seen the show so I’m not reacting to it in that context, and b) I’m fully aware that Spock’s half-human so whatever’s true of Vulcans generally need not be true for him. But all that said, I’m wondering: what does it mean for Vulcans to even be gay? Do they do sexuality at all?

Pon farr sex seems driven by a biological and cultural imperative to procreate. It’s interesting to think whether same-gender sex would break the fever. (Could Kirk and Spock have just done the do in Amok Time?) As much as my LGBT-loving self would like to say otherwise, I’m skeptical. Certainly if parents are arranging marriages with an eye toward continuing the family line they’d choose someone who could at least conceivably, well, conceive. They’re not going to arrange a marriage between their son and little Johnny down the road, not because they’re bigots, but because that’s just not what marriage is about.

Non-pon farr sex seems rare and in a lot of ways just not very Vulcan in spirit. The only time I ever remember it being discussed is in the Enterprise episode “Fusion” (keep in mind I’m mainly only familiar with “classic” Trek: TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT, plus the new reboot movies). But that’s renegade Vulcans trying to speed up the reproductive cycle, and also from before the timeline got rebooted at the beginning of season four. Also it’s interesting that Trip asks the Vulcan engineer Tov if it was true Vulcans only had sex every seven years and his response is they’re trying to speed up the reproductive cycle; for him at least, sex is pon farr sex.

... Which honestly makes sense to me. At least sex tied to romance is rife with emotions, and you’re basically using your body’s biochemistry to make those emotions even stronger. If it’s such a stigma with Vulcans against even sharing your thoughts in a mindmeld (another pre-timeline reboot concept from ENT, granted), why would anyone choose to use their bodies that way? I don’t mean to make Vulcans into prudes because that’s not what this is about; it’s just that what sex seems to mean for humans doesn’t seem all that attractive to the Vulcan mindset.

Casual, strings-free sex is perhaps another thing. There are all kinds of physical and stress-relief reasons why people want that, and even just because it feels good without having any real negative consequences. If they can suppress the emotional side effects (which they’re absolutely disciplined to do that), I can see Vulcans wanting that. But at the same time, science is so advanced, couldn’t they get the same good results by popping a pill or some such? And they don’t strike me as the most hedonistic species to begin with.

I do love the concept of Vulcan orgies designed not to titillate or thrill but as a test of how thoroughly divorced you’ve made yourself from your emotive self. Kinky BDSM clubs where Vulcans go to get it on, then get a quick brain scan after for the bragging rights of how their Vulcan version of oxytocin is barely elevated at all, thank you very much. That could be such fun! But I digress.

My point, though, is if pon farr sex is by definition heterosexual, and if non-pon farr sex is canonically such a nonevent, what does it even mean to be LGBT? This isn’t what I want, but the most plausible read of canon I can come up with is, it just doesn’t exist as a cultural concept with Vulcans the same way it does with humans.

Still, queer will find a way even when it’s not centered on gender roles and sexuality, and that thing where Spock basically tells the Vulcan Science Academy to fuck off after insulting his mother and goes off to join Star Trek? Get that man a flag.

[deepspacedukat]

Things I love about ENT: the costumes!! They have POCKETS!!!! Real POCKETS!!! Also everyone is cute. And they let the guys walk around in tight underwear with no shirts sometimes. And DECON. Not because decon is sexual or anything it just is fun.

Things I do not love about ENT: END OF SEASON 1/2 OF A TWO PARTER!!! Listen I thought we left that behind with TNG. Idk about VOY I haven’t seen it but that kind of shit is especially heinous with writing. And it can and will bite you in the ass with ratings and it’s not a way to save you from getting canceled (there’s so many shows where that happens). Also lack of biology knowledge. It’s not like they can’t go to the library and find info for FREE. No excuses.

Terrible horrible no good very bad idea: Accidentally meeting someone on the Enterprise crew on Risa while swimming then joining them as a second doctor (why they didn’t pick up another after Phlox had that sleep issue that made him act like a drunk, senile, 90 year old man while treating Travis idk but it absolutely sent me into a laughing fit 🤣🤣). ‘Yeah I was wearing a really cool swimsuit.’

Yes this was inspired by Archer loving diving and his Risan striped shirt. Like I wanna bang the captain but also not. There’s too many cool aliens to want a human 😭😭😭

-Horta-in-Charge

They do have pockets!! I absolutely loved that little fact when I was watching ENT. Also, the guys in tight shorts and no shirt...look...I approve. There's an episode (I believe it's s1E19 but I could be wrong) called "Acquisition" and Trip is in his underwear for the majority of it. I just... *chef's kiss* The Risa story also had some choice underwear scenes. 1000/10 thirst rating. (Sorry, ya bish is thirsty tonight.)

I completely agree with you on wanting to bang Captain Archer. There are just so many sexy aliens though...What's a bitch gotta do to get a night with an alien, huh? 😭

Ok, the end-of-season, two parter bullshit...I have beef about those. I get it, they want people to stay hooked, but...also it just pisses me off. At least now, all the episodes are out so we don't have to wait as long as when the show was airing originally. Small blessings, I guess. But yeah, I totally get where you're coming from.

[majorkirastan]

i was tagged by @little-vulcan​ lmao

1. What is your dream starship crew? You can only take existing characters and put them in the roles they fill on their own starship.

i’d say...all ladies.  just all the trek ladies running the ship.  no men in space.  janeway as captain, kira as first officer, tasha as chief of ops, uhura has the conn, beverly is the cmo, jadzia is the science officer, etc. etc. etc.  the ship is called the uss lesbian smh

2. What species do you wish we could have seen more of or learnt more about?

uhh a lot of them tbh.  i’ll have to go with the trill on this one because they seem so damn interesting and i wish we could have seen more, jadzia is really the only important trill character and her species is very infrequently touched on.

3. What’s one episode that you would remove from canon if you could?

fhjgfhgjgh can i say all of them?  star trek culture is hating star trek smh.  (probably sacrifice of angels or something, just because it made me cry a lot and im upset about that, or else like one of the weird early episodes of tng)

4. Which captain would you be most excited to serve under?

dont make me choose between captains like this!  i love them all!  but in reality probably either sisko or janeway.  sisko’s a big sweetheart who genuinely adores his crew, janeway...is janeway, holy shit

5. If you could go back in time and stop one and only one event from happening in canon, what would it be?

smh all these questions with impossible choices... i’d have to say Jadzia Dying because i love her so much and also her death really weakened ds9 season 7, as much as i love ezri i can’t get past that

6. Rate your fan devotion on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being only watching the series, 10 being attending cons, buying merchandise and being invested in the extended universe, and a brief explanation.

i’d give it an eight.  i’m not *hardcore* obsessed but i’m quite invested in the franchise.  i have a poster of data hung in my room (as well as a signed picture of max grodenchik as rom) and several trek guides/novels, i own a ds9 shirt and a star trek onesie, etc.  plus, i genuinely spend a good portion of my life playing timelines/blogging about trek and i run 2 separate ds9 blogs so like.....there’s that.  i genuinely love the shows.  i’d go to cons but i’m broke.  i’m not 100% there but i’m fairly into it.

7. Rank the shows including Discovery from your favourite to least favourite.

ooh harsh.  ok so: 1. ds9.  i’m currently watching it and i love it so much it’s my favorite by far rn 2. tng.  it was my first trek and that kinda sticks with u. 3. tos.  i love it bc it’s so cheesy and great lmao 4. voy.  i love voyager too but i never actually finished it oops! 5. ent.  no judgement on enterprise, i havent watched it yet.  i’m sure i’ll love it when i do but i’m in the middle of rewatching ds9 and then i have to finish voyager and then i have t 6. dsc.  again, i havent actually gotten around to watching it but from what i’ve seen it’s very hectic and a lot of death which isn’t really my thing.

8. Which two characters from different series or timelines do you think would make the best friends?

i think kira and tasha would get along, also julian and geordi.  but secretly in my heart of hearts i want to say lal and ziyal.  love you gals.  im sorry the writers did yall like that

9. Do you have any Star Trek OCs? Tell us about them?

i do not i just have adaptations of the regular characters that i pretend are the actual characterizations when i dislike the writing jjhgkhjkgk

10. What character does everyone else seem to hate that you adore? Also, who is one fan favourite character who you personally can’t stand?

hmm idk i tend to agree with the fandom on most stuff.  although, i dont get people who like dukat and i ESPECIALLY just do. not. get. ppl who STAN him.  listen the man is so bad he’s such an asshole and i live vicariously thru kira every time she either insults, degrades, or assaults him

11. What is your favourite Star Trek quote?

hmm probably from the opening lines of the tos pilot thru the most recent line of the most recent disco episode lmao (in all seriousness it’s probably the ‘saint in paradise’ line)

[iblameashley]

In Defense of ST: DSC (long)

So... because I apparently like to torture myself, I sat through the whole 20-odd minutes of the Dave Cullen show’s review of DSC’s first two episodes. I jotted down some notes as I was watching and decided I was going to write my thoughts about his review.

Spoilers -> You won’t be warned again!

He’s not the only one to heavily criticize the show, but I keep hearing the same complaints, and most of them feel like petty cop-outs to simply hate on the show for not being the same formula as other Trek shows.

One this I read on Reddit (though I admit I would be hard-pressed to find it now) was that is was “Hard to believe” that in the 23 century, Captain Phillipa would have an accent.

What?

It’s hard to believe that maybe her parents raised her to be multi-lingual through hard work and study? Somehow she should always rely on the universal translator? We don’t eve know much about her, its possible learning languages was a hobby, or maybe her first career was a linguist. This whole complain seems like it was a way to disguise bigotry over a woman’s accent. But I have no proof of that. Its simply my opinion.

Moving on. Image below  details my notes. I’ll go through the,.

One of Dave’s first complaints was that other Trek shows down-played diversity and made it “not a big deal.” But if you were to look at the history of Trek, you’d see that White Men* are generally more represented than others. He talks about how America is mostly white, but that doesn’t hold water with me. Star Trek is about the future, surely there would be more racially diverse people on board Starfleet vessels.

Diverging from the status quo doesn’t mean Discovery should be shamed for trying to include more characters with different backgrounds. Frankly, this cast seems more in line with Trek than a lot of the others.

To say that Discovery is anti-white is also a long shot... a shot that misses the mark as well. Of the overall cast, 7 of them are white in various roles. A white man is the captain, a white man in the main engineer, a white man plays Saru, and two white women play engineers. They even appear to have a robot / andriod on the bridge, does he count as white... or... not?

The Main Character, who is a woman, is named Michael?!?! Michael Learned, Michael Michele, and Michael Saunders are all women in real life. Yes, Michael is an unusual name for a girl, but that doesn’t mean its impossible. Ashley (For whom this blog blames) and I had this conversation the other day. I don’t see this as any different than Jayden / Hayden or Kelly or (As Ashley pointed out) Ashley. All can be used for boys and girls. This is a non-issue. You are literally finding any reason to hate this show if you have to pick on a god-damn name.

I can’t believe the Klingons are speaking in Klingon and I have to read subtitles! You know what... you just can’t fucking win. For DECADES people, Trekkies, have bemoaned the fact that all aliens speak in English nearly all the time. Now that Discovery has broken that cycle, they bitching about them not speaking in English. “I had to read subtitles for several scenes.” Oh boo fucking hoo. The production team went out of their way to make these scenes and avoid the “Everyone-speaks-english” trope. Like, legit, its a trope. Aliens Speak English (TV Tropes Link).

The opening scene with the Captain and Michael is pointless. The next complaint is that the opening scene means nothing. Despite the fact that it serves to introduce us to the characters and their motivations, it’s pointless. Saving a pre-warp civilization from dying out by breaking the Prime Directive is a staple of Trek Captains. We also learn more about Phillipa and Michael, and the plans Phillipa has for her. I think it also helped to expand on the Star Trek universe by showing us more alien-aliens. As for the Starfleet insignia drawn in the sand... that was meant to be a nod to the audience. It was meant to be fun... thanks for killing the fun, fun-killer.

The opening credits suck!!! To be honest, for the first two episodes I too hated the opening, but now that I’ve watched it a few more times, I’ve come to enjoy it. My favorite opening has always been Voyagers, the quality of the show aside, the opening was amazing (to me). I would say I enjoy them in the following order: VOY > TNG > DSC > DS9 > TOS > ENT. I’m sure we all have our list, and that’s mine. Discovery ranks high for me for Opening Credits. The problem with this complaint is that its super-super-super subjective. But the way he picks on the theme seems to go back to my final thoughts about Michael’s name and Klingon Language. Nit-picking for the sake of it.

Using a telescope to look at something in space?! Insane!!! Yeah... he mocks the use of a telescope to try and view the object from the first episode when the sensors can’t get a good reading on it. Uhhh... what?! That was smart. Sometimes the best technology is old technology... I legit don’t know what to think about this. What?! Really?!

*inhales* Klingons are White-supremacists of the Star Trek universe and their desire to remain “pure” makes them the good guys. Fuck that was a lot to type out without suffering a stroke. While the producers admit that they modeled the Klingons of Discover after Trump Supporters and Supremacists, in no way are the Klinons the good guys. Setting aside the fact that he claims the Federation is essentially invading Klingon space (they were simply at the border and places a comm-relay there), the Klingons made the first move. They destroyed Federation property and slowly but surely instigated a fight. Yes, Michael was planning to attack first, but not to try and start a war, but to talk to them in a language they understood. I agree that if a people want to remain isolated, the Federation has no grounds to force themselves upon them, but that’s not what the Federation was planning. They would have invited the Klingons to join the UFP like all other member worlds, and would have accepted the choice to decline. The Klingons in Discovery want war. They want to use their cause as a rallying cry to unite their people, and have no problem pulling innocent people into their political bullshit.

Furthermore, the concept of “pure” is an outmoded idea. Whether its 2017 or 2256, there is no basis for remaining pure. It is more likely that all people would have mixed DNA to some degree (whether you can see it physically or not), and Culture can quickly and easily adapt or change with every new encounter with new peoples.

Women were only cast as the Captain and First Officer as virtue signalling. Women represent half of the human population and only one other woman has been a Captain in her own series in 50 years of Star Trek. I don’t think its unfair to have another woman step-up and take command. That being said, since Captain Phillipa dies in the second episode, I hardly think you could say they were using this for political reasons or to appeal to the “left” since one of the biggest issues these days is disposable female characters. Look at (TV Tropes again) Disposable Women, I Let Gwen Stacy Die, and Career Building Blunder. The reason women want a “Strong Female Character” is because they’re tired of always being the ones to be murdered or left behind or shown as weak or incapable. Killing off the female captain in the first episode actually follows the trend of killing off women to move the heroes story forward; the twist being the hero is a woman.

The Ethical Protocols were stupid. Actually, this seems to be rather smart of the part of Starfleet. Considering that most criminals in the Federation aren’t likely violent to begin with, the idea that the computer would be designed to allow everyone to escape a doomed ship is cool. Michael using logic to convince the computer to let her out so that she wouldn’t die when the power failed was pretty well executed. This is less stupid than the Logic Bomb destroying an andriod trope.

Denegration of Men.* He genuinely believes that the show actively looks down upon men. Because the show isn’t about the Captain? Who knows! But all the mens in the show are allowed to be mens and that’s bad! Considering he’s only watched the first two episodes and is unaware that 3 different men, playing 3 different characters all have 3 different personalities, I can’t take him seriously on this. He actually says (Sarcastically) at one point in the video that “Women are the future!” So what? What if they are? Unless you have some issues with female authority, why is this a problem? Why do you care about women in charge? It doesn’t take anything away from you. I don’t see how Discovery has treated men any differently than the women on the show.

As a side note, he also disliked Star Trek Beyond. He sees it as “Leftist” and yadda yadda....

He DID however, like the CGI in Discovery. Legit, his only compliment on the show.

And if you feel like dying a little inside, here is a link to his video:

Angry Ginger Hates Stuff

[the-random-man]

Tos: “A Piece of the Action”

Tas: I don’t really have one

Tng: “Elementary, Dear Data”

DS9: It’s either “One Little Ship” or “Batta Bing, Batta Bam”

Voy: “Bride of Chaotica!”

Ent: Haven’t seen it in a while, so I can’t think of one right now

Dis: “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”

Pic: I liked the show but it hasn’t been out long enough for me to have a comfort episode for it.

Lwd: Same as Picard

What are y’alls comfort episode

The ep that you watch when the day has been rough and you just need some Star Trek to soothe your soul