I’m going to say any space battle scene made since 2009.
From TOS up through Enterprise, you could follow the space battles. “This ship went this way and fired phasers but it only hit the ship’s shields, then they fired back…” Camera movements were smooth and comfortable, you could see and tell what is going on.
J. J. Abrams shows up and all of a sudden we’ve got panicky Saving Private Ryan cam and there’s just nine layers of beam spam on the screen. Everyone is machine gunning everyone from every which way. It’s got George Lucas syndrome. “Put more special effect bullshit on the screen. More. MORE. MOOOOOREEEEE!”
I think this was beaten by that battle at the end of Discovery series 2 with the most over the top CG dog dogfight with far too many ships I’ve ever seen. It’s not like Trek can’t do big scale battles, DS9 proved that, but this was just a a mess.
Star Trek 2009 ended the franchise for me. At the end of Trek '09, I thought to myself Welp, it’s been a good run, but they’re making Hollywood budget fanfics now. The actual show is done.
09 was alright, Into Darkness was the low point for me, I think the first two series of Picard were down there with it, but in the last few years they’ve really pulled their socks up.
I would agree, '09 was alright. I enjoyed it. It is a fanfic. 'I’m gonna do MY thing with these characters." I haven’t seen any Trek made since, official first-party fanfics signal to me the end of a franchise. My understanding of the franchise since has been:
- Into Darkness: Attempt to redo Wrath of Kahn because Nemesis worked so well.
- A third Chris Pine TOS era movie: I think they made one?
- Discovery: What if Star Trek, but the crew are all immature adolescents who don’t deal with a single goddamn thing like mature adults?
- Below Decks: What if Star Trek, but it’s Rick and Morty?
- Picard: What if geriatrics?
Have I missed anything?
Discovery started really poorly, but after they abandoned the prequel idea and went to the far future in S3 it picked up but will never be great due to some fundamental choices in the writing and tone.
Lower Decks betrays how good Star Trek it actually is with it’s style. Yes it has humour, but it has heart rather than Rick and Mortys endless nihilism. It’s commitment to canon and Trek ethos is top notch.
Picard was two awful series, followed by an amazing one that felt like a fifth TNG film and capped off those characters and hanging threads from that era nicely.
Strange New Worlds has just been great from the start, Episodic Trek as it should be with a much more likable cast than Discovery and the bravery to push the boat out a bit creatively.
Prodigy, a solid gateway series for younger people to get into the franchise but not so watered down you can’t enjoy it as an adult. It’s like Star Wars Clone Wars or Rebels series in that way.
So yeah, I’m fairly happy with where the franchise is now as an old school fan, but there were some dark years there.
A third Chris Pine TOS era movie: I think they made one?
My favourite of the trilogy. Which is to say, I didn’t turn it off.
This is one of the many things that Strange New Worlds (and Lower Decks as well) have got right. Space battles in SNW are beautifully animated, but they aren’t overwhelmed with excess visual spectacles and they tend to be fundamentally simple: you shoot at us, we shoot back or try to find some helpful obstruction to hide behind, etc.
Even Prodigy’s big space battle in their finale manages the task to some degree, despite it’s scale. I remember watching it felt oddly sluggish, as the ratio of ships on screen to weapons being fired was surprisingly low, but it definitely made it easier to keep track of whatever specific event the camera was focussed on.
Space battles in The Expanse are the best I’ve seen in all sci-fi. Actually Physics-Informed; like firing the thrusters to counter the recoil of their rail guns.
I love Star Trek but the tech woowoo always kinda drives me crazy. Even if it was a inspiration to become an engineer in the first place (the NCC1701-D Technical Manual was one of my favorite books growing up lol).
The one where Dr Crusher has sex with a ghost
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Almost any scene in the decon chamber on the NX-01.
Haha, i have prepared you some gellllll put it on while I watch with my bats… Lol
My vote goes to that episode in season 1 of TNG where they’re fighting black people on like a jungle gym.
What’s hilarious is the same writer got away with the same episode in SG1s first season just with Asians rather than Black people.
Self-plagiarism is the best form of plagiarism. Especially when you plagiarise a paper that got a D.
Shut up Wesley!
Ah yes the African planet. Real TOS reject episode vibes.
Either that or just…all of Sub Rosa.
Tasha Yar dies due to the Exxon Valdez.
Whenever Riker meets eyes with a female humanoid alien earlyish in an episode, you know exactly what the B plot is gonna be
Neelix and Kes when Kes is essentially in heat. That episode was so gross
All Kess and/or Neelix episodes belong on that list. Can’t stand either character, although Kess is still way worse than Neelix
The hardest thing for me to come to terms with is that, while I hated Neelix while watching the show, I think if I’d actually been on Voyager, I would have really liked him. He’s super friendly, and just wants to help, and makes all these crazy foods that would be fun to try. (Kess stuff not withstanding)
He also gets progressively better through the show, just never near favorite territory
I hear your anguish, I present to you Tuvix!
Right, Kes is like 4 years old then
More like 2, actually. 4 would have been the normal time for her race, but some electrical storm nonsense kicked it off early for her temporarily.
I dont think that episode is that weird overall. They wanted to address the reproductive cycle of a very short lived race and also have a “what does it mean to be a parent” moral lesson.
“Hold hands with me to breed” is some pretty mild sex talk honestly, especially for the “go fast and have lizard sex” writers.
They seriously didn’t think it through, though.
Apparently Ocampa females go into heat exactly once in their lives, and have a typical litter size of one? Each generation should be less than half the size of the one before it.
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For me, it echoed real life, when someone with power over you wants something you shouldn’t have to and don’t want to give. It was uncomfortable, and I’m glad they did it.
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Maybe comedy was the way they got it on air at that time. I seem to remember an article about the size of the bosom they gave Quark–much bigger than Moogie’s. I also seem to remember the size of that bosom decreases during the episode.
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It wasn’t the liquidator, it was the CEO of Slug-O-Cola.
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I find it quite funny in places in an old school farce kind of way. Like a Carry on Film in the Trek universe. Move Along Home can get deleted before Profit and Lace any day.
I had completely wiped that from my memory…thanks…I guess…
When the later-retconned-to-be-mirror-universe-because-too-prestige-tv-edgy Lorca character cited Elon Musk as some great scientific hero.
Janeway and Paris making lizard babies.
Star Trek: Picard, when the Borg wake up and the Romulans just vacuum them out. In that moment the Cube should have automatically teleported them back inside. If the teleporters were down for some reason, the remaining Drones would just happily continue working in hard vacuum and proceed to assimilate the shit out of the Romulans. What happened was an uncalled for nerf of the Borg.
ST: Picard wasn’t good at all. Especially the last season. It felt like a badly written fanfic. Great cast but terrible writing overall.
I mean, I feel like Star Trek plays it fast and loose with baddie strength a lot.
You mean like the Klingon warbird that could fire torpedoes while cloaked and that tech just got hand waved away in all Star Trek after that?
Also, and maybe this is just me, but wouldn’t it be relatively easy to just “drop” torpedoes while cloaked and have them do a delayed launch thing? And nobody thought to cloak a torpedo, or at least give it some stealthy coatings? Complete amateur hour.
Yes. But the idea is that the limitations of the technology enhance the story which is the whole point of Sci-fi that many people forget. The only requirement for technology (or magic) is that it has defined limits. torpedo’s have to be launched. The ship that could fire while cloaked was a plot point prototype, you don’t need to revisit it, or explain it beyond that.
I guess you could assume that any substantial piece of matter will disrupt the cloaking field, but if you’re thinking about autonomous weapons there’s all kinds of other plot holes, too. It’s pretty rare anyone has to deal with drones or mines of any kind in Star Trek, even though you’d think it would be super convenient with mostly-unblockable communications over subspace.
I think they ran into the real problem with writer’s rooms in general, they suffer from a lack of knowledge in many areas. It’s why so many shows have “hammer noises” for Glocks, or the racking of a shotgun when people are about to kick in a door. They don’t know anything about weapons, and their ignorance is so complete they don’t even think to ask actual experts.
I think there’s a degree of “the audience loves it”, too. A realistic sword fight is rare in media because it’s not as fun to watch as twirls and beating multiple enemies at once.
I too watched Rey not get stabbed in the back.
No, they didn’t figure out how to do this until Star Trek: The Expanse
Star Trek wishes it was as scientific as The Expanse, and I say that as a fan of both franchises.
The whole idea of “let’s make Seven be a miniqueen for a second, without consequences for her psyche, and without letting her make sane choices like rescuing the XBs” was completely idiotic.
Both those first two series horribly mishandled the Borg to the point the third had to hang a lantern on it in dialogue and call it nonsense and do their own plot that actually capped off what was happening in TNG/Voyager.
Every second of discovery
Any scene in Discovery where that Michael woman starts crying.
And this is why the startrek.website instance has the reputation it does for over-zealous moderation … because maybe sometimes we collectively deserve it if some of us are going to behave like this.
The scene where Riker slops some eggs on a hot plate and Pulaski swoons over his technique.
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There are a few scenes like this that I find really interesting. Especially in TNG, the cast are depicted as these hypercompetent omnitalented people. They’re all astronauts, scientists of some stripe or other, tacticians, diplomats, most are skilled at some kind of martial art, they publish research, and they put on plays and violin recitals in their spare time. But they have no domestic skills whatsoever. None of them can take care of a house cat, they can’t cook, etc.
In a galaxy with replicators, who would actually still know how to cook eggs (other than Sisko’s dad)?
That feels kind of like saying “in a galaxy with holodecks, who would still know how to paint?” Cooking is a skill and an art, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who do it casually in the future for the enjoyment of creating something with their own hands.
You’re right, I was being a little flippant.
Still, it would certainly be far more niche. While being able to ride a horse was an essential life skill a little over a hundred years ago, you might get an impressed reaction if you were to tell someone that you ride these days.
