Star Trek

[Buster's Uncle]

Production order is the only way to go IMO.

[Ordnael]

Lord...huh...
If my reflection disturbs you, and you have seniority of it here, I can change it. Maybe mirror Disco Sarek or mirror Soval from Entreprise.

"Has anyone listened to the "Enterprise Incidents with Scott & Steve"
That's the kind of content my wife loves...but I think her latest show was Gates Macfadden interviewing ST actors or the Delta Flyers show.

"Janeway would be the first out the airlock"
Noooooo [picture Anakin's NO coming back to life encased in Darth Vader's infamous suit after being told about Padmé's fate by Palpatine]

Even I am not that displeased with Neelix and Kes to suggest that treatment for them. They are OK separated but they were awful to me together. Still miles away from what recent Trek throws at you sometimes!

"Production order is the only way to go IMO."
No arguments here.

[Lord Avalon]

If podcasts aren't your thing, that's fine. At least Steve Morris has independent filmmaking, writing, producing and post-production experience, and Scott Mantz was a film critic and producer formerly of "Access Hollywood," so it's not just some two guys who are ST fans. I did listen to some of Gates McFadden's pod, though haven't gotten back to it. I do like the behind-the-scenes info from the actors and producers. Scott and Steve provide more history and a technical eye.

[Buster's Uncle]

Nelix was to be right behind Janeway out the airlock.

Look, if you think the lead part is terrible, the show just can't work.  Choky was always terrible, too, but I wanted to give him a chance to step up w/ a meatier role as Captain w/ built in dramatic tension w/ Tuvok as his resentful first officer.  That might have been all it took to fix those two.

Kes, they'd grown her hair and were putting in a body suit before she skipped off, and it looked GOOD - I suspect they were planning a brief Borg assimilation and all they did w/ Pieces of Eight - but I think Jennifer Lien would have carried it off better, if not as jaw-droppingly voluptuous.

Paris would be allowed to actually screw up, not just talk about screwing up -think Arnie Becker on LA Law if that's ever played in Portugal- and Torres would not get involved with him, but would have more scenes w/ Choky, she being the only one on the show he had chemistry with.  Torres w/ Paris was limp and boring, and that's exactly wrong for those two, an all-glands guy who'd have problems keeping his pants on, with a Hot Latino Mamma who has a hella-bad temper.

I had no ideas for Harry Kim, but wanted to...

[Ordnael]

If podcasts aren't your thing, that's fine. At least Steve Morris has independent filmmaking, writing, producing and post-production experience, and Scott Mantz was a film critic and producer formerly of "Access Hollywood," so it's not just some two guys who are ST fans. I did listen to some of Gates McFadden's pod, though haven't gotten back to it. I do like the behind-the-scenes info from the actors and producers. Scott and Steve provide more history and a technical eye.

Not they really aren't...not that I ever gave myself any serious opportunity to get into the podcast scene. Games books, Star Trek take my free time:)
If I came across as criticising your taste in those particular podcasts, I apologise as that wasn't my intent. My wife truly loves that kind content though and I was being honest.


"Look, if you think the lead part is terrible, the show just can't work.  Choky was always terrible, too, but I wanted to give him a chance to step up w/ a meatier role as Captain w/ built in dramatic tension w/ Tuvok as his resentful first officer.  That might have been all it took to fix those two."

Yeah Chakotay never really cliqued with me, it's not like the character was bad, but his episodes were rather uninteresting ans shoving a late love relation with Seven at the end of Voyager did nothing for both characters. That being said I like the tension between him and Janeway. Tuvok a decades old veteran of starfleet, a teacher at the academy, would straight never ever recognise Chacotay ranking above him in a Starfeelt Starhip without Janeway telling him so...as it did indeed happened, I remember Tuvok was quick at pointing fingers at the maquis crew, it would have been disastrous without Janeway.

"Kes, they'd grown her hair and were putting in a body suit before she skipped off, and it looked GOOD - I suspect they were planning a brief Borg assimilation and all they did w/ Pieces of Eight - but I think Jennifer Lien would have carried it off better, if not as jaw-droppingly voluptuous."
This, this I like
Lien with long hair was absolutely gorgeous. Too bad her greatest episodes came at the end of the show.

Torres with Choky would have make a more exciting pair than with Paris, yes I agree.

[Lord Avalon]

If I came across as criticising your taste in those particular podcasts, I apologise as that wasn't my intent. My wife truly loves that kind content though and I was being honest.

No worries.

[Buster's Uncle]

"Chakotay never really cliqued with me, it's not like the character was bad"

I consider it rude to flatly contradict someone, but I guess we have friend privileges by now, and boy are you wrong on that last phrase.  Poorly-thought-out, poorly written, limp acting.  Robert Beltran is a different kind of bad actor than Jonathan Frakes; he wasn't so much doing anything wrong as showing up and not selling it - no real presence/charisma.

You might google 'Chakotay Native American' for info on the scandal they had w/ a fraudualent consultant...

[Buster's Uncle]

Lien with long hair was absolutely gorgeous, OMG! yes.  Fine body, too.

[Trenacker]

I actually liked Chakotay, but I think his character was too subordinate to stand out. It made sense for the XO of a starship but undercut the value of his presence in a sci-fi drama that needed to captivate viewers. Chakotay would have been much, much more interesting had they let him keep his Maquis raider, or even if they had done a few episodes centered on flashbacks from time to time. And indeed, I think the show missed a second change at the same opportunity when the writers destroyed the U.S.S. Equinox.

In theory, the level-headed Chakotay was the oil to the hard-charging Janeway's troubled waters, but Janeway was always inconsistent herself, and by the middle seasons any tension was completely gone and they acted as one. It didn't help that Tuvok was equally as devoted to the chain of command, leaving characters of much lower rank (Paris, Seven, Neelix, and the Doctor) to repeatedly get themselves in hot water. That, in turn, contributed to the idea that none of them ever really learned. Neelix's final episodes were terrific, and the end of his arc was fairly satisfying, but it wasn't lost on me that he had gone too quickly from world-class buffoon to seasoned explorer.

To be fair, Star Trek has had "the captain/XO" problem elsewhere. Enterprise seemed to avoid it by placing T'Pol temporarily outside the normal chain of command and pushing tensions down a layer or two (e.g., T'Pol vs. Tucker, Reed vs. Hayes) but Discovery ran too hard and too fast in the opposite direction. Michael Burnham should have been drummed out of the service, never to return, for the way she repeatedly and unapologetically flouted the chain of command, placing herself and others in harm's way. Even The Next Generation struggled to juxtapose Picard and Riker but for the obvious difference in their personalities. I can't recall Riker really doing other than what Picard would have intended. When they did choose to provoke conflict, it was not because Riker disagreed with Picard; rather, he was under orders not to reveal classified information, a trick they tried again in the final season of Enterprise to divide Malcolm and Archer.

Another thing I think Voyager didn't have was individual villains that stood out in the same way as those of Deep Space Nine and Enterprise. Again, this was a problem shared by Discovery, which tended to pit the crew against dangerous phenomena or versions of their darker selves rather than new actors who ccould stand on their own two feet.

Silik, Degra, and Shran were all standout characters played by exceptional actors. Voyager had interesting antagonists for sure. I always liked the Malons, the Hirogen, the Krenim, and the Vaadwaur conceptually, but the closest Voyager got to a morally complex villain was Annorax, the Krenim scientist featured in the two-parter Year of Hell.

Star Trek is all about how the ends only very rarely justifies the means. It works best when there's somebody who is on the bleeding verge of convincing you that, just this once, the ends are all that counts.

[Buster's Uncle]

Do you realize Tuvok always did pretty much Choky's biggest job?  Former sailors have themselves told me that the first officer handles the disciplinary stuff.  The Captain acts like he's your pal, what little he talks to you.

Choky ought to have been a great deal more an intense personality, given the setup the show failed to carry out, and all - instead, he was mild, like so many charming Major Kira's...

[Buster's Uncle]

"the closest Voyager got to a morally complex villain was Annorax, the Krenim scientist featured in the two-parter Year of Hell."

-The Time Red Foreman played a Dr. Who villain out to rid the universe of dumbasses...

[Buster's Uncle]

Has anyone -besides Rusty Edge and I- read the Horatio Hornblower books?  They're quite good.

[Buster's Uncle]

I rather thought I'd dropped enough clues before, but I guess not.  Brace yourself.



...Allison Janney as Janeway.  Think about it, Trenacker...

[Trenacker]

Has anyone -besides Rusty Edge and I- read the Horatio Hornblower books?  They're quite good.

Very good! So is the British ITV series that ran from 1998 to 2003.

And if you like Hornblower, you're sure to also love his carbon copy, Richard Bolitho, by the late, great Alexander Kent (a.k.a., Douglas Reeman).

[Buster's Uncle]

I think 98-03 is what ran on A&E?  I understand the actor bought up the rights - and he's old enough by now to pull off Captain and older now, so I hope that happens.